Nemesis (FBI Thriller #19)(10)
Bless her heart, she hadn’t had time to think about consequences, but Director Comey had. He’d assigned an assistant to handle all the media requests that would be flooding in to the Bureau. He’d also sent two agents to keep the media vans away from the Savich front yard and driveway. He’d laughed, suggested Savich and Sherlock might consider visiting Canada for a while, maybe take Romeo Rodriguez and Father Joseph with them.
Maybe Banff, Savich thought, his exhausted brain finally beginning to fuzz over; he’d like to visit Banff in western Canada. Maybe swim with Sean in Lake Louise. Need a wet suit for that. Did they make wet suits small enough for Sean? Sure, they did.
Savich’s last thought before he fell asleep was how it had been possible for someone to invade Walter Givens’s mind, convince him to murder Sparky Carroll, and then make him forget all of it. And why murder him in the middle of the hallway of the third floor of the Rayburn House Office Building with a witch’s ceremonial knife?
REINEKE POST OFFICE
REINEKE, VIRGINIA
Thursday, 5:15 a.m.
Ellie Moran was a twenty-five-year veteran of the Reineke post office, a woman as stalwart and plain as the boxy red-brick building she worked in. It sat proudly in the middle of High Street, sandwiched between the sheriff’s office and Donut Heaven.
Ellie knew everyone in town, and most of their secrets. She liked to think of herself as the hub of the Reineke gossip wheel. She might not be the postmaster, but she made the place run, and when the new postmaster showed in town the year before, he figured out what was good for him fast enough and fell into line.
She’d learned nearly every job and did each well, but her favorite was greeting the first early truck from the distribution center in Richmond that delivered the big rolling metal OTR package containers. She liked the predawn, enjoyed watching the sky get lighter and lighter as she wheeled the OTRs in from the dock inside the post office and unloaded them into the route hampers. She knew all the contract drivers from the private service the post office used, knew the sound each of their big trucks made as they backed up to the dock to unload the five to ten big OTRs that held up to fifty parcels each. Brakey Alcott was driving the truck this morning. He was young enough to be her son, always sucking down coffee like young people did to stay awake so early in the morning. Usually they joked back and forth as he pushed off the OTRs onto the loading dock, and he usually gave her a wave and called her beautiful as he headed back out again. But there were no jokes today. He was quiet, sort of nervous, and couldn’t wait to wheel the OTRs onto the loading dock and get away. She tried a joke, one of her best ones about the foul-mouthed parrot and the freezer, but Brakey didn’t even seem to hear her. Girl trouble, she thought; she’d bet her new Skechers it was girl trouble.
She wheeled in the first OTR, released and lowered the side of the cage, and began unloading the parcels, tossing each one into its proper route hamper, never getting it wrong. She’d been scheme-trained years before and that meant learning every street, every address, every route. She’d never been tested, but she thought she probably knew every resident’s name, except the new ones. When she finished she’d head for the employee lounge with its brand-new Keurig K-Cup machine for a cup of tea. She’d be alone, it was even too early for Eddie Hoop, the mail sorter, to show up and brag about the American postal system, the best in the world, blah, blah, blah, a tune he never tired of singing.
She hummed Justin Bieber’s “As Long as You Love Me” as she worked, her movements smooth and fast. She wheeled in the sixth and last OTR, this one filled to the top. She carefully lowered the side so the packages wouldn’t go flying off to the concrete floor. She lifted out a long, narrow package, read the address, and tossed it into route hamper eight. She paused to look at a small parcel addressed to Mrs. Lori Bamburger. From Victoria’s Secret, another pair of black lace undies that would be returned. Lori always ordered them two sizes too small.
What was that black stain nearly covering the address? She touched it—dry and smooth. Had a clerk at the distribution center spilled something on it? It was still legible, so she tossed it into the hamper and lifted out the next package. There were more black stains, drips and smears and smudges. She frowned. What was this stuff? She lifted out the next parcel.
And screamed.
SAVICH HOUSE
Thursday morning
When Savich’s cell blasted out Billy Ray, he’d been dreaming, not about Sherlock and the madman at JFK, but about walking through a stark white room whose walls were covered with mounted Athames, all their blades dripping blood, hundreds of them, some handles old and elaborately carved, others simple black-painted wood. The problem was he couldn’t find his way out.
Special Agent Jeremy Haimes, the SAC of the Richmond Field Office, was on the line to tell him about a murder in the Reineke post office. “The man yesterday, Savich, the one who was murdered in the Rayburn Office Building—I’ve got another dead man and he’s from the same town—Plackett—and he was also stabbed with some kind of ceremonial knife. That’s why I called you.”
“Jeremy, you said the body is in a post office in Reineke? How far is that from Plackett, Virginia?”
“About twenty miles southwest of Plackett.”
“Do you have an ID?”
“Yes, and this is tough. He was a cop. His name was Kane Lewis, an older guy, a paunchy grandfather, well liked. He was the sheriff’s only deputy, had been for eighteen years. That’s all I know so far. Everyone’s really shaken, as you can imagine. Can you come, Savich?”