"I promise you."
"Including the laundry room."
"Including the laundry room."
"Including the pantry."
"Including the pantry."
"Including the mud room."
I laugh. “Everywhere, baby.”
She puts the cup down seemingly reassured. She smiles.
The phone on the wall by the door rings.
The phone is the landline.
The landline is the landline I have had on the wall by the door since 2009.
The landline rings never rings.
The landline rings now.
I look at her.
She looks at me.
I get up.
I cross to the door.
I take the phone off the wall.
"Hale."
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Put it on speaker."
I put it on speaker.
I set the phone on the bench by the door under the wool hat.
I sit on the bench beside it.
Eve gets up. She walks to the bench. She sits beside me. She puts her hand on my thigh.
"Chief."
"Hale. Mrs. Clark.” Val won’t stop calling her Mrs. Clark and it drives her mad.
"Yes."
"I am calling you both because I have just got off the phone with Detective Warren and she has informed me that last night a federal grand jury in Reno returned an indictment against one Frank Vaccaro on twenty-three counts, and the twenty-three counts include murder, arson, racketeering, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder. The murder count is the count for the homicide at the house on county road seventeen on the fourteenth of October. The arson count is the count for therecords storage on the east industrial spur on the twenty-first of October. The conspiracy to commit murder count is the count that names a person of interest in Reno who was in the witness box yesterday afternoon for six hours."
