She tried to just shrug it off, give him a throwaway smile, but it wasn’t possible. She drew a deep breath and said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Okay, for now. Here we are. Keep your eyes open, Lily, I really have a bad feeling about this.” He turned right onto the narrow asphalt road that led to the cottage, looked back, and saw their protection turning in behind them.
No motorcycle.
Simon did a quick scan, didn’t see a thing. “I really don’t like this.”
“Maybe he just went into town to get some barbeque sauce to go with his snails.”
Simon didn’t think so, but he didn’t argue as they walked up to the cottage. The door wasn’t locked. He didn’t say a word, just picked Lily up under her armpits and moved her behind him. He opened the door slowly. It was gloomy inside, all the blinds pulled down. The room was completely empty-no stacked paintings against the walls, no easel, no palette, not even a drop of paint anywhere or the smell of turpentine, just empty.
“Check the kitchen, Lily. I’m going to look in the bedroom.” They met back in the empty living room five minutes later.
Agent Colin Smith stood in the open doorway. “No sign of Abe Turkle?”
Simon shook his head and said, “Nope. All that’s left is a box of Puffed Wheat, a bit of milk, not soured, and a couple of apples, still edible, so he hasn’t been gone long.”
Lily said, “He’s packed up and left. All his clothes, suitcase, everything gone, even his toothpaste.”
“Do you think he went to London with that painting he was finishing?”
“I hope not. It was really very good, too good.”
Colin Smith asked, “You were afraid he was dead, weren’t you? Murdered. Like Mr. Monk.”
Simon nodded. “I had a bad feeling there for a while. Let’s tell Lieutenant Dobbs about this. Agent Smith, if you’ll call Clark Hoyt, fill him in. You know, Abe had lots of stuff-at least thirty paintings leaning against the walls. All he had was a motorcycle. Maybe he rented a U-Haul to carry everything away.”
“Or maybe one of the Frasiers loaned him a truck.”
“Maybe. Now then, Agent Smith, Lily and I are off to pay a visit to Morrie Jones. I need to speak to Lieutenant Dobbs and the DA, get their okay. I’ve got an offer for Morrie he can’t refuse.”
Lily held up a hand. “No, I don’t want to know. Maybe by now they know who’s paying his lawyer.” Simon closed the cottage door and waved to Agent Smith.
“Don’t count on it,” Simon said as he set the pillow gently over Lily’s stomach and fastened the seat belt.
19
Saint John’s, Antigua
Public Administration Building,
near Reed Airport
“It’s so bright and hot and blue,” Sherlock said, scratching her arm. Then she sighed. “You know, Sean would really like this place. We could strip him down and play in that sand, build a castle with him, even a moat. I can just see him rolling over on the castle, flattening it, laughing all the while.”
For the first time in as long as she could remember, Sherlock realized Dillon wasn’t listening. She could only imagine what was going through his mind, all the ifs and buts. It was his show, and naturally he was worried, impossible not to be. They were working through the American Consular Agent with the Royal Police Force at Police Headquarters located on, strangely enough, American Road. But they were still in a foreign country, dealing with locals who were both bewildered by the extreme reaction of the United States federal cops-all fifty of them-to one woman, who only had one arm and was supposedly coming to their airport. But they were cooperating, really serious now after Savich had shown the entire group photos of her victims, including the latest one on Tortola. That one really brought it home.
Tammy couldn’t have gotten to Antigua before late morning, no way, even with a fast boat. Tortola was just too far away. The weather had been calm, no high winds or waves. She couldn’t have gotten here ahead of them, except by plane, and they’d been checking air traffic from Tortola and nearby islands. And there was no indication at all that she knew how to fly. They’d had time to get everything set up, to get everyone in position.
Sherlock gave him a clear look. “We have time. Stop worrying. Marilyn will be here in about two hours. We’ll go over everything with her, step by step.”
“What if Tammy isn’t alone? What if Tammy has been traveling around as Timmy this whole time? Remember, it was Timmy who called Marilyn at Quantico.”
Sherlock had never before seen him so questioning of what he was doing.
When she spoke, Sherlock’s voice was as calm as the incredible blue water not one hundred yards away, “One arm is one arm, despite anything else. No one on any of the islands has reported anyone jiggering about with just one arm. The odds are stacked way against her. You know all the local police in both the British Virgin Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands are on full alert. The Antiguan authorities aren’t used to mayhem like this, so you can bet they’re very concerned, probably more hyper than we are, particularly after those crime-scene photos. Dillon, everyone is taking this very seriously.”
“So you think I should just chill out?”
“No, that’s impossible. But you’re very smart, top drawer. Just stop trying to second-guess yourself. You’ve done everything to prepare. If we have to deal with something other than just Tammy, we will.”
The local cops, of which there weren’t many, had converged on the airport. They were trying to look inconspicuous and failing, but they were trying, a couple of them even joking with tourists. All of them were used to dealing with locals who occasionally smoked too much local product or drank too much rum, or an occasional tourist who tried to steal something from a duty-free store. Nothing like this. This was beyond their experience.
Savich just couldn’t help himself. He checked and rechecked with Vinny Arbus on the status of the SWAT team. If Tammy Tuttle managed to grab a civilian, they were ready. Marksmen were set up, six of them, in strategic spots around the airport as well as inside. Half the marksmen were dressed like tourists, the other half, like airport personnel. They blended right in.
Would Tammy come in by plane? Would she simply walk in? No one knew. All hotels and rooming houses had been checked, rechecked. Jimmy Maitland was seated in the police commissioner’s office with its overhead fan, boiling alive in his nice fall suit.
There were nearly fifty FBI personnel involved in the operation, now named Tripod. Special Agent Dane Carver had picked the name because the perp had only one arm and two legs, so Tuttle was the tripod.
A couple of hours later, Marilyn Warluski, scared to the soles of her new Nike running shoes, pressed close to Agent Virginia Cosgrove, her lifeline. Cosgrove was jittery, too, but too new an agent to be as scared as she should be. As she saw it, she was the most important agent present. It was to her that Tammy Tuttle would come. She was an excellent shot. She would protect Marilyn Warluski. She was ready.
“She’s coming, Mr. Savich,” Marilyn said, her voice dull and flat when he checked in with her again at six o’clock that evening. She was standing by the Information Desk in the airport, the Caribbean Airlines counter just off to the left.
“It will be all right, Marilyn,” Virginia said, her voice more excited than soothing, and patted her hand for at least the thirtieth time. “Agent Savich won’t let anything happen, you’ll see. We’ll nail Tammy.”
“I told you it was Timmy who called me. When she’s Timmy, she can do anything.”
“I thought she could do anything when she was Tammy, too,” Savich said.
“She can. He can. If they’re both here, not just Timmy, then there’ll be real trouble.”
Savich felt a twist of fear in his guts. He said slowly, his voice deep and calm, “Marilyn, what do you mean if they’re both here? You mean both Tammy and Timmy? I don’t understand.”
Marilyn shrugged. “I didn’t think to tell you, but I saw it happen once, back a couple of years ago. We were in that dolled-up tourist town, Oak Bluffs. You know, on Martha’s Vineyard. I saw Tammy comin’ out of this really pretty pink Victorian house where we were all stayin’ and she just suddenly turned several times, you know, real fast, like Lynda Carter did whenever she was goin’ to change into Wonder Woman. Same thing. Tammy turned into
