Savich would hand it to his boss, he put on a good show. Finally Maitland said, “Well, if you really insist, Savich. I’m gonna have to pull some strings. Last thing I want is any turf problems, any duplication of effort, or stumbling over each other. I’ll send links to everything we have to MAX.”
Savich appreciated that Maitland tried not to sound too pleased with himself about getting what he wanted.
Savich said, “I think Sherlock and I need to go down to Fort Pes-sel tomorrow, check it out, then maybe on to Winnett, North Carolina, find out what we can about Victor Nesser. I’d like to get a personal feel for where they lived and the people who know them.”
“If that’s what you want, Savich,” Maitland said, and Savich knew he was grinning like the cat in the canary cage. When Savich hung up the phone, he told Sherlock, “I’ll say one thing for Victor. Taking out an FBI agent, stealing his ID, taking himself to Memorial to free Lissy—that took guts and steadiness. He’s got to feel really attached to Lissy to take a chance like that. He moved to Winnett, North Carolina, when he was eighteen, evidently right after he graduated. The question is why? What happened?”
Sherlock said, “Lissy was only thirteen when he left.”
He nodded and said, “Did he leave because of Lissy, or maybe a falling-out with his aunt, Jennifer Smiley?”
Sherlock raised her face to his, touched her fingertips to his cheek. “We need to see if he’s got a passport, maybe dual passports, one Jordanian.”
“Yeah, we’ll do that first thing.”
She said, “I wonder why he didn’t want to return to Jordan with his mother and father. Ah, well, we’ll find out everything about him in due course. We don’t know what he’s been doing since he gradu-ated high school, how he’s earned a living. We’ll go first thing to Fort Pessel and Winnett, find out about these two.”
“I’m sure some of that legwork will be in the info Mr. Maitland sends us.”
“Yeah, yeah, you know it’s not the same thing.” She added as she looked at the kitchen clock, “I figure we’ve got another thirty minutes before Sean comes home from the Perrys’ on a sugar high. I want you to tell me everything about Lissy Smiley and how things went down. Paint me a picture, Dillon. I want to hear it out of your mouth again. I know you’ve thought about it, relived it. Now that Lissy is free, I need to know what you think. Talk to me.”
And he did. She didn’t add that the thought of a crazy teenager out to kill Dillon scared her to her toes.
“... Riley saved my bacon, shot Jennifer Smiley through the neck I will never forget thinking of a blood fountain.”
He’d been so close to death again, she thought, too close. A fountain of blood. She got herself together. “We’ve got to find out what sort of relationship Lissy Smiley had with Victor. It could be the key to what makes them tick.”
Savich agreed, only he really didn’t care at this particular moment in time. He grabbed Sherlock and kissed her. “I’ll get to work with MAX on this tonight. Ah, how much time do you think we have before Lucy brings Sean home?”
“At least fourteen minutes,” Sherlock said, and ran up the stairs.
The only thing missing from this perfect picture, Savich thought as he followed her, was that they didn’t have a ceiling fan in their bedroom. He hoped he’d have time to install one next weekend. He thought about Autumn. He prayed she’d call him again tonight. It had been too long. He’d gotten a couple of phone calls from several smalltown sheriffs, but as yet, nothing on Autumn. His Autumn. He was getting really worried about her.
14
TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA
Sunday
The Washington Post lay neat and unopened on the living room coffee table, delivered as always on Sunday morning from the 24/7 Quick Shop by little Buddy Grubbs, Amy Grubbs’s youngest. Ethan had gotten into the habit of reading the Post when he’d lived in Washington during his three-year stint in the DEA. The idea of putting his bare feet up on his coffee table and reading it on this fine Sunday morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, seemed a world away.
Ethan sat down on the comfortable worn sofa that had cushioned many of his family’s butts over the years, carefully moved the news-paper to the side of the coffee table, and set his cup down on the glass top. He waved a hand. “It’s just as well Autumn’s playing in the bed-room with the cats. I need to talk to you, Joanna. Sit down a moment. You probably heard me on my cell phone. All my deputies are out looking for Blessed Backman, with as much neighboring law enforcement help as they can spare. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s license or a Social Security number. And that means, officially, he doesn’t exist.”
“Surely he must drive. How else did he get here?”
“Yes, it only makes sense that he drove up here. It could have been a car, truck, motorcycle, whatever.”
“I know Blessed is still out there, probably real close. He hasn’t got Autumn yet, and believe me, he wants Autumn very badly. I need to get her away from here. I’ve been thinking Colorado might be a nice home for us.”
Her heels looked dug in like a mule’s, and so he said easily, “And what do you intend to do, Joanna? In Colorado?”
“I’m not completely down-and-out like you seem to think, Sheriff I was an office manager in a big medical facility in Boston. I have a business degree.” She sighed. “Who am I trying to kid? Actually, I was okay at it, but I hated it, being cooped up all day, every single day living for the weekend. I did it only to help support Autumn. I do speak Russian fluently.”
“Yeah, so who wants to learn Russian in Colorado?”
She plowed right over him. “What I’m really good at and enjoy is teaching skiing and snowboarding in the winter and taking people hiking in the mountains in the summer, rock climbing, white-water rafting, camping, that sort of thing.”
“Autumn told me your husband passed away.”
“Yes, recently.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Look, Ethan, I might not have much money right now, but I do have enough to get Autumn and me set up in Colorado until I get a job. I’m thinking Leadville.”
“Leadville is quite a place,” he said. “I was there with my brother and sister once, cross-country skiing and some downhill, of course. I remember a couple of days the city was actually in the clouds.”
“Yes, well, it’s two miles high, after all.”
“And all those old Victorians, it made me want to pull on some chaps and climb aboard a horse. So is that why you’ve been coming to Titusville for so long—your parents were outdoors fans? Did you spend a lot of time in Titus Hitch Wilderness?”
“A fair amount through the years, Sheriff. Why are you smiling? Don’t you believe me?”
“Sure, I believe you. Actually, I’m glad to hear you weren’t all that happy being a city wuss, all decked out in suits and panty hose and killer high heels. I can clearly see your little nose pressed against the office glass, desperate to get outside.”
“City wuss? I’ve got some city girlfriends who would deck you for saying that. Some women I know who work in Boston could chop up a mugger and fry him for breakfast.”
“Urban survival skills, that’s different. I’m more interested in a woman who can set up a camp, cook on a Coleman stove and boil up coffee, kill a snake and bake the sucker if she had to, know when a bear is looking at her like breakfast. See? Different kinds of skills. Don’t get up, Joanna, just relax. I’m not going to bite, all right?”
She knew he was trying to get her to relax, smile even, so he could herd her in the direction he wanted. He was very good. But she didn’t want to be herded, she couldn’t afford to be.