At the Stroke of Madness (5 page)

The FBI Academy
Quantico, Virginia

M
aggie O’Dell reached for the last doughnut, a chocolate-frosted number with bright pink and white sprinkles, and already she heard a “tsk-tsk” sound scolding her. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully.

“That’s what you’re having for lunch?” he asked.

“Dessert.” She added a cellophane-wrapped platter of one of the cafeteria’s daily specials. Something listed on the chalkboard as a “tacorito” supreme. Maggie couldn’t help thinking even the FBI couldn’t screw up something as good as Mexican food.

“Doughnuts are not dessert,” Tully insisted.

“You’re just jealous because it’s the last one.”

“I beg to differ. Doughnuts are breakfast. Not dessert,” he told her as he held up the line, waiting for Arlene’s attention behind the counter, waiting for her to put down the steaming hot-out-of-the-oven pot of creamed corn, before he pointed to the roast beef. “Let’s ask the expert. Doughnuts are breakfast. Wouldn’t you agree, Arlene?”

“Sweetie, if I had Agent O’Dell’s figure you’d see me eating doughnuts at every meal.”

“Thank you, Arlene.” Maggie added a Diet Pepsi, then indicated to the cashier, a little mole-faced woman she didn’t recognize, that she’d pay for the tray coming behind her, too.

“Wow!” Tully said when he noticed her generosity. “What’s the special occasion?”

“Are you saying I never buy unless there’s a special occasion?”

“Well, there’s that…that and the doughnut.”

“Couldn’t it be that I’m having a great day?” she said while leading him to a table next to the window. Outside on one of Quantico’s many running trails, a half-dozen recruits were finishing their daily run, weaving through the pine trees single file. “Classes just ended for this session. I have no nightmare cases keeping me awake nights. I’m taking a few days off for the first time in…oh, about a hundred years. I’m actually looking forward to working in my garden. I even bought three dozen daffodil bulbs to add to the southwest corner. Just Harvey and me, enjoying this amazing fall weather, digging in the dirt and playing fetch. Why wouldn’t that put me in a good mood?”

Tully was watching her. Sometime around the daffodil bulbs she realized he wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and said, “You never get this excited about time off, O’Dell. I’ve seen you before a three-day federally approved weekend, and you’re chomping at the bit for everyone to get the hell back in their offices first thing Tuesday morning so they don’t hold you up on whatever case you’re working. I wouldn’t be surprised if your briefcase is stuffed and ready for the backyard breaks. So really, what gives, O’Dell? What has you grinning like the cat that swallowed the parakeet?”

She rolled her eyes at him. Her partner, ever the profiler, always “on” and solving puzzles. Hard to argue with him for something she did herself. Perhaps it was simply an occupational hazard. “Okay, if you must know, my lawyer finally got the last—the very, very last—of the divorce papers back from Greg’s lawyer. This time everything was signed.”

“Ah. So it’s all over. And you’re okay with that?”

“Of course, I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

“I don’t know.” Tully shrugged as he tucked his tie—already stained with morning coffee—into his shirt, then scooped up mashed potatoes, gravy and all, and dumped them on top of his roast beef.

Maggie watched as he dipped his shirt cuff into the gravy, completely unaware while he concentrated on building a dam out of his mashed potatoes. Maggie only shook her head and restrained herself from reaching across the table to wipe at his newest stain.

Tully continued, fork and now knife working at his lunch creation, “I just remember having lots of mixed feelings when mine was final.” He looked up, checked her eyes and paused with fork in midair, as if waiting for a confession that might be prompted by his own admission.

“Yours didn’t drag on for almost two years. I’ve had plenty of time to get okay with this.” He was still looking at her. “I’m fine. Really. It’s understandable that you had mixed feelings. You and Caroline still have to raise Emma together. At least Greg and I didn’t have kids. That’s probably the only thing we did right in our marriage.”

Maggie started unwrapping the tacorito, wondering at Arlene’s overuse of cellophane. She stopped. She couldn’t help herself. She took her napkin from her lap, reached across the table and dabbed at the gravy on Tully’s cuff. He no longer got embarrassed when she did these things, and this time he even held up the errant wrist for her.

“How is Emma, by the way?” she asked, going back to her lunch.

“Good. Busy. I hardly ever get to see her anymore. Too many after-school activities. And boys…too many boys.”

Maggie’s cell phone interrupted them.

“Maggie O’Dell.”

“Maggie, it’s Gwen. Is this a good a time to talk?”

“Tully and I are just having an early lunch. What’s wrong?” Maggie knew Gwen Patterson well enough to recognize the urgency in her friend’s voice, despite Gwen’s attempt to disguise it with a clipped professional tone. She and Gwen had known each other for almost ten years, having first met when Maggie was in Quantico’s forensic program and Gwen was a consulting psychologist frequently called in by Maggie’s boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham. The two women, despite their age difference—Gwen was thirteen years Maggie’s senior—had become instant friends.

“I was wondering if you might be able to check on something for me.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“I’m concerned about a patient. I’m afraid she might be in some kind of trouble.”

“Okay.” Maggie was a bit surprised. Gwen rarely talked about her patients, let alone asked for help with one. “What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. It may be nothing, but I’d feel better if someone checked on her. She left a disturbing voice message late Saturday night. I haven’t been able to reach her. Then this morning she missed our weekly session. She never misses a session.”

“Have you tried contacting her employer or any of her family?”

“She’s an artist, self-employed. No family that I know of other than her grandmother. Actually she was out of town for her grandmother’s funeral. Another concern. You know how funerals can be emotional triggers.”

Yes, Maggie did know. Over a decade later and she still wasn’t able to go to one without visions of her heroic, firefighting father lying in that huge mahogany box, his hair combed to the wrong side, his burnt hands wrapped in plastic and tucked at his sides.

“Maggie?”

“Could she simply have decided to stay an extra day or two?”

“I doubt she would do that. She didn’t even want to be there for the funeral.”

“Maybe her car broke down on the trip back?” Maggie couldn’t help wondering if Gwen was overreacting. It made sense that the woman may have wanted to be away from everyone and everything for a day or two without running back here for a session with her shrink to dissect how she was feeling. But then Maggie knew not everyone reacted to stress and tragedy like she did.

“No, she rented a car up there. See, that’s another thing. The car hasn’t been turned in yet. The hotel told me she was scheduled for departure yesterday but she hasn’t checked out, nor has she contacted anyone about staying longer. And she missed her flight yesterday. She’s not like this. She has problems, but organization and reliability are not on the list.”

“You said yourself that funerals can be emotionally draining. Maybe she just wanted a few more days before coming back to the everyday routine. By the way, how were you able to find out that she missed her flight?” Airlines didn’t just hand out their passenger manifest. After years of Gwen lecturing her about playing by the rules, Maggie waited for an admission of guilt. Now that she thought about it, Gwen had managed to get a lot of information that wasn’t usually handed out freely.

“Maggie, there’s more to it.” The urgency returned to Gwen’s voice, dismissing any confession to rule breaking. “She said she was meeting someone…a man. That was the message and she was calling me to talk her out of it. She has this…this tendency…” She paused. “Look, Maggie, I can’t share the intimacies of her case. Let’s just say that in the past she’s made some bad choices when it comes to men.”

Maggie glanced across the table to find Tully watching her, listening. He looked away quickly as if caught. She had noticed recently—although he tried to disguise it—that he seemed interested in anything related to Gwen Patterson. Or was it simply her imagination?

“What are you saying, Gwen? That you think this man may have done something to her?”

Silence again. Maggie waited. Was Gwen finally realizing that perhaps she was overreacting? And why was she being so overprotective with this particular woman? Maggie had never known Gwen to baby-sit her patients. Her friends, yes, but not her patients.

“Maggie, is there some way you could check on her? Someone you might be able to call?”

Maggie looked at Tully again. He had finished his lunch and now pretended to be watching out the window, another group of recruits down below in sweaty T-shirts and jogging shorts snaking through the woods.

Maggie picked at her own lunch. Why had Gwen suddenly decided to become this patient’s caretaker? It seemed like a simple case of a grieving woman shutting herself away from her world for a while, perhaps even finding solace in a friendly stranger. Why didn’t Gwen see that?

“Maggie?”

“I’ll do what I can. Where was she staying?”

“The funeral was in Wallingford, Connecticut, but she was staying at the Ramada Plaza Hotel next door in Meriden. I have the phone numbers and addresses right here. I can fax over some other information later. All I know about the man she was meeting was that she called him Sonny.”

Maggie’s stomach gave a sudden flip while she took down the information. All the while she kept thinking, “Not Connecticut.”

The FBI Academy
Quantico, Virginia

M
aggie O’Dell reached for the last doughnut, a chocolate-frosted number with bright pink and white sprinkles, and already she heard a “tsk-tsk” sound scolding her. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully.

“That’s what you’re having for lunch?” he asked.

“Dessert.” She added a cellophane-wrapped platter of one of the cafeteria’s daily specials. Something listed on the chalkboard as a “tacorito” supreme. Maggie couldn’t help thinking even the FBI couldn’t screw up something as good as Mexican food.

“Doughnuts are not dessert,” Tully insisted.

“You’re just jealous because it’s the last one.”

“I beg to differ. Doughnuts are breakfast. Not dessert,” he told her as he held up the line, waiting for Arlene’s attention behind the counter, waiting for her to put down the steaming hot-out-of-the-oven pot of creamed corn, before he pointed to the roast beef. “Let’s ask the expert. Doughnuts are breakfast. Wouldn’t you agree, Arlene?”

“Sweetie, if I had Agent O’Dell’s figure you’d see me eating doughnuts at every meal.”

“Thank you, Arlene.” Maggie added a Diet Pepsi, then indicated to the cashier, a little mole-faced woman she didn’t recognize, that she’d pay for the tray coming behind her, too.

“Wow!” Tully said when he noticed her generosity. “What’s the special occasion?”

“Are you saying I never buy unless there’s a special occasion?”

“Well, there’s that…that and the doughnut.”

“Couldn’t it be that I’m having a great day?” she said while leading him to a table next to the window. Outside on one of Quantico’s many running trails, a half-dozen recruits were finishing their daily run, weaving through the pine trees single file. “Classes just ended for this session. I have no nightmare cases keeping me awake nights. I’m taking a few days off for the first time in…oh, about a hundred years. I’m actually looking forward to working in my garden. I even bought three dozen daffodil bulbs to add to the southwest corner. Just Harvey and me, enjoying this amazing fall weather, digging in the dirt and playing fetch. Why wouldn’t that put me in a good mood?”

Tully was watching her. Sometime around the daffodil bulbs she realized he wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and said, “You never get this excited about time off, O’Dell. I’ve seen you before a three-day federally approved weekend, and you’re chomping at the bit for everyone to get the hell back in their offices first thing Tuesday morning so they don’t hold you up on whatever case you’re working. I wouldn’t be surprised if your briefcase is stuffed and ready for the backyard breaks. So really, what gives, O’Dell? What has you grinning like the cat that swallowed the parakeet?”

She rolled her eyes at him. Her partner, ever the profiler, always “on” and solving puzzles. Hard to argue with him for something she did herself. Perhaps it was simply an occupational hazard. “Okay, if you must know, my lawyer finally got the last—the very, very last—of the divorce papers back from Greg’s lawyer. This time everything was signed.”

“Ah. So it’s all over. And you’re okay with that?”

“Of course, I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

“I don’t know.” Tully shrugged as he tucked his tie—already stained with morning coffee—into his shirt, then scooped up mashed potatoes, gravy and all, and dumped them on top of his roast beef.

Maggie watched as he dipped his shirt cuff into the gravy, completely unaware while he concentrated on building a dam out of his mashed potatoes. Maggie only shook her head and restrained herself from reaching across the table to wipe at his newest stain.

Tully continued, fork and now knife working at his lunch creation, “I just remember having lots of mixed feelings when mine was final.” He looked up, checked her eyes and paused with fork in midair, as if waiting for a confession that might be prompted by his own admission.

“Yours didn’t drag on for almost two years. I’ve had plenty of time to get okay with this.” He was still looking at her. “I’m fine. Really. It’s understandable that you had mixed feelings. You and Caroline still have to raise Emma together. At least Greg and I didn’t have kids. That’s probably the only thing we did right in our marriage.”

Maggie started unwrapping the tacorito, wondering at Arlene’s overuse of cellophane. She stopped. She couldn’t help herself. She took her napkin from her lap, reached across the table and dabbed at the gravy on Tully’s cuff. He no longer got embarrassed when she did these things, and this time he even held up the errant wrist for her.

“How is Emma, by the way?” she asked, going back to her lunch.

“Good. Busy. I hardly ever get to see her anymore. Too many after-school activities. And boys…too many boys.”

Maggie’s cell phone interrupted them.

“Maggie O’Dell.”

“Maggie, it’s Gwen. Is this a good a time to talk?”

“Tully and I are just having an early lunch. What’s wrong?” Maggie knew Gwen Patterson well enough to recognize the urgency in her friend’s voice, despite Gwen’s attempt to disguise it with a clipped professional tone. She and Gwen had known each other for almost ten years, having first met when Maggie was in Quantico’s forensic program and Gwen was a consulting psychologist frequently called in by Maggie’s boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham. The two women, despite their age difference—Gwen was thirteen years Maggie’s senior—had become instant friends.

“I was wondering if you might be able to check on something for me.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“I’m concerned about a patient. I’m afraid she might be in some kind of trouble.”

“Okay.” Maggie was a bit surprised. Gwen rarely talked about her patients, let alone asked for help with one. “What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. It may be nothing, but I’d feel better if someone checked on her. She left a disturbing voice message late Saturday night. I haven’t been able to reach her. Then this morning she missed our weekly session. She never misses a session.”

“Have you tried contacting her employer or any of her family?”

“She’s an artist, self-employed. No family that I know of other than her grandmother. Actually she was out of town for her grandmother’s funeral. Another concern. You know how funerals can be emotional triggers.”

Yes, Maggie did know. Over a decade later and she still wasn’t able to go to one without visions of her heroic, firefighting father lying in that huge mahogany box, his hair combed to the wrong side, his burnt hands wrapped in plastic and tucked at his sides.

“Maggie?”

“Could she simply have decided to stay an extra day or two?”

“I doubt she would do that. She didn’t even want to be there for the funeral.”

“Maybe her car broke down on the trip back?” Maggie couldn’t help wondering if Gwen was overreacting. It made sense that the woman may have wanted to be away from everyone and everything for a day or two without running back here for a session with her shrink to dissect how she was feeling. But then Maggie knew not everyone reacted to stress and tragedy like she did.

“No, she rented a car up there. See, that’s another thing. The car hasn’t been turned in yet. The hotel told me she was scheduled for departure yesterday but she hasn’t checked out, nor has she contacted anyone about staying longer. And she missed her flight yesterday. She’s not like this. She has problems, but organization and reliability are not on the list.”

“You said yourself that funerals can be emotionally draining. Maybe she just wanted a few more days before coming back to the everyday routine. By the way, how were you able to find out that she missed her flight?” Airlines didn’t just hand out their passenger manifest. After years of Gwen lecturing her about playing by the rules, Maggie waited for an admission of guilt. Now that she thought about it, Gwen had managed to get a lot of information that wasn’t usually handed out freely.

“Maggie, there’s more to it.” The urgency returned to Gwen’s voice, dismissing any confession to rule breaking. “She said she was meeting someone…a man. That was the message and she was calling me to talk her out of it. She has this…this tendency…” She paused. “Look, Maggie, I can’t share the intimacies of her case. Let’s just say that in the past she’s made some bad choices when it comes to men.”

Maggie glanced across the table to find Tully watching her, listening. He looked away quickly as if caught. She had noticed recently—although he tried to disguise it—that he seemed interested in anything related to Gwen Patterson. Or was it simply her imagination?

“What are you saying, Gwen? That you think this man may have done something to her?”

Silence again. Maggie waited. Was Gwen finally realizing that perhaps she was overreacting? And why was she being so overprotective with this particular woman? Maggie had never known Gwen to baby-sit her patients. Her friends, yes, but not her patients.

“Maggie, is there some way you could check on her? Someone you might be able to call?”

Maggie looked at Tully again. He had finished his lunch and now pretended to be watching out the window, another group of recruits down below in sweaty T-shirts and jogging shorts snaking through the woods.

Maggie picked at her own lunch. Why had Gwen suddenly decided to become this patient’s caretaker? It seemed like a simple case of a grieving woman shutting herself away from her world for a while, perhaps even finding solace in a friendly stranger. Why didn’t Gwen see that?

“Maggie?”

“I’ll do what I can. Where was she staying?”

“The funeral was in Wallingford, Connecticut, but she was staying at the Ramada Plaza Hotel next door in Meriden. I have the phone numbers and addresses right here. I can fax over some other information later. All I know about the man she was meeting was that she called him Sonny.”

Maggie’s stomach gave a sudden flip while she took down the information. All the while she kept thinking, “Not Connecticut.”