The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  “No problem, trust me on that.”

  Once Savich had managed to swallow the pill, and they were ready to go, Keely said from the backseat, “Mrs. McCamy gave us lemonade.”

  “I didn’t like it,” Sam said. “It tasted funny.”

  Sherlock turned to look at him and slowly nodded. “I thought it tasted funny, too.” She waited for Savich to get as comfortable as he could with the seat belt, and started the car.

  “Let’s go see your mama, Keely.”

  25

  She’s with Mr. Kettering,” Linnie, Katie’s primo dispatcher, told them. Savich smiled and nodded even as she gave a little finger wave to Keely and Sam.

  “Tell you what, Sam,” Sherlock said, leaning down to Sam’s eye level, “why don’t you and Keely stay out here with Linnie, just for a little while.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Linnie said behind her hand to Sherlock, rolling her eyes. “I think they’ve got a problem in there.”

  Keely, who like every kid in the world could hear everything, said to Sam, “If your papa is yelling at my mama, she just might crack him on the head. My mama is the boss here, Sam.”

  I would agree, Sherlock thought, and said to Keely, “Okay, here’s the deal. Your parents aren’t yelling, they’re just having a discussion,” and she hoped it was true. There was too much stress, too much frustration, on both sides.

  Inside her office, Katie was saying, “Dammit, Miles, I can’t very well arrest the McCamys just because Clancy was Elsbeth’s brother. For heaven’s sake, you were in law enforcement, you know I can’t.”

  Miles snarled, no other way to put it. “You know they’re involved in this somehow, Katie, you know it. There’s simply no one else. Maybe it’s just Mrs. McCamy. So bring her in and rattle her. No, better yet, I want to talk to that woman myself. I want to face her down.”

  “Not going to happen. Anything else?” Katie wished she’d French-braided her hair. The banana clip was listing over her left ear.

  “What are Agent Hodges and his crew doing?”

  “Since they left all the interviewing to us, they’re following the money trail—you know, credit cards, church accounts, money transfers, stuff like that.”

  “Is the TBI going to do anything at all except hassle you?”

  Katie said patiently, “The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has an obligation to see that the sheriff of a town in Tennessee didn’t just decide to up and murder two men. They’re just doing their job. They won’t be too much of a hassle.”

  “Yeah, right. You’ve already spent hours with them.”

  That was true enough, she thought, and she wasn’t looking forward to her next meeting with them. So far, they were satisfied that the two killings were justified, but the investigation—being cops, they wanted to know every detail of what was happening. She sighed, saying nothing.

  “I want just five minutes with Mrs. McCamy. She’s got to be the weak link here.”

  Katie sighed again. “Listen to me, Miles. The fact is we don’t have any evidence yet against either of the McCamys. What’s even more to the point is that none of us can come up with a single reason why either Elsbeth or Reverend McCamy would be involved in Sam’s kidnapping. Until we have evidence, and a glimmering of a motive, both of them have their rights.”

  “There’s got to be a reason,” Miles said, smacking his fist against his open palm. “This is driving me nuts.”

  Katie dashed her fingers through her hair, dislodging the rest of it from the big banana clip. With fast impatient movements, she twisted it up again and clamped down the clip. French braiding was the only way to keep her hair on her head where it belonged, but she hadn’t had time this morning. One long hank of hair was left curling in front of her right ear and she shoved it back. She said, “It’s driving all of us nuts, Miles. Savich and Sherlock should be here soon with the kids. Let’s hope they’ve got something to tell us.”

  Miles looked at Katie straight on. “I’m going to talk to Elsbeth McCamy myself.”

  Katie grabbed his arm just before he could get to the door, only to have it open in their faces. Sherlock smiled at both of them, seeing all the fear and frustration. She watched as Katie gently laid her hand on Miles’s forearm. “Don’t ever shoot unless you’re sure you’ve got bullets in your gun, Miles. The McCamys are suspects, sure, and we’re going to try to find out everything we can about them, but until we’ve turned up something, they get to sit back and watch us. Them’s the rules, you know that. Hi, Sherlock. You have Sam and Keely? Are they ready for lunch?”

  “I hope you’ve got something,” Miles said and stomped out of Katie’s office. “Where are Sam and Keely?”

  “Linnie took them to the bathroom,” Sherlock said.

  Katie said, “Let me go tell my deputies where I’ll be.” She walked off in her long, no-nonsense stride, half her hair falling down her back, the other half tightly held in the clip.

  Miles quickly realized that Savich was in pain. He was standing very stiffly, like he was afraid to move at all, and his eyes were a bit unfocused. Miles said, “Sherlock, you got some more pain meds for the Iron Man here?”

  Sherlock saw that Miles was right, even though the one he’d had not more than fifteen minutes ago should have kicked in. It scared her to her toes, she couldn’t help it. She touched her fingers to his cheek. “We can’t have this. You’re white about the mouth, partner.” She pulled out a pill bottle, dumped out another pill into her palm, filled a paper cup at the drinking fountain and gave it to him. “Don’t even speak to me until you’ve got it down your gullet.”

  At that moment, Savich would have taken the whole bottle if she’d given it to him.

  “This is a surprise,” Miles said, stroking his jaw as he looked at Savich. “He didn’t even try to kiss you off.”

  “No, he’s not stupid,” Sherlock said as her fingers touched his forearm, willing her fear for him to subside.

  Savich liked her touching him. It felt good. And because she knew him well, because she hated his pain, she continued to stroke him.

  “He needs to rest, but of course he doesn’t get enough.”

  “Let’s have lunch first,” Savich said, “and yes, Miles, we’ve got some stuff to tell you. Don’t fret, sweetheart, I’ll be okay. These pills work pretty fast.” He lifted her hand off his forearm, and lightly squeezed her fingers.

  “Dillon, why don’t you sit down over here for just a moment?”

  “Let it go, Sherlock,” and she did, as hard as it was. She wished at that moment that they were lying on the beach in Maui and had nothing more to do than suck mai tais through a straw.

  At Maude’s Burgers, everyone ordered a thick hamburger except for Savich, who had grilled West Coast swordfish on sourdough bread, which was interesting but had never been close to San Francisco.

  “He’s a vegetarian,” Sherlock said to Katie. “Sometimes, on special occasions like this, he has fish.”

  “Why is this special, Uncle Dillon?” Keely asked, chewing each long French fry down to the grease.

  “It’s special because both you and Sam are heroes. And because we’re all here together. Sam, it doesn’t look to me like you’re really enjoying your hamburger.”

  Sam, who couldn’t speak until he’d swallowed the huge bite he’d taken, gave Savich a big, ketchup-smeared smile.

  Ten minutes later, when Keely and Sam were eating chocolate chip ice cream, focused on each other and the chocolate chips they were carefully picking from the cones, Savich said, his voice pitched low, “Jimmy Maitland called just a while ago. The math teacher killer hit again, and he wants us back on the investigation. They need fresh eyes and he says we’re the freshest eyes he’s got. He sounds more desperate than I’ve heard him in a long while. The media attention had died down after they’d thrashed over the second killing, but now, with the third, they’ll have ‘serial killer’ plastered all over the TV and the newspapers.”

  Sherlock said, “He also wants us to c
ome back for a press conference at headquarters tonight. We have no choice at all in this.”

  “There are lots of good people,” Savich said, “but when you mix three different police departments and the FBI together and try to coordinate who’s going to be top dog, it can get ugly real fast.”

  Katie said, “I heard that after the second math teacher killing, the politicians started getting into the act.”

  “They’ll want to ban every gun in the universe, including the one the shooter’s using,” Sherlock told her. “I can just imagine how difficult it is for the local jurisdictions to deal with this, particularly when the politicians are competing for sound bites.”

  Sherlock sighed, her eyes for a moment on Savich’s plate, where most of his swordfish sandwich was left untouched. “One thing is absolutely true: Everyone is scared. Everyone wants to catch this guy, and the pressure keeps growing.”

  “Maitland said that the principals in the high schools in the killing areas haven’t put up any road blocks if the math teachers want to leave town for a while,” Savich said. “It’s rather like closing the barn door after the horses have run out.”

  “Three people dead,” Sherlock said, shaking her head. “Maitland scheduled the press conference late enough so we’ll have time to speak to the third victim’s husband beforehand.”

  “So what are you going to say at this press conference?” Katie asked as she sipped her coffee.

  Savich started to say he didn’t have a clue, but instead he suddenly just got up from the table and went outside. They watched him talking on his cell phone.

  “My husband just got a brain flash,” Sherlock said, amused satisfaction in her voice. “The last time it happened, Sean was sprawled on Dillon’s chest. Dillon grabbed him under one arm and took him to MAX. An hour later, the Detroit cops arrested a man who worked behind the counter at Trailways Bus in Detroit for the murder of three runaway teenagers, all of whom had left Detroit on Trailways. He’d followed all of them and killed them.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake?” Katie asked.

  “He never really said, just cried so hard his nose was running. Even after six months of nonstop shrinks, I don’t think anyone ever understood what he was all about. He’s locked away now in a state mental hospital.”

  Savich came back into the restaurant, sat down, took a bite of his fish sandwich, and said absolutely nothing.

  Miles said to Savich, “So all of a sudden, your brain just announced—bang!—the killer was a counter clerk at Trailways?”

  Savich looked blank until Sherlock said, “I was telling them about the Detroit case, Dillon.”

  He nodded. “The cops had questioned all the employees at Trailways, but they didn’t spot this guy as a viable suspect. Well, I’d just been giving it a lot of thought, that’s all, and I took a guess. I asked them to follow this guy for three days.”

  “What happened?” Katie asked, spellbound.

  “He picked out our undercover agent, who was really twenty-six years old but looked fifteen, as his next victim. We got him.”

  “Okay, Dillon, what’s the brain flash this time?”

  He smiled at Sherlock, then shook his head at the others. “Too soon for me to say. Now, the big question. It’s Tuesday, what do you want to do, Miles?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I guess I need to stay here for a while longer,” and he looked over at Sam and Keely.

  Savich saw that he was pissed, frustrated, and nearly at the end of his tether. “Both of you,” he said, “keep us informed.”

  Katie became suddenly aware that both Sam and Keely were all ears, down to the last licks on their cones. “Finish your ice cream, kids,” she said, and wiped a bit of chocolate chip off Keely’s mouth.

  26

  At eight o’clock that evening, at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Savich stood beside FBI Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland, waiting for the police chief of Oxford, Maryland, to turn the mike back over to them. The police chiefs from all three jurisdictions were lined up behind the podium, trying to look confident in front of all the blinding lights and the shouted questions.

  Standing beside the chiefs were the three victims’ husbands: Troy Ward, looking sad and puffy in a bright blue suit; Gifford Fowler, skinny as a post, standing with a big black Stetson in his hands; and Crayton Maddox, a successful attorney, looking as pale as a ghost, still in shock. He’d managed to dress himself in a Saville Row suit that had to have set him back a couple thousand dollars. Looking at the man now, Savich thought back to the meeting he and Sherlock had with him only two hours before, at his home in Lockridge, Virginia.

  He and Sherlock had driven to Lockridge High School in Lockridge, Virginia, an affluent suburb favored by many upper-level government employees. The crime investigators, local and FBI, were still there, and six officers were keeping the media behind a police rope.

  Police Chief Thomas Martinez met them in the principal’s office and said without preamble, “The janitor spotted a small leak late Monday afternoon, in the boiler room. He repaired it, then said he couldn’t sleep for worrying so he came back early this morning, before six o’clock, to see that everything was still holding.” The chief stopped and grimaced. “He smelled something. It was Mrs. Maddox, one of our five math teachers. Evidently she’d stayed late to grade some test papers because she and her family were leaving for the Caribbean in the morning. Her husband said he’d talked her into leaving because of the two killings. In any case, she never made it home. Her husband called us around nine o’clock last evening, scared out of his mind. He’d called her cell, gotten no answer. We searched nonstop for her. The janitor found her. Come this way.”

  It was not a pretty sight. Mrs. Eleanor Maddox, not above thirty-five, two children, and a whiz at teaching geometry, had been shoved in beside the boiler. Because the weather was cool the boiler had fired up, and that was why the janitor had smelled her body. She’d been shot right between the eyes, up very close, just like the other two women.

  Chief Martinez said, “The forensic team finished up about three hours ago. The ME said if he had to guess, it was a .38, just like the other two. He also said that this time, the guy had moved her here after he’d shot her.”

  “No witnesses?”

  “Not a one, so far.”

  “Not even a strange car in the vicinity?”

  He shook his head. “No. I have officers canvassing the entire neighborhood. No one saw a thing. Basketball practice and the student club meetings were over, so there weren’t any other students or teachers around that we know of.”

  Sherlock said, “I guess he didn’t want her found right away. What does the husband have to say, Chief?”

  The husband, Crayton Maddox, was a big legal mover and shaker in Washington, his forte forging limitless access to politicians for lobbying groups willing to pay for the privilege. Exactly what that meant, Mr. Maddox didn’t explain, and Savich, cynical to his toes, didn’t ask. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening, but Mr. Maddox was still wearing his robe. There were coffee stains on the front of it. He was wearing socks, no shoes. He looked like he’d been awake for a week, and none of those waking hours had been pleasant.

  Crayton Maddox said, “I called all her friends, all the teachers she worked with, I even called her mother, and I haven’t spoken to that woman in nearly two years.” He stopped a moment, tears choking him, and stared at Savich. “God, don’t you see? This just isn’t right; it shouldn’t have happened. Ellie never hurt a soul, not even me, and I’m a lawyer. She planned on working until we left for the Caribbean, even though I tried to convince her to stay home, not take any chances. Why did he kill her? Why?”

  Savich had no answer. “I know you’ve already spoken to Chief Martinez, and he’ll give us all the details. We’re here to ask you to join us at a press conference in a couple of hours at FBI Headquarters. I know you’ll want to hear about all that’s being done and it would be helpful to us if you came. I think it’s importan
t that the world see victims’ families, see what devastation this sort of mindless violence can cause. Mr. Ward and Mr. Fowler, the first two victims’ husbands, will be there. Will you join us, Mr. Maddox?”

  Crayton Maddox bent his head and, to Savich’s surprise, didn’t ask a single question. Then he said, “Did you know that I called Margie, my assistant? She was here before seven o’clock this morning. She knows everything, that’s what I told Chief Martinez, everything about both me and my wife.” He paused a moment, glanced down at his Rolex, then out the living room window. “Good God, it’s dark outside.” He looked up at them. “I’m usually about ready to come home from my office at six o’clock in the evening. Ellie always got home around four o’clock. She wanted to be here when the kids got home.”

  They heard crying from upstairs, a woman’s soothing voice. The children, Sherlock thought. There’d been no children involved in the first two killings. Why had the killer changed?

  “My mother-in-law,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling. “Margie called her and she was here in ten minutes. I guess we’ll have to start speaking again.” He stood, all hunched forward, like he hadn’t moved in far too long. “I’ll be at your press conference, Agent.”

  Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland nodded to Savich, then stepped to the podium. He spoke of the cooperation among the three police departments, spoke of the activity by the FBI at the crime scenes, and repeated the hot-line number for any information on the killings. He finished his words to the roomful of reporters with “And this is Special Agent Dillon Savich, chief of the Criminal Apprehension Unit of the FBI.”

  Most of the reporters knew who Savich was. Jimmy Maitland barely had time to shut his mouth before several reporters yelled out together, “Agent Savich, why is he killing math teachers?”

  “Since all the victims are women, do you think it’s a man?”

  Savich stepped up to the podium, said nothing at all until the room was quiet, which was very quickly. He knew many of them were jotting down descriptions of him and of the grieving husbands. He said, “Mr. George, you asked why is he killing math teachers, and Mr. Dobbs pointed out that all the victims have been women. Yes, we believe the killer is a man. As to why he’s doing this, we have some ideas, but it’s not appropriate to discuss all the possibilities with you at this stage in the investigation.”