Nemesis (FBI Thriller #19)(67)

“It was well done of you, an inspired choice. Lady Elizabeth provides excellent cover, and entrée into the highest levels of London society.”

“And to their politicians,” Hercule said. “Her stiff-necked father is in the House of Lords and has the ear of a great many in government. He would as soon kick me in the teeth. I am a foreigner—an Algerian, no less—but I am well regarded in society and by his daughter, and so he’s had to swallow his bile.”

“Yes, you chose well. The cathedral will be thick with their kind.”

Ah, that was true enough, but Hercule was interested in only one of them, which was why he’d chosen the time and place very carefully. He slowly rose, smiled down at the old man. He laid a ten-pound note on the table. “Watch the BBC tonight, Imam. I have been asked to give my expert opinion on the economic consequences if the bomb had done great destruction to Saint Patrick’s. I imagine they will also ask for my opinion about their precious Saint Paul’s.”

“So the government looks to the wolf for solutions?”

“They have no idea.” Hercule left, aware that every eye in the tearoom followed him out.





WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sunday, early afternoon

Savich dropped Sean off at his grandmother’s house for an afternoon at the park and no doubt too many chocolate-chip cookies. He’d have enjoyed staying and throwing a football around with them, but it couldn’t be helped. He drove back downtown and picked Griffin up at his condo on Willard Street, an old established area known in the summer for its thick canopy of oak trees.

Griffin was waiting for him outside because Anna had been up all night on a drug bust and he didn’t want to disturb her. He climbed into the Porsche, turned to Savich. “Where are we headed this beautiful day?”

“To see Walter Givens again, at the D.C. Jail. I’d like to hear anything new you’ve found on the Alcotts on the way over.”

Griffin called up his files on his tablet. “What I’ve got has to do with Liggert mostly. He’s a bully, Savich, no other way to put it—bar fights, had to be pulled in by Sheriff Watson and Deputy Lewis a couple of times. He spent a night in jail after assaulting Walter Givens. I wonder what that was about.”

Savich said, “Liggert went after him at the bar after Walter called him out for hitting one of his kids. Teddy. Deputy Lewis arrested him.”

“Good for Walter.”

“I wonder, was that enough reason for Dalco to go after Walter, turn him into a murderer?”

Griffin’s head snapped around. “You think Liggert could be Dalco?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a reason. And to go after Sparky, have Walter butcher him? It would have to be something major.”

“And that is the question. What did Sparky do to Dalco, or to his family?” Savich said, and stopped at a red signal. Traffic was as light as it got in Washington.

“There’s something else interesting. Liggert’s oldest girl, Tanny, ten years old—she’s got a juvie record. She was caught shoplifting condoms, of all things. Turns out she was selling them to all the teenage boys around town, cleaned up for a while until the pharmacy owner caught her with Trojans stuffed in her pockets.

“Sheriff Watson called her parents, and they paid for the condoms, took her home. The pharmacist insisted on a police report, but nothing more came of it, at least that I could find.”

Savich had to laugh. “A ten-year-old isn’t usually sent to Attica for stealing condoms. I do wonder, though, how Liggert punished her.”

“We’re not done,” Griffin said. “That was when she was nine. She got slick enough to lift some watches from the general store. She tried to pawn some of them in Reineke when they were still brand new, and she was fingered. Get this, no charges again, they let her go.”

Savich shot him a look. “I wonder if Deliah Alcott took care of the problem. Or maybe it was Mr. Alcott. Was she caught before he died six months ago?”

“Just after. Maybe she was acting out, as the shrinks say, because of her grandfather’s death?”

“We could talk to the people at the general store. Maybe Sheriff Watson knows something about it.” He shook his head. When you came right down to it, what good would that do? Trying to find Dalco was leading them everywhere and nowhere. He was tired, his brain was tired.

“I spent some time looking into her granddad, Arthur Alcott. Nothing in the public record to suggest he was capable of anything hinky. After he died, there was a memorial service for him. The local paper gave it quite a write-up, said most people in town attended, so it seems he was respected well enough. Maybe that’s how his granddaughter got off with hardly any juvenile record, out of respect for him.”

Savich said, “But why Brakey?”

“He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Savich, doesn’t take long to see that. Maybe Dalco used him because he was an easy target, he was handy? Malleable?”

“If so, it sure backfired,” Savich said as he turned onto D Street. “After we speak to Walter, let’s go over to Plackett to see Sheriff Watson.”

“Has he called you yet about Deputy Lewis’s files?”

“Yes and no,” Savich said as he turned into the jail parking lot. “All he said was there wasn’t anything useful in the Alcott accident report.”