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8
If Zoltan was the key, the catalyst, perhaps the instigator, then to what end?
Savich wanted to meet this medium, Zoltan, a name both mysterious and exotic. He’d never really thought about mediums beyond the fact they made their living feeding off the desperate grief of others. Savich had dealt with gifted people over the years, and he thought he’d seen it all, but no, there was always something more, something beyond.
He turned to MAX and typed her name into his background search program. While he waited, he gave MAX another task: searching online images of coastal towns within a hundred-mile radius of Washington, D.C., that would match the partial puzzle picture. Had to be lots of possible towns, but maybe MAX could find it. While MAX worked, Savich studied the photos of the red box Lucy had forwarded to him. Why a red box? Does it have some symbolic meaning to the person who sent it?
MAX gave his sharp beep, and Savich saw a photo of Zoltan on the screen. Her birth name was Lorralynn Weatherspoon, born thirty-eight years ago in Willicott, Maryland. He drew back in surprise. Willicott was Chief Ty Christie’s town and home to Gatewood mansion, where he’d found Agent Sala Porto tied up and left to die in an upstairs closet. He and Sherlock and Sean had visited Ty and Sala in Willicott the previous month for a barbecue at Ty’s lake cottage. Sala had recently transferred to the Baltimore Field Office, much less of a daily commute for him since he was now living with Ty. And where would that lead? Life never ceased to amaze.
Weatherspoon had changed her name legally to Zoltan six years ago, a Hungarian man’s given name she’d adopted as her mononym. A good choice, he thought again, mysterious and mystical, more of a draw than Weatherspoon. He scanned the rest, made notes, and left MAX to his second task.
He saw Sherlock peel away from Ruth and Ollie and come over to him, grinning. He wanted to hug her, but didn’t, not here in his office in the CAU. She said, “I’m starving, didn’t have time for lunch. You?”
Savich realized he hadn’t eaten, either. They went to the seventh floor to have Indian food—dal, a lentil soup, was the touted dish of the day. Shirley warned them to beware of the peppers, the suckers would burn your tonsils.
When they snagged a table in a quiet corner and sat down with their dal and naan, Sherlock said, “Sorry to say we’ll probably have to go back to Norfolk again soon. I wish I could stay here with you after all that’s happened today. Tell me more about it. I’ll eat, you talk.”
Savich went through what had happened to Rebekah Manvers, beginning with the séance.
She whistled when he finished. “It never stops, does it?” She waved him back to his lentil soup. He wasn’t paying attention and bit into a pepper. Two glasses of water later, Sherlock still laughing, he decided he would survive. He chewed on a piece of warm naan to soothe his throat and told her about Chief of Staff Arlan Burger’s calling Mr. Maitland.
Sherlock listened closely as she dipped her own naan into the rich, thick soup and chewed slowly. She said at last, “Imagine, this medium, Zoltan, is from Willicott. You want me to give Ty a call, have her find out about her and her family? Get a feel for this woman before we go see her?”
“Good idea. Yes, check her out. MAX can give us the facts of her life, but not what she was all about growing up, what people thought of her and her family.”
She smiled at him. “So much has happened today, so many threads to follow, not even counting the red box and the puzzle. What I can’t understand is why Rebekah Manvers isn’t telling you everything, whether she thinks it’s important or not. That’s got to mean she’s hiding something.”
She sat back in her chair and patted her stomach. “But you’re not going to interview Rebekah Manvers again and try to convince her to talk to you, are you? You’re going to visit that medium, Zoltan, first. I can’t see a way she’s not involved, Dillon.”
He put his soup spoon down and smiled at her. Sherlock laughed. “At the very least, this Zoltan is bound to be entertaining.”
He spotted another hot pepper and gently spooned it onto the bread plate. “I haven’t done a deep run on Rebekah or Congressman Manvers, either. Do you know anything about her?”
“I know she’s much younger than her husband, late twenties to his mid-fifties. No kids together, but they haven’t been married long. I believe I heard he has two sons by his first wife, both older than his new wife.” She paused a moment, studied his face. “Makes you wonder if maybe there’s bad blood between the sons and their new stepmama.”
“That’s possible. Do you have any doubts Zoltan is a fake?”
“Now, there’s a strange question for a man with your gifts to ask.” She sat forward, took his hand. “All I’ve ever been certain of is there are things I don’t understand, that no one is able to understand, not really. If Zoltan is a charlatan, you’ll expose her. Can the chief of staff count on you figuring it all out by close of business today?”
Such faith she had in him. He managed to avoid another pepper. “We’ll see. At this point nothing would surprise me.”
“You’re planning to see Zoltan tonight?”
“You want to come with me? I’ll bet my sister and Simon would love to babysit Sean.”
Sherlock shook her head. “I’d be a third thumb.” She leaned across the table, took his hand, and squeezed it. “Listen to me, Dillon. You be careful. We have no idea what to expect.”
Back in his office, Savich called Zoltan’s private number and spoke to her secretary, Candy. Was that a punch of nerves in her voice when he identified himself? What did Candy know about any of this? She told him Zoltan’s last client would be gone by eight o’clock that evening.
