Hemlock Bay

“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.”