Split Second (8 page)

“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.

M
aggie hurried past three of her new neighbors who politely stayed in the street, a safe distance from the house flanked with police cruisers. The coroner’s van sat in the driveway, already empty. She ignored a police officer on his hands and knees who had gotten a roll of crime scene tape tangled in a rosebush. Instead of tearing it and starting over, he took on the thorns and kept snapping his hand back with each prick.

“Hey,” he finally yelled when he realized Maggie was headed for the door. “You can’t go in there.”

When his voice didn’t slow her down, he scrambled to his feet, dropping the roll of tape and sending it unraveling down the slope of the lawn. For a minute he looked as though he’d go for the tape instead of Maggie. She almost laughed, but kept her face serious as she held up her badge.

“I’m with the FBI.”

“Yeah, right. And this is what the FBI is wearing these days.” He snatched the leather case from her, but his eyes took their time making their way down her body.

Instinctively, Maggie stood up straight and crossed her arms over her sweat-drenched chest. Ordinarily, she paid close attention to her presentation and attire. She had always been self-conscious and aware that her hundred-and-fifteen-pounds, five-foot-five stature did not live up to the FBI’s authoritarian image. In a navy blazer and trousers, her aloof, cold attitude could pull it off. In a T-shirt and faded jeans, she realized she might not be able to.

Finally, the officer took a closer look at her credentials. The smirk slid off his narrow face as he realized she was not a reporter or a curious neighbor playing around with him.

“Son of a bitch. You’re on the level.”

She held out her hand for the badge. Now a bit embarrassed, he quickly handed it back.

“I didn’t realize this was something the FBI would be in on.”

It probably was not. She failed to mention that she was just in the neighborhood. Instead, she asked, “Who’s the lead detective?”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed to the house.

“Who’s leading the investigation?”

“Oh, that would be Detective Manx.”

She headed for the entrance, feeling his eyes follow her. Before she closed the door behind her, he hurried after the tangled ribbon of tape that now trailed over much of the front lawn.

No one greeted Maggie at the door. In fact, no one was in sight. The house’s foyer was almost as large as Maggie’s new living room. She took her time, peeking into each room, stepping carefully and touching nothing. The house looked impeccable, not a speck of dust, until she got to the kitchen. Scattered across the butcher-block island were all the makings for a sandwich, now dried up, wilted and crusty. A head of lettuce sat on a cutting board amongst the remnants of tomato seeds and bits and pieces of green pepper. Several candy bar wrappers, containers left on their sides and an open mayonnaise jar waited to be cleaned up and put away. In the middle of the table sat the sandwich, thick with its contents spilling over the wheat bread. Only one bite taken from it.

Maggie’s eyes examined the rest of the kitchen, shiny countertops, sparkling appliances and a spotless ceramic floor, marred only by three more candy bar wrappers. Whoever made this mess didn’t live here.

She could hear voices now, muffled and coming from above. She climbed the stairs while avoiding contact with the oak handrail. She wondered if the detectives had been as careful. On one of the steps she noticed a clump of mud, left perhaps by one of the officers. There was something unusual in it that glittered. She resisted the urge to pick it up. It wasn’t as though she carried evidence bags in her back pocket. Though at one time it wouldn’t have been odd to find a stray in one of her jacket pockets. These days the only evidence she came across was in books.

She followed the voices down the long, carpeted hall. There was no longer a need to scrounge for evidence. At the doorway to the master bedroom a puddle of blood greeted her, the imprint of a shoe stamped at one edge, while the other edge soaked into an expensive Persian rug. With little effort, Maggie could see a spatter pattern on the oak door. Oddly, the spatter reached only to about knee level.

Maggie was lost in thought and hadn’t entered the room when the detective in a bright blue sports jacket and wrinkled chinos yelled at her.

“Hey, lady. How the hell did you get in here?”

The two other men stopped their work in opposite corners of the room and stared at her. Maggie’s first impression of the detective was that he looked like a wrinkled advertisement for the Gap.

“My name’s Maggie O’Dell. I’m with the FBI.” She opened her badge to him, but her eyes were examining the rest of the room.

“The FBI?”

The men exchanged looks while Maggie took a careful step around the puddle and into the room. More blood speckled the white down comforter on the four-poster bed. Despite the spatter of blood, the bedcovers remained neatly spread with no indentations. Whatever struggle took place did not make it to the bed.

“What’s the FBI’s interest in this?” the man in the bright sports jacket demanded.

He scraped a hand over his head, and Maggie wondered if the buzz cut was recent. His dark eyes slid down her body, and again she was reminded of her inappropriate attire. She glanced at the other two men. One was in uniform. The other, an older gentleman—who Maggie guessed was the medical examiner—was dressed in a well-pressed suit and a silk tie held down by an expensive gold collar bar.

“Are you Detective Manx?” she asked the buzz cut.

His eyes shot up to hers, the look not only registering surprise but alarm that she knew his name. Was he worried that his superiors were checking up on him? He looked young, and Maggie guessed he was close to her age—somewhere in his early thirties. Perhaps this was his first lead in a homicide.

“Yeah, I’m Manx. Who the hell called you?”

It was time to confess.

“I live down the street. I thought I might be able to help.”

“Christ!” The same hand swiped over his face as he glanced at the other two men. They quietly watched as though observing a standoff. “Just because you’ve got a fucking badge, you think you can barge in here?”

“I’m a forensic psychologist and a profiler. I’m used to examining scenes like this. I thought I could—”

“Well, we don’t need any help. I’ve got everything under control.”

“Hey, Detective.” The yellow-tape officer from outside walked into the room and immediately all eyes watched him step into the puddle. He jerked his foot up and awkwardly stepped back into the hall, holding up the dripping toe of his shoe.

“Hell, I can’t believe I did that again,” he muttered.

Just then Maggie realized the intruder had been more careful. The toe print she had seen was worthless. When she looked back at Manx, his eyes darted away. He shook his head, disguising the embarrassment as disdain for the young officer.

“What is it, Officer Kramer?”

Kramer looked desperately for somewhere to place his foot. He glanced up apologetically as he rubbed the sole on the hall carpet. This time Manx avoided looking at Maggie. Instead, he shoved his large hands into his jacket pockets as if needing to restrain them from strangling the young rookie.

“What the hell do you need, Kramer?”

“It’s just…there are a few neighbors out front asking questions. I wondered if maybe I should start questioning them. You know, see if anybody saw something.”

“Get names and addresses. We’ll talk to them later.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer seemed relieved to escape the new stain he had created.

Maggie waited. The other two men stared at Manx.

“So tell me, O’Donnell. What’s your take of this mess?”

“O’Dell.”

“Excuse me?”

“The name’s O’Dell,” she said, but she wouldn’t wait for another invitation. “Is the body in the bathroom?”

“There’s a whirlpool bath with more blood, but no body. In fact, we seem to be missing that small detail.”

“The blood seems to be confined to this room,” the medical examiner told her.

Maggie noticed he was the only one wearing latex gloves.

“If someone ran out, but was injured, you’d think there’d be some drips, some scuffs, something. But the house is fucking clean enough to eat off the floors.” Manx swiped at his new hairdo again.

“The kitchen’s not so clean,” Maggie contradicted him.

He scowled at her. “How goddamn long have you been sneaking around here?”

She ignored him and kneeled down to get a closer look at the blood on the floor. Most of it was congealed, some dried. She guessed it had been here since morning.

“Maybe she didn’t have time to clean up after lunch,” Manx continued instead of waiting for her to answer his question.

“How do you know the victim is a woman?”

“A neighbor called us when she couldn’t get her on the phone. Said they were supposed to go shopping. She saw the car in the garage, but no one answered the door. See, I’m thinking the guy—whoever he was—must have interrupted her lunch.”

“What makes you think the sandwich was hers?”

The three of them stopped simultaneously. Again, they exchanged looks, then stared at Maggie, like foreign diplomats relying on each other for interpretation.

“What the hell are you saying, O’Donnell?”

“The name is O’Dell, Detective Manx.” She let him hear her irritation this time. His blatant disregard was a small but familiar and annoying way to discredit her. “The victim’s house is impeccable. She wouldn’t have left a mess like that, let alone sit down to eat before she cleaned it up.”

“Maybe she was interrupted.”

“Perhaps. But there’s no sign of a struggle in the kitchen. And the alarm system was off, right?”

Manx looked annoyed that she had guessed correctly. “Yeah, it was off, so maybe it was someone she knew.”

“That’s possible.” Maggie stood and let her eyes take in the rest of the room. “If he did interrupt or surprise her, that didn’t happen until they were up here. She may have been waiting for him, or perhaps she invited him up. That’s probably why there’s no signs of a struggle until we get into the bedroom. She may have changed her mind. Didn’t want to go through with whatever they had agreed to. This spatter pattern here on the door is strange.” She pointed to it, careful not to touch. “It’s so far down, one of them would need to be on the floor when this wound was inflicted.”

She walked to the window, feeling the men’s eyes follow her. Suddenly she had their attention. Through the sheer curtains she could see the backyard, similar to her own, spacious and secluded by flowering dogwoods and huge pines. None of the neighbors’ houses were even visible, all hidden by the foliage and trees. No one would see an intruder come or go back here. But how would he maneuver the steep ridge and the stream? Had she overestimated the strength of that natural barrier?

“There really is not much blood,” she continued. “Unless there’s a lot more in the bathroom. Perhaps there’s not a body simply because the victim left on her own.”

She heard Manx snort. “You think they had a nice little lunch, he beat the shit out of her because she decided not to fuck him, but then she left willingly with this guy? And in the meantime, the whole goddamn neighborhood didn’t notice?” Manx laughed.

Maggie ignored his sarcasm. “I didn’t say she left willingly. Also, this blood is much too congealed and dry to have happened a few hours ago during lunch. I’m guessing it happened early this morning. She glanced at the medical examiner for confirmation.

“She’s right about that.” He nodded in agreement.

“I don’t think they had lunch together. He probably fixed the sandwich for himself. You should bag the sandwich. If you can’t get a dental imprint, there may be some saliva for a DNA test.”

When she finally turned to face him, Manx stared at her. Only now his frustration had turned to wonder and the crinkles at his eyes became more pronounced. Maggie realized he was older than her initial assessment. Which meant the clothes and the hair might be part of a midlife crisis rather than a youthful indiscretion. She recognized Manx’s stunned look. It was the same look that often followed her on-the-spot, blunt profiles. At times, that look made her feel like a cheap fortune-teller or a psychic. But always beneath their skepticism lay just enough amazement and respect to vindicate that initial reaction.

“Mind if I check out the bathroom?” she asked.

“Be my guest.” Manx shook his head and waved her through.

Before Maggie got to the bathroom door, she stopped. On the bureau was a photograph. She recognized the beautiful blond-haired woman who smiled out at her, one arm wrapped around a dark-haired man and the other around a panting white Labrador retriever. It was the same woman she and Tess McGowan had met the first day Maggie looked at her new house.

“What is it?” Manx asked, now standing directly behind her.

“I’ve met this woman before. Last week. Her name’s Rachel Endicott. She was out jogging.”

Just then, in the bureau mirror, she saw more blood. Only this was smeared on the bottom of the bed ruffle. She stopped and turned, hesitating. Was it possible that whoever had been bleeding was still under the bed?