Youre getting good at this stuff, noted Devine. It wasnt until Id had my second gulp of gin that I realized that I was going the long way — out the George Washington Parkway to the 495 beltway and then west on Leesburg Pike to Leesburg where I would pick up Route 9 to Harpers Ferry. It wasnt really the long way in miles, but it was the long way in time. The quicker way was to use I270 to U.S. 340 and then head south. That was longer, but quicker. Vullo stared at me some more, then ran his fingers through his thick brown hair that he wore the way most men wore their hair in 1959. After that he slumped back in his chair and flung his yellow pencil on the desk. It was a childs gesture. A peevish child. I was in the Army. They teach you how to fight. Just give it another forty-eight hours. Dorseys got this big anti-crime photo op coming up. The usual thing. Candidate in front and a wall of cops behind him. The town folk. Skully greeted them with a rant about what a bunch of lazy-ass, incompetent, big-government Nazis they were. He had burned through all his inheritance by then, and he had some personal scandals he was dealing with. Over twenty years ago, when Id only been an investigative journalist for a few years, I traced a meeting that Cowl had with some shady people in the Seychelles, but then the trail went cold. Then he dropped off the radar for about a year or so. He might have been in Asia or eastern Europe, at least those were my best guesses. Next, the man waltzes back into New York, buys and rehabs that skyscraper, starts his investment group, hires all sorts of pricey talent, suddenly has a clientlist that the biggest players on Wall Street would covet, and boom, hes the talk of the town. He wasnt even twenty-five years old. Thats right. He listened to some more talk on the receiver, said,Okay, I think youre doing good. Now, youll have help down there in just a little while. I want to get all the facts I can and I want to find out what the police are doing. HI be sitting right here. Keep feeding in the facts. Even though Devine had been told the donor had died, there was no proof of that.Its certainly possible. He said he never slept with her, but he could have donated his sperm. And he had motive, means, and opportunity. Thanks, Cindy. Ill talk to you later. Mason, conscious of the reporters crowding him from behind, said,You cant get away with it that easy. I didnt Of course theres still a certain amount of validity to my theory. Good. Because Im a little bit afraid of you. I think Ive got them all. I may have to go see one or two of them so Im not sure when Ill be able to get home. About what happened last night? She eyed his facial injuries, but made no comment. I did, he replied..