Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [305]
CHAPTER 65
Tully punched at the laptop’s keyboard. He knew the computer down in his office was much faster, but he couldn’t leave the conference room. Not now that he had had all the calls forwarded, and every last file on the case was spread out over the tabletop. Agent O’Dell would be furious about the mess. Though he doubted she could get much angrier. He hadn’t seen or talked to her since she had stormed out of his house yesterday.
Assistant Director Cunningham had informed him that O’Dell would be spending the morning in D.C. at a previously scheduled appointment. He didn’t elaborate, but Tully knew the appointment was with the Bureau psychologist. Maybe it would help calm her down. She needed to keep things in perspective. She needed to realize that everything that could be done, was being done, and as quickly as possible. She needed to get past her own fear. She couldn’t keep seeing the bogeyman in every corner and expect to handle it by running after him with guns blazing.
Although Tully had to admit, he was also having a tough time waiting. The Maryland authorities were hesitant to go storming onto private property without just cause. And no government department seemed willing to admit or confirm that the metallic mud could have come from the recently closed and sold government property. All they had was Detective Rosen’s fishing story, and now that Tully had repeated it over and over to top government officials it was beginning to sound more and more just like a fish story.
It might be different if the property in question wasn’t miles and miles of trees and rocks. They could drive down the road and check things out. But from what he understood, this property had no road, at least not a public one. The only dirt road available included an electronic gate, a leftover from when the government owned the property and had allowed no unauthorized access. So Tully searched for the new property owners, hoping to find something that would tell him who or what WH Enterprises was.
He decided to use a new search engine and keyed in “WH Enterprises” again. Then he sat, elbows on the desk, his chin resting on his hand as he watched the line crawl along the bottom of the screen…3% of document transferred…4%…5%…This would take forever.
The phone rescued him. He wheeled his chair around and grabbed the receiver.
“Tully.”
“Agent Tully, this is Keith Ganza—over in forensics. They told me Agent O’Dell was out this morning.”
“That’s right.”
“Any chance I could get hold of her? Maybe her cell phone? I was wondering if you had the number.”
“Sounds important.”
“Don’t really know for sure, but I figure that’s up to Maggie to determine.”
Tully sat up straight. Ganza’s voice was a constant monotone, but the fact that he didn’t want to talk to him alarmed Tully. Had O’Dell and Ganza been on to something that she wasn’t letting him in on?
“Does this have anything to do with the luminol tests you did? You know Agent O’Dell and I are working on the Stucky case together, Keith.”
There was a pause. So he was right. There was something.
“Actually, it’s a couple of things,” he finally said. “I spent so much time analyzing the chemicals in the dirt and then the fingerprints that, well, I’m just getting to that bag of trash you found.”
“It didn’t look too unusual except for all the candy bar wrappers.”
“I might have an explanation for those.”
“The candy wrappers?” He couldn’t believe Ganza would waste his time with those.
“I discovered a small vial and a syringe at the bottom of the trash bag. It was insulin. Now, it could be that one of the previous owners of the house