Would Tammy come in by plane? Would she simply walk in? No one knew. All hotels and rooming houses had been checked, rechecked. Jimmy Maitland was seated in the police commissioner’s office with its overhead fan, boiling alive in his nice fall suit.
There were nearly fifty FBI personnel involved in the operation, now named Tripod. Special Agent Dane Carver had picked the name because the perp had only one arm and two legs, so Tuttle was the tripod.
A couple of hours later, Marilyn Warluski, scared to the soles of her new Nike running shoes, pressed close to Agent Virginia Cosgrove, her lifeline. Cosgrove was jittery, too, but too new an agent to be as scared as she should be. As she saw it, she was the most important agent present. It was to her that Tammy Tuttle would come. She was an excellent shot. She would protect Marilyn Warluski. She was ready.
“She’s coming, Mr. Savich,” Marilyn said, her voice dull and flat when he checked in with her again at six o’clock that evening. She was standing by the Information Desk in the airport, the Caribbean Airlines counter just off to the left.
“It will be all right, Marilyn,” Virginia said, her voice more excited than soothing, and patted her hand for at least the thirtieth time. “Agent Savich won’t let anything happen, you’ll see. We’ll nail Tammy.”
“I told you it was Timmy who called me. When she’s Timmy, she can do anything.”
“I thought she could do anything when she was Tammy, too,” Savich said.
“She can. He can. If they’re both here, not just Timmy, then there’ll be real trouble.”
Savich felt a twist of fear in his guts. He said slowly, his voice deep and calm, “Marilyn, what do you mean if they’re both here? You mean both Tammy and Timmy? I don’t understand.”
Marilyn shrugged. “I didn’t think to tell you, but I saw it happen once, back a couple of years ago. We were in that dolled-up tourist town, Oak Bluffs. You know, on Martha’s Vineyard. I saw Tammy comin’ out of this really pretty pink Victorian house where we were all stayin’ and she just suddenly turned several times, you know, real fast, like Lynda Carter did whenever she was goin’ to change into Wonder Woman. Same thing. Tammy turned into Timmy, like they were blended together somehow, and it was the scariest thing I’d ever seen until Tammy walked into that motel room all covered in that little boy’s blood.”
Savich knew this was nuts. Tammy couldn’t change from a woman into a man. That was impossible, but evidently Marilyn believed it. He said, carefully, “It seemed to you that Tammy and Timmy somehow coalesced into one person?”
“Yeah, that’s it. She whirled around several times and then there was Timmy, all horny and smart-mouthed.”
“When Tammy turned into Timmy, what did he look like?”
“Like Tammy but like a guy, you know?”
Virginia Cosgrove looked thoroughly confused. She started to say something, but Savich shook his head at her. Savich wanted to ask Marilyn to describe Timmy. Marilyn was suddenly standing perfectly still. She seemed to sniff the air like an animal scenting danger. She whispered, “I can feel Timmy close, Mr. Savich. He’s real close now. Oh, God, I’m scared. He’s going to wring my neck like a chicken’s for helping you.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” Virginia Cosgrove whispered low, just like Marilyn had. “So Tammy is really a guy?”
“I guess we’ll find out, Agent Cosgrove. Don’t dwell on it. Your priority is Marilyn. Just protect Marilyn.”
Marilyn leaned close and took Virginia’s hand. “You won’t let him take me, will you, Agent Cosgrove?”
“No, Marilyn, I won’t even let him get close to you.” She said to Savich, “You can count on me. I’ll guard her with my life.”
It was seven o’clock in the evening, just an hour later. Since it was fall, the sun had set much earlier, and it was dark now, the sky filling with stars and a half-moon. It was beautiful and warm. The cicadas and the coquis were playing a symphony if anyone was inclined to listen.
The airport looked fairly normal except it was probably a bit too crowded for this time of day, something Savich hoped Tammy Tuttle wouldn’t realize. But he knew she would notice because the local cops looked jumpy, too ill at ease for her not to notice. Or for Timmy to notice. Or whichever one of them showed.
Savich drew a deep breath as he watched the crowd. He said, “Timmy is close, Sherlock, that’s what Marilyn said. She said she could feel him. That was an hour ago. I think she’s even more scared than I am. She also firmly believes—no doubt at all in her mind—that Tammy can change into a guy at will, into this Timmy.”
Sherlock said, “If a Timmy shows up, then I’ll check us both into Bellevue.”
“You got that right.”
There weren’t that many tourists in the airport now, real tourists at least. The major flights from the States had arrived, passengers dispersed, and just a few island-to-island flights were going out in the evening. This was both good and bad. There was less cover, but also less chance that a civilian would be harmed.
When it happened, it was so quick that no one had a chance to stop it. A short, rangy man, pale as death itself, with close-cropped black hair, except for some curls on top of his head, seemed suddenly to simply appear behind Agent Virginia Cosgrove. He said against her ear, “Just move, sweetie, make any movement at all to alert all the Feds hanging around here and I’ll slice your throat from ear to ear. What’ll be fun is that you’ll live long enough to see your blood gush out in a bright red fountain.”
Virginia heard Marilyn whimper. How had he gotten behind her? Why hadn’t someone alerted her? Why hadn’t someone seen him? Yes, it sounded like a man, like this Timmy Tuttle Marilyn had talked about. What was going on here? She had to be calm, wait for her chance. She slowly nodded. “I won’t make a move. I won’t do anything.”
“Good,” the man said and sliced her throat. Blood gushed out. Virginia had only a brief moment to cry out, but even then it wasn’t a cry, it was only a low, blurred gurgling sound.
He turned to Marilyn, smiled, and said, “Let’s go, baby. I’ve missed my little darlin’. You ready, baby?”
Marilyn whispered, “Yes, Timmy, I’m ready.”
He took her hand in his bloody one, and with his other hand, he raised the knife to her throat. At that moment, Savich, who’d been in low conversation with Vinny Arbus, saw the blood spurting out of Virginia Cosgrove’s neck. He’d been looking at her just a moment before. How was it possible? Then he saw a guy dragging Marilyn with him, a knife at her throat. A dozen other agents and at least a dozen civilians saw Virginia fall, her blood splattering everywhere, and saw a pale-as-death man dragging Marilyn Warluski.
All hell broke loose. It was pandemonium, people screaming, running, frozen in terror, or dropping to the floor and folding their arms over their heads. But what was the most potent, what everyone would remember with stark clarity, was the smell of blood. It filled the air, filled their lungs.
It was a hostage situation, but it wasn’t a bystander who was the hostage. It was Marilyn Warluski.
Savich spotted the man, finally free of screaming civilians, and he’d recognize that face anywhere. It was Tammy Tuttle’s face—only it wasn’t quite. No, not possible. But Savich would go to his grave swearing that it was a man with the knife held to Marilyn’s throat, and he had two arms, that man, because Savich saw two hands with his own eyes. It had to be someone else, not Tammy Tuttle dressed up like a man. Someone who looked enough like Tammy to fool him. But how had that crazy-looking man gotten so close to Virginia and Marilyn so quickly, and no one had even noticed? Suddenly nothing made sense.
Agents grabbed tourists who were still standing and pushed them to the floor, clearing the way to get to the man and his hostage.
A local police officer, a very young man with a mustache, closed with them first. He shouted at the man to stop and fired a warning shot in the air.
The man calmly turned in the officer’s direction, pulled a SIG Sauer from his pocket so fast it was a
blur, and shot him in the forehead. Then he turned around and it seemed he saw Savich, who was at least fifty feet from him. He yelled, “Hey, it’s me, Timmy Tuttle! Hell-ooooo, everyone!”
Savich tuned him out. He had to or he couldn’t function. He knew that the marksmen stationed inside the terminal had Tuttle in their sights. Soon now, very soon, it would be over.
He moved around the perimeter, slid behind the Caribbean Airlines counter with half a dozen agents behind him, and kept moving toward Timmy Tuttle.
Three shots rang out simultaneously. Loud, clear, sharp. It was the marksmen, and they wouldn’t have fired without a clear shot at Timmy Tuttle.
Savich raised his head. He knew he couldn’t be more than twenty feet from Timmy Tuttle. He couldn’t see him. Could they have missed?
Then there were half a dozen more shots, screaming, and deep and ugly moans wrung out of people’s throats from terror.
Savich felt something, something strong and sour, and he turned quickly. He saw Sherlock some ten feet away, just off to his left, with three other agents, rising from her kneeling position, her SIG Sauer aimed toward where Timmy Tuttle and Marilyn had been just moments before. She looked as confused as he felt. It took everything in him not to shout for her to stay back, please God, just stay back, he didn’t want her hurt. And what would hurt her? A man who really wasn’t a man, but an image in whole cloth spun from Tammy Tuttle’s crazy brain?
Savich saw a flash of cloth, smelled the scent of blood, and he simply knew it was Timmy Tuttle. He ran as fast as he could toward a conference room, the only place Timmy could have taken Marilyn. He kicked open the door.
He stopped cold, his gun steady, ready to fire. There was a big rectangular table in the center and twelve chairs, an overhead projector, a fax, and two or three telephones.
There wasn’t anyone in the room. It was empty. But even in here he smelled Virginia’s blood; he could swear that he smelled her blood, rich, coppery, sickening. He swallowed convulsively as he took in every inch of the room.
So Timmy hadn’t come in here. Another room then. Agents on his heels, he ran across the hall to see his wife, gun held in front her, pushing open a door with SECURITY stenciled on the glass.
He was across that hall and into the room in an instant. He saw Sherlock standing in the middle of the room, the three agents fanned out behind her, all of them searching the room. But Sherlock wasn’t doing anything, just standing there staring silently at the single large window that gave onto the outside.
She turned slowly to see him in the open doorway, agents at his back, staring at her, shock and panic alive in his eyes. She cocked her head to one side in silent question, then simply closed her eyes and fell over onto the floor.
“Sherlock!”
“My God, is she shot?”
“What happened?”
The other three agents converged.
Savich knew he couldn’t stop, but it was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. He yelled, “Make sure she’s all right! Conners, check everyone out! Deevers, Conlin, Marks, Abrams, you’re with me!”
He heard one of the agents shout after him, “She’s breathing, can’t see anything wrong with her. The guy wasn’t in here, Savich. We don’t know where he went.”
The window, he thought, Sherlock had been staring at that window. He picked up a chair and smashed it into the huge glass window.
When they managed to climb out the window they’d cleared of glass, they knew, logically, that Timmy Tuttle and Marilyn Warluski couldn’t have come this way since the glass hadn’t been broken. But it didn’t matter. Where else could Timmy Tuttle have gone? They covered every inch of ground, looked into all the buildings, even went onto the tarmac where one American 757 sat waiting, calling up to the pilot. But Tammy or Timmy Tuttle was gone, and Marilyn as well. As if they’d just vanished into thin air, with nothing left to prove they’d even been there except for Virginia Cosgrove’s body, bloodless now, lying on her side, covered with several blankets, local technicians working over her. And the one local officer Timmy Tuttle had shot through the head.
He’d used his right hand when he’d shot that officer.
Savich had shot Tammy Tuttle through her right arm in that barn in Maryland, near the Plum River.
At the hospital, they’d amputated her right arm.
He wondered if they were all going mad.
No, no, there was an explanation.
Somehow a man had gotten into the airport, killed Virginia Cosgrove, and grabbed Marilyn. And no one had seen him until he had Marilyn by the neck and was dragging her away.
No one much wanted to talk. Everyone who had been in the airport appeared confused and looked, strangely, hungover.
Savich and his team went back to the security room. Sherlock was still unconscious, covered with blankets, a local physician sitting on the floor beside her.
No one had much to say. Jimmy Maitland was sitting in a chair near Sherlock.
Savich picked up his wife, carried her to a chair, and sat down with her in his arms. He rocked her, never looking away from her face.
“It’s as if she’s asleep,” the physician said, standing now beside him. “Just asleep. She should wake up soon and tell us what happened.”
Jimmy Maitland said, “We’ve put out an island-wide alert for Timmy Tuttle, with description, and Marilyn Warluski, with description. The three agents with Sherlock didn’t see a single blessed thing. Nada.”
Savich nodded, touched his wife’s hair. He didn’t think he’d be surprised by anything ever again.
A few minutes later, Sherlock opened her eyes. She looked up and, surprisingly, smiled. “You’re holding me, Dillon. Why? What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” He spoke very slowly, the words not really wanting to speak themselves, probably because he didn’t want an answer.
She closed her eyes for a moment, frowned, then said, “I remember I ran into this room, three other agents behind me. No one was here.” She frowned. “No, I’m not sure. There was something—a light maybe—something. I can’t remember.”
“When I came in, you were standing perfectly still, staring out that big window. The other agents were searching the room. But you didn’t move, didn’t twitch or anything, and then you just fell over.”
Jimmy Maitland said, “Did you see anything of Timmy Tuttle or Marilyn?”
Sherlock said, “Timmy Tuttle—yes, that crazy-looking guy who was as pale as an apocalypse horseman—yes, I remember. He was holding Marilyn around her neck—a knife, yes, he had a knife. I was terrified when I saw Dillon go in after him into that conference room.”
“You saw Timmy go into the conference room?”
“I think so. But that can’t be right. Didn’t he come in here?”
“We don’t know. None of the agents saw him in here,” Savich said. “No, Sherlock, that’s okay. You just rest now. You’ll probably remember more once you get yourself together. Does your head ache?”
“A bit, why?”
“You feel maybe a bit like you’re hungover?”
“Well, yes, that’s right.”
Savich looked up at Jimmy Maitland and nodded. “Everyone I’ve spoken to, agents and civilians alike, everyone feels like that.”
“Sherlock,” Maitland said, crouching down beside her. “Why was it just you who collapsed? You must have seen something.”
“I’m thinking, sir, as hard as I can.”
Dillon slowly eased her up until she was sitting on his lap. She started shaking. Savich nearly lost it. He pulled her hard against him, protecting her, from what, he didn’t know. He just didn’t want her hurt, no more hurt, no more monsters from the unknown.
Then she said, pulling away from him just a little bit, her voice firm and steady, “Dillon, I’m all right. I promise. I’ve got stuff to think about. Something really weird happened, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s there, in the back of my brain, and I’ll g
et it out.”
20
Eureka, California
Morrie Jones stared at the young woman who had taken him down, hurt him, dammit, before he could get away from her. He just couldn’t believe it. She was skinny, looked like a damned little debutante with her blond hair and blue eyes and innocent face, like the prototypical little WASP. That damned lawyer of his had even told him that she’d been recovering from surgery and she’d still stomped his ass. He really wanted to hurt her. Hell, he’d even do it for free, this time.
He said to Simon, “You claimed I didn’t need my lawyer, that you just wanted to talk to me, that you had something to offer that I couldn’t refuse. You from the DA’s office?”
Simon said, “No, but I have her approval. I see you remember Ms. Savich.”
“Nah, I heard her name was Frasier. I know that’s right because that’s the name of the broad I’m going to sue for attacking me.”
Lily gave him a big smile. “You go ahead and sue me, boyo, and I’ll just smack your face off again. What do you think?” She cracked her knuckles, a sound Morrie Jones had hated since he was a kid and his old man did it whenever he was drunk.
“Stop that,” Morrie said, staring at her hands. “Why’d the cops let you two in here?”
She cracked her knuckles again, something she’d rarely done since she was a bookie and some kid from another neighborhood had threatened to horn in on her territory. “What’s the matter, Morrie? I still scare you?”
“Shut up, you bitch.”
“Call me a bitch again and I’ll make you eat your tongue.” She gave him a sweet smile, with one dimple.
Simon said, “All right, that’s enough. Listen up, Morrie. We want you to tell us who hired you. It could save your life.”
Morrie started whistling “Old Man River.”
Lily laughed. “Come on, Morrie, spare us. You got a brain? Use it. Herman Monk is dead, shot three times in the back.”
“I don’t know no Herman Monk. Sounds like a geek. Don’t know him.”