Paradox

by Catherine Coulter

  Savich took his final drink of tea, with cinnamon. Who knew? “I’ll call you in the morning after I’ve got everything lined up, give you an exact time. Sala, I want you there, all right? I think it’s time to set rumors straight about the Serial and about what happened to you and Octavia. I’m hoping the broadcast will go regional. I don’t want either the Serial or Victor to be able to find a hole to hide in.”

  Sherlock said, “Something’s been bothering me. Since Victor escaped from Central State Hospital, he couldn’t have had much money. But look what he’s done. Moving around in Washington, buying camping gear, weapons, coming up here. So he’s either been robbing stores or—”

  Savich finished it. “Or—he went back and picked up the stolen bank money Jennifer Smiley hid somewhere. Money we never found on her property, even after the FBI went over the place thoroughly, house and grounds.”

  Ty asked. “How much money?”

  “Over a half a million dollars,” Savich said. “You can bet the citizens of Fort Pessel dug up the property. So far we haven’t heard about anyone finding a big load of cash, and we would have.”

  “Why is it important to you to know that, Dillon?” Ty asked him.

  He said slowly, “Unless we know for sure whether Victor has that bank money, it leaves us with a mystery.”

  “As in where then did he get money after his escape from the psychiatric ward?”

  “Exactly.” Savich shook his head. “We’ll figure it out, sooner or later.”

  Sala said, “Guys, here’s what I can’t get past. We know Victor’s girlfriend, Lissy, is dead. You’ve said she was the love of Victor’s life, so then who was that girl I heard laughing? Has he hooked up with some runaway teenager?”

  Savich remembered thinking someone had been standing in the master bedroom window at Gatewood, looking out over the water, waiting for Victor to return. He didn’t know what to think. Until he could figure this out, better to keep it to himself. He said, “That could be, Sala. It’s been bothering me, too.”

  Ty took a sip of her coffee and looked out at the lake again. She didn’t think she’d ever see it in the same light she had before Friday morning. She could picture Octavia Ryan’s body floating among the bones and skulls lying on the bottom, many of them covered by years of sand and reeds. She said, “The only real clue we have so far about all those bones is that gold belt buckle. We have to hope we’ll get a call identifying it when Dillon shows it on TV.”

  Sala scooted his chair a bit closer and propped his feet on the deck railing. “I remember a Serial in Boston who murdered twenty-four people—maybe more, no one knows—over about nineteen years. One night a young punk stole his Prius from his driveway, decided to take it for a joy ride. When he brought the car back, he decided to see if there was anything worth stealing in the trunk, and he found a body wrapped in a shower curtain. Thankfully, after puking up his guts, he called the cops.”

  Ty said, “Who was the Serial?”

  “A newspaper editor, well respected, married, lived what you call a normal life. They found his souvenirs in a locked cabinet in his basement.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He put a gun in his mouth when the cops moved in. I guess what I’m saying is it’s not always excellent police work that cracks serial cases. It’s happenstance, a snitch, or most of the time, as you know, an errant parking ticket—remember how they caught the Son of Sam? Or, in this case, it was a joy-riding juvenile delinquent.”

  Sala slept for three hours that night in Ty’s guest bedroom before the nightmares pulled him under. Ty found him sweating and heaving, and without a word, the two of them dragged the mattress out on the deck. They settled in and watched the moon hovering over Point Gulliver, watched dark clouds drifting in and out of the moonlight.

  27

  * * *

  WILLICOTT, MARYLAND

  MONDAY, NOON

  Shops closed, and townspeople congregated in Bleaker Park in the center of Willicott, many seated on blankets, since the white-painted wooden benches had been nabbed early. It could have been the Fourth of July or another day of the book festival, except most of the people gathered looked deadly serious. Savich looked out at the hundreds of curious faces, saw some of the adults handing out sandwiches to their kids. He wished parents hadn’t brought their families, not with the gruesome details he’d have to lay out. TV vans, camera crews, and anchors, most of them beautiful younger people, were already poking their mics into faces for comments. Everyone already knew about all the bones found in Lake Massey and the murder last Friday, but he supposed the news about the Star of David belt buckle hadn’t yet made it through their grapevine. The camera crews were ready, and they were going live. The regional TV stations would carry a special news bulletin, and, of course, a live stream on the Internet.

  Savich waited for Willicott’s mayor, Robert—Bobby—Bleaker, namesake of his great-grandfather, who’d donated the park to the town after World War I, to finish his introduction, then stepped to the microphone set on a conductor’s stand in the middle of the quickly erected stage.

  Mr. Maitland had decided Savich would do better without him. No reason to overwhelm. Savich spoke for twenty minutes, walked everyone through the murder of Octavia Ryan, the attempted murder of Agent Sala Porto, and the finding of the bones at the bottom of Lake Massey. He saw some of the parents put their palms over their children’s ears when he couldn’t avoid graphic descriptions. He told them what the FBI forensic anthropologists were doing, that it would take time. He didn’t say the phrase serial killer, but he didn’t have to. Every adult understood very well. They were afraid, and that was a good thing. They would take greater care now, of one another and their children.

  Finally, Savich held up the Star of David belt buckle. The cameras zoomed in. He waited a beat, then said, “This belt buckle very possibly belonged to one of the people who was murdered and thrown into Lake Massey. As you can see, it’s large and made of gold and decorated with a Star of David. If you recognize it, please call the hotline appearing at the bottom of your screen.” He repeated the number twice and also announced the hotline number for Victor Nesser again. “We need your help. Thank you. Are there any questions?”

  There were scores of questions, shouted all together, some of them planted by Savich. He wanted to be sure everyone present knew what he wanted them to know and set aside rumors that might actually hurt the investigation. When they started getting off topic, and one of the press actually asked about the environmental precautions they took while dragging Lake Massey, he closed it down. He repeated the phone numbers for both hotlines once again, thanked everyone for coming, then stepped away from the microphone. He watched the pandemonium of dozens of news people jumping on their cell phones, others madly typing on their laptops and iPads while they talked through headsets.

  Ty was convinced the hotline would get a call quickly about the Star of David belt buckle, but it didn’t happen. Instead, there was a call about a Victor Nesser sighting in Peterborough, Maryland. Savich and Sherlock drove off to check it out themselves.

  28

  * * *

  PETERBOROUGH, MARYLAND

  Savich and Sherlock drove to Herm’s Crab Shack at the end of Clooney Street in Peterborough, a ramshackle diner in a semi-industrial area. Despite no air-conditioning and unappealing surroundings, the place was jammed. Two overhead fans lazily stirred the humid air in its one long room. The customers sat at family-size wooden tables set cheek by jowl on floors covered with sawdust. The smell of fried food filled the air. A buxom waitress, her broad face shiny with sweat, greeted them, turned, and shouted, “Frankie! Get yourself out here. The FBI wants you. It’s about the call your father told you not to make.”

  Frankie Hooper was tall and skinny, maybe twenty years old, with the long arms of a basketball player. He threaded his way between tables to Savich and Sherlock, grinning hugely. They followed him out through the back of the restaurant into a tree-filled patio, pa
st more people chowing down on fried lobster. They stopped beneath a full-leafed oak tree off to one side, happy for the shade. They didn’t need to get him started, Frankie spoke fast and low, like he was afraid he’d forget it if he didn’t spew it all out at once. “This young dude came in three hours ago, kinda early for fried lobster—that’s our specialty. My granny brought the recipe over from Maine when she married Granddad a thousand years ago. Anyways, I saw his face on TV at least a dozen times, so I knew what he looked like. He looked real seedy, like he needed a bath. Ma thought he looked like one of the students at the community college.” He paused, beamed at them, leaned forward. “I know it was him, Agents, that guy, Victor Nesser. I’m sure about that.”

  “Describe him for us, Mr. Hooper,” Sherlock said, “other than his looking seedy.”

  The description Frankie gave of Victor included only what he could have seen on TV. That was worrisome.

  Sherlock gave Frankie her sunny smile. “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Nope. He didn’t talk to anybody. He chowed down on three fried lobsters. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d burst himself wide open, he ate so much, and he ate really fast. And you gotta face it, fried lobster isn’t in one of the five food groups.”

  Savich said, “Did he have a girl with him?”

  That drew Frankie up short. He pondered, then brightened. “I’d forgot. Yeah, I remember now, she ate a fried lobster, too. She was taller than he was, not very pretty.”

  Sherlock asked, “Was she younger than him? Older? What color was her hair?”

  Frankie looked flummoxed, but only for an instant. “She was wearing a ball cap. I couldn’t see her hair. She was about his age, I guess, maybe twenty-five, younger, I can’t be sure. We were starting to get really busy with the lobster brunch crowd, so I really didn’t pay them much mind. It was only after I saw you on TV and they showed his photo on-screen. He’d left, but I knew it was him so I called right away.”

  Savich asked, “How did he pay for his meal?”

  “Cash. He pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. You don’t forget seeing a hundred-dollar bill.”

  Savich and Sherlock thanked Frankie and headed for the Porsche.

  An older man with a bag of takeout in his hand shouted, “Nice wheels, man!”

  “Thank you,” Savich said and couldn’t help it. He turned, smiled.

  “You like compliments to your baby more than to yourself,” Sherlock said as she automatically studied the street.

  “I’m shy, you know that, but my Porsche isn’t.”

  Sherlock said, “Okay, so Frankie made lots of it up to please us, but I think he did see Victor.”

  Sherlock turned on the AC when Savich fired up the Porsche. “Why do people have this need to make themselves the star of the show?”

  He laughed, wove the Porsche back onto the street and toward the highway. “Well, if Victor really was there eating fried lobsters—three of them—he might be sleeping it off in a motel nearby.”

  “Could be. Not worth a grid search, though.”

  Sherlock pulled out her cell and called the Victor hotline. “We followed up on your call about Victor Nesser from Peterborough. He’s probably not here, but give the local motels a call, make sure they have his photo. Thanks, Dirk.” She sat back, fanned herself. “Nearly no traffic. Too hot to be out today.”

  “Everyone’s eating fried lobsters with Frankie and his mom, sweating their eyebrows off.”

  A bullet slammed in through the Porsche’s driver’s-side window, missing Savich by inches, and burst out Sherlock’s window. She thought she felt the heat of the bullet, it passed so close.

  Savich pressed the accelerator, and the Porsche leaped forward. Sherlock twisted around, yelled, “I see him, a dark green Kia. It’s Victor. No cars between us. Get him, Dillon!”

  Three more shots, all wide.

  Savich turned the steering wheel, let the rear wheels slide, and drove straight toward Victor.

  Sherlock leaned out the shattered window and fired nonstop at the windshield of the Kia. She saw Victor’s face, contorted with rage, then she saw fear, then panic. “What, you putz, you didn’t think we’d fight back?” She emptied her magazine, shoved in a new one.

  “Hold on!”

  She fell back into her seat when Savich took a hard left. She saw a woman’s white face as they passed her old baby blue Buick with an inch to spare, heard her horn blasting. A white lab came out from between two oak trees and ran into the road in front of them, an older man behind it, yelling as he tried to pull on its leash. Savich swerved, but it was too late. The Porsche hit a fire hydrant and blew a front tire, bounced back into the street. Thankfully, the hydrant didn’t explode. She saw the Kia behind them again, a flash of Victor’s face, then it screeched around the corner and he disappeared.

  “Sherlock, are you okay?”

  She was breathing hard and fast, her adrenaline in orbit. “Yeah, I’m okay. You, Dillon?” She was already dialing 911. She identified herself, gave the description of Victor’s Kia, their location. To Savich’s surprise, she added, “I got the first three letters on his license plate. RPL, Virginia.” She answered questions, then punched off her cell. “They’re sending patrol cars our way. We could get lucky yet.”

  Savich lightly cupped her cheek in his hand. “We’re both okay. Good going with the license plate. I’m surprised he hasn’t ditched the Kia yet. And really surprised he came at us at all. Why? He couldn’t think he’d kill us here, in the middle of Peterborough. Why didn’t he keep on driving?”

  “All good questions. At least Frankie did see him.” Sherlock smacked her fist against the glove compartment. “I shot a whole clip into his car, Dillon, but I missed him. The look on his face, we scared the crap out of him. The gall of that lady driving on our street. A good thing you missed her. The lab’s okay, too. Not so much the fire hydrant. We’ll see if the city of Peterborough dings the FBI.”

  Savich laughed, couldn’t help it. He reached over, studied her face, felt her arms. “I’m okay. Really. Look, we’ve got company.”

  They looked over at three teenage boys running toward them, one of them carrying a soccer ball.

  “Hey, dude! You guys all right?”

  Sherlock called out, “We’re fine. Is everybody okay back there?”

  The three teenagers looked at one another, then back at Sherlock. “Yeah, but we heard the pops, the crash. Hey, you got shot at, didn’t you? Busted the windows, and I see bullet holes. Oh, dude, your Porsche—the front bumper’s all crunched in.”

  Savich wasn’t surprised, but still he felt that news like a punch to the gut. No hope for it. He and Sherlock climbed out of the Porsche, pulled out their creds, and introduced themselves.

  The teen holding the soccer ball dropped it and crowded in. “Wow, were you scared? Who was after you?”

  “Thanks for coming over, guys, but we’ve got calls to make.” Sherlock looked up to see the older man holding his beautiful white lab beside him, staring at them. She trotted over and identified herself, apologized.

  Savich studied his baby, ran his hand over the damage, and kicked the flat front tire. His insurance company was not going to like this, but not less than he did.

  29

  * * *

  HAGGERSVILLE, MARYLAND

  MONDAY EVENING

  Gunny Saks chewed slowly on her mama’s chicken parmigiana, savoring the taste of the hot cheese in her mouth. Mama had pulled it fresh out of the oven only five minutes before with the cheese still bubbling. Monday was always parmigiana night, and she’d looked forward to it all day while she sorted the mail for the post office mailboxes and hauled packages in from the loading dock to the staging area where Mr. Klem sorted them into the route hampers for the carriers.

  She hummed before she swallowed each bite, a childhood habit. As she chewed, Gunny savored her mama’s secret ingredient, a special mozzarella from Trenton, New Jersey, made and sold in small batches by an old Italian gro
cer Mama had met twenty years ago. Mama had sworn her to secrecy because, she explained, she had a reputation to uphold. Gunny didn’t understand this, but she kept her word. She knew about secrets, knew how to keep them. One thing everybody knew was her mama was the best baker in town. Dozens of people lined up every morning except Thursday in front of her mama’s bakery, Heaven Sent, for one of her bear claws or croissants or sinful cinnamon rolls, with dribbles of warm icing snaking over the sides. Gunny loved to lick off those dribbles of icing while her mother shook her head at her, said it wasn’t fair that Gunny never gained an ounce.

  Gunny spooned up some mashed potatoes—good, but not as good as the parmigiana. She swallowed, took a drink of sweet tea, cleared her throat, and said, “Something worries me, Mama.”

  Lulie Saks looked at her daughter over the top of her glasses. If asked, Lulie would say Gunny normally looked dreamy, placid, but looking more closely at her, Lulie did see worry in her daughter’s beautiful light blue eyes. It concerned her because Gunny rarely focused on anything long enough to worry. Lulie did her best to make her daughter’s life stress free, simple, and straightforward, to lay out everything for her so she wouldn’t suddenly get confused, wouldn’t get frustrated. So what if Gunny wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer? She was a good daughter. And so beautiful, she could have been a model. Tall, slender, with rich, wavy mink-brown hair, white skin. If only—no, she wouldn’t go there. It wasn’t fair to Gunny, and it was a waste of time. Besides, Gunny was perfect the way she was. She worked hard at the post office and even helped out at the bakery on weekends.

  Gunny didn’t say anything more, only kept eating slowly, chewing thoroughly as Lulie had taught her.

  It was time to help her daughter along again.

  “What worries you, sweetie? I know you’re not overworked at the post office these days, what with everyone writing emails and not letters, and fewer catalogues than last year going through the postal system. So that means things are slow, right?”