Molly wanted to groan. Mecklin was enough. Now the both of them?
"Hello, Mrs. Santera. I'm still considering whether or not to arrest you."
"That's nice, Agent Anchor," Molly said, feeling the tension in her replaced by anger. It felt good, that wave of rage. She sat back in her chair and smiled at him. She realized she'd seen her father do this.
She'd wanted to fry this guy since he'd first walked into her house after Emma had been kidnapped. He was arrogant and overbearing. "Hey, have you decided on the charge? Was it saving my daughter from a kidnapper? Was it perhaps escaping to avoid getting murdered? Or maybe it was keeping my child out of your incompetent hands? No, I've got it. You're going to arrest me for doing your job."
She'd got him. His face was red and his hands were stiff at his sides. He looked ready to explode. She loved it. "Oh, how about this-you want to arrest me because I trashed my own house?"
Agent Anchor managed to control himself. He even managed a very stiff smile at Molly. Ramsey was surprised and hopeful that perhaps the man would stop being a jerk. Agent Anchor said finally, "Your attitude isn't helping your case, Mrs. Santera." He then looked at Ramsey, a dark eyebrow raised. The raised eyebrow was met with silence.
Agent Anchor said finally, "You look familiar."
"He should," Detective Mecklin said between chews on ' another oatmeal cookie. "He's Judge Ramsey Hunt, you know the guy we've been hearing about from San Francisco and Chicago."
Agent Anchor froze. He was used to being in charge and then Molly Santera and this guy Hunt had treated him like he was a Keystone Kop. "What are you doing here?"
Ramsey just smiled at him. "Well, you know, my house in San Francisco was trashed just like Mrs.
Santera's. We were thinking that there just might be some parallels. What do you think? Just maybe Mr.
Shaker is a very thorough man?"
"I don't appreciate your humor," Agent Anchor said. "I know all this. But she shouldn't have taken off to look for her daughter. She shouldn't have refused to return to Denver after she'd found her. She shouldn't have hindered my investigation." He stared at Molly, his thin nostrils flared wide with dislike. "And she shouldn't have insulted me when I walked in just now. Maybe if she'd done what I told her to, she wouldn't have ended up with a dead husband. But then, you got a live judge, didn't you?"
Molly shot a quick look toward Emma, who looked to be glued to the TV cartoon. Then she stood up in one smooth motion and kicked Agent Anchor hard in the shin. He gasped, grabbed his leg, then very slowly, he straightened. "I'm arresting you for assaulting a federal officer," he said when he could speak again.
"I don't think so," Ramsey said. "Actually, she beat me to it. Stop being an ass, Agent Anchor." He gracefully slid his hand to the man's elbow. He said close to his ear, "I think you're laboring under a severe misapprehension here. Listen up: She's not her father. You'd best get that right away. Now, why don't you put on your human clothes, sit down, and we can try to work together. If that isn't to your liking, then I'll call up your boss and Agents Savich and Sherlock, who worked the case with us in Chicago, and we'll all have a talk. Your call, Agent."
Agent Anchor wasn't happy. On top of everything, the case of the murdered farmer in Loveland wouldn't ever officially get solved now. They hadn't even found the man who'd abused the little girl, and it had all started when she'd up and left Denver and gone out to hot-dog on her own. Ramsey Hunt was wrong about her. She was just like her father, he'd known it the minute he'd set eyes on her. She'd made the case go sour. And now this damned judge had taken her side. And he knew Savich.
Detective Mecklin pushed back from the table and rose. There were cookie crumbs on his solid red tie and on the white shirt that gaped over his belly. "Listen, we're not getting anywhere with all this crap.
Agent Anchor, sit down, if Judge Ramsey will let you."
Molly said, "There's also my daughter, Agent Anchor. Children hear most things adults say. I think we've said enough."
Agent Anchor looked over at Emma, who was chewing gum, too fast. He had two kids. He knew when a kid was hearing things she shouldn't. And now he had this judge in the mix.
"Yeah," Agent Anchor said, and sat down.
There was dead silence. Detective Mecklin picked up another oatmeal cookie and said as he took a big bite, "If all this is connected, it took power, men, and money, all of which this Mr. Shaker has in abundance."
Molly said, "Why do you think they trashed my house? Just for the fun of it?"
"Say it happened two or three days ago, Mrs. Santera," Detective Mecklin said. "That was about the same time your ex-husband was getting blown up. Maybe it was all part of the same puzzle. The word is that you and your daughter were the intended victims, to bring Mr. Santera in line. Yeah, it's gotta all be part of the same effort."
"All that," Molly said. "All that for some money, or to get Louey for his daughter? It sounds crazy."
Agent Anchor poured himself a cup of coffee. He hadn't said a word. He drank a bit, then poured in some cream. Finally, he said, "People like Shaker can't allow anyone to stiff them for a million bucks. He relies too much on people being afraid of him. God knows the money was there to hire the best."
Detective Mecklin said, "Shaker did it, all right. Trust me on this. It's over."
"You're probably right," Ramsey said. "There is no other answer." He turned to Agent Anchor. "Unless you can come up with something?"
Agent Anchor shook his head. "No, it's just my gut. Did Savich discover anything on that damned laptop?"
"Nothing solid yet," Ramsey said.
Agent Anchor shook his head. He had a buzz haircut, which was just as well since he was mostly bald. "I remember once when I was in Washington, I got to be in a meeting with Savich, and the person recording the minutes asked him what sex the laptop was currently enjoying. Nobody laughed."
Ramsey didn't particularly like to have a person start to turn human on him when he'd made the decision that the person was a jerk. Still, maybe the guy would relapse again.
Ramsey saw that Emma had curled up on the sofa, her piano clutched to her, sound asleep. One leg of her jeans was rucked up and he could see the pink sock over her Nike sneaker. He wasn't really shocked at the strength of his feelings for her, not anymore. He swallowed. Then he saw that her other sock was white. Well, it had been a hard day for all of them. He rose, still looking at Emma. "I can't see that this is leading anywhere. Maybe we shouldn't even have bothered to call you. Waste of time for all of us."
"No," Detective Mecklin said, rising as well. "All of it is part of the investigation. Maybe we'll turn up something at the house. Sooner or later, we'll snag that guy who hurt Emma. The Feds want him real bad.
Hey, Agent Anchor, maybe you can get him on tax evasion, huh?"
25
IT WAS SIXTY-TWO degrees and breezy in San Francisco, with a big unclouded sky overhead.
Ramsey breathed in the clean air deeply and smiled. He looked through the half-open window of his study that gave onto a small lawn and the Golden Gate Bridge beyond, off in the distance. He loved Sea Cliff, which was considered by many, himself included, to be the most spectacular area in the city. His house was among the first tier of homes that sat atop the line of the cliffs at the northwestern tip of the city. The ocean rolled in from the left, the Golden Gate stood guardian at the entrance of the bay to the right, connecting the city to the bleak naked Marin Headlands directly across from him. The Headlands stood stark in the afternoon sunlight. There was still some green on the hills. But it wouldn't be long now, deep into summer, until the Headlands would be unrelieved brown, seemingly barren of life. If the fog rolled in during the late afternoon, it would settle over the Headlands, and look for all the world like the setting for a Gothic movie.