The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor

Nails in her coffin, he was thinking, but he didn’t say it. “Try not to worry. We’ll muddle through.”

“Okay. Thanks, Nick,” she said without looking at him.

“No need for that. I’ll call for you about eight in the morning. That too early?”

She shook her head. “I’m always up at dawn.”

“Just like old times,” he recalled. “I hope you don’t have plans to climb the drain pipe, just like old times, and climb in a bedroom window.”

She caught her breath. “It was only once or twice, and it was Helen’s room I climbed into!”

“You were such a tomboy,” he mused. “Hell with a bat in sandlot baseball, the most formidable tackle we had in football, and not a bad tree climber. You don’t look much different today.”

She grimaced. “Don’t I know it.” She sighed. “No matter what I eat, I can’t put on a pound.”

“Wait until you hit middle age.”

“That’s a few years away,” she said with a faint smile.

“Yes. Quite a few. Get some sleep.”

“You, too. Good night.”

He returned the sentiment and watched her walk to her front door. Old times. He thought back to warm summer evenings when he’d bring his dates home and they’d all sit on chairs on the lawn and watch Helen and Tabby, who were a few years younger, chase fireflies on the lush lawn. He supposed Tabby would watch her own children do that very thing one day.

He didn’t want to think about that. He went back inside and tried to pick up his mystery novel again, but he’d lost his taste for it. He put it down and went to bed, hours and hours before usual.

Tabby was dressed in a floral skirt and white knit blouse when he called for her the next morning just at eight. He wasn’t much more dressed up than she was, comfortable in slacks and a red knit shirt. He scowled down at her.

“Must you always screw your hair up like that? I haven’t seen it long in quite a while.”

“It’s hot around my neck,” she said evasively. “I only let it down at night.”

“For Daniel?” he asked sarcastically.

“Do we go in your car or mine?” she asked, ignoring the question.

“Mine, definitely,” he said with a disparaging glance at hers. “I like having room for my head.”

“The seat lets down.”

“I can’t drive lying on my back.”

“Nick!”

“Come on.” He led her to the big sedan he’d rented and helped her inside. “Direct me. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven here.”

“Not so long,” she replied. “You didn’t leave until you quit the FBI. That’s only been about four years ago.”

“It seems like forever sometimes.”

“I guess Houston is a lot different.”

“Only when it floods. Otherwise, it’s a lot of concrete and steel and pavement. Just like every other city. It’s Washington with a drawl.”

She laughed softly. “I suppose most cities are alike. I haven’t traveled much. And when I do, it’s to places that seem pretty primitive by modern standards.”

“To digs, I gather?”

“That’s right. I went out to the Custer battlefield in Montana a few years ago to help archaeologists and other anthropologists identify some remains. Then I had a stint in Arizona with some Hohokam ruins and once I flew down to Georgia where they were excavating an eighteenth-century cabin.”

“How exciting.”

“Not to you,” she conceded. “But it’s life and breath to me. I want to investigate aboriginal sites in Australia and explore some of the Greek and Roman ruins they’re just beginning to excavate. I want to go to Machu Picchu in Peru and to the Maya and Toltec and Olmec ruins in Mexico and Central America.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “I want to go to Africa and to China… Oh, Nick, there’s a world of mysteries out there just waiting to be solved!”

He glanced at her. “You sound like a detective.”

“I am, sort of,” she argued. “I look for clues in the past, and you look for them in the present. It’s still all investigation, you know.”

He turned his attention back to the road. “I suppose. It depends on your point of view.”

She studied him briefly. “You aren’t smoking. Helen said you’d quit.”

“Five weeks now,” he replied. “I only had the jitters once Lassiter asked us all to give it up, to help him. Tess made him quit,” he said with a grin. “Imagine, old Nail Eater being led around by a woman.”

“I doubt she’s leading him around. He probably loves her and wants to make her happy. He’ll live longer if he doesn’t smoke.”

“We’re all going to die eventually,” he reminded her. “Some of us might do it a little quicker, but we don’t have much choice.”

“The law of entropy.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s what scientists call it—the law of entropy. It means that everything grows old and dies.”

“As long as we’re scientific about it,” he said mockingly.

She adjusted her glasses, pushing them back up on her nose. “No need to be sarcastic. Turn here.” She pointed.

He drove into the parking lot and pulled into a space marked Visitors. “Why here?”

“You don’t have a sticker that permits you to park here,” she reminded him. “If you park in a student’s spot, you’ll be towed. I know you wouldn’t like that.”

“It’s not my car,” he reminded her.

“You rented it. You’d have to liberate it.”

“I love the way you use words,” he chuckled as he got out of the car and helped her out.