Eureka, California

The Mermaid’s Tail

Savich flipped open his cell phone, which was softly beeping the theme song from The Lion King, listened, and said, “Simon Russo? Is this the knucklehead who shot himself in the foot with my SIG Sauer?” Then he laughed and listened some more. Then he talked. Savich realized quickly enough that Simon didn’t like what he had been hearing, didn’t like it at all. What the hell was going on here? He listened as Simon said slowly, “Listen, Savich, just get your grandmother’s paintings safely back to Washington. Do it right away, don’t dither or let the museum curator put you off. Don’t take any shortcuts with their safety, but move quickly. I’ll be down to Washington as soon as the paintings get there. I want to see them. It’s very important that I see them. Don’t take any chances.”

Savich frowned into his cell phone. What was this all about? “I know you like my grandmother’s paintings, Simon. She gave you your favorite when you graduated from MIT, but you don’t have to come down to Washington to see them right away.”

“Yes,” Simon said, “trust me on this, I do.” And he hung up.

Sherlock was standing on the far side of the bedroom, her own cell phone dangling from her hand. “Sweetheart,” he called out to her, “strangest thing. Simon is all hot under the collar to see Lily’s eight Sarah Elliott paintings. He’s being mysterious, won’t tell me a thing, just insists he has to see the paintings as soon as they arrive in Washington.”

Sherlock didn’t say anything. Savich felt a sharp point of fear. Jesus, she looked shell-shocked, no, beyond that. She looked drop-dead frightened, her pupils dilated, her skin as pale as ice. He was at her side in an instant. He gathered her against him, felt that she was as cold as ice as well, and held on to her tightly. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong. It’s Sean, isn’t it? Oh God, something’s happened to our boy?”

She shook her head hard, but still no words.

He pulled back, saw the shock of fear still deep in her eyes, and shook her lightly. “Please tell me, Sherlock, talk to me. What’s going on? What happened?”

She swallowed, and managed finally to get the words out. “Sean’s all right. I checked in at the office. I heard Ollie yell in the background that he had to speak to us. Oh, God, Dillon, Ollie said that Tammy Tuttle just up and walked out of the jail wing of Patterson-Wright Hospital.”

“No,” Savich said, shaking his head in utter disbelief, “you’ve got to be kidding me.” Things like that just didn’t happen. She was very dangerous, and everyone at the hospital knew it. He continued to stare down at his wife, wanting to see some flicker of doubt that wasn’t there. “That can’t be possible,” he went on slowly. The panic of it was nearly under control, but he just didn’t want to believe it, to accept it. “She was in the jail ward. She was well guarded. The woman is nuts. Everyone knows what she’s done. She couldn’t just walk out.”

“They were going to put her in restraints tomorrow or the next day, when they thought she was well enough to be a danger to them. Then there was a screwup in the scheduling of the guards. Evidently, she was ready for something to give her a chance. When she got her break, she snagged a nurse, knocked her out cold, and took her white pantsuit. At least she didn’t kill her. But she walked out.”

“It hasn’t been even a week since they amputated her arm. How could she have the strength to take down a nurse? They’re used to violent patients; they’re trained. She’s got only one arm, for God’s sake.”

“Obviously no one thought she had the strength or the ability, and that’s why when there was the scheduling foul-up. No one was really concerned. And that’s why no one even discovered she was gone until a nurse went in to give her a shot and found another nurse tied up naked in the closet. They figure she got herself at least a two-hour window.”

Savich shook himself. His brain was back in gear, finally. “All right. Where would she go? Do they have any leads?”

“Ollie says there are more cops looking for her than the hunt for Marlin and Erasmus Jones. Everyone knows she’s really scary, that she’s truly dangerous. No one wants her free again.” Sherlock cleared her throat. “There’s the question of those things you saw in the barn, Dillon-the Ghouls.”

He squeezed her again and said against her temple, her curly hair tickling his nose, “I know what I want to do right this minute. I want to talk to Sean and listen to him gurgle. That little guy is so sane, and that’s what we need right now, a big dose of normalcy.” He didn’t add that he just wanted to know for sure, all the way to his soul, that his little boy was all right. As for the Ghouls-if they were real, and Savich knew to his bones that they were-then it was possible there was more danger than anyone could begin to imagine. Would the FBI let all the people looking for Tammy Tuttle know that she could have accomplices? Or were they just going to ignore everything he’d told them?

They took turns gurgling with their son, who was busy gnawing a banana, not a graham cracker. Then they called Ollie back to see if there was any news yet.

“Yes,” Ollie Hamish said, “but not good.” Sherlock could see him leaning back in his chair, spinning it just a bit, because he was nervous and scared. “Tammy Tuttle just murdered a teenage boy a block outside of Chevy Chase, Maryland. She left a note on the body. Well, actually, she didn’t leave it on the body, she left it attached to the body. It’s addressed to you, Savich.”

“Read it, Ollie.”

“Here goes: ‘I’ll get you and I’ll rip your arm off and then I’ll cut your fucking head off, you murdering bastard. Then I’ll give you to the Ghouls.’ ”

“That’s real cheery,” Savich said. “Was it addressed specifically to me?”

“Yeah, which means she knows your name. How? Everyone thinks she probably heard people talking about you in the hospital. She left her fingerprints all over the paper and envelope, obviously didn’t care. Oh yes, at the murder scene, there was also a black-painted circle, and the boy was inside it. She’s loose, Savich. Everyone is shaken to their toes. It was a really gruesome crime scene. That poor kid, he was only thirteen years old.”

“Black-painted circle,” Savich said. “Tammy called to the Ghouls to come get the boys in the circle.”

“I was hoping maybe you really hadn’t seen anything, Savich, that maybe you’d just experienced a temporary vision distortion. Since the boy’s body was a mess, maybe more of a mess than a single one-armed sick woman could have done, then maybe these things-these Ghoul characters-were somehow involved. Jimmy Maitland brought it up. And the bosses even had a big meeting about it. They’ve all decided that what you saw in that barn were dust devils.”

Savich said finally, “Mr. Maitland has my number here if he wants to talk about it. Now, here’s something to do. Bring in Marilyn Warluski.”

“We already went looking. She’s long gone, no one knows where.”

“MAX found out that she has an ex-boyfriend in Bar Harbor, Maine, name of Tony Fallon. Check there. Just maybe she’ll be with him and know something. Tammy has to go somewhere, and Marilyn loaned her and her brother that barn for their use. Did Tammy steal any money?”

“Not at the hospital, but elsewhere? We haven’t heard of anything yet. Also, there have been a dozen reports of stolen vehicles. We’re checking all those out as well.”

“Okay. Find Marilyn and wring her out, Ollie. I think you should be the one in direct contact with her. You know more than the others.”

“Okay. Let me take a deep breath here. I’m very glad you aren’t listed in the phone book and your phone number’s private. It’s unlikely she could find you where you are, but I want you to be careful, Savich, really careful.”