Billy Melrose
Billy had his door shut, but the voices on the other side were getting clearer with every word. “But why not?” cried Zeta. “It’s the next logical step!”
“No, it’s not, because they aren’t here!” yelled Francine back.
“Don’t you know where they are?” asked Zeta. Her expression was vexed. “I mean, what with you being friends and all, surely they’d have told you where they were going. So call them in! They’ll understand having to come back early!”
“Now you listen here!” Through the glass, Billy could see Francine rounding on the younger agent, although her voice dropped in volume and became muffled again. He’d heard enough, though, to understand what was going on. He yanked open his door so hard that it crashed back against the bookshelves behind it.
“Desmond. Zusterakos.” His voice was a growl. “In here, right now.”
They complied even as they continued their argument. “It’s going to be at least another day before the ballistics comparisons come back,” Zeta was saying. “And we don’t have any other physical evidence besides that and the Jeep. Leatherneck confirmed the CV axle had been tinkered with, so there’s nothing more to do there. The only thing we can do right now is ask Mr. and Mrs. Stetson for an interview!”
“For the last time,” hissed Francine, “no. I am not going to drag Lee and Amanda back in here a single minute early.”
Zeta rolled her eyes. “I get it. I get it, okay! But everyone here’s seen how badly they’re hurting. But don’t you think they’d look forward to getting to the bottom of this case? Now that it’s been transferred over? Though,” she continued, “I still don’t quite understand how that happened. Arlington PD closed the case.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” snapped Francine. “I’ve already given you an assignment. Why are you even still here?”
The younger agent’s expression became mulish. “Because you’re not my supervisor!”
“But I am,” broke in Billy. “Zeta, what is it she wants you to do?”
“Go through the daily logs to check on Bulgarian and Russian assets’ activities,” she reported. “Which I don’t understand, because wasn’t this an East German group?”
“Are you completely dense? They’re all allies, and they —”
“Be quiet, Desmond! Zeta, it was an East German group. You’re right about that. But Desmond’s also right when she says they’re allies. They do each other’s dirty work all the time, and they keep changing up so they can throw us off their scents.”
Zeta opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it again, her upper teeth coming down to worry at her lower lip.
“At the same time,” continued Billy, puncturing Francine’s triumphant look, “Zeta is right that all we have so far is circumstantial evidence. You don’t even know what you’re looking for yet. Why are you sending her off on a wild goose chase without interrogating Lee and Amanda first?”
She squared her shoulders. “It’s right there on the board. They’re on sick leave. Sick leave,” she repeated crisply. “Which is not something either of them ever takes voluntarily. There is a damn good reason they’re gone, and I am not going to bother them with this unless I am absolutely certain there’s nothing else to be done. And that our other casework is also at a standstill.” She turned toward Zeta again. “Have I made myself clear enough to the junior agent now? Or does she still want to go running to teacher and tattle?”
“It’s a bit late for that, seeing as you’ve already gotten us called in.”
“Enough!” roared Billy. “Both of you, sit down and shut up!”
They dropped their eyes to the floor as they complied.
“If you want to act like children,” he told them, “then I’ll treat you like children. Or you could grow up and get some work done. Both of you! You’re supposed to be partners, not arguing over who’s in charge. Desmond is, since she’s senior and it’s her case, and that’s how I expect to see this done! But Zeta’s right about supervision, Desmond. Damn it, it’s her job to object if she sees something that doesn’t look right, and you know it! God knows you did that enough times when you were a junior!”
Francine fidgeted.
His temper spent, Billy nodded. “Zeta, go on out and start pulling those files. It’s going to take you a while. Desmond, stay in here.” He waited until they were alone before sitting down. “All right, Francine, what’s going on? You should have called Lee and Amanda in for questioning by now.”
She sighed. “That sick leave of theirs. Billy, have you been up to the Q-Bureau lately?”
“Several times. Including this morning when Lee and Amanda reported back in for duty. They’ll be at the staff meeting this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Her voice was quiet. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Clearly. Now, are you going to go ask them about being interviewed or do I have to make it an order?”
“I’m not prepped.”
“How long will you need?”
Her continued silence said volumes.
“Look,” he told her. “I know this is going to be hard, but you know the rules. No partiality.” He gentled his tone. “Do you want me to do it for you, just this once?”
She shook her head. “No. No, I, ah…” she trailed off. “Billy, they’re the ones that figured the whole Colonial Cookery thing out in the first place, and they know where the leak happened. It’s going to be hard for me to work up any kind of authority during the session, especially if there’s something they don’t want to share with the Agency.” She met his eyes briefly. “We’ve already seen that they’re pretty good at hiding things when they want to.”
“They don’t have anything to hide about this.”
“I know,” Francine said, and she suddenly looked exhausted. “That’s what I keep telling myself. But for all I know, the reason they haven’t come down yet is because they’re up there expecting me to go question them before they get back into their own cases.” Her sigh was deep and heartfelt. “All right. I’ll go up there now.”
She stood, opening the door and heading out into the bullpen and the sea of eyes waiting for her. Billy followed her, wanting to see what she was going to do next.
As he’d hoped, she stopped at Zeta’s desk first, and she spoke loudly enough to be overheard. “Nancy, I owe you an apology. You’re right that we’re supposed to interview all the material witnesses we can, and in this case, that means Lee and Amanda. And you were right to call me on it when I didn’t.”
For once, the younger agent managed to keep her foot out of her mouth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And I want you to keep asking questions any time you feel like you need to.” She paused. “I’m going up there now. I’d like it if you stayed here, though. This…this isn’t going to be easy, and there’s already years of existing rapport between them and me —”
“I understand,” said Zeta “Should I set up an interview room for recording?”
“No.” Francine shook her head. “I don’t see the need for a Class A, and there’s recording equipment up there if we need it.”
“You’ll want someone else to take notes, though,” said Billy. “I’ll go up with you.”
He could see it in her eyes: she wanted to object. But she stifled that urge and instead nodded, waiting for him to go back to his desk and get pen and paper. That was, he reflected, why he’d chosen her as his backup and heir apparent. She could be snippy and difficult to get along with and had very definite opinions about the way things should and shouldn’t go. She still needed seasoning. But in the end, when the rubber met the road, Francine would always do what the Agency needed done. Even when she hated something so much she had to be argued into doing it.
She went into the Q-Bureau first. He followed, but hung back a little, curious to see how she would handle this part.
“Good morning,” Francine started. “Oh. Um. Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s all right,” stammered Amanda as she came out from behind Lee’s desk. “Ah, good morning, Francine. You weren’t interrupting anything. We were just —”
“Don’t bother. Those wedding rings mean you don’t need any excuses anymore. Nobody thinks you’re up here playing backgammon all the time anyway. Not with your efficiency ratings.”
Amanda flushed slightly. “Thanks. I was just looking at the pictures in the investigative report. Are you here for something from the vault? I’d be happy to help.”
“Actually,” said Francine, “I have something to say about you two, if you don’t mind.”
“About what?” asked Lee. “Surely not backgammon.”
“No. It’s been…” she trailed off. “It’s good to see you back, Amanda, and it looks to me like you’re really back. I hope that’s true, because everyone loves listening to the two of you banter back and forth, both in the hallway and in staff meetings. We usually learn a lot from it. You’re…” she took a breath. “Amanda, you bring a kind of…oh, I don’t know, sunlight even when everything else seems to have gone all cloudy and stormy. I hadn’t realized that until you were out after being shot, but it didn’t truly hit me until you were out for, um, this time.”
“It’s all right,” said Amanda. “You can say it. From half of my family being murdered.”
“Yeah.”
“Francine. Look at me.” There was a brief pause. “There’s something I want to tell you too, and that’s ‘thank you.’”
“Thank you? For what?”
“You opened up that envelope, even though it was marked confidential, even though you knew it might make either Lee or me or both of us mad. You being the one to open it meant that you were able to guess who might have shot that tire out.”
“It’s only circumstantial —”
“I know that.” She waved at the report, which still lay open on his desk. “But that and the ballistics labs are also all we’ve got and I’m grateful for it. Any answer, no matter how small, is better than nothing, and you risked our friendship to give us this one.”
“Um, well,” began Francine. “It seemed like the right thing to do. But, ah, thank you for saying that.” She audibly took a deep breath. “Now, I need to actually go on and tell you I’m —”
“Wait,” interrupted Lee. “That’s it.”
“That’s what?” Amanda and Francine asked it together.
“We’ve been needing a code name for you, Amanda. A standard one, I mean, not just something for a specific op. Remember how everyone was tossing around possibilities before all this happened? I think I just heard it.” He paused. “Sunlight.”
“Sunlight?” asked Amanda.
“Yeah. Francine’s right. You bring that to this entire Agency, not just me. Sunlight and a breath of fresh air.”
“Oh, it’s perfect, Amanda. It’s quick, and it’s easy, and it suits you. It even works in combination. You know, ‘Scarecrow and Sunlight’? That’s not hard to remember, and scarecrows always work best when they’re in sunlight.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, but she didn’t appear averse to the idea. “What do you think, Mr. Melrose?”
Billy considered it for a moment. “I like it. It suits you, Amanda. What do you think of it, though? You’re the one who would have to live with it.”
Her smile was small, but it was genuine, and he was inwardly thrilled. Apparently, their time away had been as healing as they’d hoped. “It’s…simple and sweet, but not too much.”
“Good. Then we’ll record it in the files and make it official.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now,” he continued. “Francine was telling you why she’s up here. Why we’re up here, actually. It’s about the…well, the West/King case, for lack of anything better to call it.”
“What about it?” asked Lee warily. “Last I heard, we’re still ruling out Russians and Bulgarians. That’s not yet enough to start digging.”
“Well,” hedged Francine, “that’s why I’m using processes of elimination.”
“You?” he asked. “Since when have you been on this?”
“That’s why we came up here,” said Billy. “We got approval to make this a full Agency op last Friday, but I can’t assign either one of you to the case since you’re both related to the murdered civilians. Getting married will do that to you. So I’ve assigned it to Francine, since she was also on the Colonial Cookery case. Zeta’s assisting.”
“Whoa, hold on just a minute,” began Lee.
“It’s all right,” said Amanda, glancing briefly over at him. “And Phillip was a minor, so I was also his legal guardian in addition to being a relative. Will we at least be able to get status updates?”
“I’m supposed to refer you to Francine for that,” said Billy, hoping his tone would communicate the words he couldn’t say. “But you two are absolutely not to do any investigating on your own. It’s a potential conflict of interest, and I don’t want anyone slithering out of this on a technicality. We need to start by interviewing both of you.”
Amanda answered for them again. “I see. Do you want to do it now, or later today?”
Francine took a breath. “We can do it now, and there’s no reason not to do it together.”
“Not and keep it by the book, you can’t,” Lee countered. He stood up, grabbing his suit coat. “Look, I need to go down to Crypto and maybe Munitions anyway. You can do Amanda first.” Then he paused and leveled a steely gaze at both Billy and Francine. “When it’s my turn, you just tell me when and where. If anyone other than us should have this case, it’s you. We’ll answer any question you have, give you any information you need. All you’ve got to do is say the word. You got that?”
Francine’s shoulders dropped, and Billy felt a rush of gratitude. Despite his harsh tone, it looked as though Lee understood; and based on her expression, Amanda did too. That understanding was going to make this a lot easier.