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43
GAFFER'S RIDGE
FRIDAY MORNING
After breakfast at Jenny’s Café, Griffin and Carson walked Savich and Sherlock to the Porsche. Savich said, “We talked about everything except Quint Bodine’s computer. My worm got his files downloaded and out to me, but unfortunately we still don’t have access—MAX ran into a layer of encryption behind the admin password. It could take him some time to get through it. Once we get in, I’ll call the minute I find something.”
Griffin said, “I wonder why Bodine would go to the effort to encrypt at all unless there’s something he wants to be sure is protected.”
“The fact he did encrypt makes me very hopeful he considers what’s on his computer is critical. We’ll find out soon. You need me, I’m a call away.” They shook hands, Carson gave Sherlock a hug, said against her ear, “Please call me if there’s anything I can do for you.”
Once they were on the interstate, Savich let the Porsche loose, happy to hear the engine sing hallelujah. It was a bummer, but he throttled back to just over the speed limit. He took Sherlock’s hand in his. “Tell me how you’re feeling today.”
She gave him a real smile. “Fine, I’m fine. I can’t wait to meet Mr. Maitland. Wait. Did he come to the hospital? Have I already met him?”
“Yes, but there were lots of agents there, doesn’t matter you don’t remember him. Now, some disturbing news from Washington. While you were in the shower, Ben Raven, a Metro detective, texted me. He got an anonymous call early this morning. They found a body at the apartment of an apparent break-in. Her name was Eleanor Corbitt. Ben caught the case. He thought she looked familiar and went back to check video cams at the scene of your accident. Sure enough, Eleanor Corbitt was there, standing on the street corner. He spoke to his LT, who called Mr. Maitland, who called me thirty minutes ago. I didn’t tell Griffin about it, he’s got enough on his plate. I didn’t tell you right away—” He stalled.
You were concerned I might freak out, you wanted to break it to me gently after we left.She didn’t say that, said only, “And the dead woman being on that corner, now, that ain’t no coincidence.”
He spurted out a laugh. That was his Sherlock. “You’re right about that.” Savich let his Porsche pass a big eighteen-wheeler at ninety miles an hour, smiling wider with each RPM. When he reluctantly slowed back to sixty, it was Sherlock who laughed.
It was odd, but Sherlock would swear she remembered the smell in the morgue—strong lemon disinfectant with a slick of something foul just beneath. It was the smell of death. And it was cold in the autopsy room. She and Savich stood over Eleanor Corbitt’s body. She was thirty-six at the time of her death. She’d been a pretty woman, with long dark brown hair, a fair complexion. But now her hair was bloody, her face slack and gray. A sheet was pulled to her shoulders, showing only the edges of the Y cut. Ben Raven stood at Sherlock’s elbow. Was it to catch her if she fainted?
The M.E., Dr. Horowitz, said in his clipped voice, “She was remarkably fit, in excellent health when she died. I estimate TOD around the middle of the night, say three a.m., but of course, that could be off by several hours either way. She took sleeping pills sometime after midnight so she was very probably asleep when she was shot in the head and killed instantly. If she’d been awake, there’d be signs of a struggle. And I’d say this one could have put up a good fight. No, she never even knew.”
Sherlock cocked her head to the side. “I doubt she was raped.”
Dr. Horowitz shook his head.
“Then why was she killed?”
Ben Raven said, “Her apartment was ransacked, looked like someone broke in, looking for money, for drugs, whatever, and her wallet and her jewelry were missing. And it could have been a robbery gone bad. That’s what it’s supposed to look like. But there’s something you don’t know. Apart from being at the scene of your accident, the woman who struck you, Jasmine Palumbo, and this woman—both of them work for the Bexholt Group, the big communications security company headquartered in Maryland. Jasmine Palumbo is a supervisor there in security engineering. Corbitt was in accounting. Corbitt had worked at Bexholt for five years at the time of her death, Palumbo for eight.
“I’ve had several hours to think about how this all went down. If we eliminate all of it being coincidence, it’s got to have something to do with the CIA analyst who struck your car and disappeared. For whatever reason, someone eliminated Corbitt, made it look like a common crime. Was she a loose end? Was it something she knew she shouldn’t know? Was it something she did? Someone saw her who shouldn’t have? We don’t know any of it yet.”
Savich said, “Security engineering and accounting. Strange combination. And you said Corbitt was standing on the street watching the accident?”
“More likely watching her co-worker Jasmine or looking for Justice Cummings,” Sherlock said.
Ben said, “My vote is she was looking for Cummings. Who was he going to meet after work at the Blaze Café? We spotted two people he probably saw outside the café before he ran. We couldn’t identify them, the angles weren’t right. Do you want the FBI techs to have a go?”
“Yes, send them over,” Savich said.
Sherlock said, “What does the CIA say about all this? Have they bothered to share anything, like what Cummings’s major responsibilities were?”
Savich said, “Of course not. They say his job description is need-to-know only. Mr. Maitland is pissed, to say the least. I imagine he’ll go see Cummings’s boss and his boss’s boss today, try to find out if Cummings knows either Eleanor Corbitt or Jasmine Palumbo.”
Ben laughed. “From what I hear the CIA keep their operations so close to the vest even they sometimes can’t find them. But your Mr. Maitland, my money’s on him.”
Sherlock saw a bull of a man, his dark brown hair slashed through with gray strands, standing behind a big desk, leaning toward her, his palms pressed flat. Suddenly, there was a big smile, at something she’d said? She remembered him, he had indeed been at the hospital.
Ben said, “Sherlock, is something wrong?”
She shook her head, looked back down at the pretty woman who was dead at age thirty-six. What had she done? Or seen? Or failed to do?
As they walked out of the morgue, Sherlock said, “I recognized on some level I’m comfortable with autopsies. I knew what I was seeing and being told, and it didn’t make me want to hurl. Have I ever met Dr. Horowitz before, Ben?”
“Yes, many times.” He was pleased she’d called him by his first name, though to her he was still a stranger.
Savich said, “If you hadn’t caught the case, Ben, if you hadn’t recognized her, I strongly doubt a connection would ever have been made. It’s Mr. Maitland’s call now. Time for us to see what he’s planning.”
