Oh well, I’ll just spit it out. Ollie phoned just before we left the house this morning.”
“He did?” Savich turned the full force of his personality on his wife, a dark brow raised. “And you didn’t see fit to mention it to me?”
“It’s Friday morning, Gabriella was at the dentist and running late; she’s our nanny,” Sherlock added to Simon. “Besides, you’d already told Ollie and Jimmy Maitland that you wouldn’t be in until late morning. I was going to tell you on the way in.”
“I know I don’t want to hear this, but out with it, Sherlock. I can take it.”
“Besides worrying about Tammy Tuttle, there’s been a triple murder in a small town called Flowers, Texas. The governor called the FBI and demanded that we come in, and so we will. Both the ATF and the FBI are involved. There’s this cult down there that they suspect is responsible for the murder of the local sheriff and his two deputies, who’d gone out to their compound to check things out. Their bodies were found in a ditch outside of town.”
“That’s nuts,” Simon said.
“Yes,” Sherlock said, “it is. Ah, Raleigh, would you mind visiting with Dyrlana for a moment? All this stuff is sort of under wraps.”
Raleigh looked profoundly disappointed, but he left them in the vault. At the doorway, he said, “What about your sister and Mr. Russo? They’re civilians, too.”
“I know, but I can control what they say,” Savich said. “I really couldn’t get away with busting your chops.”
They heard him chuckling as he called out, “Dyrlana! Where is my gumpoc tea?”
“One problem is,” Sherlock said, “that the cult has cleared out, split up into a dozen or more splinter groups and left town in every direction. Nobody knows where the leader is. They’ve pulled in a few of the cult members, but these folks just shake their heads and claim they don’t know anything about it. The only good thing is that we have a witness, of sorts. It seems that one of the women is pregnant by the guru. Lureen was rather angry when she found him seducing another cult member, actually at least three or four other cult members. She slipped away and told the town mayor about it.”
Savich said, “A witness, then. Did she identify the guru as the guy who ordered the murders?”
“Not yet. She’s still thinking about it. She’s afraid she’d screw up her child’s karma if she identified the father as a murderer.”
“Great,” Savich said and sighed. “Like Ollie said, there doesn’t seem to be anything in this life that’s easy. Do we have some sort of name on this guy?”
“Oh, sure, that’s no secret,” Sherlock said. “Wilbur Wright. Lureen just wouldn’t say his name out loud, but everybody knows it, since he was around town for a couple of months.”
“Isn’t that clever?” Savich rubbed the back of his neck, nodded to Simon, grabbed his wife’s hand, and walked out of the vault. He said over his shoulder, “It’s settled then. Lily, you rest and recuperate. Simon, you can stay at the house. I’d feel better if you did. Sherlock and I will call you guys later. Oh yes, don’t spoil Sean. Gabriella is besotted with him already; she doesn’t need any more help. Holler if you want MAX to check anything out for you, Simon.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, yes, there’s one other thing,” Sherlock said to Savich once they were out of the vault and in the gallery itself, alone and beyond the hearing of Lily or Simon. She glanced at Raleigh and Dyrlana, who were drinking gumpoc tea over by the front glass doors.
Savich knew he didn’t want to hear this. He merely looked at her, nodding slowly.
“The guru. He had the hearts cut out of the sheriff and his two deputies.”
“So this is why the Texas governor wants us involved. This guy has probably done something this sick before in other states. Ah, Sherlock, I just knew it couldn’t be as straightforward as you presented it. So, is Behavioral Sciences also involved?”
“Yes. I didn’t want Lily to have to hear that.”
“You’re right. All right, love, let’s go track down Tammy Tuttle and Wilbur Wright.”
Lily Savich and Simon Russo stood in the silent vault, neither of them saying a word. She walked to one of the paintings that was real, not forged
Savich had told Simon most of what had happened to his sister the previous evening, after she’d gone to bed, looking pale and, truth be told, wrung out. All except for the murder attempt on the city bus in Eureka. What had happened to her-what was still happening-was tragic and evil, and it all came on top of the death of her daughter.
But just perhaps they could recover the paintings. He sure wanted to. He said, “That’s a good question. I don’t know why they cut the brake lines. My guess is that something must have happened to worry them, something to make them move up the timetable.”
“But why not just kill me off right away? Surely it would have been easier for Tennyson to simply inherit the paintings, to own them himself. Then he wouldn’t have had to go to all the trouble and risk of finding a first-class forger and then collectors who would want to buy the paintings.”
“Count on Mr. Monk to help with all that. I bet you Mr. Monk doesn’t have all that sterling a reputation. I’ll check into that right away.”
“Yes,” Lily continued, her head cocked to one side, still thinking. “He could have killed me immediately, and then he would have owned the paintings. He could then have sold them legally, right up front, with no risk that someone would turn on him, betray him. Probably he would have made more money that way, you know, in auctions.”
“First of all, Lily, killing you off would have brought Savich down on their heads, with all the power of the FBI at his back. Never underestimate your brother’s determination or the depths of his rage if something had happened to you. As for legal auctions for the paintings, you’re wrong there. Collectors involved in illegal art deals pay top dollar, many times outrageous amounts because they want something utterly unique, something no one else on the face of the earth owns. The stronger the obsession, the more they’ll pay. Going this route was certainly more risky, but the payoff was probably greater, even figuring in the cost of the forgery. It was trying to kill you that was the real risk. As I said, something very threatening must have happened. I don’t know what, but we’ll probably find out. Now, you ready to go have some lunch before you go home to bed?”
Lily thought about how tired she was, how she could simply sit down and sleep, then she smiled. “Can I have Mexican?”
13
Quantico
Savich was seated in his small office in the Jefferson dorm at the FBI academy when two agents ushered in Marilyn Warluski, who’d borne a child by her cousin Tommy Tuttle, now deceased, the child’s whereabouts unknown. They’d nabbed her getting on a Greyhound bus in Bar Harbor, Maine, headed for Nova Scotia. Since she’d been designated a material witness, and Savich wanted to keep her stashed away, they’d brought her in a FBI Black Bell Jet to Quantico.
He’d never met her, but he’d seen her photo, knew she was poorly educated, and guessed that she was not very bright. He saw that she looked, oddly, even younger than in her photo, that she’d gained at least twenty pounds, and that her hair, cropped short in the photo, was longer and hung in oily hanks to her shoulders. She looked more tired than scared. No, he was wrong. What she looked was defeated, all hope quashed.
“Ms. Warluski,” he said in his deep, easy voice, waving her to a chair as he said her name. The two agents left the office, closing the door behind them. Savich gently pressed a button on the inside of the middle desk drawer, and in the next room, two profilers sitting quietly could also hear them speak.
“My name is Dillon Savich. I’m with the FBI.”
“I don’t know nothin’,” Marilyn Warluski said.
Savich smiled at her and seated himself again behind the desk.
He was silent for several moments, watched her fidget in that long silence. She said finally, her voice jumpy,
