68 Bob Waits and Watches
Late afternoon of the day after the house blew up in a wonderfully thorough fire Bob listened to a final news report stating definitively that the girl, Millie Hagen was dead along with the Hesburghs and everyone else in that room, and turned off the TV. Bob turned to Baxter, who sat to his side.
"Like I told you, sir, she is dead. I killed her myself."
"Baxter, I believe you. Don't misunderstand."
Baxter continued talking. Bob listened to him without hearing as he refocused on the immediate problem, adjusting his chair. This safe house was adequate, but he was used to his own office back home. He couldn't get this chair right, which was OK because most everything else had gone right. Although he had lost Dave and thus his only means of communicating with that most delightful and unusual and still rich ghost, Meigan, he suspected he had most of her money under his control. No sense getting greedy. He had fulfilled the original contract in a spectacular way and received more than enough compensation. No one among his peers would remember the boy or that he was still alive somewhere. The important targets, the Hesburghs, were very very publicly dead. He gave up and decided to endure the chair. Baxter was still talking.
"Sir, why are we waiting around? Job's done."
"Baxter, well." He could hardly explain to Baxter his real reason - that he wanted to wait three full days to make sure the supernatural aspect of this did not come back to bite him in a sensitive area. He needed someone who had no contact at all with any of the reapers, and whom he could trust to be discreet. "Baxter, I want to send someone to the funeral of the Hagen girl."
"Why, sir?"
"It's not that I don't believe you…" He realized that not only could he not explain his reasons, but anyone he would send would not be able to look out for signs, well, he wasn't even sure what he was looking for. He really missed having his own ghost for spying behind the lines. He would have to go himself. "I will go."
Baxter looked skeptical.
"I will go. It's just out of an abundance of caution, but I want to see the funeral." And make sure there was no blowback coming their way.
He sent Baxter to find out the funeral details. He had to make some phone calls. He was sure everything was fine and he had to project confidence not only within the family, the remaining family, but also to their larger community. He wanted to make sure that larger community understood he was back in business. And he had just the thing.