Double Take

Front page, mentions an FBI agent saving her bacon?”
    “Well, yeah, some.”
    “Yeah, you’re a damned clam. You running the whole show?”
    Savich laughed. “Let me get Sherlock on the line. You two can chat for a minute and she can tell you about Sean’s latest computer games— Pajama Sam and Dragon Tales!’ He knew Sherlock would tell her father more about Sheriff Dixon Noble of Maestro, Virginia—she’d be excited they would meet. He cupped his hand over his cell and said to Ruth, “I’ll be right back.”
    After he gave Sherlock his cell, he watched her face for a moment as she spoke to her father and heard the familiar warmth in her laugh. When he got back to his office, he said, “Ruth, you know as well as I do that when you’ve been married to someone, you’d know that person in an instant, no matter how much time has passed, no matter how much the person has changed her appearance. Dix will know tonight. This fast.” Savich snapped his fingers. “Right now, Ruth, there’s absolutely nothing more to be done. I want you to think about cheering Rob on to pitch a no-hitter against the Panthers, okay?”
    She gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah, okay, you’re right, but it’s hard, Dillon, really hard.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “If Rob pitches a no-hitter his brother might run away from home, he’ll be so disgusted at all the swaggering.” Her shoulders were straighter, Savich saw, as she left his office. She was striding again, long, no-nonsense steps—the Ruth walk—head up, and ready to kick butt.
    All of a sudden there was a lot going on in San Francisco, he thought. Funny how many times a particular place became a nexus of things. Savich watched Sherlock walk back toward his office, punching off his cell. He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about all this. He wondered if she’d admitted to her father that Sean had beaten her at Pajama Sam.

CHAPTER 11
    SAN FRANCISCO
    Friday morning

    Evelyn Sherlock said to her husband, “I saw Charlotte Pallack last month at a fashion show at the Hyatt Embarcadero. She’s beautiful—no, better than beautiful, she’s got style and intelligence and a very interesting face. She was on the standoffish side. Actually, she’s always been somewhat reserved since I met her some two years ago.
    “I remember Mazie Wallace told me—you know, that nasal voice of hers lowered, but not enough—that Charlotte spent a bundle on clothes Mazie said she wouldn’t even want to see off the hanger, but who really knew about her background? Mazie’s mean-spirited so I ignored what she said.”
    “What did that mean—her background? I thought she came from Boston money, something like that.”
    “I don’t have a clue.”
    “I don’t suppose Thomas Pallack was around?”
    “Thomas? No, that day it was all women.”
    Corman said, “I’ve got to go in about five minutes. Oh, here you are, Isabel. I’m sorry for the short notice, but we’re going to have a houseguest tonight and perhaps tomorrow night as well. It will all depend on how the dinner goes tonight. His name is Sheriff Dixon Noble. He’s a friend of Savich and Sherlock. And we’ll be having dinner for five tonight.”
    “I hadn’t realized you’d already called Thomas,” Evelyn said. “Oh yes. Do you know I didn’t even wake him up. He’d already been through the Wall Street Journal. All I had to do was intimate that I might be mellowing toward his newest political candidate—what’s his name? Whatever, he’s running for district attorney.” At his wife’s laugh, he smiled back at her. “And that did it. He and his wife will be here at seven o’clock.”
    “That was clever,” Evelyn said, saluting him with her coffee cup.
    “My roast pork with my special mint sauce, Judge Sherlock?”
    “Yes, and apple pie.”
    Isabel nodded. “We haven’t had guests in at least a month. This’ll be fun,” and she left the dining room, humming and making lists in her head.
    Forty-five minutes later Judge Sherlock reached his chambers on the sixteenth floor of one of the ugliest gray buildings in San Francisco, the U.S. Government Federal District Court on Golden Gate Avenue. He dealt with his clerks in record time, closed his door, and booted up his computer. He had twenty-three minutes until he had to be in court. He typed in Julia Ransom’s name and began reading. After seeing that morning’s newspaper article about the attempt on her life and the involvement of a local FBI