Point Blank (14 page)

Chappy said, “Yeah, I caught a vague whiff of something, too. I didn’t know it was jasmine, just something sort of sweet.”

Ruth said, “Chappy, could you show me the niche?”

He led her over to the far wall of the chamber as Savich and Sherlock began to walk the perimeter.

“Thanks, Chappy. Can I have a minute?”

Ruth ran her flashlight carefully along the walls of the irregular, deeply indented space cut in the limestone by water over thousands of years. It looked like it hadn’t been disturbed for a millennium. She knew the gold bars had been left there. Her map read Beneath the niche, but there was nothing there now. Who had found them, and how long ago? She wanted to cry. She’d been so excited, so hopeful, and it was all for nothing. “It’s empty all right, Chappy, you were right.”

She turned away and walked along the back wall of the cavern, away from the others. She smelled jasmine again, stronger now, and there was something else she smelled in the air, something nasty, unwholesome. She kept walking, leaning over when the cavern ceiling dipped a bit. The smells intensified.

She heard a noise, a sort of whispering sound, maybe the soft flap of a bat’s wings. Maybe bats had flown at her when she was there before, maybe they knocked her down and she hit her head. Her eyes flew up and she panned the ceiling with her head lamp. She saw nothing, only the gleam of lacy limestone. She took another step forward and stumbled over something. She went to her knees, threw out her hands to save herself. Her fingers fell on something oddly pulpy and cold. In the deepest part of her, she knew what she’d touched. She screamed, fell back, her head lamp scattering light all around her.

She heard their voices calling out to her, heard them running toward her. She forced her head lamp down. She stared into the greenish bloated face of a young woman.

“Ruth, what is it? What did you find?”

She looked up at Dix. “She’s dead, Dix. She’s the one wearing the jasmine perfume. And that sickening smell, it’s coming off her.”

Dix dropped to his knees beside her. “Savich, Sherlock, I need more light here. Chappy, you stay back, you hear me? Don’t you move an inch this way.”

“I know her,” Dix said as he studied her face. “She’s a student at Stanislaus. I don’t know her name but I

’ve seen her around town from time to time.” He touched his fingertips to her neck, her cheeks, and finally, her hands, folded neatly across her chest. She needed only a lily, he thought. She hadn’t wandered in here by accident, alone, that was for sure. Rigor had long passed. “She hasn’t been dead all that long. I’d say maybe three, four days.”

Ruth said clearly, “I smelled her perfume when I came into the cave on Friday.”

Dix continued matter-of-factly, “The time seems about right. Decomposition would slow in here since it’s cool and dry. You add the really cold weather we’ve been having, and it would slow things even more, but decomposition has started. See that small discolored circle on her chest? It looks like she’s been stabbed. I don’t see a knife, do you, guys?”

“The smell,” Ruth said. “Not the jasmine, that other smell, it’s pretty foul.”

“Yes, it is,” Dix said. “There’s something medicinal to it.”

“No knife,” Savich said, “but I suppose the murderer could have left it in here, tucked away somewhere. The forensic team will have a huge job ahead of them looking through this whole chamber.”

Ruth looked down at the young woman’s face, bathed in the light of all their head lamps. “She’s been posed. Look how her arms are crossed over her chest, her legs straightened out, her dress smoothed down.”

Dix slowly stood, stretched. “Must be some crazy loon here, guys. He kills her, poses her, entombs her here for all practical purposes. He couldn’t have known there was another exit from this chamber. At least he didn’t know until he found Ruth’s arch. It could be out of Poe.”

Sherlock was checking the young woman’s pockets, gently running her hands under the body. “I don’t see a purse. Two pockets, but they’re empty. No ID.”

Ruth looked toward the arched opening on the far side of the chamber. “Do you think she was killed in here?”

“I don’t know,” Dix said. “I don’t want to guess, either. I’m grateful you didn’t stumble over her when you were in here alone.”

She was shivering, so cold her body ached. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She couldn’t look away from that poor dead young woman. “I might have stumbled over her. It might have been what shoved me over the edge. I still don’t remember.”

Dix handed her the compass. “Hold it a moment, Ruth.”

She didn’t want to, but she took it and held it in her open palm. She heard Dillon’s voice. “That’s it, Ruth. Just hold it. You’ve had it for a long time. You’ve used it often. Do you remember what you were doing the last time you held it?”

She dropped the compass. “I was—terrified. Something was coming toward me, a slithering sound pulling itself across the cave floor. I ran, I had to get away from it. And I was screaming.”

Savich clutched her hand tightly. “That’s good, Ruth, that’s really good for now.” He nodded to Sherlock, who pulled Ruth against her. He watched Dix pick up the compass and slip it back into his jacket pocket.

Sherlock said, “Let’s head back outside. We need to get out of here to call for help.”

Savich said, “Dix, did you say your uncle-in-law is the director of Stanislaus, Dr. Gordon Holcombe?”

“Yes. If we can’t ID her real quick, he’ll be able to help us.”

AT THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon, the body of Erin Bushnell, age twenty-two, a very talented violinist from Sioux City, Iowa, was zipped into a body bag in the back of the Loudoun County medical examiner’s van and on its way to the morgue in the basement of the Loudoun County hospital. As they watched the white van make its way slowly through the now-slushy snow Dix said, “The ME, Burt Himple, he’s good, Savich. I think he had some training at Quantico. After meeting you and Sherlock, he

’ll be real careful not to screw up anything.”

Savich looked after the van. “I gave him Dr. Conrad’s name and number at Quantico if he wants to talk anything over.”

Dix said to Ruth, “I think you’re right. Erin Bushnell was probably lying dead in there when you first crawled into the chamber.” Dix paused, looked over at his deputy, Lee Hickey, who’d ticketed Erin Bushnell for speeding a couple of months ago and identified her immediately. “I asked her to go out with me but she told me she was seeing someone,” Lee had said and been violently ill. Savich said, “The murderer probably had just placed her there, posed her to suit some insane directive in his mind, and heard you come in, Ruth. It sounds to me like you were drugged somehow, or gassed—

that he somehow rendered you helpless.”

Chappy, who’d been sitting in the Range Rover, had come over to them when the forensic people had carried the body away in its zippered green bag. He stood watching the dozen or so people moving in and out of the cave entrance. “This has to be the strangest day of my life.”

“It sure ranks up there, all right,” Dix agreed.

“What I don’t understand is why Ruth is alive.”

Savich said, “If Dix hadn’t found Ruth in his woods, we would have searched the cave until there wasn’t a bat left who hadn’t had his wings stretched and examined for clues. Maybe the killer didn’t want to leave her here, knew since she was an FBI agent, there’d be a huge manhunt, centering right here at Winkel’s Cave.”

“Hello, people, it’s me, Ruth. I’m right here. I’m alive.”

Dix said, “And all of us are real happy about that, Ruth.”

“You’re going to go see that twerp-ass Twister now, aren’t you?” Chappy asked.

“Yes. We also need to find out where she lived. Sorry, Chappy, but you can’t come with us. Hey, why don’t you go finalize a buyout of the Bank of America, okay?”

Chappy shook his head. “I know Twister, Dix, know him down to the molecules that make that shifty little pissant tick. You can’t believe a word he says. I’ll be able to tell you if he’s trying to cover up, to protect that precious school of his. I knew every one of his tricks by the time he was ten.”

“Chappy,” Dix said, “Why don’t you tell our FBI agents how you really feel about Uncle Gordon.”

“He’s a sly, twisted little weasel.”

Sherlock asked, “Why on earth would your brother hide anything, sir? We’re only seeing him first because he’s the big cheese at Stanislaus, nothing more, and he can direct us to her friends and teachers.

”

Chappy opened his mouth, shut it, then gave a deep sigh. “I can’t acquire the Bank of America. I tried a couple of months ago, but they’ve got a stranglehold on all the stock options and the CEO is more shark than human—hey, that was a joke. Damn, what a day. All right, I’m going, but I want you to keep me in the loop on this. You promise, Dix?”

Dix nodded. “I promise. Deputy Moran is going to drive you home. Ah, Chappy, don’t get on the phone to Uncle Gordon, all right?”

THE CAMPUS OF Stanislaus School of Music was set some four miles east of Maestro, sprawled in its own private wilderness. Mountains formed a line to the north, with thick forests of oak, maple, and pine climbing their lower slopes. Closer in were low hills, little humps of land really, covered mostly with thick blackberry bushes that thinned toward the east into a wide, flat valley hidden under snow. In the late Monday afternoon light, the campus looked like a precious stone in a matching setting, its red brick buildings clustered around a large main quadrangle, surrounded by trees whose thick branches were weighed down with snow. All the walkways were neatly shoveled. The sounds of a Bach Brandenburg Concerto wafted out of the main auditorium, Van Cliburn Hall, named after the famed pianist, whose trust had given a large grant to the school fifteen years before. They all paused, taking in the scene and those beautiful sounds.

“It’s nearly four o’clock,” Sherlock said. “I hope Dr. Holcombe will still be here.”

“He should be,” Dix said. “He’s a pretty remarkable musician, a flautist and pianist. He’s run the school for the past ten years. Before that he toured, primarily in Europe, and lived in Paris for a couple of years. His daughter, Dr. Marian Gillespie, also teaches here.”

“Is Dr. Gillespie also a musician?” Savich asked.

Dix nodded. “She plays the viola, though Christie told me she didn’t have anywhere near her father’s talent, or his ability to deal with people or do administration. She’s something of an old hippie—you’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”

Ruth asked Dix as they walked up the wide sidewalk to Blankenship Hall, the administration building, “

What does Marian’s husband do?”

“Marian’s husband left her before we moved down here from New York so I never met him.” He added to Sherlock and Savich, “I was with the NYPD, a detective in homicide for four years. When we moved here, thanks in part to Christie’s father, I was elected sheriff of Maestro. The boys and I don’t see Marian much, maybe once every couple of months over at Tara for dinner. Rob and Rafe call it circus night.”

“Families are such fun,” Ruth said. “So did your boys get any of this talent?”

“Rob plays the drums in a band put together by one of his high school friends, a mixed blessing. Rafe plays a bit of piano. Whenever I mention taking lessons, though, he won’t have any of it. We’ll see.”

Dix led them to a gorgeous walnut semicircular information desk where two women watched them approach with a good deal of curiosity. Dix nodded to them both, said, “Mavis, I’m here to see my uncle.”

“He’s in, Sheriff Noble,” Mavis said, eyeing Savich, “although he did say he wanted to leave early today. I think Peter Pepper nabbed him.”

Mary Parton rolled her eyes. “If he’s with Peter, I know he’ll appreciate being rescued. Ah, who are these people, Sheriff? Wait, you’re the woman the sheriff found next to his house, right?”

Ruth smiled really big and nodded. “Yes, I’m Special Agent Ruth Warnecki.”

“Ah,” Mary said, nodding, “so you work in private security? In Richmond?”

“Well, not really,” Ruth said, “I’m a special agent with the FBI.”

“Oh goodness, oh my, how very thrilling. Does a pretty girl like you have a gun and body armor? Well, I suppose that’s top secret, isn’t it? All right then, Sheriff, you take these people right ahead.”

Dix thanked Mavis and Mary and turned to lead them down a long carpeted hallway. “I would have thought they’d have heard all about you by now, Ruth, down to that mole behind your left knee.”

Her eyebrow went up. “You must be thinking of the one behind my right knee.”

They stared at walls covered with large autographed photos of famous musicians, singers, and conductors.

“Quite a rogue’s gallery,” Ruth said. “Goodness, is this Pavarotti? In the flesh? Right here? Yep, it sure is. Would you look at that signature. Not shy, is he?”

Sherlock said absently as she studied Luciano Pavarotti’s photo, “Looks like this photo was taken in summer, maybe fifteen years ago, right here at Stanislaus, with a bunch of excited faculty and students. Hmm. I don’t think Pavarotti has anything to be shy about. Did you know he’s considered the only living operatic lyric tenor who’s really mastered the whole of the tenor’s range?”

Ruth said, “How do you know about his tenor’s range?”

Savich said, “Sherlock was on her way to Juilliard to become a concert pianist once upon a time.”

Ruth said, “I had no idea. I would love to hear you play.”

Sherlock nodded. She seemed to draw herself up. “It was a long time ago, Ruth, but I’d love to play for you. Sorry, Dix, you were taking us to Dr. Holcombe’s office?”

“It’s right at the end of the hall. We have to get past Helen Rafferty, his personal assistant-slash-secretary. She guards him like the Secret Service guards the president.”

Ms. Rafferty was drumming her pencil on a neat stack of papers in the middle of her desk, her eyes on the closed door to Dr. Holcombe’s office. Dix cleared his throat. “Helen?”

“Sheriff Noble! You’re with all these people I don’t know. Well, er, all of you, sit down, please.”

“Helen, could you please give us Erin Bushnell’s address?”

“Why? I see, you don’t want to tell me. Just a moment, I have a directory of all the students right here. I hope she’s not in trouble. Not drunk and disorderly. Ah, yes, here it is.” Helen Rafferty wrote down the address and handed it to Dix.