“Why is this special, Uncle Dillon?” Keely asked, chewing each long French fry down to the grease.
“It’s special because both you and Sam are heroes. And because we’re all here together. Sam, it doesn’t look to me like you’re really enjoying your hamburger.”
Sam, who couldn’t speak until he’d swallowed the huge bite he’d taken, gave Savich a big, ketchup-smeared smile.
Ten minutes later, when Keely and Sam were eating chocolate chip ice cream, focused on each other and the chocolate chips they were carefully picking from the cones, Savich said, his voice pitched low, “Jimmy Maitland called just a while ago. The math teacher killer hit again, and he wants us back on the investigation. They need fresh eyes and he says we’re the freshest eyes he’s got. He sounds more desperate than I’ve heard him in a long while. The media attention had died down after they’d thrashed over the second killing, but now, with the third, they’ll have ‘serial killer’ plastered all over the TV and the newspapers.”
Sherlock said, “He also wants us to come back for a press conference at headquarters tonight. We have no choice at all in this.”
“There are lots of good people,” Savich said, “but when you mix three different police departments and the FBI together and try to coordinate who’s going to be top dog, it can get ugly real fast.”
Katie said, “I heard that after the second math teacher killing, the politicians started getting into the act.”
“They’ll want to ban every gun in the universe, including the one the shooter’s using,” Sherlock told her. “I can just imagine how difficult it is for the local jurisdictions to deal with this, particularly when the politicians are competing for sound bites.”
Sherlock sighed, her eyes for a moment on Savich’s plate, where most of his swordfish sandwich was left untouched. “One thing is absolutely true: Everyone is scared. Everyone wants to catch this guy, and the pressure keeps growing.”
“Maitland said that the principals in the high schools in the killing areas haven’t put up any road blocks if the math teachers want to leave town for a while,” Savich said. “It’s rather like closing the barn door after the horses have run out.”
“Three people dead,” Sherlock said, shaking her head. “Maitland scheduled the press conference late enough so we’ll have time to speak to the third victim’s husband beforehand.”
“So what are you going to say at this press conference?” Katie asked as she sipped her coffee.
Savich started to say he didn’t have a clue, but instead he suddenly just got up from the table and went outside. They watched him talking on his cell phone.
“My husband just got a brain flash,” Sherlock said, amused satisfaction in her voice. “The last time it happened, Sean was sprawled on Dillon’s chest. Dillon grabbed him under one arm and took him to MAX. An hour later, the Detroit cops arrested a man who worked behind the counter at Trailways Bus in Detroit for the murder of three runaway teenagers, all of whom had left Detroit on Trailways. He’d followed all of them and killed them.”
“Why, for heaven’s sake?” Katie asked.
“He never really said, just cried so hard his nose was running. Even after six months of nonstop shrinks, I don’t think anyone ever understood what he was all about. He’s locked away now in a state mental hospital.”
Savich came back into the restaurant, sat down, took a bite of his fish sandwich, and said absolutely nothing.
Miles said to Savich, “So all of a sudden, your brain just announced-bang!-the killer was a counter clerk at Trailways?”
Savich looked blank until Sherlock said, “I was telling them about the Detroit case, Dillon.”
He nodded. “The cops had questioned all the employees at Trailways, but they didn’t spot this guy as a viable suspect. Well, I’d just been giving it a lot of thought, that’s all, and I took a guess. I asked them to follow this guy for three days.”
“What happened?” Katie asked, spellbound.
“He picked out our undercover agent, who was really twenty-six years old but looked fifteen, as his next victim. We got him.”
“Okay, Dillon, what’s the brain flash this time?”
He smiled at Sherlock, then shook his head at the others. “Too soon for me to say. Now, the big question. It’s Tuesday, what do you want to do, Miles?”
“I don’t know yet, but I guess I need to stay here for a while longer,” and he looked over at Sam and Keely.
Savich saw that he was pissed, frustrated, and nearly at the end of his tether. “Both of you,” he said, “keep us informed.”
Katie became suddenly aware that both Sam and Keely were all ears, down to the last licks on their cones. “Finish your ice cream, kids,” she said, and wiped a bit of chocolate chip off Keely’s mouth.
26
A t eight o’clock that evening, at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Savich stood beside FBI Assistant Director Jimmy Maitland, waiting for the police chief of Oxford, Maryland, to turn the mike back over to them. The police chiefs from all three jurisdictions were lined up behind the podium, trying to look confident in front of all the blinding lights and the shouted questions.
Standing beside the chiefs were the three victims’ husbands: Troy Ward, looking sad and puffy in a bright blue suit; Gifford Fowler, skinny as a post, standing with a big black Stetson in his hands; and Crayton Maddox, a successful attorney, looking as pale as a ghost, still in shock. He’d managed to dress himself in a Saville Row suit that had to have set him back a couple thousand dollars. Looking at the man now, Savich thought back to the meeting he and Sherlock had with him only two hours before, at his home in Lockridge, Virginia.
He and Sherlock had driven to Lockridge High School in Lockridge, Virginia, an affluent suburb favored by many upper-level government employees. The crime investigators, local and FBI, were still there, and six officers were keeping the media behind a police rope.
Police Chief Thomas Martinez met them in the principal’s office and said without preamble, “The janitor spotted a small leak late Monday afternoon, in the boiler room. He repaired it, then said he couldn’t sleep for worrying so he came back early this morning, before six o’clock, to see that everything was still holding.” The chief stopped and grimaced. “He smelled something. It was Mrs. Maddox, one of our five math teachers. Evidently she’d stayed late to grade some test papers because she and her family were leaving for the Caribbean in the morning. Her husband said he’d talked her into leaving because of the two killings. In any case, she never made it home. Her husband called us around nine o’clock last evening, scared out of his mind. He’d called her cell, gotten no answer. We searched nonstop for her. The janitor found her. Come this way.”
It was not a pretty sight. Mrs. Eleanor Maddox, not above thirty-five, two children, and a whiz at teaching geometry, had been shoved in beside the boiler. Because the weather was cool the boiler had fired up, and that was why the janitor had smelled her body. She’d been shot right between the eyes, up very close, just like the other two women.
Chief Martinez said, “The forensic team finished up about three hours ago. The ME said if he had to guess, it was a.38, just like the other two. He also said that this time, the guy had moved her here after he’d shot her.”
“No witnesses?”
“Not a one, so far.”
“Not even a strange car in the vicinity?”
He shook his head. “No. I have officers canvassing the entire neighborhood. No one saw a thing. Basketball practice and the student club meetings were over, so there weren’t any other students or teachers around that we know of.”
Sherlock said, “I guess he didn’t want her found right away. What does the husband have to say, Chief?”
The husband, Crayton Maddox, was a big legal mover and shaker in Washington, his forte forging limitless access to politicians for lobbying groups willing to pay for the privilege. Exactly what that meant, Mr. Maddox didn’t explain, and Savich, cynical to his toes, didn’t ask. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening, but Mr. Maddox was still wearing his robe. There were coffee stains on the front of it. He was wearing socks, no shoes. He looked like he’d been awake for a week, and none of those waking hours had been pleasant.