This could hardly be a traffic accident if the body had been found in the middle of nowhere-no roads. Charles leaned toward the young man, saying, “So Horace was murdered?”
“Yes, sir.” Unacquainted with rhetorical questions, the trooper phrased his words ever so politely. “With all that open space, you’d really have to aim a car at a man to hit him. In this case, we got cross tread marks. That means the car hit him more than once. So, yes, sir, we thinks it was real deliberate.”
“Well, poor man.” Charles was somewhat put off his meal. “This is sad news.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Riker with genuine remorse. “I really liked that little guy. He was on my shortlist-right up near the top.”
“I always liked him, too.” Mallory opened a small notebook and crossed Horace Kayhill’s name off her own suspect list. After slinging her knapsack over one shoulder, she picked up the laptop computer and left the table.
The trooper was rising, anxious to follow her, perhaps with the idea that they could be close friends. Riker, with the kindest intention in his smile, placed an avuncular hand on the younger man’s shoulder, saying, “No, kid. Only if you like pain.”
On the pretense of returning Kayhill’s bag of maps to the state trooper, Detective Riker carried his cell phone out to the parking lot. He needed privacy for his incoming call. After settling into the front seat of the Mercedes, he resumed his conversation with New York’s chief medical examiner. “Hey, Doc, thanks for waiting. So how’s it going?”
“Kathy Mallory never answers her phone,” said Dr. Slope.
Thank you, God.
“That’s okay,” said Riker. “I take messages.” And before the medical examiner could make contact with his partner, Riker would have to officially notify her that Savannah Sirus was dead. Otherwise, Dr. Slope would find it odd that she had never been told, and the old man might have a few questions.
“Tell her this,” said Slope. “I am not her personal funeral director. Then tell her the crematorium called. They’d like to know when she plans to pick up Miss Sirus’s ashes… Riker?… Still there?”
“Yeah, Doc.”
“So what should I tell them?”
“Soon-a few more days. So when did you talk to Mallory?”
“She might’ve called the day after we found the body. I didn’t s peak to her myself. I assume you were the one who told her about the suicide.”
“Yeah,” said Riker, in his first lie of the day. In Mallory fashion, he cut off the call with no good-bye.
How had she known that Savannah was dead? Was the woman’s suicide so predictable? Had Mallory made the connection between a LoJack tracker on her tail in the state of Illinois and sudden death in New York City? Maybe she had phoned her apartment that night and got no answer from her erstwhile houseguest. Was the morgue her next call?
He did not suspect Mallory of murder. Thanks to Charles Butler, there was no doubt that Savannah had shot herself. What made him close his eyes just now was the possibility that Mallory had stayed to watch.
Dr. Paul Magritte held his cell phone to one ear as he checked the rearview mirror. He was not expecting to see the FBI moles driving behind him. Those two were so preoccupied with one another. He doubted that they would notice his absence for some time yet. He was looking in the mirror for a car that would keep pace with him. He slowed down, and all the traffic went whizzing past his Lincoln.
For the past few miles, he had believed that he was being closely observed as he followed his orders and left the parking lot to ride the interstate. However, now he realized that his caller was not behind him, but up ahead-waiting. The constant phone requests for his exact position could have no other explanation.
He pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate and left the car, removing his jacket as he walked toward an exit sign. He trusted that Mallory, who missed nothing, would remember this article of clothing. Even if she did not recall its color and herringbone pattern, the sight of it waving in the wind-that would be meaningful to her. He devoutly believed that the young detective would be the one to find him.
He laid his plans on faith-in her.
Riker opened the car’s trunk and tossed in the black plastic bag with Horace Kayhill’s maps.
He heard the shouts before he saw Mallory winding her way through the haphazard lanes of parked cars. Dale Berman called out to her, hurrying now to match steps with her longer legs, and then the man put one hand on her shoulder. Never breaking stride, she turned to give him a look that made him think better of annoying her anymore. Finally the fed gave up and returned to the restaurant.
And Mallory kept coming.
Riker closed the trunk and leaned back against the car. When she joined him, his eyes shifted to the retreating back of Dale Berman. “What was that about?”
She set the laptop on the trunk of the Mercedes and opened it. “I told him I knew he was dragging out this case.”
“Well,” said Riker, “I guess the longer he drags it out the greater the glory. Some people just like to see their names in the newspaper.”
“That’s not it. He did everything he could to keep the media away from this case.” She powered up the laptop and turned the screen so he could see it. “You thought Dale Berman was just incompetent.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s true.”
She shook her head. “I told you the screwups were over the top-even for Berman. So I followed the money.”
Ah, Mallory’s all-time favorite. Trust her to find a money motive in the slaughter of little girls. He stared at the glowing screen of number columns. “What am I looking at?”
“Dale Berman’s payroll records. He’s been reporting fifty hours of overtime every week.” She pulled a notebook from her back pocket and pointed to a November date. “That’s when Berman takes early retirement from the Bureau. I found the paperwork in his car.” She turned back to the laptop screen. “Now look at these figures for earnings with overtime.”
Riker whistled in appreciation of the large sum. “Dale’s really building up his retirement fund.”
“You’re close,” said Mallory. “This has been going on for years. He started padding his paychecks after the Bureau buried him in North Dakota.”
“You see? I told you he was an idiot. That state only has a handful of people and some buffalo. Nobody does overtime.”
“And Dale worked in a satellite office-no oversight. That’s what triggered this audit.” Mallory diddled the keyboard to show him a new set of figures. “Lots of pressure-the auditors are coming. He has to explain the overtime. A federal payroll scam is worth five years in prison. So he makes a bogus file for Mack the Knife, and he backdates it.”
Riker shook his head in disbelief. “That’s good for another charge- falsifying government documents. More jail time. I told you he was an idiot.”
“No,” said Mallory, “he was a man with a high-maintenance wife and a field agent’s pay grade.”
“And he was stuck in a backwater office with no action, no overtime.”
“So he gave himself a bigger salary,” said Mallory. “That’s how it started, and then it snowballed. Berman can’t c lose out a bogus case with no results-not right after an audit. It has to look like an ongoing investigation. Then he gets posted to a Texas field office. He’s running it-all those eyes on him every day. More pressure. He can’t leave the bogus case with another agent in North Dakota. So he develops a false lead in the Texas jurisdiction. The overtime keeps rolling in, but he’s not doing it for the money now. He can’t stop. He only has two years to retirement, and he needs a real live serial killer.”
“And then he found Nahlman. She saved him.”
Dr. Magritte left the car at the junction, and he left his wallet in the middle of the road, the one that led west toward an unknown destination. He was following directions fed to him as he traveled. The knife in his pocket gave him no comfort, but the expectation of being found either dead or alive, this was a joyful prospect. His prayers carried no requests for an angel of deliverance. Send Mallory.