Authors: John Gilstrap
Beyond the confines of this little downtown district, Russell piloted his rental Chrysler through the winding roads of mansion land, where huge homes dominated the rolling landscape, but where nobody seemed to be home. Only the horses roamed about on the vast stretches of pasture that somebody's forebears had carved out of the steep forests. The owners-Russell imagined they called themselves "masters"-
were still toiling away at their downtown jobs, preparing for the daily gladiator battle that northern Virginians euphemistically called a commute. This far out, Russell figured they spent a solid hour, hour and a half each way, and he could just imagine their foul humor as they snatched custody of their kids back from the private day-care centers of choice, on their way home to collapse in the splendor of their unfurnished palaces. He didn't get it. Certainly, this was a gorgeous place to live, but what was the point if the living was shitty?
Welcome to the new millennium, Russell thought. Since his latest divorce, his own tastes ran more toward the two-bedroom condominium, where $3,000 furnished the whole thing, and all he had to worry about in the way of maintenance was vacuuming once a week and locking the door on his way out. This was especially fortunate given his uniquely poor luck before judges and his ex-wives' attorneys.
Surrounded by this much opulence, it was easy to be glib and dismissive, but as he drove past acres of wealth, he found himself slipping right back into the funk that his trip to the Caribbean had been supposed to deliver him from. The last marriage was the one that was supposed to have worked. Looking back on it now, he tried to figure out just exactly what had gone wrong with it-beyond that Vicki had been fucking one of her English students. He marvelled at people who somehow managed to stay married to a single partner for an entire lifetime, and he wondered what it was about his particular chemistry that made things fall apart after only a couple dozen months.
His therapist had told him that perhaps it wasn't his fault at all-that perhaps it was his wives' fault-but the therapist was such an edgy little twit in his own right that Russell couldn't help but discount every word he said. In fact, by the end of their second session, Russell had determined that a role reversal was in order there, and he decided that life was too short to seek emotional guidance from someone who looked perpetually on the edge of tears. His decision to fire the therapist had propelled Russell into that small minority of three-time losers in love who choose to tackle the world on their own. Chasing bad guys while heavily armed helped some, but that still left moments such as these, stuffed into a tiny rental car with nothing to do but feel sorry for himself. And envy the shit out of the people who could afford to live in mansions.
The three-by-five registration cards that Sarah had given him were evidence now, so before leaving the park, he'd transferred all the information into his little notebook. He was more than a little aware of how terrible a hazard he was creating as he negotiated the hairpin turns of the ridiculously narrow road with one hand while trying to decipher his own handwriting.
Russell sensed that this case was about to close. He felt in his gut that this Martin couple were the people who could answer all of his questions, in all likelihood on the heels of having their rights read to them. He was still missing motive, but opportunity was there, and he'd just learned via cell phone that they drove a late-model Ford Explorer-the very type of vehicle that often used Firestone Wilderness AT tires-and which just happened to have been pulled over by a park ranger in the wee hours this morning. Unfortunately, the ranger made no note of the license plate, so Russell was short of ironclad proof, but sometimes, if enough independent factors line up just right, it's time to relabel coincidence as evidence.
But Russell wasn't ready for that yet.
Russell Coates had a gift. His disgruntled contemporaries in the Bureau called it blind luck, while his bosses-the ones who got to share his limelight-called it outstanding professional commitment, but the reality was that Russell had a knack for seeing things for what they really were. He'd figure this thing out, and when he did, the evidence would appear. It always did.
He nearly missed the house he was looking for-number 7844- and he hit the brakes hard to keep from blowing past it. From the road, there was no house really; just a mailbox next to a long driveway that curved up a steep incline and disappeared behind the trees. Russell wondered what a psychologist would say about the different psyches of people who preferred to have their wealth on display where everyone could see it, as opposed to those who, as here, preferred their privacy.
Pausing in the middle of the road while he verified yet again that he had the right address, Russell pulled the wheel hard to the left and started the long climb up the hill to visit the Martins.
Bobby was a wreck.
Where the hell were his keys? Christ, he had had them just a couple of minutes ago. They had to be ... Oh, there they were, right in his pocket.
"Okay, Bobby, just calm down, take a deep breath. Everything's going to be fine."
But it wouldn't be fine. Nothing would ever be fine again.
He tried to remember what Barbara Dettrick had told him; that he had good reason to be optimistic. Even if they caught up with him, he had a perfectly good explanation for what had happened, and an even better one for not coming forward right away. He did report the body, didn't he? That had to be worth something.
With his keys clutched in his fist, he quick-walked through the kitchen, pausing to arm the alarm system before opening the door and walking outside.
He'd almost made it to the door of his Explorer when he saw a Chrysler climbing up his driveway. The man behind the wheel bore a look on his face that ruled him out as a salesman, or a welcoming new neighbor. Ten bucks would get you twenty that this guy was a cop.
SOME PEOPLE ARE natural criminals. Russell had spent hours with suspects who had committed horrendous crimes, but to talk with them, you'd think that they were deacons of their local church. They were positively aghast-sometimes downright insulted-that he could suspect them of doing something illegal. Even when faced with incontrovertible evidence of what they had done, these criminals would never bat an eye. Russell believed with all his heart that supreme criminals are supreme liars.
Robert Martin of Clinton, Virginia, was not one of them. This guy looked like the proverbial kid in the cookie jar. As Russell piloted his Chrysler up the sweeping driveway, he caught his prey in the garage, clearly in a hurry to go somewhere. In an Explorer, no less. As he saw Russell's car approaching, the guy nearly jumped out of his skin. Color drained so quickly and so thoroughly from his face that Russell wondered if his suspect was going to faint dead away.
You can tell a lot about someone by the way he reacts to an unpleasant surprise, and the longer you watch him, the more information he gives. Some of it-such as Russell's observation that the guy had turned pale and that his gait had faltered a bit-was actually usable in court. But mostly, Russell liked to absorb the way people responded to different stimuli, then plug those observations into his internal people-meter. Thus, he took his sweet time getting out of his car. He watched for a full minute after pulling to a stop in the driveway, as his suspect watched him back.
Russell noted that the guy didn't come forward to meet him. Nor did he run away. He just stood there, watching. Russell wondered what that meant, just as he wondered what the bruises on his face meant. In his current frame of mind, just about anything the guy did would have told Russell that he was guilty, revealing the chief weakness inherent to hunches: they tended to bear out whatever preconceptions the huncher brought with him to the situation. Appeals-court dockets sagged under the weight of cases where overzealous police officers had trampled on suspects' rights in blind pursuit of hunches that fell short of court-tested probable cause.
The time to be most cautious, then, was when the hunches ran hottest. This thought weighed heavily as Russell finally climbed out of his car and strolled over to Bobby.
"Hi there," Russell said in his most cheerful voice. "Beautiful house."
Bobby dropped a beat as he either winced or smiled. Russell couldn't tell. "Thanks."
"Are you Robert Martin?" Russell had closed the distance to an uncomfortable three feet of separation, effectively trapping his suspect against the Explorer's tailgate.
Bobby circled around his visitor and stepped back outside onto the driveway. "Yeah, I'm Bobby Martin. What can I do for you?"
Russell made a point of keeping his back turned for a moment as he scanned the inside of the garage, keeping Bobby's reflected image in the tailgate window. As Russell turned, he reached into the pocket of his suit coat and produced a leather wallet with his credentials. "I'm Russell Coates with the FBI." For the first time in his career, someone actually reached for the creds and pulled them closer to get a better view. In the process, Russell realized, he'd also been drawn back out of the garage. Was Martin doing that on purpose?
"So you are," Bobby said. "Why are you here?"
The initial fear seemed to be gone now, replaced by a wariness that Russell that his visit did not come as a total surprise. "I'm investigating a murder." Sometimes, it's best just to lead with the harshest words and knock the suspect off-balance.
"Oh, that," Bobby said, nodding. "Terrible thing. I guess I've halfway been expecting you to call."
Russell raised an eyebrow. This interview wasn't yet a minute old, and it was already moving in an unexpected direction. "And why would that be?"
"You're talking about the killing up in the park, right?"
"You know about that?"
"Well, my wife and I were camping up there last night, so when I heard about it on the news I figured that sooner or later somebody would want to talk to us. I can save you some trouble, though. I don't have anything to offer."
Russell thought about that. Or at least he pretended to. "Why don't you tell me what you do know."
Bobby shrugged. "I know I was there last night, and then I heard that there'd been a killing. This time of year, when there are so few campers, I just figured that sooner or later you'd have to come around and talk to all of us."
"To all of you?"
"I mean to all of the campers who were there last night."
Russell pulled his notepad from the pocket opposite the one that held his creds. "How about you? Who were you there with?"
"My wife."
"No one else?"
"It's just the two of us."
Russell tried to be subtle as he eyed the box of Pampers on the floor, but Bobby caught his gaze.
"The diapers."
Russell responded with an interested shrug.
"We lost a baby a few weeks ago," Bobby explained, looking down. "We, uh . . ."
He didn't bother to finish the sentence, and Russell decided not to push. This Martin guy was either a hell of an actor or he'd tapped into a genuine source of pain. Either way, it never made sense to prod tender spots until a solid groundwork was laid. "What's your wife's name? Russell asked. A softball, non-intrusive question always helped to bring people back on track.
"Susan."
Russell wrote it down. "So, you saw and heard nothing?"
"I saw a lot of dark and a lot of cold," Bobby said with a chuckle.
Something pinged in Russell's head. The suspect's words were just a little too glib-a little too non-specific.
"Did you see or hear anything related to the murders?" Russell's words conveyed his fraying temper.
"Like what?"
The guy was good. If they followed this tack, Russell would in effect put himself in the situation of proposing scenarios that Martin could easily-and truthfully-deny. It was, in fact, a role reversal. Russell was supposed to be the one putting his suspect on the spot, not the other way around.
"Tell you what," Russell said, flipping his notebook closed and stuffing it back in his pocket. "It's kind of cold out here. What do you say we go inside and talk? It won't take very long."
The panicked look flashed again behind Bobby's eyes as he shook his head. "I'd rather not."
"Why not?"
"I need a reason for you not to come into my home?" Bobby said it as if he'd never heard of something so appalling.
"Do you always entertain guests out on the driveway?"
"You're not a guest," Bobby said simply enough. "You're an FBI agent, and I can tell just from your demeanour that you suspect that I had something to do with this mess in the park."
"And frankly, your behaviour here isn't doing much to make me think otherwise."
Bobby shrugged. "All the more reason not to talk to you anymore." He turned to walk back into the house.
Russell almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. "You know, we don't have to do this the easy way."
Bobby stopped and turned. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning that I can take you into custody as a material witness and question you all night long."
Knowing a bluff when he saw it, but nonetheless recognizing the wafer-thin ice on which he stood, Bobby strolled back toward Agent Coates, taking his time as he formulated his response. "Is that what you intend to do?"