The FBI Thrillers Collection

by Catherine Coulter

  Agent Dane Carver helped support James Marple, until Sherlock stepped forward, and then she and Agent Warnecki escorted Marple to the waiting paramedics.

  Savich turned back to the body of Marvin Phelps. Cooper had nearly blown the guy’s head off. A great shot, very precise, no chance of his knifing Marple in a reactive move, no chance for him to even know what was happening before he died.

  It wasn’t supposed to have happened that way, but Cooper had standing orders to fire if there was imminent danger.

  He saw Police Chief Halloran trotting toward him, followed by a half-dozen excited local cops, all of them hyped, all of them smiling. That would change when they saw Phelps’s body.

  At least they’d saved a guy’s life.

  But it wasn’t the killer they were after, Savich was sure of that. Theirs had killed two women, both high school math teachers. And in a sense, that maniac was responsible for this mess as well. It was probably why Cooper had jumped the gun and taken Phelps out. He saw himself saving James Marple’s life and taking out the math teacher killer at the same time. In all fairness, Coop was only twenty-four, loaded with testosterone, and still out to save the world. Not good enough. Savich would see to it that he had his butt drop-kicked and then sentenced to scrubbing out the SWAT team’s bathroom, the cruelest penalty anyone could devise.

  The media initially ignored the fact that this incident had nothing to do with the two math teacher killings. The early evening headlines read: SERIAL KILLER DEAD? And underneath, in smaller letters, because math teachers weren’t very sexy:

  MATH TEACHERS TARGETED. The first two murders were detailed yet again. Only way down the page was it mentioned that the kidnapping and attempted murder of James Marple by Marvin Phelps of Mount Pleasant, Virginia, had nothing to do with the two other math teacher killings.

  Par for the course.

  2

  Savich wasn’t stupid. He knew it when he saw it, and the gorgeous woman with the long black hair pinned up with a big clip, wearing a hot-pink leotard, was coming on to him.

  He didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her around the gym a couple of times, both times in the last week, now that he thought about it. She was strong, supple, and fit, all qualities he admired in anyone, male or female.

  He nodded to her, pressed the incline pad higher on the treadmill, and went back to reading the report Dane Carver, one of his CAU agents, had slipped under his arm as he’d walked out of the office that evening.

  Bernice Ward, murdered six days before, was shot in the forehead at close range as she was walking out of the 7- Eleven on Grand Street in Oxford, Maryland, at ten o’clock at night, carrying a bag that held a half-gallon of nonfat milk and two packages of rice cakes, something Savich believed should be used for packing boxes, not eating.

  There had been no witnesses, nothing captured on the 7-Eleven video camera or the United Maryland Bank ATM camera diagonally across the street. The 7-Eleven clerk heard the shot, found Mrs. Ward, and called it in. It was a .38 caliber bullet, directly between Bernice Ward’s eyes. She’d been married, no children. The police were all over the husband. As yet, there was no motive in sight.

  And just three days ago, the second victim, Leslie Fowler, another high school math teacher, was shot at close range coming out of the Alselm Cleaners on High Street, in Paulette, Virginia, just before closing at 9 p.m. Again, there were no witnesses, no evident motive as of yet for the husband, and the police were sucking him dry. Leslie Fowler had left no children, two dogs, and a seemingly distraught husband and family.

  Savich sighed. When the story of the second shooting broke, everyone in the Washington, D.C., area was on edge, thanks to the media’s coverage. Nobody wanted another serial killer in the area, but this second murder didn’t look good.

  Dane Carver had found no evidence that either woman had known the other. No tie at all between the two had yet been found. Both head shots, close range, with the same gun, a .38.

  And as of today, the FBI was involved, the Criminal Apprehension Unit specifically, because there was a chance that a serial killer was on the loose, and the Oxford P.D. and the Paulette P.D. had failed to turn up anything that would bring the killers close to home. Bottom line, they knew they needed help and that meant they were ready to have the Feds in their faces rather than let more killings rebound on them.

  One murder in Maryland, one murder in Virginia.

  Would the next one be in D.C.?

  If the shootings were random, Dane wrote, finding high school math teachers was easy for the killer—just a quick visit to a local library and a look through the high school yearbooks.

  Savich stretched a moment, and upped his speed. He ran hard for ten minutes, then cooled down again. He’d already read everything in the report about the two women, but he read it all again. There was no evidence of much value yet, something the media didn’t know about, thank God. The department had started by setting up a hot line just this morning, and calls were flooding in. Many of them, naturally, had to be checked out, but so far there was nothing helpful. He kept reading. Both women were in their thirties, both married for over ten years to the same spouses, and both were childless—something a little odd and he made a mental note of that—did the killer not want to leave any motherless children? Both husbands had been closely scrutinized and appeared, so far, to be in the clear. Troy Ward, the first victim’s husband, was the announcer for the Baltimore Ravens, a placid overweight man who wore thick glasses and began sobbing the moment anyone said his dead wife’s name. He wasn’t dealing well with his loss.

  Gifford Fowler was the owner of a successful Chevrolet car dealership in Paulette, right on Main Street. He was something of a womanizer, but he had no record of violence. He was tall, as gaunt as Troy Ward was heavy, beetle-browed, with a voice so low it was mesmerizing. Savich wondered how many Chevy pickups that deep voice had sold. Everything known about both husbands was carefully detailed, all the way down to where they had their dry cleaning done and what brand of toothpaste they used.

  The two men didn’t know each other, and neither had ever met the other. They apparently had no friends in common.

  In short, it appeared that a serial killer was at work and he had no particular math teacher in mind to target. Any math teacher would do.

  As for the women, both appeared to be genuinely nice people, their friends devastated by their murders. Both were responsible adults, one active in her local church, the other in local politics and charities. They’d never met each other, as far as anyone knew. They were nearly perfect citizens.

  What was wrong with this picture?

  Was there anything he wasn’t seeing? Was this really a serial killer? Savich paused a moment in his reading.

  Was it just some mutt who hated math teachers? Savich knew that the killer was a man, just knew it in his gut. But why math teachers? What could the motive possibly be? Rage over failing grades? Beatings or abuse by a math teacher? Or, maybe, a parent, friend, or lover he hated who was a math teacher? Or maybe it was a motive that no sane person could even comprehend. Well, Steve’s group over in behavioral sciences at Quantico would come up with every possible motive in the universe of twisted minds.

  Two dead so far and Steve said he’d bet his breakfast Cheerios there’d be more. Not good.

  He wanted to meet the two widowers.

  Savich remembered what his friend Miles Kettering had said about the two math teacher killings just a couple of nights before, when he and Sam had come over for barbecue. Six-year-old Sam was the image of his father, down to the way he chewed the corn off the cob. Miles had thought about it a moment, then said, “It seems nuts, but I’ll bet you, Savich, that the motive will turn out to be old as the hills.” Savich was thinking now that Miles could be right; he frequently had been back when he and Savich had been agents together, until five years before.

  Savich saw a flash of hot-pink leotard from the corner of his eye. She started up on the treadmill next to his, v
acated by an ATF guy who’d gotten divorced and was telling Bobby Curling, the gym manager, that he couldn’t wait to get into the action again. Given how many single women there were in Washington, D.C., old muscle-bound Arnie shouldn’t have any problem.

  Savich finished reading Dane’s report and looked out over the gym, not really seeing all the sweaty bodies, but poking around deep inside his own head. The thing about this killer was that he was in their own backyard—Virginia and Maryland. Would he look farther afield?

  Savich had to keep positive. Even though it had been unrelated, they’d saved James Marple from having a knife shoved in his chest or his head. It had come out last night that Jimbo had had an affair with Marvin Phelps’s wife, who’d then divorced Phelps and married Marple—five years before. But Savich knew it wasn’t just the infidelity that was Phelps’s motive. He’d heard it right out of Phelps’s mouth—jealousy, pure and simple jealousy that had grown into rage. The last time Savich had seen James Marple, his wife, Liz, was there hovering, hugging and kissing him.

  “Hello, I’ve seen you here before. My name’s Valerie. Valerie Rapper, and no, I don’t like Eminem.” She smiled at him, a really lovely white-toothed smile. A long piece of black hair had come loose from the clip and was curved around her cheek.

  He nodded. “My name’s Savich. Dillon Savich.”

  “Bobby told me you were an FBI agent.”

  Savich wanted to get back to Dane’s report. He wanted to figure out how he was going to catch this nutcase before math teachers in the area became terrified for the foreseeable future. Again, he only nodded.

  “Is it true that Louie Freeh was a technophobe?”

  “What?” Savich jerked around to look at her.

  She just smiled, a dark eyebrow arched up.

  Savich shrugged. “People will say anything about anyone.”

  Standard FBI spew, of course, but it was ingrained in him to turn away insults aimed at the Bureau. And, as a matter of fact, what could he say? Besides, the truth was that Director Freeh had always been fascinated with MAX, Savich’s laptop.

  “He was sure sexy,” she said.

  Savich blinked at that and said, “He has six or seven kids. Maybe more now that he has more time.”

  “Maybe that proves that his wife thinks he’s sexy, too.”

  Savich just smiled and pointedly returned to Dane’s report. He read: Ruth Warnecki says she’s kept three snitches happy since she left the Washington, D.C., Police Department, including bottles of bubbly at Christmas. She gave a bottle of Dom Perignon to the snitch who saved James Marple’s life, only to have him give it back, saying he preferred malt liquor.

  The booze Ruth usually gave to her snitches would probably burn a hole in a normal person’s stomach. They’d been very lucky this time, but what could a snitch know about some head case killing high school math teachers? They weren’t talking low-life drug dealers here. On the other hand, most cases were solved by informants of one sort or another, and that was a fact.

  He tried to imagine again why this person felt his mission was to commit cold-blooded murder of math teachers. Randomly shooting company CEOs—that was a maybe. Judges—sometimes. Politicians—good idea. Lawyers—hands down, a top-notch idea. But math teachers? Even the profilers were amused about how off-the-wall crazy bizarre it was, something that no one could ever remember happening before.

  He was inside his brain once more when she spoke again. He nearly fell off the treadmill at her words. “Is it true that Congress, way back when, was responsible for shutting off any communication between the FBI and the CIA? And that’s why no one shared any information before nine-eleven?”

  “I’ve heard that” was all he said.

  She leaned close and he smelled her perfume, mixed with a light coating of sweat. He didn’t like Valerie Rapper looking at him like she wanted to pull his gym shorts off.

  She asked, “How often do you work out?”

  He had only seven minutes to go on the treadmill. He decided to cut it to thirty seconds. He was warmed up enough, loose, and a little winded. “I try to come three or four times a week,” he said, and pressed the cool-down pad. He knew he was being a jerk. Just because he was anxious about this killer, just because a woman was interested in him, it didn’t mean he should be rude.

  And so he asked, “How often do you come here?”

  She shrugged. “Just like you—three or four times a week.”

  Without thinking, he said, “It shows.” Stupid thing to say, really stupid. Now she was smiling, telling him so clearly how pleased she was that he liked her body.

  He was an idiot. When he got home he’d tell Sherlock how he’d managed to stick his foot all the way down his throat and kick his tonsils.

  He pressed the stop pad and stepped off the treadmill. “See you,” he said, and pointedly walked to the weights on the other side of the room.

  He worked out hard for the next forty-five minutes, pushing himself, but aware that she was always near him, sometimes standing not two feet away, watching him while she worked her triceps with ten-pound weights.

  Sherlock, much smaller, her once skinny little arms now sleek with muscle, had worked up to twelve-pound weights.

  Thirty minutes later he forgot all about the math teacher killer and Valerie Rapper as he opened the front door of his house to hear his son yell “Papa! Here comes an airplane!” and got it right in the chest.

  Two evenings later at the gym, while Sherlock was showering in the women’s locker room after a hard workout, and Savich was stretching his tired muscles in a corner, he nearly tripped on a free weight when Valerie Rapper said, not six inches from his ear, “Hello, Dillon. I heard that you saved a math teacher from a crazy man a couple of days ago. Congratulations.”

  He straightened so fast he nearly hit her with his elbow. “Yeah,” he said, “it happens like that sometimes.”

  “The media is making it sound like the FBI messed up, what with that old man getting his head blown off.”

  Savich shrugged, as if to say what else is new? He said again, “That happens, too.”

  “Maybe you’d like to have a cup of coffee after you’ve finished working out?”

  He smiled at her and said, “No, thank you. I’m waiting for my wife. Our little boy is waiting for us at home. He’s learning how to make paper airplanes.”

  “How delightful.”

  “See you.”

  Valerie Rapper watched him as he made his way through the crowded gym to the men’s locker room. She watched him again when he came out of the locker room fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed, shrugging into his suit coat. He wished there were more men in Washington, D.C. Maybe he should introduce her to old Arnie. He found Sherlock talking to Bobby Curling. He grabbed her and hustled her out before she could say a word.

  She asked as she got into the Porsche, “What was all that about?”

  “I’d rather tell you when we get home.”

  Savich brushed out a thick hank of Sherlock’s curly hair and carefully wrapped it around a big roller. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’m glad you were at the gym tonight.”

  She watched him in the mirror, concentrating on getting her hair perfectly smooth around the roller. He was nearly done. He really liked doing this ever since they’d met an actress who’d had a particularly sexy way with hair rollers. Of course, the rollers didn’t stay in her hair all that long. “Why? What happened?”

  He paused a moment, smoothed down her hair on another roller, and slowly turned it. Sherlock shoved in a clip to hold it. “There’s this woman. She’s not taking the hint.”

  Sherlock leaned her head back until she was looking up at her husband’s face. “You want me to go kick her butt?”

  Savich didn’t speak for a good thirty seconds. He was too busy untangling the final thick hank of hair for the last roller. “There, done. Now, be quiet. I just want to look at you. You can’t imagine how that turns me on, Sherlock.”

  S
he now had a headful of fat rollers, perfectly placed, and she was laughing. She turned and held out her arms. “Now what, you pervert?”

  He stroked his long fingers over his chin. “Hmmm, maybe I can think of something.”

  “What about this woman?”

  “Forget her. She’ll lose interest.”

  Sherlock did forget all about the woman during the removal of the rollers in the next hour. She fell asleep with a big roller pressed against the back of her knee.

  It was just after six-thirty on Friday morning when the phone rang.

  Savich, Sean under one arm while Sherlock was pouring Cheerios into a bowl, picked it up. He listened. Finally, he hung up the phone.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That was Miles. Sam’s been kidnapped.”

  3

  Don’t give up, don’t give up. Never, never give up.

  Okay, so he wouldn’t give up, but it was hard. He’d cried until he was hiccupping, but that sure hadn’t done him any good. He didn’t want to give up. Only thing was, Sam didn’t have a clue where he was and he was so scared he’d already peed in his jeans.

  Be scared, it’s okay, just keep trying to get away. Never give up.

  Sam nodded. He heard his mama’s voice every now and again, but this time it was different. She was trying to help him because he was in big trouble.

  Don’t give up, Sam. Look around you. You can do something.

  Her voice always sounded soft and kind; she didn’t sound like she was scared. Sam tried to slow his breathing down.

  The men are in the other room eating. They’re watching TV. You’ve got to move, Sam.

  He’d been as quiet as he could, lying on that stinky mattress, getting colder and colder, and he listened as hard as he could, his eyes on that keyhole, wishing he was free so he could scrunch down and try to see what the men were doing. He heard the TV; it was on the Weather Channel. The weather guy said, “Violent thunderstorms are expected locally and throughout eastern Tennessee.”

  He heard that clearly: eastern Tennessee.