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Her body was telling a very different story.
"Oh, yeah. You do what you have to. No big deal." Her fingers were-entwined.
"What do you do there?"
"I manage fuelers. Basically it's running supply trucks."
"Important job."
A shrug. "I guess."
"Good to be here on leave, I'll bet."
"You ever in the service?"
"No," Dance answered.
"Well, in the army, remember rule number one: Never pass up R and R. Even if it's just drinking punch with the brass and collecting a wall decoration."
Dance kept drawing her out. "How many other soldiers'll be at the ceremony?"
"Eighteen."
Lucy wasn't comfortable at all. Dance wondered if her underlying uneasiness was because she might have to say a few words in front of the crowd. Public speaking was higher on the fear scale than skydiving. "And how big's the event going to be?"
"I don't know. A hundred. Maybe two."
"Is your family going?"
"Oh, yeah. Everybody. We're going to have a reception here afterward."
"As my daughter says," Dance offered, "parties rock. What's on the menu?"
"Forgeddabout it," Lucy joked. "We're in the Village. It'll be Ital
ian. Baked ziti, scampi, sausage. My mother and aunt're cooking. I'm making dessert."
"My downfall," Dance said. "Sweets . . . I'm getting hungry." Then she said, "Sorry, I got distracted." Leaving the notebook closed, she looked into the woman's eyes. "Back to your visitor. You were saying, you made your tea. Running the bath. You feel a breeze. You go into the bedroom. The window's open. What was I asking? Oh, was there anything else you saw that was out of the ordinary?"
"Not really." She said this quickly, as before, but then she squinted. "Wait. You know . . . there was one thing."
"Really?"
Dance had done what's known as "flooding." She'd decided that it wasn't only the Watchmaker that was bothering Lucy but rather her duty overseas, as well as the upcoming awards ceremony, for some reason. Dance had gone back to the topics and kept bombarding her with questions, in hopes of numbing her and letting the other memories break through.
Lucy rose and walked to the bedroom. Saying nothing, Dance followed her. Amelia Sachs joined them.
The soldier looked around the room.
Careful, Dance told herself. Lucy was onto something. Dance kept silent. Too many interviewers ruin a session by pouncing. The rule with vague memories is that you can let them surface but you can rarely reel them in.
Watching and listening are the two most important parts of the interview. Talking comes last.
"There was something that bothered me, something other than the window being open. . . . Oh, you know what? I've got it. When I walked to the bedroom earlier, to see about the ticking, something was different--I couldn't see the dresser."
"Why was that unusual?"
"Because when I left to go to the health club I glanced at it to see if my sunglasses were there. They were and I picked them up. But then when I looked into the room later, when I heard the ticking, I couldn't see the dresser--because the closet door was partly open."
