Bloody Point (4 page)

“Okay, well, I’m going to call his ex-wife. Maybe something
happened with one of the kids. If you do hear from him, remind him we’re
supposed to be in town at ten.”

“Yeah, sure. Give me your cell phone number. I’ll call you if
I hear anything.”

When she hung up, she threw on khakis, a white shirt and her
boat shoes and ran to the parking lot. His car wasn’t there. She scanned the
ground around the space where he’d parked. There was one scuffmark, where a tire
had spun gravel. He was angry. He probably had hit the accelerator hard.

Cassie felt dizzy. She knew something was wrong. Jake was
compulsively responsible when it came to his job.

What could she do? Cassie walked back to the boat. She was
supposed to be changing out the galley stove today but the thought of digging
into that project was impossible now. She flopped down on the settee. Her mind
was racing, running in circles, and it was exhausting her.

At 8:52 a.m., Campbell called again. “Stay put; I’m on my way
there,” he said, and she was relieved.

• • •

Craig Campbell reminded Cassie of Jake. He had the same
physicality, the same command that conveyed confidence with every step. Cassie
hadn’t seen him since Mike’s funeral.

“Hey, Cassie,” he said as he approached her on the dock.

“You haven’t heard from Jake?”

Campbell shook his head. “I’ve asked a couple of guys to meet
me here, Danny Stewart and Christopher Harding.”

“Good.”

“I want them to help me look. I’m not waiting. This is too
unlike Jake.”

“Who’s the boss now?” Cassie and Jake’s supervisor had
retired two months ago. He had been a good friend, and Cassie often wondered if
his retirement had anything to do with Mike’s death. It had been traumatic for
everybody.

“Schaeffer is acting, until the new guy gets here.”

Over Campbell’s shoulder, Cassie saw what had to be two
Bureau cars enter the parking lot. Suddenly her heart was pounding. She touched
his arm to keep his attention. “Craig, we had an argument.”

“About?”

“Me coming back to Bureau. And, some other stuff.”

Campbell nodded, searching her face. “He left angry?”

“Probably.” She had to be honest. “Definitely.”

“But not depressed.”

She didn’t respond.

“Not suicidal.”

Cassie shook her head. “No way.”

“No, not Jake,” he agreed. Still, they both knew the
statistics for law enforcement officers. Suicide was common, and with the
personal struggles Jake had experienced recently — the death of his best
friend, his divorce, the resignation of his partner — anything was possible.

Danny and Christopher approached them on the dock. The sound
of their heels on the wood was a rat-a-tat-tat, like the drumming of a military
snare drum or a burst of gunfire on a range. The sun was bright now, at ten in
the morning, and hot on Cassie’s back.

Danny Stewart was an African-American man in his fifties,
tall and slim. He had a reputation for being a kind and honorable man, so much
so the others called him “Deacon.” A long-time agent, he’d faced his share of
discrimination in some of the backwater posts he’d been sent to, and some of
the big cities as well, but he’d refused to let those hard experiences sour
him. Christopher Harding was a white guy, short, dark-haired, wearing a tan
suit, white shirt and loafers. Cassie didn’t know him very well, but he was
another runner, and Jake had spoken of him on occasion. Both were friends of
Jake. They worked out together in the gym.

Craig Campbell turned around when he heard their footsteps.
“Thanks for coming, guys,” he said, extending his hand.

“And how are you, young lady?” Danny asked, giving Cassie a
gentle hug. “We miss you!”

“Thank you,” she responded. “Hello, Chris.”

Campbell filled them in, and they asked Cassie a few
questions. She answered them, feeling slightly dazed and disoriented.

“You say he left here around ten,” said Christopher, “and he
was intending to go straight home?”

“As far as I know.”

Danny looked at Cassie. “Show us where he was parked.”

Cassie took them back to the parking lot. They carefully
studied the gravel for markings. In the grass, Campbell found a soggy napkin
from the restaurant where they’d eaten that she had probably dropped when she
jumped out of the car. But there was nothing to rouse their suspicions, no sign
of foul play.

“He could be off the road somewhere.”

“Well,” said Campbell, gesturing with his hand, “I’ve left
voice mail messages for him at home and at work. I’ve asked the squad secretary
to keep trying his numbers. Betty’s on the ball, she’ll stay on top of this.”
He kicked at a small rock on the ground. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I
am concerned.”

A white sedan, pierced by multiple antennas, had pulled into
the marina parking lot. It stopped ten feet from the assembled agents and a man
in a dark gray suit got out. “Craig! What in the world brings you down to our
neck of the woods?” he asked as he walked toward them, extending his hand.
“Good to see you!”

“You, too, Mark. This is Detective Mark Cunningham, Anne
Arundel County police.” Craig introduced the others.

Cassie watched the two men carefully. Craig seemed genuinely
relaxed around Cunningham. She guessed they’d worked together when Craig was in
Annapolis.

“So, what’s going on?” Cunningham asked.

Campbell’s eyes scanned his face, and it seemed to Cassie
that he was carefully calculating his response. Jake could have simply
forgotten their meeting. He could be drunk, although Cassie couldn’t imagine
that, or he could be off with some woman somewhere, although that was even less
probable. Campbell wouldn’t want to make public something that might embarrass
Jake later. On the other hand, for Jake to miss a meeting right before a court
date was extraordinary. If something was wrong, they could use all the help
they could get in sorting it out.

“We may have a problem, Mark,” Campbell finally said, and he
explained the situation.

“Why don’t you all come back with me to my office?”
Cunningham suggested. “I’ll check through the accident reports, and you can set
up there.”

“What do you say?” Craig said, looking at the other agents.
After a moment, they nodded in agreement. “Thanks, Mark. We’ll take you up on
that.”

“I want to go with you.” Cassie’s voice was tight.

The detective looked at her and then at Craig, who nodded his
assent. “I think she should be in on it. She’s his partner.”

Present tense. Cassie felt relieved and saddened at the same
time. She dashed to her boat, grabbed a navy blue blazer and her purse, and
locked up. She needed to find Jake Tucker. Suddenly her sanity depended on it.

• • •

For the next hour and a half they poured over maps, made phone
calls, and developed scenarios. Danny left to check out ditches and the areas
under bridges on Jake’s presumed route home. Chris called hospitals, and then
went back to the marina, going from boat to boat questioning people. So far
they had come up with nothing.

At noon someone called to order a pizza. Cassie couldn’t even
imagine eating. Campbell was on the phone again. He was keeping in close
contact with Betty, the squad secretary. From the look on his face, his concern
was growing.

Cassie leaned over the topographical map spread out on the
table. She started to ask Detective Cunningham a question, but when she looked
up, he had walked away, toward the open door. A woman and a teen-age girl stood
there.
Probably his wife and kid
, Cassie thought, and it annoyed her
that they would interrupt them.

She looked back at the map and when she looked up again, she
saw that Christopher Harding, who had just gotten back from the marina, and
Craig Campbell had both joined Cunningham, surrounding the girl. Then Craig
looked at her, and the expression on his face sent a shiver of fear down her
back.

“Come on,” he said, walking over to Cassie and grabbing his
suit jacket. “I’ll explain on the way.”

†

Bloody Point

Chapter 4

C
RAIG Campbell wheeled
the Bureau car out of the police department parking lot, following Detective
Cunningham. He picked up the radio and called Danny. “Meet me at Cedar Brook
Park on Route 192.”

“Right. Twenty minutes,” Danny responded.

“So what’s going on?” Cassie asked. Her heart felt
constricted like a tight fist in her chest and her throat had closed up. She
could barely breathe.

Campbell glanced at her. “The girl is fifteen.”

“Cunningham’s daughter?”

“Right. Last night she had permission to go to the movies
with her sixteen-year-old cousin and some friends. Instead, they went to a
place where the local kids go to party, an undeveloped cul-de-sac in a
residential area.”

Cunningham had turned on a blue light and was quickening the
pace. Campbell reached under the seat and pulled out his own blue light, put it
on the dash and accelerated quickly. Then he continued. “The kids parked their
car on a dead end street. I guess they were drinking and listening to music,
just hanging out when it started to rain.”

“That would have been around ten,” Cassie interrupted.

“One kid knew about a pavilion in a park, just beyond a tall
hedge, where they could get some shelter. They went through the hedge, crossed
a drainage ditch, came around some bushes, and then they saw a man. He was
dragging a body out of an SUV.”

Cassie stared straight ahead, transfixed.

“The kids saw him stab the body, over and over. The girls
screamed. The man looked up. The kids beat it back to their car. They heard two
shots as they ran.” Campbell steered hard to the left, to head down a four-lane
highway. “They were all scared to tell their folks where they’d been. But this
morning, the guilt got to Cunningham’s daughter. She called her mom, who
brought her down to see Mark.”

“Do you think this involves Jake?”

“It was a black SUV.”

“Could be anybody’s.”

“Could be Jake’s.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence. Campbell sped down
a side street, then finally stopped in a cul-de-sac, in front of a tall hedge.
When they exited the car, Cassie looked up, and saw half a dozen vultures
circling off to the west. Her stomach wrenched. She wanted to go forward, but
she didn’t want to face what lay beyond that hedge. She wanted to find Jake,
but she didn’t want to find him here.

The girl led them through a small opening in the hedge. On
the other side was an open field, bisected by a drainage ditch. Beyond the
ditch was a stand of tall grass and some shrubs, and beyond that, the pavilion.

The day was hot and humid. Bugs stirred up by their approach
stuck to Cassie’s skin and buzzed around her head. She waved them off. She
wanted to race ahead of the men, to find the victim and prove it was not Jake.
Not Jake. No way. But she held back and kept pace with the others.

They jogged through the field, across the ditch, and leaped
over the small stream at the bottom. As they climbed the other side, Cassie
uttered a soft exclamation. She saw something through the weeds.

The rest of the world disappeared. She broke away from the
others and began running. Her head was pounding. She could see a piece of
cloth, blue in color, just like the shirt Jake had been wearing the night
before. And then, in the weeds, she saw a body lying on the ground. As she grew
nearer, there was no doubt in her mind who it was. Jake.

She was vaguely aware of Campbell, who was right behind her,
yelling for an ambulance as they ran. She could hear the detective and
Christopher following, their feet pounding the soft earth.

Jake was lying on his stomach. His head and arm and neck
looked black. As she got closer, she saw he was covered in dried blood. Flies
were swarming all around him.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she cried. She threw herself down on the
ground beside him and gently placed her fingers on his throat. There was a
pulse! It was thready and weak, but it was there. “He’s alive!” she cried. How
long had he been there? Desperately, she brushed the flies away with her hand.
They immediately re-landed. She pulled her blazer off, swatted the flies again,
and draped the jacket over him.

“He’s alive! Get the medics, he’s alive,” she repeated.

“They’re on the way,” Campbell responded. Jake’s left hand
clutched his cell phone. Campbell carefully removed it. The phone was covered
with blood.

Cunningham and Christopher backed away, quickly scanning the
area. They needed to establish a perimeter, search for evidence before everyone
showed up and messed up the scene. The young girl stood a ways off, sobbing in
her mother’s arms.

Cassie focused on Jake. “Jake, it’s me, Cassie. Jake, can you
hear me?” She stroked his cheek, her hand shaking. The stubble of his beard was
scratchy. “Jake, wake up!”
Please
, she pleaded silently,
please wake
up
. “Look at me! Jake, Jake!”

His eyes flickered open for just a minute, met hers, and
closed again. “You’re going to make it, Jake. Hang in there. We’re getting
help.”

“Keep talking to him,” Campbell said. Already the scream of
an ambulance siren could be heard. Three other carloads of agents showed up.
“Mark out a landing site for the medevac helicopter,” Campbell told them.

Cassie moved back when the paramedics arrived. She watched as
they took Jake’s vital signs, set up an IV, began administering fluids, and
stabilized his head. When they gently turned him over Cassie gasped. Blood had
clotted over a wound on the back of his head. Stab wounds on his right shoulder
spilled fresh blood. His hands were bloody. And on the left side of his neck
was an odd, inch-long cut, like an incision.

Cassie felt suffocated by fear. How much blood had Jake lost?
He absolutely could not die! Life couldn’t be that cruel.

• • •

The chopper would take Jake to the University of Maryland Shock-Trauma
Unit in Baltimore. Campbell was going with him; he’d asked Danny to bring
Cassie to the hospital and Chris to take care of his car. All the way to
Baltimore, as they skimmed through the traffic on Route 2, Cassie obsessed
about Jake. What if he didn’t make it? What if she lost him, too?

She was consumed with guilt over the argument they’d had. Six
months ago she would never have told Jake Tucker to get out of her life. Why
was his presence now so overwhelming? It was like he was pulling her in a
direction she didn’t want to go, and she had to resist at all costs.

Only now it could cost her Jake.

Who had attacked him? Why? Why didn’t Jake fight back? He was
an expert in street survival. He had been on the SWAT team. How could someone
have gotten the jump on him?

As Cassie rolled the questions over in her mind, country gave
way to suburbs and soon the city of Baltimore appeared ahead. She could see the
outline of downtown where Federal Plaza, the Inner Harbor, and Camden Yards,
home of the Orioles, attracted tourists and locals alike.

The University of Maryland Hospital Shock-Trauma Center was
nestled in the heart of the city amidst tall gray buildings and traffic-clogged
streets. Danny dropped Cassie off at the emergency door. “Are you okay by
yourself?” he asked her. “I’ll go park.”

“Sure.” She was clutching her blazer, the one she’d draped
over Jake, like a security blanket. As she entered the hospital, nausea overwhelmed
her as the familiar smell of antiseptic filled her nose.

He would be registered as “John Doe.” So how could she find
him? She took a guess that he would either be in the emergency room or
intensive care. She’d start with the ER.

She walked past the waiting room and acted like she knew what
she was doing. Someone called “Miss! Miss!” but she’d spotted Campbell down the
hallway so she just kept going.

Campbell hugged her. “He’s hanging in there,” he reported.
Then he showed her to a special waiting room they’d been assigned. It was full
of agents; some she knew, others she didn’t. Cassie sat down in a blue
upholstered chair, off by herself, feeling strangely detached. She hugged her
jacket, now stiff with Jake’s blood.

Campbell squatted down next to her chair. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Where is he?”

“They’re working on him.” He put his hand on hers. “Be
strong.” He patted her hand, stood up, and left the room.

Be strong? How?

The thought entered her mind that she should pray, but
immediately she rejected that notion. Why pray? What good would it do? Still,
she tried. Silently. And she’d get about two words strung together before she
just stopped. In the end, all she could say was
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God
.

The waiting went on for hours. They were trying to stabilize
him, Craig said. They were giving him fluids and blood. Some of the agents had
rolled up their sleeves and walked off to donate. Cassie sat huddled in her
chair watching and listening. Questions ran around and around in her head, like
monsters on a carousel.
Who did this? Why? How? How could she have stopped
this from happening?

A few of the agents she knew ventured over to talk to her but
soon they drifted away, unsure of how to talk to this woman who spoke in
monosyllables and refused to look them in the eye.

“Do you want me to call someone for you?” Campbell asked. “A
female friend? Betty, or one of the other agents?”

She declined. She had no friends among the women in the
office. She’d always hung out with Mike and Jake.

The daylight was fading outside the windows, the perfect blue
sky deepening to azure. Like a blanket being spread over a sleeping child,
night was covering the city. This is the way it was in a hospital, Cassie knew.
Night and day became irrelevant; time progressed slowly if at all.

Finally, when she thought she couldn’t stand waiting one more
minute, Craig Campbell appeared in the doorway. Everyone in the room suddenly
stopped talking and looked toward him expectantly. Cassie unfolded her legs and
sat up straight. Campbell waited a long moment. Lines creased the corners of
his blue eyes.

Campbell’s carriage and demeanor commanded attention and
respect. He looked out over the group like a general surveying his troops.
“Thank you all for being here. The doctors have stabilized Jake and are
preparing to move him to the Intensive Care Unit. The next twelve hours will be
critical. He has sustained a severe blow to his head,” Campbell pointed to the
back of his own skull, “right about here, resulting in a fractured skull. He
also was stabbed six to eight times. He has defensive wounds on his hands and
wrist. He’s lost a lot of blood. But if he makes it through the next twelve
hours, the doctors are hopeful he will live.

“Those of you who have families may want to go home and check
back with us tomorrow. We appreciate everyone’s continued thoughts and
prayers.”

Cassie pressed her fingers to her temples.
He has to live,
he just has to.

“Cassie.” Craig touched her shoulder. She looked up. “Let’s
take a walk. Come on.”

She didn’t try to resist. He walked her down to the cafeteria
and bought her some chicken noodle soup and a cup of tea and sat down across
from her, a hamburger on the plate in front of him. She stared at his wedding
ring, and she wondered for an instant if he’d called his wife to say he’d be
home late, if at all. And she knew he had because he was that kind of guy, a
good guy, steady and stable. Mike said he had a good heart.

“So how are you holding up?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“So, you like what you’re doing now, living down there on
that boat?”

“Yeah. It’s great.”

“Real peaceful?”

“Uh-huh. Yes.”

“Jake was kind of worried about you.” Campbell kept his eyes
on her as he took a sip of Coke.

“I know. You see …” and before she knew it, she was telling
him the whole story, from her husband’s death to the decision to restore the
boat. “It was like I needed to save it, to rescue it. It had been down three
days, and when they brought it up it just seemed natural that I had to fix it,
to make it right.”

Campbell listened intently, his blue eyes focused on her face
as he nodded in understanding.

“I named it
Time Out,
and I worked on it every day.
And then Jake showed up, and I was glad to see him, but I felt like he was
pressuring me, you know? Pulling me back toward a place I didn’t want to be.”

“Because you really don’t want to resume your career with the
Bureau.”

“No. I just lost my heart when Mike died. I couldn’t do it
anymore. And Jake, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“So you had an argument.”

Cassie took a deep breath. “Yes, and I am so sorry. I ran him
off. I was so scared, and so angry. I just shoved him away, literally. I just
couldn’t deal with him!”

“I’m sure he felt bad about it too.”

Cassie winced at the remembrance.

“Jake thinks an awful lot of you. You’re his partner. That
means a lot. You’re one of his best friends. Maybe the best.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t act like it. And now … Craig,
he just can’t die.”

“I know.” He hesitated, as if he were unsure of her reaction.
“Mike’s death was hard on you.”

What could she say to that? She just nodded.

Campbell began to gather up their dishes. “Come on. Let’s go
find out if we can get in to see Jake.”