“You don’t put up a mansion in Wrightsburg without lakefront access. They have the whole point plus about twenty more acres. Their dock is a ways from the main house. In fact, you can’t even see the mansion from the lake. I think they designed it that way so there wouldn’t be gawkers coming by on boats all the time. They use golf carts to come and go.”
“What a life.” She squinted against the intense sunlight. “Who’s that out there on the sailboat?”
King grabbed his binoculars and zeroed in on the skipper of the other boat. “Savannah.” He pondered for a moment, then fingered the throttle forward and steered toward the sailboat.
“What are you doing?”
“Going fishing.”
They drew close to the sailboat that was little more than a Sunfish. Savannah had one hand on the tiller and the other on a can of Coke. She waved when she saw who it was.
“Great minds think alike,” called out King.
Savannah had a long tank shirt on over her two-piece bathing suit. Her hair was wet and pulled back in a ponytail, and her shoulders and face had already started to redden from the sun.
“The water’s amazing,” she said.
“Sean won’t go in until it hits bathwater status,” said Michelle.
“Don’t know what you’re missing, Mr. King,” said Savannah.
“Well, I could be tempted if you two were to join me.”
They each took a minute to drop their anchors, and then first Savannah and then Michelle dove in. When they came up, King was still sitting on his boat’s swim platform, his feet dangling in the water.
“What are you doing, Sean?” said Michelle.
“I said I could be tempted, not that I’d actually do it.”
Michelle and Savannah looked at each other, a silent communication passing between the two women. They both went under the water. When they came back up next to where King sat, each had one of his feet in her hands.
“Oh, no, you—,” began King. Whatever else he was about to say was lost as he was pulled into the lake and immediately went under. He came up spitting water and cursing loudly.
“These aren’t swim trunks!” he shouted.
“They are now,” replied Savannah smugly.
After a half hour in the water they navigated their boats to the dock and sat in the gazebo drinking beers that Savannah fetched from the bar fridge.
Michelle looked around at the mountain and water vistas. “Quite a view.”
“This is really my favorite part of the whole place,” said Savannah.
King eyed the Battles’ collection of boats. “I’ve been out on the big Sea Ray cruiser, but I don’t remember that Formula 353 FasTech. It’s a beauty.”
“Daddy had just bought it last winter. The marina folks came and prepped it for summer. We haven’t even put any hours on the engine yet. Eddie’s the real boater in the family. I just like to ride on them and catch some sun and drink beer. Eddie said he’d take it out soon and break it in. I understand it’s really fast, got some monster engines.”
King said, “I’ll say, twin five-hundred-horsepower Merc EFIs; a top speed north of seventy and a cruising speed at right about double nickels. Tell Eddie I’d be glad to help him break it in.”
“My, my,” Savannah said in an exaggerated southern accent, “and here I was having such a dee-lightful time on my little old no-horsepower sailboat.”
“It’s clearly a guy thing, Savannah,” commented Michelle, shooting her partner an amused glance. “I didn’t know you were so into racing boats.”
“It’s easy to be when you can’t afford them.”
There was a bit of silence, and King slowly put down his beer and looked at the youngest Battle with a serious expression.
“You didn’t come here just to admire me in my bikini and lust over our boats, did you?” she asked, returning his gaze with a hopeful look that held out the possibility that that indeed was all he was interested in.
“We do have some questions to ask you.”
Savannah immediately looked away and her expression became pained. “Sally?”
“Among other things.”
“That’s one reason I came down here to go sailing, to get away from it.” She shook her head. “I’ll never get that out of my head. Never. It was so awful, Sean, so awful.”
He put his hand over hers and squeezed for a moment before letting go. “But it only gets worse if we don’t catch the person who did it.”
“I told Todd and Agent Bailey everything I know. I didn’t even know Sally was in the stables until…”
“And then you ran to your brother’s home?” said Michelle. Savannah nodded. “Dorothea answered the door. How did she seem?”
“I don’t really remember. I was hysterical. I remember her going to get Eddie, but then she couldn’t wake him. Then all hell broke loose. I just stood over by the door the whole time. I was afraid to move. When they came and got Eddie, I ran back to my room and pulled the covers over my head.” She put her drink down and went over and sat on the dock, her feet in the water.
King stared at her curiously. What the hell was gnawing at his brain, begging him to decipher it? He finally shook his head in frustration. It just wasn’t coming.
“Is your mother home?” he asked.
“No, she went out. Something to do with the lawyers and probate.”
“Would you mind if we took another look at the closets in your parents’ bedrooms?”
She swiveled around on her bottom to look at him. “I thought you already did that.”
“Never hurts to check a second time. It might help.”
They climbed in the golf cart Savannah had ridden down in and headed up to the house. Savannah led them in through the rear entrance and up the stairs to the third level.
“I keep telling Mama that if she’s going to stay here, she needs to have an elevator put in.”
“Climbing stairs is good exercise,” said Michelle.
“Don’t listen to her,” said King. “Get the elevator.”
Savannah opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and stopped dead. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “What are you doing in here?”
King moved past her and looked at Mason suspiciously.
The butler gazed back at them unperturbed. “Just tidying up your mother’s room, Savannah. The maids rarely do a good enough job.” Now he looked at King and Michelle with equal suspicion. “Can I help you with something?”
“Um,” began Savannah, her upper teeth biting into her lower lip.
“You’re dripping on the rug,” Mason pointed out.
“We were swimming in the lake,” explained Michelle.
“Nice day for it.” He continued to stare at them questioningly.
“We’re here to take another look at Remmy’s closet, Mason,” said King. “As part of the investigation.”
“But I thought because Mr. Deaver is dead that there’s no longer an investigation to pursue.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but that’s not actually the case,” said King politely.
Mason turned to Savannah. “Have you checked with your mother about this?”
King answered, “She took us through it once before, Mason. I can’t imagine she’d have a problem with a second time.”
“I always like to make sure of these things, Sean.”
“You see, because we know Junior didn’t do it and Remmy is now friends with his widow, it’s up to us to find out who did take those things. It’s in Remmy’s interest of course to see that happens. But if you want to call her and bother her while she’s with the probate lawyers, that’s fine. We’ll just wait right here.”
King could see Mason working through all this in his head. Finally, he shrugged. “I can’t see that it will hurt anything. Just try and keep things neat. Mrs. Battle is very particular.”
“Yes, she is,” said King.
Mason left, and they went immediately into Remmy’s closet and accessed the hidden drawer, e
xamining it minutely but finding nothing.
“Maybe you’ll have better luck in Daddy’s room,” said Savannah.
As they were leaving the closet, King stopped to look at some photos on the shelf across from Remmy’s bed. Savannah stood next to him.
“That’s me when I was twelve, fat and ugly. God, I can still feel those braces on my teeth.”
King held up another photo, an old one, with two babies in it.
Savannah pointed as she spoke. “That’s Eddie and Bobby Jr. I never knew him, of course; he died before I was born. No, I’m sorry, that’s Eddie on the left and Bobby Jr. on the right.” She still looked unsure. “Well, that’s embarrassing, not knowing your own flesh and blood.”
“Well, they were twins,” said King, putting the photo back.
They moved to Bobby’s bedroom but had no success there either, at least not at first. But as King went over the drawer inch by inch, he stiffened. “Can you get me a flashlight?” he asked Savannah.
“Mama keeps one in her nightstand in case the power goes out.” Savannah ran and got it.
King shone it in the drawer. “Look at this.” They all peered in.
“It looks like letters,” observed Michelle.
“That’s definitely a k, and either a c or an o.”
Michelle looked more closely. “Then there’s some space, and that’s a p followed by what looks to be either an a or an o.”
King straightened up, looking thoughtful. “It appears something was lying in this drawer, and those letters somehow stained the wood, imprinting it.”
“It might have gotten wet,” suggested Savannah.
King leaned in and took a long whiff of the drawer. He looked at Savannah. “Did Bobby drink in his room?”
“Daddy drink? He has a whole bar in that piece of furniture that looks like a credenza across from his bed. Why?”
“Because it smells like Scotch in the drawer.”
“That might account for the moisture,” said Michelle, who took a whiff. “He was looking at whatever it was, spilled his drink in the drawer, and the letters got transferred from the paper to the bottom of the drawer.”
King went into the bedroom and came back with a pen and paper he’d taken from Battle’s desk. He wrote the words down with the approximate spaces in between.
Kc____________________ pa, Ko____________________ pa, Ko____________________ po
“Kc-pa, Ko-pa, or Ko-po,” he said slowly. “Ring any bells?” Savannah shook her head.
“Obviously, there are letters we’re missing. If we were playing Wheel of Fortune, here’s where I’d ask for a couple of vowels,” said Michelle. “What do you think, Sean?”
He took a moment before answering. “Somehow this may be the whole key right here, if I can just think of what it means.”
Michelle had a sudden inspiration. While Savannah was scrutinizing the letters King had written down, Michelle whispered in her partner’s ear, “Maybe it’s from Battle’s holographic will that Harry thought might exist?”
None of them heard the bedroom door close quietly behind the person who’d been listening in. Nor did they hear the sound of soft footfalls moving down the hall to the stairway.
Chapter 80
Sean King sat straight up in bed like someone had frisked him with a cattle prod.
Seven hours! My God, seven hours! But not really seven hours, more likely longer than that. The seven-hour reference had made him think about Sally’s death. She had died barely seven hours after telling him about Junior. That was one major point. However, the seven-hour time difference had just now made him recognize a startling fact, so startling that with that one revelation everything else started tumbling into place.
He fumbled around and found his watch on the nightstand. It was one o’clock in the morning. He staggered out of his bed, tripped over something Michelle had carelessly left on the guest room floor and fell down grabbing at his big toe. He felt around and found the object. It was a twenty-pound dumbbell.
“For Chrissakes,” he yelled at no one in particular. He got up, rubbing his foot, and limped down the hallway to her bedroom. He was about to burst in when he thought better of it. Surprising Michelle Maxwell like that could earn him a one-way ticket to the morgue.
He rapped on the door. “Are you decent?”
A sleepy voice filtered through the one-inch wood of the door. “What?”
“If you still keep that fifty-caliber machine gun under your pillow, don’t pull it. I come in peace.”
He went inside and flicked on the light. She was sitting up in bed, rubbing at her eyes.
“I like your choice in lingerie,” he said, eyeing her baggy gray sweat suit emblazoned with the acronym WIFLE, which stood for Women in Federal Law Enforcement. “You wear that on your honeymoon, and your hubby will never let you out of bed.”
She looked at him irritably. “Is that why you woke me up, to critique my pajamas?”
He sat next to her. “No, I have something I need you to do while I’m gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“I’ve got some things to look into.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, I need you here. I want you to keep an eye on the Battles.”
“The Battles. Which ones?”
“All of them.”
“How exactly can I do that?”
“I’ll call Remmy and say that you need to ask some more questions. She’ll bring everyone together at her house, and that’ll make it easier for you.”
“What exactly am I supposed to ask them?”
“You’ll think of plenty of things, don’t worry.”
She crossed her arms and looked at him stubbornly. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I really need you to do this.”
“You’re keeping things from me again. You know I hate that.”
“I don’t know anything definite yet. But you’ll be the first to know. I swear.”
“Will you at least tell me what the things are you’re going to check into?”
“All right. I’m going to have a friend of mine look at Bobby’s autopsy results.”
“Why?”
“Next,” he said, ignoring her question, “I’m going over to UVA Hospital and do a little research into certain narcotics. Then I’m going to do a little antiquing.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Antiquing?”
“After that I’m going to visit Bobby Battle’s family physician. I have some questions to ask that might clear up a lot. Last but not least I’m heading to D.C. to purchase a certain device that might assist us greatly.”
“And that’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Gee, thanks for all your trust in me.”
He rose. “Listen to me, Michelle. If I told you exactly what I’m thinking and I turn out to be completely wrong, it might make you trust the wrong person. Until I know if I’m right or not, keep one thing in mind: until we catch this person, no one is your friend. And I mean no one.”
She stared back at him. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“No, I’m trying to keep both of us alive. We’ve already taken two shots. I don’t want the third to be the charm.”
Chapter 81
While King was having his late night epiphany and conference with Michelle, a man with murder on his mind had entered the residence of Jean and Harold Robinson. Wearing a black hood, he’d opened the basement-door lock and slipped inside. It was easy when one had a key, and he did, having used the impressions he’d taken at the shopping mall to create one. Before entering the house he’d cut off the phone lines. Inside, he moved quickly up the stairs, the layout of the home well known to him. There were four occupants, and he knew where each was located, having scouted out the residence several times. For good measure he’d also studied a schematic of the house that was conveniently displayed on the builder’s Web site.
As he’d deduced in the s
hopping mall where he’d first spotted the soccer mom Jean Robinson, the family had a security system but didn’t use it. The three children—the infant he had waved to in the van and two older boys—were asleep on the upstairs level. The wife and husband had a master suite on the main level, only the husband wasn’t home, which was why he was here tonight.
The heat came on with a shudder, flooding the house with gas-heated air. Under the cover of the sound he flashed down the hall to the master bedroom. He listened at the door for one-two-three beats. All he heard were the soft snores of Mrs. Robinson, waiting for him without even knowing she was. He opened the door and closed it softly behind him. His eyes had long since adjusted to the dark. Jean Robinson was a small lump on the left side of the California King bed. She wore a white sheer nightie. He’d been peering in her window when she was changing into it. She had a bad habit of not closing the blinds all the way and leaving the light on when she undressed. Because the window faced the backyard, she probably assumed it was private. She’d assumed incorrectly, of course, as most people did about having any privacy at all. There was always someone watching. Always.
She’d gotten back in shape quickly after her third child. Her tummy was flat once more, her breasts still large from nursing the infant, her legs slender, her butt fleshy but in a very attractive way. Her husband no doubt loved her, and they had a healthy sex life together. Yet what did that really matter to him? He wasn’t here to rape the woman, only to kill her.
The gag was stuffed in her mouth in an instant, cutting off any sound she might have made. After a second of confusion as to what was happening to her, every muscle in her body tensed. He pushed against her from behind, crushing her to the bed. Yet she was stronger than he would have thought; she fought back. Her hand reached back, gripped the hood and pulled it off.
He panicked and slammed her head against the hard wood of the headboard, once, twice, a third time, until he felt her go limp. Once more into the solid oak, and he thought he heard her skull fracture, if one could hear such a thing. While one forearm levered into the back of her neck, his free hand frantically sought out his hood. He found it gripped in her fist. Yanking it free, he pulled it back on. Putting his arm under her small waist, he lifted her completely off the bed and slammed her headfirst against the wood one final time.
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