called up a map of Summerset, and it’s about ten miles north of the Plum River. We could have dialed her number, but Graciella thought we’d better tell you first. She said it’d be nice of us to leave something for you to do.”
Savich rose, walked to the boys, and hugged them close. They heard him say over Graciella’s laughter, “
You guys better teach Sean everything you know, all right?”
Ruth looked at Dix. “If the boys heard that, then this isn’t exactly what you’d call a private conference. Maybe they’d like to go outside with Graciella. I’m thinking a nice bribe is in order. Okay, Sherlock?”
Ten minutes later, Graciella was out the door, three boys at her heels, headed for the ice cream parlor on Prospect Street.
“Okay,” Savich said, sitting down again, “it’s time for you to give us an update on your Maestro investigation.”
“We’ve had to back off the embalming angle,” Ruth said. “There’s no way to track it to a specific purchase. The fluid is available everywhere, even traded as a street drug. Some people are suicidal or stupid enough to soak marijuana in it as a replacement for PCP.
“As for the BZ gas, I found out that even though they load a chemical like that into conventional bombs for warfare, it’s easily available to the public. Rob and Rafe could order it online. I checked some scientific journals on MEDLINE, and the drug seems to be an industry standard for research on some types of neurotransmitters. Thousands of labs around the world have a supply. Like embalming fluid, trying to track down purchases of BZ to Maestro is daunting.
“I did find out that when I was in the cave I didn’t necessarily have to breathe it in. It’s a contact hazard, too. I could have easily absorbed it through my skin if enough had settled on something I touched.”
Sherlock asked, “So where are you guys going to take it from here?”
“We’re starting to look for evidence of an undiscovered serial killer. We’ve checked a fifty-mile radius around Maestro for persons reported missing over the past five years and found nineteen.”
Sherlock said, “That sounds like a lot. Did you check it statistically?”
Dix nodded. “Yes, it’s almost fifteen percent higher than average for a predominantly rural area in Virginia. Most of them were young, and some of them may have been runaways. We got ahold of Helen Rafferty’s calendars, all safely filed in her office, and tried to match the dates the people were reported missing with Gordon’s out-of- town appointments.”
Ruth added, “Naturally, these are short distances, no overnights really necessary, meaning Gordon could have simply driven to a neighboring town, spotted the victim he wanted, and taken her.”
Dix said, “But we did find half a dozen trips out of town that overlapped with the disappearance of teenagers and young women in their early twenties. Of course, they could be coincidences.”
Sherlock tapped her fingertips on the table. “If a killer traveled to those towns to take someone, he could have been observed, maybe even seen with a victim.”
“Yes, of course,” Ruth said. “Dix sent several deputies out of town today to speak with the police in the towns around Maestro. We want them to know all the details about what’s happened in Maestro and what happened to Erin. They need to take a fresh look at all those cases, and talk to the families again.”
“You think it’s Gordon?” Sherlock asked.
Dix said, “It’s a tough call, particularly since he was my wife’s uncle, but Helen’s death especially points to someone local, someone who knows all the players.”
Ruth said, “For all his protestations, all his tears about Erin and Helen, Gordon was the closest to them.”
“At this point, there’s still no smoking gun,” Sherlock said. “You accuse Gordon, he’d get all huffy, even laugh at you, and he’d never speak to you again.”
“We need to develop something else,” Dix said, “some physical evidence, maybe a witness.”
Savich said, “In other words, you’re talking about lots of good old-fashioned police work. We’ve got personnel to help you canvass those towns you mentioned. I can call the Richmond SAC, Billy Gainer, to coordinate it with you.”
“Yes, that would be great.”
When Graciella brought the boys back, all of them on a sugar high from triple-scoop ice cream cones, Ruth decided it was a good time to head out. Sean got it into his head that he would be going with them, which required ten minutes of distracting him before they could leave.
CHAPTER 33
SUMMERSET, MARYLAND SATURDAY AFTERNOON
THE DAY WAS sunny and cold. The weatherman swore there would be no more snow until Tuesday, but no one believed it. Savich and Sherlock arrived in Summerset, Maryland, at three o’clock, and ten minutes later found 38 Baylor Street. Savich pulled Sherlock’s Volvo into the small driveway of a single-level tract house in a subdivision that had been folded into Summerset thirty years before.
“She’s been renting this house for a little over two years, since she turned twenty-three,” Savich said, studying the small lot with its straggly oak trees hanging partially over the house. “The man who owns it is a big- time woodworker and furniture builder. He employs her, too.”
Savich knocked on the freshly painted front door, framed by pretty pansy-filled flower boxes. There was no answer, no sound of footsteps. Savich knocked again. After a moment, he stepped back. “Okay, let’s check the garage. She drives a ’96 Camry. If it’s not there, odds are she’s not home.”
There was a window in the electronic garage door so Savich didn’t need to try to raise it. No Camry. Sherlock scratched her arm through the sling. “She could be anywhere.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “she could. But you know what? I don’t think Marilyn’s an anywhere kind of person. I’ve got an idea. Let’s go see if I’m right.”
A short time later Savich pulled onto a two-lane pothole-riddled asphalt road. Sherlock looked at the forest of maple trees, their branches naked and waving in the cold wind. “This looks familiar. You know, I’ll be glad to revisit the barn. It ended right there, all of it.”
He remembered the long-ago afternoon like it was yesterday. “We won that day. Those two boys they kidnapped won, too.”
Sherlock said matter-of-factly, “It’s ironic how Moses Grace has some things right and others dead wrong. It’s obvious he did all his research in the newspapers.”
“Yes, and he imagined the rest. Good heavens, would you look at this.”
The huge old barn, abandoned for decades, no longer looked dilapidated and derelict. The once-peeling clapboards were freshly painted a bright red and reflected the afternoon sun that speared through the maple branches. The garbage and machine parts that had once littered the outside of the barn were gone. Instead, there was a gravel path leading to the two large front doors. Sherlock said, “It doesn’t look like the same place. You think Marilyn’s done all this?”
“Who else? Look, one of the doors is propped open. She must be here.” Savich was smiling as he pulled the huge door wide. Sunlight poured in from the west. It was amazing, he thought, staring. It must have taken days to clear out all the moldy hay, the rusted equipment, the wooden troughs. The black circle painted in the middle of the floor that he remembered so clearly was gone. There was no dirt floor, either. It was covered with plywood. The walls had been Sheetrocked and painted, and the windows had glass in them again. The old barn smelled as fresh as the outdoors, with an overlay of new paint, sawdust, and wallpaper glue.
They walked back toward the tack room, noticed the dropped ceiling with new hanging lamps that sent out huge circles of light. The stairs at the far end of the barn leading up to the loft had been replaced and painted. They looked solid.
He heard a woman humming and called out, “Marilyn? Is that you?”
The humming stopped. A voice called out, with just a dollop of healthy fear in it. “Who is it?”
“It’s Agent Dillon Savich and Agent Sherlock, FBI. Do you remember me?”
A young woman dressed in ancient paint-stained jeans, a big Plum River sweatshirt, and paint-splattered sneakers strode forward, a paintbrush in her hand. The overweight, slump-shouldered, defeated young woman with the stringy hair and frightened eyes they both remembered had vanished. This woman was healthy, her eyes bright, hair clean and pulled back in a ponytail. “Mr. Savich? Is it really you? Oh my goodness, it is! And don’t you look fine!” She threw her arms around his neck and jumped up to lock her legs around his waist. She reared back a bit
