Willnot Read Online Free PDF Page B

much the same as he had at the TV and nodded.
    “Good,” Seb said. “Not to worry. The foundation will cover all expenses.”
    “You have a foundation?”
    “Work for one. That’s the only way we’re able to do what we do. Nonprofit, straightforward agenda, no doctrinal or direct government ties.”
    I didn’t miss Wellman’s reaction to that: an all but imperceptible turn of his head.
    Sammy Cohen, who had been taking care of the other casualty in the adjoining OR, was in the surgery lounge self-medicating with a tumbler of orange juice. We compared notes. Improbably, a hollow aluminum shaft from shelving had skirted heart, lungs and major vessels, the boy’d be good to go in a week. I told Sammy what Seb had said about the foundation.
    “Damn. If only I’d known …”
    “What, you’d have used the expensive thread?”
    “Instead of fishing line, yeah.”
    Not a lot was left of the day, or of me either (how did I ever make it through internship and residency?), but after checking post-op X-rays and lab work, I swung by the office. Had a couple of feverish kids, a possible bowel obstruction, a case of carpal tunnel waiting for me. And an FBI agent named Ogden.

    “We don’t often see federal agents,” I said as she followed me into my office. “Or ever.”
    “Considering what you have outside town, you may have to get used to it.”
    “That’s why you’re here?”
    She didn’t respond.
    I sat, smiled, and waited. She remained standing.
    “I believe you know Brandon Lowndes?”
    “Of course I do. I took care of him when he was a child, and very ill. He goes by Bobby now, I understand. What do you go by?”
    “Why would you want to know that?”
    “Not many have two names hereabouts. Just our way. First or last, that’s it. The occasional epithet. Crazy Jane, Dago Frank. All meant respectfully, of course.”
    She swept my face for a clue that wasn’t there.
    “Theodora, but most everyone calls me Teddy.”
    “ Most everyone . And a bit of hill-country lag buried deep. West Virginia?”
    “North Carolina. That was a long time ago.”
    “So was my association with Brandon.”
    “Have you recently seen or been contacted by Sergeant Lowndes, Doctor?”
    “A direct question. Things are looking up here. Why don’t you have a seat, Theodora Ogden? Surely federal agents aren’t prohibited from sitting during an interrogation.”
    “This is not an interrogation.”
    But she sat, not demurely, sinking easily into the chair and pulling her feet close. None of the usual fidgets with clothing, posture, where to put hands.
    “He was here three days ago,” I said.
    “For what reason?”
    “Just to say hello, he told me.”
    “That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
    “None at all, after fourteen years.”
    “What did you talk about?”
    “Our conversation might fill three balloons in a comic strip. He’d been a marine, call him Bobby, I was looking old, he was passing through.”
    “He didn’t ask you for anything, then.”
    “No.”
    “Or mention where he was staying.”
    “He didn’t even mention that the FBI would be in later to check on him.”
    She stood and held out a card. “Please call me if he contacts you again. Where I’m staying is on the back.”
    I turned it over. The Best Western out by the interstate. Choices being limited hereabouts.
    “A warning?” I said.
    “Yes?”
    “You don’t want to eat there.”
    “Where do I want to eat?”
    “The café here in town. Only says CAFÉ on the sign, but everybody calls it Happy Bun.”
    “Noted.”
    “The Bun shuts down at six. After that your best bet is Bea’s Diner. Look for the big yellow smiley face in the window. Eight, ten miles up county road 104 from the motel, past the truck stop.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Time was, we’d take a stranger in, feed him. Nowadays we just tell him where to go. So to speak.”
    We had walked together to the office door. When she turned back to hold out her hand, I shook it. “May I