“Hey, Dad, did I tell you how Officer Craig took us to booking? Showed us their fancy new fingerprinting machine? It’s newer than yours.”
Rafe said, “He showed me how to look like a real rough character in the lineup booth, how to slouch and turn my sneakers up on the edges.”
“The lineup, huh? Maybe next time Officer Craig can dump you in a holding cell, lock you up for a couple of hours so you can keep company with some of the city’s more upstanding citizens.”
The boys hooted and settled back into their game. If a wild cacophony of gunshots and car crashes counted as settling in, Ruth thought.
Dix passed an old truck, nodded to the farmer who waved him ahead, and eased the Range Rover around him.
CHAPTER 35
WASHINGTON, D.C. SUNDAY NIGHT
SAVICH AND SHERLOCK sat in the Volvo in their driveway, the engine idling, heater running. Savich stared at his laptop. MAX was in satellite communication with the communications center in the Hoover Building. A large-scale map of the Washington, D.C., area appeared on the screen. Sherlock said, “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Our neighbors to the north had Malcolm Gilliam in custody for nine years. If they’d only kept him incarcerated none of this would have happened.”
“I wish he’d been in prison rather than in a mental hospital,” Savich said. “It’s a pity the Canadian Supreme Court ruling in 1991 changed their criminal code. They made it easier to escape criminal culpability by claiming insanity.”
“But still,” Sherlock said, “he brutally kills two people in Quebec and they let him out in nine years?”
Savich rolled his shoulders and stretched. “Once his lawyers managed to convince a jury he wasn’t criminally responsible because he was hallucinating and delusional at the time of the crimes, it wasn’t lawful for them to hold him in custody any longer. Something about cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Unless,” Sherlock said, “they could prove he still posed a risk to the public. He must have learned the rules really well.” She looked at MAX’s screen for a moment and panned the map westward. “So, Dillon, if they deemed Moses was no longer a danger to the public, the Institut Philippe Pinel couldn’t monitor him after he was released?”
“He was scheduled to see his multidisciplinary support group weekly, but he was legally free to leave. So he hacked off his locator bracelet, skipped out, and came back to the United States two years ago. Then we lose track of him until he picks up Claudia and beats that homeless man to death eight months ago in Birmingham.”
“You know he must see Claudia as another Tammy.”
“Probably. Claudia is the same age as Tammy was. And now the two of them have gone on their own killing spree.”
Savich opened a JPEG file on MAX. “You haven’t seen this photo yet, Sherlock. It was taken three weeks before Moses’s trial.”
She leaned over to stare at the photo of a rather distinguished-looking, middle-aged man with thick gray hair, a thin ascetic face, and an aquiline nose. His nicely worn tweed suit made him look like a banker. “
You’d never know it was Moses Grace,” she marveled out loud. “The description everyone at Denny’s agreed on was that he looked ancient. It hasn’t been much more than a dozen years since this photo was taken.”
Savich nodded and began to massage her neck and shoulders to ease the tension. “It’d be nice, though, to have a photo from when he got out of the Canadian institute after nine years. We’re still working on that.”
She studied MAX’s screen again. “He’s aged thirty years, and not well, since this was taken.”
“He’s very ill, Sherlock, and maybe that’s got a lot to do with how old and worn he looks. He was being treated for pulmonary tuberculosis reactivation at Philippe Pinel. They didn’t finish treating him before he skipped out. When I told Dr. Breaker his symptoms, he said it sounded like the infection had progressed to the cavitary stage—destroyed enough tissue to form big holes in his lungs. Dr. Breaker thinks he’s in the end stages.”
“I guess more people were exposed to tuberculosis back then. So a disease he probably got in childhood is going to do him in. At least there’ll be some kind of justice for him.”
“If this satellite link to the communications center holds up, we’ll be helping him get justice sooner than that,” Savich said.
“I sure hope so, Dillon, or we’ll never get any sleep.”
“We still have some time before midnight,” Savich said. He pulled her onto his lap, kissed her behind the ear, and smoothed her soft hair with his hand. “Rest a moment. It’s only been two days since you got your arm sliced up.”
He looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. “Moses called at exactly midnight the last time. We won’t stay out much later than that. Dane and Ben should be here about now.”
At midnight sharp Savich’s cell phone rang. He pulled out of his driveway and next to the curb, and let the car idle again. He gave everyone a thumbs-up and answered it.
“Hey, Moses, how you doin’? Coughing up lots of blood? Nearly dead, aren’t you, old man?”
Savich had surprised him. There was a long silence. Savich needed him to say something, to identify himself.
“Now, boy, you know my Claudia wouldn’t let that happen. I’m plenty fit enough to take care of business with you.”
Before Moses finished his sentence, a flashing yellow dot appeared on MAX’s Washington map, pinpointing his location. He was moving. Sherlock magnified the map with a keystroke, nodded to Savich, and pointed straight ahead. The Volvo accelerated smoothly.
“Still think you’re going to kill me? Not a chance, old man,” Savich said.
“We’ll see, won’t we, now that I know where you live.” He cackled, and Savich could hear liquid rolling around in his mouth. “You want to know how I found out your address? I found it at Ms. Lilly’s before I set off that little bomb. Claudia thought since we missed your cute little wife, we ought to get down to business and try again real soon, so I wanted to let you know you can’t hide anymore. It was quite a scene there for a while Friday night, wasn’t it?”
Sherlock motioned for a left on Clement Street, and Savich turned smoothly. Dane Carver and Ben Raven listened in on their cell phones in the backseat to radio communications from the Hoover building. They were relaying Moses’s location by voice to all the agents converging on him.
“You caused quite a furor, Moses. Say hello to Claudia for me, will you? That’s Claudia Smollett, isn’t it, from Cleveland, Ohio? She looks pretty in her pictures. Are you sure you’re anxious for me to meet her?
”
They heard Moses’s muffled, angry voice. “Damn, Claudia, he’s made you. What am I going to do with you if you don’t listen to me?”
The flashing yellow dot disappeared from the map. Moses’s phone was in a dead spot, without GPS
signal. Then it flashed on again, bright as before, to the collective relief of everyone in the Volvo. Savich said, “I wouldn’t be too upset with her, Moses. She’s not the only one who’s been careless. You’
re not really Moses Grace, are you? Moses was your daddy’s name and Grace was your mama’s. Do you think your parents would be pleased you’re doing all this killing using their names? Looks to me like they were real nice people.”
There was a sharp hitch in Moses’s breath, followed by a violent hacking cough. Finally he managed to say, “Well, well, well. Was that a guess or has our Boy Scout been doing his homework?”
Sherlock gave Savich a thumbs-up and mouthed, Two minutes.
Savich said, “Why don’t I talk while you choke on your own blood, Moses? Your name is Malcolm Gilliam, born in Youngstown, Ohio. You flunked out of engineering school, then spent some time in Canada. You’ve really got to work on that illiterate hillbilly shtick, by the way.”