Vengeance is Mine - A Benjamin Tucker Mystery (24 page)

Maggie, Nora and Roberta fussed over me trying to persuade me to come with them. I explained for the nth time that I
had
to stay here and help catch this killer. Yes, I would be extremely careful, and no, I would not take any chances. Julie threw her arms around me and said she would kill me if something happened to me. After an anxious round of hugs and kisses, they all climbed into the Escalade, with McClary taking the wheel. He and Friedman would take alternating six-hour shifts around the clock. One of them would always be prepared while the other slept.

Maggie had taken the passenger seat and rolled down her window. She leaned out toward me and reached for my hand. “You take care of yourself, Benjamin F. Tucker. I’d be lost without you.” She had tears in her eyes as I leaned in and kissed her. I picked up Oscar and held him under my arm. He squirmed and slapped his wet tongue against my cheek.

“Gads,” I said. “I’ve just been slurped by Superman.” Julie smiled.

I looked back into the car at four very worried long faces. “C’mon … everybody give me a big smile.”

They all forced out pathetic smiles. “I love you,” Maggie said. “Please don’t do anything crazy.”

I smiled back. “Hey, it’s me. Would I do anything crazy?”

The smiles were replaced by worried frowns.

Friedman, who had been standing out in the driveway, signaled that everything was clear. McClary backed the car out of the garage, Friedman jumped in the back, and I watched with an aching heart as they drove off. Why did people keep asking me not to do anything crazy? I wasn’t crazy. I was—spontaneous.

“I’ll see if I can get a couple of security people here to stay with you,” Marcus said.

“Don’t bother. I’m not interested.”

“This is no time for a macho thing, Ben.”

“I know,” I said, “but I don’t like having strangers around. And I still have police coverage at night. Besides, I’m not the target. Plum needs me to write his story.”

Marcus shook his head. “I don’t like it.” He paused before continuing. “The media’s out front and they took footage of the family leaving. Bastards’ll probably show it later today.”

“Marcus, if we ever have to send my wife off again with two men, can you make sure they’re fat and ugly. Those two could be on the cover of GQ.” He laughed, climbed into his Mercedes and backed down the drive.

I closed the garage door, put Oscar down, and the two of us headed out to the guesthouse. “Just you and me, kid.” Superman looked up at me and wagged.

I left after the Brackus people began arriving to finish the perimeter fence. They didn’t need access to the main house until Monday.

It was a quarter past eight when I got to the Cary Police Department. I was immediately taken to the small conference room outside Netter’s office. He was there, along with Bob Dunwood from the SBI, and Detectives Cox from Wake County, Erikson from Apex, and Shawn Stewart from Raleigh. Netter looked like hell, and I could tell he’d been up all night.

He pointed to my wrist. “Nice watch.”

“How’s Officer Stanton?” I asked. “Has she regained consciousness?”

“She came to briefly around three this morning,” Netter said. “Long enough to give us a short statement, saying you were the one who shot her and Ronald Brinkman, the security guard.”

I shook my head. “Jesus. Poor kid. The shock really has her confused.”

She’s not confused,” Cox said. “The museum has an excellent surveillance system. Check this out.” He turned his laptop computer toward me and pointed to a paused video. “This is camera 3A located in the gathering area outside the museum restaurant. Notice the time is 8:38 p.m.” He clicked the play button. “That’s you right there, Tucker, standing next to Marcus Bradley.” There’s no sound, but it’s obvious something had just happened at the west end of the building. “See how everybody, including you, turned in that direction?”

“Yes,” I said. “We heard two quick pops followed immediately by a single pop. And right then Marcus and I moved Maggie to a secure location, and then we walked toward the sounds and out of view of this camera.”

Cox then brought up another window and continued. “This is camera 2B located in the Rodin Court pointed west where the bronze sculptures are. Notice the time on this camera is 8:37 p.m., less than a minute before the shooting.” He clicked the play button.

I was stunned. The video clearly showed me walking into the Rodin Court carrying a small duffle about the size of a bowling ball bag. The security guard, Ronald Brinkman, was standing to the left. In the video, I walked up to the torso sculpture and unzipped the bag as Officer Stanton approached from the back. I pulled a gun out of my jacket, spun around and fired two shots at Stanton, and immediately turned and fired one shot at Brinkman. Both collapsed immediately. I pulled Knudsen’s head out of the bag and placed it on the sculpture, left what looked like a piece of paper next to the sculpture, grabbed the duffel, and ran out the west door into the Rodin Garden, where I escaped from view.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said, astonished. “I swear to you that’s not me.”

“We know that,” Cox said.

I stared at him. “Now I’m confused.”

“Don’t ya get it?” Netter said. “From this distance, this motherfucker looks just like you … I’m talkin’ identical … right down to the shaggy hair.”

“My hair’s not shaggy.”

He ignored me. “It explains everything. Plum said the two of you had a destiny after he watched the interview with Sally Briggum. That’s because he saw a double of himself, who had the ability to immortalize him in written word.”

Dunwood added, “It also explains why Mrs. Lucinski identified you as the person she saw on the sidewalk in front of Jennifer Tucker’s home shortly before her murder. She really saw Plum.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Then Roberta was right,” I said. “She said the delivery man reminded her of me. And I know I don’t have a twin brother. Jesus, what are the odds of this?”

Cox closed the windows on his computer. “One in a million, I’ll bet. Tell us about your brothers.”

“What? If you’re thinking that could be Tommy or George, you’re nuts! In fact, they don’t even look anything like me.”

Cox didn’t back down. “Give me names, addresses and birthdates.”

I gave him the information and a minute later, my brothers’ driver’s license photos were on the screen.

Cox bit his lip and turned to Netter. “He’s right. They don’t look anything like the guy we’re after … not even the same color hair.”

“Jesus,” Netter said. “I really thought I winged Plum Wednesday night. There was blood found at the cemetery.” He pointed to the screen. “Play the shooting again.”

When the video was just past the shooting where Plum was placing Knudsen’s head on the sculpture, Netter yelled, “Stop it right there! Is he favoring his right arm? Back it up.”

Cox backed up the video and played it again.

“I’ll be damned,” Dunwood said. “He’s definitely favoring his right arm. Looks like you did get him, John.”

Netter looked at his watch and said. “It’s almost nine o’clock.” He turned to me. “I want you in this morning’s meeting when we present this.”

The six of us walked to the task force meeting room. I grabbed a doughnut and a glass of orange juice and sat off to the side. Mayor Richards was seated on the side opposite.

The meeting started five minutes late due to the large number of attendees. Netter opened with a brief statement describing the events of the night before at the museum, followed with a status report on Officer Stanton’s condition—critical, extreme loss of blood, but no vital organs hit. There was complete silence when he dropped the bombshell that I was a dead ringer for the killer.

Netter and Cox showed the two videos from the surveillance cameras. No one said a word, but everyone kept glancing back and forth from the video to me.

“Stanton regained consciousness briefly,” Netter said. “She told us she approached a man she thought was Tucker and offered him assistance. He turned abruptly, holding a gun and shot her twice. The first shot hit her in the vest in the chest. The second traveled completely through her upper right torso below the collar bone. It happened so fast she never got her gun out of her holster.”

“We’ve recovered the video from all of the surveillance cameras. Plum walked through the front door carrying that bag at 8:35 p.m., and he knew exactly where he was going. Obviously, he’d been there earlier.”

Angela Dreckmann from the Wake County Crime Lab spoke briefly about the crime scene. “Plum left a handmade card next to the torso sculpture. It said ‘Happy Birthday, Ben.’ The card was printed on an inkjet printer, probably a Hewlett Packard 6500 series, with thirty-six point Times New Roman Font. The paper was twenty pound Hammermill copier paper, the same kind sold at any OfficeMax, Office Depot, or Staples.”

“The three shell casings retrieved were Winchester nine millimeter, the same as the four found at the Sacred Haven Cemetery. The firing pin and fired-casing ejection patterns indicated that all casings came from the same gun, probably a Glock model 19. There were no fingerprints on any of the casings.”

Huffman had removed a fairly pristine bullet from the body of Ronald Brinkman, providing an excellent gun-muzzle ballistics sample for future comparison if the weapon was found by investigators.

He also displayed a rather grisly photo of the back of Knudsen’s head, but it was enough to show that Plum had again pulled the deceased’s hair back and arranged it into a long braid and wrapped it around the neck of the torso sculpture.

Netter took over the discussion. “There was also video recovered from cameras outside the west building. They show Plum exiting through the Rodin court and running to a car parked along the north side access road. The imagery is pretty rough, but we believe he was driving a light colored, late model subcompact sedan.”

“Plum is becoming increasingly more brazen. As a result, he’s becoming more dangerous, but he’s leaving valuable evidence behind that will be his downfall.”

An officer in the back raised his hand. “Are you going to release a photo of Mr. Tucker to the press?”

Netter shook his head. “We can’t do that. Tucker’s not the suspect here. Also, if we released his photo, we’d have every asshole in the county gunnin’ for him. So we’re generating a detailed sketch based on Tucker to present to the press. Hopefully someone will think twice before killing a person based on a sketch. Of course, officers on patrol will have a photo of Tucker, and we’ll brief them about the uncanny similarity between the two.”

Another officer asked, “How will we know if we’re seeing Tucker or Plum?”

“That’s a good question,” Netter said. “First off, Tucker drives that expensive Jaguar. Second … Tucker, raise your left arm as high as you can.” I did so. “It’s doubtful Plum will be walking around sporting a thirty thousand dollar Rolex watch.”

I lowered my arm and looked at my wrist, stunned. Thirty thousand dollars? For a damn watch? That’s more than I made all last year.

 “So Tucker, make sure you’re wearing that fancy watch at all times. Sleep with that son of a bitch! And get a damn haircut!” He turned back to task force members. “Are there any questions … about events last night at the museum … or the night before at the cemetery?”

Sergeant Clark raised his hand. “Yeah. Did you get any pictures of Tucker in the open grave?” I shot him a look as everyone laughed.

The room cleared. I sat thinking, and again I couldn’t help but feel I’d missed something at the Clancy crime scene—something simple, easily overlooked.

Netter came over and sat down.

“You got your cell?” he asked. I nodded. “Give MacKenzie a call and give her an update. We’ve let her sleep in long enough.”

Lainie picked up on the third ring. “Hey,” I said. “Are you among the living?”

“Good god, Tucker, give me a chance to finish dressing!”

I laughed. “What? You need to be dressed to answer the phone?”

She was irritated. “Shut up and give me a minute. Jesus! I just buzzed you in a second ago.”

My blood ran cold. “Lainie, I’m at headquarters with Netter.”

“Stop screwin’ around. I saw you on the camera.” Over the phone I could hear light knocking at her door. “Tucker, will you give me a chance to get to the damn door?”

I shouted into the phone. “Lainie, listen to me! It’s Plum! He looks just like me! I swear to god! Don’t answer that fuckin’ door! Get your weapon!”

Netter realized what was happening and yelled, “MacKenzie!”

I heard what sounded like footsteps, and then a loud clunk over my phone—and then it went silent. I shouted, “Lainie? Lainie? LAINIE!

CHAPTER 33

I didn’t ask Netter or Cox if I could come with them; I just jumped in the back seat of the car. I continuously called Lainie’s number but was rolled to voicemail. Even with full lights and sirens, it took us almost fifteen minutes to reach Lainie’s apartment. It was a repeat of my high-speed trip through Cary the night of Jennifer’s murder, and it made me want to throw up.

Cox had radioed ahead to the Raleigh Police even before we’d started the car, and four Raleigh police cruisers and a paramedic team were already at the scene when we arrived. Both Netter and Cox ordered me to stay in the car until they assessed the situation.

My eyes were glued to the front door of Lainie’s apartment building, waiting for one of them to return. After minutes that seemed more like hours, Cox came out the door and motioned for me to come in.

Lainie was okay. According to Cox, it was hearing Netter screaming at her in the background of our phone call that convinced Lainie she was in trouble. She ran to the wall and hit a panic button activating an alarm with a
whoop whoop
sound. Thank god it was enough to scare off Plum, who immediately raced back down the stairs and out the front door. During the frenzy, Lainie dropped her phone, and it slid under the sofa. She grabbed her Glock and aimed at the apartment door until Raleigh police officers arrived a few minutes later. Plum had once again slipped past the first responders.