Heinz cut me off. “Dr. Kiel, you had specifically told Dr. Cordley not to involve you in questions about Sonia’s care when she talked to you on Wednesday. I have those orders in writing.”

Kiel turned to me. “What did Sonia say to you?” His hands were shaking, but he was making an effort not to shout.

“She says she saw Doris McKinnon on the land where Matt Chastain is buried. And she saw Emerald Ferring and August Veriden there as well. This is one of the fields around the missile silo, right?”

“Sonia is delusional,” Chesnitz put in. “I would discount almost anything she said, especially now, if she’s been without her medication for a week or more.”

“If I could undo one thing in my life, it would be to go back to the day I agreed to let him be a student in my lab,” Kiel said, the pulse still throbbing. “No. I retract that. I’d go back to the day I met Shirley Wachter and I’d turn around and walk away from her. The tinkling bells of the harlots of Zion! My grandfather warned me.”

I hadn’t eaten today, and his wild speech was making me feel as though I were a rudderless ship in a heavy storm. Harlots of Zion, cartafalques. Dinner at the Kiel household must have been a rage-infused flying circus.

“Dr. Kiel, could we sit down and talk, quietly? Sonia’s gone back to sleep. She won’t wake again for a while.”

“Talk about what?” he demanded.

“What Matt Chastain did that was so terrible. And why you won’t believe your daughter when she says she saw him die.”

For a moment I thought he was about to explode again, but he suddenly became very still. I thought perhaps he was having a stroke. Nurse Heinz went to his side, holding his arm. Then I saw that AKA Marlon, the man from the Fort Leavenworth army college, had appeared in the ICU lobby.

34
Hard Words

“Marlon Pinsen!” I moved across the floor to him, hands outstretched, face wreathed in smiles. “Colonel Baggetto told me about your work, and of course your secret is safe with me.”

Under the bright lights in the ICU atrium, I could see that he was older than I’d thought when I met him in the hotel two nights ago. He was young, but not college young.

He stepped away from my hands, but I kept smiling. “Army Staff College. Is that why you were at the Lion’s Pride on Wednesday? I’ve been in Lawrence less than a week, but I know that men’s basketball is the beating heart of this town. Were they playing the Army Staff College and you’re such a fan you had to stay for the closing festivities?”

“The Army Command and General Staff College isn’t that kind of school,” he said stiffly.