Whiplash

'Caskie,' she whispered through her tears, 'it must be Caskie. He must have come home. He had to be hiding from me, just like you thought he would, Agent Sherlock. I think they killed my boys' father, they killed my husband.'

S avich and Sherlock found Caskie Royal's body in the huge laundry room at the end of the hall, sprawled on a pile of dirty sheets and towels, shot through the head. The large window over the dryer was open, the white curtains flowing inside, pushed by the night wind.

There was blood everywhere.

42

Friday at dawn

Bowie said, 'Mrs. Royal's Smith and Wesson hasn't been fired. And none of the brass the team found were from a Smith and Wesson.'

Sherlock said, 'If you'd found her hiding in the closet, seen her terror firsthand, I don't think you'd have bothered checking out her S-and-W.' She looked over at Erin, who stood against the side of her rented Taurus, bent forward a bit, probably feeling the burn on her back. She'd parked as close as she could get to the front of the Royal house. She looked shell-shocked. Sherlock said, 'I told her not to come, but I'm not surprised she's here.' Sherlock paused a moment, saw the blood in Bowie's eyes, and added, 'She's amazing. She can't be feeling all that hot.'

Erin wasn't feeling much of anything. It was just past dawn, so she could finally see all the people going in and out of the Royal house, beyond the glare of the huge spotlights. The coroner's van was still parked directly in front of the house, but not for much longer-two men were carrying out a large green bag that held Caskie Royal's body. He's dead, she thought-just like that-

a living, breathing person is dead. Just like you could have been, dead and in a green bag, if you hadn't jumped out of your Hummer in time. Only a matter of seconds, close, too close- She realized she was shaking and forced herself to breathe slowly, in and out. She saw plainclothes agents examining the grounds surrounding the house, looking for footprints, she supposed, and Sherlock speaking to Bowie.

Bowie stared over at her. She could tell from thirty feet that he wasn't happy. Of course she'd awakened when 'Jingle Bells' blasted into the silence at three-forty a.m. She'd wanted to leap out of bed and see what was going on, but instead, she held herself still and listened to him search around for his cell phone. She almost shouted to him that he'd left it beneath the sports section of the newspaper. She heard nearly a full verse before he found his cell and 'Jingle Bells' abruptly cut off. She heard him talking to Sherlock in a low voice, then heard him moving around, and after a few minutes, she heard the front door close quietly. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, got to her feet, and nearly fell over. She grabbed the bedpost and stood there, hunched over. She swallowed a Vicodin, and that blessed wonder drug finally got her together. She called Sherlock, and when at last she'd felt able to drive safely, she'd carried Georgie to the car, her back cussing at her all the way, and headed for the Royal house.

Bowie stared at her, hands on hips, then trotted over. 'You idiot,' he said from four feet away in mid-trot. 'I can't believe you even managed to get yourself out of bed at dawn and truck over here.'

'I didn't truck, I Taurused,' and she waved her hand at her rental car, and tried for a smile.

'Don't you try to jolly me out of being mad. Agent Lewis called to tell me you were on your way, and then he had the gall to tell me not to worry, said he and Tucker were right behind you and he'd keep an eye out for any bad guys. He told me not to worry about Georgie either, she was sound asleep.'

He reached out his hands to shake her, saw she really wasn't in very good shape, and backed off. To cap it off, she was shivering beneath her black leather jacket. The early morning was cold, the sky filled with gray clouds pressing down signaling rain. He pulled off his own leather jacket and laid it around her shoulders. 'No, be quiet. I'll be fine. Okay, Erin, this better be good-what the devil are you doing here? Where'd you stash Georgie?'

'Don't yell at me, you'll wake her up,' and Erin nodded over her shoulder.

Naturally, he had to look into the back seat to see his daughter lying on her side, her face against her open palm, two blankets tucked securely around her, covering her to her ears. She was dead to the world. She was a good sleeper, his kid. 'I've been wondering how you knew where to come.'

She had the nerve to shrug. 'No biggie. After you left, I called Sherlock and she told me what happened.' She waved her hand toward the big house. 'I'm sorry, I didn't want to disturb Georgie, but I had to come, and I knew I couldn't leave her. She never woke up, Bowie, and I worried about that, after last night when she was so upset with us for yelling at each other.' She paused a brief moment, tried another smile. 'I don't know how you thought of it so fast, but telling her I was an idiot and you were going to make me iron her clothes for her really calmed her fast. That was well done.'

He opened his mouth to blast her again, but what came out was, 'You wait, Georgie will hold you to it.'

'Yeah, she just might.' Erin said, looking back toward the house. 'What happened here, Bowie, it's unbelievable. Jane Ann's husband, he was alive, you interviewed him, you even knew the minute he ran away at that rest stop. And now he's just-dead, like I almost was.

'I talked with Jane Ann Royal Wednesday with Sherlock, and she was open and smart and sophisticated. She knew what her husband was, and laughed about it, showed off her tennis instructor. All buff and young, she told us, that's how she liked them, but she loved her sons, Bowie, you could tell that right away.'

She was talking really fast now, and Bowie let her. She was scared and shocked to her heels, and she needed to get it all out.

'I had to come, Bowie,' she said again. 'Sherlock only had time to tell me the basics because someone was calling her.'

She shivered in his jacket and pulled it closer. He held on to his mad like a lifeline. 'Then how did you know-' He kicked the tire on one of the local officer's patrol cars. 'You heard my cell and you listened, didn't you?'

'It's not every night you jerk awake to Bing belting out 'Jingle Bells.' How could I not listen through the thin apartment walls? Actually, you didn't say all that much. I only heard there was trouble and that's why I called Sherlock.'

He looked very close to snarling. 'I don't understand why it took you so long to get here. You should have been on my heels.'

'I had to take a pain med, let it kick in, and there was Georgie. I'm okay now, really. Agent Lewis and Agent Tucker are right over there, standing against their car. They stuck with me all the way here. I'm not an idiot, Bowie, I wouldn't ever put Georgie in danger. Would you stop being pissed off and tell me what happened? Look at Chief Amos, he's coming this way. He looks pretty shaken.'

Chief of Police Clifford Amos looked more than shaken, he looked like he'd been run over by a Mack truck. Two murders and a Hummer blowing up in his town in a matter of days. He'd followed Bowie out of the house, noticed him talking, of all things, to Erin Pulaski, his attempted murder victim. He was tired, and he was angry. 'Here now,' he called out, 'what are you doing here? You're a civilian, you've gotta leave. You shouldn't even be able to walk, not after that Hummer of yours blew itself up all over one of my neighborhoods. You asking to get yourself killed?'

Bowie saw Erin was ready to smart-mouth the chief of police, and that was something he surely didn't need at the crack of dawn. He knew the chief was scared, as well as angry; he was scared himself. He said, 'Sorry about this, Chief. I should have told you. I asked her to come. She's acting as a consultant for us. She and Agent Sherlock interviewed Mrs. Royal. We need her here.'

Chief Amos wasn't happy to hear that, but he preferred standing here stripping the hide off this damned dance teacher to being back in that stomach-twisting blood-and-gore crime scene. At least Caskie Royal wasn't lying in the middle of those sheets anymore, his brains splattered on the washing machine. He felt bile rise in his throat just thinking of it. He hadn't puked when he'd seen that German guy, Helmut Blauvelt, naked, his face bludgeoned to bits, no fingers, just bloody stumps, but it was close, and he'd sure enough been off his feed for nearly a day. Now this. Seeing Caskie Royal was different because he'd known him. He was a snooty bastard, but now he was very