Triple cross, p.21
Triple Cross, page 21
There had to have been four thousand bottles there, maybe more. But no one was in the wine cellar that we could see, and there was no apparent exit.
Sampson drew up the rod holding the gate into the floor and pushed it open as it made a protesting creak. “This is Detective Sampson of MPD. Mr. Allison? Can you hear me? If you can, please come out.”
I stepped in after John and we stood there, listening to the sounds of our breathing and nothing else for several long moments. Then we heard the distinct sounds of steel bars being thrown. A section of the back wall of the wine cellar swung slowly out about twenty degrees and threw flickering soft light into the wine cellar.
Before we saw anyone, we heard a young boy cry, “You were right, Dad! It worked perfect! He had no idea.”
“I want to sleep, Mama,” a little girl said, coming out from behind the secret door. She was no more than four, with curly blond hair; she was dressed in jammies, holding a blanket, and sucking her thumb.
Seeing us, she turned back against the thigh of the tall, pretty woman in a flannel nightshirt and robe. She sighed and then smiled at us. “Thank you, Detectives. I don’t think I have ever been so frightened in my life. Is he still here?”
“He’s not here,” said a bruiser of a man in a plain white T-shirt, blue gym shorts, and flip-flops. Two identical twin boys about ten exited behind him. He put down the camping lantern he carried and thrust out his hand. “Stan Allison. My wife, Polly. He’s gone, right?”
“We haven’t cleared the upper floors, sir.”
“He’s gone,” he said. “The creep found the redundant electric line that feeds the safe room and cut it, but I picked him up on a battery-powered pressure sensor leaving through the back door off the kitchen.” He looked at his watch. “Nine minutes ago.”
“He didn’t find the safe room?” Sampson said.
“He had no clue,” Allison said and chuckled. “He stood right where you are at one point, and he had zero idea we were eight feet away. I told you it was worth building, Polly.”
She sighed and nodded, looking exhausted. “I’m a believer, Stanley.”
“We’ll get the electric company out here to get your power on,” Sampson said.
“I can take care of that,” Allison said and tried to bulldoze by us.
“Wait, wait a second, sir,” I said. “Our dispatcher said you were watching him on camera. Did you see him?”
“See him?” Allison laughed. “We saw him a lot, recording the whole time, but he only took that hood off the once and then only for two seconds. But I got something.”
He dug out his cell phone, thumbed it, and showed it to us.
Family Man was turning away from the camera, which looked diagonally down at him from high up in a kitchen corner. The camera must have caught him repositioning the hood and the night-vision goggles for comfort; he held both with gloved hands an inch above a thick shock of curly, sandy-brown hair.
You could see only an eighth of his face and even that was in considerable shadow. But the image struck me and Sampson the same way.
“Tull,” we both said.
Chapter
75
Twenty minutes later, we left the crime scene to a crew of FBI agents and forensic techs and were racing in our cars back across the Potomac to Georgetown. Sampson and I got there shortly before four a.m.
Mahoney, who had come from Baltimore, was already parked across the street from Tull’s rented town house and was climbing from his car. A light shone outside the writer’s green front door.
We stood in the empty street.
“Where’s the Audi?” Sampson said, gesturing to the parking spot where the writer usually kept his blazing-fast coupe.
“Maybe he’s been out for a race along the George Washington Parkway,” I said.
“Or a time trial around Lake Barcroft,” Sampson said. “Do we have a warrant?”
“It’s being reviewed by a grumpy federal judge who isn’t very happy with me for waking him up,” Mahoney said. “But I think we’ll be inside before long.”
He’d no sooner uttered those words than we heard the rumble of a powerful engine coming toward us from the north. Headlights slashed the road.
“It’s him,” Mahoney said, and we all hurried to the other side of the street and the darkest shadows we could find.
Tull came in hot, overshot the parking space, and made a mess of parallel parking. The Audi’s front right quarter panel still jutted out a considerable way into the road when he jerked open the door and climbed out.
The writer wavered on his feet a moment, then threw back his thick shock of sandy-brown hair and chortled at some recent memory.
“Someone’s been drinking,” Sampson said.
“He’s hammered,” Mahoney agreed and moved at him fast with his badge in one hand and his service pistol in the other. “Mr. Tull. We’d like to talk to you.”
Tull made a jerky motion with his head before pivoting, stumbling, and almost face-planting on the street. He peered at us, then shook an index finger at us with glee.
“Gang ish all here,” he slurred. “Three Stooges redux.”
“Mr. Tull, how much have you had to drink?” Mahoney asked.
“Too much?”
“We’re taking you into custody,” Sampson said, going for his zip ties. “Turn around, hands behind your back. You know the drill.”
Tull gave him a puzzled and scornful look. “Why? I’m right here. I live here. I’m not hurting anyone.”
Sampson was having none of it. He spun the writer around expertly and fitted the zip ties on him. “Drunk-driving’s the least of your worries, Thomas.”
When he turned the writer around, he’d sobered a little. “What is this?”
Mahoney said, “Thomas Tull, you are under arrest on suspicion of multiple mass murders, including those of the Hodges family, the Landaus, the Carpenters, the Elliotts, and the Kanes.”
Sampson said, “You have the right to remain silent—”
“What? No,” Tull said, shaking his head like a horse pestered by flies. “No, no, no. It’s nothing like that.”
John kept reading him his Miranda rights.
“I know my rights, damn it, and I did not do this!” Tull roared. He jerked free of Sampson’s grasp and tried to take off. Still in restraints, he made it three feet before tripping and actually face-planting on the street.
We rushed to pick him up. Tull’s nose was smashed and gushing blood. One of his upper incisors was broken. The other was gone. Blood ran from that wound.
In what had to have been some agony, the writer got belligerent.
“You beat me, threw me down,” he said. “Police brutality. I want my lawyer.”
Chapter
76
Alex called Bree at home around eight thirty that morning to tell her Thomas Tull was being held on suspicion of being the Family Man.
“How clear was the video still?” Bree asked, sipping her coffee.
“Like I said, it’s not the straight-on or quartering-to shot you’d want ideally, but you’ll see the dramatic resemblance: the chin, the cheekbones, and especially the hair.”
“You sound exhausted.”
“I took a long nap while we waited for Tull to sober up and for his attorney to arrive.”
“You’re going to interrogate?”
“Part of the team. And your day?”
“I’m going to try to relax, regroup, maybe go for a run. I’m officially done with work until Monday.”
“Sounds like a nice agenda. I have the feeling I’ll be home earlier than usual and facedown in bed.”
“You deserve it,” Bree said.
“Oh, here’s Ned. Gotta go.”
The call ended.
Nana Mama was sitting at the kitchen table reading the Washington Post and drinking coffee. She looked up. “What time did he get that call?”
“Half past two? I heard him pounding down the stairs.”
“It’s a wonder he stays on his feet half the time. You too.”
Bree smiled. “We’re both committed.”
“If you take care of yourself, you’ll live and stay committed longer. Look at me.”
“Nana,” Bree said in a teasing voice. “With all due respect, you’re a legitimate freak for your age.”
Alex’s grandmother did not like that. “Freak?”
Bree said, “Someone who defies the norms. An outlier.”
Nana Mama relaxed. “I’ll take outlier.”
“How’s the hip?”
“It’s been better. When Jannie gets up, we’re going to stretch again.”
“I’m going for a run,” Bree said. “Clear the cobwebs.”
“Keep it up and you’ll be an ancient outlier like me someday.”
Smiling, Bree went upstairs, changed into her running gear, and went out onto the front porch. It was a warm morning for late April, but she liked running in the heat.
After doing her routine series of stretches and ballistic drills, she bounced down the stairs and headed toward Capitol Hill. Most days, she wore earbuds and listened to music or a podcast. But Bree wanted to tune everything out and just run for a while. Like Jannie, she found that running set her free in a way few kinds of exercises did, and normally she let go of thought, absorbed in the effort.
For the first fifteen minutes or so, she ran her usual route and quickly fell into that calm state the endorphins gave her. But about thirty minutes in, as she ran on Independence Avenue along the Mall west of the hill, questions about the Duchaine investigation began to creep back in.
Could Theresa May Alcott be behind the murders at Paula Watkins’s home? Was her nephew and his company involved? And what happened to his twin brother?
The idea of having to figure all this out seemed daunting, beyond her capacity and above her pay grade. A billionaire who likes to garden and grieves for a granddaughter. A tech wizard with a company that serves federal law enforcement agencies. Could they be involved in brazen assassinations?
Bree turned and ran toward Constitution Avenue and the far side of the Mall, readying herself for the steep climb up the hill. But when she reached Constitution, she had a thought that caused her to slow and then stop and wipe her brow. She dug out her phone from the hip holster that also held her water bottles.
She thumbed through her contacts, found who she was looking for, and hit Call.
After two rings, a familiar voice answered against the din of an active office. “Chief Stone,” Detective Rosella Salazar said. “I was about to call you.”
“Lucky me. What’s up?”
“The assistant DA on the Watkins case would like you to come in and make a longer, more detailed statement.”
“When?”
“ASAP.”
“I’m not working tomorrow. I could come up on the early train.”
“I’ll tell her. She wants us both there. But you called me.”
“I did. My rich client pulled the plug on my end. But I wanted you to know a few things before I let the entire thing slide and wait for your investigation to wrap up.”
“I’m listening.”
Bree told her about going to Ohio to talk with Theresa May Alcott and then seeing the name Paladin on the billionaire’s desk phone and learning about her relationship to Ryan Malcomb, one of the company’s founders.
“Okay…” Salazar said. “So what?”
“Paladin does work for the FBI, CIA, all the big law enforcement and national security agencies as well as big corporations. They can sort through tons of raw data looking for specific kinds of information.”
“Such as?”
“Like a terrorist’s cell phone. Or the links between members of an organized crime group. Or the type of person who is likely to buy one of Frances Duchaine’s one-of-a-kind gowns.”
“I’m still not—”
“Or the people behind a sex ring. Or the potential buyers in a sex-slave auction.”
There was a long silence before Salazar said, “I would have no idea how to figure something like that out.”
“Start with something simple,” Bree said.
“Like what?”
“Check to see if Frances Duchaine or her company ever hired Paladin. And come to think of it, check to see if Ari Bernstein, her financier, ever worked with Paladin.”
There was another long silence before Salazar came back and said in a tight voice, “Sorry. I’m getting kicked in the ribs constantly now.”
“How much longer?”
“I’m four weeks out and this kid is already a beast,” the detective said, her tone softening. “Okay, Chief, I’ll take a look, but I can’t promise you it’s at the top of my pile today. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You will indeed.”
Chapter
77
The writer looked like hell.
Face swollen and red, his famous shock of hair a rat’s nest, Thomas Tull moaned when we entered the interrogation room at the federal holding facility in Alexandria, Virginia.
“Can I please have some pain meds?” Tull said in a thick, nasal voice. “My nose is busted, I lost two teeth, and my skull feels ready to split.”
His attorney, a high-dollar criminal defense lawyer named Lindy York, said, “You’re just adding to the police brutality by denying him proper medication.”
Ned Mahoney scowled. “The doctor denied it. His blood alcohol was three times the legal limit, and he had cocaine on board too. She said he shouldn’t have anything till he sobered up.”
“Which is now,” Tull said.
I took pity on him, reached into my pocket, and got out a small bottle of ibuprofen I carry in case my knee acts up. I shook out four and slid them across the desk.
“That’s eight hundred milligrams altogether,” I said. “Prescription dose.”
Tull snatched them up with his handcuffed hands, popped them in his mouth, shakily lifted the plastic cup of water in front of him, and swallowed them down. He drained the cup and said, “Tell ’em.”
Lindy York said, “Mr. Tull categorically denies having anything to do with the Family Man murders beyond his interest in writing a book about them and Agent Mahoney, Detective Sampson, and, of course, Dr. Cross.”
Sampson said, “We beg to differ, Counselor. We have a photograph of your client inside a house in Falls Church last night, armed and wearing the same outfit we’ve seen Family Man wear in other security footage.”
“Produce the picture,” York said.
Mahoney flipped open a file and slid a blowup of the video still across to Tull. “You shut off the main power to the house and found the auxiliary power to the safe room as well, but Mr. Allison had a third redundancy—battery packs—that got you.”
York stared without expression at the picture.
Tull blinked. “Jesus, that does look like me.”
“Thomas, not another word,” his attorney warned.
“It’s not me,” the writer said. “It can’t be. Where did you say this was taken?”
“In Falls Church, Virginia, not far from Lake Barcroft.”
“I was nowhere near—” Tull began but he stopped when Deputy Marshal Annette Cox knocked and stuck her head in.
“Sorry to interrupt, Agent Mahoney, but there’s something out here you should probably see ASAP.”
“We’re done here anyway,” York said.
“I’m not,” Tull said. “I was nowhere near Virginia last night.”
Mahoney stood. “Why don’t we give you a few minutes, Counselor, to consult with your client and get your stories straight?”
Mahoney gestured to Sampson and me. We followed him out the door, where Deputy Marshal Cox was standing, holding a sheaf of paper.
“Quantico did not want to e-mail you the results,” Cox said. “Your office rerouted it to our secure fax.”
Mahoney took the papers and scanned them. “The lab finished a preliminary mitochondrial analysis yesterday on those hairs found at the Kane murder scene—not a full DNA workup, but enough for them to feed the results into IAFIS. They got a dead-on hit this morning from U.S. military files.”
He showed me and Sampson the results page.
I was, frankly, astonished.
Chapter
78
When we reentered the interrogation room, we had an entirely different perspective on the Family Man murders.
Lindy York, Tull’s defense attorney, was drumming her manicured nails on the tabletop, slight disgust twisting her lips. Tull looked a bit less dazed. “My client wishes to tell you where he was last night,” York said curtly.
Tull arched his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’m not proud of it, but I’m not going to prison for something I did not do.”
“Out with it,” Mahoney said impatiently.
He cleared his throat. “I was at a small get-together at a condo in Silver Spring.”
“Address? Owner’s name?”
The writer gave us the address but said he had no idea who owned the property. “For all I know, it was an Airbnb place or VRBO,” he said. “Anyway, I have a weakness for three things in life: good wine, good women, and good cocaine. I don’t indulge often, but I binge once or twice a year, which is what I was doing last night. I rarely get in a car for at least a day afterward, but I got it in my head that I wanted to sleep in my own bed, and the ladies could not stop me.”
Sampson said, “Names of the ladies and the other people at the party?”
“Lola, Heart, and Bambi. No one else.”
His attorney’s nostrils flared as she stared at the table.
I said, “No last names?”
“They weren’t offering any,” Tull said.
“How was this party organized? Who put it together?”
The writer studied me with a smile. “Exactly the question I would ask if I were you. I called someone I know in Queens, a Russian expat, who arranged for the condo, the women, the cocaine, and the wine.”
