Bloody Point (2 page)

The familiar ringing in her ears began and she closed her
eyes. How many times did she have to explain it? “I’m not coming back. I’m
resigning.”

The silence that followed was worse than the argument she’d
had with her dad. Jake’s jaw muscles flexed. She tried to read the expression
in his eyes. “I … I just don’t have the heart for it anymore, Jake. No heart.”

“Cass, you can’t quit. You’re too good! One of the best.”

Frowning, she touched the cross around her neck.

“You’re terrific with people. You have good instincts. You
worked your informants well.” He looked at her intently. “Shakes is still
calling and asking for you.”

Cassie snorted softly. Ol’ Shakes was a busybody who’d proved
very useful in the past.

“You need to come back, Skeet. We need you. I need you.”

She studied his face. “No, Jake. You don’t need me.”

Jake got quiet. He stared at his hands before him on the
table.

“Why do you need me?” She couldn’t resist asking.

“It’s a new case I’m working on. I got a call the other day
from a woman, a friend of Tam’s from college.” Jake hesitated. “A guy she knew
got killed a few weeks ago. Throat was slashed. It happened at a marina just
north of here, Sullivan’s Wharf. You know it?”

Cassie nodded. “Yes.”

“This guy had a sailboat there. The woman, Tam’s friend, was
with him when he died. They had been sailing together for a week.”

“They were in a relationship?”

“Yes, they had been, for six or eight months. Although
apparently he also had a wife. Anyway, this guy left the boat for a few
moments, supposedly to get some cigarettes. When he wasn’t back an hour later,
she went to investigate, and sure enough, the guy’s dead.”

“So what?” Cassie asked. “Why does the FBI care?” The FBI
didn’t get involved in simple murder cases.

Jake drummed his thumb on the table. “The guy, Frederick
Schneider …”

“Freed-rick?”

“… yeah, that’s right. The way he was killed was pretty
gruesome. Schneider was a consultant, an engineer. He used to work for Tracor,
a company in Delaware that has a major defense contract. They make a lot of
things, but among them are control systems for missiles. Then, last week, Tam’s
friend was cleaning up and she found a book the guy had left at her apartment.
She opens it up, and a letter drops out. But not just a letter, it was an
extortion threat.”

“From?”

“Unsigned.”

“And the threat was …”

Jake shifted in his chair. “It was a threat of violence if
Schneider didn’t provide the ‘package’, whatever that was.”

Cassie took a deep breath. “So somebody was threatening him,
Schneider didn’t produce, and he got whacked. I still say it happens all the
time.”

“It may happen all the time, but this time it happened at a
marina and this time the victim had access to some pretty pricey technology
that has national security implications and he’s connected with someone who
knows my wi … my ex-wife.” Jake’s eyes flickered.

Cassie’s heart flinched. Too many changes, too fast. She
wished they could rewind the tape to about a year ago and write a different
ending.

“To clinch it, he used the U.S. mail,” Jake continued, “so we
have an interest.”

She took a deep breath and started to speak. Jake stopped
her, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “Just think about it, okay? Will
you? I could really use your help on this case. You know all about this sailing
stuff. And, Cass, I’ll be honest, I’d just like to see you come back to the
FBI. So just promise me you’ll think about it.”

Cassie couldn’t speak, the words caught in her throat. She
nodded wearily.

†

Bloody Point

Chapter 2

T
HERE wasn’t anything to
think about, Cassie told herself repeatedly as she pressed down harder on the
sandpaper. The sun was hot on her back as she moved the paper over the
woodwork, stripping off old varnish and weathered teak. So what if Frederick
Schneider had been killed? She didn’t care. So what if he had access to defense
technology? It was someone else’s problem now.

That’s what she had told Jake, and that’s what she believed,
so much so that she had driven up to Baltimore that morning, turned in her gun
and her credentials, signed the papers, and officially resigned.

Now Cassie had a different goal: finishing the woodwork on
her boat. Countless days spent sanding, varnishing, re-sanding, and
re-varnishing had transformed most of the weathered gray teak into a beautiful,
mellow brown, the color of expensive racehorses, autumn leaves, and an Irish
setter she’d once owned. And now she just had to complete the job.

But despite the musical clanging of halyards on masts, the
companionship of the swallows that lived around the docks, and the work that
was before her, Cassie’s thoughts kept drifting back to Jake. Jake the strong
man, Jake the tough guy, Jake the one who had stood by her through her darkest
days.

They’d gone through the FBI Academy at nearly the same time.
Cassie’s husband, Mike, had graduated first. Jake was next, and then Cassie
finished the following year. They’d known a lot of the same people. When the
three met again at the Washington Field Office, they had hit it off instantly,
and soon they were inseparable. Jake’s wife had joined them on some social
occasions, but it was mostly Mike and Cassie and Jake together, the “triple
threat” as their Bureau friends called them.

Life was exciting, filled with purpose and good times. And
then came November of last year. Never her favorite month, it was now destined
to be on her black list forever.

Late on the night of November 4, Mike was driving home from
an interview with an informant. As he drove through a dingy part of Annapolis,
he came upon two cars stopped by the side of the road. The drivers were out of
their cars. One was on the ground, the other was beating him with a tire iron.

Mike radioed for help, jerked his car to a stop, and
intervened. Identifying himself as an FBI agent, he ordered the attacker to
stop. Instead, the man had rushed toward Mike. Thirty seconds later, the
assailant was dead, his body pierced by rounds from Mike’s Bureau-issued Glock
pistol.

That was only the beginning of what would be the most
traumatic time of Cassie’s life. From the beginning, it was clear that Mike had
acted appropriately. He had, in fact, saved the other motorist’s life. Still, a
routine Critical Incident Review had been ordered. Mike was told to take it
easy for a while, but that lasted about half a day. He was annoyed at not being
able to work his cases.

When a source called him with some information a few days
later, Mike decided to meet with him. He told Cassie he was going out and would
be back about nine. She raised her eyebrows, but there was no point trying to
convince Mike he should back off a bit. From his perspective, the shooting was
justified, the review was nothing more than a technicality, and he was just
fine.

It was a cold, rainy night. The leaves, still bearing the
bright colors of fall, had fallen on the rain-slicked streets. A frigid wind
was blowing from the northwest, and streams were overflowing, leaving pools of
standing water on the roads. The wind rattled the windows and buffeted the
outside wall of their apartment.

Cassie was at home, wrapping packages for a Christmas prison
ministry. Her favorite worship CD was in the stereo. When she noticed it was
9:30 p.m. and Mike wasn’t home, she wondered where he was. By 10:30 p.m., she
started to worry. When Jake appeared at her door at 11:20 p.m., her heart
stopped.

Mike had missed a curve on a dark, winding road. His Bureau
car had skidded, left the pavement, and rolled over and over down an embankment
until it had slammed into an eighty-year-old oak. It had taken rescue workers
forty minutes to cut Mike out. Now he was at the University of Maryland
Shock-Trauma unit, barely hanging on to life.

The next ten days were a fog-filled living nightmare. Blurred
images flashed across Cassie’s memory: the ICU, the press, the Bureau bigwigs …
and Mike, lying still and helpless amidst the tubes and beeping machines. He’d
suffered massive internal injuries, a broken pelvis, a fractured skull, and
broken ribs. On day seven, the doctors were hopeful. On day nine, Mike was
dead, the victim of sudden, uncontrollable internal bleeding. For some reason,
his body couldn’t recover from the trauma.

Cassie just wanted to die with him. Her whole world went
black. She moved about in a daze. It was Jake who had stuck by her side then;
Jake who had interfaced with the funeral home and the press and the Bureau and
even the minister.

At the funeral, it was Jake who gave the eulogy, speaking
eloquently about Mike, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place when he was
finished. Jake had stood by her, the most faithful friend she could imagine.

But in the end, she had to get away, from Jake, from the
Bureau, from the apartment, from everything that reminded her of life with
Mike.

Just thinking about it now made Cassie hurt all over.
Sometimes at night she would lie in bed, curled up in a ball, every muscle in
her body aching.

She didn’t want to start that now. She forced herself to
refocus, running her hand over the wood on the boat, feeling the smooth finish,
following the grain.
Forget about the accident
, she told herself.
It’s
over. There’s nothing you can do to bring Mike back. Look: the coaming boards,
the handrails, the companionway doors, the port trim all look exactly like I
hoped. A warm, homey brown.
This was tangible, this was good, this was
something she could hang on to.

Mike hadn’t liked sailing, hadn’t liked it at all. Too slow.
Not enough action. So Cassie hadn’t been out on the Bay for years. Returning to
the place of her happiest childhood memories seemed like the natural thing to
do after he died. She needed to recapture what was good in life after facing
the hellish reality of her husband’s death.

The boat had completely absorbed her for the last couple of
months. She’d replaced all the wiring, with Scrub’s help. She’d pulled up the
carpet and scrubbed the underlying fiberglass. The settee cushions and V-berth
mattress were new, and the teak below decks had been scrubbed off and
brightened. The engine had to be hand-turned, pumped out, and cleaned, but the
sturdy Yanmar diesel was running again. All the seacocks had been fixed. Little
by little the boat was becoming seaworthy.

She had been content in her little corner of the world, until
her former partner had showed up. Now, although she had been initially glad to
see him, she felt the old stress pulling at her like an undertow. What she had
done today, resigning officially from the Bureau, was like throwing out an
anchor.

The air was oppressive, hot and muggy with a threat of
thunderstorms, and Cassie had chosen that day to climb the mast. The anchor
light needed to be replaced, so she’d conscripted Scrub to wind her up in the
bosun’s chair. She was up there when she saw Jake’s black SUV pull into a space
in the marina parking lot. Soon he was striding down the dock. He was dressed
in khakis and a navy golf shirt. Cassie felt her stomach knotting up.

“Hey!” she heard him holler. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing the anchor light,” she yelled from atop her perch.
“Say ‘Hi’ to Scrub. Scrub, this is Jake. Jake, Scrub.”

The wiry guy standing at the bottom of the mast grinned and
nodded at Jake. He was short, maybe five feet five inches tall, and his sandy
brown hair hung over his collar. He looked like a jockey with his elfin face
and small frame. He had on khaki shorts and a T-shirt and his skin was brown.
His arms were muscular and strong, and he had his hand on a winch handle
holding the halyard, which held Cassie, suspended some 40 feet in the air, next
to the main mast.

“You need help with that?” Jake asked. He stepped on the boat
and up on the deck next to Scrub.

“No, sir.”

Jake looked up at Cassie. She was sitting in a canvas seat
screwing something into the mast. The seat was swinging as the boat rocked.
“What the heck is she doing?”

“Okay! Got it!” she called.

“Ready to come down?”

“Sure.”

“Nice and easy.”

Scrub began lowering the halyard and Jake stayed close by.
Cassie could tell it was all he could do to keep from pushing Scrub aside and
taking the line himself. When it was all over and she was safely on the deck,
it was obvious the dockhand had it all under control.

Cassie extricated herself from the seat and smiled at Jake.
“That’s one of the fun parts of sailing.”

“Well, Cassie, I see you’re putting that bosun’s chair to
good use.” A man in his early thirties, tall, blond, and deeply tanned strode
down the dock toward them. His eyes were fixed on Jake as he spoke. He came
abreast of the boat just as Cassie, Jake, and Scrub stepped onto the dock. The
man leaned over and gave Cassie a quick peck on the cheek.

“Oh, hi Rick! This is my friend, Jake. Jake, this is Richard
Maxwell. He has a boat down here.” She motioned toward the end of the dock.

Jake nodded, his eyes squinting. Cassie noticed him looking
closely at Maxwell. He was always so suspicious!

Rick flashed a grin and shook hands with Jake. “Glad to meet
you. Yes, sir, I’ve known this girl for a long time.” He put his arm around
Cassie’s shoulder and squeezed her to his side. Jake shifted his weight.

Cassie smiled and pulled away. “He gave me the bosun’s
chair,” she explained.

“On the condition she would loan it back to me anytime I
needed it. That way, I have an excuse to visit her.” Maxwell turned as if he’d
noticed Scrub for the first time. “Scrub! How about cleaning out the bilge on
my boat sometime soon?”

“Yes, sir.” Scrub finished tying off the halyard and turned
to Cassie. “I’ll be goin’ now, miss, if you don’t need anything else.”

“Sure, Scrub. Thanks so much for your help.”

“Yes, Miss Cassie.” Scrub turned and walked down the dock
toward the marina office, his head down.

“It’s great to have someone do my dirty work,” Maxwell said,
grinning. “Well, I’m off to Annapolis. Always something to buy for the boat.”

“You got a job coming up?” Cassie asked. She turned to Jake,
“Rick is a certified captain. He delivers boats for people, you know, when they
buy them one place and want to keep them at another.”

“They buy ‘em, I sail ‘em!” Maxwell said. “And no, Cassie,
I’m staying right here for now. See you fine people later.” He put his hand to
his brow in an odd semi-salute, then turned and walked away.

Jake shook his head as he watched him leave. “I don’t know,
Skeet. He sure is different.”

“Him? Why?” She cocked her head.

“Kind of prissy, wouldn’t you say?”

Cassie frowned. “He’s very bright. I’ve known him since high
school.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed and followed Maxwell all the way to the
parking lot, and even as his car was leaving. “Really? Did you date him?”

She laughed. “No, he was a player, even then. Wanted me to go
out with him big time but I refused. He went to college, and spent some time in
the Army. My dad said he went to the Middle East for a while. It’s just a
strange coincidence that he ended up working as a captain, and having a boat at
this marina.” She turned her attention to Jake. “So what’s up with you?”

“Let me see your boat,” he said, avoiding a direct answer.

She realized she’d just been put off, but what could she do?
“Sure,” she responded. They stepped back on board, and she noticed how much
smaller the sloop felt with more than one person on board. “Come on down,” she
said, leading the way down the companionway and below deck.

“This is called the salon,” Cassie said. “Those settees, the
couches, make up into beds. The head, bathroom, is in there, and I sleep up
there, in the V-berth.”

“It’s tight,” Jake grunted. At almost six feet tall, he couldn’t
quite stand up straight.

“Yep.”

“No shower?”

“There’s a shower in the land head.”

“The what?”

“There’s a bathroom up near the entrance to the marina. There
are showers there.”

“How convenient,” Jake muttered.

“I take it you’re not ready to sign on,” Cassie said as they
emerged again on deck.

He looked at her, his head tilted. “No offense … but I don’t
know how you can stand it.”

She laughed. How could she stand it? It was simple, that’s
how. No muss, no fuss, no room for anything. Alone, for the most part. No
furniture to deal with, no neighbors to pretend to be friendly with, none of
the detritus of life, like photos or old movie stubs. Or journals. It was
simple and clean. Cassie motioned to the cockpit seats. “You want to talk?”

Jake looked around. Over sixty boats bobbed in their slips.
Four slips over, on Cassie’s dock, a man with a bucket was washing down his
craft. Gulls sat on pilings, one after another, like peas in a pod. No other
people were visible but the hatches and ports on several of the boats nearby
were open. “Let’s go someplace more private. Why don’t we go to dinner?”

They headed north, to a place on the Magothy River that was
one of Cassie’s favorites. “So what’s up with you, Cass? What are your plans?”
Jake asked as they drove.

“Finish working on the boat.”

“And then?”

“Mike had a lot of life insurance. I can live off that until
I figure out what’s next.” She braced herself.

His silence registered his disapproval. She felt anger rising
in her, even though he hadn’t said anything. Cassie shook her head hard, as if
to dislodge some uncomfortable thought, and turned her eyes toward Jake.