Chapter 37

The next day was Sunday, and we were up and at 'em for church. With reservations we'd agreed that Darlia could go to church with the Delgados – we don't get into religious fights, and we love the Delgados like family, but we do have some theological quarrels with what they believe. But we've been letting Darlia learn the old songs and stories of the Lahtkwa nation, and that's the tribe's old religion, the religion, in fact that my brother believes and practices, so we decided it would be inconsistent to forbid her to attend a Catholic service with her closest friends.

We went on to our own church, MJT Christian Fellowship, which gets its name from the fact that the building where we meet is just west of the intersection of Menaul and Juan Tabo. Afterward we went to the Subway across the street for lunch – we've been eating out for lunch after church since before we got married – and then headed home. Cecelia went into her sewing room, not to work but simply to look over where she was and what she wanted to do next, and I sat down with my current book, Ian Rankin's Resurrection Men. Rankin writes police procedurals within the context of Scottish law enforcement, and I always find it bizarre that the cops don't carry guns but do routinely rough up people in ways that would get an American police officer suspended at the very least. It's a whole different system over there.

I'd read just about a chapter when the phone rang. I'd lost track of where Cecelia was – surely she wasn't still in the sewing room, but where she'd gone I had no idea – so I got up and looked at the phone on top of the bookcase behind what we call the company chair. I recognized the phone number – it was the one I'd called the day before to talk to the perp. I snatched the phone off the charger, pushed the Talk button, and said hello.

"Life is short—"

"I'm gettin' just about tired o' you misusin' that quote," I said with some heat.

"Your manners aren't so good, are they, Darvin Carpenter."

"And it's Mister Carpenter to you."

"Don't dictate to me, Darvin Carpenter. I've got all the cards. I know where you live, I know who you are, what your phone number is, where you work, what you drive ... you know nothing about me."

It was true. But I decided to try running a bluff. "We're getting pretty close to you now," I said. "I give it another week or so before you're in a cage."

"No, I won't be in a cage. But I will leave more bodies for you to play with. Maybe you'll be a body before it's over."

I hadn't heard Cecelia come onto the line, but suddenly her voice was in my ear. "If my husband comes to the least harm, sir, your most profitable course will be to commit suicide posthaste. For if you do him an injury, I will most assuredly find you, and leave you alive and defenseless in a place where only the buzzards will ever find you."

"Cecelia Carpenter, you are a fool." And he ended the call.

I put the phone back on the charger in a daze. I stood looking at it, until some slight noise, or perhaps a movement I saw out of the corner of my eye, got my attention, and I looked left. Cecelia was standing there just inside the living room, where she'd emerged from the hallway.

For the first time in years I truly saw how her face is all edge. And it was as cold as Pluto, just as her voice had been on the phone. For the first time I understood why all the punks I deal with on the street are frightened of her and let me alone on her account. I knew then that however much she hates violence, the ability to use physical force that she's displayed on a few occasions in our work was just a fraction of the reality. I had no doubt, looking at her, that if the murderer harmed me she really would hunt him down and leave him for the buzzards. I looked at my wife, and was afraid – she was, just then, the most dangerous person I'd ever met.

"He shall not harm you, beloved," she said, in that voice like a glacier. "And to that end, we shall find him."

I nodded, having nothing to say. She returned the nod, an abrupt gesture, and turned back into the hallway. I felt, as she vanished, as though an omnipotent force had released me. In all honesty I can be pretty forceful when I need to be, and I've intimidated some pretty tough characters in my time. I've roughed up a few people when it was the only way to get through their thick skulls. But just then I'd have turned and walked away rather than take Cecelia on, no matter how much money you waved in my face. Straight, who had been my friend until he ordered a murder that killed someone who five minutes before had been in my office, was a dangerous man who would shoot you as easily as buy you a Coke, and who had no compunction about using a knife or a baseball bat either. But I thought back to the night when I, with the help of Cecelia and some friends, had run him out of town because of that murder, and I now knew absolutely that even if the others might have hesitated for just a split second, even if I might have held my fire for an instant, had the balloon gone up Cecelia would have shot him to doll rags.

I took a deep breath. It's a shock to find that the woman you've loved for 16 years, and been married to for nearly that long, has the potential within her to leave someone to a slow death, or to shoot someone else down like a dog. The fact that it was only a threat to me which could provoke her to even consider such action didn't change the fact that in the face of that provocation she became cold and cruel and capable of killing. I still loved her; I always will love her, no matter what happens. But at that moment I was not ready to walk down the hall and find her. A knife is a tool which you can use for good, but you'd better respect its edge and its point, or you'll get hurt. Just then I suspect that getting too close to Cecelia would be like grasping a knife by the blade. And while I may be dumb, I'm not stupid, at least not that stupid.