Savich shook his head. “I’d say they had a mutual dependence, strange as it was.”
Eve nodded. “I also think she had a bit of contempt for him, since she knew very well Clive was weaker than she was—but yeah, she depended on him, he was always there for her. I wonder what will happen to her now.”
Sherlock set down her coffee cup as she looked over Dillon’s shoulder. Xu had been born and raised in Lampo, Indiana. He was the son of a Caucasian mother, Ann Xu, a history teacher at Lampo High School, and a Chinese father who had first immigrated to the Gulf-side town of Paxico, Florida, before moving to Indiana and buying a gas station.
At eighteen, Xu and his parents had left Lampo for a long summer vacation at Bronson Lake, fifty miles from Lampo, Mrs. Xu had told neighbors.
The family had simply never returned. The gas station Mr. Xu had owned remained vacant; the history position at Lampo High School had been filled when Ann Xu hadn’t returned for the fall term. No one ever heard from the son. Cursory inquiries were made, but there was simply no sign of the Xu family after they’d gone on vacation. They were eventually forgotten, since no one knew of any family on either the mother or father’s side to contact.
Sherlock said, “Do you think Xu killed his parents?”
“Oh, yes,” Savich said. “There’s no trace of Xu after that. If he changed his name legally to Joe Keats, we’ll find him.”
The critical thing was that they had Xu’s first Indiana driver’s license, with a photo taken of him when he was sixteen. Dillon had already sent the photo to the image-processing lab at the Hoover Building to have it updated to show how he would look now, nearly twenty years later. They were waiting for the aged picture now, ready to compare it to the sketch Lin Mei had given the police sketch artist, and then would forward it to Hammersmith and his team as soon as it arrived.
“His features really are Caucasian,” Sherlock said, looking at the driver’s license. “Look at those green eyes. There doesn’t seem to be any resemblance at all to his Chinese father, except they are both on the slight side. He’s a good-looking kid, isn’t he?”
“Look closely,” Savich said. “He’s already got an arrogant tilt to his head, and there’s a dead-on look in his eyes, staring you right in the face, like he doesn’t care what you think or about much of anything.”
A message notification popped up, and they were soon looking at the same face, though more filled out, lines about his mouth and eyes, yet his eyes were more intense, and still had the same dead-on look, easily recognizable. Savich forwarded it to Hammersmith, waited a few seconds, and called him on speakerphone.
Savich said, “Griffin, did you get that picture of Xu I sent you?”
“It’s going out over the network now. I was wrong about Xu moving from the Atherton B-and-B to a middle- of-the-road motel on Lombard or down by the wharf or any of the motels in the Tenderloin. We’ve checked; he ain’t there.
“I’m still convinced, though, he’s got to be close by. I don’t think he knows we’ve identified him yet. It could be he’s staying at one of the most exclusive hotels, like the Stanford or the Fairmont or the Mandarin, figuring we wouldn’t expect that. I’m thinking the Fairmont.”
“Why the Fairmont in particular?” Sherlock asked.
A pause, then Griffin said, “A feeling, just a feeling. No guarantees.”
“Also, from what we know about him and his contacts, he’s not short on money, so why not be comfortable?”
“Then why did he stay at that bed-and-breakfast in Atherton when he first arrived to kill Judge Hunt?”
“I don’t know. I’ve realized he’s not so easy to figure out.” Griffin sighed. “Until he killed Mickey O’Rourke, I had him pegged differently. We’ll canvass all the hotels we can, this time with Xu’s photo in hand. We’ll have them put up his photo behind the registration desks. He might still be wearing that ball cap and sunglasses—well, there’s nothing we can do about that except give them a heads-up.”
“Griffin, do me a favor.”
“Sure, Sherlock, whatever you need.”
“Be careful, Griffin. He’s a very dangerous man. Please don’t forget that.”
“I will. Listen, I could be all wrong about the Fairmont.”
“They tell me that doesn’t happen often,” Savich said. “Call when you get something.”
—
When Eve and Harry got off the elevator on the fourth floor, Eve looked up the hallway at an SFPD officer and a deputy marshal, on their feet when they spotted them.
Once inside Ramsey’s room, Deputy Marshal Haloran said quickly, “What’s going on?”
Eve said, “I really made a mess of it, Joe.”
Harry squeezed her arm. “She means Cindy Cahill is pretty bad off. But she may have finally given us something useful. We’ll know soon.”
To Eve’s surprise, Ramsey was reading a spy novel, and wasn’t that perfect? She wondered what Savich would find out about Xu, the spy and cold-blooded murderer who wanted Ramsey dead.
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You look really hot, you know that?”
He also looked tired. But he was back, all hard, dark edges, and the killer smile, Judge Dredd in the flesh. “I look hot? That makes you as much of a liar as my wife. Happy to see you, though, liar or not.” He paused. “Eve, I can tell by looking at you that something’s happened. What?”
Eve said, “Cindy Cahill told us the man who’s been trying to kill you is called Xian Xu. He’s Chinese American, born in Indiana, and looks as WASP as you do. Dillon and Sherlock are trying to track him down. I don’t suppose the name means anything to you?”
“Not any more than the name Xu by itself,” Ramsey said. “If they can find him, maybe I can start making some plans to get out of here and back to work.”
“We should get him now, Judge Hunt,” Harry said. “He won’t come after you again.” Ramsey stared from Harry to Eve, considering that, and Eve said, “Hey, do you think you’ll be going home in time for Thanksgiving?”
Ramsey became aware that the pain meds were tugging on his brain, and evidently his hearing as well, because he thought in that moment that Eve had a beautiful speaking voice. He forgot about Thanksgiving, forgot everything but her voice. He stared up at Eve. “You ever have voice lessons?”
“Me? Goodness, talk about playing a rusty saw. That’s what my vocal cords feel like. Ramsey, have you had your pain meds recently?”
“Well, yes, a couple of minutes ago. You’re lucky I’m still awake.”
She took his hand, squeezed it. “Hey, Haloran. If you want to play more poker with Judge Hunt, now’s the time.”
—
Sherlock and Savich were seated in the security office off the lobby, Griffin on the phone. He sounded so hyper she hoped he wasn’t driving.
“We’ve got him! Amazing what a difference that picture made.”
Sherlock said, “Let me put my cell on speaker, Griffin. Okay, make our day.”
“Xu’s here at the Fairmont Hotel. The registration clerk on duty recognized him after studying the photo. She was used to seeing him in sunglasses and his ball cap, but this morning, he came trooping out of the restaurant after he’d had breakfast and asked the concierge a question. She said good morning to him. He said good morning back to her and smiled. She added he had a very nice smile. So it appears our Mr. Xu either forgot his sunglasses or
