The Syndrome

Slough glanced at the bag as she rushed in, and raised his eyebrows. Shopping? Adrie

For the next three hours, they continued to prep their witness. At no point did either of them ask if Amalgamated had actually used the new mix. They simply and repeatedly wondered how anyone could be expected to remember what he’d been thinking six years ago. Was it possible that Mr. Johnson had been, well—doodling? Or thinking of some other responsibility?

At about four P.M., a light dawned in Ace Johnson’s dungaree eyes. “Y’know,” he said, leaning forward with a confidential air. “I’ll be honest with ya. I don’t remember what the hell I was thinking about when I wrote that.”

Slough smiled.

Five minutes post-smile, she was back in her cubicle and four hours after that, she was still there, feeling enervated, ragged and bored. Her sister’s ashes were in the corner, on the floor beside the shredder, beneath the hat rack that held her coat.

She yawned, put aside the list of questions she’d been preparing, and pulled out her organizer.

Before she went home, she’d have to finish the commentaries that went with each of the questions, print out the file, and leave it on Slough’s desk so it would be there when he got in tomorrow morning. Other items on the list included Call Ramon re Jack. The doorman had promised to take him on Saturday—which reminded her: Jack probably had to go out. In fact… She took a deep breath and geared herself up to call Mrs. Spears. It was either that or go home, and she couldn’t go home—not yet. So she tapped in the number.

“Hiiiiiii… “ she exclaimed, drawing on the last dregs of “perkiness” that remained to her. “I’m at the office, and—there’s a teeny problem? With Jack?” She hated herself when she talked like this, but—“Oh, you’re saving my life Mrs. Spears, I just don’t know how to thank you, you’re an angel! No, really! I mean it!”

When she hung up, she sat back in her chair, and swiveled, left to right. Her eyes fell on the urn, and she told herself for the hundredth time that she had to do something with Nikki’s ashes. Scatter them on the Potomac… or something. But where? And how? Did she just stand on the river bank, and sort of… dump them out? Or should she do it from a bridge? And which bridge? Or rent a canoe…

With a sigh, she looked at the next entry on her to-do list: Duran

That son of a bitch…

She flipped her pen over and bounced the end of it against the corner of her desk. Duran. Her threat was turning out to be an idle one. Other than ru

She was still thinking about Duran when Bette came in with half a dozen little white containers from Tasty Thai. Digging into a heap of Green Curry Noodle, Adrie

“Well, maybe,” Bette said.

“‘Maybe’? The way he twisted her around? What do you want to bet he’s got a list of complaints against him a mile long?”

“You think?”

“I’d bet on it,” Adrie

“Ummm… Scout: ‘Nikki may have been spacey’?”

“Okay, so she was very spacey. But this fantasy about child abuse—that’s why she killed herself. And it had absolutely nothing to do with reality.”

“You know that? I mean, you know why she killed herself?”

Adrie

Bette winced.

“It was all she could talk about. And that’s supposed to be helping her!?” She dipped into the carton of Pad Thai, tasted it judiciously and shrugged. “Mine’s better,” she decided.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Nail him.”

“How?” Bette asked.

“How do I know? I don’t even have time to walk the dog.”

“So why not let the city investigate him?”

Adrie

Bette rolled her eyes.

“Like I need their legal advice!” Adrie

Bette’s chopsticks delivered a morsel of Pad Thai to her mouth, while Adrie

Adrie

“Isn’t that what he does?” Bette asked. “I mean, isn’t that exactly his kind of thing?”

Adrie

“Well, there’s your sister’s money—you’re the executor, aren’t you? Under the circumstances, I think you’d be within your rights to hire an investigator.”

The idea hadn’t occurred to Adrie

Edward Bonilla, who was perhaps inevitably known as “Eddie Vanilla,” was a retired Army guy who’d spent much of his life as an investigator for the CID. A few years earlier, he’d become a licensed P.I. in the District, listing himself in the Yellow Pages under “Bonilla & Associates.”

Who the “Associates” were, was anyone’s guess. But he’d done pretty well, serving papers, doing asset searches, divorce work, and handling due-diligence investigations for law firms involved in mergers and acquisitions. By all accounts, he was good at tracking down recalcitrant witnesses and doing public records research, though his interviewing skills were considered suspect. (One of the lawyers at the firm called him “Eddie Gorilla”—but not to his face.)

He might be perfect, Adrie

And he was a neighbor, too, working out of a townhouse on Park Road, just a block from Adrie

“Have some more,” Bette said, offering her carton.

Adrie

Adrie

A year ago, he’d come to her door (this was shortly after she’d moved in), escorted and introduced by Mrs. Spears. “Adrie

Her first thought had been that Eddie Bonilla was a trip. He was a short, ski