Whiplash

Erin was listening with only half an ear. She recognized that Bowie was jollying Chief Amos, but she didn't care. She just couldn't get past it-Caskie Royal was dead. Who was next? Was there anyone left to murder besides her? What about Carla Alvarez?

"Bowie?"

He didn't turn to her, simply said over his shoulder, "Yeah?"

"Carla Alvarez."

He didn't miss a beat. "Chief, would you send a couple of officers over to Carla Alvarez's house, make sure she's okay? And stick with her, round the clock for a couple of days? I'm thinking it might be smart to keep a close watch on her."

"Who? Oh, I see your point." The chief hiked up his pants and walked to a small knot of men and one woman standing next to a squad car, spoke quietly to them, then headed straight to his car, not quite at a run but close.

Erin looked after him, but she wasn't thinking about Carla Alvarez anymore, she wasn't even thinking about people who'd tried to blow her up in her Hummer, she was thinking how nice it would be to sit down in her car and go to sleep.

Bowie looked at her, not a dollop of sympathy in his hard eyes or in his hard voice. "You look ready to fall over. Why don't you let me drive Georgie and your own butt home and put you back into bed?"

43

Bowie didn't wait to see if she agreed, he turned on his heel to start for the car door. She grabbed his arm, and he turned back, more than willing to pin back her ears. What stopped him cold was the panic in her eyes. Given that someone had tried to blow her up, panic was probably appropriate. She said, her voice urgent, "Bowie, please tell me what happened here. Do you know who's doing this?"

He was still angry with her, but he was worried about her too. "No, not yet. Mrs. Royal says there were two men. I see you already know that. Did you hear they fired on Savich and Sherlock?"

She nearly fell backward against the Taurus, not a good idea with her back already unhappy. Dr. Kender was right. This was insanity. "They tried to kill Dillon and Sherlock? No, she didn't tell me that."

"Don't hyperventilate. Take some slow, deep breaths. No, keep my jacket on a while longer. Listen, they're both okay, which seems odd, but there you have it. Deep, slow breaths, Erin. That's it."

It took a few seconds but she managed to get herself under control again. "Sorry about that. It's not okay for a private investigator to lose it like that. What do you mean, it's 'odd'?"

"Look at this straight on. Two gunmen murder Caskie Royal with one shot right through the middle of the forehead, then they hear someone coming into the house. They wait at the top of the stairs until Savich and Sherlock are walking up the stairs, admittedly they're alerted, but still, even after firing off at least a dozen rounds, neither of the two gunmen manage to land a single shot."

Thank you, God, was all Erin could think. She looked over to see Dillon and Sherlock standing together, speaking to Agent Dolores Cliff. Erin looked back up at Bowie, saw he was staring back at her as if he was waiting for her to keel over. She lightly touched her hand to his arm. "Yes," she said, "you're right, that is bizarre. You're also freezing. Here's your jacket. I don't need it anymore." She tossed it back to him. "Doesn't sound like real professionals, does it?"

Good, she seemed back together. He said, "It's something to think about. Savich and Sherlock found Mrs. Royal hiding in the closet in her bedroom, clutching her husband's S-and-W."

He repeated the story Mrs. Royal had told, and added, "A good thing for her the shooters had found Caskie Royal first. She said the killers didn't come into the master bedroom-and that's another strange thing. Why didn't they?

"We found brass all over the place, a good dozen rounds from two different weapons. A painting was shot off the wall, wall plaster rained down, and stair railings were splintered and flew everywhere. It looks like a god-awful shoot-out, but as I said, neither Savich nor Sherlock was hit, which seems a miracle. Besides the brass from Savich and Sherlock's SIGs, all the other casings were from a Glock forty and a nine-millimeter Kel-Tec, which does indeed add up to two gunmen."

"Did Dillon and Sherlock hit anyone?"

"They don't know. We didn't find any blood, other than in the laundry room. We also found a jumble of footprints below the big window in the laundry room, looked like a dozen people rather than just two, but maybe the CSI people will figure it out. The laundry room where we found Mr. Royal's body is at the opposite end of the corridor from Mrs. Royal's bedroom. It was a huge mess. Our thinking is he was hiding in there and when the men reached the top of the stairs, they turned left instead of right, found him, and shot him dead."

"So if the gunmen had turned right instead, they would have found Mrs. Royal in the master bedroom. Is that luck, or what?"

"She said the men did come to the bedroom door, but didn't come in."

"Did Mr. Royal have a gun?"

"Not that we could find."