Now, when Falkirk returned to the study from the upstairs hallway, Yardley had moved from the sofa to the chair behind her desk, where she sat with a book of at least five hundred pages. Wearing half-lens reading glasses, she made notes on a lined tablet. No doubt her cursive would be as precise as that of a machine, and every damn comma would be exactly where it was supposed to be.
Two of Falkirk’s men, Elliot and Goulding, were present, one standing at the door to a side garden, the other at the door to the hallway, obviously assigned to prevent her from leaving. They looked like men who wouldn’t ask to be paid to break someone’s knees, who would do it for pleasure. Any sane person would keep an eye on them with an expectation of impending violence.
Constance Yardley pretended to be oblivious of them. Or maybe she was so conceited and disdainful that she believed herself to be quite untouchable by such hoi polloi. Maybe she thought they were here to fetch her tea if she wanted it and to fluff the pillows on the sofa if she chose to return to it.
Falkirk went to the desk and stood looking down at her and said, “What do you make of the animal in the upstairs hall?”
Rather than respond to him at once, she finished a sentence she was writing, marked her place in the book, leaned back in her chair, and finally regarded him over the half lenses of her glasses. “Make of it? I came home from the college, found that mess. We’re living in strange times. That’s all I can make of it. I just want it out of here. The police asked if the creature was mine. I assured them that although I have countless ways of making a fool of myself, one of them isn’t keeping a chimpanzee and dressing it like some kind of Boy Scout.”
“You took a close enough look to see it wasn’t as simple a thing or as absurd as you make it sound.”
“Just for a moment, I thought it was a terribly hairy boy. But then I realized it was . . . whatever it is.”
“As I told you earlier, this is a matter of national security.”
“Please don’t insist that pathetic beast is an extraterrestrial or a Russian spy. I have an open mind but not an empty skull.”
Falkirk wanted to lean across the mahogany desk and slap her. He restrained himself because he knew a slap would be just the start of it. “What you saw here today and anything that I’ve discussed with you, even the fact that NSA agents were here—it’s never to be repeated to anyone. If you speak a word of it, you’ll be prosecuted under the National Secrets Act.”
She smiled and took off her glasses. “Are you really NSA agents or something else? And is there really something with a ridiculous and melodramatic name like the ‘National Secrets Act’?”
“Why would I say there was if there wasn’t?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” She put her glasses down. “From what I heard happened here, some of my neighbors must have seen . . . that thing.”
“As it turns out, no one did.”
“And who used my pistol to kill it?”
Falkirk had theories about that, but they were none of her business. He answered her question with an intimidating stare of the kind that he’d endured from her type throughout his school years.
Her eyes fixed on his for an infuriating length of time before she sighed and shook her head and said, “This defies belief. Clean up the mess in the second-floor hall and get out of my house.”
“We’ve taken the corpse. The mess is all yours. Don’t even think about hiring a service to do the job. There would be too many questions. Do it your own damn self. You’ll probably need a bucket to vomit into.”
The contempt with which she regarded him suggested that she might not do as she was told.
His suspicion was confirmed when she said, “Have you changed the name of the country? Are we not any longer living in America?”
He went to the nearest wall and swept fifteen or twenty books off a shelf, to the floor. Then he scattered a second shelf of them.
Certain that a woman like her would place an inordinately high value on books, he expected Constance Yardley to leap to her feet or curse him for his vandalism. However, she remained in her chair and watched him, her stare almost sharp enough to draw blood.
With greater violence, he threw more books on the floor while Elliot and Goulding watched with solemn approval. “You should wish we’re something as lame as NSA agents. We’re far worse, Connie. There’s more at stake here than your narrow grammarian’s brain can conceive, Connie. If you don’t do as you’ve been told, then I’ll come back here and throw all your damn books on the floor and set them on fire with you punched unconscious and sprawled on top of them. You got that, Connie?”
At last he had brought her to her feet. She stood as stiff and straight as a fence pale, her arms at her sides and her hands balled into fists. Her expression was one of self-righteous disgust, but he could see that she was afraid and struggling to repress her fear.
Elliot and Goulding had moved away from their posts, closer to the desk. They were chameleons, able to look like what the situation required. They could appear to be sober, highly disciplined agents one moment, and an instant later radiate the lust and brutality of amoral beasts; in this case, they were the latter. Constance Yardley stood alone in the room with three men, with two others also in the house, and she knew now that the law had no power over them nor any jurisdiction in this residence.
Spittle flew when John Falkirk again demanded of her, “You got that, CONNIE?”
Her pretense of courage did not deceive him, and her attempt to hold fast to her self-respect was amusing when she raised her chin and tweaked her shoulders back and said, “Yes.”
“So go ahead and make yourself seem brave by telling us again to get out of your house.”
She clearly knew that, with this goad, he had denied her the only assertion of dignity still available to her, that to say those words now would make her sound not indomitable, but meekly obedient. However, because she had no other choice but silence, which she might expect to enflame his anger, she said, “Get out.”
Falkirk saw that his mocking smile was a needle that deflated the English teacher. “Poor Connie,” he said, and he led his men out of the room, out of the house.