Backfire

“Even if a foreign government did set the Cahills on Mark Lindy, I don’t know which one. I’ll be speaking to O’Rourke’s team again while you’re in the air, see exactly what they have, if anything, that might help us find him.”

“All right, Cheney, see you this afternoon,” Savich said. He and his laptop MAX had a lot of reading to do about the Cahills on their way to California.

And flying with Sean was always a treat.

Before they left for the coast on the 8:19 a.m. United flight out of Dulles, Sherlock called her parents in San Francisco. “Lacey, you’re flying into a real mess here,” her father, Judge Corman Sherlock, said. “Ramsey’s shooting is all over local TV, and everyone is out for blood. What with his martial arts heroics in his own courtroom five years ago, you’d think most of the media around here would imply he’s unevolved and uncivilized. Go figure.

“There’s lots of speculation, as you’d expect, but no one knows a thing yet, and the FBI hasn’t said a word.

“The police commissioner’s got a press conference scheduled at noon. We’ll see if she’s going to try to squeeze the SFPD into bed with the FBI. It would be a good career move.

“I saw Ramsey yesterday. He was on his way out to meet his family to go listen to Emma practice with the symphony at Davies Hall.” He paused. “I told him I’d heard he’d postponed the murder trial, but he didn’t tell me anything, only shook his head, said it was too sensitive and too soon to talk about.

“We’re looking forward to seeing all of you. Your mother and I will get to take good care of Sean, of course, while the two of you are out finding the people responsible. I know you’ll nail whoever did this.”

From Dad’s mouth to God’s ears, Sherlock thought.

“This is an awful thing, Lacey, an awful thing. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the trial he postponed. Do you think that’s possible?”

—

By the end of the very long flight, Sherlock and Savich agreed they would rather eat week-old frozen artichoke dip than compete against Sean in another computer-based adventure of Atoc the Incan Wizard, a young Incan boy who used numbers, magic, and nerve to unravel the knottiest arithmetic problems and bring down an endless number of villains. Sherlock called Atoc the Harry Potter of Machu Picchu. During most of the flight, she played with Sean while Dillon read files on MAX and Skyped Cheney, working out what the Criminal Apprehension Unit could do. Cheney said, “It would help us for MAX to work on trying to locate any offshore stash the Cahills might have, and what talent they could have called in on short notice. We’ve had no luck as of yet.”

“Eggs all in the Cahill basket, Cheney?”

“No, but it makes more sense than some sort of foreign government conspiracy to shoot Ramsey. I mean, if a foreign government was paying the Cahills for Mark Lindy’s top-secret materials, and they threatened to talk if they weren’t somehow found innocent, said government would more likely have them eliminated, not a federal judge or a federal prosecutor. There could be too much hell to pay for that.”

Savich said, “The Cahills are the obvious suspects, but what would it gain them to kill Judge Hunt?”

“Maybe they were afraid O’Rourke had already told Ramsey too much,” Cheney said. “But you’re right. We’re being thorough. We’re looking at mail threats to Judge Hunt, letters and emails going back three years, and we’ve started a review of his cases going back even further. I’m making sure the SFPD is in the loop, passing along some assignments to them. We can use the manpower.” He sighed, then added, “There are already endless complications, since Ramsey isn’t an anonymous federal judge like most of his confederates. Nope, he’s Judge Dredd, superhero. The mayor, the police commissioner, the major news outlets, even the conductor for the San Francisco Symphony have called me, wanting to know what progress we’ve made. The police commissioner is pushing for a task force, composed of the SFPD, the FBI, and the federal marshals, with the commissioner herself in charge. As if that’s going to happen. I’m already getting an ulcer.”

Savich asked, “Any progress on the missing federal prosecutor yet? Mickey O’Rourke?”

The answer was no.

When Savich ended the call, Sherlock said, “A federal prosecutor missing—it sounds like a spy novel. I’m very grateful my father wasn’t the one judging the Cahill case.”

“Mama, you weren’t paying attention. I got you!”