“Thank you, too. Whatever happens with us, Vito, I won’t tell anyone about Andrea, although you have nothing to be ashamed of. She made her choice. You did your job.”
He frowned. He’d already decided what he wanted to happen. He’d wanted her the moment he’d met her, but he knew he wanted her permanently as he’d watched her make his nephews smile by launching popcorn kernels from a trebuchet made from a wooden spoon, a corn holder, and the counterweight his father had carved.
That she was uncertain troubled him. But there would be time to worry about that later. He pressed a kiss to her temple and turned off the light. “Let’s go to sleep.”
“Oh, Uncle Vitooooo,” she whined in the dark. “Do we have to?”
He chuckled. “Five more minutes.” Then sucked in a breath as her hand slid down his body and wrapped around him. “Or ten.” Her head disappeared under the covers and he closed his eyes in anticipation. “Or you could just take your time.”
Friday, January 19, 7:15
A.M.
“Hello?” Sophie called, letting herself into the Albright. “Anybody home?”
“It’s spooky in here when it’s dark,” Vito whispered. “All those swords and suits of armor. I’m expecting Fred and Velma and Scooby-Doo to pop out any minute.”
She shoved an elbow in his ribs and was gratified to hear him grunt. “Hush.”
Darla came out of the office, her eyes widening as she saw Vito. “Who’s this?”
Sophie unzipped her coat and turned on the lights. “Darla, Detective Ciccotelli. Vito, Darla Albright, Ted’s wife. Please tell Darla that I am not in trouble with the law.”
Vito shook hands with Darla. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Albright.” He dipped his head a little lower. “Sophie’s not in any trouble. She just is trouble.”
Darla chuckled. “Don’t I know it. Sophie, why are people driving you around?”
“Car trouble,” Sophie said, and Darla looked as unconvinced as Ted had.
“Uh-huh. It was nice to meet you, Detective. Sophie, you got a package. It was sitting out front when I came in.” She pointed to the counter, then returned to her office.
Sophie looked at the small brown box, then at Vito. “I’ve had one good and one bad package this week. Should I take the box or see what’s behind curtain number two?”
“I’ll open it,” Vito said, pulling on a pair of thin gloves. He opened the card and blinked. “This is either spy code or Russian.”
Sophie smiled as she read the note. “It’s Cyrillic. This is from Yuri Petrovich. ‘For your exhibit.’ Open it, please.” Vito did and Sophie gasped in shocked delight. “Vito.”
“It’s a doll,” he said.
“It’s a matryoshka. A nested doll.”
“Is it valuable?”
“Monetarily, no.” She lifted the first layer and found another note which made her throat close. “Sentimentally, it’s priceless. This belonged to his mother. It’s one of the few things he brought with him from Georgia. He wants to loan it to me for my Cold War exhibit. He was here yesterday, thanking me. I never dreamed he’d give me this.”
“Why was he thanking you?”
“I sent him a bottle of very good vodka through Barbara at the library. It was sitting on Gran’s bar, never been opened. I thought he’d appreciate it more than she could.”
“You’ve obviously made an impression on him, Sophie Alexandrovna,” Vito teased, then kissed her gently. “You made an impression on me, too.”
She smiled as she put the doll back in the box. “You want a tour?”
“Don’t have time. But,” he sobered, “I want you to show me where you saw Simon.”
Sophie led him to the wall with photos of Ted the First’s expeditions. “He was here.”
Vito nodded. “And he said exactly what?”
She told him. Then shook her head, staring at the place Simon had stood.
“What?” he asked. “Did you remember something else?”
“Yes, but not about Simon.”
“Then what, Sophie?” he asked softly. “Talk to me.”
“There’s a story about Annie Oakley, the sharpshooter. She was doing exhibitions for the crowned heads of Europe. One day Annie chose a volunteer from the audience and clipped the ash right off the end of the cigar he held between his teeth. Turned out it was the man who later became Kaiser Wilhelm. That part’s fact. The story goes on to say that Annie wished she’d missed, that she might have averted World War I.”
“It wouldn’t have,” Vito said. “One man didn’t start that war.”
“No, that’s true. But I think I understand a little about how Annie must have felt. When I saw Simon, I’d just finished the Viking tour,” she said softly. “I had a battle-ax on my shoulder and when he looked at me, I actually tightened my grip on the handle. He creeped me out. I controlled myself of course. Now, I wish I hadn’t.”
Vito gripped her shoulders and turned her to him. “Sophie, he’s killed so many. You couldn’t have stopped that. And I wouldn’t want you to live with the image of your ax in his head. Let us catch him. Then you can stare at him through prison bars, okay?”
“Okay,” she murmured, but thought the image of the head of her ax in the head of the man who’d killed so many was a damn appealing one.
Friday, January 19, 8:00
A.M.
Vito tossed the box of doughnuts on the table. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
Jen peered inside the box. “These aren’t from the bakery in your neighborhood.”
Vito narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t make me hurt you, Jen.”
She grinned at him. “I never thought you’d actually bring more doughnuts. I was just being a squeaky wheel.”
“And speaking of squeaky wheels,” Nick said, dropping into one of the chairs, “the boys in electronics think that one sound on the tape-the one that sounds like a spooky, echo-y squeaky wheel? They think it’s a pulley in an elevator shaft.”
“So we’re looking for a building that might be a church that might have an elevator.” Jen took out a frosted doughnut. “That could actually narrow it down a little bit.”
The rest of the team filed in and took their places around the table, Liz, Nick, and Jen on one side, Katherine and Thomas Scarborough on the other. Vito walked to the whiteboard and wrote “Zachary Webber” in the third square on the first row before taking his seat at the head of the table. “That leaves two victims we need to identify.”
“Not bad, Vito,” Liz said. “I never thought you’d have identified seven of the nine in less than a week. Since you’ve got nearly all the victims ID’d, I reassigned Bev and Tim. I had other caseloads building.”
“They were a big help,” Nick said. “And we will miss them,” he added mournfully, then perked up. “But since they’re not here, it’s more doughnuts for us.”
“A man after my own heart.” Jen grinned. Licking her fingers, she slid a sheet of paper toward Vito. “According to the geologists at the USDA, those are the areas in a one-hundred-mile radius where the soil we found in the graves commonly occurs.”
Vito shook his head at the map. “This doesn’t help. This is hundreds of acres.”
“Thousands,” Jen said. “Sorry, Vito, it’s the best we can get at this point.”
“What about the silicone lubricant?” Vito asked, and Jen shrugged.
“I sent copies of the formula to every mom-’n’-pop shop in the back of that magazine you got from Dr. Pfeiffer. I haven’t heard back from any of them yet. I’ll follow up today.”
“Katherine?”
“I sent a request to the Dutton ME for the death certificate on Simon Vartanian. And I’ve started the procedure for exhumation of whoever’s buried in Simon’s tomb.”
“When will they start digging?” Liz asked.
“Hopefully sometime this afternoon. Agent Vartanian smoothed the way with a few phone calls last night after they left.”