“But all three times were emotional, the kinds of meetings that draw people together. I really liked her, too, I really did.” He drew a deep breath, kissed her again. “Why did he feel he had to kill her?”
“This time, we don’t even know. Maybe she knew something after all, and he was afraid she was going to break. And she did break, she called you. Oh God, Mr. Maitland brought in the agents too soon.”
“It was after Justice Califano’s funeral, everyone believed it was over.”
Ben stood alone in the archway of the living room. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s something I forgot to tell you. When Callie and I went to see Fleurette at the Supreme Court Building this morning, only Eliza was there. She was cleaning out Justice Califano’s stuff, and constantly answering the phone, really harried. We spoke for just a few moments. Before we left, I asked her if there was anything I could do. She hesitated, I’m sure of it. She looked sort of undecided, like there was something on her mind, but then the phone rang again and she waved us out. Damn, Savich, I didn’t think anything about it.”
“So maybe she did know something,” Sherlock said. “But what? And he was there, in the condo, with her. Do you think he let her pick up the phone, dial you, speak to you?”
Savich said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe he needed to take a risk again, and so when he heard her on the phone to me, that was it, this time. And then he garroted her, just like Justice Califano and Danny O’Malley.”
Sherlock said against Dillon’s neck, “And Fleurette was helpless, just like Eliza.”
“Yes,” Ben said. “She did have a gun, a twenty-two revolver, but he wouldn’t have given her the chance to get to it.”
Sherlock said, “Eliza was strong, probably stronger than Danny O’Malley. She must have fought him.”
Both Ben and Savich were silent for a moment. Ben felt Callie come up behind him. He hadn’t heard her, but somehow he knew she was there. She leaned against him, but said nothing.
Savich said, “Yes, I’ll bet she did fight him, fought him as hard as she could. They took her to Quantico. Dr. Conrad went out there to do the autopsy. Since we were there so quickly, I doubt Gunter took the time to remove all evidence of himself. Maybe we’ll be lucky and she managed to scratch him. Something, all we need is something.”
They sat together, listening to the low buzz of conversation coming from the kitchen. Savich looked up to see that Ben and Callie had gone.
Suddenly, they heard a cry from Sean.
As one, they looked up. “Life goes on,” Savich said as he slowly rose, bringing Sherlock with him. Sherlock straightened, scrubbed her hands over her face, and went up with him to see what had awakened Sean.
FBI HEADQUARTERS
SATURDAY MORNING
DR. CONRAD TACKED up a blow-up photo of Eliza Vickers on the corkboard behind him. “Eliza Vickers fought hard. She was a big woman, one hundred fifty pounds, strong and very fit.” He pointed to her hands. “She has defensive cuts, and she injured him at least once, scored some of his skin off. We can’t be certain yet, but the skin was probably from his neck or face. It was under her nails along with some of his blood, and there had been no attempt to clean it off. You said he was laughing when he left, Agent Savich, but he had to be hurting, too, and bleeding. He had to know he was leaving us evidence.”
Savich said, “He was laughing because he knew I heard him killing her. He did that on purpose.”
Dr. Conrad continued. “We have easily enough for DNA analysis, and as soon as that is complete, we will try to find a match, not just through domestic databases, but through Interpol.”
Agent Frank Halley said, “Okay, he had to get the hell out of Dodge, so he didn’t have time to clean up after himself. The profilers might be right, though, the guy is so damned arrogant, he might not have cared, just blew us off.”
“That’s possible,” Jimmy Maitland said. “Anyone who uses Gunter Grass as an alias is about as egotistical as any killer I’ve ever seen.”
Savich heard Sherlock’s cell phone play the beginning bars of
He watched her face as she listened, then said, her voice urgent, “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Don’t force his hand. Don’t hurt him.” He was stepping toward her as she jumped to her feet. “Dillon, we’ve got to go, now. It’s Samantha’s boy, they’ve found him, and there’s trouble.”
Jimmy Maitland didn’t hesitate. “Samantha’s son? Tell me later. Go, but you call me when you get back, okay?”
Savich nodded, even as he was running for the conference room door. “Ben, Callie, you’re with us.”
As they raced from the elevator toward their cars in the garage, Sherlock said, “I had the Boston field office put out an alert on the name Austin Douglas Barrister. If it turned up, I was to be called immediately. That was Chief Howard Gerber of the Petersboro, Maryland Police Department. He said they have a hostage situation, a man inside a house with his wife and two children. The Hostage Rescue Team was trying to talk him out when the guy yelled out that his name wasn’t Martin Thornton, it was Austin Douglas Barrister. Chief Gerber realized he’d just read that name, looked it up, and called me. I told him we’d be there as soon as we could.”
“Don’t lose us,” Savich shouted to Ben and gunned the Porsche out of the garage.
Savich headed the Porsche north on the Beltway. Sherlock said to him as well as to Ben on her cell phone, “The siren is great, Ben. We want to get there as fast as possible. Until we got this break, we couldn’t locate Austin Barrister. It was like he disappeared off the face of the earth. Neither the Boston field office nor MAX could track him down.
“Okay, now, it looks like Petersboro is about ten miles due west of Alston, Maryland, off 270. We’re about forty-five minutes away, particularly with you, Ben, sitting on the siren. We’ll probably get there with a four-car escort.”
Ben said, “I’m with you. Tell Savich we’re right behind him, at least I’m trying. That Porsche is something.” Ben laughed as he shut down his cell.
Savich said to his wife, “You didn’t tell me you’d put a tag in the system.”
“Yep, I didn’t really think it would result in anything, but who knew?”
Savich shook his head, amazed as always with her ingenuity, signaled, and passed a Beemer at one hundred miles per hour. “So he’s been using the name Martin Thornton since he ran away from Boston.”
“Yes. The Hostage Rescue Team was probably calling his name over and over, you know how they do— Martin, do you hear us, Martin?—and he must have cracked and shouted out his real name.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Thank God for a police chief who remembered the alert and acted quickly on it.”
Inside the Crown Vic, Callie watched the traffic whiz by them, cars pulling over quickly as they neared, looking almost as if they were standing still. When they reached a clear stretch, all she could see of the Porsche was a flash of red.
“More pedal to the metal,” Ben said, and soon the Porsche came back into sight.
“This is the strangest day of my life.”
“You really think this is a strange day?”
“Don’t arch that supercilious eyebrow at me, Ben Raven. First I’m allowed in a meeting on the sacred fifth floor of the FBI building, and the next thing I know, we’re chasing Savich’s Porsche to Maryland to find this guy who’s the son of a woman who was murdered thirty years ago.”
“That’s why I went into law enforcement,” Ben said, “the excitement. It’s nonstop.”
“Yeah, right, so you say. The cops I’ve talked to usually whine about how boring it is—on the phone and the computer all day.”
They rounded a bend and the Porsche accelerated forward out of a curve. “My oh my,” Ben said. “Be still my heart. That car can go, just look at it.”
Callie laughed at him. “So get yourself one—to go with your truck.”
“Would you prefer I picked you up in a Porsche or a truck?”
“Now we’re going on a date? You’re asking me my car preference?”
He shrugged. “It might be fun in the truck. You and my dog could hang out the window, tongues lolling in the wind. Well, at least it could be fun in the summer. Now, about a Porsche—I’d probably get so many speeding tickets I’d get drummed off the force.”
