Tail Spin ft-12

by Catherine Coulter

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Savich said, as he pressed the button in the empty car. “You believe exactly what you told Timothy. Life gives and life takes. The thing is, you simply never know, can never predict, and given the pace of science, you put up with what’s on your plate, you do your best with the hand you’re dealt, and you hope.”

  She leaned into him, sighed. “Some things are so sad. I hate feeling helpless.”

  “I do, too.”

  When the elevator doors slid open Savich and Sherlock stepped into the lobby to see Jack and Rachael walking toward them.

  Jack said, “I just got a call from Ollie, and was on my way up to you guys. You won’t believe this. Timothy’s office was torched early this morning, his computer toasted, hard disk destroyed, all his hard-copy files burned to a crisp.”

  Sherlock raised her eyes to the heavens. “Why can’t things ever shake out easy?” She kicked at a big ceramic flower pot with fake red geraniums in it.

  “You don’t even seem concerned, Jack,” Savich said. “What do you know that we don’t?”

  “It so happens Molly gave me his laptop, and it has all his patients on it.”

  “Make note of this, Rachael. Jack here’s a prince,” Savich said. “I was looking forward to a lovely eggplant po’ boy for lunch, and now you’ve made that possible.”

  “Eggplant?” Rachael repeated, and looked astonished. “An eggplant po’ boy?”

  “Oh yes,” Sherlock said, smiling, “grilled in only a soupcon of olive oil, available only in our cafeteria on the seventh floor of the Hoover building. Elaine Pomfrey makes the best vegetarian sandwiches in Washington, and this one she prepares especially for Dillon. Thank you, Jack, for having that great news.”

  Savich said to Rachael, “You and Jack need to go to Senator Abbott’s house—your house—get all your stuff. Then we’re going to put you in a safe house.”

  Rachael smiled at all three of them. “Nope, no safe house in this lifetime. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do: I intend to have a chat this very afternoon with Aunt Laurel and Uncle Quincy, after I have some nice crispy fried chicken, maybe a biscuit and mashed potatoes in your famous cafeteria. But I don’t want to hear any more about hiding.”

  Jack said to Savich, “I’ve got some more convincing to do, evidently.”

  Sherlock said, “By the way, the blood samples from two of the shooters from Slipper Hollow are in the lab. We’ll soon know if those bozos are in the system. Still no word from any medical facilities about the guy you shot in Gillette’s kitchen, Jack.”

  “Maybe they’re both dead,” Rachael said, and pushed her hair behind her ears. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Savich held up his hand. “It’s one o’clock. I’m starving. Let’s discuss this over my eggplant po’ boy.” He looked at Rachael. “And your fried chicken.”

  Jack said, “What about the guy Rachael shot in Roy Bob’s garage? Roderick Lloyd?”

  “He’s got himself a lawyer, still refuses to say a word,” Sherlock said. “Our agents searched his apartment, found some credit card receipts that might give us the gold. Lloyd has been to the Blue Fox restaurant over on Maynard four or five times in the past two weeks.

  “Our agent found out Lloyd brought a Lolita with him the past three times, according to one of the waiters, who said she gave him her cell number. We should know who she is anytime now. As for Lloyd, at least he’s no longer a danger to anybody.”

  Rachael said as they walked to the hospital parking lot, “I need a gun. Do you have one to lend me, Sherlock?”

  “Look, Rachael, I know you’re a fine shot, I know your life is on the line here, but I’d be breaking the law if I gave you one.”

  Not wonderful news, but Rachael said, “Okay, I understand. Hey, I wasn’t thinking—I bet Jimmy kept one at home.”

  Savich and Jack both opened their mouths but Sherlock held up her hand. “No, guys, if there’s a gun at home, then what’s wrong with her defending herself? It’s not as if she’s not trained and might shoot somebody who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Thank you, Sherlock.”

  “I don’t like this,” Jack said. “I really don’t.”

  “Get over it,” Sherlock said, and looked at her husband. “No, no, bad dog, keep quiet.”

  They stopped by the Criminal Apprehension Unit on the fifth floor, introduced Rachael to all the agents present. Ollie showed her a photo of his wile and his little boy. In the cafeteria, while Savich was eating his eggplant po’ boy and Rachael was chewing on a fried chicken leg, Sherlock’s cell rang. She swallowed a bite of taco, then answered.

  She hung up barely a minute later. “We’ve got the name of Lolita—the young girl who was with Roderick Lloyd. The cell phone number she gave the waiter is for a phone that belongs to a married grad student who admitted giving the phone to a hooker in exchange for her services. He gave us her name.”

  Sherlock beamed. “Angel Snodgrass is in juvie over in Fairfax.” Twenty minutes later, she and Savich were in his new Porsche, zipping out of the Hoover garage.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Angel Snodgrass was sixteen years old, blessed with long, thick natural blond hair, soft baby-blue eyes, and a face clean of makeup.

  She did indeed look like an angel. An undercover vice cop had busted her for soliciting outside the Grove Creek Inn at the big Hammerson mall in Fairfax.

  “Angel? I’m Special Agent Savich and this is Special Agent Sherlock. FBI. We’d like to speak to you.”

  She folded her very white hands on the table in front of her and stared at them. Her nails were short, clean, and nicely buffed. “Why are you special?”

  Savich grinned. “The way I hear it, up until the time Hoover took over, the FBI was a mess—no background checks, no training, a playground for thugs. Hoover changed all that, announced his agents would from that time on be special, and so it became our title. There are lots of other special agents now, but we were the first.” Savich wasn’t at all sure if that was entirely true, but it sounded like it might be.

  Angel thought about this for a while as she studied his face. “Who’s Hoover?” she asked.

  “Ah, well, he was a long time ago. Where’s home, Angel?” he asked her.

  “Since I’m not going back there, I’m not saying.”

  “Why were you turning tricks?” Sherlock asked.

  Angel shrugged. “I wanted a Big Mac. Lots of businessmen are in and out of the Grove Creek Inn, and there are lots of guys at the mall. Since I’m so young and pretty, they usually tip me real good, too. If that cop hadn’t nabbed me, I could have had a dozen Big Macs. Now, it’s just the crap they claim is food in this pit. What do you special guys want anyway?”

  Had she been abused before she finally ran away? Savich knew this girl would get counseled here, that there would be a shot at straightening her out.

  Sherlock sat forward in her chair. “We need your help, Angel. The waiter you gave your cell number to at the Blue Fox restaurant told us you were with Roderick Lloyd. We need you to tell us about him.”

  “Why? What’d Roddy do?”

  Savich studied her, her eyes, her body movements. “Thing is, Angel, Roddy’s a very bad man. He’s in a hospital in western Virginia right now because he tried to murder a woman. It’s good for her that she’s smart and fast, got herself a rifle and shot him instead.”

  Angel nodded, tapped her fingers on the tabletop, tossed her head, sending all that beautiful blond hair swinging away from her head to settle again on her shoulders and down her back. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Roddy is always blowing hard, bragging, like that, telling me how important he is, how when there’s a problem, he’s the one folks call to solve it. He was all puffed up when he told me he had to go out of town for a couple of days, take care of this situation for a real important dude. He didn’t give me a name, if that’s what you’re wondering.

  “I was wondering why Roddy hasn’t called me, then I realized my cell is dead and I can�
��t charge it since Roddy locked me out of his apartment. Is he going to die?”

  “No,” Sherlock said, “but he’s not in terribly good shape. Lost the use of both of his hands for a while.”

  “I was thinking he was a hit man, like that,” Angel said, looking over Savich’s right shoulder, her voice calm. “I can see him blowing it, too. I mean even in bed he was always too fast off the mark, didn’t really think things through, you know? No surprise he’d screw up a hit.”

  “Did he tell you about this situation he had to handle?” Savich asked. He pulled a pack of sugarless gum from his pocket, offered her a stick.

  She took it, peeled the wrapper with long white fingers, stuck it into her mouth. She chewed, then sighed. “Well, this isn’t a Big Mac, but it’s not bad. Thanks, Special Agent.”

  “You’re welcome.” They chewed in companionable silence, then Savich said, “About the situation Roddy had to handle—we’d sure appreciate your telling us exactly what you know about it.”

  A flicker of alarm widened her eyes.

  Savich said easily, “The woman he tried to kill, the woman who shot him instead, she’s still in danger, from the people or person who hired Roddy. Did he tell you anything?”

  Angel began tapping her fingers again on the scarred tabletop. Savich wasn’t blind, he saw the gleam in her innocent blue eyes. Ah, so they had a budding deal maker on their hands. “Nah,” Angel began, “he didn’t tell me a thing, and I don’t know anything—”

  Savich interrupted her smoothly. “If you help us, I’ll make sure you get the reward. It’s ... ah ... I’m not really sure, maybe five hundred bucks, depending on the information.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Angel said.

  “Well, yeah,” Savich admitted, “but the thing is, it’d buy a lot of Big Macs and a new charger for your cell phone.”

  “Hmm,” Angel said. “How do I know I can trust you? I mean, you’re pretty hot, but you’re still a federal cop. It’d take weeks, maybe years before I’d get the reward.”

  Savich pulled out his wallet, saw her eyes were glued to it. He slowly peeled out five one-hundred-dollar bills, the entire amount he’d gotten from his ATM that morning. “To prove you can trust me, I’ll advance the reward. It’s yours if what you tell us is useful.” She never looked away from the stack of bills. “The first one’s on account,” Savich said, and pushed one of the bills to her, “to prove my good intent.” Angel grabbed it and stuffed it in her bra.

  “There’s nothing like green next to your skin,” she said, and gave him a huge smile. “Okay, I can give you useful stuff. After three bourbons, straight up, Roddy started bitching, told me he should be paid more to handle this situation. Roddy always talked like that— you know, making words sound important. He said it was pissant dough for his talents, like that. I almost shouted at him, ‘Dude, you’re old and nasty, who’d want to pay you anything?’ But I had a nice place to stay and Roddy was easy and fast in bed, so I kept my trap shut. Roddy said it was a real rush deal. He was going in and out of this hick town like right now, and so he didn’t have time to check anything out, said he hated going in blind, but from what I could tell, that’s what he always did, just waltzed right in somewhere and hoped for the best. What a dumbass. Is that useful?”

  “Not very,” Savich said, and fingered a second hundred, his eyes on her face.

  Angel’s hands fluttered toward the second bill. She said, “Okay, I’ll admit I was listening when the phone rang—that’s how I knew he got the job. He knew whoever it was, and he was real respectful, assured whoever it was that he could handle anything, to trust him, lame stuff like that.”

  “He didn’t say a name?”

  “No, he listened, then kept telling whoever it was that he’d take care of it, no problem.”

  “When he hung up, what did he say?”

  “He said he had to move fast, that he had to drive to this hick town in Kentucky tomorrow, he had to leave real early Monday morning. Oh yeah, he wrote down lots of stuff. Directions, I guess. Then this photo came through his fax machine.”

  Savich pushed the second hundred-dollar bill across the table. It disappeared into her bra.

  “Okay, the fax—it was a woman, young, pretty, okay blond hair”—she tossed her head again—”but she had this real cool braid. So I asked him what he was going to do to her and he said, nothing much, just put out her lights, and he slogged down another shot of bourbon. While he poured, I picked up her photo—it was off a driver’s license, but like I said, I could tell she was pretty even though the picture was lousy. When I get a driver’s license I’m going to sleep with the guy taking the pictures so I can get me a good one.”

  Savich began to smooth out the third one-hundred-dollar bill.

  “He grabbed the fax from me, started talking to himself, like, ‘I need a full clip, maybe two, that’ll do it. Cheap bastards,’ on and on like that, you know?”

  Bastards. Plural. Savich nodded. “Angel, by any chance did Roddy ever use your cell phone?”

  She thought about that, and Savich could see her mental wheels spinning. “Well, yeah, maybe, a couple of times.”

  “How long ago did the graduate student trade your services for a cell phone?”

  “Well, I guess I should tell you I gave that grad student a smiley face when I was living with Roddy.”

  “And you still have your cell?”

  “Yeah, sure, but like I told you, it’s deader than the fish my uncle Bobby shot out of the water when he was aiming for my little brother.”

  No, Savich thought, don’t go there. “I’d like to borrow your cell phone, Angel. I’ll return it. In fact, I’ll pay you a rental fee. What do you say?”

  Greed gleamed in those innocent eyes. “How much you willing to pay me? It’s a good phone, lots of fancy things on it. Well, to be honest here, and that hurts real bad, I don’t think it’s got many minutes on it now.”

  “However many minutes you’ve got will be perfect,” Savich said.

  “You know, a cell phone’s like a guy; if you don’t plug him in every night, charge him good, you got nothing at all.”

  Savich slid two bills across the table as Angel dug her cell phone out of her pocket. “I need some lipstick, but they wouldn’t give me my purse. They didn’t take my cell because it’s dead, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll return it nicely charged.” Savich rose, left the last hundred-dollar bill on the table. “Sherlock, why don’t you give Angel your lipstick. It’s a real pretty shade. See if you can’t make her earn that last hundred.”

  He said to Angel, “I’ll see you soon. I think your information was so valuable that I’m going to speak to the people in charge and have all charges dropped.”

  She gaped at him.

  He held up his hand. “Wait, Angel. I will do this if you swear to me you’ll call this number.” He handed her a card. “This guy helps kids like you. Will you call him?”

  He saw the lie in her eyes. “Oh yes, Mr. Special Agent, I’ll call ... Mr. Hanratty right away.”

  He shook her hand and left her and Sherlock to look at the lipstick. He joined the assistant director of the facility, Mrs. Limber, in the hallway. “It’s going very well,” he told her. “Thanks for letting us deal with her alone. I’m going to see if I can’t get her released.”

  Mrs. Limber, soft as a pillow and wearing huge glasses, patted his shoulder. “Angel has guts and brains, but she’s got a larcenous soul. Some do, you know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I know, but—”

  “She’s also a freight train—she won’t stop. I see you’ve got Angel’s dead cell phone. Would you like to borrow a charger?”

  Inside the small interview room, Sherlock smiled at the lovely shade of dark pink Angel smoothed on her lips. “Very nice. Yep, you keep it, the mirror, too.”

  “I want a Big Mac,” Angel said, and tossed her hair.

  Sherlock fingered the last hundred. “Why don’t you tell me how you met Ro
ddy.”

  When Sherlock found Savich, he was sitting under a tree in front of the detention facility humming and playing with Angel’s cell. He looked up. “Did she earn the last hundred?”

  “Yep, and now our budding Donald Trump owns my lipstick, mirror, and a comb. Oh yeah, she told me you should keep her cell; with all the cash she got off you, she’s going to buy herself a Venus. She can’t wait to leave this place in the dust. I don’t know, Dillon, I just don’t know.”

  “Sometimes you gotta cut the fish loose. You’re not going to believe what I found on the cell.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Baltimore, Maryland

  Wednesday afternoon

  “This has got to be heaven.”

  Rachael stared around the large reception area on the thirtieth floor of the Abbott-Cavendish building on the corner of South Calvert Street. Her breathing quickened. “Oh my, would you look at those beauties. Jimmy told me Laurel is an expert on Chippendale furniture and filled the place with originals, but he never brought me here, said he couldn’t stand the stuff.” She looked around at the mint-condition Chippendale chairs and tables and felt her pulse race. “He was wrong,” she said, lightly running her fingers over a chair back. “How could anyone hate these? They’re exquisite. Just touch the wood, Jack, so smooth and perfect. It’s mahogany from the West Indies. And this chair leg—it’s called the cabriole leg, his signature form.”

  Jack looked at the elegantly curved chair leg, at the turned feet, then back at her. He said slowly, “I knew you could come into my house and do this and that and it’d look a lot nicer than it does now, but you also know all about antiques?”

  “Particularly Chippendale. Would you look at that lowboy, at the elaborate carving. It screams eighteenth century. Do you know he never used a maker’s mark? To prove authenticity, you need to be able to trace the piece back to the original invoice.”

  What was a lowboy? Was she joking? An invoice from the eighteenth century?

  Jack said, “No, I didn’t know that.” He listened to her talk about how Americans like Queen Anne splats and kidney-shaped seats, how they prefer cherrywood to mahogany. Those fancy cabriole legs sank at least three inches into the thick, expensive carpeting. You couldn’t pay him to sit in one of those chairs.