up at all in this particular market. Even so, it was about time for the publisher to start chumming the waters if they hoped to see people lined up outside the bookstores, money in hand, on laydown day.
Meanwhile, he’d do well to work on his tactics. “Mrs. Sullivan, I’m an independent journalist, and I’ve come to warn you about—”
Yeah, right. Considering what she’d been put through these past few years, that might not be the best approach. Direct was his favored method, but direct in this case would probably get him kicked out on his keester. The lady had no reason to welcome the press.
Of course, it wasn’t too late to call it off. He could go back to Chevy Chase, refreshed from spending a day in the country, and either watch a few more ball games or start on his version of the Great American novel. The story of how one cynical journalist, semi-retired, discovered a way to put an end to all turf wars, ethnic vendettas and ideological battles.
But as long as he was in the neighborhood, he might as well pay his respects to Mrs. Sullivan. Maybe she’d offer him a cup of tea.
Or a cream cheese sandwich.
Finding her had been easy enough. He was not, after all, without investigative skills. According to the ex-senator’s yard man, she had not been to the Wye River place in nearly a year. None of her former friends had offered a clue—of course, they might have been in protective mode. Taking the next logical step, he had checked out public records. Wills, taxes, tax maps.
Bingo. If he could do it, it was a sure bet he wouldn’t be the only one. Sleazy exposés were a dime a dozen. They seldom changed the course of history, but they could generate a few column inches in the tabloids and make life miserable for the victims before they were bumped off the lists by the next contender.
Discounting their one brief encounter, Rocky really didn’t know Sarah Mariah Jones Sullivan at all. By now she might even welcome the attention. But if she was anywhere as vulnerable as she’d looked during the hearings—as she’d struck him that day over twenty years ago when she’d watched her father use her and discard her as casually as he would a soiled tissue—then maybe she could use a friend.
And if he happened to have guessed wrong about which way she’d jumped—if she was kicking up her heels in some fancy resort instead of hibernating in corn country—no problem. He’d needed an excuse to get out. Needed to start getting involved again.
Slowing down, he took the Snowden turnoff, rounded a blind curve on a narrow blacktop, crossed over a railroad track and began looking for a dirt road that led off to the right. The only sign of life was a big buck deer and a flock of gulls following a tractor, reminding him that they were only a mile or so from Currituck Sound.
He spotted the dirt road and turned off, driving slowly. Tax maps didn’t reveal a whole lot of detail, but there was supposed to be another road of some sort.
And there it was. Two leaning posts, one supporting a newspaper box, the other a mailbox. The name on the mailbox said Gilbert, which, if memory served, was the name of the relative whose house Sarah had inherited. Rocky pulled off the road and parked behind a dusty red compact. After a moment’s hesitation he set the brake, locked his eight-year-old SUV and set out on foot down the winding, rutted lane. He’d gone barely a dozen yards when he spotted a guy armed with a videocam jogging toward the house.
Evidently his suspicions had been justified. The lady was about to find herself in the crosshairs again. “Yo! You with the camera!”
The guy glanced over his shoulder, but instead of stopping, he picked up speed. It occurred to Rocky that he could be an innocent nature photographer—maybe a stringer for some hunting-fishing rag. He didn’t think so, though. There was something a little too furtive about the way he kept checking his six.
One thing he’d learned during a career that spanned more than two decades was that while photos could easily lie—and people often did, intentionally or not—the subconscious mind was the closest thing to a truth detector any man possessed. If he knew how to use it.
The other fellow had the advantage of youth and a head start. Halfway down the lane, Rocky planted his feet and used his fingers to issue a shrill whistle. Occasionally the unexpected trumped any advantage.
At the sound, the photographer came to a dead halt. Roland “Rocky” Waters stood in the middle of a country lane and wondered, Okay, what now, Rambo?
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