Power Play

“Glory, my name is Glory Cudlow, and that jerkface—”

“No, Glory,” she repeated very slowly, spacing out her words to break through, “the bastard wasn’t your ex-husband. Lou wasn’t after you. Whoever it was, he was after me.”

Glory looked at her, slack-jawed. Was that disappointment she saw? Surely not. Sherlock lightly touched her flushed cold face. “Believe me. Okay, tell me, Mrs. Cudlow, did you recognize that motorcycle?”

“No, I’ve never seen it before.”

“So it doesn’t belong to Lou?”

“He could have gotten a new motorcycle, to celebrate me being gone. It’d be just like him.”

A half-dozen people were crowding around now, asking questions, others looking at the Kawasaki. Thank God no one had been hurt in that rain of bullets. Sherlock dialed 911 and gave the very calm female dispatcher the particulars. When she punched off her cell, she asked everyone to stick around to talk to the police. She remembered Davis telling how Natalie Black done the very same thing yesterday morning.

There was grumbling, but four people stayed, bless them. Sherlock got Mrs. Cudlow’s cell number and her address. It was only two blocks away. Sherlock sent her home with an order to calm herself with a water glass full of merlot, assured her for a third time it wasn’t Lou who’d shot at her.

She waved at the older couple across the street, who were still staring at the crumpled motorcycle when two Metro cop cars screeched around the corner. Two and a half minutes, good time. Sherlock showed them her creds, asked one of the officers to go over immediately to the couple before they left, since they’d seen the man closer than anyone. “Tell them to describe him as exactly as they can while he’s still fresh in their minds. I’ll come see them as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, yeah,” one young officer said. “Glad to be reminded how to do the job.”

Two veteran cops arrived in a second Crown Vic. She introduced herself and showed them her creds. While Officer Newberg interviewed the witnesses, Sherlock walked to the motorcycle beside Officer Clooney. It was wrapped around the fire hydrant, a double helix of black smoke curling out of the smashed engine, and the smell of burned rubber was thick and nasty in the cold air. Thankfully, the fire hydrant hadn’t burst and flooded the area with a gusher of freezing water.

“And that’s the problem trying to do nasty deeds from a motorcycle,” Officer Clooney said. “Not enough control, and if a tire goes, the sucker’s down and out. The guy was lucky to be able to run off. Could you tell what kind of gun he was using?”

“Probably a revolver since he fired off six shots, then shoved the gun back in his coat,” she said, “so no shells.

“As to the make—this is an impression, since it happened so fast, but what my brain picked up was that it wasn’t new, it looked big and worn, like one of those Colt New Service revolvers, you know, the kind your great-granddaddy brought back from the Great War? Maybe a Colt M1917 you’d find mounted on the wall or a Colt official police revolver. Maybe the guy bought it at an antique-gun show.” She sighed. “Or maybe I imagined the whole thing and it will turn out to be a Beretta.”

Officer Clooney asked for a description and Sherlock told him the man was wearing a camel wool coat, his face covered up, and he was wearing sunglasses, adding, “I couldn’t tell his age, but when the motorcycle hit the fire hydrant, he was pretty fast jumping off and getting out of there.”

Officer Clooney jotted this down. “Okay, I’ll put out an APD, our people will canvass the neighborhood, but you know as well as I do it doesn’t look promising.

Officer Clooney called in the motorcycle’s license plate. A moment later, he said, “The Kawasaki belongs to Don E. Huzar, Farlow, Maryland, reported stolen early this morning. You have any idea why this guy would try to kill you, Agent Sherlock? Is there some gnarly case you’re working on? Maybe a drug gang?”

“I honestly don’t know who it was.” She started to tell Officer Clooney about her feeling someone had been staring at her, then stopped at the roar of the Porsche engine taking a corner too fast onto 34th.

She smiled. “That’s my husband. I guess your nine-one-one operator called him.”

Officer Clooney grinned. “Agent Savich, right?”

“Right.”

“You bet it was all over the air. You and your husband are always good business.”

Savich pulled the Porsche with great precision close to the opposite curb, burst out and hit the pavement running. He stopped six inches from her, saw she was all right, and took several deep breaths. Slowly he reached out his hand and cupped her face, studied her.