Man: How you doing, Keaton?
Keaton: I can’t feel my legs…Keyser.
– THE USUAL SUSPECTS
So this was what it was like. I listened to Ronnie breathing beside me and sighed. If she woke up and decided she never wanted to see me again, at least I had this moment. I rolled over and watched the sun set lower in the sky. I wanted every late afternoon to be like this.
“Hey.” Ronnie tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to face her, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.
“Hey. How are you handling this?”
“Aside from the dream I had where you had a contract to take out an evil capybara, I’m okay.”
“Really?” It was amazing how much hung in the balance of that one word.
“Really.” She kissed me and climbed out of bed, starting to put her clothes on.
“Why are you putting your clothes on?” Why was she putting her clothes on? Maybe she didn’t accept this like I thought.
“Don’t be so paranoid!” Ronnie laughed as she threw my shirt at me. “Sartre and I are starving.”
We made our way down to the kitchen and in moments we had a buffet of unrelated food, from cheese to Jell-O. Sartre had blueberries.
“So, you are okay with this?” I asked again, in danger of becoming annoying.
She nodded. “If I look at it from a scientific viewpoint, yes. And it helps that you only killed really bad people and have retired from the business altogether.” She popped a grape into her mouth.
“I didn’t expect it, is all. I thought you’d go through the roof.”
Ronnie thumped me on the chest. “That’s because you pigeonholed me.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” We continued eating.
“So, are you ever going to tell me who killed Kennedy?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, I can’t do that. I had to sign a confidentiality oath in my own blood when I was five.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
I nodded.
“Wow. But there really was a conspiracy, right?”
I laughed. “Yes. While there isn’t always a conspiracy, there was in that case.”
Ronnie cocked her head to one side. “I bet you think I’m a real idiot over the whole Senator Anderson thing, don’t you?”
I stiffened. “No. I don’t.”
She waved me off. “I mean, when you gave me that file listing all the horrible things Anderson had done, I was really mad at you. But I did some more digging and found out you were right. I guess I didn’t look hard enough because I didn’t want to believe that he’d really had a heart attack.”
“Ronnie-”
“And the ridiculous lengths I went to in order to find his killer! And I was part of that weird group! We were so sure we were going to bring the senator’s killer to justice!” She laughed again. “I mean, how do you bring something like heart disease to justice?”
“Ronnie.” Something in my voice must have told her to stop, because she did. “You weren’t wrong. Senator Anderson was killed for selling a list of CIA agents to Iran.”
“What?” She slammed her hand down on the table, causing Sartre to jump. “Oh, my God! I was right!”
“You were right.”
She started pacing wildly around the kitchen. “Oh, my God! He really was murdered! I can’t believe it! Well, actually that is a relief, because I thought I might be nuts.” She continued her inane prattle as she prowled around the room.
“And I bet you know it because you are in the business! Talk about weird shop talk! Can you tell me who did it?”
I nodded.
“Really? ‘Cause you can’t tell me about Kennedy! Really? Wow! This is like The X-Files!” She paused for a second, and I wondered if I would need a geek intervention here. “So, who was it? Who killed Anderson?”
The woman I loved looked at me with eyes shining, as if she had discovered the tomb of Jesus Christ.
“Me.”