The Beginning

by Catherine Coulter

  “She a nice chicky?”

  “I think so.”

  “She’s got a weird name.”

  “Lacey isn’t at all weird.” Where had the attempt at humor come from?

  “Hey, maybe you’re not a bad chicky after all. Oh my God. You’re looking beyond ripe, Savich. Ms. Lily wondered if you and Quinlan were tough enough to do this stuff.” Marvin was out the door in that moment, racing down the porch steps. Lacey saw him, a giant of a man, help Dillon into the weathered porched house.

  “You do look like dirt-shit, boy,” Marvin told Savich as he laid him down on the long sofa. “Don’t you move now. Let Marvin check out those ribs of yours. Good thing I had nine brothers. I’ve bandaged some ribs in my day. But you know, I don’t bandage anymore. I’ve stayed up with medical strides. Nope, don’t do anything now except to tell you to take it easy. They’re not broken, Savich, but you sure got some cracks in there. My third brother, Tomalas, now that boy had broken ribs. We used to tell him jokes just to see him laugh and groan at the same time.”

  Savich’s eyes were closed. He didn’t say a word, just listened quietly to Marvin’s rich, low voice drawling out his words until you thought the sentence would never end. He suffered Marvin, who appeared to be surprisingly gentle, his big black hands moving slowly and expertly over Savich’s chest.

  “Nothing’s broken, Marvin. I’m bruised, that’s all. I’m glad you’re here. Is Ms. Lily all right?”

  “Ms. Lily is always all right. She won five hundred dollars last night in a poker game off this black smart-ass goon from Cleveland. Yeah, she’s real happy. You look like Ms. Lily got pissed at you and smacked you but good. She smacked me once and I was laid out like you are now. Took me damned near three days to pull myself together again.”

  “Ms. Lily owns the Bonhomie Club,” Sally said to Sherlock. “I’ve got a painkiller for him, Marvin. What do you think?”

  Savich said without opening his eyes, “Sally, give me whatever you’ve got and I’ll kill dragons for you.”

  “My hero,” Sally Quinlan said and disappeared into the small kitchen.

  “Don’t be so loose with that,” Quinlan called after her. “I’m your main hero, remember?”

  Sherlock watched Marvin’s big hands move over Savich’s body, pulling slightly here and there, kneading, pressing. Finally, he rose, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “You’ll live, boy, but I don’t like this at all. You and Quinlan, you two shouldn’t have such dangerous day jobs. You boys are just too soft, too trusting. There are lots of mean fuckers out there. I should know, I bounce them out of the club nearly every night.”

  “It was a brown Ford Taurus, license number 429JRD, a 2001, I think.”

  Savich opened his eyes at that. “You sure, Sherlock? All I got was the RD. Hey, that’s really good. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “You jerk, I was worried about you.”

  “I’ll run it now,” Quinlan said and went to the phone. Sally returned with a pill and a glass of water.

  Ten minutes later, Savich’s eyes were shut. Sally covered him with a blanket. Marvin took off his shoes.

  “He’s got nice feet,” Sally said.

  “What he’s got is big feet,” Marvin said. “Look at these suckers, Chicky, they’re size twelve.”

  Both women looked up. Marvin looked from one to the other. “Well, ain’t this a kick? I’ve never had this problem before.”

  Sally said to Sherlock, “Marvin calls every female Chicky, except for Ms. Lily of course. How about your mother, Marvin?”

  “She’s the Big Chicky. Nobody screws with the Big Chicky, even my dad. You can go to Sally now, but she’s still Chicky.”

  “I don’t mind at all.”

  “Chicky Savich,” Dillon said slowly, relishing the sound. “Talk about strange. I don’t know if I can deal with that. But you know, it’s not as bad as Chicky Sherlock.”

  “We thought you were asleep. How do you feel, Dillon?” Sherlock leaned over him, her fingertips lightly touching his dark eyebrows, the bruise on his cheek.

  “Alive.”

  “Yes, that’s good. You’re kind of out of it, aren’t you, Dillon?”

  “No, not at all. I hurt enough still to keep me out of the ether.”

  “You don’t know what you just said, do you?”

  “Yeah, I know what I just said. It does sound strange, don’t you agree?”

  “I think,” Sherlock said very slowly, staring down at the man who’d become more important to her than anything or anyone in her life, “that I could get used to it, until Marvin gets to know me well enough to call me Sherlock.”

  “Good,” Savich said. “I hadn’t really meant to bring it up here, at this particular moment. It lacks suavity and timing. It just came out of my mouth. How about I try it again later, when three people aren’t staring at us?”

  “Yes, I think that would be an excellent idea.”

  His head fell to the side. He was out cold this time.

  “Chicky Sherlock Savich,” Marvin said slowly. “Yeah, that’s so funny it would make Fuzz’s mouth split from laughing so hard.”

  “I prefer Sherlock Savich,” Sally said. “That’s unforgettable. With a name like that maybe they’d make you director one day.”

  Some minutes later, Quinlan said from across the room as he dropped his phone back in his shirt pocket, “The car was rented to a Marlin Jones. Paid for in cash, but he presented them with a credit card with his name on it, and a driver’s license.”

  “I don’t like this,” Sherlock said, her face washed of color. “I really don’t like this at all. But wait, the picture couldn’t have matched, could it?”

  James Quinlan said, “The guy said the picture was real fuzzy, but since the name was the same, the guy’s age was about right, what the hell? So who knows?”

  “Jones. Marlin Jones? Hey, that’s the serial killer, isn’t it?” Marvin the Bouncer asked as he set an old issue of the Economist magazine back down on the coffee table. “I thought he was in the can, in Boston.”

  “He is,” Sherlock said. “I spoke to him yesterday. He’s in the can, probably in maximum security. He brought his fists down on his lawyer’s temple. Knocked him out cold. Actually, as we were driving here, the news reported the first thing Big John Bullock said when he regained consciousness was, ‘I’m going to get that little bastard off so I can kill him.’ Then he passed out again. The doctors think it’s a concussion.”

  “The guy’s a real comedian,” Quinlan said.

  “I don’t think he was concussed,” Sherlock said. “I know Big John meant every word.”

  “I was hoping it would be one less lawyer,” Sally said from the kitchen. “James, come out and help me. Everyone needs to have some dinner. It’s nearly five o’clock.”

  “I’ll go catch us some bass,” Marvin said. “Where’s the rods, Quinlan?”

  “Why’d the guy hit his lawyer?” Sally asked Sherlock, looking up from the carrot she was alternately cutting and eating.

  “He told him to shut the fuck up because he’d admitted to me that he’d killed the women in San Francisco. Marlin went nuts. Evidently he doesn’t like bad language from men either. I wish the cops had shot him then and there.” She sighed, her hands clasped between her knees. She rose slowly. “I guess I’d better call Mr. Maitland. I’m afraid he’s going to be really upset about this.”

  SAVICH was mending. All he had to do was lie quietly, not breathe deeply, keep his eyes either closed or focused on Sherlock, and he’d be fine. Sherlock Savich. Boy, that had a real ring to it. He couldn’t wait to get her alone and kiss her. Then he could ask her to marry him again, only this time it would be properly done.

  The pain in his ribs and hip and ankle came in waves, not really big surfing kind of waves, just small ones that were rhythmic, steady, and relentless.

  He felt her hand on his cheek. “I have another pain pill for you. Open up.”

  He did. Soon the pain was n
othing but an annoying throb that didn’t even touch his mind. “Good stuff,” he said.

  “The best,” Quinlan said. “It’s from our favorite doctor.”

  “Ah, Dr. Ned Breaker.”

  “He said give him a call if you need him to drive up and check you out.”

  “Let’s call him,” Sally said. “Savich, you really don’t look so hot.”

  “I’m feeling better by the minute,” Savich said. “Really. I’m not stupid. Everything’s okay.”

  “You ready for something to eat? Marvin caught three bass, good-size suckers. I gutted them and Sally fried them.”

  Savich thought he’d puke right there. The thought of anything fried went right to his belly and turned nasty.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said, lightly cupping his cheek in her hand. “We’ll have the good stuff and Dillon here can have some soup. Got any chicken noodle, Sally?”

  Sherlock didn’t want to leave him alone. She slept beside the sofa on three blankets, close enough to hear him breathing.

  THE next morning, she came into the house to see Dillon standing at the small bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. He was drinking a cup of tea. He needed to shave.

  “You’re not dead.”

  He grinned at her over the rim of his cup. “Nope, but I appreciate you sleeping guard beside me all night. You know what might be fun, Sherlock? We could strip naked and have a bruise-off contest. I might be catching up with you. How’s your left side?”

  “Hardly any bruising at all. How could Marlin Jones have rented the car, Dillon?”

  “Obviously someone else did, using his name. You and I are going to California tomorrow, okay?”

  “No, not until you’re back to your full strength. I’m not going to take any more chances with you.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  She walked to him, lightly kissed his mouth, then pulled up his shirt. “I’ll be objective. Now, I think my ribs looked more like the Italian flag than yours do.” He felt her fingers on his flesh, light, so light, not hurting him at all, skimming over his flesh, and to his own blessed wonder, he got hard. He didn’t mean to say it, but the words just came right out of his mouth. “Do you think you could go a bit lower?”

  Her fingers stopped cold. Then, she laughed. “Dillon, I’m going to fly us First Class, all right?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be okay by day after tomorrow, I swear it. We’ll have a day to make some plans with Quinlan.” He sucked in his breath and stared at her.

  Her fingers had gone beneath the waistband of his slacks, way beneath. He didn’t know about this, didn’t know if he was going to start crying or shouting or moaning, and not from any pain in his ribs. He was going to die, lose it, be premature, the whole thing. But then it was academic. Marvin came into the house, singing at the top of his lungs.

  “Sorry,” Sherlock said and kissed his ear.

  He sighed deeply. “Do you think maybe I did something really bad in a former lifetime?”

  “You’re breathing awfully hard, Dillon.”

  “Hey, Chicky, what’d you do to our boy here?”

  “I was just checking him out. Just like you did, Marvin.”

  “I doubt that, Chicky. I surely doubt that. More like you tortured the poor man but good.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sherlock stared at the doorbell for a long time before she rang it. Savich didn’t say a word, just looked beyond the Art Deco three-story mansion to the incredible view of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate, and the stark Marin Headlands in the distance. The day was sunny and cool, so clear and vivid it made your eyes sting. There were dozens of sailboats on the Bay. The air was crisp and sharp.

  A middle-aged black woman, plump, very pretty, her eyes bright with intelligence, opened the door, gasped, and grabbed Sherlock into her arms. “My baby, it’s you, it’s really you. Thank God you’re home. They’ve been telling me for weeks that you’d come home and now you’re here. But I’d begun to believe that you’d finally turned your back.”

  Sherlock hugged her back. Isabelle had been more her mother than the woman upstairs in her elegant bedroom had ever been. She’d been the Sherlock housekeeper and cook since before Lacey was born. “It’s good to see you, Isabelle. You all right? Your kids okay?”

  Sherlock drew back and looked carefully at the fine-boned face, a beloved face that radiated warmth and humor.

  “Things are fine with my family, but they aren’t too good here, Lacey, no, not too good at all. Your daddy’s all quiet and keeps to himself. Your mama never comes out of her room now, stays there and looks at those ridiculous talk shows, best I can tell. She says she wants to write a book and send it to Oprah so Oprah will recommend it and your mama will become really rich and leave your papa. Hey, who’s this guy with you?”

  “This is Agent Dillon Savich. He’s also with the FBI, and my boss. Dillon, this is Isabelle Tanner. She’s the one who told me how wicked boys were just after my sixteenth birthday. She’s the one who told me to keep out of Bobby Wellman’s Jaguar.”

  “You should have listened to her.”

  “Oh, Lordie. You mean you let that boy crawl all over you in that little Jaguar, Lacey? Oh goodness, I thought I’d won that one.”

  Savich shook her hand. “Ms. Isabelle, I promise you that Sherlock here hasn’t gotten into any more cars since the Jaguar. You taught her well.”

  “You call her Sherlock,” said Isabelle, clasping her arms beneath her ample breasts. “That sounds funny, but cute too. Well, come on in. I’ll get you some fine tea and some scones that just came out of the oven.”

  “Who is it, Isabelle?”

  Isabelle’s face grew very still. Slowly, she turned and called out, “It’s your daughter, Mrs. Sherlock.”

  “No, Belinda’s dead. Don’t do that to me, Isabelle. You’re cruel.”

  “It’s Miss Lacey, not Belinda.”

  “Lacey? Oh. She said she was coming back but I didn’t believe her.”

  Isabelle said quickly, “Don’t look like that, Lacey. It’s just a bad day for her, that’s all. Besides, you haven’t been around in a long time.”

  “Neither has Belinda.”

  Isabelle waved away her words. “Come into the living room, honey.” She turned to the stairs that wound up to the second-floor landing. “Mrs. Sherlock, will you be coming down?”

  “Naturally. I’ll be there in a moment. I must brush my teeth first.”

  The house looked like a museum, Savich thought, staring around the living room. Everything was pristine, thanks probably to Isabelle, but stiff and formal and colder than a Minnesota night. “No one ever sits in here,” Sherlock said to him. “Goodness, it’s uninviting, isn’t it? And stultifying. I’d forgotten how bad it was. Why don’t we go into my father’s study instead. That’s where I always used to hang out.”

  Judge Sherlock’s study was a masculine stronghold that was also warm, lived-in, and cluttered, stacks of magazines and books, both paperback and hardcover, on every surface. The furniture was severe—heavy, dark brown leather—but the look was mitigated by warm-toned afghans thrown everywhere. There were lots of ferns in front of the wide bay window that looked out onto the Bay in the distance. There was a telescope aimed toward Tiburon. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected. What he had expected, he wasn’t certain, but it wasn’t this warm, very human room that had obviously been nurtured and loved and lived in. Savich took a deep breath. “What a wonderful room.”

  “Yes, it is.” She pulled away and walked to the bay windows. “This is the most beautiful view from any place in San Francisco.” She broke off to smile at Isabelle who was carrying a well-shined silver tray. “Oh, Isabelle, those scones smell delicious. It’s been too long.”

  Savich had a mouthful of scone with a dab of clotted cream on top when the door opened and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in his life walked in with all the grace of a born princess. She was, pure and simply, a stunner, as his father
used to say about a knockout woman. She also didn’t look a thing like Sherlock. Where Sherlock had lovely curly red hair, her mother had blond hair as soft and smooth and rich as pale silk. Sherlock’s eyes were a warm blue; her mother’s, a brilliant green. Sherlock wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t fragile, fine-boned, not more than five foot three inches tall, like her mother. Sherlock was wearing a dark blue wool suit with a cream turtleneck sweater, all business. Her mother was wearing a soft peach silk dress, her glorious hair pulled back and held with a gold clip at the nape of her neck. There was nothing overtly expensive about her jewelry or clothing, but she looked well-bred, rich, and used to it. There were very few lines on her face. She had to be in her late fifties, but Savich would have said forty-five if he hadn’t known that she’d had a daughter who’d be in her late thirties now, if she hadn’t been murdered.

  “So you’re Dillon Savich,” Mrs. Sherlock said, not moving into the room. “You’re the man who spoke to her father on the phone after I said to Lacey that he’d tried to run me down with his BMW.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He walked to her and extended his hand. “I’m Dillon Savich. Like your daughter, I’m with the FBI.”

  Finally, after so long that Sherlock thought she’d die from not breathing, her mother took Dillon’s hand.

  “You’re too good-looking,” Mrs. Sherlock said, peering up at him for the longest time. “I’ve never trusted good-looking men. Her father is good-looking and look what’s come of that. Also I imagine that you are built splendidly. Are you sleeping with my daughter?”

  Savich said in that smooth interview voice of his, “Mrs. Sherlock, won’t you have a cup of tea? It’s rich; Indian, I believe. As for the scones, I’m certain you’ll enjoy those. They’re delicious. Isabelle is a wonderful cook. You’re very fortunate to have her.”

  “Hello, Mother.”

  “I wish you hadn’t come, Lacey, but your father will be pleased.” Her voice was plaintive, slightly reproachful, but her beautiful face was expressionless. Did she never show anger, joy? Anything to change the look of hers?