Twice Dead

by Catherine Coulter

  “It’s Friday morning, Gabriella was at the dentist and running late; she’s our nanny,” Sherlock added to Simon. “Besides, you’d already told Ollie and Jimmy Maitland that you wouldn’t be in until late morning. I was going to tell you on the way in.”

  “I know I don’t want to hear this, but out with it, Sherlock. I can take it.”

  “Besides worrying about Tammy Tuttle, there’s been a triple murder in a small town called Flowers, Texas. The governor called the FBI and demanded that we come in, and so we will. Both the ATF and the FBI are involved. There’s this cult down there that they suspect is responsible for the murder of the local sheriff and his two deputies who’d gone out to their compound to check things out. Their bodies were found in a ditch outside of town.”

  “That’s nuts,” Simon said.

  “Yes,” Sherlock said, “it is. Ah, Raleigh, would you mind visiting with Dyrlana for a moment? All this stuff is sort of under wraps.”

  Raleigh looked profoundly disappointed, but he left them in the vault. At the doorway, he said, “What about your sister and Mr. Russo? They’re civilians, too.”

  “I know, but I can control what they say,” Savich said. “I really couldn’t get away with busting your chops.”

  They heard him chuckling as he called out, “Dyrlana! Where is my gumpoc tea?”

  “One problem is,” Sherlock said, “that the cult has cleared out, split up into a dozen or more splinter groups and left town in every direction. Nobody knows where the leader is. They’ve pulled in a few of the cult members, but these folks shake their heads and claim they don’t know anything about it. The only good thing is that we have a witness, of sorts. It seems that one of the women is pregnant by the guru. Lureen was rather angry when she found him seducing another cult member, actually at least three or four other cult members. She slipped away and told the town mayor about it.”

  Savich said, “A witness, then. Did she identify the guru as the guy who ordered the murders?”

  “Not yet. She’s still thinking about it. She’s afraid she’d screw up her child’s karma if she identified the father as a murderer.”

  “Great,” Savich said and sighed. “Like Ollie said, there doesn’t seem to be anything in this life that’s easy. Do we have some sort of name on this guy?”

  “Oh, sure, that’s no secret,” Sherlock said. “Wilbur Wright. Lureen wouldn’t say his name out loud, but everybody knows it, since he was around town for a couple of months.”

  “Isn’t that clever?” Savich rubbed the back of his neck, nodded to Simon, grabbed his wife’s hand, and walked out of the vault. He said over his shoulder, “It’s settled then. Lily, you rest and recuperate. Simon, you can stay at the house. I’d feel better if you did. Sherlock and I will call you guys later. Oh yes, don’t spoil Sean. Gabriella is besotted with him already; she doesn’t need any more help. Holler if you want MAX to check anything out for you, Simon.”

  “Will do.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s one other thing,” Sherlock said to Savich once they were out of the vault and in the gallery itself, alone and beyond the hearing of Lily or Simon. She glanced at Raleigh and Dyrlana, who were drinking gumpoc tea over by the front glass doors.

  Savich knew he didn’t want to hear this. He merely looked at her, nodding slowly.

  “The guru. He had the hearts cut out of the sheriff and his two deputies.”

  “So this is why the Texas governor wants us involved. This guy has probably done something this sick before in other states. Ah, Sherlock, I knew it couldn’t be as straightforward as you presented it. So, is Behavioral Sciences also involved?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want Lily to have to hear that.”

  “You’re right. All right, love, let’s go track down Tammy Tuttle and Wilbur Wright.”

  Lily Savich and Simon Russo stood in the silent vault, neither of them saying a word. She walked to one of the paintings that was real, not forged—Midnight Shadows. She said, “I wonder why he tried to kill me when he did? What was the hurry? He had four more paintings to have forged. Why now?”

  Savich had told Simon most of what had happened to his sister the previous evening, after she’d gone to bed, looking pale and, truth be told, wrung out. All except for the murder attempt on the city bus in Eureka. What had happened to her—what was still happening—was tragic and evil, and it all came on top of the death of her daughter.

  But perhaps they could recover the paintings. He sure wanted to. He said, “That’s a good question. I don’t know why they cut the brake lines. My guess is that something must have happened to worry them, something to make them move up the timetable.”

  “But why not kill me off right away? Surely it would have been easier for Tennyson to simply inherit the paintings, to own them himself. Then he wouldn’t have had to go to all the trouble and risk of finding a first-class forger and then collectors who would want to buy the paintings.”

  “Count on Mr. Monk to help with all that. I bet you Mr. Monk doesn’t have all that sterling a reputation. I’ll check into that right away.”

  “Yes,” Lily continued, her head cocked to one side, still thinking. “He could have killed me immediately, and then he would have owned the paintings. He could then have sold them legally, right up front, with no risk that someone would turn on him, betray him. Probably he would have made more money that way, you know, in auctions.”

  “First of all, Lily, killing you off would have brought Savich down on their heads, with all the power of the FBI at his back. Never underestimate your brother’s determination or the depths of his rage if something had happened to you. As for legal auctions for the paintings, you’re wrong there. Collectors involved in illegal art deals pay top dollar, many times outrageous amounts because they want something no one else on the face of the earth owns. The stronger the obsession, the more they’ll pay. Going this route was certainly more risky, but the payoff was probably greater, even figuring in the cost of the forgery. It was trying to kill you that was the real risk. As I said, something very threatening must have happened. I don’t know what, but we’ll probably find out. Now, you ready to go have some lunch before you go home to bed?”

  Lily thought about how tired she was, how she could simply sit down and sleep, then she smiled. “Can I have Mexican?”

  THIRTEEN

  Quantico, Virginia

  FBI Academy

  Savich was seated in his small office in the Jefferson dorm at the FBI Academy when two agents ushered in Marilyn Warluski, who’d borne a child by her cousin Tommy Tuttle, now deceased, the child’s whereabouts unknown. They’d nabbed her getting on a Greyhound bus in Bar Harbor, Maine, headed for Nova Scotia. Since she’d been designated a material witness, and Savich wanted to keep her stashed away, they’d brought her in an FBI Black Bell Jet to Quantico.

  He’d never met her, but he’d seen her photo, knew she was poorly educated, and guessed that she was not very bright. He saw that she looked, oddly, even younger than in her photo, that she’d gained at least twenty pounds, and that her hair, cropped short in the photo, was longer and hung in oily hanks to her shoulders. She looked more tired than scared. No, he was wrong. What she looked was defeated, all hope quashed.

  “Ms. Warluski,” he said in his deep, easy voice, waving her to a chair as he said her name. The two agents left the office, closing the door behind them. Savich gently pressed a button on the inside of the middle desk drawer, and in the next room, two profilers sitting quietly could also hear them speak.

  “My name is Dillon Savich. I’m with the FBI.”

  “I don’t know nothin’,” Marilyn Warluski said.

  Savich smiled at her and seated himself again behind the desk.

  He was silent for several moments, watched her fidget in that long silence. She said finally, her voice jumpy, high with nerves, “Just because you’re good-lookin’ doesn’t mean I’m gonna tell you anythin’, mister.”

  This was a kick. “Hey, my wife thinks I’m
good-looking, but I’m wondering, since you said it, if you’re trying to butter me up.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re good-lookin’ all right, and I heard one of the lady cops on the airplane say you’re a hunk. They were thinkin’ that a sexy guy will make me talk, so they got you.”

  “Well,” Savich said, “maybe that’s so.” He paused a fraction of a second, then said, his voice unexpectedly hard, “Have you ever seen the Ghouls, Marilyn?”

  He thought she’d keel over in her chair. So she knew about the Ghouls. She paled to a sickly white, looked ready to bolt.

  “They’re not here, Marilyn.”

  She shook her head back and forth, back and forth, whispering, “There’s no way you could know about the Ghouls. No way at all. Ghouls are bad, real bad.”

  “Didn’t Tammy tell you that I was there in the barn, that I saw them, even shot at them?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me ... I don’t know nothin’, you hear me?”

  “Okay, she didn’t tell you I saw them and she didn’t tell you my name, which is interesting since she knows it. But she did tell you she wanted to have at me, didn’t she?”

  Marilyn’s lips were seamed tight. She shook her head and said, “Oh, yeah, and she will. She called you that creepy FBI jerk. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me that you saw the Ghouls.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t trust you.”

  “Oh, yeah, Tammy trusts me. She doesn’t have anybody else now. She’ll get you, mister, she will.”

  “Just so you know, Marilyn, I’m the one who shot her, the one who killed Tommy. I didn’t want to, but they left me no choice. They had two kids there, and they were going to kill them. Young boys, Marilyn, and they were terrified. Tommy and Tammy had kidnapped them, beaten them, and they were going to murder them, like they’ve murdered many young boys all across the country. Did you know that? Did you know your cousins were murderers?”

  Marilyn shrugged. Savich saw a rip beneath the right arm of her brown, cracked leather jacket. “They’re my kin. I could miss Tommy—seein’ as how he’s dead now—but he killed our baby, cracked its poor little head right open, so I was really mad at him for a long time. Tommy was hard, real hard. He was always doin’ things you didn’t expect, mean things, things to make you scream. You killed him. He was one of a kind, Tommy was.”

  Savich didn’t respond, only nodded, waiting.

  “You shouldn’t have shot Tammy like you did, tearing her arm all up so they had to saw it off. You shouldn’t have been there in my barn in the first place. It wasn’t none of your business.”

  He smiled at her, sat forward, his palms flat on his desk. “Of course it’s my business. I’m a cop, Marilyn. You know, if I had killed her in the barn then she wouldn’t have killed that little boy outside Chevy Chase. Either she did it or the Ghouls did it. Maybe the Ghouls did kill the boy, since there was a circle. Do the Ghouls have to have a circle, Marilyn? You don’t know? Were you with her when she took that boy? Did you help her murder him?”

  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 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 sea-board. 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 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 hoped 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 crap 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 real bad, 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, knew 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 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 to
ld me a couple of days ago 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 the FBI Academy had created and used to train their agents in confronting and catching criminals, when Steve 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.”