Point Blank

by Catherine Coulter

  Dix accepted a kiss from her on his cheek and made the introductions. She said to the rest of them, “Welcome, all of you. You’re here about my poor Erin. Gordon called me right after you left him, Dix. I’ve been running my feet off on the treadmill trying not to think about it.” She pressed her palm over her mouth for a moment, as if catching a sob, and turned back to them. “Forgive me. She was like a daughter to me. She had such talent, such passion and life in her music, but none in her own life—a very strange thing, I always thought. She poured everything out of herself into her music. She was acquainted with a lot of men, but rarely dated, and no, she wasn’t involved closely with anyone. I would know if she had been.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Dix, but I called Ginger. She’ll be over soon, after she finishes up composing one of her very important wills.” She rolled her eyes and wandered to the fireplace, fingering the Hummel figures that stood in a line across the mantel. “Gordon said you would want me to tell you everything I know about her. Well, as I said, she didn’t talk about any men in her life. She had no time for them; every bit of her passion went into her music. I could close my eyes while she played a violin solo from Schumann or Edvard Grieg and be reminded of Yehudi Menuhin or myself playing it. She could be that good.”

  Gloria paused, pulled the headband off her forehead, and ran her fingers through her thick, sweaty salt-and-pepper hair. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, or she’d sweated it all off. She’d always worked out, taken good care of herself, Dix thought. She was big-boned, firm, her color excellent. What a change from how he remembered her years before. She’d been much thinner, drawn so tightly she could snap at you like a violin string.

  Gloria said, looking off at nothing in particular as far as Ruth could tell, “Erin always wanted to study here at Stanislaus, never Juilliard. She hated New York, thought it was dirty, too big and loud, and didn’t like some of the people who lived there.” She paused for a moment, sighed. “Her idol was Arcangelo Corelli, though of course she never heard him play since he performed in the seventeenth century. She read a contemporary poet’s description of his playing and swore she wanted nothing else.”

  She turned suddenly, and there were tears in her eyes. “Gordon is devastated. I am devastated. When Erin graduated, she would have been one of the top violinists to come out of Stanislaus in many years. In time, she would have taken her place as first violinist in one of the finest orchestras in the world. I do not understand why anyone would want to snuff out her life and her immense talent.”

  “How old was she when she began to study violin, Ms. Stanford?” Ruth asked.

  “Three, I believe, the usual age if the parents are intelligent and observant.”

  “Was she close to her family? To her siblings?” Sherlock asked.

  “She was an only child. Before you arrived, her parents called me. I could hardly understand her mother she was crying so hard, poor woman.”

  “You know of no one who was jealous of her? Hated her because she played so well? Saw her as competition to be eliminated?”

  She looked at Agent Savich, who’d asked the question in a deep, soft voice but looked so hard and competent, and dangerous. She saw the wedding ring on his finger and felt a moment of disappointment. “I’m sorry, Agent Savich, what did you say?”

  “Jealousy, ma’am. Can you think of anyone who could have gone over the edge because of jealousy?”

  Gloria said matter-of-factly, “Let me be clear here. Schools like Stanislaus and Juilliard have only exceptionally talented young people, and every student is in competition with every other student. There aren’t that many occupational avenues open for violinists other than performing unless one wants to teach in some high school in Los Angeles. It is cutthroat, sometimes heartbreaking, and it can bring out a person’s darkest passions. But musicians learn to focus on themselves and the music when they are challenged, not on each other.

  “I cannot imagine a single one of the dozen violin students here at Stanislaus who would have considered Erin such a threat to their own future that they would consider killing her. I’ve never heard of such a thing. How strange it is that she died in a cave. Do you know she once visited a cave near her home in Iowa so she could hear how her violin sounded deep underground?”

  Dix asked about Erin’s professors, if she knew anyone living in Maestro. He told her to call him if she thought of anything at all, and because he realized she needed it, he spoke to her of Rob and Rafe, about their sledding on Breaker’s Hill and Rafe’s double helix project. She was smiling when they left ten minutes later.

  Sherlock rose on her tiptoes and said into Savich’s ear, “I thought there for a while that she was going to jump you.”

  He looked startled, automatically shook his head. “You are such an innocent.” Sherlock squeezed his arm, and then she noticed the twinkle in his eyes. “Dillon, I’m going to have to punish you for pulling my chain like that.”

  “How long have they been married?” Dix asked Ruth as he opened the passenger-side door for her.

  “Forever,” Ruth said. She watched Dix looking at Savich and Sherlock, his gaze unreadable.

  CHAPTER 17

  AT SIX O’CLOCK, as everyone filed into Dix’s kitchen to eat his homemade meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a Boston cream pie from Millie’s Deli, Savich’s cell phone sang the opening lines of “Georgia on My Mind.”

  Savich excused himself and walked to the kitchen doorway. He looked down at his cell phone screen. It read Private. He said, “Savich here.”

  “Hello, boy, been too long since I checked in with you, now ain’t it? Hey, you miss me and my little pranks?” Moses Grace’s scratchy old voice sounded happy and so clear he could have been at Savich’s elbow.

  Savich quickly stepped over to his laptop, MAX, sitting open on the sideboard in the dining room, and pressed ENTER.

  Savich had been waiting for this, had expected Moses Grace to call again, and here he was, only four days since Savich had first heard the old man’s voice. He walked into the entrance hall, not wanting anyone to overhear the conversation. “So, you’re blocking Caller ID, Moses. That’s cute. Did you kill someone else for this phone?”

  An obscene laugh sounded in his ear, ending in a phlegm-filled cough. “Hey, you’re the cop, boy, you’re the one who’s supposed to be able to pinpoint a flea on a sand dune. But you know what? You couldn’t find me if I drove up and waved in your face. You want a hint?”

  “Yes, give me a hint.”

  “Maybe I will. Hey, how’s that precious little wife of yours?”

  A flash of rage poured through Savich. “She’s well out of your reach.”

  “You really believe that? I was thinking about taking that little wife of yours and giving her a shove off a nice steep cliff, watch her roll over and over and pound herself into pieces, watch her sprawl out dead at the bottom. You can watch, too, from the top, boy.”

  Savich hated this, hated it to his soul. But words couldn’t kill and he needed Moses Grace to keep talking. “You still sound pretty bad, Moses. I suppose you’re too far gone for any drugs to help you?”

  “Me? Not well? Just a little tobacco cough, is all. For a sick man, I did pretty well against all of you comic FBI agents at Arlington. How about I go shoot up the FBI building?”

  “Yeah, why don’t you? Or maybe you should first come after me again, you evil old bastard.”

  The old man was silent for a moment.

  “Me? Evil? Yeah, well, meybe so. Meybe my pa poured Drano in Mama’s mouth when she sassed him once too often. Always had a mouth on her, Mama did. Daddy socked her upside the head so many times it knocked her brains squirrelly, but she kept on mouthing off at him.

  “Hey, what do I care if I’m evil, anyway? The good Lord can take care of His, and I’ll take care of my own. Ain’t you glad to hear from me, Special Agent Savich? Special Agent—I like that, like all you baboons are worth spit. Four whole days and none of you have gotten anywhere close to
me and Claudia. She laughs and laughs whenever we drive by a cop, even flips some of ’em the finger. A finger from my cute little dolly always makes the cops gape at her—they can’t believe someone so young and sweet-looking would do such a vulgar thing. She pushes the envelope when meybe she shouldn’t. Meybe she’s not the brightest child in the world, but she’s mine.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I done told you,” Moses said, his drawl stretching out endlessly. “I wanted to check in with you—ah, ask you a favor. I want you to call Ms. Lilly at the Bonhomie Club, tell her what a lovely memorial party she threw for Pinky last night.”

  Moses Grace and Claudia hadn’t been in the nightclub the night before. Six undercover agents were there, hidden cameras everywhere. But they were outside, watching who went in.

  “Your boss, D.A.D. Maitland, looked really nice in his dark suit and that yellow tie with the black squiggles on it.”

  “Yeah, tell me what James Quinlan was wearing.”

  “Dark suit, red tie with blue triangles on it, looked pretty somber for someone carrying a saxophone. I enjoyed listening to him play. Surprised me—there were lots of folks weeping. It was affectin’, real affectin’.”

  Savich drew a deep breath. They’d been talking a good long time now. Maybe long enough, but he wasn’t sure. Best to keep him talking as long as possible, to make certain. “Tell me, Moses, why are you so interested in me? Me in particular? What did I ever do to you?”

  Moses was silent for a moment. “So you think this is personal, do you, boy? Well, fact is, you’re right. I got more hate for you stored up inside me than Lucifer.”

  “Why?”

  “You hurt her, boy, hurt her so bad she was screaming with it.” He broke off. Savich heard the old man’s breathing quicken.

  “Who was that, Moses?”

  “I might tell you before you die, boy. You know my Claudia still wants you, don’t you?”

  All right. Moses was not going to tell him. He decided to shake the old man. It might be the best way to keep him on the line. Savich said in an amused voice, filled with contempt, “You think I’d actually have down and dirty sex with that bug-eyed crazy teenage slut? I bet Claudia drools, she’s so far gone, particularly since she’s with you.” Savich laughed, vicious and nail-hard. “Hey, I’d kick that crazy bitch in the head before I’d let her get near me. What is she, old man, your granddaughter? Or is she some pathetic drugged-out teenager you picked up?”

  Blank surprise, Savich heard it in the cold, dead silence. He waited, finally heard a wheeze, as if Moses Grace was going to start hacking. He’d been as crude as he could manage—was this teenage girl old Moses’s lover?

  Then Moses Grace wheezed out a laugh that made gooseflesh rise on Savich’s arms. He said in that wet drawl, “Must have been real tough for you, boy, talking all dirty like that. Let me tell you, you’ll change your mind if Claudia has a shot at you. I’ve seen my little sweet cakes diddle a woman before I told her enough was enough and to dig out the old girl’s eyes then kick her out of the van.”

  Yes, tell me more, you insane old man, yes. “Yeah, right, you old liar. That’s about as believable as Hollywood throwing a ticker-tape parade for Schwarzenegger.”

  He looked up to see Sherlock standing ten feet away, watching him. He said very deliberately, “It must be tough for you, Moses, knowing you’re too decrepit, too diseased, to screw your own wife.”

  Savich felt cold dead rage blasting at him. Then Moses Grace chortled, a disgusting, juicy sound. “I don’t like a dirty mouth on you, boy, it don’t seem right somehow. You know, Claudia’s got her fantasies about you and I’ve got mine. We’ll see what you say when I watch your life drain away. I’ll win and you’ll know it. See you then, Savich.”

  There was the silence of dead space. Moses Grace had disconnected.

  Sherlock walked to him, nosed against his shoulder. “I’ve never heard you speak like that before.”

  “It surprised old Moses, too,” he said as he saw Dix walking toward them.

  Savich nodded to him, then speed-dialed the communications center in the Hoover Building. “This is Savich. Did you locate Moses Grace’s cell phone?”

  He heard a man shouting, “I need the location now!” Then a voice came back on the line, panting, “He’s within a two-mile radius of a semi-rural area west of Dulles, heading toward Leesburg. We just dispatched local police and agents to the area. He was moving, and unfortunately knew enough to turn the phone off, so we’ve lost his signal. You kept him going a long time, Savich, but he didn’t make it easy on us. He was using a different carrier than yours, so we had to track him down through Sprint’s Automatic Number Identification system, using your number as the target phone. That took a while. We’ll keep you posted.”

  Savich punched off his cell, turning to Sherlock and Dix, “Moses is headed toward Leesburg. Cops and agents are on their way, but it sounds like a crapshoot.”

  Sherlock said, “A pity he’s not at a nice warm motel, all tucked in for the night.”

  “How did you track him from way out here, Savich?” Dix asked.

  “MAX helped,” Savich said. “I had him set up to instant message our communications center in Washington if Moses called again. MAX recorded the call, too, through a Bluetooth transmitter I have wired into my phone.

  “Since the PATRIOT Act was put into place, we’ve been able to get wiretap warrants for all calls made by an individual suspect, not just a particular phone number. So it doesn’t help them to just ditch a phone and get a new one. So, wherever Moses goes, no matter what cell phone he happens to use, we go with him. He used Caller ID blocking, which slowed us down at bit. If we’d known his number right away, we could have located him in about fifteen seconds.”

  “Do you think the police and agents will catch him?” Dix said.

  “We should be so lucky,” Savich said, and sighed. “He was driving while he talked, and probably kept driving after he turned the phone off.” To Sherlock he said, “Do you know he bragged how he and Claudia were at the Bonhomie Club last night for Pinky’s memorial? There was no way they were inside, that’s for certain. They had to be hiding outside, watching who went into the club.”

  They stood silently for a moment before Savich spoke again. “It kept him talking, though, and he may have given me a lead without realizing it. We need to find a woman who was probably kidnapped and eventually dumped on the side of the road, with possible eye injuries. I’ll call Mr. Maitland, give him a heads-up. Moses still sounded like he was wheezing; he can’t disguise that. You guys head into the kitchen, play it light. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  Sherlock nodded. “When we get back to the B-and-B, we’ll get MAX started on finding this woman.” She rose to her tiptoes, kissed his mouth. “Okay, don’t be too long, there are two growing boys in there. No telling how long that corn on the cob’s going to last.”

  “One more thing, Sherlock. Moses said I hurt a woman he cared for. That’s why he hates me.”

  BUD BAILEY’S BED & BREAKFAST

  TUESDAY NIGHT

  SAVICH GOT THE call that the roadblocks hadn’t turned up anyone resembling Moses Grace or Claudia. The cell phone belonged to a woman in Hamilton whose purse had gone missing. He wanted to kick something.

  Instead, he put MAX to work. When Sherlock came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, Savich said, “Her name is Elsa Bender, forty-five, divorced a little over a year, kids grown. About two months ago, she was kidnapped right out of the parking lot at her local supermarket—only one witness. The guy said he heard a woman scream, saw a dirty white van screech into the street. Elsa was found the following morning by a farmer driving a tractor on a country road only three miles from her home in Westcott, in western Pennsylvania. She was naked, dumb with pain, her eyes gone. There’d been a warm spell, thank God, or else she’d have died. As it was, she nearly died from shock.

  “She’s now living in Philadelphia with her ex-husband,
who’s evidently been a stand-up guy since this happened. I think we need to go see her, Sherlock. I called the chief of police in Westcott, finally convinced him I was for real and asked him to read her description of the kidnappers. He said he didn’t have one; she couldn’t remember what had happened from the moment she drove into the supermarket parking lot until she woke up in the hospital. He didn’t know if she was telling the truth or was just scared, and he couldn’t do any follow-up interviews because the ex-husband took her out of the local hospital and his jurisdiction and back to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia police know about it, but so far, the chief said, they’ve got squat. The last time the local police spoke to her was four weeks ago. There’s been nothing since.”

  Sherlock was excited. “How lovely of that mad old man to tell you about her. We could be there tomorrow.”

  He nodded slowly, rose and stretched.

  “Hey, sailor, you wanna dance?”

  He laughed, pulled her to him, and hugged her hard. He said against her ear, “We can be back in Maestro by tomorrow evening. Maybe we’ll want to dance again.”

  “What if Moses and Claudia do—”

  “It’s okay. If they act, we’ll deal with it. I’ll be surprised if they don’t do something. Old Moses called me to brag, and he needs something new to brag about. He’s not well, Sherlock. I’m thinking this may be his last hurrah.”

  CHAPTER 18

  MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  “HOLD UP A minute, Ruth,” Dix said. He and Ruth waited by the Range Rover for Tony Holcombe to cross Main Street. He was focused on Dix, looking straight ahead ignoring the slushy ground, nearly sending an old Ford Fairlane skidding into a parking meter to avoid hitting him.