fill him in on the new information they’d brought back from the Norfolk police. They’d update him about the Norfolk case soon enough.
Savich turned to MAX. There were thousands of hits about Rebekah’s grandfather, Congressman John “Methodist” Clarkson from Clairemont, Virginia. Savich scrolled through them quickly until he found an odd news story and stopped. It was a story about Clarkson’s close friend Nate Elderby, a criminal defense attorney who’d drowned in 1995 while out fishing alone on Dawg Creek, the local fishing hole where the two men often spent lazy afternoons together. He read the rumors about how Nate had drowned—speculation about a marriage gone sour, bad feelings between the good friends. Police investigated and concluded Nate Elderby drank too many Buds, fell overboard, and drowned. The locals said Clarkson was usually with him, but he claimed he wasn’t that day. He was a powerful congressman, so surely he couldn’t have been involved, said the police, much less murdered his best friend. But it appeared the gossip didn’t go away. Savich sat back, his gut doing the rumba. Could this Nate Elderby, long dead, have anything to do with what was happening now?
Had Rebekah’s grandfather actually been with his best friend fishing that long-ago afternoon? Had they argued? What about? Had Clarkson slammed him on the head, dumped him out of the fishing boat, and swum back to shore? It was so many years ago, but murder always left a stain and survivors who might want revenge or to get back what was theirs. Was that the reason Rebekah didn’t want to talk? Did she know something about Elderby’s murder and fear he’d find out?
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