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she had completed the task, the maid said, “Goodbye,” which would automatically break the connection. She slipped the mobile telephone back into her ample apron pocket and put the video camera into her purse.
    This communication had required precisely seventy-two seconds.
    *   *   *
    When the buzzer in the kitchen sounded a minute later, Marcella Clay (aka FBI Special Agent Mary Anne Clayton) was downstairs at the back door. The Emory University graduate put on her dull, slack-jawed smile, exited the house, and sallied forth to wheel Mrs. Francine Hooten back into the warm comfort of her home. Falling into character, the counterfeit maid assumed her southern accent as she mumbled, “I’ll fuss at that silly ol’ lady for stayin’ out in the cold so long.”
    It would never do the trick in Atlanta, Vicksburg, or Little Rock, but it was sufficient to deceive her singular audience. On her way to retrieve Mrs. Hooten, Marcella kept an eye peeled for the bug, but didn’t get the least glimmer of anything resembling a rubber plug. She prayed … Oh, please please please let it be on the tip of her walking stick. As all those who petition the Almighty know, sometimes the answer is no. Which observation gives the game away. Yes, sad to say, when the maid approached her employer, the bug’s rubber enclosure was not on the tip of Mrs. Hooten’s titanium walking stick.
    All the way back to the rear door of the Hooten mansion, as Marcella’s mouth kept up a running commentary on the folly of “an ol’ lady like you exposin’ her feeble self to cold, damp weather,” the special agent’s sharp eyes flicked left and right, examining every inch of the dead grass beside the path. What did she see?
    Nada. Zilch. Naught.
    Which is to say—not what she was looking for. Which was vexing. Sufficiently so to cause the maid’s speech to drift out of character—but only in her thoughts. Damn. That thing must’ve grown wings and flown away!
    As wistful characters in novels said in bygone days, “Oh, would that it had.”
    THE BODYGUARD
    Yes. The butler who is endowed with good old Yankee get-up-and-go is on the job.
    As the maid looked right and left and speculated about walking sticks’ airborne rubber tips, she was observed by the ever-alert Cushing, whose primary mission was to protect the missus of the house from bodily harm, problems with John Law—and deceitful employees. At his lookout post by the kitchen window, the Brit expatriate took note of the American maid’s nervous examination of the ground. It looks like Marcella is searching for something. He wondered idly what that might be. The frumpy woman has probably lost a two-dollar plastic earring.
    A small drama, unworthy of his interest. But, having nothing of importance to occupy his idle time and in need of some mild cerebral exercise to stimulate his underemployed intellect, the butler (who carried a 9-mm Beretta semiautomatic in his inner jacket pocket) made up his mind to find out what Marcella was looking for along the pathway.

 
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    FOLLOWING THE COWBOY ASSASSIN
    As we now know, Mrs. Hooten’s caller was the very same infamous hired gun whom Miss Louella Smithson had hoped would show up. But the “Cowboy” designation calls for a comment. Here it is: despite the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a fat file on the suspect, the criminal’s identity has not been ascertained by the nation’s premier law-enforcement agency. This being the case, the title of the Bureau file is “Cowboy Assassin.” (No, the shooter does not specialize in popping lead at western horsemen who wear broad-brimmed hats and high-heeled boots with jingly steel spurs mounted thereon.) “Cowboy” refers to the assassin’s reported choice of apparel. But be forewarned: the evidence along this line is thin and might prove