The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  “Dillon, come on in the living room,” Ruth called out, before appearing in the doorway, Dix at her shoulder. “We’ve got some delicious tea, some scones that Millie of Millie’s Deli made herself, just for the Feds, and Dix and I had something really interesting happen today, but never mind that just now. Boys, bring in the Federal agents and let’s eat.”

  “So how was your day?” Dix asked as he handed out scones.

  Sherlock smiled as she took a cup of tea from Ruth. “Actually, our afternoon was great. We took Sean out to build a snowman, poured hot chocolate down his gullet, and listened to him talk nonstop about his grandmother’s new puppy.” She rolled her eyes. “I have a feeling there’ll be barking in our house very soon now.”

  “Dogs are good,” Dix said as he gave Brewster a pat. “This little guy keeps my neck warm at night.”

  Rob and Rafe finally went off to bed after nearly an hour and four more scones, Savich and Sherlock having filled their ears with horrifying, thoroughly fictional tales of mayhem in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Dix waited another couple of minutes until he was sure it was quiet upstairs, then nodded. “Okay, they’re down for the count. Tell us what really happened in Philadelphia. Could that poor woman tell you anything about Moses Grace and Claudia?”

  Savich said, “Yeah, she did. Her name’s Elsa Bender. She’s going to be all right. I mean, I think the future looks pretty good for her.” Savich looked over at Dix and Ruth, who were sitting on the sofa opposite him and Sherlock, Brewster sleeping between them. He pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket. “This is the Bender daughter, Annie. She’s seventeen in the photo—tall, slender, nearly white-blond hair, big blue eyes. Elsa Bender says she looks like Claudia.”

  Ruth studied the photo. “She looks like a cheerleader whose biggest problem is deciding who to go out with after the football game on Saturday night. You’ve already got this photo out all around the Beltway, haven’t you, Dillon?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  Sherlock said, “Elsa said Moses Grace is as old as he sounds, at least seventy. His face is all leathery from too much sun, which suggests he could have spent a good deal of his life on a farm, an oil rig, a chain gang—take your pick. Elsa said he’s lean and wiry, but he didn’t look fit, he looked sort of gray. She said Claudia’s voice was sweet one minute, shrill the next, with a midwestern accent. As for Moses, we’ve heard his deep drawl, the excessive bad grammar that simply doesn’t feel right. Elsa also said he had a hacking cough, and was always spitting up. That was two months ago. He sounds much worse now.”

  Dix sat forward, cuddling Brewster in his arms. “You had a productive day—”

  Ruth cut in, the enthusiasm bubbling out of her. “But maybe not as exciting as ours. You’re going to love this. I’ll start you off with Ginger Stanford, and then move on to lunch with Chappy and the little rascals.”

  “Then,” Dix said, “our pièce de résistance—Helen Rafferty.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “ . . . WHEN WE GOT to Stanislaus, we took Helen Rafferty into the employee lounge. Ruth didn’t give her a chance to settle, to get herself ready. She asked her point-blank about Dr. Holcombe and Erin Bushnell.”

  Ruth smoothly took up the tale, as if they’d worked as a team for a very long time. “She actually started crying, and only got ahold of herself after I reminded her how important it all is, now that Erin is dead.”

  Dix said, “After she dried her eyes, the first thing she did was ask us if we’d like some coffee. I said yes to give Helen some time to collect herself.”

  Ruth said, “She apologized to Dix because she knew Dr. Holcombe was his uncle, but she had thought about it, and had to let it out. The bottom line is, Helen Rafferty admitted she and Dr. Holcombe—that’s how she always referred to him—were lovers for perhaps three months about five years ago. She said it was in the summer, when there weren’t many students around. He broke it off, told her that being with her drained him. You’re going to like this—he said being with her had been sort of like attaching himself to an ancient blessing that had lost its power over the years, and now it was suffocating him and he couldn’t continue to be intimate with her. Fact was, she told us, Dr. Holcombe had this compulsion—she’d known about it since before their affair. He’d slept with a number of very talented young women at Stanislaus over the years, and he seemed not to want to stop. She confronted him with it, and he said he supposed that deep inside his spirit he needed their nourishment, their innocent love of music and life, or he couldn’t create, couldn’t compose his own music, didn’t think he could go on at all. She smiled a little and said she knows what that sounds like, but that he believed it, she was sure of that.

  “Helen still thinks of him as a great man with a sickness, a harmless infirmity, not an old lech. So she bought into it. Because she had to, I guess, because she still loves him and admires him tremendously. She said Erin Bushnell was just another girl in a steady stream of talented young students who found themselves ministering to Dr. Holcombe’s spiritual needs. Again, her words.”

  Dix sat forward on the sofa, clasped his hands between his knees. “Then she frowned, said maybe she was wrong, maybe Dr. Holcombe had felt more about Erin than about the others. It was creepy, guys, the way she spoke of him and his philandering, as if it was all right as long as it inspired Uncle Gordon’s music. She forgave all of it.”

  Ruth picked up the story. “She said Dr. Holcombe had incredible energy, he composed the most amazing music in the past few months. But now, she said, he is destroyed, a shell of himself, and she is very worried about him. I mentioned he didn’t seem all that destroyed when we told him about Erin’s murder, and she told us he would never want to burden others with his pain.” Ruth snorted.

  Sherlock asked Dix, “Did you get the names of the other young girls who ‘ministered’ to Dr. Holcombe over the years?”

  “Whoa—” Dix pulled out his notebook, thumbed through the pages. “Okay, over the period of time that Helen has worked for Dr. Holcombe—fourteen years, four months—she thought he had affairs with about eight female students—that is in addition to Helen—both graduate students and undergraduates. I believe that would be up to the advanced age of twenty-three or -four. She gave me some of the names—none of them are at Stanislaus anymore—and said she’d look up the rest.”

  Ruth marveled aloud, “Imagine, a man my father’s age believing I was too old to sleep with. She said that when Dr. Holcombe ‘disengaged’—her word—from a student, they didn’t leave Stanislaus, except when they graduated. They all seemed happy to remain, somehow simply taking it as part of their educational experience. Maybe they even enjoyed themselves, knowing they had made the great man shine again, who knows?”

  Savich said slowly, “It would seem Dr. Holcombe had very good judgment about whom to pick, an excellent talent for self-preservation. It must also have helped over the years that as director of Stanislaus, he had great influence over their professional futures. I’m surprised other people in the school didn’t know about Dr. Holcombe’s predilections, then certainly there would be gossip, some bad feeling from students who couldn’t compete, maybe even a bit of huff from colleagues who found his behavior inappropriate.”

  Ruth said, “Helen told us she actually thought no one except the girls involved over the years knew about it. She certainly never heard any rumors.”

  Savich shook his head. “That’s hard to believe. Usually if more than two people know about something illicit, particularly something as juicy as this, it starts coming back to them in embarrassing detail.”

  “Helen told us she herself had helped him quite a bit to protect his privacy,” Ruth said. “Translate that to ‘helped him keep his dirty little secret.’ ”

  “He lives alone,” Dix said. “And I know he’s owned a place outside of town for many years, converted it into a studio. He may have spent time with them there. And another thing: If Chappy were aware of this, every single soul within a hundred miles would know
about it. And the way Chappy would tell it, his brother wouldn’t have had a chance of staying on at Stanislaus. Maybe some of the students know, some of the professors, but no one outside Stanislaus.”

  “He must be the smoothest talker around,” Sherlock said. “I hope all those other girls are all right.”

  “Yes,” Dix said, “we wondered that, too. We already located two of them, and they’re fine. As soon as we get the rest of the list, we’ll track them all down.”

  Ruth said, “We asked Helen not to speak to anyone about our conversation, particularly Dr. Holcombe. We asked her for Dr. Holcombe’s schedule on Friday, and when she last saw Erin. At that point her eyes nearly bugged out of her head—she realized that we might be thinking he killed Erin Bushnell. She started babbling, saying over and over he didn’t have that kind of illness. Dear Dr. Holcombe wouldn’t even bang down hard on a piano key, there was no way he’d hurt anyone, particularly a Stanislaus student. She was sure of that, only told us all this because she didn’t want to lie to the police, and it was probably better for Dr. Holcombe that it come out right away. She knew he didn’t tell us when we talked to him on Monday, and assumed he hadn’t even thought of it because he was so distraught. Then she went on with this sappy spiel about how Dr. Holcombe’s precious students play all over the world, and inspire beauty and understanding, maybe even world peace.”

  Sherlock said, “Is she nuts?”

  Dix said, “I think she’s got a big blind spot when it comes to Uncle Gordon. She said he hasn’t eaten since he found out about Erin, stopped composing and playing his instruments, is silent, unable to deal with the world or his job. She felt terrible for him. As to what he did on Friday, Helen claimed he was closeted in student meetings all afternoon and he never left the campus. Then she gave us a look of triumph because she’d given him an alibi. Is she telling the truth?” Dix shrugged.

  “What did Dr. Holcombe say when you asked him about his whereabouts?” Sherlock asked.

  “We haven’t talked to the man today,” Dix said. “Helen had convinced him to attend a rehearsal he had scheduled. We’ll talk to him, and Helen again, in the morning.” Dix turned to Ruth and said suddenly, “Ruth, how are you feeling? Do you have a headache?”

  She blinked at him, smiled. “A tad of pounding behind my left ear. It’s nothing, Dix.”

  “Let me get you some aspirin. Better to cut it off before it digs in.” He walked quickly from the living room.

  The phone rang, but only once. Dix must have grabbed it. Savich looked at Ruth, an eyebrow raised.

  To his surprise, Special Agent Ruth Warnecki, tough, seasoned, and sharp as a tack, blushed.

  Life was sometimes unutterably cool, Sherlock thought as she took Dillon’s hand and rose. “It’s getting late and we’re both pretty tired. We can get an early start in the morning.”

  Dix came back into the room, handed Ruth two aspirin and a glass of water, and stood over her while she swallowed them. Then he turned to Savich and Sherlock. “You’ll want to hear this before you go. I just this minute got a call from a Detective Morales in the Richmond PD. He told me that two known lowlifes didn’t turn up where they were supposed to. No one’s heard a thing from them. One of them, Jackie Slater, is wanted on suspicion of auto theft. The other one, Tommy Dempsey, has a girlfriend who’s been badgering the police since Sunday morning, claiming he’s missing, that someone must have hurt him.

  “Detective Morales heard what happened here Saturday night—about the stolen Tacoma exploding, and the two guys who were killed, and wondered if it could be them. My deputies faxed him the descriptions and a picture of a ring one of the men was wearing, and the girlfriend identified it. It was Tommy Dempsey.”

  Savich said, “Detective Morales said they were lowlifes? Does that mean incompetent, or cheap to acquire?”

  “Slater got out of the Red Onion State Prison four months ago, was probably trying to build up his business again. Dempsey was a wannabe. They think he might have been involved in some local burglaries, but can’t be sure.”

  Ruth asked, “What was Slater in for?”

  “Felony assault on a police officer and resisting arrest on a grand theft auto charge. About ten years ago he was arrested for felony homicide in the course of a robbery, but the evidence wasn’t there and they had to drop the charges. So Detective Morales thought Slater was fully capable of planning what happened here and drafting Dempsey to help him. Both were violent and reckless. I asked him to see if he could find out who they worked for recently.

  “When I told him they tried to kill an FBI agent, he nearly fell off his chair. He told me, ‘I never thought the two of them were that stupid.’ ”

  Ruth rubbed her hands together. “Hurray for Detective Morales. I’m putting him on my Christmas card list.”

  Savich said, “Our local field office can give Detective Morales all the help he needs, Dix. They can start at the prison, talk to Dempsey’s girlfriend, track down their associates.”

  “I’m sure he’d appreciate that. It would save us having to drive over to Richmond ourselves.”

  “When would you like us to be here in the morning?”

  Dix said, “The boys leave pretty early, so breakfast will be on by dawn. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “That was pretty good, Dix,” Ruth said. “Okay, guys, anytime after eight. I’m making scrambled eggs.”

  “Oh, I forgot, Dix,” Sherlock said. “You mentioned Dr. Holcombe has a daughter?”

  “Yes, her name’s Marian Gillespie, lives in a little bungalow in the Meadow Lake section, teaches music theory and clarinet at Stanislaus. Christie always liked her, said she marches to a different drummer. Yes, you’re right. We should talk to her tomorrow, once we’re done with my uncle.”

  Savich asked thoughtfully, “Have you ever noticed anything off between father and daughter, Dix?”

  “No,” Dix replied. “Not that I remember.”

  DIX’S PHONE RANG a little before six-thirty Thursday morning. He jerked up in bed, afraid it was something bad.

  It was. Helen Rafferty had been found dead by her running partner and brother, Dave Rafferty.

  CHAPTER 22

  WOLF RIDGE ROAD

  MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

  EARLY THURSDAY MORNING

  DIX COULDN’T SEEM to stop muttering to himself. He felt like an idiot for not seeing that he’d placed Helen Rafferty in danger. Was she dead because someone knew that she’d spoken to them or was afraid of what she knew?

  He and Ruth arrived five minutes after Savich and Sherlock had streaked in, Savich at the wheel of his Porsche. They found Dr. Himple and the Loudoun County forensic team in the bedroom where her brother had found her.

  After Dix and Ruth spoke to Dr. Himple, they joined Dave Rafferty in the kitchen with Savich and Sherlock, drinking a cup of black coffee. He was somewhere in his late forties, with a runner’s lean build and thinning light brown hair. His face was covered with stubble since he hadn’t yet shaved. He was badly shaken.

  To help ground him, Savich asked, “Mr. Rafferty, what do you do for a living?”

  “What? Oh, I teach science at John T. Tucker High School in Mount Bluff. It’s maybe twelve miles from Maestro.”

  “Why were you here so early?”

  Dave Rafferty motioned to his sweats and running shoes. “Helen and I run three days a week. She didn’t answer the door when I rang at six. I really didn’t think anything about it—you know, she overslept, maybe she was tired. Oh Jesus, I was calling out for her to get her butt out of bed, come on, time’s a-passing, but she couldn’t hear me, couldn’t talk. This is going to bury Mom. She and Helen were so close.”

  He swallowed, drank some coffee, and took a deep breath. Sherlock laid her hand on his shoulder, and he raised his head. “When I saw her in bed, I still thought she was sleeping, you know? ‘Hey, lazy bones,’ I yelled out, ‘you’re done sleeping, Nell. Come on, move your butt.’ But she didn’t move. She was lying on her back, the co
vers to her waist. She was wearing that blue flannel nightgown. Her eyes were open and she was staring up at me. I tried to wake her, but of course she didn’t move, her eyes just kept staring. Then I saw the marks on her neck. It’s crazy. She never hurt a soul.” He shuddered, dropped his head to his folded arms and sobbed. “She’s dead, dammit, my sister is dead.”

  Without hesitation, Sherlock wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Rafferty. We’ll find out who did this.” Savich knew she’d take care of things. He, Dix, and Ruth left the kitchen.

  Dix was muttering again under his breath. “I’m dumb as that fence post on Moose Hollow Hill. It’s my fault, no one else’s, mine.”

  Savich said matter-of-factly, “None of us realized Helen Rafferty was in any danger. You told her not to talk to anyone. You think someone overheard you and Ruth with her in the employee lounge?”

  “I’ve got to say it out loud,” Dix said. “Helen might have called Gordon to warn him about what she told us.”

  Savich said, “And maybe about what she didn’t tell you. It’s certainly possible. And it’s certainly true both of them—Erin and Helen—had been intimate with Dr. Holcombe. I’d say that puts him squarely at the top of our list.”

  “If he’s not at Stanislaus this morning, we’ll have to find him and bring him in,” Dix said. “Now we can’t break Helen’s alibi for him on Friday.”

  He saw Sherlock speaking with Dr. Himple. She nodded, shook his hand, and walked over to them. “The doctor says she was strangled. There are no defensive wounds because whoever killed her probably crept up on her while she was asleep, garroted her, and it was over quickly. I’ll bet she called Dr. Holcombe, Dix. Out of love or loyalty?”

  Savich nodded. “That’s what we were saying. We need to trace her movements, Dix, after you left her yesterday. You got a couple of good people to put on this?”

  Dix nodded. “When we saw her at Stanislaus, Uncle Gordon wasn’t there, as I told you. He was over in Gainsborough Hall, the big performing auditorium, listening to some pieces to be played at the concert next month. We’ll find out who saw her before she left the campus. We can check her phone records—maybe she called him at the auditorium.”