Whiplash (11 page)

Bless her Polish great-granddad. It was the best oatmeal Bowie had ever eaten in his life. Actually, now that he thought about it, this was probably the only oatmeal he'd ever eaten. His mom hated the stuff, never made it for him or his siblings. "Break-in? Oh yeah, that was weird, truth be told."

"Why?"

He said after a moment of chewing and savoring, "I keep forgetting, you're a P.I. You've got terminal curiosity, don't you?"

If only you knew.
She nodded easily. "You've got a point. Come on, Bowie, what was weird about the break-in? What was taken? Do you have any ideas who it could have been?"

Shut your mouth-too many questions, don't make him suspicious
.

"All we know is it was a woman."

Had
s
omeone seen her running from the
Schiffer Hartwin building? Not good, not good.
"How do you know that?"

He took a last spoonful of oatmeal, sat back in the kitchen chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do believe I've got my hundred-watt bulb back. That was delicious. Thank you, Erin. She went out a bathroom window that's too small for a guy."

How could I forget that wretched window was small? It's okay, then. Not a big deal. Was that all they knew?

Bowie rose when Georgie came skipping back into the small kitchen. "Thanks again for feeding me, Erin. I'll have Georgie work on you for the oatmeal recipe. Hey, you ready, kiddo?"

Georgie nodded and took his hand. "You look tired, Daddy. If you went to bed at eight o'clock like me, you wouldn't be."

"That's a fact," he said. He smiled at Erin. "Thank you for taking Georgie in. I hope she didn't give you any grief after you called me last night at bedtime?"

"Not a bit, particularly since it was well after eight o'clock when I found out when her bedtime actually was. Well, maybe I did threaten to make her do barre exercises if she wanted to stay up so late." Erin head-rubbed Georgie, and the little girl laughed and ran out of the kitchen.

"I'm going to have the strongest legs in ballet class!"

Erin waited a moment until she heard Georgie at the front door. "This murder and break-in deal, you think you'll get it solved pretty soon?"

"Oh, you're wondering how long you'll have to keep my kid as a roommate?"

No, you idiot, Georgie can stay here forever
. "Yeah, I stewed about it all night. She's such a trial. No, of course not, Georgie's just fine. Forget reevaluating tomorrow, okay? Unless you think you'll have everything figured out by noon, hotshot that you are?"

"Maybe, we'll see. The big fed hotshots sent to run the investigation, turns out they're pretty okay."

"That's lucky. Now there are three hotshots cleaning things up here. Do you know, I ran into a fed once on a case and I would have sworn he wanted to pull off his wingtip and bash me with it."

He grinned, as she'd meant him to. "Did you smart-mouth him?"

"Nah, well, maybe a little bit. The jerk. So these guys are smart?"

"There are two of them, they're married of all things. The guy, Dillon Savich, he's big and tough-looking, and he's got a look about him that would scare anyone with a brain. Sherlock, his wife, she's pretty, sweet smiles she uses very effectively, but you know in your gut she'd kick your butt all the way to Vermont if you crossed her. I'm meeting them at the police station now to talk things over."

He looked better, she thought, his eyes clear, back straighter, more focused now. Yeah, Mr. Hundred-Watt was back.

"What's wrong? Do I still look like crap?"

"No, I was thinking you look human again-the wonders of Scottish oatmeal. Have a good day, Bowie. Will you be coming by tonight before Georgie's in bed?"

"I'll try." He looked down at her, but not that far down. In her ballet flats she was about five ten, maybe eleven. In heels, they'd be eye-to-eye. "You teaching a ballet class today?"

"What? Oh, because of my getup. Yeah, this afternoon. I'm working at home until then."

"Are you working on a case yourself ?"

"Yeah, but it's no biggie. Have a nice day."

"Some guy hire you to follow his wife around?"

She gave him a smile to freeze his lungs. "Oh yeah, I might even get to hide in a bedroom closet and take a video." Then, to his utter surprise, she drew back her fist and smacked him in the arm, hard.

He was rubbing his arm when Georgie shouted, running right at him, "Daddy, I'm ready! Let's go or I'll be late."

Call him Mr. Smooth. "I guess that was a kind of stupid thing to say, wasn't it? Sorry. Bye, Erin."

"Bye, Erin. I'll see you at ballet class this afternoon." Georgie gave her a huge grin, and shook her finger at her. "Don't be late. Daddy, what did you say to Erin that was stupid?"

Erin closed the apartment door and latched the chain. She pushed the red beanbag back into the corner and paced. So they knew a woman had broken into Caskie Royal's office, no surprise there since the small window made it pretty obvious, but they couldn't have a clue it was her. She wasn't anywhere near their radar, and why should she be? They also believed the murder was connected to the break-in, but she was safe-unless she sent all her evidence, all the Culovort
papers she'd copied off Royal's computer, to the media. Then they'd track her down and fry her.

But
w
hat if I get the Culovort documents to the media anonymously? I'd be safe then, wouldn't I? Dr. Kender would get to nail the bozos and we'd both walk away.

It could be done, but it was scary. Thank God there was time to think about it. She wondered what Dr. Kender would have to say.

Erin put the few dishes in the dishwasher, swiped down the kitchen, and got to work.

Savich was clipping his SIG to his belt when Elton John sang out "Candle in the Wind" on his cell.

"Savich."

"Bowie here. A guy called the field office in New Haven. I've got a lead on the woman who did the break-in at Schiffer Hartwin," and Bowie gave them an address not three blocks from the Norman Bates Inn.

"Sherlock and I are on our way."

Eric Tallman was a runner with insomnia who was also a sports writer and stay-at-home dad. He waved them into a small toy-strewn living room. He leaned down to scoop up a stuffed golden retriever as he waved them to the red-and-green plaid sofa. "Sorry for the mess. I haven't cleaned up after Luke yet this morning." He checked his watch. "He's taking his morning nap, but it's going to be close. Believe me, if he wakes up, conversation will cease. Sit down, sit down." He checked the baby monitor on a side table. "Since Luke came, I can't run now during the day, only at night after he's in bed. As I told Agent Richards on the phone, I was running in the woods near the Schiffer Hartwin building on Sunday night, a little after midnight. I nearly fell over a hedge because my eyes were on this woman I saw shimmying out of a small window on the side of the building, some fifteen feet up. She landed on a mess of bushes then rolled off and ran for Van Wie Park behind me."

Bowie looked wired. "What did she look like, Mr. Tallman?"

"She was slender, had on a dark jacket, zipped up, jeans, sneakers. I think she was wearing a black baseball cap, but she had a ponytail bouncing out the back, you know?"

"Yes," Bowie said. "What else?"

"I don't think she saw me, she was focused on getting out of there. She wasn't a runner, didn't have that natural runner's gait, but she was really graceful, I remember thinking that. She moved fluidly, I don't know how else to put it."

Sherlock sat forward. "Interesting way to put it-fluidly. Could you try to describe that more to us?"

"I don't know, really, like I said, she wasn't a practiced runner, didn't have those natural moves, but the thing is-" Tallman paused, shook his head. "Damned if I know, it's just that I know an athlete when I see one and that's what she was. She was in really good shape, you could tell. I could see she was scared but not panicked. Smooth, she looked smooth, controlled."

Sherlock pulled a stuffed bear from behind the sofa and stroked its soft fur. Sean still had his own white rabbit, but it only had one ear now. "Did you see the color of her ponytail, Mr. Tallman?"

Tallman thought about that. "It was thick-the tail was flopping around when she ran, I can see that clearly. The color-hmm, not black like mine, not red like yours, Agent, brown, I'd have to say. Her skin was very white in the moonlight."

Bowie sat forward, clasping his hands between his legs. "You said her jacket was zipped up?"

"Yeah, it looked kind of weird since it was pretty warm Sunday night." He frowned a moment. "Do you know, now that I think about it, maybe she looked a little thick through the torso, a bit on the bulky side."

"Like she'd maybe zipped up something beneath that jacket she was wearing?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, perhaps."

Bowie said, "Do you remember her size? Tall? Short?"

"That's tough since I didn't have any perspective. I guess I'd have to say pretty tall. I didn't have my cell phone with me or I might have called the cops. When I got home, Luke was sick and it fell right out of my mind. Then Monday morning I heard about the break-in at the pharmaceutical company on the news, and that someone was murdered in the park Sunday night. That shook me, I'll tell you, I mean, I saw the woman who was the thief. My wife Linda said I had to call you guys right away."

Savich spoke for the first time. "You're sure she was alone, Mr. Tallman? No one was there in Van Wie Park, waiting for her?"

"No one I saw. I'm always glad I don't see anyone when I run because it's dark and it's late and someone else might not want to just wish me a good evening, you know?"

They repeated the same questions, giving them a slightly different slant, but Eric Tallman didn't know any more.

Bowie rose about the same time as a baby's loud cry came over the monitor. He smiled. "You've given this lots of thought, we really appreciate your calling. Have fun with Luke."

Tallman rose to shake their hands. "This woman who broke in, do you think she also murdered that man?"

"We'll see," Bowie said.

Luke yelled again from the bowels of the house.

Tallman said, "The little champ's better than an alarm clock. It's ten on the button, and Luke is ready to suck down formula, burp, and gnaw on his stuffed dog's ears."

"What's his dog's name?" Savich asked him.

"Maynard the Brave. He's getting so tatty I'm afraid he's going to fall apart every time I wash him."

Savich smiled. "My little boy has a one-eared rabbit named Goober. We never found the other ear. As for the tail, we've reattached it a good dozen times."

As they were walking to their cars, Bowie said, "Georgie's all-time favorite stuffed animal is a crocodile named Rufus, not that she pays him all that much attention anymore since she's discovered the glorious world of dolls. Do you guys know there have got to be a thousand different Barbies and all of them have cars and planes and a thousand pairs of shoes?"

Ten minutes later, at Luther's Big Bite, they were drinking coffee, Savich tea. After Bowie took a grateful sip he said, "I'll check the photo IDs of all the female Schiffer Hartwin employees. If any of them look promising-tall, slender, brown hair-I'll show Mr. Tallman some photos. I don't think a police artist could get anything useful out of him."

Sherlock said as she sipped her coffee, not bad for a diner, but not nearly as good as Dillon's, the prince of the coffee bean, "What struck me was a guy, who's a runner himself, saying the woman ran gracefully, fluidly, even though he said she looked scared. Interesting description."

They thought about this.

Bowie sipped his coffee. "Maybe she's used to moving gracefully-maybe at one time our girl was a model? Or a dancer?"

"Possible," Savich said.

Bowie said, "My agents in New Haven found out Blauvelt's air ticket was paid for on his personal account, not a company card. The Schiffer Hartwin travel staff told the BND, who told us they didn't even know he was coming to America. He rented a car at JFK, a dark blue Ford Taurus, license RWI 4749. Still no sign of it. As for where he was staying, no luck yet with that either, but he probably used an alias, paid cash."

"It would have to be a motel off the highway," Savich said, "a lodging that wouldn't care who or what he was. On the other hand, maybe he was staying with his murderer."

Bowie said, "Agents have checked the residences of all upper management Schiffer Hartwin employees, looking for the blue Taurus, speaking to neighbors. Nothing yet. Oh, yes, I meant to tell you the most important news this morning: our local police chief, Clifford Amos, has agreed to let us use his conference room for interviews, though he'd just as soon kick all our federal butts to Alaska. I asked Caskie Royal to come down at eleven."

Sherlock saluted him with her cup. "That's good, Bowie, take him out of his comfort zone."

Savich said, "Being close to a jail cell just might make him reevaluate his talking points." He smiled. He couldn't wait to have Royal on cop turf.