It was quiet, the light dim in the hospital room. Sherlock and Ramsey lay quietly, waiting for the sleeping pills the nurse had just given them to pull them into sleep. The guards by the windows were reading by shrouded reading lights. Savich hadn’t returned yet from tucking Sean in. They’d brought in a cot for Savich.
Sherlock said, “Ramsey, I was going to wait until Dillon got back, but I don’t think we should put it off. We need to talk about this other person in the mix, this man who shot me—he was already here in San Francisco, waiting, I suppose until he had the setting he wanted. Shooting me—it was revenge, Ramsey. It’s got to be revenge. Against Dillon.”
No sleeping pill could compete with what she said. Ramsey’s brain snapped to full alert. “I gathered you thought that, from that bizarre note, but I don’t understand. You don’t think the man who shot you has any connection to Xu, that they don’t have anything to do with each other?”
“It’s possible, I suppose, but I don’t think so. Everything Xu has done is business to him, a matter of survival, but for the man who sent Dillon that note, it’s personal; something in the past is driving him.
Ramsey turned toward her, immediately regretted it, and held himself very still. He hated the sharp pain, but he hated more having to lie like a slug, helpless and impotent. And he hated having to be shaved and bathed each morning because he wasn’t strong enough yet to take his own shower. He reminded himself both he and Sherlock were lucky to be alive. He said, “So shooting you was revenge against Savich. But why here, why now? And why you, rather than Savich himself?”
“Well, there’s more to it than that, Ramsey.” She looked up to see Dillon slip into the room through the partially open door, saw the guards move quickly, then throttle back.
Savich nodded to the guards, said quietly, “This was his second note, Ramsey, that’s what Sherlock was going to tell you. What did you call it, Sherlock? His second notice of doom? He sent me one before he shot you.”
Ramsey tried to take it in. He said slowly, “You’re saying I was this madman’s first victim? You’re saying he shot both Sherlock and me to gain revenge against you?”
Savich nodded. “The first note was delivered to me last Thursday at the Hoover Building. That night, Ramsey, at midnight, you were shot. We didn’t connect the note to you until tonight, when he proudly sent us the second identical note after shooting Sherlock.
“We couldn’t ever be sure of a motive for Xu to try to kill you in the first place. All of us wondered why shoot the judge? But his connecting your shooting to the Cahill trial, making it seem the Cahills were responsible, I’d say it was fortuitous for him. Shooting you succeeded in getting Sherlock and me to fly out to San Francisco, and that wasn’t fortuitous, it was planned. He’s been watching us ever since.”
Ramsey said, “But if the man was in Washington delivering the note to you, he’d have had to move fast to get to San Francisco and set everything up to shoot me from the beach below my house the same night. There wasn’t enough time.”
Sherlock said, “He wasn’t in Washington. He paid a young auto mechanic to deliver the note to the Hoover Building on Thursday. We found the guy who did that and brought him in, but we couldn’t track down the man who’d paid him.”
Savich said, “In fact, we know he was here in San Francisco, studying you and staying at a B-and-B in Atherton for about a week, enough time to do the reconnaissance he needed of your habits, your home, for planning the Zodiac rental, all of it. What’s terrifying is that he would have succeeded if Molly hadn’t called out to you at the last moment.”
Ramsey said, “So my being shot the same day I shut down the Cahill trial, the same day Mickey O’Rourke disappeared, it was all a coincidence?”
Savich said, “Yes, and one he took advantage of. The shooter was following your trial closely enough to decide that Thursday night was the perfect time to shoot you to throw us off making the connection to the note for a while. He couldn’t have scripted it better.”
“Like Dillon said, he’d already been here a week before any of that. And he had to have been to Washington before he came here, checking out the neighborhood around the Hoover Building, learning enough about Teddy Moody to pick him out as his mark.”
Ramsey said, “Why didn’t he leave a note with me, so you’d know this was his revenge, like he did with you?”
Sherlock said, “I imagine he was getting a real kick out of the confusion he’d created since we immediately connected your shooting to the Cahills. I guess when he shot me, he was ready to take the credit.”
Ramsey said, “And that leaves us the big question. Why me? We’ve been friends for a long time, Savich, but there are other people closer to you. That must mean the shooter has a connection to both of us.” After a moment, Ramsey said, “This is the same man who tried to kill me again in the elevator on Saturday, the same man we believed was Xu.”
Sherlock said, “And that was an act of someone who’s driven or unbalanced enough to take such a risk. Very unlike Xu.” She closed her eyes for a moment, not in pain but in thought, though sleep was pulling on her. She became aware of Dillon stroking her forearm, his touch light and comforting. She continued. “It all makes sense now. Xu was very hard to predict, even to understand. How could we profile a man, reconcile everything he had done, when he was two very separate men whose motives couldn’t be further apart?”
Ramsey said, “Then that telephone message to Molly, that wasn’t Xu, either.”
Savich said, “No. The phone call was meant to terrorize, like the notes.”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment dig at me, and my family?” Ramsey said.
Savich nodded. “That, yes, and more than a little unhinged, like that photo he left of you as Judge Dredd X-ed through under the hydrangea, and the blood he left in the elevator shaft. The man makes plans, but he’s not rational. He’s deranged.”
Sherlock said, “The thing is, Ramsey, he took lots of time to plan this all out, to learn all about you. Lots of time—and that’s the key. We think he was in prison, where he’d have nothing but time to spend in the library. He told the young man who delivered the first note to Dillon to call him the Hammer. That’s a prison moniker.”
Ramsey said, “Do you think it’s someone I put away?”
There was silence in the hospital room, the two guards at the window listening intently.
Savich said, “Maybe, but it’s got to be as much about me because he picked me to send the note to, and he shot my wife. I don’t know why he went for you first, Ramsey. Forgive me, but if I’m to be blamed I would have thought he’d have gone for Sherlock first, but he didn’t. It was you.”
Sherlock said, “There’s got to be a good reason he went for you first, Ramsey. We have to figure out what it is.”
Ramsey said, “It means he’s carrying a load of rage at me, maybe more than he has against you, Savich. It could be over something he thinks we did to him together.”
Sherlock only nodded. Her head felt like a weight was pressing her down. “Yes, but what?”
Savich said, “We’ll have to find out, but not tonight. You both look ready to fold your tents. Get some sleep.”
Savich leaned down and kissed Sherlock’s mouth. “Sleep well, sweetheart. We’ll get this all figured out in the morning. Ramsey, don’t snore so loud you wake her. I’ll be back in a moment,” and Savich followed Deputy Babcock and Deputy Cluney out of the room. Deputy Babcock said, “This is hairier than my mother-in-law’s legs. Two killers, not just this Xu character. Have you told Marshal Maynard?”
“Cheney will.”
“Barbieri called a few minutes ago, said they’d found the Infiniti on one of the winding streets above Sausalito. Sounds like he was on his way to find a doctor to take care of his arm. I hope Xu hasn’t invaded someone’s home. I can’t imagine a doctor would have a fully equipped office in his own home, but I guess he’d have enough stuff to help him with an arm wound. I sure hope he hasn’t killed anyone.”
Savich said, “I hope Xu won’t think it’s prudent.”
