Even more startling was the fact that Indiana investigators had tied the name Thomas Hughes to the location of the shootings. They had him identified as a twenty-two-year-old college student from Ball State University, and he was currently being sought as a “person of interest,” which Venice knew from past experience was a label that spanned everything from potential witness to primary suspect. Whatever it meant in this case, it was not good news.
Thomas Hughes’s name on the screen was highlighted as a hyperlink, which usually foretold involvement in a second or related criminal investigation. When Venice clicked it, she gasped and brought her hand to her mouth after reading only the first two sentencepossible.
With her hands trembling from the sudden shot of adrenaline, she logged out of ICIS and pulled up the link for a super-encrypted telephone site. She donned her headset as her fingers flew across the keyboard to pull up Jonathan’s secure satellite phone.
The Hummer was a ridiculous waste of natural resources, Jonathan knew, but given the specific demands of his business and his addiction to high-tech toys, it was the only vehicle that would suffice. In addition to the armored doors and windows, he’d also equipped it with the latest in communication technology. He’d even thought to include a cipher-activated vault below the center console, in which he kept a supply of cash in case of emergencies. Right now, the vault held $25,000 in hundred-dollar bills. Boxers called it the Batmobile.
The hard-lined telephone mounted on the dash was an encrypted satellite phone that allowed him to freely discuss anything with anyone who had similar technology on the other end. Predictably, Boxers called it the Batphone.
And it was ringing.
A wrong number was impossible, but Jonathan nonetheless answered it on speakerphone with a noncommittal, “Yes.”
“Digger, it’s Venice. We’ve got a problem.”
He waited for it.
“The Hugheses are a family of murderers.”
As she drove toward Muncie, Gail Bonneville wasn’t sure what she expected to glean from the scene of the quadruple murder there, but when so many people were dead, and the single name of Hughes was tied to their murders, it was a lead that needed following.
This latest twist was a stunner. What had seemed so clearly to be an altruistic act of bravery on the part of her shooter in Samson suddenly looked like something else entirely. Three people murdered in the rescue of the son of murderers. What could that possibly mean? Every one of the conclusions she’d prematurely drawn to this point was now in question.
The trill of her cell phone annoyed her. One of the good things about long drives was the time it afforded for quiet thought. The caller ID showed her it was her office, but that somehow only heightened her sense of annoyance.
“Bonneville.”
“Collier.” Jesse matched her tone exactly, making her smile. “You in the mood for entertaining news?”
“I’d prefer ‘good’ to ‘entertaining,’” she said, “but I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
“When were tracking down all that flight information a while ago, I made some good contacts,” Jesse explained. “One of them just called to tell me that the Perseus Foods jet has filed a flight plan for a return trip to Indianapolis.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The murder scene on Detweiler Avenue in Muncie was as gruesome as faux FBI Agent Jonathan Grave had ever seen. The bodies were gone-shipped off to the morgue hours ago to be split open and rummaged through-leaving behind the dried pools, smears, and spatters of gore that were somehow more awful by themselves than they would have been with the corpses still presenters’ affections. At about 2,300 square feet on two levels, it was exactly the kind of house that middle-class Americans think of when they think suburbia. Outside, the place was likewise well kept, even if the grass was a little long-the fact that prompted a neighbor to realize that something might be wrong in the first place. In the eighteen hours since that poor Samaritan had peeked in the window and called the police, thousands of footsteps by dozens of police officers and emergency workers had destroyed the lawn, and the dozens of feet of crime scene tape had ruined the innocence.
Stan Hastings of the Muncie Police Department was lead detective on the case. Five-eleven and trim, with signs of gray in what was left of his elaborate comb-over, he looked to be about forty-five, and seemed none too pleased to be walking through the scene yet again. He’d asked the usual jurisdictional questions when Jonathan arrived with his FBI credentials, but was easily convinced that he was investigating a link between the Caldwells and the theft of classified information.
As he conducted the tour, Hastings clearly avoided looking at the gore. “Angela Caldwell and her two children, one six and the other three, and their nanny, Felicia Bourdain, a French citizen, all murdered,” Hastings explained. “The nanny was killed right here in the foyer,” he said, indicating the lake of dried blood on the tiled floor and the spray that reached all the way to the ceiling in spots. “We figure she was killed answering the door. One slash across her throat, and she just dropped.”
They moved through the living room into the tiny dining room with its hideously stained blue-and pink-flowered wall paper. “We found Angela, the mom, tied to that chair there at the head of the table. She was the worst one, by far. From what we can tell, she was tortured pretty brutally. Lots of deep cuts, and signs of beating, but only one fatal wound-another slashed throat.”
Jonathan saw the picture in his mind, and wished that he could make it go away. “What about the children?” he asked. Even as he spoke, he regretted asking. That he needed to know didn’t mean he wanted to.
Hastings’s eyes reddened, and he cleared his throat. “It looks like the baby was killed right away, too. But the little boy, well, we think the killer was hurting him to get information out of the mother.” He fell silent after that, and Jonathan could see his jaw muscles working hard. “Jesus, let’s get out of here, okay?”
He didn’t wait for an answer before he made a beeline for the back door and the rear deck. Jonathan followed closely behind. By the time he caught up, Hastings had his hands shoved deeply into his pants pockets and he was looking very sheepish.
“You okay, Detective?” Jonathan asked.
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been bit by a case.”
Jonathan smiled and shrugged. “It happens.”
He snorted. “Yeah, well, people see you being soft, and they’ll expect you to start being human and shit. God only knows what would happen then.”
Jonathan gave the cop a few seconds. A barking dog next door filled the silence. “So, how do you tie Stephenson Hughes to this murder? Just the fingerprints?”
“Him and his wife both,” Hastings corrected. “Neighbors saw their car parof business.”
Bunting’s eyes hardened. He had famously low tolerance for empty words.
“He’s at his headquarters-”
“His cult commune?” Bunting interrupted.
“Exactly.” Again Charlie opted not to sniff the bait. “He’s assembled a team, on his own dime, I might add. As soon as he knows where Hughes is, he’s going to move. Stephenson got the drop on him by surprise the first time. There’s no way Ivan will let that happen again.”
Bunting was shaking his head. Clearly, he had less confidence in their contractor’s abilities.
Charlie went on, “At least the police have connected the Hugheses to Angela’s murder. That’ll keep them from seeking help from the law. That’ll buy us some time. We just have to hope they don’t act against their own best interests and call them anyway.”