Point Blank

Savich sighed. “He knew we probably tracked that call Claudia made and might have a description of it. No point in waiting now. It could be they headed out of town.”

Dane said, “But you don’t believe it.”

Sherlock was silent for a long moment, twisting a lock of curly hair around her finger, a habit when she was thinking hard. “No, Moses isn’t about to leave, not until he takes his final shot at you.”

Savich nodded. “Then we’d better get ready.”

CHAPTER 28

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

FRIDAY MORNING

AT TEN O’CLOCK , Dix called Gordon’s office at Stanislaus.

“. . . I don’t know why I need to tell you that, Dix. She’s not a student here. I don’t see the point in involving her. Listen, it was nothing, a brief fling, nothing to make the earth move for either of us.”

“I can keep you nice and warm in my jail, Gordon, until you tell me what I want to know. Is the woman you left out Cynthia, Tony’s wife?”

“Cynthia,” Gordon said. If Dix wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of distaste in Gordon’s voice.

“Well, good for you,” Dix said. “That’s a relief. Talk to me, Gordon.” The silence dragged on. Dix said, “I’m thinking handcuffs would make a nice visual for all your professors and students—”

“No, Dix! You can’t do that. I’m simply trying to protect a woman’s reputation, nothing more. You think I would sleep with Cynthia?”

“A woman’s reputation?” Dix asked. “Not a girl’s? Could it be there was maybe even a thread of gray in her hair?”

“No, she’s gorgeous and she’d sue me—”

Dix shook his head. “And here I thought Ginger would have the good taste not to sleep with a man her father’s age. You never know, do you? At least it wasn’t Cynthia. Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Gordon finally gave it up. He told Dix he’d slept with Ginger Stanford two years ago, and all right, her mother, too, if they were interested, but the two of them lasted only a couple of months, hardly enough time to even regard it in the grand scheme of things.

When he paused to take a breath, Dix asked, “Who broke things off?”

“We ended up not liking each other very much. Ginger told me she’d expected more from me because she’d heard I was experienced, and that I didn’t give her what she wanted. She told me to take myself to a sex education class. Can you imagine the gall? Sex education! Me!”

“And Gloria Stanford? Was she unreasonable in her demands, too? Like mother, like daughter?”

A ruminative pause, Dix thought. “She’s immensely talented, you know that, Dix, but the fact is we were never really that attracted to each other. She never criticized me like her bitch of a daughter.”

Before he punched off, Dix warned Gordon, “Don’t even think about calling Ginger, Gordon. If you do I won’t give you an extra blanket in your cell.”

“SHERIFF, AGENT, WHAT are you doing here?” Henry O was on his feet, the question out of his mouth the moment Dix and Ruth came into the office. “Oh, I see. You don’t know anything more than the last time you were here, do you?”

Good, Dix thought, Gordon hadn’t called. Henry O looked natty in a crisp white shirt and well-made dark gray wool trousers, belted high.

“Actually, Henry, we’re here to arrest Ms. Stanford,” Ruth told him. She gave him a little wave and kept walking, Dix behind her.

“Are you nuts? You don’t arrest a lawyer; she’ll sue your socks off. Wait, wait! Oh, lordie, Ms. Ginger, they rolled over me!”

“Hard to believe,” Ginger Stanford said, rising slowly, dropping her beautiful black pen on the desktop. “It’s okay, Henry. They’re not going to snap on the cuffs, I don’t think, are you, Dix?”

Dix gently shoved Henry out and closed the door. “Good morning, Ginger. Time for you to tell us about your short, uninspired affair with Gordon Holcombe.”

Ginger laughed. “Oh, sit down, both of you. You pried it out of him, did you? Yes, I slept with Gordon, and what a colossal mistake that was. No, simply a waste of my time. I really thought he’d be good. I can’t tell you how many times he gave me this intense, hungry look, but he was just a fumbling old man. I gave him a couple of chances, then kissed him off. End of story. You don’t actually think I had anything to do with those horrible murders, do you?”

Ruth asked, “Did you tell your mother about it?”