Split Second (16 page)

Reston, Virginia
Saturday evening
March 28

R. J.
Tully peeled off another ten-dollar bill and slid it under the ticket window. When had movie tickets started costing $8.50 each? He tried to remember the last time he had been to a movie theater on a Saturday night. He tried to remember when he had last been to a movie theater, period. Surely he and Caroline had gone some time during their thirteen-year marriage. Though it would have been early on—before she began preferring her co-workers to him.

He glanced around to find Emma dawdling far behind him, off to the side and at least three moviegoers back. Sometimes he wondered who the hell this person was. This beautiful, tall fourteen-year-old with silky blond hair and the beginnings of a shapely body she blatantly emphasized with tight jeans and a tight knit sweater. She looked more and more like her mother every day. God, he missed the days when this same girl held his hand and jumped into his arms, anxious to go anywhere with him. But just like her mother, that too had changed.

He waited for her at the ticket taker and wondered how she’d be able to sit next to him for two hours. He saw her eyes dart around the crowded lobby. Immediately, his heart sank. She didn’t want any of her new friends to see her on a Saturday night, going to a movie with her dad. Was she really that embarrassed by him? He couldn’t remember ever feeling that way about either of his parents. No wonder he spent so many hours at work. At the moment, understanding serial killers seemed much easier than understanding fourteen-year-old girls.

“How ’bout some popcorn?” he offered.

“Popcorn has, like, tons of fat.”

“I don’t think you have a thing to worry about, Sweet Pea.”

“Oh my God, Dad!”

He stopped abruptly, checking to see if he had stepped on her toes. She sounded so pained.

“Don’t call me that,” she whispered.

He smiled down at her, which seemed to embarrass her more.

“Okay, so no popcorn for you. How about a Pepsi?”

“Diet Pepsi,” she corrected him.

Surprisingly, she waited next to him in line at the concession stand, but her eyes still roamed the crowded lobby. It had been almost two months since Emma had come to live with him full-time. The truth was, he saw even less of her than when they were all back in Cleveland, and he was only a weekend dad. At least then they did things together, trying to make up for lost time.

When they first moved to Virginia he had tried to make sure they had dinner together every night, but he was the first to break that routine. His new job at Quantico had swallowed up much more of his time than he realized. So in addition to he and Emma settling into a new home, a new job, a new school and a new city, she also had to get used to not having her mother.

He still couldn’t believe that Caroline had agreed to the arrangement. Maybe when she got tired of playing CEO by day, and the dating game by night, she would want her daughter back in her life full-time.

He watched Emma’s quick, nervous swipes at the misbehaving strands of her long hair. Her eyes were still casing the theater. He wondered if fighting for full custody had been a mistake. He knew she missed her mother, even if her mother had been less available to her than he was. Damn it! Why did this parenting thing have to be so damn hard?

He almost ordered buttered popcorn, but stopped himself and ordered plain, hoping Emma might change her mind and snitch some.

“And two medium Diet Pepsis.”

He looked to see if she was impressed by her influence on him. Instead, her light complexion paled, as discomfort converted to panic.

“Oh my God! It’s Josh Reynolds.”

Now she stood so close, Tully had to take a step back to collect their sodas and popcorn.

“Oh God! I hope he didn’t see me.”

“Who’s Josh Reynolds?”

“Just one of the coolest kids in the junior class.”

“Let’s say hi.”

“Dad! Oh God, maybe he didn’t see me.”

She stood facing Tully, her back to the young, dark-haired boy who was making his way toward them, his destination definitely Emma. And why shouldn’t it be? His daughter was a knockout. Tully wondered if Emma was really panicked or if this was part of the game. He honestly had no clue. He didn’t understand women, so how could he possibly expect to understand their predecessors?

“Emma? Emma Tully?”

The boy was closing in. Tully watched in amazement as his daughter manufactured a nervous but glowing smile from the twisted panic that had existed just seconds before. She turned just as Josh Reynolds squeezed through the concession line.

“Hi, Josh.”

Tully glanced down to check if some impostor had replaced his obstinate daughter. Because this girl’s voice was much too cheerful.

“What movie you seeing?”

“
Ace of Hearts
,” she admitted reluctantly though it had been her choice.

“Me too. My mom wants to see it,” he added much too quickly.

Tully found himself sympathizing with the boy, who shoved his hands into his pockets. What Emma called cool visibly took effort. Or was Tully the only one who could see the boy nervously tapping his foot and fidgeting? After an awkward silence and them ignoring his presence, Tully said, “Hi, Josh, I’m R. J. Tully, Emma’s father.”

“Hi, Mr. Tully.”

“I’d offer you a hand, but they’re both filled.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Emma roll her eyes. How could that possibly embarrass her? He was being polite. Just then his pager began shrieking. Josh offered to take the sodas before it even occurred to Emma. Tully snapped the noise off, but not before getting several irritated stares. Emma turned a lovely shade of red. At a glance, he recognized the phone number. Of all nights, why tonight?

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Are you a doctor or something, Mr. Tully?”

“No, Josh. I’m an FBI agent.”

“You’re kidding? That is so cool.”

The boy’s face brightened, and Tully saw that Emma noticed. Instead of heading directly for the phone bank, Tully stalled.

“I work at Quantico, in the Investigative Support Unit. I’m what you’d call a criminal profiler.”

“Wow! That is so cool,” Josh repeated.

Without looking at her, Tully saw Emma’s face change as she watched Josh’s reaction.

“So do you track serial killers just like in the movies?”

“I’m afraid the movies make it look more glamorous than it is.”

“Geez! I bet you’ve seen some pretty weird stuff, though, huh?”

“Unfortunately, yes, I have. I really need to make a phone call. Josh, would you mind keeping Emma company for a few minutes?”

“Oh sure. No, problem, Mr. Tully.”

He didn’t look at Emma again until he was safely at the pay phone. Suddenly, his belligerent daughter was full of smiles, genuine this time. He watched the two teenagers talk and laugh while he dialed the number. For the first time in a long time, he felt happy and glad that Emma was with him. For a few minutes, he had almost forgotten that the world could be cruel and violent, then he heard Assistant Director Cunningham’s voice.

“It’s Tully, sir. You paged me?”

“Looks like we may have one of Stucky’s.”

Tully felt instant nausea. He had been anticipating and dreading this call for the last couple of months.

“Where at, sir?”

“Right under our noses. About thirty to forty-five minutes from here. Can you pick me up in about an hour? We can go to the site together.”

Without asking, Tully knew Cunningham meant picking him up at Quantico. He wondered if the man ever went home.

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll see you in an hour.”

This was it. After years of sitting behind a desk in Cleveland and profiling killers from afar, this was his chance to prove himself and join the real hunters. So why did he feel sick to his stomach?

Tully made his way back to his daughter and her friend, anticipating her disappointment.

“I’m sorry, Emma, I’ve got to leave.”

Immediately, her eyes grew dark, her smile slid off her face.

“Josh, did you say you were here with your mom?”

“Yeah, she’s getting us popcorn.” He pointed to an attractive redhead in the line. When she noticed Josh pointing, she smiled at him and shrugged at the stagnant line in front of her.

“Josh, Emma, would you mind if I ask Josh’s mom if Emma could join you for the movie?” Tully steeled himself for his daughter’s panic and horror.

“No, that would be cool,” Josh said without hesitating, and Emma immediately seemed pleased.

“Sure, Dad,” she said.

Tully wondered if she knew how cool she was pretending to be right now.

When he introduced himself to Jennifer Reynolds, she also seemed pleased to help him out. He offered to repay her another night by treating all of them to another movie. Then he kicked himself when he noticed her wedding band. But Jennifer Reynolds accepted his offer without hesitation, and with a flirtatious look that even an out-of-practice, newly single guy didn’t need to decipher. Despite his curiosity, he couldn’t help feeling a bit excited.

He smiled all the way to his car, greeting people in the parking lot and jingling his car keys. The evening was still warm and the moon promised to be brilliant despite wisps of clouds. He slid behind the steering wheel and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, as though he had forgotten the configuration of his face when it was happy. What an unusual feeling, happiness and excitement, and all in the same evening. Two things he hadn’t felt in years, though he knew both would be short-lived. He drove out of the theater’s parking lot feeling he could take on anything and anyone. Maybe even Albert Stucky.

T
ully followed Cunningham’s directions and turned at the intersection. Immediately, he saw spotlights in the back alley of a small strip mall. Police cruisers blocked the street, and Tully pulled up beside one, flashed his badge and drove through the maze. He tried to take a lesson from his daughter’s new friend Josh by pretending to be cool. Fact was, his stomach felt hollow and perspiration slid down his back.

Tully had seen plenty of crime scenes, severed limbs, bloodied walls, mutilated bodies and sick, disgusting killer signatures that ranged from a single long-stemmed rose to a decapitated corpse. But all those scenes, up until now, had been only in photographs, digital scans and illustrations sent to him at the FBI Cleveland Field Office. He had become one of the Midwest’s experts in developing precise criminal profiles from the bits and pieces law enforcement officers sent him. It was his accuracy that had prompted Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham to offer Tully a position at Quantico in the Investigative Support Unit. In one phone call and without ever having met him, Cunningham had offered Tully a chance to work out in the field, starting with the hunt for one of the FBI’s most infamous fugitives—Albert Stucky.

Tully knew Cunningham had been forced to dismantle the task force after months of nothing to show for their time and expense. He also knew he owed his good fortune to the agent he had replaced, an agent who had been temporarily assigned to teaching at law enforcement conferences. Without much digging, he discovered the agent was Margaret O’Dell, whom he had never met but knew by reputation. She was one of the youngest and one of the best profilers in the country.

The unofficial word was that O’Dell had burned out and needed a break. Rumors suggested that she had lost her edge, that she was combative and reckless, that she had become paranoid and obsessed with recapturing Albert Stucky. Of course, there were also rumors that Assistant Director Cunningham had sidelined Margaret O’Dell to protect her from Stucky. The two had played a dangerous game of cat and mouse about eight months ago that had eventually led to Stucky’s capture, but only after he had tortured and almost killed O’Dell. Now after months of studying, searching and waiting, Tully would finally meet the man nicknamed The Collector, if only through his handiwork.

Tully pulled the car as close to the barricades as he could. Cunningham jumped out before Tully had it in park. He almost forgot to turn off the lights. He noticed his palms were sweaty when he pulled the key from the ignition. His legs seemed stiff, his knee suddenly reminding him of an old injury as he hurried to catch up with his boss. Tully stood four inches taller than the assistant director, and his strides were long, yet it took an effort to keep up. He guessed Cunningham to be at least ten years his senior, but the man had a lean, athletic body, and Tully had witnessed him bench-pressing twice the weight the academy recruits started at.

“Where is she?” Cunningham wasted no time asking a police detective who looked to be in charge.

“She’s still in the Dumpster. We haven’t moved a thing, except the pizza box.”

The detective had a neck as thick as a linebacker’s and the seams of his sports jacket bulged. He was treating this like an everyday traffic check. Tully wondered which big city the detective had come from, because he definitely had developed his no-nonsense manner somewhere other than Newburgh Heights. He and the assistant director seemed to know one another and took no time for introductions.

“Where is the pizza box?” Cunningham wanted to know.

“Officer McClusky gave it to the doc. The kid who found it sorta dropped it, and the stuff got all jostled.”

Suddenly the smell of stale pizza and the sounds of police radios made Tully’s head hurt. During the drive, the adrenaline had pumped him into action. Now the reality was a bit overwhelming. He ran unsteady fingers through his hair. Okay, this couldn’t be that much different than looking at photos. He could do this, and he ignored the recurring nausea as he followed his boss to the Dumpster where three uniformed officers stood guard. Even the officers stood a good ten feet away to avoid the stench.

The first thing Tully noticed was the young woman’s long blond hair. Immediately, he thought of Emma. He could see over the Dumpster’s edge easily, but waited as Cunningham pulled up a crate. His boss’s face remained emotionless.

Though covered in garbage, Tully could tell the woman had been young, not much older than Emma. And she had been beautiful. Discarded lettuce and spoiled tomatoes clung to her naked breasts. The rest of her was buried in garbage, but Tully saw glimpses of thigh, and then realized she wore only a blue baseball cap. He could also see that her throat had been slashed from ear to ear, and there was an open wound in her side, almost at her lower back. But that was all. There were no severed limbs, no bloody mutilation. He wasn’t sure what he had expected.

“She looks like she’s in one piece,” Cunningham said as though reading Tully’s thoughts. He stepped off the crate and then addressed the detective again. “What was in the box?”

“Not sure. Looked like a bloody glob to me. Doc can probably tell you. He’s over in the van.”

He pointed to a dusty silver van marked with the Stafford County emblem on the side. The doors were open and a distinguished gray-haired man in a well-pressed suit sat in the back with a clipboard.

“Doc, these gentlemen from the FBI need to see that special delivery.”

The detective turned and started to leave just as a media van pulled into an adjacent parking lot.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. Looks like the zoo visitors have arrived.”

Cunningham stepped up into the van, and Tully followed, though it seemed crowded with the three of them. Or was Tully the only one having problems breathing? Already he could smell the contents of the box, which sat in the middle of the floor. He sat on one of the benches before his stomach started to churn.

“Hello, Frank.” Assistant Director Cunningham knew the medical examiner, too. “This is Special Agent R. J. Tully. Agent Tully, Dr. Frank Holmes, deputy chief medical examiner for Stafford County.”

“I don’t know if this is your man, Kyle, but when Detective Rosen called me, he seemed to think you might be interested.”

“Rosen worked in Boston when Stucky kidnapped Councilwoman Brenda Carson.”

“I remember that. What was that two, three years ago?”

“Not quite two.”

“Thankfully, I was on vacation. Fishing up in Canada.” The doctor cocked his head as though trying to remember some sporting event. Tully found everyone’s ease, all the casualness, a bit unnerving. He sat still, hoping no one could hear his heart pounding. The doctor continued. “But now if I remember right, Carson’s body was buried in a shallow grave in some woods. Outside Richmond, wasn’t it? Certainly not in some Dumpster.”

“This guy’s complicated, Frank. The ones he collects are the ones we rarely find. These women…these are his rejects. They’re simply for sport—for show-and-tell.” Cunningham sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, the balls of his feet rocking as though ready to jump into action at any moment. Everything about Cunningham telescoped his constant energy, his immediacy. Yet, his face, his voice remained calm, almost soothing.

Tully stared at the pizza box on the floor of the van. Despite the scent of pizza dough and pepperoni, he recognized the acrid scent as blood. So much for eating pizza ever again.

“Nothing happens in this quiet little suburb,” Dr. Holmes said while continuing to jot details on the forms he had clipped to his board. “Then two homicides in one day.”

“Two?” Cunningham’s patience seemed to wear thin with the doctor’s slow, deliberate manner. He stared at the pizza box, and Tully knew his boss wouldn’t touch it without first being invited to do so by Dr. Holmes. Tully had discovered early on that despite the director’s authority, he showed great respect for those he worked with, as well as for rules, policy and protocol.

“I’m not aware of another homicide, Frank,” he said when the doctor took too long to offer an explanation.

“Well, I’m not sure the other one is a homicide, yet. We never did find a body.” Dr. Holmes finally put the clipboard aside. “We had an agent on the scene. Maybe one of yours?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Not far from here in the nice quiet neighborhood of Newburgh Heights. Said she was a forensic psychologist. Just moved into the victim’s neighborhood. Very impressive young woman.”

Tully watched Cunningham’s face and saw the transformation from calm to agitated.

“Yes, I did hear about that. I had forgotten her new neighborhood was in Newburgh Heights. I apologize if she got in the way.”

“Oh, no apology necessary, Kyle. On the contrary, she proved very helpful. I think the arrogant bastard who was supposed to be investigating the scene may have even learned a thing or two.”

Tully caught the assistant director with a smile at the corner of his lips, before he realized he was being watched. He turned to Tully and explained, “Agent O’Dell, your predecessor, just bought a new home in this area.”

“Agent Margaret O’Dell?” Tully held his boss’s eyes until he saw that Cunningham had now made the same connection Tully had just made. Both of them stared at Dr. Holmes as he slid the pizza box closer. Suddenly, Tully knew it didn’t matter what they found in the box. Whatever had been discarded, neither of them needed to see the bloody mess to confirm that this was most likely the work of Albert Stucky. And Tully knew it was no coincidence that he had chosen to start again, close to Agent Margaret O’Dell’s new home.