Before Evil Read online

  “This is Maggie O’Dell.”

  “Girl, where you be?”

  It was Agent Turner, and she instantly smiled at his poor attempt at slang.

  “I just got home.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Am I interrupting anything?”

  “Just my regrets of not having a pizza already delivered.”

  He laughed. She was starting to enjoy hearing his deep baritone laugh.

  “You live anywhere close to Fredericksburg?”

  “About twenty minutes away.”

  “Wanna meet me at Vinny’s Italian Grill? Best pizza in town. The pie and the brews are on me.”

  She hesitated. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if Turner was flirting with her. He knew she was married. But she’d also seen him flirt shamelessly—and harmlessly—with a lot of women. Her pause must have lasted too long.

  “I promise it’ll be worth your while, O’Dell. I’ve got lots of good stuff to share. Our boy, the Collector, has been bussssy.”

  It was business. Of course, it was business. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed. She was exhausted. Ordeals with her mother always left her drained even when she wasn’t the one wiping up the vomit and dialing 911.

  “I’m on my way.”

  She left Greg a note.

  The crowded streets and restaurants reminded Maggie that it was Saturday night. Vinny’s surprised her. It was old style Italian with checkered table clothes and Tiffany lamps hanging from the ceiling. She imagined Turner preferring more trendy eateries like Ollie’s, the burger place they’d eaten at the other night.

  He waved at her from a table clear in the back corner. She was pleased to see Delaney. Gwen was there, too. Okay, so it was a taskforce meeting. She was relieved and welcomed the chance to fill her mind with details that didn’t include her childhood or her mother. Was it wrong that these were the people she preferred to spend a Saturday evening with, instead of her husband and perfectly nice neighbors?

  She glanced over her shoulder as she weaved her way through the crowded restaurant, checking to see if Cunningham was here, too.

  “Our little party got bigger after I hung up,” Turner told her as if he owed her an explanation.

  Delaney stood and pulled out a chair for Maggie. Ordinarily, she didn’t want to be treated differently than her male colleagues. Tonight, she simply thanked him.

  Turner poured beer from a pitcher into a pilsner glass in front of her. And before she scooted all the way to the table, he was leaning over to her.

  “I just spent the day in Richmond,” he said.

  For some reason his admission made her stomach sink, until she decided she was not going to tell them that she had spent the afternoon in Richmond as well.

  He glanced around the restaurant and leaned in closer to Maggie.

  “Stan Wenhoff had a lot to tell me. First off, I have a name to go with the toe.”

  Delaney rolled his eyes and looked a bit embarrassed. “Come on Preston. Do you have no manners?”

  “I am stating facts. Does it matter if we talk about them before we eat or after?”

  “Who is she?” Maggie asked.

  “Name’s Paige Barnett, twenty-seven years old, single.” He pulled a small notebook from the jacket hanging on the back of his chair. “From Gainesville. Worked at a place called The Runner’s Shop. I think it’s in that Gateway Mall area. She didn’t show up for work on Monday.”

  “Monday? As in this past Monday? Stan made it sound like she had been stranded in the forest for maybe a week. When was the last time anyone’s seen her?”

  “Hey, I’m just telling you what the good officers in Prince William County have documented. I haven’t had the chance to talk with all these folks yet.”

  “Did the report list where or how she was taken?”

  “They found her vehicle in Conway Robinson State Forest. Sounds like there’s a small lot at the trailheads.”

  “Where is that?”

  “It’s off Route 29, pretty much in the middle of the Gainesville area.”

  “So about an hour away from Devil’s Backbone State Forest.”

  “Her sister, Lydia Barnett, filed a missing person’s report. I’ve seen a copy of that. She mentioned that Paige liked to run in the park. But the sister lives down in Fort Lauderdale, and she didn’t file the report until last weekend.

  “I’m guessing Paige Barnett is like thousands of single people who live alone and don’t have a significant other,” Turner continued. “They check in with friends and family but oftentimes not on a daily basis, so it might be a couple days, maybe even a week for anyone to realize that their single friend or family member’s not just blowing them off but might actually have gone missing.”

  Maggie knew that was true. If she and Greg didn’t leave notes for each other, one of them could go missing for a few days without the other realizing it.

  “Stan literally just verified her identity this afternoon,” Turner said. “And that’s not all. Our good buddy, Stan had another body to identify. This one was found just outside Richmond. Shallow grave somewhere in the woods. Remember that councilwoman who went missing?”

  “From Boston?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  “She ended up down here?” Maggie asked.

  “That’s not even the weirdest part of this,” Turner said.

  It was obvious that Delaney and Gwen had already heard this news, because Turner was keeping his voice down and talking directly to Maggie while they sipped their beers and sat back.

  “Stan did the autopsy,” he continued. “And guess what?”

  “She had an arrow in her?” Maggie asked.

  “Nope, no arrow. But she was missing something. The killer removed her spleen.”

  47

  Fredericksburg, Virginia

  “Where were the woods located?” Maggie wanted to know.

  The pizza had arrived, and she practically elbowed Turner out of the way to grab a slice. She was starving.

  “I tell you we found the body that might be a match for our spleen à la mode and you want directions?” He was shaking his head at her.

  “What are you thinking, Maggie?” Delaney asked.

  “How many driving hours is it from Richmond to Boston?”

  “I used to drive from New York to the District,” Gwen offered. “It’s about four hours. To Boston is another four, maybe four and a half.”

  “And it’s almost two hours from D.C. to Richmond,” Turner said. “So nine or ten hours. That’s a long drive with a dead body in your trunk.”

  “Tells us our boy doesn’t mind picking up and moving to a whole new area,” Delaney said.

  “Boston to Richmond is a straight shot on Interstate 95,” Maggie told them. “I went back out to the Tanner’s property this morning. It’s just off Interstate 66.”

  “So he also likes to stick to the interstate.” Turner gestured for the waiter. Over three crowded tables he got the man’s attention, pointed to the pitcher of beer and raised two fingers. The waiter nodded. “Are you saying the Collector might have stumbled onto the Tanner’s just as crap was hitting the proverbial fan?”

  “That I’m not sure about, but I did find tire tracks on a dirt pasture road that runs parallel to their property. Found footprints to a perfect view of the place.”

  Turner did his whistle then asked Delaney, “You said Lucille Tanner had quite a bit to say?”

  Delaney tugged at his collar. Nine o’clock on a Saturday night and he was still wearing a tie.

  “Gwen and I talked to her after we did the photo line-up with Katie.”

  “Did she identify Deputy Steele?” Maggie asked.

  Delaney glanced at Gwen, letting her answer.

  “She picked out Steele, but she wasn’t certain if she remembered
him from the hospital or from the crime scene.” Gwen ran fingers through her hair and let out a long sigh. “She might never remember details from that day. At this point, it’s not going to help us to wait, especially if she didn’t see the Collector.”

  “Lucille Tanner told us her daughter-in-law was having an affair,” Delaney said.

  “Whoa! I didn’t see that one coming,” Turner said.

  “Her son, Louis seemed convinced the guy was in law enforcement,” Delaney continued. “According to Lucille, her son gave Beth a choice and she chose Louis. After that, he started getting harassed by a cop. Speeding tickets. Parking tickets. Once, he was stopped for a taillight that was out. She said the taillight looked like it had been kicked in by someone.”

  “But he never gave his mother a name,” Gwen added.

  “That actually makes sense,” Maggie said. “Considering the condition Louis Tanner’s body was in. What about Daniel and Katie?”

  “They were trying out a new boat,” Gwen said.

  “They may have been on the river when Steele arrived,” Delaney suggested. “When they were coming back to the double-wide Daniel must have suspected something wasn’t right. Katie told me, all her father said was to hide in the cellar and not to come out until he came for her.”

  No one said the obvious. Daniel Tanner never came back for her.

  “The way I see it, Steele comes out of the double-wide,” Delaney said. “He’s surprised to see someone outside. Daniel takes off running. Steele can’t stop him without shooting him.”

  “I think that’s the part the Collector might have seen,” Maggie told them.

  The waiter arrived with two pitchers of beer and everyone went silent.

  “Your second pie should be out in a few minutes. I’ll go grab it.” And he was gone.

  “Still doesn’t make sense how the Collector just happened to come along,” Turner finally said after refilling their glasses. “Yeah, I get that it’s right off Interstate 66 but that exit doesn’t lead to diddley-squat. There’s an exit with gas and eats right before that one if he needed to take a piss—oh, pardon my French, Dr. Patterson.”

  Maggie wanted to smile, pleased that he hadn’t included her in his pardon.

  If the missing Boston councilwoman was one of the Collector’s victims that certainly widened his region. But as far as the Tanners went, there wasn’t anything new that Maggie hadn’t already suspected. She asked Turner if he’d mind if she talked to Paige Barnett’s employer and maybe even the sister in Florida. He was going to track down her vehicle and take a look at her apartment.

  By the time Maggie left, she was glad she had joined them. The pizza was delicious and getting her mind back on the case, and off her mother, was exactly what she needed.

  It was after midnight when she crawled into bed. She thought Greg was fast asleep. His back was turned to her.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” he said without moving, his voice groggy with sleep.

  She had told him in her note about spending the afternoon in Richmond.

  “Me too.”

  “You know it’s not your fault,” he told her.

  “I know.”

  As she rolled over to stare out the window into the dark night, she remembered her mother’s words again: “The darkness is starting to suffocate me.”

  Despite all of Maggie’s studies, her advanced degrees and training, she still felt like that twelve-year-old girl who wasn’t enough to fill her mother’s void. Even now, she had no idea how to help her. And how could she, when she hadn’t mastered how to fill her own void?

  What Maggie had learned was how to construct barricades, so that no one could leave her, no one could abandon her. And the way that she did that was making sure that no one could matter enough to ever hurt her, ever again.

  48

  Sunday

  Maggie gave up on sleep. In her dreams she was back in Green Bay, Wisconsin, helping her mother pack up their things. Only Maggie wasn’t a little girl. She was grown. The house didn’t look anything like the one they had lived in. It was small and dark and smelled bad. Boxes surrounded them. They didn’t speak to each other while they packed. But instead of boxes, her mother just kept handing her one takeout container after another.

  Finally around 3:00 a.m. Maggie crawled out of bed and quietly gathered her running gear in the dark, so she wouldn’t wake Greg. By five o’clock she’d run two miles under the light of street lamps with her shoulder holster under the baggy sweatshirt. By 6:30 a.m. she was on the road after she’d showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Her shoulder holster was back in place, snug against her body and hidden under her FBI windbreaker. She’d left another note for Greg, keeping it ambiguous enough that he might think she’d be spending most of her day with her mother. At the moment she was headed in the other direction toward Quantico.

  The guard at the security hut shook his head at her. Pete was used to seeing her early on weekend mornings.

  “You’re getting as bad as your boss,” he said.

  “He’s here?”

  “Beat you by—” He checked his wristwatch. “Twenty-two minutes.”

  She handed him a hot coffee with cream, no sugar and a fresh glazed donut. His weathered face managed a grin and his “thank you” was a bob of his head accompanied by a mumbled, “You are too good to me.”

  When she got off the elevator she thought about stopping by Cunningham’s office. Instead, she headed in the other direction to her own. She needed to do several computer searches. One on ViCAP. Days ago she had searched and gotten a hit. At the time it didn’t seem to fit, because it was too far away. Massachusetts, not Virginia. A brown paper bag was left near the restrooms at a rest area or a truck stop off Interstate 95. It had been flagged as a possible prank. She checked and there were no stolen or missing body parts reported from organ donor organizations. Now she wanted the details.

  She requested the file that included two photos. The brown paper bag had no markings, no logos. It could have come from any grocer. Inside was a plastic bag of melting ice and on top was another plastic bag with what looked like a bloody glob that was later identified as a human lung.

  She downloaded the information including the photos and as she waited, she sat back in her desk chair.

  Was it the Collector’s handiwork? Had he advanced from a simple brown paper bag to a takeout container? Days ago when she first saw the entry she had discounted it. But Councilwoman Brenda Carson and her missing spleen had changed Maggie’s mind.

  She checked the date on the report. The brown paper bag had been discovered three months ago. If it was the Collector he might have been living in the Boston area. Serial killers often stayed close to home, finding comfort in the familiarity of their surroundings.

  Something made him move.

  What would cause him to pull up roots and leave a hunting ground? Could it have been the national attention that the missing councilwoman had garnered? Suddenly his familiar surroundings would have been under a microscope, swarming with investigators.

  He moved south but still kept to Interstate 95. Now Maggie wondered how many other women had gone missing along the I-95 corridor close to Boston? She did another computer search. This one was for missing persons, narrowing it down to within one hundred miles of Boston. She downloaded that list, too.

  Then she started printing copies of anything and everything she could find about Paige Barnett, the woman whose autopsy she had attended last week. The woman with the broken arrow in her leg, who Stan Wenhoff believed had been left to fend for herself in Devil’s Backbone State Forest. The Collector had taken her severed toe, kept it on ice then put it in a takeout container and strategically placed it on the hood of Deputy Steele’s police cruiser.

  Other than the missing person’s report filed by Paige’s sister, Lydia Barnett of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, th
ere wasn’t much more. Maggie found and made a copy of the woman’s driver’s license. It was issued by the state of Florida and listed Paige’s address as the same as Lydia’s. So the woman had moved recently. She was twenty-seven years old. She was attractive with long dark hair and an infectious smile as she posed for the DMV. None of that was apparent during the autopsy. Maggie remembered how battered her face was, her hair a tangled and matted mess. Even her sister wouldn’t have been able to identify her.

  Turner had told Maggie last night that he would check out Paige’s apartment, so somehow he had a local address. Maggie jotted down directions for the The Runner’s Shop in Gainesville’s upscale Gateway Mall. Although she’d never stopped at the shopping center before, she guessed it was about forty minutes away. Still, she brought up a map.

  Look at that, she thought to herself. The Gateway Mall was just off Interstate 66.

  49

  Gainesville, Virginia

  Rita had heard the Sunday lunch crowds were crazy, but this was her first time working one. Usually she took the evening shifts. Still crazy, but bigger tips. Rita liked to call the restaurant business organized chaos. And already she could add that the Sunday lunchers were fussy and demanding.

  “This isn’t at all what I expected,” an older woman told Rita when she delivered her chicken sandwich.

  She wanted to tell the woman it looked exactly like the photo on the menu, but instead, she asked if there was something else she could bring her.

  “Would you like to see the menu again?” Rita asked.

  Sunday also brought families with kids—pouty, noisy, disruptive and picky kids. One of them had already spilled an entire glass of soda, and J.P. Morgan didn’t look happy about cleaning it up. Rita had asked to be on the patio where the smaller, bistro-sized tables accommodated only two or three people, which eliminated her having to deal with the little monsters. But her customers were still needy and persistent.