“Your brother realized before I did they’d probably try something. You met Agent Colin Smith. Your brother got the SAC here in Eureka to send him to watch over us.”
She sighed. She was exhausted, doubted that any part of her would move, even if she begged. “Yeah, I realized he was a guard for us. I sure wish he’d caught them before they set the fire.”
“He does, too. He’s really beating himself up. He was calling in his boss, Clark Hoyt, last time I saw him. Hoyt will probably be here soon. I’ll bet you he’s already called Savich.”
“At four o’clock in the morning?”
“Good point.”
“It’s really cold, Simon.”
He was sitting on a lawn chair that a neighbor had brought over. He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping the blankets around both of them. “Better?”
She nodded against his shoulder and whispered, “This really sucks.”
He laughed.
“You know, Simon, even Remus wouldn’t go so far as to do this sort of thing. Someone so desperate, so malevolent, they don’t care how many people they kill? That’s really scary.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it is. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“You got mugged in New York so soon after you left Washington. These people work really fast. I’m beginning to think it’s Olaf Jorgenson behind all this, not the Frasiers, like you said. How would the Frasiers have even known about you or where you were?”
“I agree. But you know, the guy didn’t try to kill me, at least I don’t think he did.”
“Probably a warning.”
“I guess. This wasn’t a warning. This was for real. We’re in pretty deep now, Lily. I’ll bet you Clark Hoyt isn’t going to let us out of his sight for as long as we’re in his neck of the woods.”
“At this point I’m glad. No, Simon, don’t say it. I’m not about to leave you alone now.” She fell silent, and for a little while he thought she’d finally given out. Then she said, “Simon, did I ever tell you that Jeff MacNelly was my biggest influence for Remus?”
Who was Jeff MacNelly? He shook his head slowly, fascinated.
“Yes, he was. I admired him tremendously.” When she realized he didn’t have a clue, she added, “Jeff MacNelly was a very famous and talented cartoonist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes skewering politicos. But he never once said that they were evil. He died in June of 2000. I really miss him. It upsets me that I never told him how much he meant to me, and to Remus.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Lily.” He realized then she was teetering on the edge of shock, so he pulled another blanket around her. It was too much even for her. Her life had flown out of control when she’d married Tennyson Frasier. He couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through when her daughter had been killed and she’d managed to survive months of depression. And then all this.
Lily said, “Jeff MacNelly said that ‘when it comes to humor, there’s no substitute for reality and politicians.’ I don’t like this reality part, Simon, I really don’t.”
“I don’t either.”
Washington, D.C.
Hoover Building
Savich slowly hung up the phone, stared out his window a moment, then lowered his face to his hands.
He heard Sherlock say, “What is it, Dillon? What’s happened?” Her competent hands were massaging his shoulders, her breath was warm on his temple.
He raised his head to look up at her. “I should have killed her, Sherlock, should have shot her cleanly in the head, like I did Tommy Tuttle. This is all my fault—that boy’s death in Chevy Chase, and now this.”
“She’s killed again?”
He nodded, and she hated the despair in his eyes, the pain that radiated from him. “In Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.”
“Tell me.”
“That was Jimmy Maitland. He said the police commissioner received all our reports, alerted his local officers, waited, and then a local pharmacist was murdered, his throat cut. The place was trashed, impossible to tell what drugs were taken, but we know what was stolen—pain meds and antibiotics. They don’t have any leads, but they’re combing the island for a one-armed woman who’s not in good shape. No sign of her yet. Not even a whiff. Tortola isn’t like Saint Thomas. It’s far more primitive, less populated, more places to hide, and the bottom line is there’s no way to get to and from the island except by boat.”
“I’m very sorry it happened. You know she’s gotten ahold of a boat. By now she’s probably long gone from Tortola, to another island.”
“It’s hard to believe that no one’s reported a boat stolen.”
“It’s late,” Sherlock said. “E-mail all the other islands, then let it go for a while. Let’s go home, play with Sean, then head over to the gym. You need a really hard workout, Dillon.”
He rose slowly. “Okay, first I’ve got to talk to all the local cops down there, make sure they know what’s happened on Tortola, tell them again how dangerous she is.” He kissed her, hugged her tightly, and said against her temple, “Go home and start playing with Sean. I’ll be there in a while. Have him gum some graham crackers for me.”
Quantico, Virginia
FBI Academy
Special Agent Virginia Cosgrove cocked her head to one side and said, “Marilyn, it’s for you. A woman, says she’s with Dillon Savich’s unit at headquarters. I’ll be listening on the other line, okay?”
Marilyn Warluski, who was folding the last of her new clothes into the suitcase provided by the FBI, nodded, a puzzled look on her face. She was staying in the Jefferson dorm with two women agents, just starting to get used to things. What did Mr. Savich want from her now? She took the phone from Agent Cosgrove and said, “Hello?”
“Hi, sweet chops. It’s Timmy. You hot for me, baby?”
Marilyn closed her eyes tight against the shock, against the disbelief. “Tammy,” she whispered. “Is it really you?”
“No, it’s Timmy. Listen up, sweetie, I need to see you. I want you to fly down here, to Antigua, tomorrow; that’s when I’ll be there. I’ll be at the Reed Airport, waiting for you. Don’t disappoint me, baby, okay?”
Marilyn looked frantically over at Virginia.
Virginia quickly wrote on a pad of paper, then handed it to Marilyn. “Okay, I can do it, but it’ll be late.”
“They treating you all right at that cop academy? Do you want me to come up with the Ghouls and level the place?”
“No, no, Tammy, don’t do that. I’ll fly down late tomorrow. Are you all right?”
“Sure. Had to get me some more medicine on Tortola. Lousy place, dry and boring, no action at all. Can’t wait to get out of here. See you tomorrow evening, baby. Bye.”
Marilyn slowly placed the phone in its cradle. She looked blankly at Virginia Cosgrove. “How did she know where I was? I need to call Dillon Savich, but it’s really late.”
Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland called Dillon Savich to mobilize the necessary agents. He got it done in two hours and set himself up to coordinate the group leaving for Antigua.
Maitland called in the SWAT team at the Washington, D.C., field office because they were bringing this all down very possibly in an airport, and there could always be trouble. He told Savich, “Yeah, I threw them some meat and they agreed to come out and play. We got one team, six really good guys.”
Vincent Arbus, point man for the team, built like a bull, bald as a Q-tip, and many times too smart for his own good, looked at Savich, then at Sherlock, who was standing at his side, and said in his rough, low voice, “Call me Vinny, guys. I have a feeling that we’re going to be getting tight before this is all over.
“Now, how did this crazy one-armed woman know that Marilyn Warluski was holed up in Jefferson dorm at Quantico? How did she get her number?”
“Well,” Savich said slowly, not looking at Sherlock, “I sort of let it be known. Actually, I set the whole thing up.”
EIGHTEEN
Eureka, California
Mr. Monk was gone, his office left looking as if he would be returning the next day. There were no notes, no messages, no telltale appointments listed in his date book, which sat in the middle of his desk. There was no clue at all as to where he’d gone.
Nor was he at his big bay-windowed apartment on Oak Street. He hadn’t cleaned out his stuff, had apparently taken off without a word to anyone.
Hoyt said to Simon when he opened his hotel room door, “He’s gone. I stood in the middle of that empty living room with its fine paintings by Jason Argot on the white walls, with its own specialized lighting, and I tell you, Russo, I wanted to kick myself. I knew we should have covered his place, but I didn’t. I’m an idiot. Kick me. There’s got to be a clue somewhere in there about where his bolt-hole is. Or maybe not, but I haven’t found a bloody thing. Really, Russo, kick my ribs in.”
“Nah,” Simon said as he zipped the fly on his new jeans and threaded his new belt. He waved Hoyt into his deluxe room with its king-size bed that took up nearly three-quarters of the space. Lily was right through the adjoining door. They were staying at the Warm Creek Lodge, both with an ocean view from one window and an Old Town view from the other. “I appreciate your checking him out for us first thing, since Lily and I didn’t have any clothes at all. Though I wouldn’t have minded paying the jerk a visit myself. Good thing I left my wallet in my jeans pocket last night or we’d be in really deep trouble. Actually, if the credit card companies hadn’t sent me replacement credit cards after my wallet was stolen in New York, we’d still be in deep trouble. We’re all outfitted now, real spiffy. What about Monk’s car? Any sign of it?”
“We’ve got an APB out on it—a Jeep Grand Cherokee, ’ninety-eight, dark green. And we’re covering the Arcata airport. We’ve sent out alerts as far down as SFO, though I don’t think he could have gotten that far.”
“Problem is, we don’t know when he bolted. Don’t you think it would be better if you issued a tri-state airport alert?”
“Yeah, good idea. I’m thinking he probably got scared. I doubt he has a fake ID or a passport. If he tries to take a flight, we’ll nail him.”
Simon nodded. “Would you like a cup of coffee? Room service just sent some up with croissants.”
Clark Hoyt looked like he would cry. He didn’t say another word until he’d downed two cups of coffee and eaten a croissant, smeared with a real butter pat and sugarless apricot jam.
When Lily came in a few minutes later, Simon smiled at the sight. She looked even better than he’d imagined. She was wearing black stretch jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and black boots. She looked like a fairy princess who was also a cat burglar on her nights off. Clark Hoyt, when he rose to greet her, said, “Quite a change from how you looked early this morning. I like all the black.”
Lily thanked him, poured herself a cup of coffee, and watched him eat a second croissant. He filled Lily in on what they hadn’t found so far.
Hoyt said, “I called Savich back at Disneyland East and filled him in. He made me swear on the head of my schnauzer, Gilda, that you guys didn’t have a single singed hair on your heads. It was arson, all right, but no idea yet who the perps were or who hired them.”
“Disneyland East?” Lily asked, an eyebrow up.
“Yep, just another loving name for FBI headquarters. Hey, thanks for breakfast. You guys still smell like smoke. It’s really tough to get it all out. I should know, I was overenthusiastic with my barbeque last summer and lost my eyebrows, although my face was so black you couldn’t tell. Lay low; keep out of sight until I get some news for you, okay?”
IT was early afternoon when Hoyt came to get them from the lodge. Mr. Monk hadn’t tried to fly out of harm’s way. Actually, he hadn’t flown anywhere. He was quite dead, head pressed against the steering wheel, three bullets through his back. The Jeep was in a sparse stand of redwood trees, and some hikers, poking around, had found him.
Lieutenant Larry Dobbs of the Eureka Police Department knew the situation was dicey, that it involved a whole lot more than this one body, and even the FBI was involved. He agreed to let Clark Hoyt bring out the two civilians, after the crime scene had been gone over.
Simon and Lily stood looking at the Jeep. “They didn’t really try to hide him,” she said. “On the other hand, it could have been a long time before someone accidentally came upon him. God bless hikers.”
“The medical examiner estimates he’s been dead about seven hours, give or take,” said Clark Hoyt. “He’ll know a lot more after the autopsy. Our lab guys will crawl all over that Jeep to see what’s what. Ah, here comes Lieutenant Dobbs. You’ve met, haven’t you?”
“We’ve spoken on the phone,” Simon said and shook Dobbs’s hand. Simon saw quickly enough that the lieutenant was impressed with how Clark Hoyt deferred to him.
“Do you think he was with someone?” Lily asked both men. “And that someone killed him and then moved his body to the driver’s side?”
Lieutenant Dobbs said, “No. From the trajectory of the bullets, there was someone, the shooter, riding in the backseat, behind Monk. Maybe someone else riding in the passenger seat. I don’t know. Maybe Monk knew they were taking him out to kill him. But if so, why did he calmly pull over? Again, I don’t know. But the fact is he did pull off the road into the redwoods, and the guy in the backseat shot him.”
Simon and Lily were given permission to walk over the area. They looked everywhere, but there wasn’t anything to see. The hikers had made a mess of things in their initial panic. There were five cop cars and two FBI cars adding to the chaos. There weren’t any tire tracks except the Jeep’s, which meant that the other car must have stayed parked on the paved road.
Lieutenant Dobbs eyed Simon and Lily and said, “Agent Hoyt tells me you guys are involved in this up to your eyeballs. Let me tell you, you two have brought me more woes than I’ve had for the last ten years, beginning with that jerk who attacked you on the public bus, Mrs. Frasier. Oh, yeah, Officer Tucker found Morrie Jones a couple of hours ago, holed up in a fleabag hotel down on Conduit Street.”
“Keep him safe, Lieutenant,” Lily said. “He was part of this, too, as was Mr. Monk. And look what happened to him.”
“You got it.” Lieutenant Dobbs said then, “You know, it hasn’t been all bad. I’ve met Hoyt here, a real federal agent and all, and I haven’t had to watch Wheel of Fortune with my wife. I haven’t had a single bored minute since I got that first call from you guys. Only bad thing is this body over there. A body’s never good.” He sighed and waved to one of the other officers. He said over his shoulder, “Clark, try to keep these two out of more mischief, all right? Oh, yes, I’m going to be interviewing all the Frasiers, including your husband, Mr. Tennyson Frasier. Maybe it’ll scare them, make them do something else stupid. I understand you’ve already tried, got them all riled up. Now let’s see how they handle the law.” He waved toward the body bag containing Mr. Monk. “This wasn’t a bright thing to do.”
“Don’t forget Charlotte Frasier, Lieutenant,” Lily said, “and don’t be fooled by that syrupy accent. She’s terrifying.”
Hoyt said, “Then I’m going to wait until the lieutenant is through with them, wait until they’re nice and comfortable at their homes in Hemlock Bay again, and then I’m going to pay them a little visit and grill them but good. Savich has sent me lots of stuff. I’ve been speaking to some of our representatives in Sacramento, checking real close into Elcott Frasier’s financial situation. Lots of conflicting info so far, but there’s been a lot of flow in and out of his accounts there. Something will shake loose; it usually does. Oh, yeah, I heard that Elcott Frasier has hired Mr. Bradley Abbott, one of the very best criminal lawyers on the West Coast, to represent him and his family.” Hoyt rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be really interesting.”
As they drove back to Eureka, Simon was brooding. Lily recognized the signs. He looked single-minded as he drove, looking neither right nor left, saying nothing to Lily, who
was hungry and wanted to go to the bathroom.
“Stop it, Simon.”
That jerked him around to stare at her. “Stop what?”
“You’ve got a look that says you’re far away, like maybe the Delta Quadrant.”
“Yeah, I was thinking. About Abe Turkle. He’s a loose end, Lily, like Mr. Monk. So is Morrie Jones, but he’s in jail, and hopefully safe there. The lieutenant is going to put a guard on him.”
Lily said, “I forgot to tell you, when you and Hoyt were talking back there, Lieutenant Dobbs told me Morrie claims he doesn’t know a thing, that a couple of thugs hurt him when he was minding his own in a bar. He claimed no broad could ever hurt him. Oh yes, Morrie’s got a big-time lawyer. I wonder how much money Morrie’s being paid to keep his mouth shut.”
Simon said, “Can Lieutenant Dobbs find out who hired the lawyer?”
“I asked him if he knew. He said he’d sniff around. Now, Simon, you’re brooding because you think Abe Turkle might be in danger.” In that instant, Lily forgot she was hungry, forgot she needed to go to the bathroom. “You’ve just made my stomach drop to my knees. Let’s go see Abe, Simon.”
He grinned over at her, braked, and did a wide U-turn.
“Hey,” she said, “not bad driving. Won’t this piece of garbage go any faster?”
Simon laughed. “You’re the best, Lily, do you know that? Hey, I see someone doing another U-turn behind us. Must be our protection.”
“Good. Hope he can keep up with us.”
Simon laughed.
“My dad, Buck Savich, used to tell me that if I decided to become a professional bookie, I’d be the best in the business. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He’d say my eyes changed color whenever I lied, and if anyone noticed that, my days as a bookie would be over.”
“Your eyes are blue right now. What color do they go to when you lie?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never looked at myself in the mirror and lied to it.”
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