Split Second

CHAPTER 60

Maggie got up before dawn. She left Nick a scrawled note, apologizing for last night and giving him brief instructions for setting the alarm. He had said that he needed to get back to Boston to prepare for a trial, but she knew as he was telling her that he was trying to figure a way out of it. She told him she didn’t want him to jeopardize his new job. What she left out was that she didn’t want him close by for Albert Stucky to hurt.

She called Agent Tully from the road, but when he answered his door he didn’t look as if he expected her. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt and was barefoot. He hadn’t shaved yet, and his short hair stuck up. He let her in without much of a greeting and gathered up a scattered edition of the Washington Post. He grabbed a coffee mug from the top of the TV.

“I’m brewing coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“No, thanks.” She wanted to tell him there was no time for coffee. Why did he not feel the same urgency she was feeling?

He disappeared into what she thought must be the kitchen. Instead of following, she sat down on a stiff sofa that looked and smelled brand-new. The house was small with very little furniture, and most of it looked like hand-me-downs. It reminded her of the apartment she and Greg had right out of college—with milk crates for a TV stand, and concrete blocks and stained two-by-sixes for bookshelves. The only thing missing was a lime green beanbag chair. The sofa and a black halogen floor lamp were the only two new pieces.

A girl wandered into the room rubbing her eyes and not bothering to acknowledge Maggie. She wore only a short nightshirt. Her long blond hair was tangled and her steps were those of a sleepwalker. Maggie recognized the teenager as the little girl in the photo Tully paid homage to on his office desk. The girl plopped into an oversize chair facing the TV, found a remote between the cushions and turned the TV on, flipping through the channels but not paying much attention. Maggie hated feeling that she had gotten the entire household out of bed as if it was the middle of the night instead of morning.

The girl stopped her channel surfing in the middle of a local news report. With the volume muted, Maggie still recognized the truck stop behind the handsome, young reporter who gestured to the gray trash bin cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.

“Emma, shut the TV off, please,” Tully instructed after only a glance at the screen. His coffee mug was filled to the brim and the aroma filtered in with him. He handed Maggie a cold can of Diet Pepsi.

“What’s this?” she asked, taken by surprise.

“I remembered Pepsi is sorta your version of morning coffee.”

She stared at him, amazed that he would have noticed. No one except Anita ever remembered.

“Did I get it wrong? Is it regular and not diet?”

“No, it’s diet,” she said, finally taking the can. “Thanks.”

“Emma, this is Special Agent Maggie O’Dell. Agent O’Dell, this is my ill-mannered daughter, Emma.”

“Hi, Emma.”

The girl looked up and manufactured a smile that looked neither genuine nor comfortable.

“Emma, if you’re up for the morning, please put on some regular clothes.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” She pulled herself out of the chair and wandered out of the room.

“Sorry about that,” he said while he skidded the chair Emma had vacated around to face Maggie and the sofa rather than the TV. “Sometimes I feel like aliens abducted my real daughter and transplanted this impostor.”

Maggie smiled and popped open the Diet Pepsi.

“You have any kids, Agent O’Dell?”

“No.” The answer seemed simple enough, but she noticed Tully still staring at her as though an explanation should follow. “Having a family is a little bit tougher to accomplish when you’re a woman in the FBI than when you’re a man in the FBI.”

He nodded as though it was some new revelation, as though he had never considered it before.

“I hope I didn’t wake your wife, too.”

“You’d have to be pretty noisy to do that.”

“Excuse me?”

“My wife lives in Cleveland…my ex-wife, that is.”

It was still a touchy subject. Maggie could see it in the way he suddenly avoided making eye contact. He sipped his coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug and taking his time. Then, as though he remembered why they were here in his living room on a Sunday morning, he stood up abruptly, set down the mug on the overflowing coffee table and started digging through the piles. Maggie couldn’t help wondering if there was any part of Agent Tully’s life that he kept organized.

He pulled out a map and started unfolding and spreading it out over the surface of uneven piles.

“From what you told me on the phone, I’m figuring this is the area we’re talking about.”

She took a close look at the spot he had highlighted on the map in fluorescent yellow. Here she had thought he wasn’t even listening to her when she had called and woken him.

He continued, “If Rosen was lost, it’s hard telling exactly where he was, but if you cross the Potomac using this toll bridge, there is this piece of land about five miles wide and fifteen miles long that hangs out into the river sort of like a peninsula. The toll bridge passes over the top half. The map shows no roads, not even unpaved ones down in the peninsula part. In fact, it looks like it’s all woods, rocks, probably ravines. Pretty tough terrain. In other words, a great place to hide out.”

“And a difficult place to escape from.” Maggie sat forward, hardly able to contain her excitement. This was it. This was where Stucky was hiding out and keeping his collection. “So when do we leave?”

“Hold on,” Tully sat down and reached for his coffee. “We’re doing this by the book, O’Dell.”

“Stucky strikes hard and fast and then disappears.” She let him hear her anger and urgency. “He’s already killed three women and possibly kidnapped two others in a week. And those are just the ones we know about.”

“I know,” he said much too calmly.

Was she the only one who seemed to understand this madman?

“He could pick up and leave any day, any minute. We can’t wait for court orders and county police cooperation or whatever the hell you think we need to wait for.”

He sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim. “Are you finished?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back. She should never have called Tully. She knew she could talk Rosen into assembling a search team, though the area in question was across the river, which meant not only a different jurisdiction but also a different state.

“First of all, Assistant Director Cunningham is getting in touch with the Maryland officials.”

“Cunningham? You called Cunningham? Oh wonderful.”

“I’ve been trying to find out who owns the property.” He ignored her and went on. “It used to be owned by the government, which may account for that weird chemical concoction in the dirt. Probably something they were testing. It was purchased by a private corporation about four years ago, something called WH Enterprises. I can’t seem to find out anything about it, no managing CEO, no trustees, nothing.”

“Since when does the FBI need permission to hunt down a serial killer?”

“We’re operating on hunches, Agent O’Dell. We can’t send in a SWAT team when we don’t know what’s there. Even the mud simply means that Stucky may have been in this area. Doesn’t prove he’s still there.”

“Goddamn it, Tully!” She stood up and paced his living room. “This is the only lead we have as to where he might be, and you need to analyze it to death when we could just go find out!”

“Don’t you want to know what you might be walking into this time, Agent O’Dell?” He emphasized “this time,” and she knew he was referring to last August when she went running off to find Albert Stucky in an abandoned Miami warehouse. She hadn’t told anyone else. She had been following up on a hunch then, too. Only Stucky had been expecting her, waiting for her with a trap. Was it possible he’d be waiting for her again?

“So what do you suggest?”

“We wait,” Tully said as though waiting was no big deal. “We find out what’s there. The Maryland authorities and their resource people can fill us in. We find out who owns the property. Who knows? We certainly don’t want to go onto private property if there’s some white supremacist group holed up with an arsenal that could blow us off the planet.”

“How long are we talking?”

“It’s tough getting in touch with everyone we need on a Sunday.”

“How long, Agent Tully?”

“A day. Two at the most.”

She stared at him, the anger clawing to reveal itself.

“By now you should know what Albert Stucky can do in a day or two.” She calmly walked to the door and left, allowing the slamming door to enunciate what she thought about waiting.