Point Blank

around him.

CHAPTER 35
    WASHINGTON, D.C. SUNDAY NIGHT
    SAVICH AND SHERLOCK sat in the Volvo in their driveway, the engine idling, heater running. Savich stared at his laptop. MAX was in satellite communication with the communications center in the Hoover Building. A large-scale map of the Washington, D.C., area appeared on the screen. Sherlock said, “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Our neighbors to the north had Malcolm Gilliam in custody for nine years. If they’d only kept him incarcerated none of this would have happened.”
    “I wish he’d been in prison rather than in a mental hospital,” Savich said. “It’s a pity the Canadian Supreme Court ruling in 1991 changed their criminal code. They made it easier to escape criminal culpability by claiming insanity.”
    “But still,” Sherlock said, “he brutally kills two people in Quebec and they let him out in nine years?”
    Savich rolled his shoulders and stretched. “Once his lawyers managed to convince a jury he wasn’t criminally responsible because he was hallucinating and delusional at the time of the crimes, it wasn’t lawful for them to hold him in custody any longer. Something about cruel and unusual punishment.”
    “Unless,” Sherlock said, “they could prove he still posed a risk to the public. He must have learned the rules really well.” She looked at MAX’s screen for a moment and panned the map westward. “So, Dillon, if they deemed Moses was no longer a danger to the public, the Institut Philippe Pinel couldn’t monitor him after he was released?”
    “He was scheduled to see his multidisciplinary support group weekly, but he was legally free to leave. So he hacked off his locator bracelet, skipped out, and came back to the United States two years ago. Then we lose track of him until he picks up Claudia and beats that homeless man to death eight months ago in Birmingham.”
    “You know he must see Claudia as another Tammy.”
    “Probably. Claudia is the same age as Tammy was. And now the two of them have gone on their own killing spree.”
    Savich opened a JPEG file on MAX. “You haven’t seen this photo yet, Sherlock. It was taken three weeks before Moses’s trial.”
    She leaned over to stare at the photo of a rather distinguished-looking, middle-aged man with thick gray hair, a thin ascetic face, and an aquiline nose. His nicely worn tweed suit made him look like a banker. “
    You’d never know it was Moses Grace,” she marveled out loud. “The description everyone at Denny’s agreed on was that he looked ancient. It hasn’t been much more than a dozen years since this photo was taken.”
    Savich nodded and began to massage her neck and shoulders to ease the tension. “It’d be nice, though, to have a photo from when he got out of the Canadian institute after nine years. We’re still working on that.”
    She studied MAX’s screen again. “He’s aged thirty years, and not well, since this was taken.”
    “He’s very ill, Sherlock, and maybe that’s got a lot to do with how old and worn he looks. He was being treated for pulmonary tuberculosis reactivation at Philippe Pinel. They didn’t finish treating him before he skipped out. When I told Dr. Breaker his symptoms, he said it sounded like the infection had progressed to the cavitary stage—destroyed enough tissue to form big holes in his lungs. Dr. Breaker thinks he’s in the end stages.”
    “I guess more people were exposed to tuberculosis back then. So a disease he probably got in childhood is going to do him in. At least there’ll be some kind of justice for him.”
    “If this satellite link to the communications center holds up, we’ll be helping him get justice sooner than that,” Savich said.
    “I sure hope so, Dillon, or we’ll never get any sleep.”
    “We still have some time before midnight,” Savich said. He pulled her onto his lap, kissed her behind the ear, and smoothed her soft hair with his hand. “Rest a moment. It’s only been two days since you got your arm sliced up.”
    He looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. “Moses called at exactly midnight the last time. We won’t stay out much later than that. Dane and Ben should be here about now.”
    At midnight sharp Savich’s cell phone rang. He pulled out of his driveway and next to the curb, and let the car idle again. He gave everyone a thumbs-up and answered it.
    “Hey, Moses, how you doin’? Coughing up lots of blood? Nearly dead, aren’t you, old man?”
    Savich had