time. I mean, who wants to believe something that horrible was actually happening right below the bedroom window?”
Ethan said, “You went to the cemetery, didn’t you, Joanna?”
“Yes, I planned to, alone, so I could come back and reassure Autumn. I was walking toward the center staircase when I heard the three of them come through the front door. They were talking. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I tiptoed down to the bend in the stairs. I heard Mrs. Backman then, her voice was really proper, so I stopped right where I was and listened. I couldn’t have misunderstood her. She sang out, sounding happy as a lark, ‘Well, boys, I’m thirstier than a desert in hell. We got it done, all solemn and proper, and it’s over. Nobody could complain we didn’t do it right. That big pile of dirt will settle down soon enough. Now, I need a nice whiskey sour. Grace, you know exactly how to make it. Blessed, you want a Diet Coke?’
“Blessed said he did, with a slice of lemon. Grace didn’t say any-thing. I would swear they should have heard my heart pounding. They’d just buried people and she wanted a whiskey sour? I wanted to run, but I knew I had to wait and listen, but for the longest time I didn’t hear them say anything more. I stayed bent down, in the shad-ows of the bend of the stairs. I thought they’d gone when Shepherd said, ‘We’ll take care of Joanna in the morning. Make it look like an accident, Blessed; we don’t want Autumn to distrust us. Everyone will be so pleased she’s here at last, where she belongs. She’s strong. I know it now, stronger than Martin.’
“I heard Blessed grunt and say he’d stymie me easier than Nat Hodges. That was the word he used, ‘stymie.’ Then Grace said some-thing, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“I felt frozen, so terrified I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, could scarcely draw a breath. Finally they moved away, probably to the kitchen, so Blessed could make this horrible old woman a whiskey sour.
“Later, probably after three o’clock in the morning, Autumn showed me the tree branch outside the window and we climbed down.”
Ethan said, “Did you go to the cemetery before you went to get your car? To know for sure?”
Autumn turned in to her mother and wrapped her arms around her back. “It’s all right, sweetie.”
Autumn nodded and turned back. “Mama wanted to see it with her own eyes. But she said she believed me now after what she heard Mrs. Backman say. She knew I didn’t see it in my head.”
Joanna hugged her daughter tightly to her. She kissed her hair. “Know this, Autumn, from now on I will always believe exactly what you tell me.” She gave her daughter a lopsided grin and another hug. “However, whether or not I want to believe you is a very different matter.” She looked up at Ethan. “It was too dangerous to stay. We had to get out of there.”
Ethan studied the little girl’s face. “Tell me, Autumn, what were you doing in the cemetery so late, and alone. When you saw them burying the people?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. She glanced at her mother, then quickly away. Finally she said, “I wanted to say good-bye to Daddy.”
Joanna looked like she’d collapse in on herself.
Ethan said matter-of-factly, “Okay, thanks for telling me. So, Joanna, you got out of there fast?”
He’d thrown her a rope and she grabbed it. “You bet. Thankfully my car was on a bit of an incline in front of the huge garage, and I put it in neutral, pushed, then jumped in as it gained speed and steered it back down that long driveway. I didn’t have to start the engine until we were nearly at the road that runs past the driveway.”
Autumn said, “I was looking back, and I didn’t see any lights go on. I told Mama we’d be okay.”
“I drove until morning. Believe me, I never stopped, even for an instant.”
Autumn said, “I tried to call Daddy, and that was stupid because there couldn’t be an answer now since he’s dead. But before he died, I spoke to him when he was in prison. Do you know, Ethan, Daddy would talk to me about everything, but he wouldn’t ever talk about his mother or his brothers. I guess I know why now. They’re creepy. I’m glad he ran away.”
Ethan asked without thinking, “Your dad had telephone minutes?”
Autumn cocked her head at him. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, he did,” Joanna said. “That’s enough for tonight, Sheriff.”
“One last thing you might help explain, Joanna. Blessed must know we’re aware of who he is now, where his family lives, yet he still tried to take Autumn. What did he intend to do with her? Where did he think he could take her? And why? And what did Shepherd mean by saying Autumn was stronger than Martin?”
“You’ll have to ask Blessed that, Sheriff. He didn’t exactly share it with us.”
20
GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sunday evening
“That was a good call on Buzz,” Savich said to Jimmy Maitland, who stopped by after dinner. “He’s safe now, no way the two of them can get to him in Aruba. That would mean passports, and Lissy Smiley doesn’t have one.”
“Victor Nesser does, but the alert’s out on him. I would strongly doubt they have the sophistication to obtain good forgeries,” Maitland said. He accepted a cup of coffee from Sherlock, cocked his head at her. She said, “Yeah, yeah, the coffee god over there made it, not me.”
Maitland toasted her with his cup. “You’re looking pretty good, Sherlock. Like I told my wife, in the long scheme of things, I’d rather lose a spleen than some other parts I can think of,”
Sherlock wanted to whine about how her body still wanted to sleep when she wanted to keep working—even piddling everyday stuff—how a nice sweaty workout was still at least a week away, but she smiled. “I’m feeling it less and less every passing day.” She handed Dillon a cup of hot tea.
He said, reading her quite clearly, “Another couple of weeks and you’ll be throwing me all over the mat at the gym. Be patient.”
Maitland looked at the two of them, saw the shadow of fear still in Savich’s eyes from the thought of the bullet she’d taken. Then Savich lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. “I take that back. If you were being patient about this brief vacation, I’d wonder where my Sherlock was.”
Maitland said, “Sit down, Sherlock; let’s talk about what happened at the airport.” He took a sip of coffee, sighed, and smiled. “Okay, after Buzz called me, we got over there fast, but Victor and Lissy were gone.
“We looked at the security videotapes, saw Victor helping Lissy across the terminal, straight to the Caribbean Air counter, then flat-out running with her toward the line at security. But they missed Buzz; he was already through and on his way to the gate.
“Next we saw them ducking through an employees-only door that led down to the tarmac. This part borders on the hard to believe— Buzz was not only sitting in a window seat, his seat was on the terminal side. To top it off, he just happened to be looking out the window to see Victor sticking his head out the door, Lissy behind him. Then he calls me, tells me what a lamebrain he is because he didn’t suspect a thing when he dropped off his car at his mechanic’s, didn’t think about anything hinky until he saw Lissy and Victor eyeing him from that employees’ doorway.
“We sent the bomb squad over to the car, but it wasn’t rigged. They only found water mixed in with the gasoline in the gas tank. Buzz was lucky he got as far as he did.”
Maitland paused a moment, took a drink of his coffee. “I guess because of how close this was, I decided to make doubly certain Buzz will be safe. He’ll stay only one night in Aruba, then one of our agents is escorting him to Barbados on a private plane so there’ll be no earthly way for Victor and Lissy to trace him. I may be going over- board on this, but I like the guy.”
Maitland grinned. “Buzz said he was going to visit the horse-racing tracks in Barbados first thing—he was feeling real lucky.”
Savich said, “Okay, so that means Victor and Lissy got to his neighborhood just a few hours after she escaped. They found Buzz still home, spiked his gas, and followed him to the car shop, then on to the airport. What undoubtedly saved him was that Lissy’s injuries slowed them way down. Pretty smart, though, not taking Buzz on at home where he was armed. They knew he wouldn’t be carrying a gun on his way to the airport.”
