Blowout ft-9

by Catherine Coulter

  Callie said, “Fleurette, remember when we talked on Sunday? You said that Danny O’Malley had looked smug last Friday morning.”

  “Yes, I remember that.”

  “Smug how, exactly?”

  “Like he knew something that neither I nor Eliza knew, and it tickled him. He looked—pleased with himself. I remember he was nodding, like he was having this sort of internal conversation with himself, and he liked what he was hearing.”

  Ben said, “Think back, Fleurette. Do you remember if Danny looked at Justice Califano when he left his chambers to go to the meeting?”

  She closed her eyes a moment, then they popped open. “Yes, Danny did do that. Yes, he did look at Justice Califano. It was a bit of a smirk, really. It all happened so fast it really didn’t settle in when it happened. But when I close my eyes now, I can see Danny sitting there, tapping his pen against his desk pad, and a smirk passing over his face.”

  “Did Justice Califano notice? Did he look over at Danny?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Close your eyes again, Fleurette. Think back.”

  Fleurette closed her eyes. She swayed a moment, leaned against the Wall for support. “Justice Califano’s back was to me when he passed by Danny’s desk, but he glanced at me before he left—and he looked suddenly tired.”

  “Tired?”

  “Yes, he looked tired, like something was too much for him. There was something on his mind, something he knew he had to deal with, but he looked tired. Maybe I’m reading too much into it now. You want me to see something and so I’m trying too hard to cooperate with you.”

  “But you don’t think so?” Ben asked.

  Slowly, she shook her head. She looked up at the gray sky. “It’s going to rain soon. I wonder if it will turn to snow again. I hope not. Everything becomes such a mess.”

  Callie said, “Fleurette, why are you scared?”

  “Scared? Me? I’m not scared.”

  “Yes,” Callie said slowly, “you are. On Sunday, I could see it very plainly. You are scared. Why?”

  Fleurette looked off toward the Lincoln Memorial, then back again at Callie. “Look, two people close to me have been murdered. If you saw any fear in me, it’s because of that.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No, nothing else. I’d sure tell you if there were.”

  Ben said, “Bobby Fisher—one of Justice Alto-Thorpe’s law clerks—”

  “Yeah, I know the little creep.”

  “He said you and Danny went out to lunch on Friday. You didn’t mention that to us.”

  “That’s because we only walked to the corner together. Danny was in a mood, preoccupied, snarly—I suppose it makes sense now—but then I thought, Danny, you’re such a pain sometimes. I’d heard about a shoe sale at Maximillan’s, not two blocks away. I dumped him and went shoe shopping.”

  “Bobby said you two had your heads together, a real chummy conversation,” Ben said.

  “No, that’s Bobby being a creep again. He probably wanted you to focus your attention on someone else. He disliked Justice Califano, probably because he and Alto-Thorpe weren’t on good terms.”

  “Bobby Fisher and Eliza—what did you think about that? You knew he wanted her to go out with him?”

  Fleurette shrugged. “Oh that. Fact is, Eliza couldn’t have cared less. Bobby didn’t really come into her line of focus, you know what I mean? She put up with him. What she really wanted to do was drop-kick him out of the building.”

  “Do you think Eliza really disliked Bobby that much? Do you think he hated her because she kept turning him down?”

  “Who knows? When he finally ran out of there on Friday, she looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, ‘Well, maybe that’s the last time I’ll have to tell him to take a hike.’ ”

  “So she never really took him all that seriously.”

  “No,” Fleurette said. “The only person she took seriously was Justice Califano.”

  “So what did Danny say to you before you told him you were going shoe shopping?”

  “Nothing really, just something like ‘Women and shoes, that’s all you think about.’ Then he said he was going to see a foreign film with Annie that night, that he had something going—listen, Danny was always on the make. Usually whatever he said didn’t mean anything.”

  “Except this time it did, didn’t it?” Ben said.

  Before Ben and Callie left her by the Vietnam Wall, next to her uncle’s name, Ben remembered to ask Fleurette what color her toenail polish was last Friday. She looked startled, then laughed. “It’s called ‘I’m Not Really a Waitress Red.’ ”

  Callie said to Ben as they drove away, “I wonder if her father makes the pilgrimage here every year like Fleurette does.”

  “Somehow I don’t think so. After all, he wasn’t six years old when he first came here.”

  “She’s scared, even though she denies it.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  GEORGETOWN WASHINGTON, D.C.

  FRIDAY EVENING

  “SEAN ATE MORE spaghetti than you, Callie,” Savich said, eyeing her plate. “You need more Parmesan? Garlic bread? How about more of Sherlock’s Caesar salad? It’s the best. I taught her how to make it myself.”

  “No, I’m fine, truly. It’s so nice to go off our pizza diet. It’s been a very long week.”

  “Your mom is having her potluck tonight with her friends?”

  Callie nodded to Sherlock, who was cutting into a beautiful apple pie.

  Simon Russo, Lily’s art broker fiancé from New York, was sitting back in his chair, hands over his lean stomach. He was looking at Savich’s sister, and there was such sweetness in his look that Callie gulped. She had listened to them talk about No Wrinkles Remus, Lily’s political cartoon series that The Washington Post had picked up, about Sarah Elliott’s paintings, one of which hung over the fireplace in the living room, but of course, the conversation always returned to Justice Califano and Danny O’Malley.

  Savich served the warm apple pie with a big scoop of French vanilla ice cream on top. “Oh goodness,” Callie said. “This is wonderful. Just smell that. Were you a chef in a former life, Dillon?”

  “He was probably a sculptor and a chef,” Sherlock said. “He’s still both in this lifetime. When we go back into the living room I’ll show you some of his work—”

  Savich’s cell phone rang. He answered, jumped to his feet. “Eliza? What is it, what’s wrong?”

  He listened, everyone else at the table focused on him.

  Suddenly he yelled into the phone, “No! Eliza, fight him!”

  He was already running for the front door. “He’s there, attacking her, right now! Lily, Simon, stay here with Sean. Ben, get your siren out, we’re going to McLean. That bastard is there! Hurry!” He clamped the phone back to his ear. “Eliza? Please, say something. Fight! You can do it, fight!”

  Ben slammed the siren down on top of the Crown Vic in a second, already on his radio as he pulled out of the driveway, calling to control to report a murder in progress at Number 102, The Oaks condo complex in McLean.

  In the Porsche, Sherlock was on her cell to Jimmy Maitland. “He’s got Eliza Vickers right now. Get the SWAT team out there, sir, a helicopter, the local police. We can’t let him get away. Oh God, Dillon heard him attacking her!”

  Savich was still holding his own cell phone to his ear as the Porsche hit eighty miles an hour, heading for the highway to McLean. There were no voices now, no noise of any kind, just silence.

  Eighteen minutes later, they barreled into the driveway, barely missing a squad car that was parked halfway on the drive, halfway on the front yard. There were a good dozen blue-and-whites all over the block, cops everywhere. The front door of Eliza Vickers’s condo was open, uniformed men and women streaming in and out.

  Savich was at the door in an instant, his I.D. out. “Agent Savich. Where is she?”

  A woman stepped
forward. “I’m Detective Orinda Chamber, McLean PD, Agent Savich. We just got here. There was an initial charge into the place, so the scene’s a mess. I’ve tried to keep everyone out after I saw she was dead. She’s in the kitchen. I hear she was on the phone to you and you heard him attacking her?”

  Savich nodded. “Please get all your people combing the woods, look for his car. Agents will be here very soon to help you, along with a helicopter and the Washington SWAT team. He’s a big guy, probably in his fifties, white. He has to have had some sort of transportation, so let’s get everyone on it.” He paused a moment. “Detective Chamber, this is the man who murdered Justice Califano.”

  Orinda Chamber reeled back, then steadied and nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m on it.”

  Sherlock had run past him, pushed past the three men who were standing in the kitchen looking down at Eliza Vickers. She was lying on her side, her long straight hair tangled over her face, but Sherlock saw her eyes through the veil of hair, still bulging wide. Terror and surprise no longer filled them. They were empty now, empty even of the memory of life. Sherlock fell to her knees beside her, gently pulled her hair away from her face. “Eliza, I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey, lady, who the hell are you? What is—”

  Savich shoved his I.D. in the officer’s face. “She’s FBI. Back off. Go outside and help find this bastard.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the other officers said, and pulled the officer away.

  Sherlock was leaning over Eliza, her hands shaking her shoulders, trying to awaken her, trying to make her empty eyes fill with life again. Tears streamed down her face. “Oh no, Eliza. I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.” Sherlock pressed her face against Eliza’s hair, sobbing.

  Savich came down on his haunches beside his wife. He rubbed her shoulders, didn’t say anything, just gave her what comfort he could. He felt like crying himself. This bastard, this Günter freak, had killed her, knowing she was on the phone to him. Savich would never forget as long as he lived what the man said in the background after the phone had crashed to the kitchen floor: “Well, she’s dead now, isn’t she? You hear me, Agent Savich? This will be the only time. You’ve got nada, rien, nichts.” And he laughed. Savich had heard him still laughing as he’d picked the phone up off the kitchen floor and thrown it across the room, and walked out of there, the sound of his footsteps clear for Savich to hear. Savich had continued to listen, for the sound of a door opening, a window, anything. But there was only silence. And he’d known Eliza Vickers was dead and that he’d been helpless to do anything about it.

  Günter had sounded as American as the apple pie they’d baked for dinner. American. No regional accent. Savich was aware of Ben and Callie standing in the kitchen doorway, keeping the other officers out.

  Of course Günter was long gone. Savich knew in his gut they wouldn’t find him, not this time. Too much cover in all the maples and oaks behind the condo complex, too many places to hide a car, a motorcycle, or even to run a mile to someplace near the highway.

  He closed his eyes against the pain of Eliza’s death, realizing he could hardly bear it either. He’d never seen Sherlock like this. She looked beaten down, crushed. Eliza Vickers, so smart, so very real, and he’d heard her die on his damned cell phone. He knew he would live with that forever. He lowered his head, holding both his sobbing wife and Eliza Vickers, who wasn’t there anymore to care.

  Suddenly, Savich reared up and yelled, “Ben, Callie, we’ve got to get over to Fleurette’s house. Call her, tell her to hide. Call 911, have as many squad cars there as fast as possible to canvas the area, stop everyone who’s alone in a car. Take her to my house. Hurry!”

  Ben didn’t hesitate. Both he and Callie were out the door. Ben tossed Callie his address book as he jumped into the car. “Fleurette’s number, quick!”

  She read it out, and he dialed. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Finally, Ben heard her voice. “Hello?”

  “Fleurette?”

  “Yes, who’s this? It’s after midnight, who—”

  “This is Detective Ben Raven. No, be quiet and listen to me. Is your house alarm set?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  A slight pause, then, “Yes, a twenty-two revolver.”

  “Loaded?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get the gun and come back to the phone.”

  After a short pause, she said, “Okay, I’ve got it.”

  “Now keep it close until Callie Markham and I get there. Find a place to hide where no one can surprise you, and stay there. If a man gets into your house, I want you to shoot to kill, you got me? Don’t hesitate, shoot to kill. You’ll be hearing sirens any minute. Keep inside. We’re on our way. But don’t let anyone in until you’re sure it’s me. Hurry!”

  “But—but what’s going on here, Detective Raven?”

  “We’ll tell you when we get there. Open your front door only to me, you got that? And don’t shoot me. I’m going to be taking you over to Agent Savich’s house in Georgetown. Do you understand?”

  “No, and this is very frightening.”

  “It’s good to be scared. Keep that gun close, and listen for any sound inside your house. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  Ben punched off his cell phone, dialed 911, told the dispatcher he’d instructed the potential victim to keep her gun handy. The officers converging on the brownstone were not to go roaring in or she’d shoot them.

  He punched off his cell phone again. “I sure hope they pay attention. I don’t want her to kill anyone.”

  He slammed on the siren, and the Crown Vic roared onto the Beltway on-ramp. The roads were nearly empty, thank God. They were at Fleurette’s brownstone in under twenty minutes. Several police cars had already arrived, their lights flashing, officers milling around the brownstone. Thank God none of them had gone up to the front door. “Stay in the car, Callie. I’ll get Fleurette.”

  Ben ran up the walk, banged on the front door, calling out as he struck it with his fist. “Fleurette, it’s me, Detective Ben Raven. You can let me in. Don’t shoot me.”

  Fleurette opened the door immediately and stepped back. She was holding a small .22 at her side. “So now will you tell me what’s going on here, Detective?”

  “Get inside, Fleurette.” He turned to see Callie running up the walk, and waved her in. “Hurry.”

  Fleurette grabbed his arm. “All these cop cars. Detective Raven, what’s happened?”

  He searched her face as he said, “Eliza Vickers was just murdered.”

  Her face went utterly white. Her eyes went blank. Then she whimpered, deep in her throat, and sank to her knees on the floor.

  Ben closed the door behind Callie and flipped off the light switch. It was completely dark inside the brownstone, not even a shadow for Günter to shoot at. He eased up the window a crack and yelled out, “We’re okay in here. Spread out and check the neighborhood, we’ll be leaving here soon.”

  “That you, Ben?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Keep down. There’s no sign of anyone here, but we’re on it.” He recognized Sergeant Teddy Russell’s voice.

  Ben held his gun at his side. “Fleurette, push your twenty-two over to me.”

  He heard the small gun slide across the marble tile. It hit his boot. He put it in his belt holster.

  “Detective—”

  “No, no, stay quiet for a while longer.” He pulled out his cell and called Captain Halloway, who answered like he’d been awake for hours. Ben quickly told him what was happening.

  “Just keep the women safe, Ben. I’ll handle everything else. Do you know the lead officer at Ms. LaFleurette’s house?”

  “It’s Sergeant Teddy Russell.”

  “He’s a good man. He’ll get things done. Hang tight, Ben, hang tight and protect the women. We’ll get you out of there soon enough.”

  Ben punched off his cell, then leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes a mo
ment and let the events of the evening race through his brain. Incredible, all of it. At least Fleurette was alive. He said, “Let’s stay down, and stay quiet. We don’t know if the guy’s out there yet. He’s good at losing himself in the shadows.”

  Ben heard Callie moving toward Fleurette. “Stay down,” he said. He opened his cell to call Savich while they waited. “We made it, Savich. Yes, I told her about Eliza. She’s holding up. We’ll be at your house as soon as I’m certain it’s safe to take Fleurette outside.” He heard Savich speaking to someone in the background, Sherlock, probably. “Okay, I hear the cops coming up the stairs. I’ll see you at your house.” Ben slowly rose. He went to the front door, stood to the side, and identified himself as he opened it. “Hey, Teddy, good to see you. Is it clear?”

  “Not yet, Ben. Stay inside a few minutes longer until the rest of my men check in.”

  Ben nodded. “I spoke to Captain Halloway. He said he told you he was sending more squad cars.”

  “Yes, we’re all spread out now, canvassing everything within a mile of the house, but it’s tough, folks who live in this area like to party on Friday night.”

  “The guy we’re looking for is American, probably in his fifties, white.”

  Sergeant Teddy Russell, a twenty-four-year veteran, put his beefy hand on the butt of the Smith & Wesson 1911 holstered at his belt, and looked from Ben to the two women. “Boy, you guys in Metro sure like to live on the edge.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  GEORGETOWN

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

  FLEURETTE SAT at the kitchen table, a hot mug of coffee held between her hands, her head down, her blond hair straggling out of its ponytail. She was wearing an oversized cable knit navy sweater, blue jeans, and boots. An orange duffel bag and oversized purse lay at her feet.

  “Thank you, Agent Savich,” she said at last, still not looking up. “You probably saved my life.”

  “I’m just happy that Ben got there in time. You’ll be staying with my wife and me for a while, all right?”

  Fleurette shuddered. “Thank you.” She raised her head and looked from him to Sherlock. “Do you often have people like me staying with you?”