Whiplash

4

CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND

Sunday night

"That's got to be the weirdest thing I've ever seen," Sherlock whispered against Savich's ear.

They stared at something filmy white floating through the trees, not quite opaque, not quite transparent-"otherworldly" was the word the senator used, Savich recalled and dismissed the thought immediately. He very strongly doubted it was anything like ectoplasm manifesting itself in the small knot of woods at the back of Senator David Hoffman's backyard in Chevy Chase, Maryland. With all the wickedness in the world, it was far more likely the senator's specter was what he'd described to them-a swatch of carefully cut feathery material about the size of a standard pillow.

They watched the white object move slowly toward the house, pausing every few seconds, as if the person feeding out the wire it was attached to was having some difficulties. Open mind, Savich thought, since he really couldn't tell what it was.

"It appears outside my bedroom window," the senator had told him and Sherlock that morning as they sat in front of his impressive desk in his elegant home office, his voice low, strained, as if he knew even saying this out loud would bring ridicule down on his head. He cleared his throat, his eyes darting to Sherlock's curly red hair, then beyond her to the bookcases that lined the wall. Sherlock followed his gaze. "You see something, Senator?"

"What? Oh, no, Agent, I was just thinking I should read some of those books. Do you know they came with the house? I've never touched them." He shook his head. "This house has been my local residence for nine years now. That's not right."

Savich said, "Senator, this thing you see dangling outside your bedroom window, what exactly does it do?"

"It simply flitters around," the senator said. "Back and forth, then it sometimes just floats or billows a bit. The first time I woke up and saw it, I thought I was having some sort of weird hallucination, but it just kept dancing around. I got out of bed and walked to the window, I was scared, I'll admit it. Whatever it was just continued to float up in front of me, then it was gone, from one moment to the next"-he snapped his fingers- "it simply vanished. I stood there and waited for it to come back, but it didn't. I was convinced I'd dreamed it, that, or it was the consequences of too many oysters-until it happened again."

"How many times has this thing appeared?" Sherlock asked.

"A dozen times now, I've counted them. Actually, I've written each occurrence down in this notebook." He tossed a small brown leather notebook back into his desk drawer. "If I was going crazy, I wanted to be able to show the course of my mental deterioration." He gave a quiet laugh. "Now, I simply lie in my bed and watch the thing dance around until it disappears after ten minutes or so. I've timed it. And every single time, the thing is there one instant, gone the next."

Savich asked, "How does it wake you up?"

"I'll be dead to the world, then I hear this sort of huffing noise, like a person trying to suck in a breath, and it's loud enough, insistent enough, to wake me up. The draperies are open and there the thing is, dancing outside the window. I really can't give you a simpler description of how it acts."

Sherlock said, "Can you see through it?"

He shook his head, his eyes again on her hair. Sherlock cocked her head at him.

"Sorry," Hoffman said. "My wife-her hair was red, not as beautiful as yours, Agent Sherlock, but it was bright and warrior fierce, even curlier than yours."

Warrior fierce, Savich liked that.

"Thank you, Senator," Sherlock said.

"The thing is, I can't exactly see through it in the dark, but it isn't exactly solid either. It's sort of filmy, like one of those very fine old linen nightgowns or a thick wedding veil, and like I said, about the size of a pillowcase."

A pillowcase certainly makes it sound earthbound. Savich said, "Senator, have you tried sleeping in another bedroom?"

He shook his head, his deep voice austere. "It has never been in me to run and hide, Agent Savich. This is my bedroom, my house. No ridiculous manifestation or whatever it is, is going to scare me away. I will, however, admit to taking sleeping pills once. It still woke me, that huffing noise, it went on and on."

"Have you told anyone about this manifestation?"

"Yes, my aide, Corliss Rydle. Corlie won't say anything to anyone for the simple reason that she doesn't want the crazy squad to come cart me away. That would mean temporary unemployment for everyone, including her.

"She insisted on spending several nights, in a sleeping bag right by the window. The thing didn't show. She then took her sleeping bag outside, maybe fifteen feet from my bedroom. Again, it didn't show.

"She talked me into hiring a private investigator to watch the house at night, telling him I was concerned about being stalked. Nothing out of the ordinary happened when he was there, either."

"Who else besides Corliss Rydle knows?" Sherlock asked as she put a check in her small notebook beside the woman's name.

"My two sons. I called them both over here after it had appeared about a half-dozen times. I told them about it, all very straightforward I was, because, to be honest here, I wanted to see their reactions. I remember they looked at each other like, The old man's losing it, and what the hell are we going to do? But they also insisted on camping out several nights in the backyard, but again, the thing didn't appear. I think they believe I'm teetering on the edge."

Savich said, "Have you ever gotten a sense of why this is happening, any signs of any sort to alert you to the meaning of all this? And the huffing sound that wakes you, have you ever heard it without the manifestation appearing?"

The senator shook his head, then paused. He raised pain-glazed eyes. "Oh, yes, I've heard that sound. When my wife was very ill, she couldn't breathe well. She made that same huffing sound. I'd sit by her bed and listen. I often counted how many times she had to make that sound in a five-minute period to stay alive. It was horrible, and this has brought it all back." He paused a moment. "The sound disappeared when she slipped into a coma and the respirator breathed for her."

Savich continued, "Have you ever felt this thing, whatever it is, was trying to communicate with you?"

Hoffman's dark eyes cut to Savich's face. He grew very still. Slowly, he shook his head. "I'll tell you, after the sixth or seventh time it appeared, I wasn't so freaked out. And I started talking to it. I asked it what it was doing here, asked if it wanted anything. All it ever did was move around, near the limits of my vision. I'll tell you, I felt like such a fool. I never approached it again, simply watched it from my bed."

Sherlock asked him, "Have you investigated it in any other way?"

"Do you mean have I climbed in the oak tree beside my window to see if there are any remnants of rope or footprints or broken branches? Yes, the private investigator did that. He found nothing. Neither did Corlie or my sons." He began turning the elegant gold Mont Blanc pen over and over between his fingers, frowning at it. "I did tell another person, my best friend outside of politics, actually. We're both avid golfers. We play golf every Saturday we can get together."

"His name, Senator?"

Hoffman's dark eyes slid over Sherlock's bright hair a moment, then he said, "Gabe Hilliard. He owns half a dozen security firms around the country, one of them here in D.C. I've known him forever. He's an excellent friend, rock-solid. He'll never tell anyone about this. Like me, he has no clue what's going on, but he's concerned."

Sherlock wrote down his name and particulars.

"I told you about Gabe just because you want all names of those I've confided in. You're thinking it makes sense that one possible explanation behind all this is someone gaslighting me. Maybe, but I can't think of anyone with a motive."

Savich asked, "Are both your sons financially secure?"

The senator said, "They assure me their finances are in order for the moment, even though their wives wiped the floor with them. I haven't personally checked their portfolios. I can't imagine their lying to me about money since if either of them had financial problems, they'd come running, you can bet your Porsche on that, Agent Savich. Beautiful machine, by the way."

Savich smiled.

Sherlock said, "Unfortunately, Senator, both of your sons are hurting financially. Yet you say neither has come asking for help?"

"No, neither of them. I should have assumed you'd know everything about me and my family before you set foot in my house. So the little blighters have run through the interest on their trust funds, have they? And their quite generous salaries? Thank God for their families that my lawyer convinced me to protect the principal until they're both fifty." He tapped the pen on the beautiful mahogany desktop. "Three years ago, I told them they were adults, and it was time they acted like adults. There would be no more handouts, they were to be responsible for themselves and their families, it was past time for them to be men.

"You're thinking they may have rigged up a ghost to scare me out of my wits? So they could declare me incompetent, get their hands on my money? I'm enough of a cynic to be effective in the world, Agent Sherlock, but I can't believe that of my sons. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they haven't told others about their crazy old man over an expensive glass of white wine. Neither of them could keep a confidence if their marriages depended on it. Let me say they're both divorced, twice, so I rest my case."

The sons, Savich knew, Aiden and Benson, had grown up with too much money and not enough boundaries, and, as Sherlock had noted on her background check before they'd come to the senator's home, they both appeared to be dogs when it came to marital constancy.

"And my sons certainly have a solid motive, I can see that. I guess there's no one else besides Aiden and Benson with any kind of motive." He sat back in his big chair, steepled his fingers.

"Agents, my sons are both prosaic thinkers. They see something they want and they think, 'I want that,' and they head for it like a guided missile. This situation-it is inventive, creative, wouldn't you say? Shows resourcefulness and ingenuity?"

Savich nodded.

"To be brutally honest here, my sons couldn't hatch up a creative idea between them no matter how much money was at stake."

Savich said, "You're saying then that if your sons were broke and had to have money, they'd simply come over here and shoot you in the head?"

The senator laughed. "Quite an image, Agent Savich. But that isn't what they'd do either. They would probably come over and beg. If they're behind this manifestation, believe me, someone else came up with the idea, someone else is driving them, telling them what to do." He shook his head decisively. "Neither of them is fashioned in the right mold to pull this off."

"The right mold?"

Hoffman nodded to Savich. "All they like to think about is sailing, eating clams on the beach with as many scantily clad women as they can attract, and jetting off to Milan to buy their next Armani suit or sports car. They have jobs because the presidents of both companies are longtime friends of mine. As far as I can tell, their lives are pretty much a waste. I say that with great sadness. As their father, I must bear the responsibility, and I do. My wife and I did try, we did. What went wrong? What could we have done differently? I've asked myself that question many times, but I just don't know."

No boundaries, too much money, Savich thought again, and wondered why the obvious answer didn't hit the senator between the eyes.

"Their saving grace is that between them, they've produced three smart kids, all by their first wives, two boys and one girl. All three are hard workers who'll amount to something." The senator sat back and sighed. "However, I have to stand by what I said. This simply isn't like my sons, and their well-developed survival instincts wouldn't allow them to hire anyone to do it."

Savich asked, "Has this manifestation appeared anywhere else, sir? Like outside your office window in the Hart Office Building?"

The senator laid down the pen and raised his eyes to Savich's face. "No. Only here. Only around midnight, only outside my bedroom window. I will be honest here, Agents, I have no more thoughts or suspicions, no more obvious avenues to try."

Hoffman sat back in his big chair. "Like all my legislative colleagues, I have made a great many enemies, as well as a great many friends. I imagine that a couple dozen of my political opponents would gladly see me retired, but to try to drive me crazy? Hmm." He grinned as he shook his head. "Nah, not at all likely.

"That's why I called you, Agent Savich. You were recommended to me by Director Mueller because you've studied things, even experienced things, that can't be easily explained, and dealt with people and events that are frankly-bizarre.

"If there's the possibility that this-thing-is, well, otherworldly, I thought you might be the best person to help me."

Savich knew Hoffman sat rock solid in the center of the political spectrum, always trying to draw the extremes toward him. I represent the great intelligent American majority, he'd say.He knew Hoffman was smart, something of a hardnose. He was rarely mealy-mouthed or equivocal when asked a question, like the vast majority of politicians. He wasn't known to spin an answer or evade or immediately blame someone else. Not the kind of person you would expect to start hallucinating or have a mental breakdown.

He was a tall man, slender and fit, and had celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday two months earlier. His eyes, a bit slanted at the corners, were a foggy gray, intense eyes that bespoke power, the doling out of favors as well as punishments. He imagined Hoffman looked quite natural and in complete control of his world in that big executive chair before this happened. But today, this morning, he looked bone weary, a man on the edge. He couldn't keep his hands still.

Savich rose. "I'd like to see your bedroom."