Ruth finally threw popcorn at him. “Talk, boss.”
Savich said, “Well, the thing is, Thomas Pallack speaks to his parents.”
Sherlock said, “That’s a big crime?”
“Well, the thing is—they’re long dead, more than thirty years dead.”
CHAPTER 20
Everyone stared at Savich. Dix said slowly, “You’re telling me this wealthy ‘old guy believes in spirits? Believes he actually speaks to them?”
Savich nodded. “I was looking into another case for Agent Cheney Stone in San Francisco, and Pallack’s name appeared on a client list of a psychic medium who was murdered six months ago. Pallack has been seeing one since his parents’ deaths in 1977, every Wednesday and Saturday. I assume he’s still doing it. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Dix said, “Why would anyone do that?” Savich said, “Well, that info led to something else about Pallack that could explain a great deal. Pallack’s parents were brutally murdered in their Southampton estate on February 17, 1977.”
Ruth sat forward, hands on her knees. “Whoa—bad ending. That makes the spirit deal more understandable, I guess.” Dix asked, “Was the murderer caught?”
“Yes, but not by the local cops. It was their forty-one-year-old son, Thomas Pallack, who hired a battalion of investigators to find him. They nailed him when the police finally searched the basement of a neighbor’s house. Courtney James is his name; he’s in Attica for life. James was a trust-fund baby, lots of old money. After James’s parents retired to Italy, he lived alone in the family manse. He was quiet, smart, kept to himself. He managed his father’s banks, commuted into New York City every day, regular as clockwork. No one had a bad word to say about him.
“The investigators found the knife he’d used on the Pallacks in the basement. Their dried blood was on it—at least it was their blood type, no DNA then. Rumors began to churn that he’d killed some other people before the Pallacks, that he was a serial murderer, and they were just his latest victims.
“He went to trial and was found guilty despite all the big-bucks lawyers he hired for himself.”
Ruth said, “So Courtney James is still alive?”
Savich nodded. “He’s nearly eighty now, one of the grand old men of Attica. Since he’s got money, he spreads it around to his cellmates, for respect, for loyalty for protection. No one gives him grief. He even gives the guards and their families Christmas presents.”
Ruth said, “How did his lawyers keep him from a death sentence?”
Savich said, “Back then there wasn’t a death penalty in New York, so he got two consecutive life sentences.”
Dix said, “You said the word got out that he killed other people in addition to the older Pallacks? What happened with that?”
“That was the scuttlebutt, but there were no specifics. Courtney James was tried only for the murder of the Pallacks, but you know what the jurors were thinking about whenever they looked at him.”
Ruth said, “Sounds to me like Thomas Pallack may have been the source of the scuttlebutt to make sure James would be found guilty.”
Dix said, “I think Pallack would make a great ambassador to
France, don’t you?”
Ruth laughed. “Yeah. I’d like to find out what Thomas Pallack has to say to Mommy and Daddy every Wednesday and Saturday.” She looked over at Dix, saw the sudden draw of pain in his eyes, and knew he was thinking about Christie. She jumped to her feet and headed to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Tea for you, Dillon, and bottled water for the rest of us, okay?”
She was carefully measuring some of Savich’s special black tea into an old Georgian pot, pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“You’re doing good, kiddo. I know this is hard. Be patient, we’ll resolve everything, and then you and Dix can get on with your lives.”
Without a word, Ruth turned and buried her face against Savich’s shoulder, but she didn’t weep. She wasn’t about to let tears break through the floodgates. She was afraid they’d never stop, and that was the last thing Dix needed. Savich held her until she was together again.
He pressed her back. “You look beautiful, and my tea’s nicely steeped. Let’s talk about Atlanta, okay?”
Ruth and Savich had no sooner handed out the drinks when the front door burst open and three kids came tearing in, two of them reeking of teenage testosterone and a sugar high, Sean so excited he was bouncing up and down. Lily and Simon followed behind them, smiling and exhausted.
Savich sent a thank-you to his sister and her husband.
Rob said, “Hey, Dad, Fatal Vengeance II—we had to cover Sean’s eyes a couple of times, but it was cool.”
Rafe said, “Well, not enough blood and guts, but it still wasn’t too bad.”
“Mama, the popcorn was great and I told the hero just how to cut the bad guys down.”
“It was a bad girl, Sean,” Rob said. “She was gorgeous but bad to the bone, Dad. She was tough, moved real cool, you know? Just like Ruth.”
When the hoys finished their blow-by-blow, Sean said with great relish, “Then she got her head blowed off.”
Ruth said, “Fourteen large popcorns, Lily?”
“Maybe twenty,” Simon said, laughing. “Don’t worry, the movie was more action-adventure, not all that much gore.”
“Yeah, kind of tame,” Rob said and headed toward the bowl of popcorn on the table in front of his father.
Before Dix and Ruth and the boys headed out, Savich said to him, “I’ll e-mail you everything I’ve got. Then you and Ruth can visit David Caldicott in Atlanta.”
CHAPTER 21
SAN FRANCISCO
Sunday morning
Julia held a protesting Freddy close as she wiggled farther toward the wall beneath the kitchen table. “Don’t move, Julia! Keep Freddy quiet if you can.”
Cheney, SIG drawn and ready, walked quietly to the closed kitchen door, pressed his cheek to the wood, and listened.
He looked back to see Julia straining to hold Freddy still. Freddy suddenly stiffened in her arms and hissed again.
Cheney went through the maid’s quarters to a back door that gave way onto the enclosed garden. He listened, then opened the door onto the overcast morning.
The backyard was large, the back wall lined with huge oak trees. It didn’t lead to another backyard, but to an alley. It was filled with flowers nearly ready to bloom, trees and hedges and an ivy-covered fence. He saw no movement. He pressed himself against the wall right outside the closed door and listened.
Nothing.
He walked quietly back into the kitchen, and shook his head at Julia. She whispered, “Freddy’s hissing toward the front of the house now.”
Cheney moved quickly toward the front hallway, pulled up, and listened again. He heard the front door rattle, then open. He heard footsteps, heard men speaking, then a woman’s voice.
They weren’t trying to be quiet. They were coming toward him.
Cheney came out of the kitchen, raised his SIG and said, “All of you, hold it right there.”
The woman threw up her hands and shrieked.
One man tumbled over the over, both of them nearly stumbling onto the Italian tiles.
The woman yelled, “Oh God, it’s the man who’s trying to murder Julia! Mrs. Masters told me all about you the minute we got home. Is my poor Freddy all right? I’m his mother!”
To Cheney’s surprise, both men rushed forward, the woman right behind them, swinging her big red purse. He ducked.
Julia yelled, “No, no, don’t hurt him. He’s an FBI agent!”
SFPD Officers Blanchin and Maxwell burst through the front door after them. Everyone simply froze where they stood. What had taken the cops so long? Cheney wondered. After all, they’d been assigned to watch the house.