Hemlock Bay

“Besides worrying about Tammy Tuttle, there’s been a triple murder in a small town called Flowers, Texas. The governor called the FBI and demanded that we come in, and so we will. Both the ATF and the FBI are involved. There’s this cult down there that they suspect is responsible for the murder of the local sheriff and his two deputies, who’d gone out to their compound to check things out. Their bodies were found in a ditch outside of town.”

“That’s nuts,” Simon said.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, “it is. Ah, Raleigh, would you mind visiting with Dyrlana for a moment? All this stuff is sort of under wraps.”

Raleigh looked profoundly disappointed, but he left them in the vault. At the doorway, he said, “What about your sister and Mr. Russo? They’re civilians, too.”

“I know, but I can control what they say,” Savich said. “I really couldn’t get away with busting your chops.”

They heard him chuckling as he called out, “Dyrlana! Where is my gumpoc tea?”

“One problem is,” Sherlock said, “that the cult has cleared out, split up into a dozen or more splinter groups and left town in every direction. Nobody knows where the leader is. They’ve pulled in a few of the cult members, but these folks just shake their heads and claim they don’t know anything about it. The only good thing is that we have a witness, of sorts. It seems that one of the women is pregnant by the guru. Lureen was rather angry when she found him seducing another cult member, actually at least three or four other cult members. She slipped away and told the town mayor about it.”

Savich said, “A witness, then. Did she identify the guru as the guy who ordered the murders?”

“Not yet. She’s still thinking about it. She’s afraid she’d screw up her child’s karma if she identified the father as a murderer.”

“Great,” Savich said and sighed. “Like Ollie said, there doesn’t seem to be anything in this life that’s easy. Do we have some sort of name on this guy?”

“Oh, sure, that’s no secret,” Sherlock said. “Wilbur Wright. Lureen just wouldn’t say his name out loud, but everybody knows it, since he was around town for a couple of months.”

“Isn’t that clever?” Savich rubbed the back of his neck, nodded to Simon, grabbed his wife’s hand, and walked out of the vault. He said over his shoulder, “It’s settled then. Lily, you rest and recuperate. Simon, you can stay at the house. I’d feel better if you did. Sherlock and I will call you guys later. Oh yes, don’t spoil Sean. Gabriella is besotted with him already; she doesn’t need any more help. Holler if you want MAX to check anything out for you, Simon.”

“Will do.”

“Oh, yes, there’s one other thing,” Sherlock said to Savich once they were out of the vault and in the gallery itself, alone and beyond the hearing of Lily or Simon. She glanced at Raleigh and Dyrlana, who were drinking gumpoc tea over by the front glass doors.

Savich knew he didn’t want to hear this. He merely looked at her, nodding slowly.

“The guru. He had the hearts cut out of the sheriff and his two deputies.”

“So this is why the Texas governor wants us involved. This guy has probably done something this sick before in other states. Ah, Sherlock, I just knew it couldn’t be as straightforward as you presented it. So, is Behavioral Sciences also involved?”

“Yes. I didn’t want Lily to have to hear that.”

“You’re right. All right, love, let’s go track down Tammy Tuttle and Wilbur Wright.”

Lily Savich and Simon Russo stood in the silent vault, neither of them saying a word. She walked to one of the paintings that was real, not forged—Midnight Shadows. She said, “I wonder why he tried to kill me when he did? What was the hurry? He had four more paintings to have forged. Why now?”

Savich had told Simon most of what had happened to his sister the previous evening, after she’d gone to bed, looking pale and, truth be told, wrung out. All except for the murder attempt on the city bus in Eureka. What had happened to her—what was still happening—was tragic and evil, and it all came on top of the death of her daughter.

But just perhaps they could recover the paintings. He sure wanted to. He said, “That’s a good question. I don’t know why they cut the brake lines. My guess is that something must have happened to worry them, something to make them move up the timetable.”

“But why not just kill me off right away? Surely it would have been easier for Tennyson to simply inherit the paintings, to own them himself. Then he wouldn’t have had to go to all the trouble and risk of finding a first-class forger and then collectors who would want to buy the paintings.”