Whiplash

  "No. The housekeeper, Mrs. Romano, and the cook, Mrs. Hatfield, both leave at five unless I'm entertaining, then they stay."

  "Be sure they don't know anyone will be coming tonight, all right?"

  Senator Hoffman nodded.

  The master bedroom looked like a monk's cell, big, white, stark, and sparsely furnished. Too much empty space, Sherlock thought as she ran her fingers over the black leather easy chair in the sitting area, which was dominated by a television large enough to service a small theater. The king-size bed had a simple dark blue coverlet over it, no pillows or accessories of any kind. There was a large plain dresser, and one additional chair, perhaps used by the senator when he put on his shoes in the morning. There wasn't a single painting on the stark white walls, not a single knickknack in view except for a beautiful, very feminine jewelry box on top of the dresser. She watched Dillon walk over to the windows, and brought the senator's attention back to her. "The jewelry box, sir, was it your wife's?"

  He started to say yes, then swallowed and simply nodded. Dreadful pain there still, it hadn't faded, even after three years. When she'd first met Dillon and someone would mention his deceased father, Buck Savich, she remembered the same flash of pain in his eyes. She wanted to tell him it would fade into soft memories, as hers had with her sister Belinda. She asked, "How long were you married, Senator?"

  "Thirty-nine years. Her name was Nikki. She was only sixty-one when she died. She promised me she'd make her birthday, and she did, barely. But you know this already, Agent Sherlock. The director told me the two of you never went into anything blind if you had a choice. And, yes, I've heard of MAX, Savich's laptop that he's programmed to do pretty much everything but call the Redskins' games. I'll bet if I wore toenail polish, you'd know the color and the brand."

  "I'm very glad that you don't," she said, and smiled up at him. Again he looked at her hair and his breathing hitched. She lightly laid her fingertips on his forearm, offering, she hoped, some hope and comfort.

  He wasn't big and muscular like Dillon, but she'd bet he was stronger than he looked, this aristocratic man who was older than her father, a federal judge who still terrorized defense attorneys. He seemed both very human and infinitely sane. She liked him.

  When Dillon came away from the window, he smiled at her and nodded toward the door. "We're done here, Senator."

  "Did you see anything, Agent Savich?"

  "A very nice backyard, Senator. The woods, how far back do they go?"

  "They're not that deep. The brick wall continues all the way around the property. There are two gates, one in the front and a smaller one in the back for the garbage people and repair people who come in on a narrow access road running alongside it."

  A perfect place, Sherlock thought, drive right in, and pull out your gate key-oh, yes, whoever was behind this had a gate key-and set up this elaborate gaslight charade. She gave the senator's bedroom one last look. She realized now what he'd done. All the bareness, all the absence of any mementoes of their life, except for his wife's jewelry box, he'd simply moved everything out, and not replaced it with anything of himself. After three years, it was still too soon.

  Sherlock and Savich stopped a moment on the wide front veranda of the colonial mansion and enjoyed the morning sun shining down on the colorful flowerbeds lining the front of the house. It was early September and the trees were still full and lush.

  Sherlock asked him, "Sir, are you seeing anyone socially?"

  He looked startled, and then she saw a tightening around his mouth. "Not really," he said, again looking at her hair. "Well, yes, occasionally, I see Janine Koffer, she's Lane Koffer's widow, you know, the former secretary of state? He died two years ago. Prostate cancer."

  He slept with her, Savich thought, and it made sense. Washington, he'd learned over the years, was a very lonely place, despite the scores of young people bursting its seams with their undisciplined boundless energy, their still unfocused ambitions. If you were smart, you took your comfort where it wouldn't come back to bite you in the butt.

  Savich and Sherlock shook Hoffman's hand. "Please do what you normally do, Senator," Savich said, "and remember, don't breathe a word of our coming tonight to anyone, Corliss Rydle, your cook, Mrs. Koffer, anyone."

  "All right. When will you come tonight?"

  Savich shook his hand. "I'd just as soon you didn't know any more than you do now, sir. But we'll be here."

  6

  "I saw it come from behind those oak trees," Sherlock said, pointing, "moving slowly, hesitantly, like it didn't know where it wanted to go. But look now, it's moving fast, in a straight line to the senator's bedroom window."

  Savich said, "I'd hoped it would come down from the roof."

  "Easier to yank up, you mean? For the instant vanishing act?"

  "It seems the easiest way for human hands to control it." Savich raised his cell phone, zoomed in, and snapped several pictures of the apparition fast approaching the second-floor bedroom window. They watched it close in, then simply hang there a moment before it began moving about, billowing, then dancing up and down.

  "You know it's got to be human hands, Dillon, given that enthusiastic performance," Sherlock whispered. "I'd say a standard-size pillowcase, like the senator said, a whole lot of thread count, very fine material, probably Italian."

  "Let's go find how they're doing this," Savich said, took her hand, and turned into the woods. They stopped cold at odd huffing sounds from behind them, like someone trying to breathe, Savich thought, like the senator's dying wife trying to breathe. It seemed to be coming from the house. The senator had nailed the sound.

  "There must be some wires, something." Sherlock adjusted her night-vision goggles. She always kept her feet planted on terra firma. "I'll bet you're thinking it's someone in the family, too, admit it. Family-it's depressing. Cursed money, it's behind too much bad in this world.

  "I'm glad whoever's behind this believed it was just fine to perform tonight. I don't see a wire or anything, do you, Dillon?"

  They stood quietly at the spot where the apparition had floated out of the woods, staring up, looking for a wire, anything. "Not yet," he whispered.

  As she scanned the trees, she whispered back, "I wonder how the person responsible for this ghost performance plans to get the senator's money? Surely he or she doesn't expect the senator to die of fright or run screaming to an asylum, so they can pronounce him incompetent? And why would he flip out now if he hasn't already? Why keep it up? Sounds like a real long shot to me."

  They combed through the oak and maple trees. No wire in sight.

  "So it's a very fine wire, or could the whole thing be radio controlled? But it has to originate from somewhere, somewhere in sight," she said.

  Savich opened the back gate that gave onto the small access road at the back of the property. When they'd left the senator's house that morning, they'd checked the area behind the property. They saw only the same two crushed empty beer cans, the same half-dozen cigarette butts.

  There was no sign of anyone or any sort of vehicle, no sign of any mechanism they could see orchestrating the flight of the dancing pillowcase.

  "I don't get it," Sherlock said. "Where is it?"

  Savich paused, became perfectly still and focused. He heard the sounds of the night-a single owl hooting, crickets and cicadas clicking, rustling bushes as small animals moved through. He became aware of the air, warm and soft against his skin, an early fall feel to it, promising change, but not here just yet. Then suddenly the air seemed curiously charged, like a live wire sparking against his cheek. The air seemed to have tangible weight now, physically pushing against him. Now what was this all about? Then the air stilled and became warm once again, and he would swear the sounds of the small varmints scurrying around in the woods became louder.

  They walked back toward the house, but saw nothing. It was gone. He whispered against Sherlock's ear, her curly hair tickling his mouth, "I'm thinking this whole thing has nothing at
all to do with the senator's wastrel sons. I think it's about something else entirely."

  "You think it's maybe some sort of hologram? But who's projecting it, and from where?"

  He shook his head against her hair. "No, our manifestation isn't a hologram."

  "Please, Dillon, don't tell me you think it's really woo woo."

  "Well, there's something different happening here," Savich said, and kissed her ear. "We'll just have to see."

  Sherlock rubbed her arms even though the night was warm. "You think it's the dead wife, don't you? You think it's Nikki?"

  He nodded. "I felt as if something or someone is trying to communicate. It would seem the senator isn't able to understand. But it keeps trying. His wife, Nikki? Maybe."

  Sherlock said, "But we're here and it was here as well. If it is Nikki, you think she came because she thought you could help? You'd recognize who and what she was?"

  "All good questions. It's been over fifteen minutes, and there's nothing here now. Let's go home."

  "Dillon, there's something I don't understand." She was frowning toward the senator's bedroom window.

  He waited, his fingers rubbing the back of her hand.

  "I would expect you to see it. But what about me? I've never seen anything. But I saw it too, clear as day."

  "So did the senator."

  7

  GEORGETOWN

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Monday morning

  Savich was wide awake at two a.m., listening to Sherlock's even breathing, wondering if a ghost was going to come tell him a story.

  Nikki, where are you? I saw you, you let both Sherlock and me see you. Were you trying to tell me something about the senator? Is there some sort of trouble heading his way?

  There was nothing from Nikki.

  He finally fell into a surprisingly deep sleep and didn't stir until the alarm went off at six-thirty a.m.

  He opened his eyes to see Sherlock, on her elbow above him, staring down at him. He shook his head. She leaned down to kiss him when-

  "Papa, Mama, you're still in bed! Gabby will be here soon and I've got to be ready for her to take me to the Gumby Exhibition."

  The Gumby Exhibition at the Throckmorton Center didn't open until ten o'clock. Sherlock grinned at her son standing in the doorway wearing only SpongeBob SquarePants pajama bottoms, his black hair as tousled as his father's. He was so beautiful it made her heart ache. "I'll be right in to help you, Sean. Go brush your teeth."

  When she heard him whoop down the hallway, Sherlock kissed her husband, and cupped his face between her hands. "Stop worrying about it. Things always happen when they're supposed to."

  He surely hoped so.

  What he didn't expect was anything to happen in the middle of an emergency meeting that morning with Mr. Maitland and Eurydice Flanders, known as Dice to her federal lawyer colleagues, a fifteen-year veteran of FBI headquarters here in Washington.

  "Dillon, how's tricks?"

  Savich shook her hand and sat down beside her. He thought about the wonderful nine and a half minutes he'd had that morning with Sherlock before Sean came back, his teeth brushed, and raring to go. "Tricks are good, Dice. What's up, sir?"

  "Early this morning a pair of runners found a murdered man in Van Wie Park, in Stone Bridge, Connecticut. That's federal land and makes it ours. The dead guy's name is Helmut Blauvelt, and he's a German national. We haven't released any information on him yet to the media. He's been employed for the past ten years by Schiffer Hartwin Pharmaceutical, reports directly to the director, Adler Dieffendorf."

  Dice asked, "What do you know about Schiffer Hartwin Pharmaceutical, Savich?"

  "They're one of the largest drug companies in the world. Family owned, established back in the late nineteenth century, in Hartwin, Germany. Very profitable."

  Dice nodded. "They're also very powerful and well connected locally. They employ close to forty thousand people worldwide."

  Mr. Maitland rubbed the faint black stubble on his chin. "Bowie Richards, our New Haven SAC, called me this morning after he'd identified the man, asked me if we had any interest in him or his employer, the Schiffer Hartwin Pharmaceutical company.

  "We didn't until I found out about this Herr Helmut Blauvelt. Okay, Dice, tell Savich what we know about him."

  Dice was tall and leggy, with blond hair cut in a sharp wedge, and was smarter than she probably deserved to be. She sat forward and sniffed. "You smell very hot, Dillon. Did Sherlock buy you some new cologne?"

  "Dice, focus, please," said Maitland. "Hey, my wife bought me some new cologne and you didn't say anything."

  "Very fruity, sir. I like it." She gave him a big grin, then sobered, and continued in her slow sweet southern drawl that camouflaged a knife-sharp brain. "Okay, Dillon, here's the deal. Helmut Blauvelt wasn't just any employee, he was Schiffer Hartwin's main problem-solver and troubleshooter, their Mr. Fix-It, for over a decade now. The directors sent him all over the world, wherever there was a possible threat to the company, whether it was local union problems, suppliers reneging on contracts, or politicians asking for kickbacks. He was apparently very good at it, that is-poof-problems gone. His methods included bribery and violence. Of course, there's no real proof, especially since he rarely spent much time in any one jurisdiction or country. But there were enough questions asked for Interpol to have a file on him."

  "But is he a killer, Dice? And if so, how come there's no proof of that?"

  "Not as such, but the word is, folks have disappeared-in Africa, in Egypt, in England. Mostly we think he strong-arms, intimidates, and strikes deals the company can't publicly avow. And now he's dead, murdered on our soil. As of yet, his bosses in Germany haven't made a peep. Bowie called them a couple of hours ago. I suppose they've got to figure out how to respond to the murder of their Mr. Fix-It right here in the U.S. of A.

  "We naturally wonder what he was here to fix. Or who. And how this ties in with the company. And that is why you and I are both here at the get-go, Dillon."

  Savich said, "Tell me you have some ideas."

  "Well, no, sorry," said Dice. "This murder is wide open. But believe me, the director wants to find out, and that's why Mr. Maitland brought you into it."

  Maitland said, "Dice said they hadn't let out a peep. Well, they did, a loud one, just before I walked in here. They called Bowie back to inform him they're sending over a German Federal Intelligence Service agent from the BND to represent them in the investigation."

  "Sounds like the corporate office wants to put a lid on it," Savich said.

  "I would like to agree with you," Maitland said, "but our Legat in Berlin says this guy-Agent Andreas Kesselring-has the reputation of being a straight arrow in Germany, and he has an exemplary record.

  "He'll be arriving at JFK tomorrow afternoon. Bowie Richards will be sending a car to fetch him."

  Dice's left eyebrow shot up. "Don't you want Savich to pick up Kesselring, since he's going to head the investigation in Stone Bridge? Get an up close and personal feel for the guy?"

  Maitland said, looking over Dice's left shoulder, "Savich isn't really going to head up the investigation."

  Dice went on red alert. "Why, for heaven's sake?"

  "You should know that Bowie Richard's family and Vice President Valenti's family are close. Really close."

  Just dandy, Savich thought, a SAC with juice and a German federal agent, both. Not to mention a multinational pharmaceutical house with as much money and resources as the FBI.

  "Look, guys, it's the hand we've got to play. I know you'll deal well with Bowie Richards, Savich. Here's a couple of photos of Helmut Blauvelt." Maitland slid over two five-by-sevens.

  Dice took one look at the photo and quickly closed her eyes. "Eeew, he's got no face left. Why would someone do this to him?"

  The dead man looked middle-aged from the clumps of bloody brownish gray hair still on his head, Savich thought, and Dice was right, someone had whaled on him and hadn't stopped. And why was th
at?

  Dice kept her eyes on Maitland's face. "This overkill, it makes no sense. One blow and he's dead. Was it to keep him from being identified? That might have been true fifty years ago, but give me a break. Surely the murderer had to know we'd still be able to identify him."

  Maitland said, "In addition to smashing his face beyond recognition, the killer also cut off his fingers, so no fingerprints. It wasn't as if the killer didn't try.

  "Savich, I called Bowie, told him I was sending you and Sherlock. He wasn't all that happy. More resigned, I guess you'd say. Do you know him?"

  "I met him once at Quantico, maybe three years ago. I remember he's got a little girl who's about two years older than Sean."

  Dice carefully turned over the photo of Helmut Blauvelt. "Now I think about it, I remember hearing his wife died a few years ago. Wasn't she killed driving drunk, something like that?"

  Maitland nodded. "Let's just say it was bad and leave it at that. Bowie's a cracker and a bulldog. Try to work with him, Savich, not go through him. I don't want to hear about any calls from Vice President Valenti to Director Mueller."

  Dice Flanders shoved her tortoiseshell glasses up on her nose. "When you and Sherlock bring down the bad guys, sugar, you be sure and ask them what the devil Schiffer Hartwin's bad boy was doing here, won't you?"

  "You can count on it, Dice," Savich said.

  "Well, if that's it," Maitland said, motioned for Savich to take the photos, and stood. "Any questions, funnel them through me. Savich, hang on a minute."

  As Dice Flanders passed him, she patted his face. "I sure liked hearing you play your guitar at the Bonhomie Club last week. Your new country western tune nearly made me weep. If I weren't old enough to be your mama, I'd give Sherlock a run for her money."

  Savich laughed. "Sherlock wrote it."

  "Talented girl, curse her," Dice said, and gave a little wave as she walked out of the conference room. "You guys take care of this mess, all right? And be careful."