regional accent she could identify. He was polite, paid with an AmEx. He needed the Zodiac only one day, wanted to do an evening run on the bay with his girlfriend, who’d grown up on Zodiacs in Hawaii, he told her. She remembered he was wearing a big honker diamond ring on his pinkie finger, could have been fake, she didn’t know, but why would a man wear a fake diamond? Again, Mrs. Moe didn’t question this was a man. She thought he was middle- aged, maybe even older.
“Now, Bently Ames returned the Zodiac Friday morning right on time. Mrs. Moe said they didn’t even have to wash it down, it was so squeaky clean.”
Sherlock picked it up. “We had our forensic team scour the Zodiac for any sort of evidence anyway, but like Burt said, Bently Ames was thorough in his cleaning, so we don’t have anything.”
Burt said, “We’ll show this photo of the Zodiac he or she rented to Judge Hunt, see if he can positively identify it. That’s unlikely, though, since Zodiacs look similar, for the most part.”
Sherlock said, “We found the real Bently Ames in his Tiburon real estate office. He said his wallet wasn’t missing. We asked him to check. Turns out his wallet was in his pocket, but his AmEx was gone. He said he’d had dinner with his sister at Guymas, a Tiburon restaurant on the water, on Wednesday evening. Then he remembered that after he paid the bill, he’d stopped in the men’s room. He said there were maybe four guys in there using the facilities but for the life of him he couldn’t remember anything unusual. Then he stopped cold, said a guy bumped into him in the small hallway outside the restroom.”
“Bingo,” Virginia Trolley said. “Was he wearing sunglasses and a ball cap?”
Burt nodded. “Yep, a Giants baseball cap. Again, Mr. Ames described him as a man.
“Since Sue had to park someplace, we checked the parking lot closest to Guymas first,” Sherlock said. “No luck. We didn’t think he’d use the parking lot next to the Tiburon Theater and take a chance of being seen, but we checked anyway.”
Sherlock said, “The parking lot attendant in the big lot sits in a booth and takes the money.” She gave a big grin. “Guess what?”
“He did park there,” Harry said. “And the parking attendant noticed a license plate? Please? Please?”
“Nope, but this little freckle-faced kid struts out of the booth in his loose low-rider jeans and tells us sure, he remembered the dude, remembered the sunglasses and the baseball cap. Then Freckle-face told us he knew for sure it wasn’t a rental, since it was a butt-ugly old Dodge Charger, with red paint chipping off. Unfortunately, no license plate, but Freckle-face did say it was a California license.”
Cheney turned to Agent Griffin Hammersmith. “Griffin has been coordinating with the highway patrol and the local police departments to try to locate that vehicle. He’s also got more news for us.”
Sherlock thought Griffin Hammersmith was saved from being too pretty by his nose. It was off-kilter, probably broken when he was a kid. As for his eyes, they were bluer than hers. She wondered if he was used to women trying to chase him down. He said in his slow, melodic voice, “I tried to put myself in the shooter’s shoes. If I came to San Francisco to murder a federal judge, I’d want to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I’d probably want to stay outside the city, unless I had to be there. And I wouldn’t stay anywhere near where I was going to snatch a credit card, like from Bently Ames in Tiburon. So, south of the city, probably near a major highway. A nice enough place but not big or fancy.
“So that’s where we focused. And after a couple of hours of phone calls, we found a small boutique inn off Highway 280 near Atherton, called Pelican Eave. The manager remembered the man, and the car. Yep, the same car the parking attendant described to us. ‘Overdue to be traded in,’ she said. She said he introduced himself as James Connor and he always wore his sunglasses and ball cap—though she remembered it as an Oakland A’s cap —even when he drank tea by himself in the front parlor. Since he paid in cash upfront, for two weeks, she never asked to see any identification. A pity.
“We have agents out there surveilling the inn. She hasn’t seen him since Thursday, the day of the shooting.
“We’ve got an APB out for the car as we speak, and his drawing and description at the local airports and all the cop shops in the Bay Area. I don’t think we’ll find him anywhere close to Atherton.”
Sherlock looked at Agent Griffin Hammersmith. “Why?”
“It’s my opinion he’s not about to take the risk of going back to the Pelican Eave
Harry laughed. “And your point would be, Griffin? Your so-called guesses are almost always right.”
Griffin said, “The thing is, though, our guy—or this Sue—has been in and out of San Francisco for at least a week, maybe longer. That’s long enough to learn how to keep out of sight.
“We’ve got agents canvassing the hotels starting on Lombard and at Fisherman’s Wharf, with his drawing. Thanks to Lieutenant Trolley, we’ve got us a half-dozen SFPD to help.” He nodded to her, and Virginia said, “Our pleasure.”
Harry sighed. “I’m wondering why don’t you just tell us which hotel Sue’s staying at, Griff, so we wouldn’t have to waste all this time?”
This time everyone laughed.
Now that he’d seen Griffin Hammersmith in action, Savich was wondering if he could get him to relocate to Washington. He bit into the last slice of Veggie Heaven, now cold, and said, “Honestly, I don’t think putting that drawing through the facial recognition program will get us anything, what with the ball cap and sunglasses.”
Cheney said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Sue will drop the ball cap; then we could try the FRP. One last note: We still don’t have anything about our missing prosecutor, Mickey O’Rourke. We’ve talked to his prosecution team, his co-workers, his family, his friends. We have him on camera leaving the Federal Building by himself late Thursday morning, though he never told anyone in his office he was going out. We’re examining his phone records, his credit card bills, but as of yet we don’t have anything very helpful. His wife, as you can imagine, is a mess.
“Her name’s Melissa. She told us Mickey had seemed distracted the last week or so, but he wouldn’t tell her what was wrong. She did remember he kept asking his two daughters where they were going and when they’d be home every time they stepped out of the door, which makes it sound like O’Rourke was frightened. Because of the Cahills or this Sue? We don’t know if he skipped or if he was taken by someone, but the longer he’s gone, the worse it looks.”
Agent Dane Carver studied the young man sitting opposite him and Agent Ruth Warnecki Noble in one of the small interview rooms on the third floor of the Hoover Building. Ted Moody was bouncing his leg up and down, and kept his eyes on his bouncing leg, as if afraid if he looked them in the eyes they’d shoot him.
Dane sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his expression hard. “You don’t look like a street punk, Mr. Moody, but I’ve been wrong before. How long have you been doing crap like this?”
The young guy flinched, raised his head, his eyes blinking furiously. “I didn’t do anything wrong, not really. I mean, I don’t know why those agents came and forced me to come with them. I have to get to work or Mr. Garber will fire me.”
Ruth said, “I spoke to Mr. Garber, told him you were assisting us, so your job is safe. But you did do something you shouldn’t have done.”
Dane said, “It’s called a felony, and you’re a criminal, Mr. Moody.”
“No, I’m not, sir, Agent, I’m not a criminal. Maybe you think—no, I—nothing I did was wrong.”
Ruth leaned over the table, put her hand over his and smoothed it out. He had long, slender fingers and fairly
