The Mole in His Bed novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: Terms
The safe house was a rented apartment above a dry cleaner on Falls Road.
It smelled of starch and steam, and it had one lamp, one couch and a window that looked at a brick wall.
I paced it until the rain started.
At half past eleven somebody knocked on the door, and the marshal in the hall said through the wood, "Ma'am. Lieutenant Garrick says it's about the case."
I stood very still with my hand on the chain.
"Let him up," I said.
Neil came in wet to the skin, with rain running off his coat onto the floor.
He didn't say hello.
"I read the evidence log tonight," he said. "Paula signed out a brown notebook a week after Pier Nine."
"I know. His widow told me."
"I'll look into it."
"You'll look into it." I laughed, and it came out wrong. "You'll look into your own wife."
"Cora."
"You stood at that podium and said I was a disgrace to the badge."
He said nothing.
"I was in a clinic bed in Ocean City with a burned arm," I said. "A nurse turned on the radio so I'd have something to listen to."
The room was quiet except for the rain.
"I heard every word. I heard you say it twice."
"I know what I said."
"Then say it to my face. Right now. Tell me what I am."
His throat moved. He took one step toward me and stopped.
"I can't," he said.
It was not the answer I had prepared for, and I didn't have anything to put against it.
"Then I'll tell you what happens," I said. "Tonight is one night."
He looked at me.
"You don't apologize. I don't want to hear sorry out of you, ever."
"All right."
"You don't say her name in this room."
"All right."
"And there is no later." I unbuttoned the top button of my blouse. "Tonight is the whole thing. In the morning we're two people on a case."
"Cora, you're a witness. I'm married. This is..."
"You stood up and swore I was a traitor." I undid the second button. "So come and take what a traitor's got."
He crossed the floor in three steps.
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