"Your name, sir?" He stood between the distant entrance to the mansion and me.
"I'd like to see some ID." I told him my name and handed him my driver's license. When he returned it I asked, "And your name is?" I also held out my hand to shake his. He didn't notice; he was busy repeating my identity into a microphone that was hidden somewhere in his gray suit.
A moment later he said, "They are expecting you, Dr. Gregory. At the front door." He pointed up the hill.
I checked my watch.
"I'm a little early."
"That's not a problem. We would prefer that you not be on the grounds unaccompanied, sir. Would you like me to accompany you the rest of the way to the mansion?"
"I don't think that will be necessary."
"I'm glad to hear that."
The man who met me at the door of the big house was built like a double pork chop that had a grape stuck on the meaty end. Thin legs, tiny head, huge trunk.
Maybe five-nine. The only way to get by him in an airplane aisle would be to get down on your knees and crawl past those spindly legs.
"Phil Barrett" he said in a slightly too loud voice that I could only imagine coming in useful at a high school reunion as he was greeting someone he was afraid didn't remember who he was.
"Alan Gregory," I replied.
He shook my hand.
"Of course. Of course. Welcome. Come in." I imagined that he'd been at Phipps no more than half an hour and he was already acting like he'd just inherited it from some dead aunt.
I looked around.
"Nice place." "Yes," he said.
"Rays an alumni."
I was tempted to correct his Latin. Didn't.
"Of?"
"D.U. He was a Chi Phi. President, I think. His undergraduate degree is in economics. Not too many people know that part of Rays background. Before he became a healer he was quite a student of economic policy and all. Bet you're surprised. Am I right? I know I'm right. We have to do a better job of getting that part of Ray's background out to his public. Ray's been good to his school and the trustees are kind enough to let us use this place once in a while."
"That's nice."
"It's especially appropriate this year, of course. The original Mr. Phipps was a United States senator from Colorado, too. Did you know that? I'm afraid the history of this great state of ours eludes too many of its citizens."
I had indeed been aware that Lawrence Phipps was Senator Phipps but I said that I hadn't. It seemed important to Phil Barrett that I be ignorant.
We'd stepped far enough into the entrance hall so I could see the bustle of activity in the dining room, where the caterers were setting up tables for at least two dozen people. Lunch, apparently, was going to require a lot of silverware.
"Major supporters," Phil Barrett explained. Maybe he'd been thinking the same thing about the silverware.
"Hey," I said, shrugging my shoulders. I wondered if Raoul Estevez, my partner Diane's husband, would be in attendance. Diane had told me that R-aoul threw major money at politicians sometimes. Raoul's politics were usually difficult to discern but I felt confident that he threw money at both Democrats and Republicans without revealing his bias about their beliefs. He was practical enough, and honest enough, to admit that he was seeking influence, not ideology.
Barrett led me in the opposite direction from the dining room and we promptly got lost in the huge house. We backtracked once unsuccessfully and a second time with more success and he showed me into a library that was almost as large as the top floor of my house. The paneling and shelves were of knotty pine that had aged to a color halfway between honey and bourbon.
I let my eyes wander the room. Walls of books. Comfortable furniture. Nice lights. I decided I could read there.
"Ray will be just a minute or two. You'll be fine?"
I smiled.
Less than a minute later I was checking titles on the shelves when a young man dressed as though he was from the caterers staff entered the room and asked me if I would like something to drink.
"Please. A soft drink. Something brown and diet would be great."
I climbed a rolling library ladder and was perusing titles on the upper shelves, my back to the door, when I heard, "Your libation, sir."
I chuckled at the pretension and turned around to see not the young man from catering, but rather the familiar face of Dr. Raymond Welle. He was bowing lightly at the waist, a tray balanced perfectly on his right hand, a linen napkin folded expertly over his wrist. From my vantage, I could see that the crown of his head was becoming mostly bald.
I said, "Dr. Welle, Representative Welle, hello."
"Don't bother with all that rigmarole. Ray will do just fine. May I call you Alan? Or is it Al?"
"Alan." I reached the bottom of the ladder and took the glass from his tray with my left hand and shook his hand with my right.
"Thank you very much. I'm pretty sure that this is the first drink I've ever had delivered to me by a member of the United States Congress."
"I like to think we're good for something other than raising money, spending money, and arguing about everything and nothing. I think that if I could deliver a cold drink to every one of my constituents we might all be better off. We'd certainly trust each other more."
Over Welle's shoulder I saw Phil Barrett entering the room. He had donned a dirt brown suit jacket over his shirt and tie. I thought of a breaded pork chop. A stuffed breaded pork chop.
"You two have met, right? You don't mind that Phil's going to sit in, do you?
Didn't think so. Sit, sit, everyone, please," cajoled Welle. He guided us toward the windows, where we each took a Queen Anne chair.
I didn't want Phil Barrett anywhere near this part of my inquiry. But I already knew what objection I was going to make about his presence and knew it would play better later on than it would at the start.
"Trish tells me you want to take a trip down memory lane, Alan. Back to my roots, so to speak. Clinical psychology. Seems like at least two lifetimes ago that I was doing psychotherapy every day. Some old case of mine, right? That's what you want to talk about? I don't know how much I'll remember after all these years. But I promise to do my best"
"Thank you. That's all we can hope for." I was having trouble finding comfort while addressing Welle by his first name, but I didn't have the luxury of time to figure out why I was stumbling. I assumed it had to do with his congressional status, hoped it didn't have anything to do with his celebrity. I did know I didn't want to enter into this conversation intimidated by this man. I said, "As I'm sure your office was apprised when the request was made for this appointment, it was an unfortunate case that I wish to discuss. That of Mariko Hamamoto."
He raised one eyebrow and glanced at Phil Barrett. Something passed between them that I wasn't privy to.
Welle said, "Although I'm not fond of starting conversations this way, I'm afraid I'll have to be disagreeable right off the bat. Case wasn't unfortunate at all. Textbook intervention. I'm proud of it. I did good work. Fine work.
Poor girl's murder sure was unfortunate, though. Obscene."
"I've recently spoken with Mariko's father and-"
"You have? Well, you talk to Taro again you give him my best wishes. I still pray for him and Eri at least once a week. Sometimes more than that. And that little girl of theirs, what was her name?"
I assumed he meant Mariko's little sister.
"Satoshi."
"That's right. Satoshi. The whole thing broke her in two. The disappearance.
The murders. She was a real sweetheart."
I suspected I was watching the process by which a natural politician transfers a forgotten name into permanent storage. He wouldn't forget Satoshi Hamamoto's identity again.
I reached into my jacket pocket and took out a photocopy of the release-of-information form that Taro had signed in Vancouver.
"I'll be sure to pass along your regards. This is for your records, by the way.
Its a photocopy of an authorization signed by Taro Hamamoto permitting you to release information about his daughters psychotherapy to me and to Locard."