Split Second (36 page)

T
ully ripped off the latest fax that had just come in from the Kansas City Police Department. He scanned its contents while he gathered folders and notes and crime scene photos. In ten minutes he was meeting with Assistant Director Cunningham, and yet his mind was still preoccupied with the argument he’d had with his daughter less than an hour ago. Emma had waited until he was dropping her off at school to drop her bomb. Damn she was good. But then what did he expect? She had been schooled in the fine art of surprise attack by none other than the master, her own mother.

“Oh, by the way,” she had announced in a matter-of-fact voice. “Josh Reynolds asked me to the junior/senior prom. It’s a week from Friday, so I’ll need to buy a new dress. Probably new shoes, too.”

Immediately he had gotten angry. She was only a freshman. When had they decided she could date?

“Did I miss that conversation?” he had asked with enough sarcasm that he was now embarrassed in retrospect.

She had given him her best insulted, wounded look. How could he not trust her? She was “almost fifteen.” Practically an old maid compared to her friends who, she assured him, had been dating for two or three years already. He passed on the opportunity to counter with the old argument that just because your friends jump off a bridge…Besides, the real problem was not that he didn’t trust her. At forty-three, he could still remember how horny fifteen-and sixteen-year-old boys could get. He wished he could discuss it with Caroline, but he knew she’d side with Emma. Was he really just being an overprotective father?

He jammed the fax sheets into a file folder, adding it to the pile in his arms and headed down the hall. After talking to Kansas City Detective John Ford late last night, Tully was prepared for Cunningham to be in a foul mood. The waitress’s murder looked more and more like the work of Albert Stucky. No one else would deliver the woman’s kidney to Agent O’Dell’s hotel room. Actually, Tully couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t on a plane to Kansas City to join O’Dell.

“Good morning, Anita,” he greeted the gray-haired secretary who looked alert and impeccable at any hour of the day.

“Coffee, Agent Tully?”

“Yes, please. Cream but—”

“No sugar. I remember. I’ll bring it in to you.” She waved him by. Everyone knew not to set foot into the assistant director’s office until Anita gave the signal.

Cunningham was on the phone, but nodded to Tully and pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“Yes, I understand,” Cunningham said into the phone. “Of course I will.” He hung up, as was his usual manner, without a goodbye. He adjusted his glasses, sipped coffee, then looked at Tully. Despite the crisp white shirt and perfectly knotted tie, his eyes betrayed him. Swollen from too little sleep, the red lines were magnified by the bifocal half of his glasses.

“Before we get started,” he said, glancing at his watch, “do you have any information on Walker Harding?”

“Harding?” Tully had to think past horny high-school boys and pink prom dresses. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t recognize the name Walker Harding.”

“He was Albert Stucky’s business partner,” a woman’s voice answered from the open doorway.

Tully twisted in his chair to look at the young, dark-haired woman. She was attractive and wore a navy blue suit jacket with matching trousers.

“Agent O’Dell, please come in.” Cunningham stood and pointed to the chair next to Tully.

Tully stared up at her, shuffling his files, awkwardly shoving them aside.

“Special Agent Margaret O’Dell, this is Special Agent R. J. Tully.”

The chair wobbled as Tully stood and shook Agent O’Dell’s outstretched hand. Immediately he was impressed with her firm grip and the way she looked directly into his eyes.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Agent Tully.”

She was genuine. She was professional. There was no trace of what she must have gone through last night. This certainly didn’t look like an agent who was on the verge of mental collapse.

“The pleasure is mine, Agent O’Dell. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

Tully could see Cunningham already growing impatient with all these pleasantries.

“Why were you asking about Walker Harding?” O’Dell asked as she sat down.

Tully picked up his files again. Okay, so she was used to the assistant director’s style of getting right down to business. Now Tully wished he had spent some time preparing instead of agonizing over Emma’s virginity. He honestly hadn’t thought O’Dell would show up.

“For Agent Tully’s benefit,” Cunningham began explaining, “Walker Harding and Albert Stucky started an Internet stock-trading business, one of the first of its kind, in the early 1990s. They ended up making millions.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have any information on him,” Tully said as he riffled through his files, double-checking.

“You probably don’t.” Cunningham sounded apologetic. “Harding was out of the picture long before Stucky took up his new hobby. He and Stucky sold their company, split their millions and went their separate ways. There was no reason for any of us to know about Walker Harding.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Tully said, glancing at Agent O’Dell to see if he was the only one missing something. “Is there some reason why we should now?”

Anita interrupted, floating into the room and handing Tully a steaming mug.

“Thanks, Anita.”

“Anything for you, Agent O’Dell? Coffee? Or perhaps your usual early-morning Diet Pepsi?”

Tully watched Agent O’Dell smile in a way that said the two women were quite familiar with each other.

“Thank you, Anita, but no, I’m fine.”

The secretary squeezed the agent’s shoulder in a gesture that looked more motherly than professional, and then she left, closing the door behind her.

Cunningham sat back and made a tent with his fingertips, picking up the conversation exactly where they had left off, as if there had been no interruption. “Walker Harding became a recluse after he and Stucky sold their business. Practically disappeared off the face of the earth. There seems to be virtually no records, no transactions, no sign of the man.”

“Then what does this have to do with Albert Stucky?” Tully was puzzled.

“I checked the airline schedules within the last week for flights going from Dulles or Reagan National to Kansas City. Not that I expected to find Albert Stucky’s name on any of the manifests.” He looked from Tully to O’Dell. “I was looking for any of the aliases Stucky has used in the past. That’s when I noticed that there was a ticket sold for a KC flight, Sunday afternoon out of Dulles, to a Walker Harding.”

Cunningham waited, looking for some reaction. Tully watched, tapping his foot nervously but not impressed with the information.

“Excuse me, sir, for saying so, but that may not mean much. It may not even be the same man.”

“Perhaps not. However, Agent Tully, I suggest you find out whatever you can about Walker Harding.”

“Assistant Director Cunningham, why am I here?” Agent O’Dell asked politely but with enough candor to indicate she wasn’t willing to continue without an answer.

Tully wanted to smile. Instead, he kept his eyes and his attention on Cunningham. It was hard not to like O’Dell. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her shift in her chair, uncomfortable and restless but holding her tongue. She had been kept off this investigation since the beginning. Tully wondered if she was angry with having to sit and listen to these details if she couldn’t be involved. Or had Cunningham changed his mind? Tully studied his face, but saw no clue as to what his boss was thinking.

When he didn’t answer immediately, O’Dell must have seen it as an opportunity to proceed.

“I mean no disrespect, but the three of us are sitting here talking about a ticket that may or may not have been issued to a man who Albert Stucky may or may not have talked to for years. Yet, there is one thing that we can be certain of—Albert Stucky murdered a woman in Kansas City, and most likely he is still there.”

Tully crossed his arms and waited, all the while wanting to applaud this woman he had heard was burned out and slipping over the edge. She certainly soared at the top of her game this morning.

Cunningham caved in his finger tent and sat forward, leaning elbows on his desk and looking as though he had been ambushed in a chess match. But now he was ready for his move, his turn.

“Saturday night about twenty miles from here, a young woman was found murdered, her body tossed into a Dumpster, her spleen surgically removed and placed inside a discarded pizza box.”

“Saturday?” Agent O’Dell fidgeted while she calculated the unusually short time line. “Kansas City is not a copycat. He left the goddamn kidney at my door.”

Tully winced. Forget chess. This would be more like a showdown at the OK Corral. Cunningham, however, didn’t blink.

“The young woman was a pizza delivery person. She was taken while delivering her route.”

Agent O’Dell became agitated, crossing her legs, then uncrossing them as if restraining her words. Tully knew she had to be exhausted.

Cunningham continued, “She had to have been taken somewhere close by. Perhaps in the neighborhood. He raped and sodomized her, slit her throat and removed her spleen.”

“By sodomized are you saying he raped her himself from behind or with another item?”

Tully couldn’t see a difference. Wasn’t either hideous enough? Cunningham looked to him for the answer. This, unfortunately, he could answer without digging through a single file. The young girl had looked too much like Emma for him not to remember every detail. Whether he wanted them to be or not, they were stamped in his memory.

“There was no semen left behind, but the medical examiner seemed convinced it was penile stimulation. There were no traces or remnants that a foreign object might leave behind.”

“Stucky’s never done that before.” O’Dell sat at the edge of her chair, suddenly animated. “He wouldn’t do that. There would be no point. He likes to watch their faces. He enjoys seeing their fear. He wouldn’t be able to see that from behind.”

Cunningham tapped his fingertips on the desktop as if waiting for O’Dell to finish.

“The young woman delivered a pizza to your new home the night she was murdered.”

The silence seemed amplified when the drumming of the fingertips stopped. Cunningham and Tully watched O’Dell. She sat back, looking from one to the other. Tully saw the realization in her eyes. He expected to see fear, maybe anger. It surprised him to find what looked like resignation. She rubbed a hand over her face and tucked strands of hair behind her ears. Otherwise, she sat quietly.

“That’s why, Agent O’Dell, I’m guessing it didn’t matter that you stayed in Kansas City. He’ll follow you.” Cunningham loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves as though he was suddenly too warm. Both gestures seemed foreign. “Albert Stucky is pulling you into this, no matter what I do to keep you out of it.”

“And by keeping me out of it, sir, you’re taking away my only defense.” O’Dell’s voice had an undeniable quiver to it. Tully saw her bite down on her lower lip. Was it to restrain her words or control the quiver?

Cunningham glanced over at Tully, sat back and released his own sigh of resignation. “Agent Tully has requested that you assist him on the case.”

O’Dell stared at Tully with surprise. He found himself a bit embarrassed and not sure why. It wasn’t as if he had made the request to do her any favors. It could be putting her in even more danger. But the fact was, he needed her.

“I’ve decided to grant Agent Tully’s request on two conditions, neither of which I’m willing to negotiate or compromise.” Cunningham leaned forward again, elbows on his desktop, hands fisted together. “Number one, Agent Tully is to remain the lead on this investigation. I expect you to share all information and knowledge as soon as it becomes available to you. You will not—and I repeat, Agent O’Dell—you will not go off on a wild-goose chase or check on hunches without Agent Tully accompanying you. Is that understood?”

“Of course,” she answered, her voice now strong and firm again.

“Number two. I want you to see the Bureau’s psychologist.”

“Sir, I really don’t think—”

“Agent O’Dell, I said there will be no negotiating, no compromise. I’ll leave it up to Dr. Kernan as to how many times he wants to see you each week.”

“Dr. James Kernan?” O’Dell seemed appalled.

“That’s right. I had Anita set up your first appointment. Check with her on your way out for the time. She’s also setting up an office for you. Agent Tully occupies your old one. I saw no reason in moving both of you. Now, if the two of you will excuse me.” He sat back, dismissing them. “I have another appointment.”

Tully gathered his mess and waited for O’Dell at the door. For a woman who had just been given what she had wanted for the last five months, she looked more agitated than relieved.

T
ess looked forward to her morning appointment, although while she drove down the empty streets, the guilt crept over her for tiptoeing out of Daniel’s house without waking him to say goodbye. She simply didn’t have the energy for another battle. He would grumble about her leaving so early to run home and shower and change clothes, when she could do all that just as easily at his house. What he really wanted was for her to stay, because he was more easily aroused in the mornings, and he wanted to have sex.

Yet he would say ridiculous things like, “We have so little time for each other, we need those few extra minutes in the morning.”

Each time she stayed over, it was the same thing, the same old argument—“How will we ever know if we’re compatible, Tess, if we don’t read the
New York Times
together or share breakfast in bed?”

He had actually given those examples. How could he believe any of that when he barely spoke to her over their dinners together? The mornings when he wanted her to stay for a quick fuck seemed to be the only time he was concerned about their compatibility. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he could care less what was good for their relationship. Not that Tess had any clues about what made a successful relationship. Maybe it did include sharing the
New York Times
and breakfasts in bed. How would she know? She had never been in a relationship she could call a success, and she had never been in one with someone like Daniel Kassenbaum.

Daniel was sophisticated, intelligent, refined and cultured. My God, the man completed the
New York Times
crossword puzzle in ink. But unlike Daniel, she didn’t kid herself about their relationship. She knew they had little in common. He certainly didn’t consider her his equal, and often pointed out her deficiencies as if she were his Eliza Doolittle. Even the other night when she had asked him about investing her bonus money, she had felt as if he had patted her on the head with his “don’t get into something you don’t understand” comment.

However, the one area where Tess excelled, above and beyond Daniel, was sex. What Daniel lacked, Tess made up for. He had told her many times—though only in the heat of passion—that she was “phenomenally the best fuck” he had ever had. For some twisted reason, it pleased her to have this power over him, though it left her cold and hollow inside. Having sex with Daniel, despite being phenomenal for him, was neither enjoyable nor satisfying for Tess.

In fact, she had begun to wonder whether she was capable of feeling genuinely aroused—if she would ever feel the sort of passion she continuously faked with Daniel. Having Will Finley, a complete stranger, resurrect those feelings proved more unsettling and annoying than reassuring. And having those memories, still so fresh in her mind, of Will’s hands and mouth knowing exactly how to touch her, made Daniel’s inadequacies more pronounced. She almost wished that she had never been able to remember her night with Will, that the tequila could have erased her memory. Instead, she seemed able to think of nothing else. And those memories reeled over and over in her mind.

At one time she had been so good at blocking out memories. That was usually the purpose of the tequila. In the past, she used to drink too much. She danced and flirted and had sex with as many men as she wanted. She played and hustled pool, putting on wild, sexy shows for anyone interested in encouraging her. She used to believe that if her life ran constantly in fast-forward, she could forget the horrors of her childhood. After all, nothing she could do would be more shocking, more destructive, more frightening than what she had lived through as a child, right?

But in the process, all Tess had managed to do was create a life empty and hollow. Ironically, it had taken a fifth of vodka and a bottle of sleeping pills to wake her up. That was almost seven years ago. The last five years she had worked her ass off to re-create herself and leave not only her childhood behind, but those dark years spent covering it up and running away from it.

In order to do that, she had left the mad rush of D.C. and all its temptations of drugs, all-night clubs and congressmen’s beds. Louie’s had been a sort of halfway house for Tess. She took a job tending bar and found a tiny apartment by the river. When she finally felt ready, she went back to Blackwood, Virginia, and sold the family farm—the living hell—where she had lived with her aunt and uncle. They had died years before, her only notice coming by way of certified letter from an attorney. Somehow she had expected to automatically know when they died, as if the earth would sigh a relief. There had been no sigh, no relief.

Tess glanced up at herself in the rearview mirror, annoyed that the memories could still wrinkle her brow and clench her teeth. After her aunt’s and uncle’s deaths, she had let the farm sit empty, refusing to set foot on the property. Finally she had the courage to sell the place, but first destroying the house and all the dilapidated buildings. She had made certain that the storm cellar—her personal punishment chamber—had been bulldozed and filled in. Then, and only then, was she able to sell the place.

It had brought a decent price, supplying her with enough money to start a new life, which only seemed fair since it had taken away half her life in the first place. It was enough money for Tess to go back to school and get her real estate license, and to buy and furnish her brick cottage, in a nice neighborhood, in a quiet city, where no one knew her.

After getting the job at Heston Realty, she joined several business associations. Delores signed her on as a member at the Skyview Country Club. She had insisted it would be essential, allowing Tess to meet potential clients. Although Tess still had a problem seeing herself as a member of a country club. It was there she had met Daniel Kassenbaum. It had been a tremendous victory, proof of her successful new lifestyle. She would be able to do anything, go anywhere, if she was able to win someone as sophisticated, arrogant, well-bred and cultured as Daniel.

She reminded herself that Daniel was good for her. He was stable, ambitious, practical and most importantly, he was taken seriously. All things she wanted—no, needed in her life. That he didn’t know or care how to touch her mattered very little in the larger scope of things. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was in love with him. She preferred having no emotional investment. Love and emotions had never been key ingredients to a successful relationship. If anything, they had been ingredients for disaster.

Tess pulled the Miata in front of 5349 Archer Drive. Her eyes checked up and down the cul-de-sac, confirming that she had arrived too early. There was no sign of her 10:00 a.m. appointment. Actually, there were no signs of life. The neighborhood’s residents had already left for their long commute, and those who were able to stay behind were probably still in bed. She decided to use the extra time to make certain the two-story colonial was in show condition.

She checked her reflection one more time. When had the lines around her mouth and eyes become so pronounced? For the first time in her life she was actually beginning to look her age. It had taken her years to get to where she was. Daniel was an important piece of the puzzle for her new professional persona. He lent credibility to her. She couldn’t ruin it now. So why did she keep remembering Will Finley in that blue towel, looking so lean and handsome, and arousing senses she had buried long ago?

She shook her head and grabbed her briefcase, slamming her car door too hard and sending the echo throughout the quiet neighborhood. To make up for the noise, she walked slowly up the sidewalk, preventing her heels from clacking.

The house had been on the market for over eight months with little activity in the last three months. However, the sellers continued to stand firm on their selling price. Like so many of the houses on the outskirts of Newburgh Heights, money seemed to be no problem for the owners, which certainly made negotiations a problem.

Tess went to unlock the steel security door, but the key turned too easily. The dead bolt didn’t click. The door wasn’t locked, and now standing in the foyer, she could see the security system had also been disarmed.