Rachel nodded. “Showing us that file will be a good start.”
Marie stood and motioned toward the inner office. “There’s coffee in the conference room. Help yourselves and I’ll bring the file.”
An hour and several cups of coffee later, Rachel stretched and yawned. She and Stephen had filled a legal pad with the names and addresses of Weed’s and Bubba’s relatives and friends. Checking out each person on the list would be a long and tedious process, but one they were accustomed to. Unlike the glamorous and dangerous versions of FBI life depicted in movies and on television, an agent’s routine was primarily this type of grunt work.
They returned the file to Marie’s desk as they were leaving.
“Find what you needed?” the receptionist asked.
Stephen shrugged. “Won’t know till we conduct a few interviews.”
“Anything else I can do?” Marie said.
“There is one thing,” Rachel said. “Has Jason Bender checked in lately?”
“No, but he’s due to call anytime now.”
“Will you give him a message?” Stephen asked.
Marie grabbed a pencil and pad. “Sure.”
“Warn him to watch his back,” Rachel said. “We suspect that members of this hate group are seeking revenge against the agents involved in the Maitland case. They could be stalking Jason, too.”
“Too?” Marie frowned. “They’re after you?”
“It’s a long story,” Rachel said, “and we don’t have much time. Just give him the warning, okay?”
“No problem. Y’all be careful.”
“We will,” Stephen assured her and leaned over her desk. “And, Marie?”
“Yes?”
“If anybody asks, you haven’t seen us.”
“Then how I’m going to explain this message to Jason?”
“You can tell Jason we’ve been here,” Rachel said, “but please don’t mention us to anyone else.”
The receptionist folded her arms across her chest and cocked an eyebrow. “Y’all in some kind of trouble?”
“Aside from heading the hate group’s hit list?” Rachel said.
Marie nodded sadly. “I see what you mean. That’s trouble enough.”
“Thanks again, Marie.” Stephen grasped Rachel’s elbow and steered her toward the door.
“Wait!” Marie called after them.
“What?” Rachel said.
“If Jason wants to talk to you, how can he get in touch?”
“Give him this.” Stephen scribbled his cell phone number on a pad on Marie’s desk.
They hurried from the building into the dazzling midday sun. A sea breeze carried the autumn smell of burning leaves and the tang of salt marshes, piercing Rachel with nostalgia. For a brief instant she longed to return to the past, to the way things had been when she and Stephen worked together, before they’d made love, but she quickly discarded that desire. To return to the past would mean not having Jessica, and she wouldn’t trade her daughter. Not for anything.
She longed to hold her baby, hear her laughter, see her smile. Jessica’s absence created an aching hole in her heart. With determination Rachel straightened her shoulders. The sooner they caught the men who pursued them, the sooner she could return to her daughter.
And leave Stephen?
He’d be glad enough to be rid of her after she’d told him the truth about Jessica. She sighed and shoved that unhappy thought to the back of her mind and with it, memories of last night’s lovemaking.
“Let’s pay that call on the Maitlands,” she said in a brisk, all-business tone. “If we can rule out Harold as a suspect, we can concentrate on the white supremacists on our list.”
THE SHADY SQUARE that the Maitland house faced was not as crowded as Rachel remembered from a year and a half earlier. Hoopla over the Mercer House, infamous scene of The Book, had evidently subsided, and with it, the crushing tourist trade. The streets and park were almost deserted in the late morning. Only a single horse-drawn carriage conducted sightseers around the square.
A uniformed maid answered the door at the Maitland mansion. “Mr. Maitland isn’t in.”
“Then we’d like to speak with Mrs. Maitland.” Stephen handed the maid his business card.
A few minutes later Margaret Maitland joined them in the drawing room where the maid had asked them to wait. Dressed in designer maternity clothes and with her golden hair elegantly styled, Margaret took one look at them, then hesitated on the threshold in confusion.
“Excuse our disguises,” Stephen said. “Part of our job.”
Margaret peered more closely, and her expression of disorientation lifted, replaced by a welcoming smile. “Of course, I recognize you now. How nice to see you again. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of how you saved my life. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“We’re in Savannah on another matter,” Rachel said, “and wanted to say hello.”
“And make sure you haven’t had any other scares,” Stephen added.
“Scares?”
“No one’s tried to kidnap you lately?” Rachel said, smiling to lessen the gravity of the question.
“They wouldn’t dare,” Margaret said with a glow of contentment. “After that awful day, Harold hired a security service. Now I can’t move without a team of bodyguards dogging every step.”
Rachel nodded, recalling the burly man in a dark suit reading a magazine on a sofa outside the drawing room. Harold Maitland either wasn’t taking any chances or else was putting on a good show of concern.
“I’ve told Harold there’s no need for such measures,” Margaret continued, “but he insists. He’s grown even more protective with our first child arriving next month. Do you have children, Agent Chandler?”
Margaret hadn’t included Rachel in her question, but Rachel wasn’t offended. When Stephen was in a room, most women could focus on little else.
“No, I’m not married. But I’d like to have a family of my own one of these days.” The surreptitious look he gave Rachel both thrilled and tormented her.
“We want to talk to Harold, too.” Rachel quickly changed the topic. “Is he at his office?”
Margaret’s smile faded. “He’ll be so sorry he missed you. He’s been in New York for almost two weeks.”
“New York?” Rachel said.
“On behalf of a client. I don’t get involved with Harold’s work. You know, lawyer-client privilege, confidentiality and all that.”
“Will he be home soon?” Stephen asked.
“Not soon enough as far as I’m concerned, what with the baby coming. He’s promised to be here for the delivery.”
“We won’t take any more of your time,” Rachel said. “Best wishes to you and your baby.”
Back on the street, she turned to Stephen. “How convenient that her husband was out of town when Carver was shot.”
Stephen obviously followed her thinking. “But Maitland couldn’t have been the man at Uncle George’s cabin. Not from the way you described Margaret’s husband.”
Rachel nodded. “But he could have hired someone to come after us, just like he hired bodyguards for his wife.”
“You’re right. We can’t scratch Maitland from our list of suspects yet.”
FOR THE REMAINDER of the morning and into the middle of the afternoon, they attempted to interview Weed’s and Bubba’s relatives. A few people slammed doors in their faces, another threatened them with a shotgun if they didn’t vacate his property, and none volunteered to answer any questions.
Minnie Fulton, Weed’s mother, had shouted obscenities and threatened to loose two ferocious Rottweilers if Rachel and Stephen didn’t get off her porch and leave her alone. Without the weight of an official investigation behind them, they had no choice but to comply.
One of Minnie’s neighbors, however, proved more cooperative. Driving down the sandy, unpaved road that led from Minnie’s house to the highway, they approached another tumbledown shack, perched in an open f
ield between the salt marsh and a pine forest. A stooped old man, checking his mailbox, grinned and waved as they approached.
“Should we stop?” Rachel asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Stephen said. “His is the only friendly face I’ve seen since we left Margaret Maitland.”
He pulled the Blazer alongside the mailbox and rolled down his window.
“Howdy,” the old man, wizened as much by sun and wind as by age, greeted them. “Been to see Minnie?”
“Tried,” Stephen said. “She threatened to sic her dogs on us.”
The old fellow chuckled and slapped the leg of his faded overalls. “That’s Minnie for you. Mean as a snake and twice as low.”
“You know the Fultons?” Rachel asked.
“Reckon I do.” He grinned again, exposing tobacco-stained teeth. “Lived next door to ’em over fifty years.”
“We’re investigating the circumstances of Weed Fulton’s death,” Stephen explained and showed his federal ID. “Would you mind answering a few questions, Mr—?”
“Kincaid. Thomas Kincaid, but most folks just call me Old Tom. Come up to the house and sit a spell. We don’t get much company in these parts, and I been mighty lonesome since my wife died.”
Rachel and Stephen followed Old Tom up a dirt path, swept clean and lined with seashells. Chickens pecked among the frostbitten grass of the yard, and an ancient coonhound, sleeping in a puddle of sun on the porch, raised its head and considered them with sad eyes and drooping jowls before resuming his nap.
Tom waved them into rocking chairs on the porch and perched on the rail in front of them. “What do you need to know?”
“Tell us about Minnie Fulton,” Rachel said.
Tom scowled. “I knowed Minnie since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Always was a ornery cuss. And her sons was just as bad.”
“Sons?” Stephen said. “Weed had brothers?”
“Weed?” Tom turned and spat over the rail, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “His Christian name was Arthur, but they called him Weed, ’cause he was so wild.”
“Weed’s brothers?” Rachel prodded.
“Ralph Fulton is the youngest,” Tom said, shaking his head. “He’s a strange one. Left home a few years back. Lives in the Okefenokee Swamp. Rumor is he’s running drugs outta Florida. Served Minnie right when Milton moved in with Ralph, leaving her alone.”
“Milton?” Stephen said. “Milton Fulton?”
Old Tom grinned. “Milton’s the oldest son. No one knows who his daddy is—not even Minnie—so he goes by his mother’s maiden name, Carver.”
“You hadn’t heard?” Rachel asked. “Milton Carver was murdered in Atlanta.”
Old Tom nodded. “Not surprised. All them boys’ll come to bad ends. I knowed it since they were young’uns.”
“What can you tell us about Fulton, Minnie’s husband?” Stephen said.
“Dead. Nigh onto ten years now. Minnie swore he died in a hunting accident, but wouldn’t surprise me none if she and those worthless boys shot him.”
“Nice family,” Stephen said with a grimace. “Tell me more about Ralph.”
Old Tom shuddered. “You don’t want to mess with Ralph. He’s even meaner than his ma.”
“Can you tell us where to find him?” Rachel asked.
“I reckon I can remember. Only went into the swamp once, when I helped Ralph move outta his Ma’s house and carried some of his stuff in my pickup. Course, now he’s got a truck of his own. Bright red. You can see it coming a mile away.”
Red, Stephen thought, just like the pickup that had arrived at Uncle George’s cabin with its Magnumtoting driver.
“I’ll get a map from the car,” Stephen said, “so you can show us where Ralph lives.”
Two hours later the Blazer was slogging through the Okefenokee on their way to find Ralph Fulton.
“It’s a good thing we’re in an SUV,” Rachel said, “or we’d never make it through these waterlogged roads.”
“If the water gets much deeper, we’ll wish we had an airboat.”
He grinned at Rachel, admiring her loveliness before returning his attention to the almost nonexistent road. More and more, his memories were resurfacing. He’d recognized Margaret Maitland and her house on the square. But most powerful were the memories and emotions that revolved around the woman in the car beside him. He had loved her, without doubt. Being with her now, returning to the working partnership they had enjoyed for so many years made him want to run and shout in exhilaration.
But he’d have to wait until the killers who stalked them were caught before he could relax enough to enjoy his newfound happiness.
He drove slowly around a curve. Directly ahead a hillock of land, surrounded by moss-draped cypress that blocked the sunlight, rose out of the murky water. At its center stood a tin-roofed shack on four-foot stilts. Parked beside the entrance was a red pickup, the same make and model Stephen had noted at the mountain cabin.
Stephen cut the Blazer’s engine and drew his gun. “Guard the front while I circle the rear. Ralph may have a boat out back.”
“Stephen—”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
He leaned across the console that divided the seats and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Take care, Doc. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
He slipped from the car and ran at a crouch through the covering cypress to the rear of the shack. A flatbottomed boat with a high-powered motor was tied to a makeshift dock. He had stepped into the boat to disable the motor, when Rachel’s call broke the stillness.
“Stephen, you’d better come here.”
Her voice relayed an urgency that sent his stomach into free fall. Had Ralph gotten a drop on her? He scrambled from the boat and cautiously circled back to the front of the shack. Rachel stood alone on the porch.
She nodded toward the open door. “Take a look.”
He climbed the rickety steps. What greeted his vision first were the worn soles of a pair of boots just inside the door. As he stepped across the threshold, a body stared up at him, a bullet hole between the dead eyes.
Chapter Twelve
“Is it Ralph Fulton?” Rachel asked behind him.
Stephen removed a wallet from the dead man’s jeans and searched through its contents. “That’s the name on the license, and the photo is a match.”
“I don’t understand,” Rachel said. “If Ralph Fulton was after us, who killed him? And why?”
“We need some answers instead of more questions.” Frustrated, Stephen removed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed information for the number of the nearest law enforcement agency.
An hour later, as the dark swamp reverberated with the noise of crickets and frogs and the bass rumbles of bull gators, the sheriff’s crime scene unit surveyed the murder site beneath the harsh glare of artificial lights.
Stephen finished relating his account of their investigation of Ralph Fulton to a sheriff’s detective, and Rachel, who’d been talking to one of the technicians, joined him.
He curved his arm over her shoulder. “The sheriff says we’re free to go. I’ve told them all we know.” He led her toward the car.
“The technician found a .22 cartridge on the porch.” Rachel said, snuggling against his side and shivering in the swamp’s damp cold. “Fulton must have been shot the instant he opened the door.”
“Out here in the middle of nowhere,” Stephen said thoughtfully, scratching his chin, “it’s odd he wasn’t holding a weapon. He apparently knew his visitor.”
“A .22 caused that wound in your left arm,” Rachel reminded him.
Stephen noted the worry in her eyes and wished he could somehow make all her problems disappear. “It’s possible whoever killed Ralph is the same person who shot me. Any other evidence?”
“No tire tracks or footprints. The recent rains destroyed them.” She was all business, and his admiration swelled. Despite being apart from her daughter—or perhaps becaus
e of her eagerness to put an end to that separation—she had been relentless from the beginning of the investigation in tracking every clue. “There’s nothing significant in the shack except some flyers and propaganda used by the hate group.”
Stephen opened the door of the Blazer for Rachel to climb inside, then circled the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked as he started the engine.
“If the hate group is after us, why are they the ones turning up dead?”
“Exactly. Somebody hired Weed and Bubba to kill Margaret Maitland. When they bungled the job, whoever it was tipped us off so we’d catch them. Ralph Fulton and Milton Carver are both related to Weed. Now they’re dead, too. Everything points back somehow to the Maitland kidnapping.”
Stephen turned the headlights on high beam to illuminate the pitch-dark road. “There’s only one problem with that theory. Why wasn’t the mastermind behind the kidnapping afraid Weed and Bubba would identify him?”
Rachel thought for a moment. “Maybe Weed and Bubba never knew who he was. Maybe he wore a disguise and used a false name when he met with them. Or he could have hired them through an intermediary and they never laid eyes on him.”
“Then why were Milton Carver and Ralph Fulton killed?”
“Maybe they were the intermediaries,” Rachel said, “and the person behind the kidnapping wanted them silenced for good.”
Stephen considered her suggestion. “If Milton and Ralph were the intermediaries, they could have been blackmailing the mastermind.”
“But why would the person behind the kidnapping want you and me dead?”
Stephen relished the familiar give-and-take, recalling other crimes they’d solved together as several flashes of memory returned. “Maybe he feared Carver had confessed to me in Atlanta.”
“If that’s the case, why drag me into it?”
“Could be revenge, pure and hateful. We’re the ones who found Margaret, helped her identify Weed and Bubba, and ruined the whole scheme.”
In the dim light from the dashboard, he could see Rachel shaking her head. “I don’t like this. The person with the most to gain from Margaret Maitland’s death was her husband. Now she’s only weeks away from having their first child. I’d hate to have to tell her that her husband and the father of her baby was willing to kill her for her money.”
Undercover Dad Page 16
