Split Second

CHAPTER 40

Friday, April 3

Tully drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other fumbling with the plastic lid of his coffee container. Why did fast-food places have to make the contraptions like child-protective caps? His finger punched at the uncooperative triangular perforation, cracking the plastic and splashing hot coffee onto his lap.

“Damn it!” he yelled as he swerved to the side of the road and screeched on the brakes, splattering more coffee onto the fabric of his car seat. He grabbed napkins to sop it up, but already the brown stain spread deep into the cream color. As an afterthought, he checked the rearview mirror, relieved no one was behind him.

He shoved the car’s gearshift into park and released his foot from the brake pedal, only now realizing how tense and rigid his body had become in response to the stress. He sat back and rubbed a hand over his jaw, immediately feeling the nicks he had inflicted earlier with his razor. It had been one day and already Agent O’Dell had him feeling as if he was on the rim of her personal cliff, and he was straddling the ledge while pieces of rock crumbled at his feet.

Maybe it had been a mistake asking Assistant Director Cunningham to let O’Dell help on the Stucky case. Last night may have been proof that she simply couldn’t handle the pressure. But then her phone message this morning telling him to meet her back at the Archer Drive house made Tully realize that he was in for an even more difficult task.

They had found nothing at the house to warrant a further search. Yet O’Dell had told him she had written permission from Ms. Hes-ton and the owners to do so. Now he wondered if she had gotten them out of bed. How else had she been able to obtain written permission between last night and early this morning? And how the hell would he make her see that she was being irrational and paranoid and possibly wasting precious time?

After last night, Tully knew O’Dell was wound so tight, that controlling her could be impossible, and trying to restrain her could make matters worse. But he wouldn’t talk to Cunningham. He couldn’t. Not yet. He needed to handle this. He needed to settle O’Dell down so they could move forward.

He sipped what coffee was left and glanced at his watch. Today the damn thing was slow, according to the car’s digital clock. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. O’Dell had left the message on his machine at about six while he was in the shower. He wondered if she had gone to bed at all last night.

He put the coffee container safely into a cup holder, massaged the tension in his neck and then shifted into drive. He had only three blocks to go. When he turned onto the street, his tension turned to anger. Parked in the driveway were O’Dell’s red Toyota and a navy blue panel van, the kind the forensic lab used. She hadn’t wasted any time nor bothered to wait for his okay. What was the use of being lead in an investigation if no one paid any goddamn attention? He needed to put a stop to this now.

As he walked toward the front door, lampposts along the driveway blinked, trying to decide whether to stay on or shut off. They needed rain. Each time it looked like spring showers, the rains dumped on the shoreline or just offshore before rolling inland. But this morning thick clouds smudged out the sunrise. A low rumble could be heard in the distance. It suited Tully’s mood, and he caught himself making fists as he got closer to the door. He hated confrontation. If he couldn’t get his own daughter to obey him, then how the hell did he expect to get Agent O’Dell to?

The front door was unlocked, the security system silent. He followed the voices upstairs to the master bedroom. Keith Ganza wore a short white lab coat, and Tully wondered if the man even owned an ordinary sports jacket.

“Agent Tully,” O’Dell said, coming from the master bathroom, wearing latex gloves and carrying jugs of liquid. “We’re almost ready. We just finished mixing the luminol.”

She set the jugs on the floor in the corner where Ganza had set up shop.

“You two know each other, right?” O’Dell asked as though she thought that was the reason for Tully’s frown.

“Yes,” he answered, trying to restrain his anger and maintain his professionalism.

Ganza simply nodded at Tully and continued loading and preparing a video camera. A Will comm camera on a tripod stood in the center of the room, already assembled. Several duffel bags, more jugs and four or five spray bottles were carefully set on the floor. A black case leaned against the wall. Tully recognized it as the Lumi-Light. Each of the windows were covered with some kind of black film taped to the frames so that light couldn’t filter in from the outside. Even now the room required the ceiling light. The bathroom lights were on too, and Tully wondered what, if anything, they had used to block out the skylight. This was ridiculous.

Agent O’Dell began filling spray bottles with the luminol, using a funnel and steady hands. There seemed to be no sign of the jumpy, nervous, frazzled woman he had seen last night.

“Agent O’Dell. We need to talk.”

“Of course, go ahead.” Except she didn’t look up at him and continued to pour.

Ganza appeared oblivious to Tully’s anger, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“We need to talk in private.”

Both O’Dell and Ganza looked up at him. Yet neither stopped what they were doing. O’Dell screwed the spray top onto the bottle she had filled. Tully expected her to see his anger. He expected her to be concerned or at least somewhat apologetic.

“Once we have the luminol mixed, we need to use it immediately,” she explained, and began filling another spray bottle.

“I realize that,” Tully said through clenched teeth.

“I have written permission,” she continued without interrupting her pouring. “The luminol is odorless, and it leaves little residue. Nothing more than a sprinkle of white power when it dries. Hardly noticeable.”

“I know that, too,” Tully snapped at her, though her tone was not at all condescending. This time O’Dell and Ganza stopped and stared at him. How had he suddenly become the hysterical one, the irrational one?

“Then what seems to be the problem, Agent Tully?” She stood to face him, but again there was nothing challenging in her manner, which only made it worse.

Even the expression on Ganza’s lined and haggard face was one of impatience. They continued to stare at him, waiting as though he was holding up the process unreasonably.

“I thought we decided last night that there was nothing here.”

“No, we decided there was nothing more we could do last night. Although it would have been much better to do this last night. Hopefully, it’ll be dark enough. We lucked out with it being so cloudy.”

Ganza nodded. They both waited. Suddenly all of Tully’s objections—which seemed completely logical minutes ago—now sounded immature and arrogant. There was nothing here. It was a ridiculous waste of time and effort. But rather than telling O’Dell that, perhaps it was better for her to see for herself. Maybe only then would she be satisfied.

“Let’s get this over with,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Close the door and stay there next to the light switch.” Ganza motioned to him while he picked up the video camera. “I’ll let you know when to flip it off and on again. Maggie, grab a couple of spray bottles. You spritz. I’ll be right beside you filming.”

Tully got into position, no longer bothering to hide his reluctance or his impatience. However, he could see that anything he did would be wasted on O’Dell and Ganza. They were so involved in the task at hand, they barely noticed him except as a utility.

He watched O’Dell load both her hands with spray bottles, holding them like revolvers, her index fingers ready on the triggers.

“Let’s start at the wall closest to the door and move toward the bathroom,” Ganza instructed in his monotone. He reminded Tully of Icabod Crane. The man’s voice never showed emotion—a perfect match for his tall, slumped appearance and deliberate and precise movements.

“Maggie, you remember the drill. Start on the walls, top to bottom. Then the floor, wall to center,” Ganza went on. “Let’s keep a steady spray going all the way to the bathroom. We’ll stop at the bathroom door. You’ll probably need to reload with luminol by then.”

“Gotcha.”

Tully just then realized that O’Dell and Ganza had done this as a team before. They seemed comfortable with each other, knowing each other’s roles. And O’Dell had managed to get Ganza here at the break of dawn, despite the man’s overloaded schedule.

Tully manned his post, waiting with arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder leaning against the closed door. He caught himself tapping his foot, an unconscious nervous habit that Emma accused him of when he was being “close-minded.” Where the hell did she come up with stuff like that? Nevertheless, he stopped his foot from tapping.

“We’re ready, Agent Tully. Go ahead and hit the lights,” Ganza told him.

Tully flipped the switch and immediately felt swallowed by the pitch black. Not a hint of light squeezed in past the film on the windows. In fact, Tully could no longer tell where the windows were.

“This is excellent,” he heard Ganza say.

Then Tully heard a faint electronic whine and a tiny red dot appeared where he imagined the video camera was in Ganza’s hands.

“Ready when you are, Maggie,” Ganza said as the red dot bobbed up.

Tully heard the spritz of liquid, steady and insistent. It sounded as if she was dousing the entire wall. Tully wondered how many bottles, how many jugs of luminol it would take for her to realize that there was nothing here. Suddenly the wall began to glow. Tully stood up straight, and so did the hairs on the back of his neck and arms.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, staring in disbelief at the streaks, the smudges and handprints that smeared the entire wall and now glowed like fluorescent paint.