Eleventh Hour

autopsy’s today.”
    Savich said, “I know Chief Kreider. He was back here last year to appear in front of Congress on commonsense approaches to avoid racial profiling in the Bay Area. I met him down at Quantico on the rifle range. The man’s a good distance shooter. And my father-in-law’s a Federal judge out in San Francisco. He knows lots of people. What do you want me to do?”
    Dane didn’t say anything. Savich thought he was too numb with shock and grief to process what he’d said, but that would change. The good thing was that along with the rage and the pain he would have to deal with moment to moment, he would have his instincts and training kicking in. He said, “Never mind. Tell you what, head on out to San Francisco and talk to Delion, find out what they’re doing. See if our office out there can help. Do you know Bert Cartwright, the SAC in San Francisco?”
    “Yeah,” Dane said, his voice flat as a creek-bed stone. “Yeah, I know him.” There was sudden animosity on his face. At least it masked the pain for a moment.
    “Yes, all right,” Savich said slowly. “You two don’t get along.”
    “No, we don’t. I don’t want to deal with him.”
    “Why? What happened between the two of you?”
    Dane just shook his head. “It’s not important.”
    “All right, you get yourself home and packed. Like I said, I’ll have Millie take care of everything for you. Do you want to stay in the city or go to your sister’s?”
    “I’ll stay in the city. Not at the rectory, either, not there.”
    “Okay, a hotel downtown, then. It’ll be FBI approved, so you can count on it to be basic. You’ll call if there’s anything I can do.”
    “Yes, thank you, Savich. About my cases—”
    “I’ll see that they’re covered. Go.”
    The two men shook hands. Savich watched Dane make his way through the large room with workstations for nine special agents, only six of them occupied at the moment. His wife, Special Agent Lacey Sherlock Savich, was in a meeting with Jerry Hollister in the third-floor DNA analysis unit, comparing a DNA sample taken from a Boston rape-and-murder victim with a DNA sample from the major suspect. If they got a match, the guy was toast.
    Ollie Hamish, his second in command, was in Wisconsin consulting with the Madison police on a particularly vicious series of murders, all connected to a local radio station that played golden oldies. Go figure, Ollie had said, and started humming “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.”
    Savich hated crazies. He hated unsolved craziness even more. It amazed and terrified him what the human mind could conjure up. And now Dane’s brother, a priest.
    He dialed Millie’s extension, told her to make arrangements. Then he walked over and flipped on his electric kettle to make a cup of strong Earl Grey tea. He poured his tea into an oversized FBI mug and went back to MAX, his lap-top, and booted up.
    He started with an e-mail to Chief Dexter Kreider.

    SAN FRANCISCO
    At three-thirty on Monday afternoon, San Francisco time, after a five-hour-and-ten-minute flight from Dulles, Dane Carver threaded his way through the large open room toward Inspector Delion’s overloaded desk. He paused a moment, studying him. The older man, with his bald, shiny head and thick handlebar mustache, was hunched over a computer keyboard, typing furiously. Dane sat down in the chair beside his desk and said nothing, just looked at the man at his work. It was like every other large cop shop he’d ever been in. Cops with their suit jackets hung over the backs of their chairs, their ties loosened, sleeves rolled up, a young Hispanic guy in handcuffs lounging in the side chairs, trying on sneers, a couple of lawyers in three-piece suits doing their best to intimidate—nothing at all unusual for a Monday afternoon. A decimated box of jelly donuts lay on a battered table in the small kitchen, a coffee machine that looked to be from the last century beside it, along with stacks of paper cups, packets of sugar, and a carton of milk Dane wouldn’t touch in a million years.
    “Who’re you?”
    Dane came to his feet and extended his hand. “I’m Dane Carver. You called me last night about my brother.”
    “Oh yeah, right.” He rose, shook Dane’s hand. “I’m Vincent Delion.” He sat again, waved Dane to do the same. “Hey, I’m real sorry about your brother. I called you because I knew you’d want to hear what was going on.”
    The brothers had been close, Delion knew