Split Second - Catherine Coulter [20]
“Mr. Patil is seventy-five years old, Savich, weighs maybe one hundred thirty pounds on a fat day. It’s hard to believe, but he survived three hours of surgery. It’s still no sure thing he’ll survive, and the doctors don’t want to commit. His condition’s listed as critical.”
Savich said, “And you’re wondering why a robber would shoot an old man in the back when all he’d have to do is maybe tap his jaw with his fist and take the bank-deposit bag.”
“Makes me wonder.”
“I’m trying to remember Thomas Wenkel’s exact behavior when he had the gun aimed at Mr. Patil that Tuesday night. Was he there to kill him, and just faked robbing the store? Hard to say. Of course, there was the woman—Elsa Heinz—waiting in the car. She sure came in fast, ready to kill everyone in sight. What do you have on her, Ben?”
“Elsa isn’t what you’d call a nice person. She’d been in and out of jail all of her adult life—robbery, hijacking, all sorts of scams. I haven’t found out how she and Wenkel got together.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it, Ben. Do you mind if I speak to Mr. Patil when he’s cogent? Speak to his kids and his wife?”
“He might not make it, Savich, but if he does, have at it. I can use all the help I can get on this.”
“I have this feeling Mr. Patil will pull through. I’ll keep in touch, Ben.”
“We can compare notes later.”
“You’ve got a guard on Mr. Patil?”
“Yes, I got it approved for a couple of days, at least. Officer Horne’s a young guy but smart, I’ve been told. He’ll keep the old man safe.”
Savich hoped very much that Mr. Patil, a nice man with photos of all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren stuffing his wallet, would be ringing up beer sales again sometime soon.
What were the chances of another random robbery in that neighborhood if the first shooting really was a robbery? And only one week later? Savich thought about coincidence. And he thought about death, always hovering close, and whoever knew when it would tap you on the shoulder?
It wasn’t a second robbery; he knew it.
CHAPTER 12
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Thursday evening
Lucy fit her grandmother’s beautifully carved key into the front door. It was a dark, cold night, winter making an early call, nearly midnight. She was tired and sad, and every couple of seconds she thought of her father and wanted to weep. At least she’d managed to get back to all her friends during the day, telling them she needed more time to herself, and moving herself into her grandmother’s house was good for her. Did they believe her? She hoped so.
She, Coop, Jack, Dane, and Ruth had visited The Swarm, a bar not too far from the Hoover Building that catered to federal cops, and they’d talked about Bundy and speculated endlessly about his daughter—who she was, who her mother was, what it was about her terrifying father that could help with the case. So far, she hadn’t tortured any of her victims, and there were other huge departures from Bundy Senior. The most important question was: Had she killed when she was younger? Dane had called Inspector Vincent Delion of the San Francisco PD, a homicide detective he knew personally, to see if they had any unsolveds, going back, say, fifteen years, that could possibly be her work.
Savich had told Lucy not to come in again until Friday afternoon. He said he wanted her to finish her moving, but what he really wanted was to give her more time on her own. All right, then, she could sleep in, and that meant she didn’t need to go to bed yet. She wanted to keep going through every scrap of paper in her grandmother’s study. Twenty-two years before, she wondered, had it been her grandfather’s study? She couldn’t remember.
At times she was tempted to convince herself that she’d misinterpreted what her father had said when