Catherine Coulter - Backfire

“All in all, you keep improving like this, and you’re going to have a front-row seat at Emma’s performance next Wednesday.” Maybe not front and center, Dr. Kardak thought, though he didn’t say it aloud. With any luck at all, Ramsey should be able to sit upright for an hour or so.

Ramsey heard a cheer from the guards at the window as Dr. Kardak left. He grinned over at them. Both of them spent Thanksgiving here; in fact, they had both been with him for more than a week now, and he’d been cogent for at least four of those days. He knew just about everything important about all the people who were taking care of him and was wondering how he could pay them back. SFPD Officer Gavin Hendricks and Nurse Natalie were really hitting it off, and maybe he’d played some part in that. They made a nice couple.

He felt clearheaded again, he felt in control. He was able to think in a straight line without having to deal with pain trying to jerk him off the path. And his thoughts led him right to Father Sonny Dickerson’s mom. Her name was Charlene Cartwright, and she had to be in her sixties. What kind of a person that age could hatch a plot like this and execute it? He tried to imagine her motoring a Zodiac to his beach, being a good enough shot with a sniper rifle to have killed him dead if he hadn’t turned, and then using that sling shot with that absurd photo of Judge Dredd attached to it. Harder still to imagine her climbing down on the roof of the elevator, pulling up the ceiling hatch and firing down at him and escaping-she must have kept herself in very good shape in prison. Her audacity amazed him, even as a mother avenging her son. Father Sonny was a son who didn’t deserve even a passing thought, much less a full-blown vendetta. Didn’t she know full well that he’d been an obsessive insane pedophile? The fruit must not have fallen far from the tree, he thought. Charlene had to be as crazy as her son in her own way. He opened his laptop and began researching Charlene Cartwright’s criminal record. He wanted to know everything about her, her murdered husband, and her children.

She’d planned and plotted for five years. Amazing. Thank the good Lord she’d failed. At least until now.

San Francisco General Hospital

Saturday morning

Sherlock sat in Dr. Kardak’s small office on the fifth floor, waiting for him to come back from morning rounds and give her a final check. Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about having the stitches snipped out of her head, since he’d told her they would resorb by themselves. She’d sent Dillon on to see Ramsey, saying, “I’ll be fine. There’s no reason for us to sit here and twiddle our thumbs together. You’ve got a lot on your plate-go deal with it. Send up a guard if someone’s bored; otherwise, I’ll come to Ramsey’s room when I’m done.”

Savich had gently lifted her hair and lightly touched his fingertip to the small bandage. “I’ll send a guard. You will not go anyplace without someone covering you like a blanket.” He’d stared at her for a moment, kissed her hard, and left.

Sherlock knew he was still reliving those moments when he’d thought she was dead, but what could she say? She refused to think what she’d feel and do if Dillon had been the one shot. She pulled out her cell and called Ruth, who was in Maestro, Virginia, with her husband, Dix, and her two stepsons on this fine Saturday morning.

Ruth said, “You guys have sure got yourselves in the middle of a big curdling mess out there. You swear to me you’re all right, Sherlock?”

“Yes, don’t worry, it was only a little tap on the head. Talk to me, Ruth, about Charlene Cartwright. What do you know?”

“Dane flew to Baton Rouge last night, then drove to the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in Saint Gabriel this morning. He said the warden was goggle-eyed to hear what sweet, good-natured Charlene had done. He had to admit that yes, it was true, Charlene had worked out in the gym like a trouper for the past five years or so, and was in excellent shape for any age, really, and remarkable for someone ready for Medicare. Dane didn’t tell the warden she’d styled herself the Hammer. He should be about through with his interview with an inmate who was supposedly Charlene’s best bud, so you should call him in a couple of minutes. You swear you’re okay?”

After reassuring Ruth about herself and Judge Hunt and how he and his family were holding up, Sherlock dialed Dane, who answered on the third ring. “Hi, Sherlock. I just finished up a very informative interview with Charlene’s confidant, Maria Conchas, so your timing is perfect. Let me search out a private place.” He came back on a couple minutes later. “I’m in a supervisor’s office. Maria’s a piece of work, in prison now for eight years for shooting her neighbor for looking in at her sleeping through her bedroom window, or so she claimed. ‘And I was naked, the nasty peeper!’ Quote/unquote. Maria put the guy in a wheelchair for life with a bullet in his spine. Her punishment is another two years, after which she can waltz out of here on two strong legs.

“Moving right along. Maria and Charlene spent long hours discussing life and men and how the Big Bad brought you down until you took charge and decided to do something about it. Maria said Charlene wasn’t shy at all, in fact, enjoyed talking about what she was going to do to FBI Agent Dillon Savich when she got out. She called him ‘hateful bastard,’ the one who was responsible for her boy’s death, namely, Sonny Dickerson. Do you know she made Maria call her the Hammer? Said Charlene could turn so mean it scared her to death, but never in front of the guards.

“Now, I wondered why Maria was so eager to tell me everything about Charlene’s plans, since she had been, supposedly, her best friend. Maria told me she looked up Father Sonny Dickerson in their newspaper files and found out what he’d done five years ago before he’d died, well, before he’d been murdered. Good riddance, she’d thought. She couldn’t believe Charlene wanted revenge for that ‘crazy pervert,’ as Maria called him, even if Charlene was his mother. She told me she knew to her gut after reading about Sonny and what he’d done that Charlene had to be mad as a hatter to want to avenge him. Charlene said this to Maria, and I wrote this down, ‘I’m going to get it done. I blew off that vicious jerk’s head who made my son the way he was, didn’t I?’ She was talking about her husband. Maria said she believed her and we should, too.

“I asked her if she knew about the note Charlene sent to Savich. She laughed, said Charlene worked on different wordings for three months before she was happy. Maria recited the note in a dramatic voice, For what you did you deserve this. Maria said she even tried her hand at some variations, but Charlene didn’t like anything she came up with. Maria shook her head and said to me, ‘I mean, who would take that idiot threat seriously? Talk about sappy.’”

Sherlock said, “So she said Ramsey’s name?”

“Yes, Maria said Charlene told her about some ‘nasty bugger’ judge she was going to kill, too.”

“Was there anyone else on her hit list after she killed Ramsey? Had to be someone close. I mean, to make Dillon pay a stiff price, this person had to be close, right?”

“I’d say so,” Dane said, “since it was you, Sherlock. I know we were all hoping it was random, that any FBI agent would have filled the bill-but it wasn’t random, and I doubt you really thought that for a minute, not really.