At the Stroke of Madness (10 page)

A
dam Bonzado shoved aside Tom Clancy with one hand while he maneuvered the winding road with the other, twisting and pulling at the stubborn and cracked vinyl steering wheel. At each incline the old El Camino pickup groaned as if there were another gear it needed to be shifted into. Adam stirred up the pile of cassettes strewn across the passenger seat, the pile that somewhere included the other three cassettes for Tom Clancy’s
Red Rabbit.
He searched with stray glances for something else, something that fit his mood. All he knew was that Clancy wasn’t going to cut it. Not today.

Sheriff Henry Watermeier had sounded strained, may be even a bit panicked. Not that Adam knew Henry all that well. They had worked a case last winter. A skull found under an old building that was being demolished in downtown Meriden. All Adam could determine was that it was a small Caucasian man older than forty-two but younger than seventy-seven who had died about twenty-five to thirty years ago. It was difficult to tell with only the skull. The body must have been buried somewhere else. With all their digging, they had found nothing more, and so, the time of death had been a major guess, based more on architectural facts than archeological ones. Despite the lack of evidence, Watermeier seemed convinced it had been a mob hit.

Adam smiled at the idea. He couldn’t imagine the mob operating in the middle of Connecticut, although Watermeier had quickly filled him in with a couple of tall tales. Or at least that’s what they sounded like to Adam, who had grown up in Brooklyn and figured he knew a little something about mob hits. But he also knew Henry Watermeier had begun his career as a New York City beat cop, so maybe ole Henry knew a thing about mob hits, too.

Adam Bonzado couldn’t help wondering if that was what they had on their hands this time. Dead bodies stuffed in rusted fifty-five-gallon drums and then buried under several tons of brownstone in a deserted rock quarry sounded like something the mob might come up with. But if there were bones scattered around the area, as Henry reported, somebody didn’t do a very good job of disposing of the victims. The mob wasn’t usually that careless.

Adam reached for the cassette caught between the door and the seat. He read the spine. Perfect. His fingers fumbled with the plastic container. He slowed down to wind around another S in the road as he pried open and freed the Dixie Chicks from their confinement. Then he gave them a gentle shove into the cassette drive and cranked up the volume.

Yes, this was exactly what he was in the mood for. Something upbeat to get the feet tapping and the blood flowing. He couldn’t help it. Digging up bones got him excited. Pumped up his adrenaline. There was no better puzzle. Sure, he enjoyed teaching, but that was only to make a living. This—dead bodies in barrels and scattered bones—this was what he lived for.

Unfortunately, after ten years, his parents still didn’t get it. He had a Ph.D. in forensic anthropology, was a professor and department head at the University of New Haven, and his mother still introduced him as her youngest son who was single and could play the concertina, as if those two things were his most admirable characteristics. He shook his head. When would it no longer matter? He was a grown man. He shouldn’t care what his parents thought. The fact that he cared—no, not cared but worried about what they thought—he could even track back to their influence. For Adam Bonzado knew he had inherited his quiet, rebellious spirit from his Spanish father and his stubborn pride from his mother’s ancestral Polish blood.

After creeping up the S in the road, it was time to come back down, and the old pickup flew. Adam didn’t brake. Instead, he sat back and enjoyed the roller-coaster ride, working the rigid steering wheel, twisting, turning and pulling to the sexy rhythm of the Dixie Chicks. The intersection appeared suddenly. Adam slammed on the brakes. The pickup came skidding to a halt inches in front of the stop sign and seconds before a UPS truck rolled through.

“Crap! That was close.”

His hands were fisted, his fingers red and still gripping the steering wheel. But the UPS driver simply waved, full hand, no choice fingers extended, no lips moving to the tune of “fuck you.” Maybe the guy simply hadn’t realized how close Adam had come to plowing into him. He reached over as an afterthought and turned down the volume on the Dixie Chicks. As he did so, he noticed the metal pry bar that had slid out from under the passenger seat.

Adam checked his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t holding up traffic, then he leaned down, grabbed the pry bar, slid open the rear window and tossed the tool into the enclosed pickup bed. It clanked against the lining and he cringed, hoping he hadn’t cracked the makeshift shell he’d just installed. It was a tough, waffle-weave polyurethane that was supposed to be easy to clean and would protect the bed from rust and corrosion, no matter how much mud and bones and blood he stuffed back there. It was just another measure he took to keep his pickup from becoming a smelly mobile morgue.

He checked the floor for more tools. He needed to remind his students to put their tools back whenever they borrowed his pickup. Maybe he shouldn’t complain. At the least the pry bar was clean. That was a start.

M
aggie juggled her briefcase in one hand, a pile of mail under her arm and a can of Diet Pepsi and a rawhide chew bone in the other hand as she followed Harvey out onto their patio. Harvey had convinced her as soon as she walked in the front door that they should spend their first afternoon of vacation in the backyard.

She had only planned on making a brief visit to her office at Quantico to finish up some paperwork. She’d had no intentions of bringing work home with her. Now, as she unloaded the files from her briefcase onto the wrought-iron patio table, she wished she had left these back on her desk, hidden under the stacks where they had been for the last several months.

She watched Harvey, nose to the ground, doing his routine patrol of the fence line. Her huge two-story, brick Tudor house sat on almost two acres, protected by the best electronic security system money could buy, as well as by a natural barrier of pine trees that made it difficult to see even her neighbors’ roofs. Yet the white Labrador went into guard duty every time they stepped out of the house, not able to relax or play until he checked out every inch.

He had been this way ever since Maggie adopted him. Okay,
adopted
wasn’t quite right. She had rescued him after his owner had been kidnapped and murdered by serial killer Albert Stucky, targeted only because she happened to be Maggie’s new neighbor. Of course, Maggie had rescued poor Harvey. How could she not? And yet, the ironic part was that Harvey had rescued her, too, giving her a reason to come home every evening, teaching her about unconditional love, forgiveness and loyalty. Lessons she had missed out on growing up with an alcoholic, suicidal mother. Important qualities that had also been missing from her marriage to Greg.

Harvey was at her side now, having performed his routine patrol and nudging her hand for his reward. She scratched behind his ears and his big head lolled to the side, leaning against her. She gave him the rawhide chew bone and he pranced off, flopping himself down into the grass, monster paws holding the bone as he chewed while he kept one ear perched, listening, and his eyes on Maggie. She shook her head and smiled. What more could a girl want? Loyalty, affection, admiration and constant protection. And Tully wondered why she was content to have her divorce settlement over with, behind her. In ten years of marriage she had never felt any of those things with Greg.

Maggie grabbed the file folders, hesitating and glancing at the can of Diet Pepsi. She hadn’t gone through these before without a glass of Scotch in hand. There was a bottle in the cabinet, the seal unbroken. It was supposed to be there only as proof that she didn’t need it. Proof that she wasn’t like her mother. It was supposed to be proof, not temptation. She caught herself licking her lips, thinking one short drink wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t have it neat. It could be on the rocks, watered down, hardly a drink at all. It would take the edge off, help her to relax.

Just then she realized she had bent the corner of the first file folder. Bent it, hell, she had mutilated it into an accordion fold. This was ridiculous. She grabbed the Diet Pepsi, took a long gulp and opened the folder.

It had been a while since she had sorted through these papers. She had added to them, piece by piece, but avoided sitting down to review all the information. She had treated this profile—she had treated
him
—like a project. No, she had treated him like one of her cases, even leaving the folders stacked on her desk alongside profiles of serial killers, rapists and terrorists. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with his existence. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to believe he really did exist.

In the collection of documents, articles and downloaded records there wasn’t a single photo. She probably could have found one, had she tried. All she would have had to do was send for a high school yearbook or request a copy of his driver’s license. Certainly someone in the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles would have accommodated her, especially with a simple mention of her FBI badge number. But she hadn’t done any of those things. Maybe because seeing a photo would have made him too real.

Maggie found the envelope her mother had given her last December, the envelope that had started all this…this spiral…this…whatever this was. Last year, when she first learned that she had a brother, she immediately thought her mother had been lying, that it was another drunken ploy, another way to punish Maggie for loving and missing her father so much. And why wouldn’t she believe her mother capable of such cruelty? Maggie had been raised with a double dose of Kathleen O’Dell’s punishments. Even the woman’s failed suicide attempts felt as if she had been lashing out at Maggie, punishing her. So when her mother, in a fit of anger, told Maggie that her father had been having an affair right up until the night he died, Maggie had refused to believe it. That was until she gave her this envelope.

She opened the envelope the way she had so many times before and carefully pulled out the single index card inside, handling it like fragile material, touching it only by the corner. She stared at her mother’s handwriting, the cute curlicues and circles above the “i’s.” He had been named for Maggie’s uncle, her father’s only brother, Patrick, whom Maggie had never met, the legendary Patrick who had never come home from Vietnam. It seemed heroism ran in the O’Dell family. The same kind of heroism that had taken Maggie’s father away from her when she was twelve. Heroism that she continued to curse.

She slipped the card back into the envelope. She didn’t need to see it. She had the address memorized by now. And though her mother had given it to her almost a year ago, Maggie’s current research indicated that it was still accurate. He was still in West Haven, Connecticut, only twenty-five miles away from where Gwen’s patient had gone missing.

Her cellular phone started ringing, startling her and making Harvey leave his bone to come sit in front of her. Habit, she supposed. To Harvey, the phone ringing usually meant Maggie would need to be leaving him.

“Maggie O’Dell,” she said, wishing she had shut the damn thing off. She was on vacation, after all.

“O’Dell, have you been listening or watching the news?” It was Tully.

“I just got home. I’m on vacation.”

“You might want to check this out. AP is reporting a woman was found dead outside of Wallingford, Connecticut.”

“A homicide?”

“Sounds like it. Early reports say she was found in a quarry, stuffed in a fifty-five-gallon drum and buried under rock.”

“Oh, God. You think it’s Gwen’s patient?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just weird that it’s the same town. Almost too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Maggie didn’t believe in coincidences, either. But no, it couldn’t be. Tully was jumping to conclusions and so was she. Maybe she was simply feeling guilty, and yet, she wanted to kick herself. She hadn’t taken Gwen seriously this morning. In fact, she hadn’t even called anyone to see if she could track down Joan Begley or file a missing persons report. “Why is it making the news down here?”

“Because it might not be the only body. There might be others. Maybe a dozen more.”

She recognized that tone in Tully’s voice. She could tell that his mind was already working, mulling over the possibilities, another occupational hazard. No, more than an occupational hazard. It was hard to describe, but she could already feel it taking hold of her. It was like an itch, a drive, an obsession. Like Tully, her mind sorted through the possibilities, raising questions and wanting answers. But one nagging question pushed to the forefront. What if one of the bodies was Joan Begley’s?

In all the years Maggie had known Gwen, she had never asked anything of her. Not until now. And instead of doing everything she could, instead of doing anything, Maggie had shrugged off her friend’s panicked request because it had reminded her of someone and someplace she didn’t want to be reminded of.

“Hey, Tully.”

“Yeah?”

She knew he wouldn’t be surprised. Instead he would understand. Why else would he have called to tell her the news? “Do you think you and Emma might be able to take Harvey for a couple of days?”

M
aggie juggled her briefcase in one hand, a pile of mail under her arm and a can of Diet Pepsi and a rawhide chew bone in the other hand as she followed Harvey out onto their patio. Harvey had convinced her as soon as she walked in the front door that they should spend their first afternoon of vacation in the backyard.

She had only planned on making a brief visit to her office at Quantico to finish up some paperwork. She’d had no intentions of bringing work home with her. Now, as she unloaded the files from her briefcase onto the wrought-iron patio table, she wished she had left these back on her desk, hidden under the stacks where they had been for the last several months.

She watched Harvey, nose to the ground, doing his routine patrol of the fence line. Her huge two-story, brick Tudor house sat on almost two acres, protected by the best electronic security system money could buy, as well as by a natural barrier of pine trees that made it difficult to see even her neighbors’ roofs. Yet the white Labrador went into guard duty every time they stepped out of the house, not able to relax or play until he checked out every inch.

He had been this way ever since Maggie adopted him. Okay,
adopted
wasn’t quite right. She had rescued him after his owner had been kidnapped and murdered by serial killer Albert Stucky, targeted only because she happened to be Maggie’s new neighbor. Of course, Maggie had rescued poor Harvey. How could she not? And yet, the ironic part was that Harvey had rescued her, too, giving her a reason to come home every evening, teaching her about unconditional love, forgiveness and loyalty. Lessons she had missed out on growing up with an alcoholic, suicidal mother. Important qualities that had also been missing from her marriage to Greg.

Harvey was at her side now, having performed his routine patrol and nudging her hand for his reward. She scratched behind his ears and his big head lolled to the side, leaning against her. She gave him the rawhide chew bone and he pranced off, flopping himself down into the grass, monster paws holding the bone as he chewed while he kept one ear perched, listening, and his eyes on Maggie. She shook her head and smiled. What more could a girl want? Loyalty, affection, admiration and constant protection. And Tully wondered why she was content to have her divorce settlement over with, behind her. In ten years of marriage she had never felt any of those things with Greg.

Maggie grabbed the file folders, hesitating and glancing at the can of Diet Pepsi. She hadn’t gone through these before without a glass of Scotch in hand. There was a bottle in the cabinet, the seal unbroken. It was supposed to be there only as proof that she didn’t need it. Proof that she wasn’t like her mother. It was supposed to be proof, not temptation. She caught herself licking her lips, thinking one short drink wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t have it neat. It could be on the rocks, watered down, hardly a drink at all. It would take the edge off, help her to relax.

Just then she realized she had bent the corner of the first file folder. Bent it, hell, she had mutilated it into an accordion fold. This was ridiculous. She grabbed the Diet Pepsi, took a long gulp and opened the folder.

It had been a while since she had sorted through these papers. She had added to them, piece by piece, but avoided sitting down to review all the information. She had treated this profile—she had treated
him
—like a project. No, she had treated him like one of her cases, even leaving the folders stacked on her desk alongside profiles of serial killers, rapists and terrorists. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with his existence. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to believe he really did exist.

In the collection of documents, articles and downloaded records there wasn’t a single photo. She probably could have found one, had she tried. All she would have had to do was send for a high school yearbook or request a copy of his driver’s license. Certainly someone in the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles would have accommodated her, especially with a simple mention of her FBI badge number. But she hadn’t done any of those things. Maybe because seeing a photo would have made him too real.

Maggie found the envelope her mother had given her last December, the envelope that had started all this…this spiral…this…whatever this was. Last year, when she first learned that she had a brother, she immediately thought her mother had been lying, that it was another drunken ploy, another way to punish Maggie for loving and missing her father so much. And why wouldn’t she believe her mother capable of such cruelty? Maggie had been raised with a double dose of Kathleen O’Dell’s punishments. Even the woman’s failed suicide attempts felt as if she had been lashing out at Maggie, punishing her. So when her mother, in a fit of anger, told Maggie that her father had been having an affair right up until the night he died, Maggie had refused to believe it. That was until she gave her this envelope.

She opened the envelope the way she had so many times before and carefully pulled out the single index card inside, handling it like fragile material, touching it only by the corner. She stared at her mother’s handwriting, the cute curlicues and circles above the “i’s.” He had been named for Maggie’s uncle, her father’s only brother, Patrick, whom Maggie had never met, the legendary Patrick who had never come home from Vietnam. It seemed heroism ran in the O’Dell family. The same kind of heroism that had taken Maggie’s father away from her when she was twelve. Heroism that she continued to curse.

She slipped the card back into the envelope. She didn’t need to see it. She had the address memorized by now. And though her mother had given it to her almost a year ago, Maggie’s current research indicated that it was still accurate. He was still in West Haven, Connecticut, only twenty-five miles away from where Gwen’s patient had gone missing.

Her cellular phone started ringing, startling her and making Harvey leave his bone to come sit in front of her. Habit, she supposed. To Harvey, the phone ringing usually meant Maggie would need to be leaving him.

“Maggie O’Dell,” she said, wishing she had shut the damn thing off. She was on vacation, after all.

“O’Dell, have you been listening or watching the news?” It was Tully.

“I just got home. I’m on vacation.”

“You might want to check this out. AP is reporting a woman was found dead outside of Wallingford, Connecticut.”

“A homicide?”

“Sounds like it. Early reports say she was found in a quarry, stuffed in a fifty-five-gallon drum and buried under rock.”

“Oh, God. You think it’s Gwen’s patient?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just weird that it’s the same town. Almost too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Maggie didn’t believe in coincidences, either. But no, it couldn’t be. Tully was jumping to conclusions and so was she. Maybe she was simply feeling guilty, and yet, she wanted to kick herself. She hadn’t taken Gwen seriously this morning. In fact, she hadn’t even called anyone to see if she could track down Joan Begley or file a missing persons report. “Why is it making the news down here?”

“Because it might not be the only body. There might be others. Maybe a dozen more.”

She recognized that tone in Tully’s voice. She could tell that his mind was already working, mulling over the possibilities, another occupational hazard. No, more than an occupational hazard. It was hard to describe, but she could already feel it taking hold of her. It was like an itch, a drive, an obsession. Like Tully, her mind sorted through the possibilities, raising questions and wanting answers. But one nagging question pushed to the forefront. What if one of the bodies was Joan Begley’s?

In all the years Maggie had known Gwen, she had never asked anything of her. Not until now. And instead of doing everything she could, instead of doing anything, Maggie had shrugged off her friend’s panicked request because it had reminded her of someone and someplace she didn’t want to be reminded of.

“Hey, Tully.”

“Yeah?”

She knew he wouldn’t be surprised. Instead he would understand. Why else would he have called to tell her the news? “Do you think you and Emma might be able to take Harvey for a couple of days?”