Whiplash (26 page)

Sherlock sat down beside Dillon, and Bowie moved to join her. Erin realized she was sitting by herself, the three of them sitting opposite her, together, silent and waiting. She was in the dock. Confession time.

Sherlock said, "Georgie's asleep, the dishes are washed and put away, you've got aspirin on board. It's time, Erin. Tell us why you broke into Caskie Royal's office and printed the
Culovort papers off his computer."

Bowie froze. Sherlock wondered if he'd guessed this was Erin's secret, but seeing him staring at Erin, shock clear on his face, obviously he hadn't.

Sherlock lightly laid her fingertips to his arm. "I can't let this go on any longer, Erin. Not only don't I want to see you killed, what you know is critical to our investigation."

Bowie stared down at Sherlock's fingers on his arm. Was she afraid he was going to start screaming at Erin? Maybe leap up and strangle her?

Bowie couldn't believe it, simply couldn't. "Yes," he said, his voice perfectly pleasant, "please tell us everything."

Erin didn't look at him. She knew she'd see his dawning sense of betrayal, and she couldn't bear it. Sherlock was right, there was too much on the line now to hold back any longer. She said, "Yes, it's past time. How long have you known I was the one who pulled off the break-in, Sherlock?"

"I wondered about your level of interest. I thought it was really over the top, your intensity, the way you were so very focused on every word we said. And the clincher was our witness, who described you perfectly."

Savich sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees. "You were friendly, Erin, you were charming, but you didn't act exactly right around the three of us, particularly Bowie."

"What do you mean? I acted weird around Bowie?"

"I didn't say weird," Savich said. "You just acted off. Bowie would have seen it for himself if he hadn't been so caught up in the investigation of Blauvelt's murder, and, naturally, his worry about his daughter.

"Of course I checked you out," Savich continued. "And that led me to your dad. You'd told us about his being a consultant to law enforcement for the last twenty years of his life, but not the nitty-gritty details like the specialized skills he taught-building security for the new millennium, situational and strategic planning-like what to do if you're caught somewhere you shouldn't be, whether behind enemy lines or in a CEO's office. Oh, yes, I should mention he was known to be able to pick any lock in the known universe. You were lucky there were thick bushes below that bathroom window to break your fall."

Sherlock said, "I bet you learned everything from him, including lock picking. Time to get it all out, Erin. Tell us all of it."

Bowie remained silent. Erin wanted to punch him, make him say something, anything. "I don't want to go to jail, Sherlock. Am I going to need a lawyer?"

Bowie said, his voice too calm, too controlled, "I'm going to see to it you have the greenest public defender in Connecticut."

"I'll just say it would be a good idea for you to cooperate," Savich said. "I assume that you didn't kill Helmut Blauvelt? That you don't know anything about his murder?"

"No, I only heard about his murder on TV the next morning."

"Then there are the Culovort papers, Erin. Who is your client?"

Erin got to her feet and walked to her fireplace, removed the brick and pulled out a sheaf of papers. "You already know all of this, Dillon, you homed in on the Culovort
shortage on your own. These are simply Caskie Royal's detailed plans for shutting down the supply from the plant in Missouri. He couched it as a profitable upgrade, but again, I think you might have nailed it. There wasn't much money in it for him unless he colluded with Laboratoires Ancondor in France for a share of their profits when cancer patients were forced to switch to their expensive oral drug, Eloxium.

"I don't know how he was paid, he doesn't talk about that in the papers, but maybe stock options, maybe some under-the-table kickbacks paid outright to Royal by the CEO of Ancondor when the huge bucks started rolling in. I'm not all that smart when it comes to finances, but I suppose there have got to be more ways to make this work for him.

"Others in Schiffer Hartwin have to be involved as well, people who were responsible for the sabotage of the Spanish plant. You'll see there's no mention about the Spanish plant in the papers either.

"Royal's plans are meticulously laid out. And that's what my client needed to take to the media to pressure Schiffer Hartwin into starting up Culovort
production again."

"Who is your client, Erin?"

"I can't tell you, Sherlock. I want to protect him. It was so important that he have the Culovort
for his father, he's in chemotherapy for colon cancer, and his oncologist told him her supply of Culovort is running out-"

Bowie said, his voice sharp as nails, "So that gets him off ? He pressured you to be reckless. He encouraged you to break the law."

"No, he didn't know what I was going to do. There was no pressure."

Bowie rose slowly. "When you were in the bathroom, you got a call on your cell. I took it. The guy wouldn't give me his name, wouldn't leave a message, and believe me, I asked. It was your client, right, Erin?"

"Yes, it was. I'll tell you what, I'll call him, tell him you guys know everything. You'll find him anyway, I know that."

"You want to speak to him? Fine, you can do it here and now. Where's your cell?"

"I don't want to speak to him with you hanging all over me. He's my client. I don't want him to feel threatened."

"Give. Me. Your. Cell."

Erin began walking backward, her eyes not leaving his face.

"Savich, would you please hand me that leather purse of hers that's nearly big enough to cover an entire cow, and dig out her cell phone?"

Bing Crosby sang out "Jingle Bells." Bowie felt around for his own cell phone in his pants, then his jacket, and frowned, trying to follow the sound of Crosby's perky voice.

Erin said, "It's under those papers on the corner of the table."

Bowie's cell phone went silent.

Erin grabbed her purse, ran to the guest bathroom, and slammed the door. They heard the lock click into place.

"Well, Bowie," Sherlock said, "I guess you either break the door down or let her make the call in private."

Bowie returned to the sofa, sat down, and didn't say a word. Savich calmly began reading the Culovort papers.

A few minutes later, Erin walked back into the living room. She said without hesitation, "Dr. Kender is a professor of archaeology at Yale University. I told him about my Hummer blowing up, and he agreed it was time to bring you guys into it. You can talk to him whenever you wish."

She drew in a deep breath. "He wants to know if he can release the Culovort
papers to the media tomorrow?"

Sherlock said as she watched Dillon place the Culovort papers in his briefcase, "This concerns the Department of Justice, so we need to show them the papers and ask them how they think it best to proceed. We'll let you know tomorrow, Erin."

Sherlock shot Bowie a look, but didn't say anything. She gave Savich a light punch on the arm and rose. "I think it's time Dillon and I took our leave. Why don't you guys thrash this out between you."

They were out the front door in under a minute flat.

When the front door closed, Bowie stood in the center of the living room, still silent as a stone. If he'd had a stone, Erin thought he'd probably have hurled it at her.

"I'm sorry, Bowie," she said. "I really am."

"Are you? Are you really? You must have thought you'd won the lottery when I showed up on your doorstep and asked you to watch Georgie."

"I said yes because I wanted to help, because I'm very fond of her. All right, yes, I also wanted to learn more about the case. Really, Bowie, I'm sorry."

"But you'd do it again."

"I don't know. Well, yes, I probably would do it again. I wouldn't have any choice. I guess it's looking to you like I've betrayed you."

"You think?" He walked away from her, nearly tripped over the big red beanbag, and after windmilling his arms, finally made it to the window, his back to her. She saw he was stiff, knew in that moment he was trying to keep control of himself. He said without looking at her, "I couldn't for the life of me figure out why someone would want to kill you. I mean, I figured it had to do with Blauvelt's murder, but I couldn't make my way through the maze."

He turned quickly, steering clear of the beanbag this time. His anger had slipped its leash. "You did betray me. You've been playing us. Curse me for an idiot since I'm the one who invited you right in, encouraged everyone to speak to you openly. We told you every single thing you could possibly want to know. Sherlock even took you on an official interview with Jane Ann Royal."

He grabbed her arms and shook her once, just a little shake to make sure he had her full attention, not to hurt her. "Dammit, Erin Pulaski, you betrayed me!"

She felt tears coming and swallowed. "Bowie, I'm sorry, really. I didn't know what to do-"

"Oh, yes, you did, you knew immediately what you were going to do."

"All right, but I didn't think I had a choice. I don't know how the person who blew up my Hummer knew I was involved."

"I'll bet whoever it was followed you to your lunch with Dr. Kender. That's who you had lunch with on Wednesday, right?"

She nodded. "Yes, but who do you think followed me?"

"Probably Caskie Royal."

"Or it could have been Carla Alvarez. I overheard her and Royal speaking before they came into his office. He'd brought her into it, Bowie."

"Something else we didn't know. It occurs to me we need to sit down and talk, right now." He sat down on the sofa, folded his arms over his chest, still royally pissed, and motioned for her to sit in front of him. He eyed her and then said, his voice sharp, "I want you to start again, at the beginning. And don't leave anything out."

Twenty minutes later, Bowie leaned back. "Is that all of it?"

"You asked me that three times."

"Is it?"

"Yes, I've told you everything."

"I don't want you killed. I don't want my daughter in danger. There's only one way I can keep you safe now. Even though I've got two agents outside in a car across the street, I'm staying here." He nodded toward the sofa.

"And I'm thinking when this is over, I may just have to haul your butt to jail."

Bowie heard Georgie give a sound, a yip that sometimes came out of her dreams. No, there was no way he could hear her if she was in bed asleep. He slowly dropped his arms to his sides and turned. Georgie wasn't in bed. She was standing in the doorway, her thumb in her mouth, only half asleep, and she looked scared. She yipped again.

NORMAN BATES INN

Thursday night

Sherlock was gliding smoothly in a half-pipe on her skateboard, Sean behind her, laughing, when her cell phone woke her up at exactly three o'clock in the morning. "Yes?"

"Agent Sherlock? Help me, you have to help me!"

"Jane Ann? What's wrong? Come on, calm down. Talk to me."

"Someone's in the house, I-I can hear them, I-"

"Is it your husband? Is it Caskie?"

"Caskie? No, Caskie would call out to me, he'd tell me right off he was here. No, it's a stranger, it's someone here to hurt me. Help me!"

"Do you have a gun?"

"What? Yes, it's in Caskie's bedside table."

"Get it out and get yourself in a closet and close the door. I'll be right there. Don't shoot me! If it's your husband, don't shoot him either. Stay calm, Jane Ann, and get moving!"

There was sharp intake of breath, but nothing more from Jane Ann Royal. The line went dead.

Savich was already out of bed, pulling on his pants, Sherlock behind him, grabbing clothes.

As they ran to the small parking lot behind the B&B, she shouted, "I'll drive, I know where she lives. Do you want to call backup?"

"No, not yet. Let's wait and get the lay of the land first."

As they swerved out of the parking lot, Sherlock said, "It's my fault. I put her in danger by simply visiting her. I drew a circle on her back, and someone knows I met with her at her house. That same someone is afraid of what Jane Ann Royal told me. Or might tell me." She banged her fist against the steering wheel and took a corner too fast. "Is it Caskie there in the house? Maybe he's hiding and Jane Ann simply doesn't know it? Is he the one she heard?"

Savich lightly touched her leg. "Cut the guilt or you'll piss me off. Now, tell me about the house, everything you can remember. I don't want to go in there blind."

Sherlock talked nonstop, describing what she'd seen of the Royal house as she sped through the dark streets toward that lovely neighborhood with its big graceful houses and huge grounds, repeating herself, she knew, but she didn't care. "It is my fault if something happens to her," she said again. "You can't jolly me out of it."

Savich said sharply, "Of course I can. I'm your boss, you have to follow orders. Cut that nonsense out, right now."