away. They looked so innocent, so young—well, until she opened her eyes and my nerve endings started screaming. She brought up a gun real fast, a big old whopper Bren Ten, probably a ten-millimeter auto. I kicked the gun out of her hand.”
Sherlock said to him, “Good thing you did. If she’d shot you in the arm with that sucker, you’d probably have bled to death, or at least lost your arm and have to learn to tie your shoes with your teeth. Lucky for you Victor shot you with a twenty-two.”
Galen said, “I wonder where Lissy Smiley got hold of a Bren Ten?”
Sherlock said, “Maybe a granddad in World War Two? You may continue now, Cawley.”
Cawley shuddered. “The other one, the young blond guy—Victor Nesser—he didn’t move, like he was asleep. I wasn’t about to shoot him in mid-snore but then the little creep came up with that gun so fast I—”
“Mortification of the self, Agent James,” Sherlock repeated. “It’s best in this situation, trust me.”
When he finished, Savich had to admit he hadn’t spared himself— very difficult, since all of them knew he felt very fine, what with the morphine on board. When he finished, Savich said, “Okay, they dumped the Corolla and stole an ancient black Trailblazer. I’m betting they dumped it once they got maybe fifty miles from Fort Pessel.”
Galen said, “I’ve got state and local law enforcement out looking for them. They didn’t get much of a head start, but if Savich is right and the Trailblazer’s hidden somewhere and they’re driving some-thing if else now, it won’t be easy to spot them until we get a stolen-car call.”
Savich asked, “What were they wearing, Agent James?”
“The girl was wearing a loose white man’s shirt, skinny-legged blue jeans and black sneakers. The boy, he was in a pale blue T-shirt with a John Deere tractor on the front, baggy blue jeans, and white sneakers. He had a nondescript ball cap pulled low, no writing on it.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He looked real young, and he was very fair-haired, light-complex-toned, not even any a.m. whiskers on his face. Both of them were slim.
Sherlock said, “Did you get any impression she was hurting?”
Cawley shook his head. “I saw Nesser jerk her up and pull her after him into the woods. Then I was putting pressure on my arm and trying to get to my SIG; hoping I wasn’t going to die. Ben and Tommy came up and we took off after them.”
A few minutes later, just as Cawley James was about to fall into a morphine stupor, Savich gave him his cell phone number. “Call if you think of anything else.” He paused in the doorway, turned. “You didn’t deserve to be shot, Cawley; you did okay in that impossible situation.” He shook Galen Markey’s hand. “If you really want to punish him, call his mother.”
Cawley moaned.
Sherlock laughed.
Galen Markey caught up with them just as they were leaving the hospital. “Hold up a second. We’ve got a report of two sheriff’s depu-ties shot last night near Pamplin, about sixty miles up the road from Fort Pessel. One of them is dead. The other deputy was sending in the license number while her partner made contact. When he was shot, she went to help and was shot herself, in the chest. They’ve taken her to surgery twice; don’t know if she’ll make it.”
24
FORT PESSEL, VIRGINIA
Monday morning
Savich got a call from Galen as he stepped into Carly Schuster’s house, telling him a hiker had found the Trailblazer in the woods just over North Carolina border, and a dark blue 2001 Chevy Malibu was reported stolen from a small tobacco farm a half-mile away.
He pocketed his cell, turned, and smiled at her as Sherlock said, “We appreciate your taking the time to speak with us, Mrs. Schuster. The principal told us you have no official affiliation with the high school, but you’ve tutored a number of students in computer science through the years, one of them Victor Nesser. Could you please tell us about him?”
She waved them both to the sofa as she said, “Goodness, yes, I taught Victor everything I knew. He was self-taught to that point and really quite talented. I’ll tell you, he was beyond me in a few months. He’s a natural, the first one I’ve seen. He didn’t do that well in his school courses, a teacher friend of mine told me, and he never took any computer classes. He didn’t tell me why. But he was hungry for learning it, you know?”
Savich smiled. “Yes, I know what you mean.”
“Ah, do I have a kindred spirit in my living room?”
Savich only smiled. “Can you tell us what you remember about the Smileys?”
Her lips unseamed and her very white buck teeth appeared again. Carly Schuster nodded. “Ah, yes, the Smileys. I didn’t know Jennifer Smiley very well, saw her in town from time to time, nodded to her, you know, said hi and how are you, but nothing more than that. I’ll tell you though, the word is Mrs. Smiley’s a piece of work. She man-aged the Lone Star Bar out on Route Thirty-three, just south of town, Lots of stories about how the place got drunk and rowdy on the weekends, and she with it. She lived off and on with the owner, a biker with tattoos. I wondered how she could let Lissy live in the same house with that man. Then he was killed driving that motor-cycle of his, ran headlong into a bridge abutment.
“Everyone thought Jennifer Smiley would inherit the place, but he left it in his will to a cousin from up north somewhere. She was very angry about it, I heard. Then one day, maybe three months ago, she and Lissy were simply gone. Yes, it was right after school was over, I remember, though I don’t see how it mattered, since Lissy hardly went. Then
Suddenly her lips seamed shut over her buck teeth and she was shaking her head. “Oh, goodness, since you’re FBI agents, that must mean Victor has done something illegal. And the Smileys? Will you tell me?”
Savich said, “We’re looking for both Lissy Smiley and Victor Nesser. They’re wanted in connection to a series of bank robberies.”
Sherlock said, “Did you hear about the bank robberies in Kentucky and Virginia by a group called the Gang of Four? Most of them were killed up in Washington, D.C.”
Carly Schuster shook her head. “Sorry, I refuse to watch the news, it’s too pressing.”
Savich wanted to see those buck teeth again; they made her smile quite charming.
Carly said slowly, “So you’re saying Jennifer Smiley was also involved in this Gang of Four?”
Sherlock nodded. “From what we know now, she was the leader.”
“Oh, dear. And Lissy? And Victor?”
Savich said, “Yes. Two other men as well. Jennifer Smiley was shot dead in the middle of a bank robbery in Washington. Lissy and Victor escaped. We’re trying to locate them.”
“But this is a small town, nothing bad ever happens here; well, not like this. I haven’t heard anybody say anything. My husband won’t believe it. He liked Victor, said he was okay for a scruffy geek. I liked him too.”
She pursed her lips, did some thinking, and said, “I just can’t get over Victor. Lissy, now she’s a different story. I hate to say this about a sixteen-year-old girl, but I’m not at all surprised she’s involved. Lissy is ... Well, I’m not sure quite how to say this . . . but she’s off, but it’s more than that. She’s strange in the head, and the way she sometimes looks it people, it’s frightening. The thing I finally realized was that she’s a chameleon, no other way to say it. She can charm you if she wants or look like she’s bored to tears.”
“How do you know all this about her, Ms. Schuster?” Sherlock asked.
“She dated my son for four months,” Carly said simply. “I saw her up close and personal. Of course Jason
