The Prodigal Spy by Joseph Kanon Page B

clicks, then the burring of the line ringing a hundred miles away. It was a new line, finally put in last year, and it rang loudly enough to be heard outside. Nick imagined his father shoveling a path in the snow, picking up his head at the sound, then stamping his boots on the porch as he came in to answer. It’s all right, Nick would tell him. But the rings just continued until finally the operator came back and asked if he wanted her to keep trying. He hung up and turned on the radio. Perhaps his father hadn’t got there yet or the snow had blocked the road.
    The radio was full of the suicide. Welles was asked if the loss of his witness would call a halt to the hearings. No. Not even this sad tragedy would stop the American people from getting at the truth. Mr Benjamin was saddened but not surprised. The poor woman’s instability had been obvious from the beginning. It had been irresponsible of Welles to use her as a political tool, and now with such tragic consequences. The bellhop who’d delivered the liquor wouldn’t say that she seemed particularly depressed. Pleasant, in fact, a real lady. She’d given him a dollar tip. But you never knew, did you? Meanwhile, Walter Kotlar was still unavailable for comment. Nick listened to it all and he realized that nobody knew. It would still be all right if he could reach his father in time. He tried the number again.
    It was Nora’s idea to take a tray up to his mother, as if she were an invalid.
    “She got no sleep, I could tell just by the look of her. And where’ve you been all morning?”
    “Reading.”
    “So it was a ghost, was it, with the radio on?”
    “I can do both.”
    “Your father’s picked a fine time. Not that I blame him. That phone would drive anyone out of the house.”
    But her eyes were shiny with excitement and Nick could tell she was enjoying it all, playing nurse and secretary, busy and important. So his mother hadn’t told her.
    After lunch he sneaked back into the study and tried the cabin again. He was listening to the rings, willing his father to come to the phone, when his mother walked in, surprising him.
    “Nick,” she said vaguely. “I thought I heard someone. What are you doing?” She was dressed, her skin pink from the bath, but her eyes were dull and tired. She moved across the room slowly, still underwater.
    “I’m calling the cabin.”
    She looked at him, her face softening. “He’s not there, honey.”
    Nick hung up the phone and waited, but his mother didn’t say anything. It scared him to see her withdrawn, drifting somewhere else. They needed to be awake now.
    “Where is he?” he said, as if the question itself, finally asked, would break the spell.
    “He went away,” she said. “You know that.”
    “But where?”
    “Not to the cabin,” she said to herself, her voice unexpectedly wry.
    “Where?”
    “Did he say anything to you? When you saw him?”
    Nick shook his head.
    “No, he wouldn’t. He’d leave that for me to explain.” She took a cigarette out of the box on the desk and lit it. Nick waited. “Im not sure I can, Nick,” she said. “Not yet. I’m not sure I understand it myself.” Then she looked up. “But it’s nothing to do with you. You know that, don’t you?”
    “I know. He wanted to stop the hearing, that’s all. But now—”
    “Is that what he told you?”
    Nick shook his head. “I just know.” He stared at her, waiting again.
    She leaned her hand on the desk, unable to take the weight of his eyes. “Not now, Nick, okay? I need some time.”
    “So you can think what to say?”
    She looked at him, a half-smile. “That’s right. So I can think what to say.”
    There was a knock, then Nora flung the door open, her eyes wide with drama. “There you are. We’ve got the police now.” His mother met her eyes, then glanced to the phone, expecting it to jump. “No.
Here
,” Nora said, cocking her head toward the stairs.
    Nick saw his mother’s face cloud over, then retreat