The Maze

the women's tongues, thus it was assumed that the women he'd picked to walk the walk through his maze needed to be punished in his mind. His first marker was cursing. If he heard a woman using language unbecoming to a woman- and of course he was the judge of how bad the language was- that was half of his decision. The other half was whether or not she bad-mouthed her husband. This one was more iffy, but again, I felt I knew Marlin Jones, I'd studied him so closely for seven years and through my course work in undergraduate and in graduate school. As you know, he's now claimed that he slept with most of the women he murdered, though we don't have any confirmation on that. It's really very straightforward. That's all there is to it, Mr. Bullock."

    "So your sister cursed and bad-mouthed her husband. Did your sister also sleep with her killer, Agent Sherlock?"

    "Since she's been dead for seven years, stabbed many times, her tongue cut out, I don't think we have much hope of getting the answer."

    Savich could have kissed her. It had been a question meant to inflame, meant to incite rage and thus to gain an untempered response. She'd held firm. He could tell that Jimmy Maitland was impressed as well.

    "That sounded all rehearsed, Agent Sherlock." She merely shrugged.

    Big John said, "It sounds to me like you're one obsessed little lady, excuse me, one obsessed little Special Agent. I would have thought that the FBI interviewers and psychologists would have spotted all this and not given you the time of day. That's scary."

    "No, sir, what's scary is a judge who presents Marlin Jones, a vicious murderer, with a perfect chance to escape." She sat forward in her chair. "And you're scary, Mr. Bullock. You're doing this all to enhance your career-in other words, for fame and profit. If I am obsessed or have ever been obsessed, sir, then you are unethical, another word for basic slime."

    Big John roared to his feet. "You can't talk to me like that, Agent Sherlock." "Why not, sir?"

    Georgina Simms just smiled. "It's a good question, an excellent point actually, but we'll let it go. Anything else you wanted to know, Mr. Bullock?"

    "No judge is going to accept that she was just another well-trained agent doing a job. She taints the case. She's a self-interested participant, not an objective law officer."

    "We're gone," Savich said, rose, and nodded to Lacey. "See you in court, Mr. Bullock, if the cops can't manage to bring down Marlin when he resists arrest, which you know he will."

    Lacey smiled over her shoulder at him. "Perhaps you shouldn't be spending so much time on Marlin Jones now, Mr. Bullock. You know Agent Savich is right. Marlin will resist arrest. The chance of your getting to eviscerate the law with your tactics isn't likely to happen. Seems to me you're wasting your time, which is worth lots of money, right?"

    She felt Savich's palm beneath her elbow. He said close to her ear, "We're out of here. You did well."

    "We'll go out the back way," Jimmy Maitland said in the elevator. "I've already scoped it out."

    "That was interesting, Agent Sherlock," Georgina Simms said. "I don't understand either how you got into the FBI in the first place."

    "Actually, Ms. Simms, I was surprised too. Don't get me wrong, finding Marlin Jones was a big part of my motivation for joining, but then I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life. You know, before Mr. Savich brought me to his new unit, I could have ended up chasing bank robbers in Los Angeles. And that was the bottom line. I would have caught as many bank robbers as I could."

    "I rather think a judge might buy that," Georgjna Simms said. "But as I said, however did you manage to even get accepted with this in your background?'"

    "I guess nobody made a big deal out of it."

    "I guess not."

    Before they all parted in the underground parking lot, Jimmy Maitland said to Savich, "Simms buys it because it sounds good and it is true, for the most part. However, what she doesn't know is that you've got the hots for Sherlock.

    What are you going to do about that? Are you two going to get married, or what?"

    "Yes, but as they say, timing is everything "

    "But the point is, why did you ask for her for the Criminal Apprehension Unit in the first place?"

    Savich didn't hesitate. "Because she was so damned good in Hogan's Alley. No, I didn't have the hots for her then, sir. I just thought that she'd be one of the best I could get myhands on. I found out