At The Stroke Of Madness. Alex Kava

amazed by its speed and distance, so that he only saw the spilled contents out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was old clothes, a bunch of rags. Then he saw an arm and thought maybe a mannequin. It was a garbage dump, after all.

      Then he noticed the smell.

      It wasn’t what ordinary garbage smelled like. No, it smelled different. It smelled like … it smelled like something dead. It didn’t really scare him until Scrapple began to howl, an uncontrollable, high-pitched howl that broke through the noise of the equipment and sent a chill up Luc’s spine.

      Calvin stopped the bucket in midair. He cut the engine. And suddenly, Scrapple’s howl came to an abrupt stop, too, leaving an unsettling silence. Luc could see Calvin push back his cap. He glanced up at the big man who now sat paralyzed in the cab. Luc stood still.

      The vibrations from earlier seemed to be replaced by throbbing in his ears. Only now did Luc realize the throbbing wasn’t the aftereffects of the equipment. The throbbing was his own heart pounding, hammering so hard he could barely hear the geese overhead. There were dozens of them, a flood of squawking as they made their daily pilgrimage to or from the McKenzie Reservoir. In the distance he could hear the hum of rush-hour traffic on I-91. All the routine sounds of an ordinary day.

      An ordinary day, Luc thought as he watched the morning sun peek through the trees and highlight the bluish-white flesh that had spilled from the fifty-five-gallon barrel. Luc caught Calvin’s eyes. He expected to see his own panic mirrored on Calvin’s face. And there may have been a little panic, maybe even a little disgust at the sight. But what struck Luc Racine as odd was what he didn’t see. What Luc didn’t see on Calvin Vargus’s face was surprise.

      CHAPTER 3

       The FBI Academy Quantico, Virginia

      Mggie O’Dell reached for the last doughnut, a chocolate-frosted number with bright pink and white sprinkles, and already she heard a “tsk-tsk” sound scolding her. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully.

      “That’s what you’re having for lunch?” he asked.

      “Dessert.” She added a cellophane-wrapped platter of one of the cafeteria’s daily specials. Something listed on the chalkboard as a “tacorito” supreme. Maggie couldn’t help thinking even the FBI couldn’t screw up something as good as Mexican food.

      “Doughnuts are not dessert,” Tully insisted.

      “You’re just jealous because it’s the last one.”

      “I beg to differ. Doughnuts are breakfast. Not dessert,” he told her as he held up the line, waiting for Arlene’s attention behind the counter, waiting for her to put down the steaming hot-out-of-the-oven pot of creamed corn, before he pointed to the roast beef. “Let’s ask the expert. Doughnuts are breakfast. Wouldn’t you agree, Arlene?”

      “Sweetie, if I had Agent O’Dell’s figure you’d see me eating doughnuts at every meal.”

      “Thank you, Arlene.” Maggie added a Diet Pepsi, then indicated to the cashier, a little mole-faced woman she didn’t recognize, that she’d pay for the tray coming behind her, too.

      “Wow!” Tully said when he noticed her generosity. “What’s the special occasion?”

      “Are you saying I never buy unless there’s a special occasion?”

      “Well, there’s that … that and the doughnut.”

      “Couldn’t it be that I’m having a great day?” she said while leading him to a table next to the window. Outside on one of Quantico’s many running trails, a half-dozen recruits were finishing their daily run, weaving through the pine trees single file. “Classes just ended for this session. I have no nightmare cases keeping me awake nights. I’m taking a few days off for the first time in … oh, about a hundred years. I’m actually looking forward to working in my garden. I even bought three dozen daffodil bulbs to add to the southwest corner. Just Harvey and me, enjoying this amazing fall weather, digging in the dirt and playing fetch. Why wouldn’t that put me in a good mood?”

      Tully was watching her. Sometime around the daffodil bulbs she realized he wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and said, “You never get this excited about time off, O’Dell. I’ve seen you before a three-day federally approved weekend, and you’re chomping at the bit for everyone to get the hell back in their offices first thing Tuesday morning so they don’t hold you up on whatever case you’re working. I wouldn’t be surprised if your briefcase is stuffed and ready for the backyard breaks. So really, what gives, O’Dell? What has you grinning like the cat that swallowed the parakeet?”

      She rolled her eyes at him. Her partner, ever the profiler, always “on” and solving puzzles. Hard to argue with him for something she did herself. Perhaps it was simply an occupational hazard. “Okay, if you must know, my lawyer finally got the last—the very, very last—of the divorce papers back from Greg’s lawyer. This time everything was signed.”

      “Ah. So it’s all over. And you’re okay with that?”

      “Of course, I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

      “I don’t know.” Tully shrugged as he tucked his tie—already stained with morning coffee—into his shirt, then scooped up mashed potatoes, gravy and all, and dumped them on top of his roast beef.

      Maggie watched as he dipped his shirt cuff into the gravy, completely unaware while he concentrated on building a dam out of his mashed potatoes. Maggie only shook her head and restrained herself from reaching across the table to wipe at his newest stain.

      Tully continued, fork and now knife working at his lunch creation, “I just remember having lots of mixed feelings when mine was final.” He looked up, checked her eyes and paused with fork in midair, as if waiting for a confession that might be prompted by his own admission.

      “Yours didn’t drag on for almost two years. I’ve had plenty of time to get okay with this.” He was still looking at her. “I’m fine. Really. It’s understandable that you had mixed feelings. You and Caroline still have to raise Emma together. At least Greg and I didn’t have kids. That’s probably the only thing we did right in our marriage.”

      Maggie started unwrapping the tacorito, wondering at Arlene’s overuse of cellophane. She stopped. She couldn’t help herself. She took her napkin from her lap, reached across the table and dabbed at the gravy on Tully’s cuff. He no longer got embarrassed when she did these things, and this time he even held up the errant wrist for her.

      “How is Emma, by the way?” she asked, going back to her lunch.

      “Good. Busy. I hardly ever get to see her anymore. Too many after-school activities. And boys … too many boys.”

      Maggie’s cell phone interrupted them.

      “Maggie O’Dell.”

      “Maggie, it’s Gwen. Is this a good a time to talk?”

      “Tully and I are just having an early lunch. What’s wrong?” Maggie knew Gwen Patterson well enough to recognize the urgency in her friend’s voice, despite Gwen’s attempt to disguise it with a clipped professional tone. She and Gwen had known each other for almost ten years, having first met when Maggie was in Quantico’s forensic program and Gwen was a consulting psychologist frequently called in by Maggie’s boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham. The two women, despite their age difference—Gwen was thirteen years Maggie’s senior—had become instant friends.

      “I was wondering if you might be able to check on something for me.”

      “Sure. What do you need?”

      “I’m concerned about a patient. I’m afraid she might be in some kind of trouble.”

      “Okay.” Maggie was a bit surprised. Gwen rarely talked about her patients, let alone asked for help with one. “What kind of trouble?”