Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [238]
Tully wanted to smile. Instead, he kept his eyes and his attention on Cunningham. It was hard not to like O’Dell. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her shift in her chair, uncomfortable and restless but holding her tongue. She had been kept off this investigation since the beginning. Tully wondered if she was angry with having to sit and listen to these details if she couldn’t be involved. Or had Cunningham changed his mind? Tully studied his face, but saw no clue as to what his boss was thinking.
When he didn’t answer immediately, O’Dell must have seen it as an opportunity to proceed.
“I mean no disrespect, but the three of us are sitting here talking about a ticket that may or may not have been issued to a man who Albert Stucky may or may not have talked to for years. Yet, there is one thing that we can be certain of—Albert Stucky murdered a woman in Kansas City, and most likely he is still there.”
Tully crossed his arms and waited, all the while wanting to applaud this woman he had heard was burned out and slipping over the edge. She certainly soared at the top of her game this morning.
Cunningham caved in his finger tent and sat forward, leaning elbows on his desk and looking as though he had been ambushed in a chess match. But now he was ready for his move, his turn.
“Saturday night about twenty miles from here, a young woman was found murdered, her body tossed into a Dumpster, her spleen surgically removed and placed inside a discarded pizza box.”
“Saturday?” Agent O’Dell fidgeted while she calculated the unusually short time line. “Kansas City is not a copycat. He left the goddamn kidney at my door.”
Tully winced. Forget chess. This would be more like a showdown at the OK Corral. Cunningham, however, didn’t blink.
“The young woman was a pizza delivery person. She was taken while delivering her route.”
Agent O’Dell became agitated, crossing her legs, then uncrossing them as if restraining her words. Tully knew she had to be exhausted.
Cunningham continued, “She had to have been taken somewhere close by. Perhaps in the neighborhood. He raped and sodomized her, slit her throat and removed her spleen.”
“By sodomized are you saying he raped her himself from behind or with another item?”
Tully couldn’t see a difference. Wasn’t either hideous enough? Cunningham looked to him for the answer. This, unfortunately, he could answer without digging through a single file. The young girl had looked too much like Emma for him not to remember every detail. Whether he wanted them to be or not, they were stamped in his memory.
“There was no semen left behind, but the medical examiner seemed convinced it was penile stimulation. There were no traces or remnants that a foreign object might leave behind.”
“Stucky’s never done that before.” O’Dell sat at the edge of her chair, suddenly animated. “He wouldn’t do that. There would be no point. He likes to watch their faces. He enjoys seeing their fear. He wouldn’t be able to see that from behind.”
Cunningham tapped his fingertips on the desktop as if waiting for O’Dell to finish.
“The young woman delivered a pizza to your new home the night she was murdered.”
The silence seemed amplified when the drumming of the fingertips stopped. Cunningham and Tully watched O’Dell. She sat back, looking from one to the other. Tully saw the realization in her eyes. He expected to see fear, maybe anger. It surprised him to find what looked like resignation. She rubbed a hand over her face and tucked strands of hair behind her ears. Otherwise, she sat quietly.
“That’s why, Agent O’Dell, I’m guessing it didn’t matter that you stayed in Kansas City. He’ll follow you.” Cunningham loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves as though he was suddenly too warm. Both gestures seemed foreign. “Albert Stucky is pulling you into this, no matter what I do to keep you out of it.”
“And by keeping me out of it, sir, you’re taking away my only defense.” O’Dell’s voice had an undeniable quiver to it. Tully saw her bite down on her lower lip. Was it to restrain her words or control the quiver?