Backfire (7 page)

Judge Sherlock’s home

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

Friday evening

Sherlock’s eyes were closed as she listened to Emma play George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue
on her parents’ magnificent Bösendorfer grand piano, which had been purchased for Sherlock when she was about Emma’s age. When Emma hit the final notes, there was a long moment of silence, then applause, Sherlock’s parents the loudest.

“It’s been too long since I’ve listened to you play,” Judge Corman Sherlock said. “Thank you, Emma.”

Harry couldn’t believe what he had just heard. An eleven-year-old kid, her thick dark brown hair veiling her face, had knocked his socks off. How could those small hands play with such passion and purity, even reach all those racing chords, those endless runs and trills?

Evelyn Sherlock was still smiling. “That was grand, Emma. Thank you for the preview. We’ll be there to hear you at the symphony, of course.”

Emma gave them a small smile, but it soon fell away. “I don’t know how well I’ll play with Daddy in the hospital.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “He smiled at me this afternoon, but it was so hard for him, and I knew it hurt him.”

Eve said, “Say your dad can’t be with you at Davies Hall. We’ll fix it so he can be listening to you on a live feed.”

“But what if something happens? What if he’s still in the hospital? How could I play then?”

Eve said, “If he isn’t home—and believe me, that’s unlikely, since your daddy’s such a tough dude—we’ll take the live feed to the hospital and hook it up there. Can’t you see all the nurses and doctors, all the other patients cramming into his room to see you play? Believe me on this. Wherever your daddy happens to be in a week and a half, you know he’ll be right onstage with you.”

What a perfect thing to say, Savich thought. Eve didn’t even hint that Ramsey could possibly be well enough to actually attend her performance, and that was smart. He squeezed Sherlock’s hand.

Emma tried to smile at Eve. “That means I can’t make a single mistake.”

“You never do,” Eve said.

Sherlock said, “Do you like the Bösendorfer, Emma? My parents got it for me a very long time ago.”

“It’s too bad you aren’t here very often to play it,” Emma said. “Mrs. Mayhew—she’s my teacher—she says a piano has to be played or it goes stale.”

“Do you think the Gershwin sounded stale?”

Emma shook her head. “No, it sounded perfect. I’m used to my Steinway, but I like this piano, too. I wish Mama were here.”

Eve said, “Look at the big picture, Emma. Your daddy needs her attention right now more than we do.”

Emma thought about that and nodded. She touched middle C. “The action’s perfect.”

Evelyn Sherlock said, “Emma, would you like to have Lacey play for you?”

Emma’s eyes shone. “Oh, yes. Do you know Bach’s
Italian Concerto
?”

Sherlock rolled her eyes. “I haven’t played that killer in a long time. I can feel my fingers yelling at me not to try it.”

Harry said, “Tell your fingers to man up. I’d sure like to hear you play, Sherlock.”

Sherlock took Emma’s place at the black piano bench. She played some scales, ran some chords, and realized the feel of the keys on this magnificent instrument was a deeply embedded memory that came back quickly. Still, she wasn’t about to try the first movement, far too wild and hairy without practice. She played the second movement, slow, evocative, and sorrowful. As she played, she felt the power of the music burrow into her. When she finished, Sherlock slowly lifted her hands from the keyboard, letting herself settle for a moment, another embedded memory she would thankfully never lose.

Emma jumped to her feet. “Oh, goodness, that was beautiful. I can play that movement, but not like that, not like it makes everyone want to cry.”

“The last time you played that second movement for me, I cried,” Eve said.

“You’re easy, Aunt Eve,” Emma said, and gave her a fat kid grin.

“Yeah, your music is my downfall.”

Sherlock hugged her. “You’re eleven years old, Emma. You’ll make everyone weep when you have more life under your belt.”

—

Molly arrived at
nine o’clock to take the children home. Savich brought down Cal and Gage, both deeply asleep, one draped over each shoulder. He saw Molly speaking quietly to Sherlock. Molly even managed a smile.
Excellent.
Then it was his turn.

An SFPD black-and-white was parked across the street to follow Molly home.

Sherlock asked, “What were you talking to Molly about, Dillon?”

“Ramsey was more lucid this evening. He described the Zodiac to Molly again.” He cupped his wife’s face in his big hands. “Cheney will find it. Now, I don’t think I woke Sean up when I fetched Cal and Gage, but he’s got ears like a bat; we should check on him again.”

Russian Hill

Friday night

It had been a lovely evening, Eve thought, as she unlocked the front door of her condo on Russian Hill, only a ten-minute drive this time of night from the Sherlock home on Mulberry in Pacific Heights. She couldn’t get over Agent Sherlock playing the piano like that. She pictured Agent Savich—no, Dillon, he’d told her—his eyes never leaving his wife’s face. He said that after you shared a dinner of barbecued pork spareribs and finger licking, only first names sounded right. “But you’re a vegetarian,” she’d said to him. “You didn’t eat any of those delicious ribs.”

He said, “Licking your fingers is the operative image here.”

Eve wondered what Harry had thought of the odd evening—an FBI agent playing Bach, and no talk of who had tried to kill Ramsey. When she’d mentioned that to Dillon, he’d said only, “Don’t you think your brain does better when it gets to stir a different kind of stew for a bit?”

Good people, she thought, full of life, so much of it. Some people seemed to have more of life in them than others, and that included Sean, brought downstairs after dinner, beaming at all of them in his Transformers pajamas.

She saw Harry in her mind’s eye, frankly astonished when Emma had played Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in Blue.
Then he’d closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair cushion as he listened to Sherlock play that incredibly sad second movement.

She heard a noise, something close, something dangerous—she jerked around, her hand going to the Glock at her waist. Harry said, raising his arms, palms toward her, “Don’t shoot me. It’s only ten o’clock. I thought we should talk. Sorry to alarm you, I thought you saw me following you here.”

Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t make him out clearly, but she recognized his voice. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you sooner. I can hear ants nesting. I never noticed you behind me, and here you were driving that hot Shelby.”

“How can you protect Judge Hunt if you don’t pay more attention to who’s on your tail?”

He got her, curse him. “Yeah, you’re right, but that’ll be the last time. Talk would be good. Come on in. I’ll put on some coffee. So it’s only ten o’clock? What does that have to do with my shooting you?”

“No shooting until after midnight, that’s the rule.”

“Haven’t heard that one. I think it’s smart to talk about the case.”

“So what do ants sound like when they’re nesting?”

She grinned at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the door to a small lobby with a black-and-white tiled floor, black mailboxes set against a stark white wall, and a half-dozen palm trees in green and blue pots stationed in the corners. She waved him in. “The elevator’s a 1920s job that creaks and groans all the way up. Scares most people, but I love it. Still, I prefer to walk up. Keeps yummy things like spareribs from making a home on my thighs.” They walked steep, wide stairs to the third and top floor.

“I’m on the end.” The corridor was wide, covered in a red carpet splashed with cabbage roses that should have made Harry bilious. Instead he found it curiously charming. She stopped in front of a blue door, unlocked it, and stepped in. She flipped on the light, waved him in.

Eve’s living room wasn’t what Harry was expecting, although he wasn’t quite sure what that would be, since he’d only met her earlier in the day. Maybe a black leather sofa and chairs and lots of gym mats on the floor? No, the living room was light, airy, filled with color. There was a view of the city through the big windows and a sliver of a view of the bay. He followed her to the kitchen, streamlined but softened with fresh flowers in a vase on the two-seater kitchen table, herbs in small pots lining the windowsill over the sink. It was painted a soft yellow.

“Nice apartment.”

“It’s mine now, bought it when the building went condo five years ago. It’s the right size for me.”

Eve smacked the heel of her hand to her head. “I’m an idiot.” After she turned on the coffeemaker, Eve pulled out her cell, and typed on the small Google screen.

“Well, okay, that’s only because you aren’t FBI. What are you doing?”

She stared at him.

“What? Oh, I’m picturing you lying flat on your back, out like a light, me standing over you rubbing my bruised knuckles.”

“That’s a pretty solid fantasy scenario. What are you doing really?”

She punched in numbers she’d looked up on her cell. “Calling the Port Authority to see if there were any cargo ships coming through the Golden Gate about midnight last night.”

He hadn’t thought of that. He guessed he was an idiot, too.

“Here we go.” She dialed, got a message, punched off her cell. “It’s late, no one there. I’ll call in the morning.”

She laid her cell phone on the counter. “Where do you live, Harry?”

“Over in Laurel Heights.”

She knew it was a lovely area near the Presidio, with streets named after trees. “You have a house?”

He nodded. “After my wife left—” He cut off like a spigot run dry, nodded at the coffeepot.

As Eve filled two large mugs, a hank of her blond hair fell along the side of her face. He watched her tuck it behind her ear. “This is decaf, so we’ll both have a shot at some sleep tonight. What do you take in your coffee?”

“Black is good.”

When they were seated across from each other at the kitchen table, Harry waved his hand toward the window. “What have you got planted in that first pot?”

“Thyme.”

“Yeah? You put that in birthday cakes?” Again, he saw her in a pretty swingy summer dress, long legs in open-toed sandals, serving cake up to a noisy herd of kids at a party.

“Not unless my specialty was pasta primavera cake.”

He laughed. “I called the hospital on the way over. Judge Hunt is sleeping. No setbacks so far. I hope he makes it out of the hospital in time to see Emma play at Davies Hall.”

“If he can make it without causing a stir and disturbing the audience, he’ll be there,” Eve said. “With the paramedics, if he needs them.”

“He’s a local hero. The paramedics would be thrilled. Emma blew my mind tonight.”

“I guess I’ve heard her play so many times I’m used to it. It was Sherlock who blew me away. Made me feel inferior. Judge Sherlock told me she chose being an agent over trying to make it as a concert pianist. When I asked him why, he only smiled and shook his head. I wonder what happened.”

“Who knows? Maybe in the pursuit of her blood?”

Eve said, “It’s hard to imagine Savich and Sherlock are actually married.”

“Cheney told me he’s heard stories about Sherlock going toe-to-toe with Savich when she disagrees with him, that she can be as stubborn as he imagined his mother-in-law would be if he had one. But despite that, he says what impresses him the most about Sherlock is her loyalty.” He studied his coffee, swirled it in his cup. “Imagine that, loyalty in a woman.”

Whoa.
Best move right along.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Eve said. “Virginia Trolley has asked to be part of our protection team. She’ll have officers stick close to Ramsey’s house, keep people from sneaking in when no one’s home. Did you know Virginia Trolley is a longtime friend of Ramsey’s? She’s a good cop, too.”

Harry said, “I met Lieutenant Trolley. She acted suspicious, didn’t much like me.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing at all. I was my charming self.”

“Yeah, I can only imagine.”

“She’s like you, wears a uniform.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look at you, all in black with that kick-butt red leather jacket. I’ll bet your socks and your underwear are black, too.”

He’d nailed that one.

“You didn’t tell me what you did to make Virginia dislike you.”

“Strange, really. I only happened to mention that the San Francisco cops are really good at writing parking tickets.”

Eve rolled her eyes, then grinned. “Yeah, no secret there. Got to raise money to support the city budget.”

“Good coffee, even though it’s decaf. Cheney told me he put Burt Seng with Sherlock on finding that Zodiac. Fact is, Burt could find a contact lens in a swimming pool. He’ll be updating us at the meeting tomorrow.”

“I hadn’t heard about a meeting. Do you think I can be in on that? When? Tomorrow morning?”

He couldn’t help himself. “That’d be okay, if you don’t forget your place.”

She leaped for the bait, coffee sputtered out. She wiped a napkin over her mouth and gave him a look to fry his liver.

He quickly raised his hand, smiling. “You gotta learn control, Barbieri. You can’t lose it every time someone makes an innocent comment rubs you the wrong way.”

The jerk, but he’d done it on purpose, and she’d been ready to go for his throat. She dredged up a smile and a sneer. “And when do you interview the Cahills? Can I go with you for that?”

“Savich and I planned to do that in the morning. That actually is why I followed you home tonight, so I could ask you about the trial. I’d wanted to be there from the beginning, since it was my case, but something else came up. Since Judge Hunt isn’t in any shape to tell me about it himself yet, could you tell me exactly what was happening to make him so suspicious about Mickey O’Rourke?”

Eve said, “Ramsey never talked to me about it directly—of course he wouldn’t—but I can tell you what I saw.

“The trial was still in the final pretrial motion stage. They hadn’t impaneled a jury yet. Milo Siles, the Cahills’ defense attorney, had been making all sorts of motions for discovery. He’d demanded proof of everything the government accessed from the murder victim’s computer, especially anything that was considered top secret. He kept going on about the
Brady
rules giving the defense the right to any documents it needs to defend their clients, even in the case of espionage. It was pretty obvious, really, Siles was trying to force the government to disclose exactly what Mark Lindy—the murder victim—did for them.”

“Yeah, I know all about Mark Lindy, since it was my case, like I told you. So it sounds like Siles was trying to get the government to drop the case rather than have what Mark Lindy was working on compromised? That sounds nuts.”

“Just you wait. There was a lot of talk then about the Classified Information Procedures Act that provides protection for the government and for defendants in these kinds of cases. There were a bunch of conferences, some of them in camera—that means in Ramsey’s chambers—and after that, Ramsey started getting more and more hard-nosed with O’Rourke. You see, Ramsey had ruled some of that information admissible, but O’Rourke had repeatedly failed to provide it to the court. At first his excuses seemed reasonable, but then he had no more excuses, even bad ones.

“I’ll tell you, it was quite a sight seeing Ramsey lambaste a federal prosecutor like that. He said the court would have to impose sanctions, possibly dismiss the federal indictment, and you could tell that really burned Ramsey, and that’s when he suspended the trial, the same day he was shot.”

Harry nodded. “Since Judge Hunt’s known O’Rourke pretty well after working with him for years, he realized he wouldn’t behave like that—ignoring the judge’s directives time after time—if something weren’t seriously wrong. No way would a federal prosecutor want a case dismissed, except if there was bad stuff going on, and he was directly involved. Yes, that fits nicely.

“Thanks, Eve. I’ve got a better handle on it now. About the Cahills: Savich wants to meet with them as soon as possible, before they have a chance to talk all this through with their lawyer. We’re going to offer them a chance to spend some time together if they’re willing to talk to us immediately, without waiting for Siles. They’re going to want to see each other real bad, one reason is so they can both be sure they can still trust each other. A lot has happened in two days. Who knows what they know? What they’ve heard? What they’re thinking? Maybe they’re ready to deal.”

“Maybe,” Eve said.

Harry rose. “Gotta go. Thanks for the coffee.”

She followed him to the front door. “Do you think I could go interview the Cahills with you?”

“That’ll be up to Savich.”

Eve didn’t think her chances were that good. Besides, there was so much to do, best not to overload anywhere. She dropped it. “Hey, what tree are you heading for?”

An eyebrow went up, and then he grinned. “Yeah, yeah, my street name. I live on Maple—my house is in the center of the block. I’m really close to pizza and Szechuan, and the dry cleaner’s. All the comforts, lots of people driving around, parking to shop or eat. The cops love to ticket in that neighborhood.”

“Imagine Virginia not liking you when, I’m sure, you just happened to mention that to her.”

She heard him whistling as he walked away down the corridor. She was in bed ten minutes later.

So his wife had left him the house on Maple and he’d stayed there.