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He took her hands, smoothed out her fists, kissed her black palht, and that’s all that hbors spilled out of their houses, staring at the fire in horror and fascination, soardens and roofs with hoses, soroups Several ca blankets and coffee, but mostly everyone just stood around and watched

The fire chief, Lucky Mulroney, headed their way ten ot the fire under control It looks like maybe half of your house may be structurally intact, but the inspectors won’t be certain until they’ve gone over it carefully" He looked back "A bo I hate to see one of our beautiful old houses burn"

"Yes," Julia said, not looking away fro to kill me, Chief Mulroney, but he didn’t This is the third ti to a stop some ten feet away A man shoved the side panel open and ju until he saw Julia, then he shouted as he zeroed right in There was probably a ht She smiled toward the camera, and waved her black fist in the air "Did you hear that, you loser? You missed me!"

Then Mulroney threatened to turn one of the hoses on the van if they didn’t back off Frank had some of hishow Makepeace knew Julia would co the odds, though the fact is, he couldn’t be sure"

Frank said, "Or it could mean there was someone with him-- Makepeace was in the back and his partner in the front, but where? I had lots of guys spread out in front"

Cheney said, "Youwith soaround all over the place"

"We’ll keep looking Maybe the guy smoked, left a butt"

Sherlock said, "We heard footsteps upstairs, Frank, not all that long before it blew So Makepeace had to be in the house"

She continued after a o for a head shot on you, Cheney, he had to et out of there and wanted to be sure he hit you Then Julia would have been in the open"

Cheney rubbed his chest "He got ht on in the chest and in the center of my back, both fine shots"

Frank said, "Does anyone have a clue who this partner of his could be, if there was soed "Could be the person who hired Makepeace to kill Julia, or he could have hired soh, we’ve never heard of Makepeace working with a partner"

Savich’s cell rang He listened, then punched off He looked at them "That was Dix Kathryn Golden’s still heavily sedated They don’t expect her to ot her at Stanford, a cop on her door"

A police officer ca up "We found the one That’s the bad, here’s the good" The officer grinned big "We got us a witness, an old guy alking to the little park right across the street froranddaughter He said a ht into a mess of thick bushes on the far side of the park, didn’t even try to stop Then the guy jumped off In the next ot inside Car took off The old guy said he doesn’t know about cars, so had no clue as to itsthe neighborhood So"

Savich said, "Officer, wait a o back to the Sherlocks’ house Sherlock and I will go speak to this witness"

Sherlock heard Julia say, "I’m so relieved Freddy went home on Sunday"

Savich arched an eyebrow "Freddy?"

Cheney was laughing "The neighbor’s cat"

As they walked away, they heard reporters yelling out questions to them from twenty yards away

CHAPTER 51

About a half mile from Julia’s house, on Brinkley Street, Savich and Sherlock found the oldon his narrow front porch in front of a 1940s cottage, leaning on a cane He told thehter safely inside the house "A wild thing it was," he said, shaking his head, "happened real fast My name’s Tuck Wilson"