Catherine Coulter: Eleventh Hour

Dane didn’t say anything. Savich thought he was too numb with shock and grief to process what he’d said, but that would change. The good thing was that along with the rage and the pain he would have to deal with moment to moment, he would have his instincts and training kicking in. He said, “Never mind. Tell you what, head on out to San Francisco and talk to Delion, find out what they’re doing. See if our office out there can help. Do you know Bert Cartwright, the SAC in San Francisco?”

“Yeah,” Dane said, his voice flat as a creek-bed stone. “Yeah, I know him.” There was sudden animosity on his face. At least it masked the pain for a moment.

“Yes, all right,” Savich said slowly. “You two don’t get along.”

“No, we don’t. I don’t want to deal with him.”

“Why? What happened between the two of you?”

Dane just shook his head. “It’s not important.”

“All right, you get yourself home and packed. Like I said, I’ll have Millie take care of everything for you. Do you want to stay in the city or go to your sister’s?”

“I’ll stay in the city. Not at the rectory, either, not there.”

“Okay, a hotel downtown, then. It’ll be FBI approved, so you can count on it to be basic. You’ll call if there’s anything I can do.”

“Yes, thank you, Savich. About my cases-”

“I’ll see that they’re covered. Go.”

The two men shook hands. Savich watched Dane make his way through the large room with workstations for nine special agents, only six of them occupied at the moment. His wife, Special Agent Lacey Sherlock Savich, was in a meeting with Jerry Hollister in the third-floor DNA analysis unit, comparing a DNA sample taken from a Boston rape-and-murder victim with a DNA sample from the major suspect. If they got a match, the guy was toast.

Ollie Hamish, his second in command, was in Wisconsin consulting with the Madison police on a particularly vicious series of murders, all connected to a local radio station that played golden oldies. Go figure, Ollie had said, and started humming “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.”

Savich hated crazies. He hated unsolved craziness even more. It amazed and terrified him what the human mind could conjure up. And now Dane’s brother, a priest.

He dialed Millie’s extension, told her to make arrangements. Then he walked over and flipped on his electric kettle to make a cup of strong Earl Grey tea. He poured his tea into an oversized FBI mug and went back to MAX, his lap-top, and booted up.

He started with an e-mail to Chief Dexter Kreider.

At three-thirty on Monday afternoon, San Francisco time, after a five-hour-and-ten-minute flight from Dulles, Dane Carver threaded his way through the large open room toward Inspector Delion’s overloaded desk. He paused a moment, studying him. The older man, with his bald, shiny head and thick handlebar mustache, was hunched over a computer keyboard, typing furiously. Dane sat down in the chair beside his desk and said nothing, just looked at the man at his work. It was like every other large cop shop he’d ever been in. Cops with their suit jackets hung over the backs of their chairs, their ties loosened, sleeves rolled up, a young Hispanic guy in handcuffs lounging in the side chairs, trying on sneers, a couple of lawyers in three-piece suits doing their best to intimidate-nothing at all unusual for a Monday afternoon. A decimated box of jelly donuts lay on a battered table in the small kitchen, a coffee machine that looked to be from the last century beside it, along with stacks of paper cups, packets of sugar, and a carton of milk Dane wouldn’t touch in a million years.

“Who’re you?”

Dane came to his feet and extended his hand. “I’m Dane Carver. You called me last night about my brother.”

“Oh yeah, right.” He rose, shook Dane’s hand. “I’m Vincent Delion.” He sat again, waved Dane to do the same. “Hey, I’m real sorry about your brother. I called you because I knew you’d want to hear what was going on.”

The brothers had been close, Delion knew from Carver’s sister, Eloise DeMarks. And Delion wasn’t blind. The man was hurting, bad. He was also a Fed. All the Feds Delion had ever met hadn’t seemed to feel much of anything. They all just wanted to press their wing tips down hard on his neck. Of course, he’d never seen a Fed in this situation before. Murder of a family member-something very personal, something over which he had no control at all. It couldn’t get tougher than this.

Dane said, his voice effortlessly calm and compelling-it was a very good interview voice, Delion thought-“Yes, I appreciate that. Tell me what you have.”

“I’m really sorry about this, but the first thing we need to do is go over to the morgue and you need to identify the body, not that there’s any doubt, just procedure, you know the drill. Or maybe you don’t. You ever been a local cop?”

Dane shook his head. “I always wanted to be an FBI agent. But yes, I know the drill.”

“Yeah, I hear that’s usually the way the thing works. Me, I always wanted to be local. Okay, Dr. Boyd did the autopsy this morning, and yeah, I was there. Your brother died instantly, like I told you last night. Boyd also says that was the case, if it’s any comfort. I’ve spoken to your sister. She wanted to come up today, but I told her you would be here to handle things, that you’d fill her in. I’ll need to speak to her, but in a day or two. I figured you’d rather take care of things.”

“Yes. I’ve spoken to Eloise. I’ll speak with her tonight. Now, about the gun-”

“No gun found at the murder site or anywhere in the church or within a two-block radius of Saint Bartholomew’s, but the coroner extracted a twenty-two-caliber bullet from the concrete wall behind the confessional. So the bullet passed through your brother, out the confessional, and another six feet to the wall, not very deep, just about an eighth of an inch into the wall, and it was in pretty good shape. Our ballistics guy, Zopp-yeah, that’s really his name, Edward Zopp-was on it right away. The thing is, you know, your brother was a priest, a very active, well-liked priest, and that’s got priority over about everything else going on. The bullet was intact enough to weigh and measure, and Zopp was very happy about that. Usually it’s not the case. Zopp said he counted the grooves and the land, and determined, of all things, that the gun is probably a JC Higgins model eighty or a Hi Standard model one-oh-one-both of those weapons are really close.”

“Yeah, and they’re also pretty esoteric. Neither of them is made anymore, but they’re not hard to find, and they’re not valuable. They’re cheap, in fact.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Also Zopp told us it was weird because it’s like the same gun the Zodiac killer used back in the late sixties and early seventies. Ain’t that something? You remember, the guy was never caught.”

“You’re thinking there could be some sort of connection?”

Delion shook his head. “Nope. We’re wondering if maybe our perp is an admirer of the Zodiac killer. Hey, it’s a real long shot, but we’ll see. Since we got the bullet, when we find the gun, we’ll be able to match it for the DA.”

Dane sat back in his chair and looked down at his wing tips. He hated this, hated it to his soul, but he had to ask. “Angle of entry?”

“The killer was sitting right opposite your brother. They were looking at each other. The killer raised the gun and fired through the screen.”

Jesus, Dane thought, seeing Michael, his head cocked just slightly to one side, listening so carefully to the penitent, trying to feel what the person confessing was feeling, trying to understand, wanting to forgive. But not with this guy, Dane was sure of that. His brother had been worried about this guy. The guy just raised the damned gun and shot him right through his forehead? For a moment, Dane couldn’t even think, the horror of what had happened to Michael deadening his brain. He wished it would deaden the rest of him, but of course it didn’t. He felt hollow with pain.