She wheeled in the first OTR, released and lowered the side of the cage, and began unloading the parcels, tossing each one into its proper route hamper, never getting it wrong. She’d been scheme-trained years before and that meant learning every street, every address, every route. She’d never been tested, but she thought she probably knew every resident’s name, except the new ones. When she finished she’d head for the employee lounge with its brand-new Keurig K-Cup machine for a cup of tea. She’d be alone, it was even too early for Eddie Hoop, the mail sorter, to show up and brag about the American postal system, the best in the world, blah, blah, blah, a tune he never tired of singing.
She hummed Justin Bieber’s “As Long as You Love Me” as she worked, her movements smooth and fast. She wheeled in the sixth and last OTR, this one filled to the top. She carefully lowered the side so the packages wouldn’t go flying off to the concrete floor. She lifted out a long, narrow package, read the address, and tossed it into route hamper eight. She paused to look at a small parcel addressed to Mrs. Lori Bamburger. From Victoria’s Secret, another pair of black lace undies that would be returned. Lori always ordered them two sizes too small.
What was that black stain nearly covering the address? She touched it—dry and smooth. Had a clerk at the distribution center spilled something on it? It was still legible, so she tossed it into the hamper and lifted out the next package. There were more black stains, drips and smears and smudges. She frowned. What was this stuff? She lifted out the next parcel.
And screamed.
SAVICH HOUSE
Thursday morning
When Savich’s cell blasted out Billy Ray, he’d been dreaming, not about Sherlock and the madman at JFK, but about walking through a stark white room whose walls were covered with mounted Athames, all their blades dripping blood, hundreds of them, some handles old and elaborately carved, others simple black-painted wood. The problem was he couldn’t find his way out.
Special Agent Jeremy Haimes, the SAC of the Richmond Field Office, was on the line to tell him about a murder in the Reineke post office. “The man yesterday, Savich, the one who was murdered in the Rayburn Office Building—I’ve got another dead man and he’s from the same town—Plackett—and he was also stabbed with some kind of ceremonial knife. That’s why I called you.”
“Jeremy, you said the body is in a post office in Reineke? How far is that from Plackett, Virginia?”
“About twenty miles southwest of Plackett.”
“Do you have an ID?”
“Yes, and this is tough. He was a cop. His name was Kane Lewis, an older guy, a paunchy grandfather, well liked. He was the sheriff’s only deputy, had been for eighteen years. That’s all I know so far. Everyone’s really shaken, as you can imagine. Can you come, Savich?”
When he, Sherlock, and Sean came downstairs half an hour later, it was to shouts from the front yard, where a half-dozen reporters were barely held in check by three FBI agents. A paparazzo had gotten close enough to snap a shot of Sean in his Transformers pajamas, staring at them out the window, a good catch. Most everyone remembered he was the kid whose video had gone viral at the San Francisco Symphony Christmas show. Savich scooped Sean up, pulled the curtains tight across the window, and took him into the kitchen as Gabriella was coming in through the back door with an FBI escort.
Forty-five minutes later Savich and Sherlock were driving to the Reineke post office.
? ? ?
SAVICH STOOD OVER the metal parcel cage he’d been told was called an OTR, looked at the boxes scattered around it on the floor, streaked and smudged with blood like abstract paintings. Only the packages beneath the body had kept the blood from dripping out of the OTR. He looked down to see the body of an older man with a circle of gray hair around his head. He was torqued into a tight fetal position—difficult because he was heavy—his arms pulled between his legs. No deputy’s uniform. He wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt, old jeans, and ancient brown boots. Impossible to tell what sort of man he’d been—if he’d enjoyed jokes, if he’d loved his family, if he’d been honorable—that was all wiped away, gone in an instant, when the Athame was stuck into his heart. There had to be people out there already worrying about Kane Lewis, wondering where he was. They’d find out soon enough. Savich imagined he’d been a pleasant-looking man, but not in death. No, not in death.
Savich touched his fingers to Lewis’s neck, his cheek. He’d been dead when he was dumped into the OTR, but for how long? Maybe two, three hours? More? He looked at the long knife sticking out of his chest. Jeremy Haimes was right. It had something of the look of the ceremonial knife in Sparky Carroll’s chest, but was much plainer. Its ebony wooden handle was carved with two sickle moons, no outfacing dragons with ruby eyes. He’d seen Athames like it in that long white room in his dream the night before.
Agent Jeremy Haimes introduced them to the manager of postal operations and a postal inspector both hovering on the periphery. Both were older, shaken up and trying to hold it together, and of no help.
Several people who saw Sherlock did a double take, then were all over her with compliments and endless questions. She was polite but learned quickly to shut them off by saying only, “Yes, thank you. Now we have Deputy Lewis to attend to.”
Savich and Sherlock heard the James Bond theme “Nobody Does It Better,” and turned to see the postmaster, Mr. Mantano, turn away to answer his cell. When Mantano hung up, he walked back to them, careful not to get too close to the OTR, cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape, newly arrived forensic techs working around it. “As I told Agent Haimes, Ellie Moran, the employee who found the body, called me right away. I came down, verified that a dead man was in an OTR, called my boss in Richmond. She called the postal inspector, who called the FBI in Richmond. Everyone was here by six-thirty. I’ve kept all our employees away from that OTR—”
Sherlock asked, “What’s OTR mean, Mr. Mantano?”
He blinked at her, shook his head. “I’ve been with the post office for fourteen years and I don’t know.” He called out to another employee, then another. No one seemed to know. “It’s been in the PO lingo so long no one remembers, sorry.”
The manager of postal operations said he thought it meant “over the road,” as in transport. There was nervous laughter.
Dr. Krowder, the Richmond ME, with three assistants in his wake, shook hands with Haimes, Savich, and Sherlock, told Sherlock she was a pistol and wanted her autograph, then bent down to examine the body. “I sure don’t like seeing this after a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs,” he said over his shoulder. “This is nasty, Agents. This knife—I’ve never seen one like this before.”
“I saw one similar to it yesterday. It’s called an Athame,” Savich said. “It’s a ritual knife used in witches’ ceremonies.”
“I don’t imagine you see that every day. You’re here from Washington, Agent Savich, so I presume you know something about this knife?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what’s going on here?”
“Not yet.”
“Wait, that murder yesterday in Washington. The news said something about a ceremonial knife used to kill a man. Was it like this one?”
Savich nodded.
The sheriff was a tough-looking old buzzard and he looked angry. He said, “I’ve known Kane Lewis for thirty years, met him after I first became sheriff back in the eighties. Tough as nails and everybody knew it, but folks in Plackett liked him better than the sheriff. Lucky for the sheriff, Kane didn’t want to run against his boss, always saying life was too good for him to screw up his karma. He had a half-dozen grandkids.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “I hope you have some ideas on what kind of monster would do this.”
“Not yet, Sheriff.”
Dr. Krowder straightened and stepped aside for a tech to snap photos of Kane Lewis.