Sherlock said, “Did you get any impression she was hurting?”

Cawley shook his head. “I saw Nesser jerk her up and pull her after him into the woods. Then I was putting pressure on my arm and trying to get to my SIG, hoping I wasn’t going to die. Ben and Tommy came up and we took off after them.”

A few minutes later, just as Cawley James was about to fall into a morphine stupor, Savich gave him his cell phone number. “Call if you think of anything else.” He paused in the doorway, turned. “You didn’t deserve to be shot, Cawley; you did okay in that impossible situation.” He shook Galen Markey’s hand. “If you really want to punish him, call his mother.”

Cawley moaned.

Sherlock laughed.

Galen Markey caught up with them just as they were leaving the hospital. “Hold up a second. We’ve got a report of two sheriff’s deputies shot last night near Pamplin, about sixty miles up the road from Fort Pessel. One of them is dead. The other deputy was sending in the license number while her partner made contact. When he was shot, she went to help and was shot herself, in the chest. They’ve taken her to surgery twice; don’t know if she’ll make it.”

24

FORT PESSEL, VIRGINIA

Monday morning

Savich got a call from Galen as he stepped into Carly Schuster’s house, telling him a hiker had found the Trailblazer in the woods just over the North Carolina border, and a dark blue 2001 Chevy Malibu was reported stolen from a small tobacco farm a half-mile away.

He pocketed his cell, turned, and smiled at her as Sherlock said, “We appreciate your taking the time to speak with us, Mrs. Schuster. The principal told us you have no official affiliation with the high school, but you’ve tutored a number of students in computer science through the years, one of them Victor Nesser. Could you please tell us about him?”

She waved them both to the sofa as she said, “Goodness, yes, I taught Victor everything I knew. He was self-taught to that point and really quite talented. I’ll tell you, he was beyond me in a few months. He’s a natural, the first one I’ve seen. He didn’t do that well in his school courses, a teacher friend of mine told me, and he never took any computer classes. He didn’t tell me why. But he was hungry for learning it, you know?”

Savich smiled. “Yes, I know what you mean.”

“Ah, do I have a kindred spirit in my living room?”

Savich only smiled. “Can you tell us what you remember about the Smileys?”

Her lips unseamed and her very white buck teeth appeared again. Carly Schuster nodded. “Ah, yes, the Smileys. I didn’t know Jennifer Smiley very well, saw her in town from time to time, nodded to her, you know, said hi and how are you, but nothing more than that. I’ll tell you though, the word is Mrs. Smiley’s a piece of work. She managed the Lone Star Bar out on Route Thirty-three, just south of town. Lots of stories about how the place got drunk and rowdy on the weekends, and she with it. She lived off and on with the owner, a biker with tattoos. I wondered how she could let Lissy live in the same house with that man. Then he was killed driving that motorcycle of his, ran headlong into a bridge abutment.

“Everyone thought Jennifer Smiley would inherit the place, but he left it in his will to a cousin from up north somewhere. She was very angry about it, I heard. Then one day, maybe three months ago, she and Lissy were simply gone. Yes, it was right after school was over, I remember, though I don’t see how it mattered, since Lissy hardly went. Then poof—they were gone, their house locked up. Their neighbor, Ms. Ellie, thought they’d gone on a long vacation. It had been just the two of them, you know, since Victor left right after he graduated high school three years ago.”

Suddenly her lips seamed shut over her buck teeth and she was shaking her head. “Oh, goodness, since you’re FBI agents, that must mean Victor has done something illegal. And the Smileys? Will you tell me?”

Savich said, “We’re looking for both Lissy Smiley and Victor Nesser. They’re wanted in connection to a series of bank robberies.”

Sherlock said, “Did you hear about the bank robberies in Kentucky and Virginia by a group called the Gang of Four? Most of them were killed up in Washington, D.C.”

Carly Schuster shook her head. “Sorry, I refuse to watch the news, it’s too depressing.”

Savich wanted to see those buck teeth again; they made her smile quite charming.

Carly said slowly, “So you’re saying Jennifer Smiley was also involved in this Gang of Four?”

Sherlock nodded. “From what we know now, she was the leader.”