“Your situation probably won’t be made any better if certain people find out you got there by helicopter.” He can’t help but smirk.
“All the more reason to do it,” I reply as we stop at a red light on Prince Street.
The Hilton Garden Inn is ahead, and since leaving my office almost twenty minutes ago, we’ve not managed to get very far.
“Especially after you were just at the White House,” Marino adds. “Talk about pissing people off. Most of all, Elvin the Chipmunk.”
“How do you know where I was?” I’ve about decided there’s no such thing as a secret anymore.
“What I was getting around to telling you a minute ago is that I stopped by your office earlier, not knowing you were out of town.”
“Benton and I were called to a meeting with no advance notice.” I don’t need to tell Marino that I can’t discuss it.
“Maybe you don’t remember because you were still sort of out of it,” he says. “But when I was leaving your house last night with the wine bottle and all the rest, you told me you were going to work today as usual. You were sure you’d be fine.”
“That was the plan before the Secret Service called us,” I reply as the light turns green.
“Figuring you were at the office, I thought I’d go ahead and get started in my new position as your trusty forensic operations specialist. It didn’t go over very well.”
“Who told you I was at the White House?” I ask as Maggie roosts in my thoughts. “I didn’t mention it to anyone. Not even to Dorothy and Lucy.”
“Your secretary, who do you think? The same person who wouldn’t give me a key to your building and said there’s no room for me when I’m helping out.”
“We have plenty of room.” I remind him of the positions my predecessor didn’t bother to fill. “We have empty offices and parking places. Of course, I’ll get you a key, and I’m sorry for how Maggie treated you but would have predicted it.”
“She’s got to control everything, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“I imagine she’s had to be that way. In many ways she was the de facto chief while Elvin did his politicking and drank his martinis after hours. Somebody had to deal with the day-to-day, take phone calls and answer questions.”
“Like the house mouse who thinks she runs the police department,” Marino says as we drive through the heart of the historic district, surrounded by our neighborhood haunts.
Off our nose is the Catholic church I don’t attend often enough, across from it the Shell station. The colonial brick Harris Teeter is where we go for major food shopping, and Benton’s and my guilty pleasure is Haute Dogs & Fries, while Marino is a big fan of the Oak Steakhouse.
“When you decided to drop by today unannounced,” I ask, “who let you into the building?”
“Wyatt answered when I buzzed the gate. He was in the bay helping with a delivery and scanned me up to your office. Turns out his brother was a Richmond cop I used to know, and by the way, the security at your building stinks.”
“Obviously or you wouldn’t have made it to my floor.”
I ask him what time it was when he appeared at Maggie’s door as I imagine the look on her face.
“High noon,” he says, and by then I’d spotted Elvin inside the West Wing Mess Hall.
Likely he caught wind that I was there, and naturally he’s going to contact his former secretary of twenty years who’s remained steadfastly loyal to him through thick and thin. The truth is that they’ve never stopped working together, and it’s crossed my mind she might suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
Identifying with the aggressor, she’s treating me the way Elvin’s treated her, and I’m not na?ve. I expected Maggie to be one of many challenges facing me when I took this job. But stupidly, perhaps arrogantly I thought I’d win her over. I deluded myself into believing that if I were fair and empowering, if I were the sort of boss one ought to be, she’d come around.
She’d realize how much better off she is no longer working for a self-consumed overreacher, a misogynistic jerk, let’s be honest. I suppose I hoped to re-create what I had when getting started, and that wasn’t smart or completely honest. I didn’t move back to Virginia for nostalgia but to serve the public and help solve problems.
The good old days weren’t all that good anyway, and Maggie Cutbush will never be Rose. The past is past but never gone, and it’s a sad fact that women don’t always get along with each other. Some are too territorial and competitive, answering only to a man, creating the very toxic environment I’ve inherited.