SHE walked out of the doctor’s building the following afternoon, trying to put up her umbrella in the face of a sharp whipping wind and swirling rain—hard, heavy rain that got you wet no matter what you did. It was cold and getting colder by the minute. She got the umbrella up finally, but it was difficult because her arm was still very sore. She stepped off the curb, trying to keep herself covered, and started toward her car, parked down the block on the opposite side of Union Street.
Suddenly she heard a shout, then a scream. She whipped about, the wind nearly knocking her over, her umbrella sucked out of her hand. The car was right on her, a big black car with dark tinted windows, a congressman’s car, no, probably a lobbyist’s car, so many of them in Washington. What was the fool doing?
She froze in that blank instant, then hurled herself back onto the sidewalk, her sore arm slamming into a parking meter.
She felt the whoosh of hot air even as she went down half into the street, half on the sidewalk. She twisted around to see the black car accelerate and take the next corner in a screech of tires. She lay there staring blankly after the car. Why hadn’t he stopped to see if she was all right? No, naturally, the driver wouldn’t have stopped—he’d probably be arrested for drunk driving. Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet. Her panty hose were ruined, as were her shoes and clothes. Her hair was plastered to her head and over her face. As for her healing arm, it was throbbing big-time now. Her shoulder began to hurt, as did her left leg. At least she was alive. At least she hadn’t been farther out into the street. If she had been, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.
She’d gotten three letters of the license plate—PRD. Now that she thought of it, it hadn’t been a government license.
People were all around her now, helping her to straighten up, holding umbrellas over her. One gray-haired woman was fussing, patting her here and there, as if she were her baby. She managed to smile at the woman. “Thank you. I’m all right.”
“That driver was an idiot, a maniac. The man over there called the cops on his cell phone.”
A businessman said, “Miss, do you want an ambulance? That guy could have killed you!”
She held up her hands. The rain pounded down on her. “No, no ambulance, please. I’m all right.”
The cops were coming soon; she didn’t have much time. She was on her cell phone dialing Savich’s number. He wasn’t there. Hannah answered. Where was Marcy, Savich’s secretary? She didn’t need Hannah, not now, but there was no choice.
“Hannah, I need to know where Dillon is. Do you know? Do you have a number for him?”
“No. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Hannah, listen to me. Someone just tried to run me down. Please tell me how I can get hold of him.”
Suddenly Ollie was on the line. “What happened, Sherlock? Marcy’s down in the lunchroom. Hannah and I are covering Savich’s phone. Someone tried to run you down? What happened?”
“I’m all right, just really dirty and wet. I’m right in front of Dr. Pratt’s building. Dillon knows the location, since that’s his doctor, too. Please tell him where I am. Oh dear, the police are here.”
It was nearly an hour before Savich strode up and knocked on the window of her Explorer. He was very wet. He looked very angry, which wasn’t right. He didn’t have any right to be angry yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately, as she opened the passenger door, “I didn’t know who else to call. The cops left about twenty minutes ago. My car wouldn’t start.”
He slid into the passenger side. “Good thing this is leather or the cloth would stay wet for weeks. Now tell me what happened.”
She did, saying finally, “It sounds pitiful. I think whoever was driving lost it. Maybe he was drunk. When he realized he could have killed me, he didn’t want to hang around.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Well, no, I don’t either. The police are certain it was a hit-and-run. I did see the first three letters of the license plate—PRD. They said they’d check it out. They laughed when I showed them my FBI shield, just laughed and laughed.”
“Who knew you were going to see Dr. Pratt?”
“Everyone in the office. It wasn’t a secret. I even met Mr. Maitland in the hall, three clerks, and two secretaries. All of them asked about it. Oh no, you don’t think it was on purpose, do you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know anything. I really like this car. I’m glad you didn’t let your little designer buy it for you. He’d have gotten you one of those dainty little Miatas. How’s your arm?”
“Fine. I just banged it against a parking meter. I went back up to see Dr. Pratt and he checked it out.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much, shook his head and suggested I might consider another line of work. He said being president was a lot safer than what I did. He put the sling back on for another couple of days. Why won’t my car start?”
“If it stops raining, I’ll take a look.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “As I said, I don’t know anything or think anything particular at the moment. If someone tried to kill you, then you’ve brought me into another mess. And don’t call me ‘sir’ or I’ll pull off that sling and strangle you with it.”
She was much calmer now, her breath steady, the deadening shock nearly gone. “All right, Dillon. No one would have any reason to hurt me. It was an accident, a drunk driving a big black car.”
“What about Douglas’s wife?”
“All right, so I did think about her, but that’s silly. She was angry, but surely not angry enough to kill me. If she wanted to kill somebody, she would pick Douglas, not me. The cops pushed me on it and I did give them her name, but no specific circumstances. I noticed those faint white lines on your finger pads. What are they from?”
“I whittle. Sometimes the knife slips and you cut yourself. No big deal. Now, that’s really good. A jealous wife would really make them laugh. It’s not raining as much. Let me see what’s wrong with the Explorer.”
Nothing was wrong. She’d flooded it.
“I should have thought of that,” she said, annoyed and embarrassed.
“You’re excused this time.”
“So it was an accident. I was scared that you’d find the distributor cap missing or the oil line cut.”
“It doesn’t have to have been an accident. It’s possible it was on purpose and if it was, you know what the guy intended, don’t you?”
“Yes, to obliterate me.”
Savich tapped his fingers on the dashboard. “I’ve always thought that trying to hit someone with a car wasn’t the smartest or most efficient way of whacking your enemy. On the other hand, it’s a dandy way to scare someone. Yeah, that sounds about right. If, on the other hand, someone did want to kill you, then I wonder why the car came at you when you’d just stepped off the curb and into the street. Why didn’t the guy wait until you were nearly to your own car? You’d have been a perfect target then. That doesn’t sound too professional. All the planning was in place, but the execution was way off.” He shrugged. “As of this point in time, we haven’t the foggiest notion. I’ll run those three letters of the license plate through MAXINE and see what she can dredge up.”
“MAXINE? You got another computer?”
“No. MAXINE used to be MAX. Every six months or so there’s a sex change. I’ve had to accept the fact that my machine is a transsexual. Pretty soon, she’ll start insisting that I compliment her when I’m working with her.”
“That’s crazy. I like it.”
“Now, back to the accident—”
“It was an accident, Dillon. That’s what the police think.”
“On the other hand, they don’t know you. Now, see if this wonderful ski-hauling four-by-four will start.”
She turned the key and the Explorer fired right up. “Go back to the Bureau, Sherlock, and drink some of Marcy’s tea. That’ll fix you up. Oh yeah—stay away from Douglas Madigan and his wife. Don’t
you call him. I will. Where is he staying?”
SHE sat propped up against pillows in bed, the TV on low, just for background noise, reading the police and autopsy reports on Belinda. She didn’t realize she was crying until the tears hit the back of her hand. She laid down all the pages and let herself cry. It had been so long; the tears had been clogged deep inside her, dammed up, until now.
Finally, the tears slowed. She sniffed, then returned to the reports. Tomorrow she would consult with MAXINE to see if there were any differences, no matter how slight, between Belinda’s killing and all the others. She prayed with all her might that there wouldn’t be a smidgen of difference. Now that she’d studied the reports, she hoped to be able to see things more clearly.
On the edge of sleep, she wondered if indeed Candice had tried to run her down. Just as her father had tried to run down her mother? No, that was ridiculous. Her mother was ill, had been for a very long time. Or maybe her mother had said that because of what her husband had said so casually about Belinda and her father. It had come out of left field. Who knew?
Of course Douglas had called her, furious that she’d given Dillon his cell number. It took her ten minutes to talk him out of coming over to her town house. He said he’d spoken to Candice, who’d been visited by the police. He was outraged that anyone would believe she had tried to run down Lacey. It had been an accident.
“I wouldn’t be leaving unless I was certain it was an accident, Lacey. I want you to be certain, though, that it wasn’t Candice.”
“I’m certain, Douglas.” She’d have said her tongue was purple to get him off the phone. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Go home.”
“Yes, I am. I’m taking Candice home too.”
Now that sounded interesting, but she was too tired to ask him to explain.
THE next morning, Big John Bullock, Marlin Jones’s lawyer, was on FOX, telling the interviewer, a drop-dead gorgeous guy who looked like a model right out of GQ, that the FBI and the Boston police had forced Marlin to confess, that he hadn’t known what he was doing because he’d been in so much pain. He would have said anything so they’d give him more medication. Any judge would throw out a confession made under those circumstances.
Was Marlin guilty? the gorgeous young hunk asked, giving the audience a winning smile even as he said the words.
Big John shrugged and said that wasn’t the point. That was for a jury to decide. The point was the police harassment of the poor man, who wasn’t well either mentally or physically. Sherlock knew then that if the judge didn’t suppress the confession, Big John would go for an insanity plea. The evidence was overwhelming. Sherlock knew that when the lawyer saw all the evidence against Marlin, he’d have no choice but to go for an insanity plea.
Sherlock stared at the TV screen, at that model interviewer whose big smile was the last thing on the screen before the program skipped to a toothpaste commercial. She’d been a fool. She should have shot Marlin straight through the heart. She would have saved the taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars. It would have been justice and revenge for all the women he’d butchered.
By the next afternoon, MAXINE hadn’t come up with a thing. There were no differences at all in Belinda’s killing versus the other women’s. Only tiny variations, nothing at all significant.
She felt better. Belinda would finally find justice, if the little psycho ever made it to trial. A psychopath wasn’t crazy, necessarily, even not usually. But who else knew that? Then she pictured him with Russell Bent of Chicago, both of them playing cards in the rec room of the state mental institution, both of them smiling at each other, joking about the idiot liberal judges and dumb-ass shrinks who believed they weren’t responsible for their savagery because they’d had bad childhoods.
She had to stop it. There was nothing more she could do. Her father was right. Douglas was right. It was over. It was time to get on with her life.
NINETEEN
“It had to be Marlin Jones.”
“It seems likely, but you don’t sound as if you’re really satisfied.”
“I’m not, but MAX—oh, I forgot, he’s in drag—MAXINE—didn’t turn up a single variation in the way Belinda was murdered as opposed to the other women. Marlin killed them all; he had to have.” She sighed. “But why did he leave out Belinda in particular; It makes no sense.”
“I’m glad you’re not satisfied. I’m glad you have that itch in your gut,” Savich said slowly, tapping his pencil on his desktop, deliberately. “You’ve inputted all the physical data and run endless comparisons, but there are other aspects you need to take into account. Now you’ve got to finish it.”
She was frowning ferociously. A long, curling piece of hair flopped into her face. She shoved it behind her ear, not even aware of what she was doing.
He smiled as he said, “MAXINE and I have been doing a little work. It’s her opinion that we need to go back to the props. Okay, think now about how he killed the women. Think about what he used to kill them and where he killed them.”
“A knife.”
“What else?”
“He killed them in warehouses and in a couple of houses. He obviously prefers warehouses; there aren’t as many people around at night.”
“What did he use?”
“He built props.”
“Just the way Marty Bramfort was building props for her kid’s school play in Boston. Think about what you had to do to build those props.”
She just stared at him, then leaped to her feet, her hands splayed on his desktop, her chair nearly falling over backward. Her face was alight with excitement. “Goodness, Dillon, he had to buy lumber, but the SFPD said they couldn’t trace it, it was too common. But you know a better question: Is it possible to know if the same lumber was used in all the killings, that is, was all the lumber bought in the same place? Okay. He had to screw all those boards together, right? They couldn’t trace all the brackets and hinges and screws, but is there any way of knowing if someone screws in a screw differently from someone else? If the slant is different? The amount of force? Is this possible? Can you tell if some lumber matches other lumber from the same yard? The same screws?”
He grinned at her. “I don’t see why not. You’ve got it now, Sherlock. Now we’ve got to pray that the San Francisco police haven’t thrown away the killer’s props from each murder. Actually, I’d be willing to bet they’ve got it all. They’re good.
“Say they still have everything. Unfortunately MAXINE can’t help us here; not even using the most sophisticated visual scanners would work. We’ve got to have the human touch. I know this guy in Los Angeles who’s a genius at looking at the way, for example, a person hammers in a nail. You wondered if this was possible. It is. Not too many people know how to do it, but this guy does. You could show him a half dozen different nails in boards and Wild Burt could tell you how many different people did the hammering. Now we’ll test him about not only hammering nails but screwing in the brackets and hinges. Now go find out if you’ve still got a match.”
THREE days went by. It was hard, but Savich kept his distance. He’d given her Burt York’s number—Wild Burt—nicknamed ten years before when a suspect in a murder case had tried to kill him for testifying and Burt had saved himself with a hammer. Unexpectedly, the suspect had survived. He was now serving life in San Quentin. Savich had heard there was still a dent in his head.
No, he’d keep his mouth shut, at least for another day. To do anything active would be undue interference, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it. If she had questions, she’d ask; he knew her well enough to know that she didn’t have a big ego. He forced himself not to call Wild Burt to see what was going on. He knew, of course, that the SFPD hadn’t done any comparisons of this sort, simply because they’d never had any doubts that all the murders had been committed by the same person. Also, this kind of evidence wasn’t yet accepted in a court of law. He found himself worrying. As for Sherlock, she didn’t come near him. He knew
from the security logs that she had worked until after midnight for the past two nights. He was really beginning to grind his teeth when she knocked on his office door three days later at two o’clock in the afternoon. She stood in his doorway, saying nothing. He arched an eyebrow, ready to wait her out. She silently handed him a piece of paper.
It was a letter from Burt. He read: “Agent Sherlock, the tests I ran included: 1) type of drill used, 2) drilling and hammering technique, 3) type and grade of lumber, and 4) origin of lumber.
“The drill used in all the San Francisco murders except #4 was identical. However, the drill used in murder #4 was too close in particulars for me to even try to convince the D.A. that it wasn’t identical. As to the drilling and hammering technique, it is odd, but I believe some was done by the same person and others were not. They were utterly different. No explanation for that. Perhaps it’s as simple as the murderer had hurt his right hand and was having to use his left, or that he was in a different mood, or even that he couldn’t see as well in this particular instance The lumber wasn’t identical, and it did not come from the Bosman Lumber Mill, South San Francisco. Again, it doesn’t really prove anything one way or the other, it is merely of note, although again, I wonder why only murder #4 had lumber from a different lumberyard.
“This was an interesting comparison. I’ve spoken to the police in San Francisco. The San Francisco D.A. is speaking with the Boston D.A. They will doubtless have comparisons made between the props used in the San Francisco murders and the props used in Boston. I don’t doubt that even though the lumber can’t be identical, the technique will be, and thus perhaps the presiding judge will allow it to be used as evidence in Marlin Jones’s trial, if and when the man stands trial.
“So, the bottom-line results of my test are inconclusive. There are differences, aberrations. I must tell you that I have seen it happen before, and for no logical reason.
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