Backfire fst-16

by Catherine Coulter

  She told him that Mickey O’Rourke, whom Father Gautier had known as his parishioner far longer than she had, was dead, a violent death. She gave him no details.

  He took her hand as he closed his eyes a moment. He whispered, “I am so very sorry, for his family, for all of us. Requiem in pace.”

  They stood quietly for a moment, then Father Gautier said, “You’re wet,” and his voice held a touch of humor, bless him.

  Eve said, “Not so much now. It’s so very warm inside. I think I’d like to stay that way.”

  When Father Gautier left her, she pulled out her cell. “Harry, sorry to call when you’re just getting home. Would you come get me at Saint Francis Church on Larkin? It’s not too late, and I could use the company. I can make us something to eat, if you like.”

  “If you’re up to it, so am I,” he said.

  Judge Sherlock’s home

  Mulberry Street, Pacific Heights

  San Francisco

  Sunday evening

  Sean was lying boneless against Savich’s shoulder, Savich stroking his back. He’d fallen asleep between his grandparents in front of the TV watching Sunday Night Football.

  He took Sean to the second guest room next to his and Sherlock’s bedroom, gently eased him down on his back on the twin bed, the crib long stored away in the basement. He pulled the dinosaur sheet and two blankets over him, since Sean liked to be warm when he slept. He kissed him, breathed in his kid smell, and straightened. He felt the light touch of Sherlock’s hand on his arm.

  “He’s so beautiful, so perfect, and we made him,” she whispered. “Isn’t that amazing?”

  Savich turned and hugged her. He said against her ear, “I was thinking that right now it’d be good to be as innocent as Sean.” He closed his eyes and pressed his face against her hair. “I can’t get Mickey O’Rourke’s face out of my mind, or that farm shack where he was beaten and murdered.” He hugged her more tightly. “Life is so fragile. You’re here, then you’re not, and it’s final, no going back, no changing anything at all.”

  She held him, stroking her hands up and down his back and said against his cheek, “Dillon, I’ve been thinking about what Cheney said—that a woman wouldn’t have killed Mickey O’Rourke like that. I don’t see it, either. Not only was the killing savage, she would have had to carry O’Rourke back to the car, a good distance from the shack, and then she would have had to carry him an even longer distance to bury him. Remember, Ellie and Rufino said after he left O’Rourke’s grave, they heard the car start up from a good ways away? Sue is slightly built. Even with superior upper-body strength, I don’t see how she could have managed. O’Rourke was a big guy—taller than you. What does it mean?

  Savich said, “It means our Sue isn’t a woman.”

  Hyde Street, Russian Hill

  San Francisco

  Sunday night

  Eve’s back hurt so badly when they arrived at her condo she didn’t think she could walk a step until Harry’s hand cupped her elbow. “Harry’s hands are here to minister to you so you have a chance at some sleep tonight. First, though, you need a long, hot shower. I don’t want you getting sick.”

  “I can make you some coffee.”

  “I’ll make it while you shower. After you’re dry and warmed up, I’ll see to your back. I’ll call Feng Nian Palace and get us some Chinese delivered. We can stretch out in front of the TV, watch what’s left of the football game, and munch on egg rolls.”

  After her shower, Eve walked into the living room to see the Patriots’ QB Tom Brady complete a pass to Wes Welker and gave a small cheer. “I think Wes Welker would make a great marshal,” she said. “He’s strong and fast, and you can tell that brain of his is high-voltage.” She grinned down at Harry as she tossed him the tube of muscle cream. She carefully sat beside him on the sofa, eased her robe off her shoulders, and leaned forward. Her hair was loose down her back. He looked at her hair for a moment, then shoved it over her shoulder and began smoothing the cream over her back. He stroked her until the final whistle blew. She really didn’t want him to stop, but finally she said, “Your hands will cramp up. I’m fine now, thank you. I can’t believe how stiff I was. Goodness, it’s almost nine o’clock. Are you hungry yet?”

  “Dinner should be here any minute. You feel okay?”

  “Better,” she said, “much better.” She realized her robe was still down. She quickly shrugged it back up, closed it, and tied the belt. She turned to face him, lightly laid her hand on his arm. “You’re very kind, Harry, thank you.”

  Harry was silent for only a moment, then said, “Sherlock told me about Mrs. Howell’s homemade pizza for her son, Boozer, how delicious it was at eleven o’clock this morning. I was thinking we eat too much pizza—so we’re having Szechuan. That okay with you?”

  “It’s great. Do you know I can’t imagine an amateur trying to find a vein in my arm and poking that needle in a dozen times? It’s too bad the guy had his face and head covered up.”

  Harry said, “Yeah, but we were real lucky today—if those kids hadn’t seen him, we’d still be looking for Mickey O’Rourke.”

  “Yes, forever. Hey, what do you want with your fried rice? A beer?”

  Harry asked for water. He watched her walk to her kitchen. She looked looser, walked more easily. He said, “I called Cheney while you were in the shower. He said Mrs. O’Rourke was brave, that was the word he used. I guess he was expecting her to fall apart, but she didn’t. She told him she wanted to be the one to tell her daughters. The chaplain stayed, but Cheney’s home now.”

  “I hope I don’t ever have to tell someone their husband or wife is dead. By violence.”

  “Agreed. I called Officer Mancusso and asked him to unplug the TV and call if Ramsey happens to find out something. He said he’d alert the nursing staff to keep quiet as well.”

  “That’s good, Harry. I’ll tell you, Molly looked so beaten down, so afraid for Ramsey today, that she shouldn’t have to handle any more tonight.”

  “We should be okay until morning now,” Harry said.

  Eve handed him his water. “I’m thinking our killer has been making a few mistakes. Like the kids seeing him today. You know he never wanted Mickey O’Rourke to be found. And he failed to kill Ramsey twice.”

  Harry took a drink from the Pellegrino bottle. “I can’t help but think he’s not altogether sane.” He stopped, shook his head. “Just shoot me. I don’t know what to think anymore, but I do know this has got to be a huge hit for him. Any time now he’s going to listen to the news and hear about Mickey O’Rourke being dug up. So what does he do now?”

  Eve said, “Good question. He isn’t going to give up, that’s all I’m sure of. If Savich is right, he’s in the spy business. I don’t imagine you can survive very long doing that unless you’re real careful. But he hasn’t been careful, has he, at least with his two attempts on Ramsey’s life?”

  Harry said, “He tried to be with burying Mickey O’Rourke; just bad luck for him there.”

  “We’ll find out from forensics tomorrow if he left any prints in that shack. And if Sherlock is right that he’s spent time in prison, we’ll have him.”

  Eve took a pull of her beer. “Why did you and your wife divorce?”

  The doorbell rang. The food.

  She said, “Give him a big tip, Harry, I’m really hungry.”

  They were eating hot-and-sour soup when Eve said, “I’m sorry I asked you about your wife. I didn’t mean to. It popped out.”

  “My ex-wife,” Harry said mildly, and finished off the bottle of Pellegrino.

  “Nevertheless, it’s none of my business. I’ve only known you for a matter of days. Isn’t that amazing? So much has happened, it seems much longer.”

  He said nothing, but she was right, it felt very odd.

  Eve sat back against the sofa and immediately sat forward again at the stab of pain in her back. “I hate not having control. My dad’s the same way. I’ll tell you, Mom had to belt him lots ove
r the years when he tried to be her camp commandant. I’ll bet they’ve both lost count.

  “My four brothers are all grown up, and they laugh at him now when he tries to throw his weight around.” She drank the last of her beer. “My dad’s amazing. He reminds people of Tommy Lee Jones, though the two marshal movies came out before he started his service there.”

  “Service where?”

  “In Chicago. Didn’t you know, my dad’s the U.S. marshal in Chicago? He’s served as marshal there through two presidents.”

  “I thought the marshal changed out with every new administration.”

  “Once in a great while, an appointed marshal is so well regarded he’s left in place. My dad says he’s trained the toughest hard-asses in the United States Marshal Service right there in Chicago. He says they take no grief, since they have a responsibility to Tommy.” She paused for a moment. “He’s very good, my dad.”

  “How does your dad treat you?”

  Eve gave him a big smile. “You heard Dillon talk about the power of the ponytail? Works on my dad every time.”

  San Francisco General Hospital

  Monday morning

  Ramsey blamed himself, Eve saw it clearly on his freshly shaved face, just as she’d known he would.

  “It’s obvious to me that by suspending the trial, I alerted the Cahills or whoever is working with them that I suspected something going on with Mickey’s prosecution. If only I’d held off that day, let the pretrial motions continue until I could talk to him privately, he might still be alive.”

  Eve said, “It isn’t like you to sit back and watch a train wreck, is it, Ramsey? You did what was appropriate, what your experience and your training told you to do. Who could have known what would happen?”

  Ramsey plowed right over her, shaking his head back and forth. “No, no, I should have thought it through better. I should have realized that with the death penalty on the table, whoever was controlling Mickey wouldn’t draw the line at anything. It’s my fault they killed him, no one else’s.”

  Eve said patiently, “Ramsey, say Mickey had succeeded in manipulating you, and you had ruled to dismiss the federal case against the Cahills. Do you think they would have let Mickey live? I think you know as well as I do after what happened that Mickey was dead the minute they threatened his family. If he’d come to you, maybe it would have turned out differently, but he didn’t.”

  Slowly, he shook his head. She hated it. He looked defeated. “I should have approached him differently, gotten him to confide in me—if he’d told me, I could have made sure he’d be safe. And his family.”

  She lightly tapped her fist against his arm. “Stop this, Ramsey, you’re pissing me off. A monster hiding in a human skin did this. No more blaming yourself or I’ll have to punish you for it when you’re well again.”

  He didn’t smile. “I’ve been thinking about why they shot me, of course. I’m a judge, and if a judge is doing his job, he’s providing an even playing field to give the jury the best chance of arriving at the truth, not to influence the jury in any one direction.

  “So why me? Most of my pretrial rulings had been in the Cahills’ favor, in fact. And the bigger question—why did they try to kill me again after the trial was dead in the water, at least in my court? We were done with each other, so why?”

  He looked at each of them. “The only answer I’ve come up with is that they think Mickey may have talked to me before they could grab him, told me something dangerous for them, either about the case itself or implicating whoever had threatened him. That would also explain why they tried to shoot me again on Saturday, while they could hope I was still too ill and drugged to have spoken to anyone.”

  “That’s a reasonable scenario, Judge Hunt,” Harry said. “We’re certain someone was working with the Cahills, probably a professional. And the man—we’re calling him Sue for the moment—might have a great deal to lose if he’s exposed. As a matter of fact, Sue did try to find out if Mr. O’Rourke told you anything before he kidnapped him, but O’Rourke didn’t have any information to give him, and so he ended O’Rourke’s life.”

  Ramsey said, “So whoever this Sue is, you can be sure the Cahills are up to their earlobes in this with him; there’s simply no other explanation.” He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “Molly already knew Mickey was dead last night, didn’t she? She knew, and she kept quiet about it.”

  Eve said, “No, I didn’t tell Molly.”

  “The TV didn’t work, either. I wondered why not. What’d you do, Agent, unplug it?”

  “I asked one of your guards to unplug the TV, Judge Hunt,” Harry said.

  “I hate lying here feeling helpless, everyone guarding me, shielding me. I’m pretty sick of it.” He smacked his fist on the bed and swallowed.

  Eve waited a moment until he had himself together again, then looked him straight in the face. “I had nothing to do with it. It was all Harry’s idea.”

  What moxie. Harry had to work hard to keep the laugh in. She was a piece of work, fast on her feet. He couldn’t help but admire that. She’d succeeded in distracting Judge Hunt. Harry saw incredulity, disbelief, and then humor in his eyes.

  Harry said, “Yes, sir, it’s true. I ordered Deputy Barbieri to keep her mouth shut, and I told everyone here in the hospital to keep this from you or I’d have them all fired.”

  “But still—” Ramsey said, but Eve overrode him. “You want guilt? Give me a big share, okay? I allowed you to very nearly get killed in the elevator only two days ago.”

  Ramsey frowned at her. “Get real, Eve.”

  “I will if you will. Listen, we all do our feeble best, and sometimes things simply don’t go the way we planned or we prefer. Did your recovery take a hit from that fiasco Saturday?”

  “No, the elevator business didn’t faze me, Eve. Dr. Kardak even told me I was such a superb physical specimen he felt comfortable taking out the chest tube this morning. They took away my morphine pump, too. I’m on oral pain medication now, and I’m thinking a lot more clearly.” He looked from Eve to Harry. “You two are quite a team, aren’t you?”

  “We’re not a team,” Harry said. “That’s a vicious rumor.”

  “That’s right,” Eve said. “If we were a team, Harry would be saluting me by now.”

  “In your dreams,” Harry said.

  Ramsey didn’t laugh. He knew how bad it would make him hurt. He said, “So you think Sue is a code name for a man? That simplifies things, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a start,” Harry said. “All we can do is keep digging.”

  “If we were a team, Ramsey,” Eve said, “you could count on me telling the boy here where to dig.”

  A laugh came out this time. Ramsey closed his eyes and took some light shallow breaths against the stabbing pain in his chest where the tube was removed. Slowly, too slowly, he eased. He said, “Emma’s performance is in a week and a half. I keep telling my body to get over it and stop whining at me. I really don’t want to miss it.” He managed a smile. “Do you know what a pain it is to have to lie here and let people come in and out and torture you? Amazing that the hospital makes you pay them for it.” He realized he had come full circle. “Sorry for the complaints. I’m a loser. Just belt me.”

  “Nah,” Eve said, “not until you have a prayer of belting me back.” He was exhausted, Eve saw it, knew Harry saw it, too. Not only exhausted, he seemed flattened emotionally, like Molly. She knew he’d think about Mickey O’Rourke’s murder and blame himself for a very long time.

  She watched Ramsey close his eyes. He said, barely above a whisper, “You’ve got to find the worthless son of a bitch who did this.”

  She took his hand, squeezed it. “We will, Ramsey, I swear we will.”

  There were two marshals and two SFPD officers nearby, two outside and two inside the room. Of course they’d been listening. She knew they’d all discuss the O’Rourke murder with Ramsey after she and Harry left. Perhaps they’d come up with something. She k
new the deputy marshal who was stationed outside Ramsey’s room was smart and committed to keeping Ramsey safe. Not a single sign of trouble, he’d said when they’d arrived to see Ramsey. She hoped it stayed that way.

  She said to the guards standing by the window, “Hey, has Judge Hunt talked you into playing poker with him yet?”

  Ramsey groaned.

  “What, you haven’t stripped them of their paychecks, Ramsey?”

  “No, not our paychecks,” Officer Mancusso said. “We told him he’d have to fix parking tickets for our wives.”

  Ramsey said, “I tried to tell them I couldn’t fix a thing since I’m a federal judge, not a state judge.”

  Mancusso winked at her. “We don’t believe him. We figure a federal judge has got friends everywhere.”

  “If you win, Ramsey, what will you get from them?”

  Ramsey didn’t open his eyes. “I’m thinking maybe they can get one of their buddies in Contra Costa County to ticket my chief judge’s boat in Discovery Bay. He’s having way too much fun on Cyrano—his big bad cabin cruiser—and drives way too fast. Scares the crap out of the fish. He deserves a couple of tickets, and he needs to spend more time in here commiserating with me.”

  Mancusso said, “I heard the chief judge has friends everywhere, too, sir.”

  Federal Building

  Thirteenth floor

  San Francisco

  Monday morning

  After the forensic team leader Joe Elder and the M.E. Dr. Martin McClure had left the conference room, one back to his beloved lab, the other to his sanitized and very quiet morgue, Cheney summed it up. “So all we have from Joe is a smudged partial palm print that may be identifiable and we know isn’t O’Rourke’s.” Cheney clicked off his second finger. “The M.E. confirms Mickey was tied down and beaten during the two days before he died early Sunday morning. The killer sliced Mickey’s throat with a sharp knife at least six inches long, not serrated, right to left, suggesting he’s left-handed. And last, Sheriff Hibbert let us know the tire tracks were made by a worn Goodyear All Weather, a popular replacement tire for a whole lot of SUVs. So we haven’t got a lot.”