Twice Dead (23 page)

At that moment, the phone in the living room rang.

Tinny, sharp, and too loud, and Becca dropped her coffee cup.

“Becca didn't get much sleep last night,” Adam said easily, and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hello, moron. You found my present?”

“Why, yes, I did. Where are you now?”

“I want to speak to Rebecca.”

“Sorry, she's not here. It's just me. What do you want?”

The phone went dead.

“It was a salesman,” Adam said, all smooth and easy. “The guy wanted to sell Becca some venetian blinds.” He shrugged. “What was it you wanted to know, Sheriff?”

The sheriff had not taken his eyes off Savich. “Those guys around town. Who are they, Mr. Savich?”

“You found me out, Sheriff,” Savich said. “Actually, my wife and I are here because we're representing a big resort developer who is seriously interested in this section of the Maine coast. It's true Adam is a friend of ours and he, well, he gives us some cover. Now, the guys you're seeing around are supposed to be very discreet, which means you've got a very sharp eye, Sheriff. They're doing all sorts of things, like talking to folk, surveying, checking out soil and other flora and fauna, seeing who owns what and how profitable the businesses are now. This is a lovely section of coastline and Riptide is a real neat little town. A resort not too far away—can you imagine what would happen to your local economy? In any case, we won't be here for much longer, but I would ask you a favor. Could you please keep this under your hat?” Savich said immediately to Sherlock, “I told you the sheriff was too sharp not to catch on to us, honey. I told you he was real smart and he knew everything that went on in his town.”

“Yes, Dillon,” Sherlock said, “you told me that. I'm sorry I didn't see him as clearly as you did. Yeah, he's pretty smart, all right.” She gave the sheriff a brilliant smile.

“So, you want me to keep my mouth shut about this, Mr. Savich?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, all right, but if any of them cause any trouble, I'll be back. This resort of yours—it wouldn't go spoiling any of the natural beauty around here, would it?”

“No way,” Savich said. “That's the prime goal of the group I work with.”

Becca eyed Savich after she let the sheriff out the front door, which smelled, he said on his way out, really nice and clean. “You're something, Dillon. I really believed you there for a minute. Goodness, I wanted to ask you the name of the planned resort.”

Savich said, “The phone call gave me time to come up with a decent story.”

“It was him, wasn't it?” Becca said as she turned to Adam, who was still standing by the phone.

“Yes, it was him. He wanted to speak to you but I told him you weren't here. He always calls you Rebecca, not Becca?” At her nod, Adam said, “He was calling from a public phone booth in Rockland. Again, no cell phone. I wonder why he doesn't seem to use one. Tommy the Pipe tracked it down, so there's nothing we can do.”

Sherlock said slowly, studying a bruised knuckle she'd gotten when she'd clipped Tyler McBride's jaw, “We've got to get him back. We've got to set up a meeting somehow.”

“Next time I'll speak to him,” Becca said. “I'll set one up.”

“You won't be bait,” Adam said, his voice sharp as a knife. “No way.”

“Look, Adam, he wants me. If you made yourself the bait, he'd just shoot you and walk away. But not so with me. He wants me up close and personal. Only me. Help me figure out a way to do this, please.”

“I don't like it.”

EIGHTEEN

Hatch, short, built like a young bull, sporting a large mustache, pulled off a tweed Sherlock Holmes hat to show his shaved head. For some reason she couldn't quite fathom, Becca thought he was so impishly cute she wanted to hug him. She thought from the cocky grin on Sherlock's face that she wanted to hug him right along with her.

This guy was potent. He had more charm than a person deserved, she was thinking a few minutes later when Adam held out his hand and said to him, “Give me the pack of cigarettes in your right pocket, Hatch, now, or you're fired.”

“Yeah, sure, boss.” Hatch obligingly handed Adam a nearly full pack of Marlboros. “Only one, boss, no more, and I didn't inhale much. All I had, just one. I don't want to smoke anywhere near sweet Becca. I wouldn't want to ever take a chance of hurting her lovely lungs. Now, tell me what to do to catch this creep so Becca can go back to writing speeches and smiling a lot.” Then he turned those dark brown twinkling eyes on her and said, “Hi.”

Becca grinned and pumped his hand. “Hi, Hatch. Listen, I'm ready. The next time he calls—I'm ready. We're going to set a trap for him. I'm going to be the bait.”

“Hmmm. I don't think the boss likes that. His jaw is all knotted up.”

Adam unknotted his jaw. “No, I don't like it. It's crazy. I don't want her to take this kind of risk. Ah, I can tell by the look on your face, Becca, that you're going to do it regardless of what I think.”

“Look, Adam,” Savich said, “if I could think of another way, I'd dive on it, but there are enough of us to keep her protected. Now, Hatch, according to Adam, you have a pretty awesome reputation to maintain. Tell us what you've found out.”

Hatch took a slim black book out of his jacket pocket, licked his fingers, and ruffled some pages. “Most of this is from Thomas's guys, who've been working their butts off trying to verify Krimakov's death. Now, the CIA has actually spoken to the cop who was the one who poked around his body. Apollo—that's his name—said Krimakov went over a cliff on the eastern end of Crete, near Agios Nikolaos, died instantly, one would suppose from the injuries. It could have been murder, he allowed, but nobody checked into it all that much for the simple fact that no one really cares. Nothing obvious about it, so they closed the case until our agents flew in and spread out and wanted to see and examine everything.”

“So he's really dead,” Becca said.

Hatch looked up and gave a mournful shake of the head. “Not necessarily. Here's the kicker. Krimakov's body was cremated. You see, for the longest time, our people were stonewalled by the locals, who wouldn't allow them to view the body. It was only after the Greek government got involved that they let it out of the bag that they'd cremated him right away. Why? I don't know, but there was a payoff, somewhere.”

No one said a word for a very long time.

“Cremated?” Adam repeated, disbelieving.

“Yes, burned to ashes, poured in an urn. Thing's still sitting on a shelf in the morgue.”

Sherlock said, “So there is no definitive proof because there's no body to examine.”

“Right,” Hatch said. “Now, while we all chew on that, let's go back a bit. Krimakov moved to Crete in the mid-eighties. He showed up and stayed. He was into bad things, but not bad enough so anyone would dig and find out exactly who and what he'd been in Russia. Actually, the impression is they never tried really hard to do any nailing. He probably paid everyone off.”

Adam said, “Okay. Now we've got to search his house, top to bottom and under the basement. If he ever was involved in this, there will be something there.”

“Our agents have gone over his house, didn't find anything. No clues, no leads, no references at all to Becca. We heard he had an apartment somewhere, but we don't know where it is. That might take a little time. There aren't any official records.”

Savich said, “If he had an apartment, I'll find it.”

“Just you?” Adam said, an eyebrow raised.

“Didn't Thomas tell you I was good?”

Adam snorted, watching Savich plug in MAX.

Hatch said, “More will be coming about his personal activities. But as yet, there isn't anything out of Russia. It seems that way back when, all Krimakov's records were purged. There's little left. Nothing of interest. The KGB probably ordered it done, then helped him go to ground, in Crete. Again, though, they'll continue searching and probing and questioning all their counterparts in Moscow.”

“Krimakov isn't dead,” Adam said. And he believed it like he'd never believed anything in his life.

Having said that, Adam sat back and closed his eyes. He was getting a headache.

“Well, yeah, we have something else. I was the one who did all the legwork on this.” Hatch licked his fingers again and flipped over a couple more pages. “The Albany cops found a witness not two hours ago who identified the car that ran down Dick McCallum. It's a BMW, black, license number—at least the first three numbers—three-eight-five. A New York plate. I don't have anything on that yet.”

“I'll have it run through,” Savich said. “It'll be quicker, more complete. I don't want to know how you got that information so quickly.”

“She loves my mustache,” Hatch said. “Please do call the Bureau, Agent Savich. I didn't have the chance to check back with Thomas and have him do it. Oh yeah, a guy was driving. No clue if it was an old guy or a young guy or in between, really dark windows, like windows on a limo. Fairly unusual for a private car, and that's probably why he stole that particular car.”

Savich was on his cell phone in the next ten seconds, nodded and hung up in three more minutes. “Done. We'll have a list of possibles in about five minutes.”

Tommy the Pipe knocked lightly on the front door and came in. “We got a guy buying Exxon supreme at a gas station eight miles west of Riptide. The attendant, a young boy about eighteen, said when the guy paid for his gas, he saw dirt and blood on the cuff of his shirt. He wouldn't have thought a thing about it except Rollo was canvassing all the gas stations, asking questions about strangers. It's him.”

“Oh, yeah.” Adam jumped to his feet. “Please say it, Tommy. Please tell us this kid remembers what the guy looks like, that he remembers the kind of car he was driving.”

“The guy had on a green hunting hat with flaps, something like mine but with no style. He also wore very dark glasses. He doesn't know if the guy was young or old, sorry, Adam. Anyone over twenty-five would be old to that kid. But he does remember clearly that the guy spoke well, a real educated voice, all smooth and deep. The car—he thought it was a BMW, dark blue or black. Sorry, no idea about the plate. But you know what? The windows were dark-tinted. How about that?”

“Surely he wouldn't have driven the same car up here that he used to kill Dick McCallum in Albany,” Sherlock said.

“Why not?” Savich said. “If it isn't dented, if there isn't blood all over it, then why not?”

Savich's cell phone rang. He stood and walked over to the doorway. They heard him talking, saw him nodding as he listened. He hung up and said, “No go. He stole the license plates. No surprise there. He'd have been an idiot to leave on the original plates. However, those heavily tinted windows, I have everyone checking on New York cars stolen within the past two weeks with those sorts of windows.”

Savich's cell phone rang again in eight minutes. He listened and wrote rapidly. When he hung up the phone, he said, “This is something. Like Hatch said, few private cars—domestic or foreign—are built with dark-tinted windows. Three have been stolen. The people are all over the state, two men and one woman.”

Becca said with no hesitation, “It's the woman. He stole her car.”

Sherlock said. “Let's find out right now.”

She called information for Ithaca, New York, and got the phone number for Mrs. Irene Bailey, 112 Huntley Avenue. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Irene Bailey?”

Silence.

“Are you there? Mrs. Bailey?”

“That's my mother,” a woman said. “I'm sorry, but it took me by surprise.”

“May I please speak to your mother?”

“You don't know? No, I guess not. My mother was killed two weeks ago.”

Sherlock didn't drop the phone, but she felt a great roiling pain through her stomach, up to her throat, and she swallowed convulsively. “Can you give me any details, please?”

“Who are you?”

“I'm Gladys Martin with the Social Security Administration in Washington.”

“I know my husband called Social Security. What do you want?”

“We're required to fill out papers, ma'am. Are you her daughter?”

“Yes, I am. What kind of papers?”

“Statistics, nothing more. Is there someone else I can speak to about this? I don't want to upset you.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “No, it's all right. Ask the questions. We don't want the government to go away mad.”

“Thank you, ma'am. You said your mother was killed? Was this an auto accident?”

“No, someone hit her on the head when she was getting out to her car at the shopping mall. He stole her car.”

“Oh, dear, I'm so very sorry. Please tell me that the man who did this has been caught?”

The woman's voice hardened up immediately. “No, he wasn't. The cops put out a description of her car, but no one has reported back with anything as yet. They think he painted the car a different color and changed the license plates. He's gone. Even the New York City cops don't know where he is. She was an old woman, too, so who cares?” The bitterness in the daughter's voice was bone-deep, her pain, disbelief, anger still raw.

“Was there anything distinctive about the car the man stole?”

“Yes, the windows were tinted dark because my mother had very sensitive eyes. Too much sunlight really hurt her.”