“Neither have I, but he sang it in a big deep booming voice. It was sort of catchy.”
“I wonder how much that turkey weighed,” Molly said. “Do you think Safeway will have one that big?”
Emma smiled. “Not a chance. That turkey must have weighed one hundred pounds. I think we’d eat leftovers for a year. I hear Mrs. Hicks.”
Molly called out, “Cal, Gage, would the two of you stop trying to break each other’s heads? Are you ready to go, Em?”
But Emma wasn’t looking at her mother, she was staring out the window.
Harry smoothly turned his beloved dark blue Shelby Mustang onto Geary Street.
“Why don’t you tell me about the old newspaper photo of Judge Dredd with an X through his face you found at the scene?” Eve said.
He whipped around and looked at her. “How’d you know—well, yeah, I’m surprised that bit got out. Yeah, that’s what we found. Sitting under the big hydrangea bush in the backyard.”
Eve wasn’t about to tell him she knew because she’d overheard him and Cheney talking about it. “The shooter rubbing our noses in it?”
“That’s what I think.” He gave her another surprised look.
Eve said, “So we’re going to meet the two FBI hotshots at Ramsey’s house in Sea Cliff, check out how the photo got in the hydrangea? Check out the beach for signs of the Zodiac?”
“The forensic team couldn’t find anything on the beach, so no need to traipse down there,” Harry said. “You ever hear of Savich and Sherlock before?”
“Who hasn’t? Only two weeks ago they were front and center on the Kirsten Bolger case, and can you believe it, Bolger grew up right here in San Francisco?” She’d savored the colorful reporting, even felt a good dollop of envy, although she’d never admit it, at least to an FBI agent, particularly this FBI agent.
Harry said, “At least the local coverage has finally run out of juice on Kirsten Bolger’s family. They’ll be taking a rest until the trial begins next year, when they’ll light up their torches again.”
Eve marveled at the two agents—married. What could two people in such stress-filled, dangerous jobs possibly have to say to each other after, say, a violent shoot-out, like the one with Bolger in a North Carolina tobacco field? Hey, sweetie, you want to go get a beer to celebrate we’re still alive? She wondered if Sherlock painted her toenails, and imagined a nice French. And Savich was big, tough, hard as nails, good-looking. “Is Savich as fast as he looks?”
Harry nodded as he braked for a red light. “He is. He’s a fourth-degree black belt. Sherlock is a first-degree, a shodan—”
“Yeah, yeah, I also know when you’re a sixth dan, you wear a red-and-white belt. I mean, come on, why care so much about the color of your freaking belt? One big show, a business, that’s all it is. The bottom line in the real world is to beat the crap out of your opponent, however you can.”
“How do you know about a sixth dan?”
“From a book I saw at my boss’s house.”
“At Maynard’s?”
“Yep. He hosts these big barbecues, feeds all hundred of the deputy marshals regularly.”
“That’s a lot of spareribs.” Harry shot a look at her. “Cheney is new at his job, but I wouldn’t mind if he picked up on the barbecue ribs idea from Maynard. So that’s what marshals do? What about fighting?”
She gave him a fast smile, gone in the next instant. “We’ve got martial arts experts of our own, with all sorts of belts and colors. Lots of our deputy marshals are scrappers who like to show off their ripped-up knuckles and bruised kidneys.”
“And you’re not into martial arts?”
“Don’t know about that. I fight dirty, real dirty. Like I said, you want to put your opponent on the ground, his knees around his neck, as fast as possible.” She started to ask him if he’d like to visit her in the marshals’ gym, wear a couple of his prized belts, then remembered her boss telling her, Play nice, Barbieri, play nice. She cleared her throat. “So Savich is a computer expert, right?”
She fought dirty? He thought of her toilet adventure in the Macy’s women’s room in Omaha and smiled. “Give Savich a motherboard and he can make bread with it in no time at all.”
“Hey, that was sort of sweet.”
“Sweet? Hey, I tell you what. Let’s mix it up one of these days, Barbieri. I’ll get you feeling a little respect for the discipline. Because you’re so cute with that blond cheerleader ponytail swinging around, I’ll go easy on you.”