Paradox by Catherine Coulter
Sala said, “It looks handmade. This could be very big, Ty.”
One step at a time. “We can start by announcing this belt buckle to the media. Maybe someone will recognize it, and we’ll have ID. It’s a huge start.”
Sala fished out his cell to call Savich. One ring, two, then—“Hang on, Sala. I’ve got to shoot my free throw in the brand-new net I put up a few minutes ago against my mother’s garage.” A moment later, “Nailed it.” Sala heard Sean hooting in the background. “Okay, it’s Sean’s turn. Talk to me.”
Sala told him about the gold Star of David belt buckle and their plan to publicize it. “We all agree, it’s got to be one of a kind.”
Savich heard excitement, not guilt or pain, in Sala’s voice. “Yes, I agree,” Savich said.
“Ty and I have been out on the lake all morning, so no TV. Did you get Victor Nesser’s photo out?”
“Yes. His photo and bio are being plastered all over the networks in the tri-states.”
“Do I want to know how you found him so quickly? Even before the prints were identified this morning?”
Savich said smoothly, “A hunch and I acted on it, got lucky.”
Sala said, his voice just as smooth, “Thank MAX for me. You think it was Nesser who saw Sherlock with Sean at the book festival Saturday, took his chance? And missed?”
“Yes, thankfully, just as he missed taking Sean Wednesday night. We can’t be sure, but it seems likely Victor followed us from Washington to Willicott.”
Words clogged in Sala’s throat, then, “Yeah,” he said, and swallowed. “Searching the lake for bones with Ty. She won’t let me alone.”
“Sala, call Mr. Maitland and tell him what’s going on. Tell him about the gold Star of David belt buckle. He won’t mind it’s Sunday.”
“Yes, all right.”
“Wish me luck with my basketball game. My kid’s got some moves, dribbling with both hands, trying to copy Steph Curry.”
Sala punched off and called Mr. Maitland’s cell. He answered on the first ring. “Yeah? This better be good. My wife handed me a dish of her potato salad. It’s got kosher dills and olives. And I saw a cherry pie cooling in the kitchen.”
Sala identified himself and said, “I really like cherry pie.”
“So does the rest of the known world. Glad you called, Sala. Tell me what’s going on there with the bone hunt in Lake Massey.”
After Sala told him about the Star of David belt buckle, Maitland whistled. “A stroke of luck. Makes sense it belonged to one of the victims. We should get this out to the media. You got anything else to tell me?”
“I understand why I can’t be out in the field looking for Victor Nesser, but I’d like to stay in Willicott, sir, maybe work with Flynn and the chief of police, try to find whoever murdered all these people and threw them in Lake Massey.”
Maitland was silent. Sala wondered if he’d taken a bite of that potato salad with the kosher dills and olives. Or the cherry pie?
It came unbidden out of Sala’s mouth. “Sir, I don’t want to take time off or go see my family. Look, I failed both Octavia and the bureau. I’ve got to do something, focus on something other than what happened to her.”
22
* * *
Maitland said, sarcasm thick in his voice, “Sure you failed—tell you what, wake me up out of a dead sleep and stick a knife in my wife’s throat and see what I manage to do. Nesser had this planned out. Stop drowning yourself in buckets of guilt, it won’t help us or anyone else. All right, Sala, stay and help the chief. Get the bones you found today to Quantico.”
“All right. Sir, one of the chief’s deputies will take the bones to Dr. Thomas. You know Dr. Thomas will be there. I’ve explained to Ty he won’t be able to articulate all of the skeletons, but he will get a count on the number of bodies we find in the lake. Also, there might be DNA left in the bone marrow, and they can do facial approximations on the skulls we’ve found. That will take longer.”
Maitland said, “I’ll hurry the process along as much as I can. Knowing Dr. Thomas, security at Quantico will have to kick him out at night to make him go home until he’s finished identifying those bones.
“Using a lake as a dump site is nothing new, but it’s always very disturbing. Any evidence the Serial’s a local?”
Sala said, “Makes sense, since the lake was convenient for him. Chief Christie told me there haven’t been any missing persons in Willicott itself. She’s reaching out to law enforcement all around here to begin with, see what that gets us.”
“He could have trolled far and wide for victims. You know Chief Christie called the Hoover Building herself Friday morning and managed to work her way up to me? Goldy wants to meet her, thinks the chief’s got guts. I hope she’s got brains to go with the guts. Savich seems to think she does.”
“I’d agree, but her biggest strength is her kindness.” He swallowed, and said simply, “Ty is very kind.”
Maitland heard the pain in his agent’s voice. The chief was evidently dealing well with it. He made a decision. “Sala, I don’t think we need both you and Flynn in Willicott. I’m going to pull Flynn back. We got handed multiple stabbing murders in Birmingham, Alabama, Flynn’s hometown. He can assist the local field office.”
Sala would miss Flynn, he never missed a detail, but Sala would take up the slack. “Yes, sir, thank you. I’ll stay on, then.”
“Where are you staying? Savich said the book festival had filled up every available room.”
“I was with Chief Christie last night. I hope she lets me continue on until I have to come back on Tuesday—for Octavia’s funeral.”
Maitland said, “Yes, of course. I’ll be there myself. There will be a lot of people there. Octavia was well liked. Bring Chief Christie with you. I want to meet her. I want to meet the actual human being who got past Goldy.”
“I’ll ask her to come along.”
“Good. Sala, keep your eyes open. When Nesser finds out you survived, he might come back.”
“I will. Sir, I read up on him. I’ve dealt with him face-to-face, and I’ll be ready. But I doubt I’m on his radar. It was Savich who killed Lissy Smiley, and Sherlock shot him in the foot. I only happened to be with Octavia.”
“After he failed to take Sean Savich, I guess he decided to go on to Octavia, although, to be objective here, it still surprises me. No matter what she said that offended his manhood, she kept him from a life sentence.
“Don’t worry, Sala, I’ve got protection on Savich and Sherlock.” He heard what sounded like a forkful of potato salad going into Maitland’s mouth, then Sala hung up, and turned to see Ty with her head cocked to one side. She’d been listening. She said, “Octavia Ryan kept Nesser from going to trial, got the judge to rule he was incompetent, so he was sent to Central State Hospital in Virginia. He was so young, only early twenties when he was sent to Central, and now he’s only twenty-three. From what I’ve read, he was so infatuated with Lissy Smiley he’d do anything for her. And both Lissy and her mother were crazy as loons. It explains why he went crazy himself when Lissy died, why he’s out to avenge her now. Do you know more about Victor or Lissy’s family?”
Sala slipped his cell back into his pocket. “I remember Victor moved in with his aunt, his mother’s sister, Jennifer Smiley, when he was sixteen. When Lissy turned thirteen, she seduced him. From all accounts she was the love of Victor’s life. Savich believes she felt the same way. Only, well, she was crazy, so who knows? I guess you know, too, Victor was the driver for the Gang of Four, as they called themselves. Mother, daughter Lissy, and two other guys whose names I don’t remember. When they hit a bank in Georgetown, Savich happened to be there. Lissy recognized him from a news show. She was ready to kill him, but he kicked her so hard in her belly that she had to have surgery on her duodenum. Victor managed to sneak her out of the hospital, and they ran, all the way back to where Victor had an apartment in Winnett, North Carolina. He tried to blow them up, took another agent captive. It was
Ty laughed. “Only a little.”
“And he tried for Sean again yesterday at the book festival. Go figure that. We’ve got to find him fast before he tries for someone else.”
“What he did was pretty lamebrain, wasn’t it, with Sherlock there ready for him?” Ty took another sip of her water. “I can’t imagine the stress, your kid in danger right along with you and your husband. I wonder where Victor Nesser is hiding. I also wonder, if Lissy was indeed the love of his life, why he now has a new girlfriend.”
“And I’m wondering if he knows he’s been identified yet. You know it’ll come as a real shock when he finds out. I only hope it doesn’t send him on a rampage. Yeah, a new girlfriend. It doesn’t make much sense to me. Doesn’t to Savich, either.”
23
* * *
EAST CAPITOL STREET NE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SUNDAY MORNING
“Papa, Marty wants to know why I’m staying with Gran.”
Sean and Savich were sitting in his mother’s light, airy kitchen, Savich eating a late breakfast of spinach crepes, one of his mom’s specialties, and a side of scrambled eggs. Sean was chowing down on Cheerios with his requisite sliced banana on top. Sherlock had said she wasn’t hungry and excused herself to spend time with his mother in the living room, giving her an update on what had happened yesterday, well out of Sean’s hearing.
Savich swallowed a bite of eggs, laid his hand over his son’s small one. “It’s almost your grandmother’s birthday, Sean, and that’s what she wanted for her present—you.” Thankfully, Sean knew very well his grandmother’s birthday was next week.
Sean preened. “I’m a birthday present? That’s awesome.” Then he looked worried. “Don’t we have to give her something else, Papa? I spent all my money yesterday at the book festival.”
“Your present to her doesn’t involve buying her anything. All you have to do is keep your room straight, enjoy yourself, and not be a pain in the butt. Senator Monroe is taking you to your day camp again tomorrow, then Gabriella will pick you up and bring you back here. Your grandmother said if it was okay with Marty’s parents, she could come back here with you tomorrow after camp and have dinner. Senator Monroe will be here to take her home. What do you think?”
“Since I’m a present, do I have to wash the dishes?”
“It’s nearly her birthday, Sean, so it’d be nice for you and Marty to help. Clear the table, like you do at home.”
Sean said thoughtfully, “I’ll tell Marty it’s her job to clear the table.” He gave his father a beatific smile. “I’ll be the boss.”
It was close, but Savich didn’t roll his eyes. Sean telling Marty what to do? He’d like to see that. He said, “That’s something you can work out with Marty. Now, after breakfast, you and Gran and Senator Monroe are going to Christ Church.”
“I like going there. It’s old, Papa. Gran told me it was old even when she was young. She says we can snuggle in with all those people who sat where we’re sitting. She says lots of them were politicians, but what can you do?”
Savich laughed.
“Will you and Mama come with us?”
“Not this time. Your mother and I have some important work to attend to.”
Sean forgot about Christ Church. He gave his father a long, serious look. “Are you going to catch that man with the big chocolate bar in Mr. McGurk’s tent yesterday? Mama told a lady to grab me and Marty, and she ran after him.”
No hope for it. “That’s right. He wasn’t a nice man, Sean, and we need to find him.”
“And then I’ll get to come home?”
When had Sean gotten so grown-up? “Yes, then you’ll come home. So enjoy your stay here in Gran Disneyland. It won’t last much longer.”
* * *
It was quiet in the Hoover Building at noon on Sunday, the immense hallways echoing Sherlock’s and Savich’s footsteps. They walked into the CAU and saw Agent Lucy McKnight and two agents on loan from the Criminal Division, Dirk Platt and Jerry Barnes, manning the Victor Nesser hotline phones. The agents looked up when Savich said, “Thanks, guys, for coming in to handle the hotline.”
They answered with some good-natured bitching, but only because neither agent had gotten any worthwhile calls that merited follow-up, one a Nesser sighting in Anchorage, one from San Diego. Dirk said, “Amazing how fast this guy can move. One woman claimed she saw Victor driving over the Mexican border. When I told her it couldn’t be possible, she asked if I was single.”
“I’m the one with the luck,” Agent Lucy McKnight called out. “Wait’ll you hear what I’ve got.”
Dirk’s phone rang. “Lots of folks out and about on a Sunday,” he said, and picked it up. “Hotline, Agent Comptom. What do you have for me?”
When Lucy hung up from another call, she said, “Do you know my no-good husband is off fishing with his father and brothers at Cape Hatteras, like they do every single year? Okay, okay, so listen to this call I just got: a park ranger, Gina Clemmens, at Greenbrier State Park in Maryland is pretty certain Victor Nesser tried to get into the park late yesterday. Greenbrier is about sixty miles east of Willicott. She had to turn him away because there were no campsites left. I asked her if she was in the kiosk until she closed down the gate, and she said yes, of course. Then she backed up, said she did take a bathroom break, but it wasn’t more than ten minutes. When she came back, she was on the gate for another half hour, then closed it down.”
Savich said, “Still, Victor could have driven in while she was on break and parked out of sight, maybe away from the parking lot, taken his camping equipment into the woods for the night, and left this morning.”
“Exactly. Ranger Clemmens said she saw some camping equipment in the backseat of the car. A Kia, she said, dark green, with a Virginia license plate she didn’t write down, since she’d turned him away.”
Sherlock said, “Did the ranger see a woman in the car?”
“I asked her, but she said she didn’t notice anyone else. But she guesses there could have been someone hunched down in the backseat with all the camping gear.”
Lucy gave them a fat smile. “But I haven’t finished. Two minutes before you guys walked in, I got a call from a Mr. Norm Chitter, of Norm’s Fish and Bait in Bowman, Maryland, right outside Greenbrier State Park. Victor was in his store to buy some junk food, saw himself on the TV, ‘turned paler than a week-old trout’—his words—and ran. Dropped a box of Milk Duds on his mad dash out of the store.”
Sherlock heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness he didn’t shoot Mr. Chitter.”
“—or his wife, who saw him, too, came into the store from the back room as Victor was running out the front door.”
“Did either of them see him drive away?”
“No. Mr. Chitter said it took him a minute to understand why Victor ran out of his store like ‘a pair of hedge shears were after his tail feathers’—again I’m quoting. Then he looked at the TV and saw Victor’s photo and that he was wanted for questioning in a local murder. By the time he got his courage up and went outside, Victor was gone. Do you think Victor went back to the park after Norm recognized him?”
“If he did, he didn’t stay long,” Sherlock said. She looked thoughtful. “If I were Victor, I’d dump the green Kia, since I’d have to assume I’d been seen in it, and find myself another car. He’s got to be scared now, probably can’t understand how we already know who he is.”
Lucy said, “Maybe Victor hightailed it to another state park?”
Savich smiled at Lucy. “That’s a good guess. If I were in his shoes, I’d get out of Maryland fast. Maybe Pennsylvania or Virginia.”
“Or he could drive back to Winnett, North Carolina,
Savich said, “Let’s get an APB out on the green Kia in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The Kia’s probably stolen, too.”
Sherlock said thoughtfully, “I’m hoping Victor will be too frantic to get out of the area to bother dumping the Kia now. Maybe Virginia or Pennsylvania, if he makes it that far.”
Lucy said, “You think there’s a girl with him?”
Savich said, his voice expressionless, “I wish I knew.” He looked down at his watch. “I’ve got a call to make.” And he walked into his office.
Sherlock said to Lucy, “We’re going to go out to Quantico soon, see Dr. Thomas. Maybe he’s got something definitive to tell us about the bones they found in Lake Massey.” She drew in a deep breath. “And we need to speak to Dr. Haymes. He called. He’s finished Octavia Ryan’s autopsy.”
Lucy said, “Two months ago I worked with Octavia on the Wiliker case, you remember, the two-man team who killed those young women?”
“Yes, I remember the case, but I never met Octavia. Her funeral is on Tuesday, in Falls Church. Did you know she was seeing Agent Sala Porto?”
“Sure, she told me last week in the women’s room she and Sala were going someplace to de-stress. Then she told me she was thinking about going back with her ex-husband, said he finally might be getting his head on straight. Her ex was really putting the moves on her. I think she was going back.”
“But what about Sala?”
“She said she and Sala were good friends, with benefits, they understood each other, enjoyed each other.” Lucy shook her head, swiped the tears away. “Now she’s dead and she’ll never have a chance to decide what to do—about anything. And what Victor Nesser had planned for Sala? Leave him to die in that closet? Where is Sala?”