Split Second

CHAPTER 9

Maggie’s eyes begged to close. Her shoulders slouched from exhaustion. It was almost midnight by the time Gwen left. Maggie knew she’d never be able to sleep. She had already checked every window latch twice, leaving only a choice few open to keep the wonderful chilly breeze flowing through the main floor. Likewise, she had double-checked the security system several times after Gwen’s departure. Now she paced, dreading the night hours, hating the dark and vowing to put up drapes and blinds tomorrow.

Finally she sat back down cross-legged in the middle of the pile created from the contents of Stucky’s personal box of horror. She pulled out the folder with newspaper clippings and articles she had downloaded. Ever since Stucky’s escape five months ago, she had watched newspaper headlines across the country by using the Internet.

She still couldn’t believe how easily Albert Stucky had escaped. On his way to a maximum-security facility—a simple trip that should have taken a couple of hours—Stucky killed two transport guards. Then he disappeared into the Florida Everglades, never to be seen again.

Anyone else may not have been able to survive, having become a nifty snack for some alligator. But knowing Stucky, Maggie imagined him emerging from the Everglades in a three-piece suit and a briefcase made of alligator skin. Yes, Albert Stucky was intelligent and crafty and savvy enough to charm an alligator out of its own skin, and then reward it by slicing it up and feeding it to the other alligators.

She sorted through the most recent articles. Last week, the Philadelphia Journal had an article about a woman’s torso found in the river, her head and feet found in a Dumpster. It was the closest thing she had seen in months to Stucky’s M.O., yet it still didn’t feel like him. It was too much. It was overkill. Stucky’s handiwork, though inconceivably horrible, had never included chopping away a victim’s identity. No, Stucky enjoyed doing that with subtle psychological and mental tricks. Even his extraction of an organ from the victim was not a statement about the victim but rather his attempt to continue the game. Maggie imagined him watching and laughing as some unsuspecting diner found Stucky’s appalling surprise, often tucked into an ordinary take-out container and abandoned on an outside café table. It was all a game to Stucky, a morbid, twisted game.

The articles that frightened Maggie more than the ones with missing body parts were the ones of women who had disappeared. Women like her missing neighbor, Rachel Endicott. Intelligent, successful women, some with families, all attractive, and all described as women who would not suddenly leave their lives without telling a soul. Maggie couldn’t help wondering if any of them had become part of Stucky’s collection. By now he had surely found somewhere isolated, somewhere to start all over again. He had the money and the means. All he needed was time.

She knew Cunningham and his defunct task force, and now his new profiler, were waiting for a body. But if, and when, the bodies did start showing up, they were the ones Stucky killed only for fun. No, the ones they should be looking for were the women he collected. These were the women he tortured—who ended up in remote graves deep in the woods, only after he was completely finished playing his sick games with them. Games that would drag on for days, maybe weeks. The women Stucky chose were never young or naive. No, Stucky enjoyed a challenge. He carefully chose intelligent, mature women. Women who would fight back, not those easily broken. Women he could torture psychologically as well as physically.

Maggie rubbed her eyes. She wanted another Scotch. The two earlier, added to the beer, were already making her head buzz and her vision blur. Though she had brewed a pot of coffee earlier for Gwen, she hated the stuff and stayed away from it. Now she wished she had something to help her stay alert. Something like the Scotch, which she knew was becoming a dangerous anesthetic.

She lifted another file folder and a page fell out. Seeing his handwriting still sent chills down her spine. She picked it up by its corner as though its evil would contaminate her. It had been the first of many notes in the sick game Albert Stucky had played with her. He had written in careful script:

What challenge is there in breaking a horse without spirit? The challenge is to replace that spirit with fear, raw animal fear that makes one feel alive. Are you ready to feel alive, Margaret O’Dell?

It had been their first insight into the intellect of Albert Stucky, a man whose father had been a prominent doctor. A man who had been afforded all the best schools, all the privileges money could buy. Yet he was thrown out of Yale for almost burning down a women’s dormitory. There were other offenses: attempted rape, assault, petty theft. All charges had been either dropped or were never pressed, due to lack of evidence. Stucky had been questioned in the accidental death of his father, a freak boating accident though the man had supposedly been an expert yachtsman.

Then, about six or seven years ago, Albert Stucky took up a business partner, and the two of them succeeded in creating one of the Internet’s first stock-market trading sites. Stucky became a respectable businessman, and a multimillionaire.

Despite all of Maggie’s research, she never felt certain about what had set Stucky off in the first place. What had been the event, the precursor? Usually with serial killers, their crimes were precipitated by some stressor. An event, a death, a rejection, an abuse that one day made them decide to kill. She didn’t know what that had been for Stucky. Perhaps evil simply couldn’t be harnessed. And Stucky’s evil was especially terrifying.

Most serial killers murdered because it gave them pleasure, some form of gratification. It was a choice, not necessarily a sickness of the mind. But for Albert Stucky, the kill was not enough. His pleasure came from psychologically breaking down his victims, turning them into sniveling, pleading wretches—owning them body, mind and soul. He enjoyed breaking their spirit, turning it into fear. Then he rewarded his victims with a slow, torturous death. Ironically, those he killed immediately, those whose throats he slashed and whose bodies he discarded in Dumpsters—only after extracting a token organ—those were the lucky ones.

The phone startled her. She grabbed the Smith & Wesson .38 that sat by her side. Again, it was a simple reflex. It was late, and few people had her new number. She had refused to give it to the pizza place. She had even insisted Greg use her cell phone number. Maybe Gwen had forgotten something. From the floor, she reached up to the desktop and pulled the phone down.

“Yes?” she said, her muscles tense. She wondered when she had stopped answering hello.

“Agent O’Dell?”

She recognized Assistant Director Cunningham’s matter-of-fact tone, but the tension did not leave her.

“Yes, sir.”

“I couldn’t remember if you were already using the new number.”

“I just moved in today.”

She glanced at her wristwatch. It was now after midnight. They spoke infrequently these days, ever since he had taken her out of the field and assigned her to training duty. Was it possible he had some information on Stucky? She sat up with an unexpected flutter of hope.

“Is there something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, Agent O’Dell. I just realized how late it is.”

She imagined him still at this desk at Quantico, never mind that it was Friday night.

“That’s quite all right, sir. You didn’t wake me.”

“I thought you might be leaving for Kansas City tomorrow, and I didn’t want to miss you.”

“I leave on Sunday.” She kept the question, the anticipation from her voice as best she could. If he needed her to stay, she knew Stewart was able to fill in for her at the law enforcement conference. “Does there need to be a change to my schedule?”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to make sure. I did, however, receive a phone call earlier this evening that gave me great concern.”

Maggie imagined a body, sliced and left for some unsuspecting person to find beneath the trash. She waited for him to give her the details.

“A Detective Manx from the Newburgh Heights Police Department called me.”

Maggie’s anticipation quickly dissipated.

“He told me that you interfered with a crime scene investigation this afternoon. Is that true?”

Maggie reached to rub her eyes again, only now realizing she still gripped the revolver. She put it aside and sat back, feeling defeated. Damn that prick, Manx.

“Agent O’Dell? Is that true?”

“I just moved into the neighborhood this afternoon. I noticed police cruisers at the end of the block. I thought perhaps I could help.”

“So you did barge in uninvited on a crime scene.”

“I did not barge in. I offered my help.”

“That’s not the way Detective Manx described it.”

“No, I don’t imagine it is.”

“I want you to stay out of the field, Agent O’Dell.”

“But I was able to—”

“Out of the field means you don’t go using your credentials to walk onto crime scenes. Even if they are in your own neighborhood. Is that understood?”

She ran her fingers through her tangled hair. How dare Manx. He wouldn’t have discovered the dog, had it not been for her.

“Agent O’Dell, is that clear?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s perfectly clear,” she said, almost expecting an additional reprimand for the sarcasm in her voice.

“Have a safe trip,” he said in his usual abrupt manner and then hung up.

She threw the phone onto the desktop and began rifling through the files. The tension tightened in her back, her neck and shoulders. She stood up and stretched, noticing the anger still slamming in her chest. Damn Manx! Damn Cunningham! How long did he think he could keep her out of the field? How long did he intend to punish her for being vulnerable? And how could he ever expect to catch Stucky without her help?

Maggie reset the security system a third time, double-checking the red On light, even though the mechanical voice told her each time, “Alarm system has been activated.” The hell with the buzz in her head. She poured another Scotch and convinced herself that one more would surely relieve the tension.

The mess stayed scattered on the living-room floor. It seemed appropriate that her new home be initiated with a pile of blood and horror. She retreated to the sunroom, grabbing her revolver and snatching an afghan from a box in the corner, wrapping it around her shoulders. She shut off all the lights, except the one on the desk. Then she curled into the recliner that now faced the wall of windows.

She cradled and sipped the Scotch as she watched the moon slip in and out of the clouds, making shadows dance in her new backyard. In her other hand she gripped the revolver resting in her lap, tucked under the cover. Despite the progressive blur behind her eyes, she would be ready. Perhaps Assistant Director Cunningham couldn’t stop Albert Stucky from coming for her, but she sure as hell would. And this time, it would be Stucky’s turn for a surprise.