Split Second (26 page)

T
he conference room went silent as soon as Maggie walked through the door. Without hesitating she continued to the front, disappointed to find the room arranged for a lecture. Chairs were set side by side, all facing the front of the room instead of at long, narrow tables as she had requested. She preferred more of a business setting where she could scatter crime scene photos in front of the participants. Where they felt more comfortable discussing rather than simply listening. However, the only table in the room was filled with coffee, juice, soft drinks and an assortment of pastries.

She felt her audience’s stares as she pulled up a chair for her briefcase. Then, she began digging through the contents, pretending to search for something she had to have before she could start. Instead, she was waiting for her stomach to settle. She had eaten breakfast hours ago, and never got nauseated anymore before presentations. But her lack of sleep and several additional Scotches in her room last night, long after Turner and Delaney had left her, now punished her with a fuzzy head and a dry mouth. It was definitely not a good way to start a Monday.

“Good morning,” she finally said, buttoning her double-breasted jacket. “I’m Special Agent Margaret O’Dell with the FBI. I’m a criminal profiler with the Investigative Support Unit at Quantico, which some of you may still refer to as the Behavioral Science Unit. This workshop focuses—”

“Wait a minute, ma’am,” a man in the second row interrupted, shuffling uncomfortably in a chair that was too small to accommodate his considerable size. He wore tight trousers, a crisp, short-sleeved button-down shirt that stretched across his swollen belly, and scuffed shoes that refused to look new despite a fresh polish.

“Yes?”

“No disrespect intended, but what happened to the guy who was supposed to give this workshop?”

“Excuse me?”

“The program…” He looked around the room until he seemed to find encouragement from some of his comrades. “It said the guy wasn’t just an FBI profiler, but an expert in tracking serial killers, a forensic psychologist with, like, nine or ten years’ experience.”

“Did the program actually say this person was a man?”

Now he looked puzzled. Someone beside him handed over a copy of the conference’s program.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Maggie said, “but I’m him.”

Most of the men simply stared at her. One woman in the group rolled her eyes in empathy when Maggie looked her way. Maggie recognized two men in the back. She had briefly met the Kansas City detectives Ford and Milhaven last night at the Westport bar and grill. Both men smiled as though they were in on her secret.

“Maybe they should say that in the program,” the man persisted, trying to justify his objection. “They don’t even use your name.”

“Would it matter?”

“Yeah, to me it would’ve. I came here to learn some serious stuff, not listen to some desk jockey.”

Her evening dosage of Scotch must have desensitized her emotions. Instead of feeling angry, his chauvinism simply made her feel more exhausted.

“Look, Officer—”

“Wait a minute. What makes you think I’m an officer? Maybe I’m a detective.” He shot a smug grin to his buddies, giving himself away and reinforcing Maggie’s initial assessment.

“Let me take a shot here,” she said, walking to the center of the room, standing in front of him and crossing her arms. “You’re a street cop in a metropolitan area, but not here in Kansas City. You’re used to wearing a uniform and not business attire, not even business casual. Your wife packed your bag and picked out what you’re wearing now, but you’ve gained some weight since she last bought anything for you. Except the shoes. You insisted on wearing your beat shoes.”

Everyone including the officer shuffled in their chairs to get a look at his shoes. She failed to point out the subtle but permanent indentations in his close-cropped hair from too many hours spent wearing a hat.

“You’re not able to carry your weapon at the conference, but you feel lost without your badge. It’s inside your jacket pocket.” She motioned to the tan jacket hidden by his hefty bulk and draped over the back of the chair. “Your wife also insisted on the jacket, but again you’re not used to wearing one. Not like perhaps a detective might be used to wearing a jacket and tie.”

Everyone waited as if watching a magic act, so the officer reluctantly twisted around, tugged at the jacket and brought out his badge to show them.

“All lucky guesses,” he said to Maggie. “Whatcha expect from a roomful of cops?”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” Maggie nodded as eyes came back to her face, still waiting, still testing. “Most of what I said might be seen as obvious. There’s a certain profile that goes along with being a cop. Just like there’s a certain profile that goes along with being a serial killer. If you can pinpoint what those characteristics are and which ones apply—though some of them may seem obvious—you can use that information, that knowledge, as the beginning foundation for a profile.”

Finally she had their attention, and with their minds diverted from what she looked like to what she was saying, her entire body began to relax, to access some auxiliary energy and override her initial fatigue.

“However, the tricky part is looking beyond the obvious, picking apart and examining small tidbits that might seem insignificant. Like, for instance, in this case—I’m sorry, Officer, would you mind telling me your name?”

“What? You mean you can’t guess that?” He smirked, proud of what he considered a quick comeback and drawing a few laughs from the others.

Maggie smiled.

“No, I’m afraid my crystal ball leaves out names.”

“It’s Danzig, Norm Danzig.”

“If I were to examine your profile, Officer Danzig, I’d try to break down everything I did know.”

“Hey, you can examine me all you like.” He continued to play with her, enjoying the attention, while looking at his buddies instead of Maggie.

“I’d wonder,” she continued, ignoring his comment, “why your wife had bought clothes for you that were the wrong size.”

Suddenly Officer Danzig sat still and quiet.

“I’d ask myself if there was a reason.” From the rising color in his face, Maggie knew the reason was one he didn’t care to expose. Her guess was that he and his wife had not shared a bed for some time. Perhaps there had even been a temporary separation, one that included Officer Danzig eating a few more fast-food meals. That could account for the extra pounds his wife hadn’t expected when she purchased his clothes for the conference. Instead of embarrassing him with her theory, she simply said, “I’d guess your wife finally got fed up with you wearing the same outdated navy blue suit that you keep in the back of your closet.”

The others laughed, and Officer Danzig looked around at them, smiling with relief. But when his eyes met Maggie’s, she saw a hint of humbled awareness. His subtle show of appreciation was the slightest shift in his chair, crossing his arms, facing the front of the room as if finally ready to give her his full attention.

“It’s also important not to get bogged down by the stereotypes.” She began her ritual pacing. “There are a handful of stereotypes that seem to be perpetuated with serial killers. We should start by laying some of those to rest. Anyone care to guess what some of those stereotypes are?”

She waited out their silence. They were still summing her up. Finally, a young Hispanic man decided to take a shot.

“How about the idea that they’re all crazy. They’re total mental cases. That’s not necessarily true, right?”

“Right. In fact, many serial killers are intelligent, well educated and as sane as you and I.”

“Excuse me,” a graying detective from the back of the room interrupted. “Son of Sam claiming a Rottweiler made him do it, that’s not mental?”

“Actually it was a black Labrador named Harvey. But even Berkowitz later owned up to the hoax when profiler John Douglas interviewed him.

“I’m not saying some of these killers are not crazy, what I am saying is that it’s a mistake to believe they have to be insane to do the things they do. When, in fact, killing for them is a conscious choice. They are masters of manipulation. Their crimes are all about dominating and controlling their victims. It’s not usually because they hear orders to kill from a three-thousand-year-old demon living inside a black Lab.

“If they were simply nuts, it wouldn’t be possible for them to carry out their elaborate murders over and over again—to perfect their methods and still avoid getting caught for months, sometimes years. It’s important to recognize them not as deranged crazies, but for what they are. What they are is evil.”

She needed to change the subject before she got carried away with a sermon on the effects of evil. How there was a shadow side to everyone’s human nature; a shadow side that was capable of evil. But to discuss it always led to the question of what made some step over the line, while others dared not. After years of examining evil, Maggie hadn’t a clue what that answer was.

“What about motive?” she asked instead. “What are some of the stereotypical motives?”

“Sex,” a young man in the back said loudly, enjoying the sudden attention and laughs that the single word drew. “Don’t most serial killers get some sexual gratification from killing, just like rapists?”

“Hold on,” the one woman challenged. “Rape isn’t about sex.”

“Actually, that’s not a true statement,” Maggie said. “Rape is very much about sex.”

Immediately there were a few sighs, some disgruntled shakes of heads as though they expected this from a woman.

“Rape is very much about sex,” she repeated, ignoring their skepticism. “It’s the one variable that distinguishes rape from any other violent crime. No, that’s not to say that rapists rape simply for sexual gratification, but yes, they do use sex as one of their weapons to achieve their goals. So it’s wrong to say rape isn’t about sex when sex is definitely one of the weapons they use.

“In fact, rapists and serial killers use sex and violence in much the same way. Both are powerful weapons used to degrade the victim and gain control. Some serial killers even start out as serial rapists. But somewhere along the line they decide to take it a step further to achieve their gratification. They might begin by experimenting to reach different levels, starting with torture, working up to strangulation or stabbing. Sometimes that’s not enough, so they begin different rituals with the dead body. That’s when you see cases like the Pied Piper who sliced up his victims, made stew and fed it to his other captives.

She caught several of them grimacing. Skepticism seemed to be replaced by morbid curiosity.

“Or in Albert Stucky’s case,” she continued, “he began to experiment with different rituals of torture, slicing off victims’ clitorises or nipples, just to hear them scream and plead with him.”

She said these things calmly and casually, yet she could feel the tension in her muscles, an involuntary reflex as her body seemed to prepare for flight or fight anytime she thought of Stucky.

“Or you find more solemn rituals,” she said, trying to expel Stucky from her mind. “Last fall in Nebraska, we tracked a killer who gave his young victims their last rites after he strangled and stabbed them to death.”

“Hold on,” Detective Ford interrupted. “Nebraska? You’re the profiler who worked on that case with the dead little boys?”

Maggie cringed at the simplicity of his description.

“Yes, that was me.”

“Morrelli was just telling us about that case last night.”

“Sheriff Nick Morrelli?” An unexpected but pleasant flutter invaded her already tense body.

“Yeah, we all went out for ribs last night. But he’s not Sheriff Morrelli anymore. Turned in his badge for a suit and tie. He’s with the D.A.’s office in Boston.”

Maggie retreated to the front of the room, hoping the distance would shield her and prevent them from witnessing her sudden discomfort. Five months ago, the cocky, small-town sheriff had been a thorn in her side from the day she arrived in Platte City, Nebraska. They had spent exactly one week chasing a killer and sharing an intimacy so palpable, just the thought of it was able to generate heat. Her class was staring at her, waiting. How was it possible for Nick Morrelli to dismantle her entire thought process by simply being in the same city?

T
ully reached under his glasses and tried to rub out the exhaustion. As though blaming them for lack of relief, he pulled the glasses off, tossing them onto one of the many piles on his desk. The glasses used to be for reading only. Now he found himself wearing them more often.

Ever since he’d hit forty three years ago, his body parts seemed to be failing him, one by one. Last year it was surgery on his knee, just a torn ligament, but it had put him out of commission for two weeks. Of course, it didn’t help matters having a fourteen-year-old daughter telling him how “out of sync” he was. It seemed as if he couldn’t do anything right as far as Emma was concerned.

Earlier she had been furious with him for having to spend another evening next door with Mrs. Lopez. Maybe that was part of the reason he was still here working, stalling, avoiding going home to his own daughter and the silence she wielded as punishment. Ironically, this was the same daughter he had fought so hard to keep near him.

Though it wasn’t much of a fight once Caroline realized what kind of freedom she might have without the responsibility of a teenage daughter. This was the same woman who couldn’t bear to be separated from her daughter and husband six or seven short years ago, when she took an account executive job at a national advertising firm. But as the high-profile clients rolled in and the promotions took her all the way to the top, somehow those expensive trips to New York City and London and Tokyo seemed to get a lot easier. By the final years of their marriage, she had become a stranger to him. A beautiful, sophisticated, ambitious woman, but a complete stranger.

Tully stretched back in his chair, lacing his fingers together behind his head. God, how he hated change! He glanced around the small fluorescent-lit room. He missed having an office with windows. In fact, if he even thought about being sixty feet under ground, he knew his claustrophobia would easily kick in. He had seriously considered turning down the position at Quantico, knowing the Investigative Support Unit was still located in what he considered the bowels of the training facility.

He was rubbing his eyes again when he heard the tap on his open door.

“Agent Tully, you’re here late.”

Assistant Director Cunningham wore shirtsleeves, but still carefully buttoned at the wrists and collar, whereas Tully’s sleeves were rolled up in uneven folds and shoved above his elbows. Cunningham’s tie was cinched tight at his neck, making Tully self-conscious about his own, now wrinkled and tossed aside somewhere on a file cabinet, leaving his collar unbuttoned and open.

“I was waiting for a phone call from the medical examiner,” Tully explained. “From Dr. Holmes.”

“And?”

The assistant director leaned against the door, and Tully wondered if he should clear off one of the chairs. Unlike his boss’s immaculately neat office, Tully’s looked like a storage closet, with piles of papers, scattered files and overflowing bookcases. He sorted through the stack of notes from his phone call, not wanting to depend on his memory, which at this time of night had shut down like a computer hard drive.

“The girl…the young woman had an incision in her left side that extended to the small of her back about four inches long. Dr. Holmes said it was very precise, almost as if he had performed surgery on her.”

“Sounds like our boy.”

“He removed her spleen.”

“A spleen isn’t very big, is it? It looked like there was much more in that pizza box.”

Tully reached for the copy of
Gray’s Anatomy
that he had borrowed from the library. He quickly thumbed to the place where he had used a gum wrapper as a bookmark. He grabbed his glasses.

“The spleen is about five inches in length, three inches in breadth and an inch or an inch and a half in thickness,” he read out loud, then closed the book and set it aside. “The book says the spleen weighs about seven ounces, but that depends on what stage of digestion it’s in. It can get much bigger. Our victim hadn’t eaten much that day, so her spleen was fairly small. Dr. Holmes said that some of the pancreas was also attached.”

“Were there fingerprints found anywhere at the scene?”

“Yes, we got two pretty good ones—a thumb and an index finger. But they’re not matching Stucky’s. It’s possible they may have been made accidentally by someone on the scene, but it sure seems as though they were left behind on purpose. The entire rim of the Dumpster was wiped down, and then there are these two fingerprints right smack in the middle.”

Cunningham frowned, his weathered brow creasing as if he remembered something. “Double-check Stucky’s early file. Make sure the prints haven’t been switched or altered or that there were any computer mistakes. If I remember correctly, Agent O’Dell was finally able to identify him because of a fingerprint Stucky left behind. He blatantly left it behind, too. But it took us a while to identify it at the time. Someone hacked into the county computer system and switched the prints on file.”

“I’ll double-check, sir, but we’re not dealing with a county sheriff department’s computer system here. We’re checking these against the ones AFIS has on Stucky, prints they’ve taken directly off Stucky. And with all due respect, I don’t think anyone can easily hack into the Bureau’s system.” AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) was the FBI’s master database. Though it networked with local, state and federal agencies, dozens of precautions were in place against computer hackers.

Cunningham sighed and scratched his jaw. “You’re probably right,” he conceded with a fatigue Tully hadn’t witnessed before.

“It may end up being a rookie cop’s,” he told his boss, as if hoping to relieve some of Cunningham’s exhaustion. “If it is, we’ll know in the next twenty-four hours. If they don’t make a match to any law enforcement officers, then I’ll have someone do a cold search.”

Tully kept his glasses in place, feeling more alert with them on and needing to appear in control. “Sir, I haven’t found anything that would suggest Stucky is trying to send some sort of message by which organ he extracts. I wonder if I’m missing something.”

“No, you’re not missing anything. Stucky does this for shock value and simply because he can,” Cunningham said as he came farther into Tully’s office, but remained standing.

“Did he study to be a surgeon at some point in his life?” Tully flipped through a file Agent O’Dell had put together on Stucky’s past. In many ways it read like a résumé for a Fortune 500 executive.

“His father was a doctor.” Cunningham wiped a hand over his jaw. Tully recognized the gesture as something his boss did when exhausted and trying to retrieve information from his vast memory bank. He took the opportunity to study his boss’s face, which seemed thinner, the hollows in his cheeks and eyes darker in the fluorescent light. Even exhausted, his posture remained straight, no hunched shoulders as he now leaned against the bookcase. Everything about the man spoke of a quiet dignity.

Finally he continued, “If I remember correctly, Stucky and his partner started one of the first Internet, online stock-trading companies. Made millions and has it stashed in foreign banks.”

“If we could track some of those accounts, maybe we could track him.”

“The problem is we’ve never been able to find out how many different accounts he has or what names he uses. Stucky’s sharp, Agent Tully. He’s cunning, very intelligent and almost always in control. He’s not quite like any of the others. He doesn’t kill because he needs to, or because it’s a mission or some urgency. Or even because he hears some inner voices. He kills for one major reason—because he enjoys it. It’s a game for him to manipulate, to break down the human spirit, to shock people with what he’s capable of doing, and also to thumb his nose at those of us who are trying to catch him.”

“Certainly even Albert Stucky makes mistakes.”

“Let’s hope so. Have you found anything on where the victim may have been taken?”

Again, Tully dug out his notes from a variety of stacks, not wanting to depend on his fatigued memory. Immediately he found himself self-conscious and a bit embarrassed. His notes were scrawled on everything from a deli napkin to a brown paper towel from the men’s rest room.

“We know she was taken before she finished her route. There were some customers who called complaining they hadn’t received their pizzas. The manager is working on getting me a list of the addresses she was to deliver to.”

“Why is that taking so long?”

“They write down the addresses in one place as the orders are phoned in. The delivery person takes the only copy.”

“You’re kidding,” Cunningham sighed, and for the first time Tully thought he saw that it was an effort for him to confine his frustration. “Doesn’t seem very efficient.”

“It’s probably never been a problem until now. The lab is trying to raise the addresses from the indentations on the notepad page underneath. Of course, our best bet is if we find the victim’s car. Maybe the lists will have been left behind.”

“Any luck finding the car?”

“Not yet. I got the make, model and plate number from DMV. Detective Rosen put out an APB. Nothing’s shown up so far.”

“Have Reagan National and Dulles airport security check their long-term parking lots.”

“Good idea.” Tully jotted another note to himself, this time using the cash-register receipt from his lunch. Why the hell didn’t he have notepads like the rest of the world?

“He had to take her someplace,” Cunningham said, staring over Tully’s head, lost in thought. “Somewhere he could have plenty of uninterrupted time with her. I’m guessing he didn’t go far from where he apprehended her. If we could get that list, we might be able to narrow down some possible locations.”

“The thing is, sir, I’ve driven around within a ten-mile radius of where the body was found. The whole area is this picture-book community. We’re not going to find any abandoned warehouses or condemned buildings.”

“It’s also easy to miss the most obvious place, Agent Tully. You can bet Stucky will be gambling on us doing just that. What else do you have?” he asked more brusquely now as he stood away from the bookcase, suddenly in a rush.

“There was a cellular phone recovered from the Dumpster. It was reported stolen a few days ago from a local shopping mall. I’m hoping once I get the phone record, maybe it’ll lead us someplace, depending on what calls were placed.”

“Good. Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.” Cunningham started to leave. “Let me know what help you need. Unfortunately, I can’t promise a whole task force again, but maybe I can pull a few people from other cases. Now, you need to go home, Agent Tully. Spend some time with your daughter.”

He pointed to the photo Tully kept on the edge of his desk. It was the only one he had. It included the three of them, arms wrapped around each other and smiling for the camera. It couldn’t have been taken that long ago, and yet he couldn’t remember them being that happy. It was the first time Cunningham had referred to Tully’s personal life. He was surprised his aloof boss remembered that his wife hadn’t made the move with him.

“Sir?”

Cunningham stopped halfway into the hall.

Tully wasn’t sure how to ask. “Should I give Agent O’Dell a call?”

“No.” The answer was brisk and firm.

“You want to wait until we’re sure it’s Stucky?”

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain it is Stucky.”

“Then shouldn’t we at least tell Agent O’Dell?”

“No.”

“But, sir, she might—”

“What part of my answer did you not understand, Agent Tully?” Again, his manner was firm without raising his voice. Then he turned and left.