Split Second

CHAPTER 3

Maggie juggled the boxes that filled her arms. As usual she had taken on more than she should have. Her fingers searched the door, grasping for a knob she couldn’t see, yet she refused to put anything down. Why in the world did she own so many CDs and books when she had no time to listen to music or read?

The movers had finally left, after a thorough search for one lost carton, or as they insisted—one misplaced carton. She hated to think of it still at the condo, and hated even more the thought of asking Greg to check. He would remind her that she should have listened to him and hired United Movers. And knowing Greg, if the carton was still at the condo, his anger and curiosity would not leave it alone. She imagined him ripping off the packing tape as though he had discovered some hidden treasure, which to him it would be. Because, of course, it would be the one container with items she’d rather have no one thumb through, items like her personal journal, appointment calendar and memorabilia from her childhood.

She had torn her car’s trunk apart, looking through the few boxes she had loaded on her own. But these were the last. Perhaps the movers had honestly misplaced the carton. She hoped that was the case. She tried not to worry about it, tried not to think how exhausting it was to be on alert twenty-four hours a day, to be constantly looking over her shoulder.

She set the boxes on the handrail, balancing one with her hip, while she freed a hand to grab at the tightening knot in the back of her neck. At the same time, her eyes darted around her. Dear God, why couldn’t she just relax and enjoy her first night in her new home? Why couldn’t she concentrate on simple things, stupid everyday things, like her sudden and unfamiliar hunger?

As if on cue, her mouth began to water for pizza, and immediately she promised herself one as a reward. Her appetite had long been gone, making this craving a novelty, one she needed to relish. Yes, she would stuff herself with pizza garnished with spicy Italian sausage, green peppers and extra Romano cheese. That is, after she drank several gallons of water.

Maggie’s T-shirt stuck to her skin. Before she ordered the pizza, she’d take a quick, cool shower. Ms. McGowan—Tess—had promised to call all the utility companies. Now Maggie wished she had double-checked with her to make certain she had done so. She hated depending on other people, having recently found herself with a full cast of them in her life, from movers and real estate agents, to lawyers and bankers. Hopefully the water would, indeed, be on. Tess’s word had been good so far. In all fairness, there was no need to question it now. The woman had gone out of her way to make this accelerated sale go as smoothly as possible.

Maggie repositioned the boxes to her other hip. Her fingers found the knob. She pushed the door open, carefully maneuvering her way in, but still sending several loose CDs and books crashing onto the doorstep. She bent just enough to look down at Frank Sinatra smiling up at her through his cracked plastic window. Greg had given her the CD several birthdays ago, although he knew she hated Sinatra. Why did that gift suddenly feel like some prophetic microcosm of their entire marriage?

She shook her head and the thought out of her mind. The memory of their brief morning exchange stayed annoyingly fresh in her mind. Thankfully, he had left for work early, mumbling about all the construction on the interstate. But tonight he would be having his last laugh, sifting through her personal things. He would see it as his right. Legally she was still his wife, and she had given up long ago arguing with him when he shifted into lawyer mode.

Inside her new home, the wood floors’ recent varnish glowed in the late-afternoon sunshine. Maggie had made certain there wasn’t a stitch of carpet in the entire house. Footsteps were too easily muffled by floor coverings. Yet, the wall of windows had cinched the deal for Maggie, despite them being a security nightmare. Okay, so even FBI agents weren’t always practical. But each individual window was set in a narrow frame that not even Houdini could squeeze through. The bedroom windows were another story, but reaching the second floor from outside would require a tall ladder. Besides, she had made certain that both security systems, inside and outside, rivaled those at Fort Knox.

The living room opened into a sunroom with more windows. These stretched from the ceiling almost to the floor, and though they were also thin and narrow, they made up three walls in the room. The sunroom extended into and looked out over the lush green backyard. It was a colorful, wooded fairyland with cherry and apple blossoms, sturdy dogwoods, a blanket of tulips, daffodils and crocus. It was a backyard she had fantasized about since she was twelve.

Back then, when she and her mother had moved to Richmond, they could afford only a tiny, suffocating third-floor apartment that reeked of stale air, cigarette smoke and the body odor of the strange men her mother invited overnight. This house was more like the one Maggie remembered of her real childhood, their house in Wisconsin, where they had lived before her father was killed, before Maggie was forced to grow up quickly and become her mother’s caretaker. For years, she had longed for someplace like this with lots of fresh air and open spaces, but most importantly—plenty of seclusion.

The backyard sloped down only to be met by a dense wooded area that lined a steep ridge. Below, a shallow stream trickled over rocks. Though she couldn’t see the stream from the house, Maggie had checked it out at great length. It made her feel safe, as if it were her own personal moat. It provided a natural boundary, a perfect barrier that was reinforced by a line of huge pine trees standing guard like sentries, tall and straight, shoulder to shoulder.

That same stream had been a nightmare for the previous owners who had two small children. Fences of any kind were against the development’s covenant. Tess McGowan had told Maggie that the owners simply realized they couldn’t keep two curious kids from being enticed or lured by such a dangerous adventure. Their problem became Maggie’s safeguard, her potential trap. And their impulsive purchase became Maggie’s bargain. Otherwise, she would never have been able to afford this neighborhood where her little red Toyota Corolla looked out of place next to BMWs and Mercedeses.

Of course, she still would never have been able to afford the house had she not used the money from her father’s trust. Having received scholarships, grants, fellowships and then working her way through college and graduate school, Maggie had been able to leave most of the trust alone. When she and Greg got married, he was adamant about not touching the money. In the beginning, she had wanted to use it to buy them a modest home. But Greg insisted he would never touch what he called her father’s blood money.

The trust had been set up by fellow firefighters and the city of Green Bay to show appreciation for her father’s heroism, and probably to assuage their guilt as well. Maybe that was part of the reason she had never been able to bring herself to use the money. In fact, she had almost forgotten about the trust until the divorce proceedings began and until her lawyer highly recommended she invest the money in something not so easily divided.

Maggie remembered laughing at Teresa Ramairez’s suggestion. It was ridiculous, after all, knowing the way Greg had always felt about the money. Only it wasn’t ridiculous when the trust showed up on an assets sheet, which Greg had shoved at her several weeks ago. What for years Greg had called “her father’s blood money,” he was now calling community property. The following day she asked Teresa Ramairez to recommend a real estate agent.

Maggie added the boxes to those already arranged and stacked in the corner. She glanced over the labels one last time, hoping the missing one would miraculously show itself. Then, with hands on her hips, she turned slowly around, admiring the spacious rooms decorated for the time being in Early American corrugated brown. She had brought very few pieces of furniture with her, but more than she had expected to extract from Greg’s lawyerly clutches. She wondered if it was financial suicide for anyone to ask for a divorce from a lawyer spouse. Greg had handled all of their joint financial and legal affairs for almost ten years. When Teresa Ramairez had started showing Maggie documents and spreadsheets, Maggie hadn’t even recognized some of the accounts.

She and Greg had married as college seniors. Every appliance, every piece of linen, everything they owned had been a joint purchase. When they moved from their small Richmond apartment to the expensive condominium in the Crest Ridge area, they had bought new furniture, and all of it went together. It seemed wrong to split up sets. Maggie smiled at that and wondered why she couldn’t bring herself to split up furniture but could do so with their ten-year marriage?

She did manage to take with her the pieces of furniture which mattered most. Her father’s antique rolltop desk had made the trip without a scratch. She patted the back of her comfortable La-Z-Boy recliner. It and the brass reading lamp had been exiled long ago to the condo’s den, because Greg said it didn’t match the leather sofa and chairs in the living room. Maggie couldn’t recall much living having ever occurred on them.

She remembered when they had first bought the set. She had tried to break it in with some passionate memories. Instead of letting his body respond to her flirtatious suggestions, Greg had been horrified and angered by the idea.

“Do you know how easily leather stains?” He had scolded her as though she was a child spilling Kool-Aid instead of a grown woman initiating sex with her husband.

No, it was easy to leave those pieces behind. As long as the memory of their crumbling marriage stayed with them. She pulled out a small duffel bag from the pile in the corner and set it on the desk next to her laptop. Earlier she had opened all the windows to remove the stale, warm air. As the sun set behind the line of trees, a moist but cool breeze swirled into the room.

She unzipped the duffel bag and carefully removed her holstered Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. She liked the way the pistol fit in her hands. There was a familiarity and ease, like the touch of an old friend. While other agents had upgraded to more powerful and automatic weapons, Maggie drew comfort from the gun she knew best. The same gun with which she had learned.

She had depended on it numerous times, and though it had only six rounds compared to an automatic’s sixteen, she knew she could count on all six without any jamming. As a newbie—as FBI recruits were called—she had watched an agent go down, helpless with a Sig-Sauer 9 mm and a magazine half-full, but jammed and useless.

She pulled out of the bag her FBI badge in its leather holder. She laid both it and the Smith & Wesson on the desk, almost reverently, alongside the Glock 40 caliber found earlier in the desk drawer. Also in the duffel bag was her forensic kit, a small black pouch that included an odd assortment of things she had learned over the years never to be without.

She left the forensic kit safely tucked in place, zipped the duffel bag and slid it under the desk. For some reason, having these things close by—her guns and badge—made her feel secure, complete. They had become symbols of who she was. They made this feel more like home than any of the possessions she and Greg had spent their adult lives collecting. Ironically, these things that meant so much to her were also the reasons she could no longer be married to her husband. Greg had made it quite clear that Maggie needed to choose either him or the FBI. How could he not realize that what he was asking her to do was like asking her to cut off her right arm?

She traced a finger over the leather case of her badge, waiting for some sign of regret. But when none came, it didn’t necessarily make her feel any better. The impending divorce brought sadness, but no regret. She and Greg had become strangers. Why hadn’t she seen that a year ago when she lost her wedding ring and hadn’t felt compelled to replace it?

Maggie swiped at strands of hair that stuck to her forehead and the back of her neck. Its dampness reminded her that she needed a shower. The front of her T-shirt was dirty and stained. Her arms were marred with black and purple scuffs. She rubbed at one to discover a bruise instead of dirt. Just as she began to search for her newly installed phone, she noticed a police cruiser whiz by.

She found the phone under a stack of papers. She dialed from memory and waited patiently, knowing it would take more than five or six rings.

“Dr. Patterson.”

“Gwen, it’s Maggie.”

“Hey, how the hell are you? Did you get moved in?”

“Let’s just say my stuff is moved.” She noticed the Stafford County Coroner’s van drive past. She went to the window and watched the van curve to the left until it was out of sight. The street had no outlet. “I know you’re swamped, Gwen, but I was wondering if you had a chance to check on what we talked about last week?”

“Maggie, I really wish you’d leave the Stucky case alone.”

“Look, Gwen, if you don’t have time, all you need to say is that you don’t have time,” she snapped, and immediately wished she could take her words back. But she was tired of everyone trying to protect her.

“You know that’s not what I meant, Maggie. Why do you always make it so goddamn hard for people to care about you?”

She let the silence hang between them. She knew her friend was right. Suddenly in the distance, Maggie heard a fire engine’s siren, and her stomach turned to knots. What was happening just around the corner? Her knees threatened to buckle at the thought of a possible fire. She sniffed the breeze coming in through the window. She couldn’t smell or see smoke. Thank God. If it was a fire, she would be incredibly useless. The thought alone scared the hell out of her, reviving memories of her father’s death.

“How about I stop over tonight?”

Gwen’s voice startled Maggie. She had forgotten she was still on the phone.

“The place is a mess. I haven’t even started to unpack.”

“It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you. Why don’t I pick up a pizza and some beer? We can picnic on the floor. Come on, it’ll be fun. Sort of a housewarming party. A prelude to your new independence.”

The fire engine’s siren began to grow distant, and Maggie realized it was not on its way to her neighborhood. Her shoulders relaxed, and she sighed in relief.

“You can pick up some beer, but don’t worry about the pizza. I’ll have it delivered.”

“Just remember, no Italian sausage on my side. Some of us need to watch our weight. I’ll see you around seven.”

“Fine. Sure. That’ll work.” But Maggie was already distracted as another police cruiser sped by. Without a second thought, she put down the phone and grabbed her badge. She quickly reset the security system. Then she tucked her revolver in her back waistband and headed out the front door. So much for seclusion.