The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  Marilyn shrugged her shoulders again. “Nope, I didn’t even know what she was going to do, not really. She left me at this grungy motel on the highway and told me to stay put or she’d bang me up real bad. She looked real happy when she got back. There was lots of blood on her nurse’s uniform; she said she’d have to find somethin’ else to wear. She thought it was neat that there was blood on the uniform, said it was a-pro-pos or somethin’ like that. Now, I’m not goin’ to say any more. I already said too much. I want to leave now.”

  “You know, Marilyn, your cousin’s very dangerous. She could turn on you, like this.” He snapped his fingers, saw her cower in the chair, saw her shudder. He said, “How would you like to be ripped apart?”

  “She wouldn’t turn on me. She’s known me all my life. I’m her cousin, her ma and mine were sisters, at least half-sisters. They wasn’t real sure since their pa was always cattin’ around.”

  “Why did Tammy pretend to be Timmy?”

  Marilyn focused her eyes on the pile of books along the side wall of the office and didn’t answer. Savich started to leave it for the moment since it obviously upset her, when she burst out, “She wanted me, you know, but she weren’t no dyke and so she played with me only when she was dressed like Timmy, but never when she was Tammy.”

  For an instant, Savich was too startled to say a word. What a wild twist. He said finally, “Okay then, tell me what kind of shape Tammy is in right now.”

  That brought Marilyn up straight in her chair. “No thanks to you she’s going to be okay, at least she kept telling me that. But she hurts real bad and her shoulder looks all raw and swollen. She went to a pharmacy late one night, just when they was closing, and got the guy to give her some antibiotics and pain pills. He nearly puked when he saw her shoulder.”

  “I didn’t hear about any robbery in a pharmacy,” Savich said slowly. They’d been looking, but hadn’t gotten any news as yet.

  “That’s because Tammy whacked the guy after she got the medicine from him, tore the place up. She said that’d make the cops go after the local druggies.”

  “Where was this, Marilyn?”

  “In northern New Jersey somewhere. I don’t remember the name of that crummy little town.”

  Local law enforcement hadn’t connected the pharmacist’s murder to the Tammy Tuttle bulletin the FBI had circulated all over the eastern seaboard. Well, at least now they’d find out everything the local cops had on the murder. He said, “Where did Tammy go after you went off to Bar Harbor?”

  “She said she wanted some sun so’s it would heal her shoulder. She was going down to the Caribbean to get herself well. No, I don’t know where; she wouldn’t tell me. She said there were lots of islands down there and she’d just find the one that was best for her. Of course she didn’t have enough money, so she robbed this guy and his wife in a real fancy house in Connecticut. Got three thousand and change. That’s when she told me she’d be all right and I could take off.”

  “Naturally she’s going to call you, let you know how she’s doing?”

  Marilyn nodded.

  “Where will she call you?”

  “At my boyfriend’s, in Bar Harbor. But I’m not there anymore, am I? My boyfriend will tell her that the cops came around and I left.”

  That was true enough, Savich thought, no hope for it. He just hoped that Tammy wouldn’t call until they’d found out where she was in the Caribbean.

  Marilyn said, “I’ll bet she really wants to kill you bad because of what you done to her. She’ll come back when she’s really well, and she’ll take you down. Tammy’s the meanest female in the world. She beat the shit out of me every time I saw her when we was growin’ up. She’ll get you, Dillon Savich. You’re nuthin’ compared to Tammy.”

  “What are the Ghouls, Marilyn?”

  Marilyn Warluski seemed to grow smaller right in front of him. She was pressed against the back of her chair, her shoulders hunched forward. “They’re bad, Mr. Savich. They’re really bad.”

  “But what are they?”

  “Tammy said she found them when she and Tommy were hiding out in some caves in the Ozarks a couple years ago. That’s in Arkansas, you know. It was real dark, she told me, real dark in that stinkin’ cave, smelled like bat shit, and Tommy was out takin’ a leak, and she was alone and then, all of a sudden, the cave filled with weird white light and then the Ghouls came.”

  “They didn’t hurt her?”

  Marilyn shook her head.

  “What else did she say?”

  “Said she knew they were the Ghouls, just knew, that somehow they’d got inside her head and told her their name, then told her that they needed blood, lots of young blood, and then they laughed and told her they were counting on her, and then they just winked out. That’s what Tammy said: they laughed, spoke in her head, and just ‘winked out.’”

  “But what are they, Marilyn? Do you have any idea?”

  She was silent for the longest time, then she whispered, “Tammy told me just a couple of days ago that the Ghouls were pissed off at her because she and Tommy hadn’t given them their young blood in the barn, that if Tommy was still alive, they’d eat him right up.”

  “Do you think that’s why Tammy got that kid? So the Ghouls could have their young blood?”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him and slowly nodded. Then she started crying, hunched over, her bowed head in her hands.

  “Do you know anything else, Marilyn?”

  She shook her head. Savich believed her. He also understood why she was shivering. He was close to shivering himself. He had goose bumps on his arms.

  Two FBI agents escorted Marilyn Warluski out of Savich’s office. She would remain here at Quantico, a material witness and the FBI’s guest until Savich and Justice made a decision about what to do with her.

  He was standing by his desk, deep in thought, looking out the window toward Hogan’s Alley, the all-American town that the FBI Academy had created and used to train their agents in confronting and catching criminals, when Jeffers, a profiler in the Behavioral Sciences, housed three floors down here at Quantico, said in his slow, Alabama drawl even before he cleared the doorway, “This is about the strangest shared delusion I’ve ever heard, Savich. But what are the things to them? How do they interact with Tammy Tuttle? Marilyn said Tammy told her the Ghouls got in her head and told her to do things.”

  “What we’ve got to do is predict what Tammy Tuttle will do next given this belief of hers in the Ghouls,” said Jane Bitt, a senior profiler who’d lasted nearly five years without burning out.

  Jane Bitt came around Jeffers and leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. “Lots of other monsters but not anything like this. Tammy Tuttle is a monster. She’s got monsters inside her—monsters within a monster. The problem is that we don’t have any markers, any clues to give us even a glimmer of an idea of what we’re working with here. We’re faced with something we’ve never seen before.”

  “That’s right,” said Jeffers, the two words so drawn out in his accent that Savich wanted to say them for him, that or just pull them out of his mouth. “How do we get her, Agent Savich? I sure want to hear what she has to say about the Ghouls.”

  Savich said, “You heard Marilyn say that Tammy went to the Caribbean, to an island ‘right’ for her. She couldn’t have walked there, and she sure can’t be hard to spot. Just a moment, let me call Jimmy Maitland. They can get on that right away.” He placed the phone call, listened, and when he finally hung up, he said, “Mr. Maitland was nearly whistling. He’s sure they’ll get her now. What else do you guys think from listening to her?”

  “Well,” Jane said as she sat down, crossing her legs and leaning forward, “it seems to be some sort of induced hallucination. Marilyn seems to think they’re real, and both you and the boys saw something unusual in that barn, isn’t that right, Agent Savich?”

  “Yes,” Savich said.

  “Maybe Tommy and Tammy have some sort of
ability to alter what you see and feel, some sort of hypnotic ability.”

  Savich said to Jeffers, “You did a profile on Timmy Tuttle before he turned out to be Tammy.”

  “Savich is right, Jane,” Jeffers said. “We ain’t got nothing useful that fits a psychotic cross-dresser who may have hypnotic skills.”

  Savich laughed, said, “You know what I want to try? I want to talk Marilyn into letting us hypnotize her. Maybe if you’re right about this, she can tell us a lot more when she’s under.”

  Jeffers laughed. “Hey, maybe the Ghouls are real, maybe they’re entities, aliens from outer space. What do you think, Jane?”

  “I like the sound of that, Jeffers. It’d perk up our boring lives a bit, add some color to our humdrum files. White cones whirling around black circles—maybe they’re from Mars, you think?”

  Savich said, “Actually, I’ve been reading articles, studies on various phenomena involved in past crimes.”

  “Found anything?” Jeffers asked.

  “Nothing like this,” Savich said. “Not a thing like this.” He added as he stood, “Joke all you want, but just don’t do it in front of the media.”

  “Not a chance,” Jane said. “I don’t want to get committed.” She rose, shook Savich’s hand. “Marilyn told you that Tammy met up with the Ghouls in a cave. My husband is really into speleology and we usually go spelunking on our vacations. In fact, we were planning on visiting some of the caves in the Ozarks this summer. No matter how much I can laugh about this, I might want to rethink that plan.”

  Washington, D.C.

  Lily was leaning over her drawing table, looking at her work. No Wrinkles Remus was emerging clear and strong and outrageous from the tip of her beloved sable brush. The brush was getting a bit gnarly, but it was good for another few weeks, maybe.

  First panel: Remus is sitting at his desk, a huge, impressive affair, looking smug as he says to someone who looks like Sam Donaldson, “Here’s a photo of you without your wig. You’re really bald, Sam. I’m going to show this photo to the world if you don’t give me what I want.”

  Second panel: Sam Donaldson clearly isn’t happy. He grabs the photo, says, “I’m not bald, Remus, and I don’t wear a wig. This photo is a fake. You can’t blackmail me.”

  Third panel: Remus is gloating. “Why don’t you call Jessie Ventura? Just ask him what I did to him.”

  Fourth panel: Sam Donaldson, angry, defeated, says, “What do you want?”

  Fifth panel: Remus says, “I want Cokie Roberts. You’re going to fix it so I can have dinner with her. I want her and I’m going to have her.”

  Lily was grinning when she turned to see Simon Russo standing in the doorway.

  He looked fit, healthy, and tanned. She felt suddenly puny and weak, still bowed over a bit. She wished he’d just go away, but she said, “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you, but you should be in bed. I just spoke to Savich, and he said to check on you. He knew you wouldn’t be following orders. You’ve got a strip nearly ready?”

  “Yep. It’s not the final version yet, but close. Remus is in fine form. He’s blackmailing Sam Donaldson.”

  Simon wandered over to look down at the panels. He laughed. “I’ve missed Remus, the amoral bastard. Glad to see him back.”

  “Now I’ve got to see if the Washington Post would like to take me and Remus in. Keep your fingers crossed that they’ll agree. I won’t get rich anytime soon, but it’s a start.”

  Simon said after a moment, looking down at the Remus strip, “I know a cartoonist doesn’t make much money until he or she is syndicated. Hey, I just happen to know Rick Bowes. He runs the desk. How about I give him a call, go to lunch, show him the strips?”

  Lily didn’t like it, obvious enough, so he didn’t say anything more until she shook her head. “All right, then, you bring some of these strips to show him and I’ll take you both to a Mexican restaurant.”

  “Well,” she said, “maybe that would be okay.”

  “Will you take a nap now, Lily? You should take some of your meds, too.”

  Sean hollered from the nursery down the hall. They heard Gabriella telling him that if he’d just stop chewing his knuckles as well as hers, she’d get him a graham cracker and they’d go for a walk in the park. Sean let out one more yell, then burbled. Gabriella laughed. “Let’s go get that cracker, champ.”

  Lily heard Sean cooing as Gabriella carried him down the hall. She tried to swallow the tears, but it just wasn’t possible. She stood there, not making a sound, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Simon knew about tragedy, knew about the soul-deep pain that dulled over time but never went away. He didn’t say a word, just very slowly pulled her against him and pressed her face to his shoulder.

  When the phone rang a minute later, Lily pulled away, wouldn’t look him straight in the eye, and answered it.

  She handed it to him. “It’s for you.”

  14

  New York City

  It was nearly ten o’clock Sunday night. Simon was back in New York and had just finished a hard workout at his gym. He felt both exhausted and energized, as always. He toweled off his face, wiped the sweat off the back machine, stretched, and headed for the showers. There were at least a dozen guys in the men’s locker room, all in various stages of undress—cracking jokes, bragging about their dates, and complaining about injured body parts.

  Simon stripped and nabbed the only free shower. It was late when he finally stepped out and grabbed up his towel. Only two guys were left, one of them blow-drying his hair, the other peeling a Band-Aid off his knee. Then, not three minutes later, they were gone. Simon had on his boxer shorts when the lights went out.

  He grabbed for his pants. He remembered the circuit breaker was outside the men’s locker room, right there on the left wall.

  He heard something, a light whisper of sound. It was the last thing he remembered. The blow just over his right ear knocked him out cold. He fell flat to the locker room floor.

  “Hey, man, wake up! Oh God, please, man, don’t be dead. I’d lose my job for sure. Please, man, open your eyes!”

  Simon cracked open an eye to see an acne-ridden face, a very young face that was scared to death, staring down at him. The young guy was shaking his shoulder.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m not dead. Stop shaking me.” Simon raised his hand and felt the lump behind his right ear. The skin was broken, and he felt the smear of his own blood. He looked up at the kid and said, “Someone turned out the lights and hit me with something very hard.”

  “Oh, man,” the kid said, “Mr. Duke is going to blame me for sure. I’m supposed to take care of this place, and I’ve only been here a week and he’s going to fire me. I’m roadkill.” He began wringing his hands, looking around wildly, as if expecting to see Mr. Duke, the manager, at any minute.

  “The guy who hit me—I guess you didn’t see him?”

  “Nah, I didn’t see any guy.”

  “All right. Don’t worry, chances are he’s long gone. Help me up, I’ve got to check my wallet.” Once on his feet, Simon opened his locker door and reached for his ancient black bomber jacket that had seen its best days at MIT a dozen years before. His wallet was gone.

  A robber trips the circuit breaker, then comes into the gym locker room to steal a wallet? He must have known only one guy was left, which meant that he’d had to look in, to check. A mugger in a men’s locker room?

  “Sorry, kid, but we should call the cops. Can’t hurt. Just maybe they’ll turn up something.”

  Simon canceled his credit cards while he waited for the cops to show up. The police, two young patrolmen, took a statement, looked around the gym and in the locker room, but—

  Simon waited to call Savich until he was back at his brownstone on East Seventy-ninth Street.

  Savich said, “What’s happening?”

  Simon said, “I had a bit of trouble just a while ago.”

  Savich said, “You leave my house this afternoon after y
ou get a phone call, don’t call me to tell me what’s going on, and you’re telling me you’ve already landed into trouble?”

  “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Is Lily better?”

  “Lily is indeed better, and she’s pissed. She said tomorrow is Monday, her stitches are out in the morning, and she’s coming up to New York, no matter what kind of excuses you try to pawn off on her.”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Simon said.

  “All right, tell me what happened.”

  After Simon had finished, Savich said, “Go to the hospital. Have a doctor check out your head.”

  “Nah, it’s nothing, Savich, the skin’s barely split. Don’t worry about that. Thing is my wallet was taken, and I really don’t know what to make of it all.”

  Savich said slowly, “You think some people know you’re after my grandmother’s paintings?”

  “Could be. Thing is, when I got that phone call at your house, I wasn’t exactly truthful with Lily. It wasn’t an emergency with a client here in New York. It was from an art world weasel I do business with occasionally. I’d called him from your house earlier and he said he’d heard some things, too, and now he’s put out some feelers for me on the Sarah Elliott paintings. He was expecting some solid results soon, would have something to show me, and he needed me up here in New York. I was supposed to meet him tonight, but he called earlier and said he didn’t have everything together yet. So it’s on for tomorrow night, at the Plaza Hotel, the Oak Room Bar, one of his favorite places. The guy’s good, really knows what he’s doing, so I’m hopeful.”

  “All right, sounds promising. Now, just in case you were wondering how good a liar you are, Lily didn’t believe you for a minute. Your mugging, Simon, maybe it was just a mugging or maybe it was a warning. They didn’t hurt you seriously, and they could have. I’ll bet you a big one that your wallet is in a Dumpster somewhere near the gym. So take a look.”