I was the only female.
I was in civilian clothes.
And I wasn’t holding a semiautomatic rifle.
Even though I knew I would be in the background and out of danger, my adrenaline was pumping. I was going to the Vanderbilt house, which was the most likely place for Theo to be hiding out and where Kathy was probably still sleeping.
Vincent rode in the second van, which was bound for the U-Strip-Em and We-Shred-Em. He’d lead the searches of both properties, and they had a lot of ground to cover quickly.
But I suspected that if anything were going to happen today, it would be at the Vanderbilt house and not one of the business properties. If Theo were hiding, he probably wasn’t going to be at a business where customers might see him and turn him in.
So the SWAT team and I were in for the most excitement.
Our plan was to enter the property from four angles, cutting off any potential routes of escape, so as we neared the site, we began to drop teams at the various entry points Vincent and I had plotted using the property plats and aerial shots of the land. One team would cover the house, while three others were charged with checking the surrounding land and outbuildings.
After the first three SWAT teams had deployed, I remained in the vehicle as Sobanski boldly drove straight up the driveway to drop off the primary entry team. The car from the Cranford County Sheriff’s Department followed closely behind. Once the house was cleared, I would lead the search for evidence against the Vanderbilts with the assistance of Deputy Marston while SWAT finished searching the rest of the acreage.
When the van doors finally opened and the entry team hit the front door, I leaned forward to watch from the window. Sobanski had turned up the volume on the receiver so I could hear the progress of the team as they communicated by radio, and then I would be called in.
On edge, I listened as the SWAT team communicated with each other in short bursts, and though I knew exactly what was happening, the whole scene seemed totally surreal. The quiet morning landscape was dusted in a gentle fog, giving the scraggly property an ethereal look. It seemed almost magical, as if I should be looking for pixies and fairies and not watching a couple of men in black fatigues move quietly through the underbrush, marring the mystique of the morning.
The front door was dispatched quickly, and the two-man team entered.
All was silent for many minutes as they searched the house. Over the speaker, I heard each room declared clear.
“You ready?” Deputy Marston asked through the open window. “Looks like no one is home.”
Odd. He was right. The team had not found any people in the house.
Where was Kathy?
Why wasn’t she in her bed?
I watched the entry team pass by the front bay windows and move through the interior of the home.
I checked the Velcro on my Kevlar vest.
Hell, yes, I was wearing a vest. I was no fool.
Deputy Marston appeared to be all of twelve years old, it seemed, and the eager, nervous look in his eyes told me that this was his first year on the job. I’d be breaking in a rookie. Maybe this would be a good experience for him.
“Once we clear the house,” I said, “we’ll be free to execute the search warrant.”
The warrant authorized me to search for evidence that Theo had been on the property or that he was staying somewhere nearby, for evidence of the Vanderbilts’ fraud scheme, and for clues as to the identity of the woman found in his LTD.
Meanwhile, the SWAT team would have to clear the outdoor area, and that was a big job in itself. The Vanderbilts’ property was composed of ten wooded acres, and that meant plenty of places for a motivated criminal to conceal himself.
I heard someone call “clear” and knew it was time for me to do my part. Snapping on a pair of nitrile gloves, I led Deputy Marston into the house. “You ready for this, Marston?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Just tell me what to do.”
More than willing to accept help, I handed him a spare pair of blue gloves and the photographs of both Theo and Kathy Vanderbilt. “Why don’t you look around the main rooms for evidence of where Vanderbilt might be hiding out? Cash receipts, gas purchases. Also anything pertaining to an older woman or about Americus Mutual.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, snapping the gloves into place and marching straight to his appointed station as he studied the pictures in his hand.
He was cute. A bit eager and coltish, but cute.
“Sing out if you find anything,” I said as I headed toward Theo and Kathy’s bedroom. I figured that if anything were hidden at the house, it would probably be there. People liked to keep valuable items close.
Before I even made it into the hallway, Deputy Marston said, “This lady looks familiar.”
I turned and saw him studying her photograph. “Kathy? Maybe you’ve seen her around town.”
He appeared to think for a moment. “No, I’ve seen her at the station a couple of times. Always with Sheriff Harper. There was a rumor….” He caught himself and looked at me.
“A rumor about her and Sheriff Harper?”
His lips clamped down firmly.
“What? An affair?” I hypothesized.
He frowned.
So yeah, there was a rumor of an affair between the sheriff and Kathy Vanderbilt.
Interesting. It was probably nothing, but now it seemed we might have a new player in the insurance fraud game. I wasn’t sure how the connection would play out. Maybe Sheriff Harper and Kathy had concocted some convoluted scheme to get their hands on Theo’s life insurance money. Maybe they had planned to keep Theo hidden until they could disappear with the money. Maybe the woman in the car was related to Sheriff Harper and he had wanted her out of the way for some reason. Or maybe the death of the woman in the LTD, and not Theo’s life insurance policy, was the motivation behind the whole crazy business.
At this point, of course, it was all conjecture. What we needed was evidence.
“Thanks, Deputy,” I said and then returned to my previous course.
The bedroom was cool, but still warmer than Theo’s office at the junkyard, and one side of the bed was unmade. On the other side, the covers were still tucked neatly under the mattress. On a whim, I touched the sheets on the unmade side and found them cool.
One person had slept in the bed, but she—he?—hadn’t been here recently.
Where was Kathy?
I moved on to rummage for information in the obvious hiding places: drawers, closets, under the bed. Then I tried between the mattress and box springs and even searched the bathroom.
Still, I found no evidence that Theo had been there that morning.
The next bedroom had been converted into an office, and I spent a long time looking through drawers and files and scanning the computer.
Other than a particularly nasty email from Kathy to Americus Mutual demanding her money, I found nothing. There was no record of hotel receipts or anything to help identify the old woman whose body had been burned in Theodore Vanderbilt’s car. Maybe the IT guys would have better luck.
I glanced out the window into the yard, but I saw no one. MPD SWAT had obviously started searching the woods and outbuildings, and I wondered how Vincent was doing at the U-Strip-Em.
Finally, I stood and walked into the main section of the house.
“Find anything out here?” I asked Deputy Marston, who was looking through the drawers in the kitchen.
“No, ma’am, not unless you count beer and beef jerky as something,” he said holding up an empty bag.
I shook my head. Those definitely did not count.
His radio crackled to life, and I heard one word distinctly: “body.”
My eyes widened.
Who was it?
Where?
I hurried over to Deputy Marston to better hear his radio: “Southeast corner. Shed.”
That was all I needed to hear.
Dashing from the house, I tur
ned southeast and saw the shed immediately. Two SWAT members stood at the door, probably awaiting further instructions.
“Body?” I panted as I got within earshot.
One of the SWAT guys gave me a curt nod.
“Who?”
“Theodore Vanderbilt.”
I pushed past them, and I smelled the blood even before my eyes adjusted. The coppery tinge filled my nose and mouth, making my throat close violently.
I clenched my teeth to stop the gag reflex and began to suck air through my mouth. I’ve been told you can’t smell things that way, but I swore I could still detect the sickly sweet odor.
The room came into focus, and despite the fact that I knew there would be blood, I was still taken aback.
Every wall was painted with great spurts of red.
And in the middle of it all in a pool of blood was Theodore Vanderbilt.
On the floor.
Throat cut.
Very dead.
I stepped back out of the shed and looked at the two SWAT members.
“Jesus.” It was all I could think to say.
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the SWAT guys said, his tone serious.
“Has the ME been called?”
“No, ma’am,” the other SWAT said, “Cranford sheriff called the county coroner.”
My gut told me that Morton Ivey was going to be of little use to us and that the body would have to be sent to the state lab, but I waited outside the crime scene for him to arrive.
In the meantime, I called Vincent to apprise him of our findings, and then I began to pace.
I don’t know how much time passed as I walked back and forth across the dusty ground, trying to figure out how the horrific scene in the shed came to be, but soon Morton Ivey ambled across the yard on loose legs.
“I understand there’s a body for me to look at,” he said to me once he was close enough.
“Yes, in the shed.” I gestured with my thumb, and he continued in that direction with me close behind.
Even though I was not eager to view the body again, I followed Morton as far as the edge of the crime scene tape.
He paused in the door, apparently taking in the whole scene from a distance. But he stood there for a long time, saying nothing, and I began to get anxious.
What was he looking at?
I sidled up next to him and looked at the scene over his shoulder.
Was I missing something? Did he see something I didn’t?
I turned to ask, but as I took in his face, all the words left my brain.
He was smiling.
A slight grin, just ghoulish enough to make my skin crawl.
“Mr. Ivey,” I said, wondering if this man hadn’t been around death just a tad too long. Or maybe far too long. Was he one of those sick people who got off on death?
God, I hoped not.
“Sorry,” Morton said. “It’s the blood. It always reminds me….” Then he cut off his words and seemed to shake himself back into reality. “All right. Let’s see what we can tell from a cursory inspection of the body.”
I watched him carefully, still wondering at that twisted little smile, as he walked as close to the body as he could without coming into contact with the blood on the floor. He looked quietly at the corpse for several minutes.
He walked around it as best he could. He squatted down and stared at it.
More silence.
Finally, I spoke. “I’ve called the state lab, and they’re sending a team to process the scene, but I’d like to hear your impressions.”
Morton continued to look at the body, walking around the periphery and nodding occasionally.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What?” I demanded, feeling far too creeped out by the coroner to be polite.
“I only see one wound on the neck,” he said. “Of course, there could be others hidden under all that blood and on the front of the body, but I’m guessing the victim’s carotid artery was slashed while he was still alive. That’s about all I can tell without actually disturbing the scene.” He turned around and looked at me then. “This was a terrible way to die.”
I left instructions for the SWAT team to keep the scene secure until the state team arrived and began walking back toward the Vanderbilt house. I couldn’t think with the smell of blood still assaulting my nostrils.
Theodore Vanderbilt was well and truly dead now.
But who had killed him?
Back at the house, I began to pace the front porch. Kathy leapt to mind as our primary suspect, and that meant we needed to find her pronto. Not only was she still going to be charged with insurance fraud and arson, but now she was also wanted for questioning in Theo’s murder.
Try as I might, though, I couldn’t imagine Kathy Vanderbilt killing her husband in such a bloody way and leaving him there for us to find, and the only other suspects I could think of were Carter Hashaway, who was still in jail, and Sheriff Harper, but that was based on nothing more concrete than a rumor at this point.
The kill was fresh, so Carter couldn’t have done it.
But what about Sheriff Harper? Was he connected? Was Deputy Marston’s rumor true? It could be. After all, I’d witnessed that strange exchange between him and Kathy the day Carter was arrested for possession. But I seriously doubted that a LEO would have slaughtered Theo and left so much evidence for us to collect.
I paced back and forth again.
No, we were probably looking for someone else.
But who? Was it someone connected with the body in the LTD?
Those questions had barely registered in my mind when I heard Deputy Marston’s voice from within the house. “Special Agent Jackson, I’ve got a problem.”
Expecting to find out that he’d discovered some piece of evidence or maybe heard something on his radio from the teams at the U-Strip-Em, I rushed into the main room of the house to find Deputy Marston being used as a human shield by Kathy Vanderbilt.
For a moment, all I could do was stare. The scene was utterly unfathomable. We were within shouting distance of nine SWAT team members, and here was a young, strong, seemingly competent sheriff’s deputy being held neatly at gunpoint by a short, albeit determined, woman.
And this woman looked like her day had gone to hell the moment she’d gotten out of bed. Kathy’s blond hair stuck out in all directions, and she wore tennis shoes with a set of plaid flannel pajamas. I could see a swipe of blood on one arm.
But that was all.
One streak of blood on her left arm.
I looked back at Deputy Marston, whose wide brown eyes begged me to do something, and his bloodless cheeks told me that he was probably too shocked to do anything but comply with his captor’s every demand. My eyes dropped to his duty belt. The holster was empty, and I spotted his service weapon on the floor a few yards away.
How in the hell had this happened?
Those moments of frozen contemplation and assessment proved to be a mistake. As soon as my brain awoke and told my hand to reach for my weapon, I knew I was already too late.
“Stop,” Kathy ordered, “or I’ll drop this guy right here. I’ve got a revolver in his back that could blow a hole clean through him.”
Though I couldn’t see the weapon clearly from my angle, I heard the definite click of a hammer being pulled back, and I knew Kathy was telling the truth.
I also knew that I’d better keep her calm.
Once a revolver was cocked, it became a hair trigger. One wrong finger twitch, and Kathy could very well kill poor Marston.
I lowered my gun hand slowly, willing my mind to come up with a method for taking control of the situation without getting Deputy Marston shot.
Once my hand hung uselessly by my side, the three of us became a tableau. No one moved. No one spoke. I think Deputy Marston may have even stopped breathing for a moment.
Finally, I recovered myself and asked coolly, “How did this happen, Marston?” I spoke as if I were doing a performance review and not h
oping to talk us out of this mess.
“She just appeared out of nowhere behind me,” Deputy Marston said in a shaky voice. He cleared his throat and added, “I don’t know.”
“Ah,” I said as if that cleared things up. I turned my focus to Kathy.
“Kathy, what brought you here today?”
God, I sounded like I was welcoming folks to a garden party. And what brings you here today? Can I refill your tea? What a lovely revolver you have there. It matches your eyes.
Ugh. The MPD had trained us on proper hostage negotiation. I knew I should try to put Kathy at ease, and given her current state, that wouldn’t be easy.
“This is my goddamn house, so you know goddamn well what brings me here,” Kathy said.
There was a beat of silence.
What did she know? That blood on her arm told me that she knew Theo was truly dead now. Had she killed him herself?
I searched her face, trying to read the truth there, but I saw only fear in her eyes and defiance in the set of her jaw. Clearly she was already on edge, and I didn’t want to say anything that might make her even more unstable.
“I’m afraid I don’t know for sure unless you tell me,” I hedged, trying to leave the conversation opened ended, so Kathy could tell me herself what had happened.
“Whatever,” Kathy hissed from beside Marston. “Why don’t you tell me what in the hell you’re doing here on my property? In my house.”
“We’re executing a search warrant.” I decided not to tell her that we had an arrest warrant for her too. No need to up the stakes. Not with Marston still quivering like a nervous Chihuahua in her grasp. “I can get a copy out of my pocket and show it to you, if you’d like.”
“No,” she sneered. “Don’t you move a damn muscle.”
We stared at each other, neither of us moving until Kathy asked, “What are you searching for? If you asked, maybe I’d have told you where you can find it.”
I highly doubted that she would have been so cooperative, but at this point, I might as well tell her the truth. Otherwise, we’d be talking in circles until she disappeared with Marston.
“We were looking for your husband.”
Death Benefits Page 13
