The Prodigal Spy by Joseph Kanon

at it, curled up on the couch, pretending to be snowbound. Her face was drawn and tired, and after a while the rhythm of the clock and the crackling of the fire made her drowsy, and he saw her eyes droop, released finally into sleep. When he covered her with an afghan, she smiled without waking up. Nick lay with her on the couch and drifted too, worn out by the night.
    The key in the lock startled them. Nora didn’t come on Sundays, and for one wild moment Nick thought it might be his father. But it was Nora, on a draft of cold air, a glimpse of the reporters outside behind her.
    “Your phone’s out of order,” she said, stamping her snowy boots on the hall carpet.
    “I took it off the hook,” Nick’s mother said, half asleep, sitting up.
    “Where’s Mr Kotlar?”
    “He’s out,” Nick’s mother said simply.
    “Well, he’s picked a fine time.”
    “I just wanted some peace, that’s all,” his mother said, still on the earlier thought. “Don’t they ever give up?”
    “Mother of God, haven’t you heard?” Nora said, surprised.
    “What?”
    “She’s killed herself, that’s what. That Rosemary Cochrane. Jumped.” She held out the newspaper. Nick’s mother didn’t move. “Here, see for yourself,” Nora said, putting the paper down and taking off her coat. “It’s a wicked end. Even for her. Well, the burden on
that
conscience. Still, I won’t speak ill of the dead.”
    “No,” his mother said absently, reading the paper, her face white.
    “I thought I’d better come. There’ll be no peace today, for sure. The vultures. You’d better put the phone back or they’ll be breaking down the door. Where’s Mr Kotlar gone, out so early?”
    But Nick’s mother didn’t answer. “Oh God,” she said, dropping the paper, and walked out of the room.
    “Well,” Nora said, “now what?” She looked at Nick, still lying under his end of the afghan. Then, puzzled, she followed his mother down the hall.
    Nick stared at the photograph framed by blurred type. She was lying face up on the roof of a car, peaceful, her legs crossed at the ankles as if she were taking a nap. Her shoes were gone and one nylon was visibly twisted, but her dress, high on her thighs, seemed otherwise in place. Only the strand of pearls, flung backward by the fall, looked wrong, tight at the neck, dangling upside down in the dark hair spread out beneath her head. She didn’t look hurt. There was no blood, no torn clothing, no grotesque bulging eyes. Instead the violence lay around her in the twisted metal of the car roof, crumpled on impact, enfolding her now like a hammock. When you looked at it you could imagine the crash, the loud crunch of bones as the body hit, bending the metal until it finally stopped falling and came to rest. The new shape of the roof, its warped shine caught in the photographer’s flash, was the most disturbing thing about the picture. In some crazy way, it looked as if she had killed the car.
    Nick’s first thought was that his father could come back now. The hearing would be over. But that must be a sin, even thinking it. She was dead. He couldn’t stop looking at the picture, the closed eyes, the flung pearls. Was she dead before she hit the car, her neck twisted by the fall? She was dressed to go out. Had she looked at herself in the mirror before she opened the window? Then the rush of cold air. But why would anyone do that, the one unforgivable sin? What if she changed her mind after it was too late, not even the split second to repent? Damned forever. And then, his body suddenly warm with panic, another thought: Was it somehow his father’s fault? Was she ashamed of lying? Or was it some kind of new attack? They’d blame him for this too. Nick felt a line of sweat at the top of his forehead. The hearing, their troubles, wouldn’t end–they would get worse. A dead body didn’t go away. It would start all over again–new questions, new suspicions. Her jump from the world would only drag