Marino winked at us. He hung up, hit the speaker button on the phone and dialed again. His call was answered on the first ring.

"Bray;" the deputy chief of administration, Diane Bray, announced in my kitchen for all to hear.

"Deputy Chief Bray, it's Marino," he said in the voice of someone dying of a terrible scourge. "Really sorry to bug you at home."

He was answered with silence, having instantly and deliberately irritated his direct supervisor by addressing her as "Deputy Chief." According to protocol; deputy chiefs were always addressed as "Chief," while the chief himself was called "Colonel." Calling her at home didn't win him any points, either.

"What is it?" Bray tersely asked.

"I feel like hell," Marino rasped. "Throwing up, fever, the whole nine yards. I gotta mark off sick and go to bed."

"You certainly weren't sick when I saw you a few hours ago.,,

"It happened real sudden. I sure hope I didn't catch some bacteria thing…"

I quickly dashed out Strep and Clostridia on a notepad.

"… you know, like strep or Clos-ter-ida out there at the scene. One doctor I called warned me about that, because of getting in such close proximity to that dead body and all…

"When does your shift end?" she interrupted him.

"Eleven."

Lucy, Jo and I were red-faced, strangled by laughter we were fighting to hold in.

"It's not likely I can find someone to be watch commander this late in the shift," Bray coldly replied.

"I already got hold of Lieutenant Mann in third precinct. He's nice enough to work the rest of tour for me," Marino let her know as his health failed precipitously.

"You should have notified me earlier!" Bray snapped.

"I kept hoping I could hang in there, Deputy Chief Bray."

"Go home. I want to see you in my office tomorrow."

"If I'm well enough, I'll drop by, I sure will, Deputy Chief Bray. You take care, now. Sure hope you don't get whatever I got."

She hung up.

"What a sweetheart," Marino said as laughter leapt out.

"God, no wonder," Jo said when she could finally talk again. "I hear she's pretty much hated."

"How'd you hear that?" Marino frowned. "They talk about her in Miami?"

"I'm from here. On Old Mill, right off Three Chopt, not too far from the University of Richmond."

"Your dad teach there?" Marino asked.

"He's a Baptist minister."

"Oh. That must be fun."

"Yeah," Lucy chimed in, "kind of bizarre to think she grew up around here and we never met until Miami. So, what are you going to do about Bray?"

"Nothing," he said, draining the bottle of beer and going into the refrigerator for another one.

"Well, I sure as hell would do something," she said with hu;e confidence.

'You know, you think shit like that when you're young;' he remarked. "Truth, justice and the American way. Wait till you're my age."

"I'll never be your age."

"Lucy told me you're a detective," Jo started talking to Marino. "So why are you dressed like that?" `-Story time," Marino said. "You want to sit on my knee?"

"Let me guess. You pissed somebody off. Probably her."

"DEA teach you to make deductions like that, or are you just unusually smart for someone almost grown up?"

I sliced mushrooms, green peppers and onions, and pinched off pieces of whole-milk mozzarella while Lucy watched. Finally, she made me look her in the eye. `'Right after you called this morning, Senator Lord did," she quietly told me. "It about shocked the entire field office, I might add"

"I bet it did."

".`He told me to get on a plane immediately and come here…"

"If only you minded me so well." I was getting shaky inside again.

"That you needed me."

"I can't tell you how glad I am..:' My voice caught as I tumbled back down into that frigid, dark space.

"Why didn't you tell me you needed me?"

"I didn't want to interfere. You're so involved down there. You didn't seem to want to talk."

"All you had to say was, l need you."

"You were on a cell phone."

"I want to see the letter," she said.

I laid the knife on the cutting board and wiped my hands on a towel. I gave Lucy my eyes and she saw the pain and fear in them.

"I want to read it alone with you," she said.

I nodded and we went back to my bedroom and I got the letter out of the safe. We sat on the edge of my bed and I noticed the Sig-Sauer 232 pistol tucked in an Uncle Mike's Sidekick ankle holster peeking out of the cuff of her right pants leg. I couldn't-help but smile as I thought about what Benton would say. Of course he would shake his head. Of course he would go into some phony-baloney psychologizing that would leave us weak with laughter.

But his humor was not without its point. I was aware of the more somber, foreboding side of what I was seeing right now. Lucy had always been an ardent worshiper of self-defense. But since Benton's murder, she had become an extremist.

"We're in the house," I said to her. "Why don't you give your, ankle a rest?"

"Only way to get used to wearing one of these things is to wear it a lot," she replied. "Especially stainless steel. It's so much heavier." 'Then why wear stainless steel?"

"I like it better. And down there with all that humidity and saltwater."

"Lucy, how, much longer are you going to be doing this undercover thing?" I blurted out.

"Aunt Kay." She met my eyes and put her hand on my arm. "Let's don't start that again."

"It's just…"

"I know. It's just that you don't want one of these letters from me someday."

Her hands were steady as she held the creamy sheet of paper.

"Don't say that:' l said with dread.

"And I don't ever want one from you," she added.

Benton's words were just as powerful and alive as they had been this morning when Senator Lord had brought them to me, and I heard Benton's voice again. I saw his face and the love in his eyes. Lucy read very slowly. When she was done, she could not speak for a moment.

Then she said, "Don't you ever send me one of these. I don't ever want one of these."

Her voice shook with pain and anger.

"What's the point? So you can just upset someone all over agdin?" she said, getting up from the bed.

"Lucy, you know his point." I wiped away tears and hugged her. "Deep down, you know."

I carried the letter into the kitchen and Marino and Jo read it, too. His reaction was to stare out the window at the night, his big hands listless in his lap. Hers was to get up and hover in the room, not sure where to go.

"I really think I should go." She repeated herself and we overruled her. "He wanted the three of you here. I don't think I should be."

"He would have wanted you here had he known you," I said.

"Nobody leaves." Marino said it like a cop drawing down on a room full of suspects. "We're all in this together. Goddamn."

He got up from the table and rubbed his face in his hands.

"I sort of wish he hadn't done that." He looked at me. "Would you do that to me, Doc? 'Cause if you got any ideas, I'm telling you right now to forget it. -I don't want no words from the crypt after you're gone."

"Let's put this pizza on," I said.

We went out on the patio and I worked the dough off a cookie sheet and placed it on the grill. I spread sauce and sprinkled the meats, vegetables and cheese on top of it. Marino, Lucy and Jo sat in iron rocking chairs because I would not let them help me. They tried to keep a conversation going but no one had the heart for it. I drizzled olive oil over the pizza, careful not to make the coals flare up.

"I don't think he brought you together just so you could be depressed," Jo finally said.

"I'm not depressed," Marino said.

"Yes, you are," Lucy countered.