Chapter

  83

  At eight forty the next morning, a good twenty minutes before proceedings were scheduled to start, Sampson, Mahoney, and I were in federal judge Margaret Twoomy’s courtroom in Alexandria.

  It was a good thing. By the time her bailiff told everyone to rise, the six benches on both sides of the main aisle were packed with journalists, attorneys, court buffs, and lookie-loos. Twoomy, a tall brunette with sharp features, took the bench and called the court to order.

  “We have a full arraignment docket, so I would like to move quickly this morning,” Twoomy said, peering out at the audience. “Counsel, when your client is called and the charges are read, I want a simple guilty or not guilty. Are we clear? Guilty or not guilty. You’ll get a chance to tell your side of things when I consider bail.” The judge looked over at her clerk. “First case, Randy?”

  “United States versus Thomas Adrian Tull,” Randy said. “Multiple homicide charges.”

  Lindy York, Tull’s defense attorney, stood and carried her attaché case to the defense table as Danielle Carbone, the assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the case, said, “As many as nineteen, Your Honor.”

  “Alleged homicides, Your Honor,” York said.

  A U.S. deputy marshal led Tull into the courtroom.

  The writer wore an orange jailhouse coverall. The handcuffs on each wrist were clamped to steel rings on either side of a padlocked leather belt. His hair was disheveled. His face was still swollen, and the area around his eyes had turned purple and dark.

  “Judge, my client is obviously not being protected adequately,” York said.

  “Mr. Tull?” Judge Twoomy said.

  “My own fault,” Tull said hoarsely. “End of story.”

  The judge looked at the marshal. “See that he gets medical attention.”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  “Charges, then, Randy.”

  The court clerk read out a total of thirty-two charges ranging from first-degree murder of the members of the various families to conspiracy to commit murder in the case of the Allison family.

  Judge Twoomy stared at Tull, who stood with slightly slumped shoulders beside his attorney. “How do you plead, Mr. Tull?”

  The writer rolled back his shoulders and said forcefully, “Not guilty.”

  “So noted. Bail?”

  Carbone, the prosecuting attorney, said, “We seek remand, Judge. Mr. Tull is a wealthy man and—”

  Acting shocked, Tull’s attorney said, “Remand? Are you kidding? Judge, my client is a world-renowned writer who specializes in describing the intricacies of law enforcement and judicial systems both here and abroad. He—”

  Cutting her off, Carbone said, “Judge, the evidence against Mr. Tull is simply overwhelming. We have DNA that puts him at the scene of at least one of the family murders, video that puts him at another family’s home, website searches that keyed on the Allison family, and we just learned that a pistol found in a storage unit leased by Mr. Tull has tested as a match for all the murders.”

  The writer looked like he’d taken a baseball bat to the gut. He bent over for a second, then straightened up, shock and disbelief all over his face. “That is wrong. That is wrong, Judge! I have never—”

  Judge Twoomy banged her gavel hard and shook it at Tull. “You will end this outburst, Mr. Tull. Now.”

  He shook his head, looking like a prizefighter who’d been walloped.

  The judge, irritated, said, “Please, in the future, let counsel speak for you, Mr. Tull. Things will go better for you.”

  Tull leaned over and had an intense conversation with York, who did not look happy when she said, “My client wishes to speak to Dr. Alex Cross, Detective John Sampson, and Agent Edward Mahoney. After arraignment.”

  “Request for remand granted, Ms. Carbone. Ms. York, your client can be visited in the holding facility here or after his transport back to the federal holding facility.”

  “Here,” Tull said, and he looked over his shoulder at me, Sampson, and Mahoney. “Let’s do this here and right now.”

  Chapter

  84

  A few moments after the marshal led the writer out of the courtroom, we followed Tull’s attorney into the hallway.

  “I don’t know what he wants to tell you, but I am against it,” York said.

  “Maybe he wants to confess,” Sampson said.

  “That’s not happening,” she snapped. “He would have told me that.”

  The marshal who’d accompanied Tull came up to us. “His transport doesn’t leave for another twenty minutes if you want to talk to him here.”

  “I am slammed for time. I have a meeting with the director,” Mahoney said, glancing at his watch. “I can wait until he’s back at the federal holding facility later this afternoon.”

  I said, “I’d like to see why he’s so insistent on talking now.”

  “Me too,” Sampson said.

  “Okay,” Mahoney said, “but get it all on video.”

  The marshal led us through a door, down a flight of stairs, and past a series of holding cells. Tull was in the third cell on the right, waiting for us with conviction in his eyes.

  His attorney went to him. “I advise you again to say nothing, Thomas.”

  Tull looked past her at us. “I didn’t kill the Kanes. Ask Volkov.”

  “We tried,” said Sampson, who was filming the conversation with his phone. “Volkov’s a hard man to find.”

  “I told you that.”

  “Explain your relationship with him.”

  Tull said he had interviewed the Russian four years before when he was considering changing course in his writing career and doing an in-depth study of the world of modern organized crime.

  “The book never went anywhere, but Volkov and I stayed in touch because he could help me with my…vices. That’s it. Look, I’m a victim here, I’m being framed, and Volkov will corroborate that I was nowhere near the Kanes’ home that night.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Please, Thomas. DNA, video, website searches, and the smoking gun?”

  He shook his head violently. “I’m telling you, I’m being framed, Dr. Cross, and I think I know by who. My research assistant. She has access to the research laptop, my DNA, all of it.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t know you had a research assistant.”

  “Lisa Moore has worked with me on and off since Boston, since the electrocution murders,” he said. “But we go back even farther.”

  “I read the acknowledgments in your books and I can’t say I remember you mentioning anyone named Lisa Moore. Or a research assistant, for that matter.”

  Tull closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “She wanted it that way. In return for more money. Lisa cares nothing for acclaim.”

  “Then why would she frame you?”

  He hesitated. “Revenge. Because I would not keep increasing her pay.”

  Sampson said, “Has she asked you for more money lately?”

  “Constantly. Once on the day after I’d given her a raise. And she…uh, she recently threatened to reveal certain things about the way we work together unless I gave her a fifty percent increase in her salary. Fifty!”

  His attorney said, “Thomas, you told me none of this. I advise you to—”

  “I advise you to shut up or you’re fired, Counselor,” the writer shot back. He returned his attention to me and Sampson. “I’m not proud of this, but I used Moore in the past to…gin things up. In the stories, I mean.”

  My brows knit. “Give us an example of ginning things up.”

  He took an uncomfortable breath. “In Boston, she staged a break-in to heighten the public tension in the case. She did the same kind of thing in South Carolina during the Doctor’s Orders murders. She’s meticulous, though. Doesn’t get caught. She’s trained not to get caught.”

  “Who trained her not to get caught?” Sampson asked, sounding incredulous.

  “My suspicion is either DIA or CIA. Certainly one of the alphabet agencies. When I met her, I was working for NCIS on a case that required travel to Iraq and Afghanistan. Moore was a, quote, ‘private contractor’ who pointed me in the right direction a couple of times in my investigation. We hit it off. A year later, in an op gone wrong, she evidently killed two civilians, a mother and a daughter, but she avoided jail by ending her contract with the U.S. government.”

  I said, “And going to work for you?”

  “She came to visit me at Harvard and told me what had happened. I needed someone smart, someone…”

  “Willing to bend and break the rules if it helped the story,” Sampson said.

  “That almost describes Lisa,” Tull replied. “I’d actually describe her as someone who is eager to break the rules if it gets her to the end result that much faster.”

  Chapter

  85

  Shortly before eleven Sunday morning, Bree watched as Newark flickered by her window. She was on the Acela bound for Penn Station, where Detective Rosella Salazar would be waiting to take her to talk with members of the Manhattan district attorney’s office assigned to what the press were calling “the Paula Watkins murders.”

  Setting aside the newspaper, Bree called Phillip Henry Luster. She had not heard from him since the night of the murders and wondered how he was.

  On the fourth ring he answered in a flat voice, “This is Phillip.”

  “This is Bree Stone.”

  “I know.”

  “How are you, Phillip?”

  “Wanting bourbon and quaaludes,” he said. “Tell me, why has it taken so long for you to call and inquire as to my condition?”

  “I could say the same thing.”

  “Except you are a former cop and used to these sorts of unspeakable events. I can’t sleep because I keep seeing the lights go out at Paula’s, the flashes of the guns. I keep hearing the screams. I can’t get certain things about that night out of my mind.”

  “I apologize for not calling sooner, Phillip,” Bree said. “It was callous of me and I’m sorry. You’ve been such a big help. And what you’re suffering from is PTSD.”

  “Even I can diagnose that.” He sniffed. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Deal with all the violence,” he said.

  “I deal with it as little as possible and so should you. Phillip, you were caught up in things beyond your control and you lived. Be thankful.”

  “Oh, I am. But I fear I am more sensitive than others. I mean, look at Frances. Just plunging on as if nothing’s happened.”

  “Plunging on in what? Business?”

  “I have no idea about the business, but her social life has taken off. It’s a scandal. She’s actually going to attend a fundraiser I’m involved in tonight at Cipriani on Forty-Second.”

  “You invited her?”

  “Long before the tsunami, she and I were named cohosts. Look, no one involved is happy she’s coming, least of all me.”

  “Well, I’m in town, and I’d be happy to be a fly on the wall for that encounter,” Bree said and laughed. “I’m sorry, Phillip.”

  “No, no,” he said, then paused. “Are you free tonight?”

  “I was going to head back after a meeting with the DA.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll be my date. Your presence alone will irritate Frances no end. Do you have her gown with you?”

  “No, I don’t have anything like that with me.”

  “Well, I do,” Luster said. “Come straight to my studio after your powwow with the DA is over. I promise to make you look stunning.”

  Bree thought about it for a moment. She really wanted to head home after the meeting, but she said, “I know you will, Phillip, and I accept. It will be fun.”

  “A night to remember, I’m sure,” he said. “Until later.”

  He hung up. She realized the train was pulling into Penn Station. Looking out the window as it rolled slowly to a stop, she spotted Rosella Salazar sitting on a bench and rubbing her belly, which looked enormous.

  Bree walked up to her a few moments later and said, “You’re bigger every time I see you!”

  Salazar grinned sourly and struggled to her feet. “He’s giving me heartburn and hemorrhoids now. C’mon. The DA’s expecting us at quarter to twelve.”

  They walked through the new Penn Station welcome hall, a stunning structure, and out onto the street, where Salazar had a car waiting. After getting in and saying hello to the officer at the wheel, Bree told the detective about her conversation with Luster and the fundraiser that evening at Cipriani on Forty-Second.

  Salazar said, “You’re going?”

  “How could I refuse? He’s putting me in one of his dresses.”

  The detective laughed and looked down at her belly bulging against the tent shirt she wore. “He should get me a dress. I think seeing us together would rattle Frances even more.”

  “I’ll call Phillip back, see what he can do.”

  “Really?”

  “Why not?”

  Chapter

  86

  Washington, DC

  Sampson found Lisa Moore right where Thomas Tull said he’d find her—in an Airbnb she’d rented in the Kalorama neighborhood. When John brought in the writer’s assistant later that afternoon, I recognized Moore as the woman we’d seen putting an envelope in Tull’s mail slot the same night he’d raced the Porsche up Rock Creek Parkway and the Kane family had been killed.

  She almost smiled when she saw me. “Alex Cross. I know a lot about you.”

  “Probably more than I know about you,” I said.

  She smiled. “There’s not a lot to know, honestly.”

  “That’s not how Thomas Tull tells it,” Mahoney said. He looked at Sampson. “Has she been read her Miranda rights?”

  “At her front door,” Sampson said.

  The smile on Moore’s face vanished. “I don’t know what Thomas has been saying about me, but—”

  I cut her off. “What were you before you worked for Tull? CIA? DIA?”

  Moore raised her eyebrows and canted her head to the right. “I cannot answer those questions for too many reasons to count.”

  “You just did. Where did you go after you left Tull’s house the night of April twenty-second?”

  “The twenty-second?” she said and thought for a few moments. “Home. To my Airbnb.”

  “You were there all night?” Mahoney asked.

  “All night.”

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “my lover was with me from around nine p.m. until ten the next morning. What’s this about?”

  Sampson said, “Who’s your lover? Name, address, telephone number.”

  Moore took a deep breath. “I don’t think she’s ready to be out of the closet.”

  Mahoney said, “But you think you’re ready for an eight-by-ten cell?”

  Her eyes widened. “A cell? No.”

  I said, “Then give us her name.”

  “Keep her out of this, okay?” she said. “She’s a good person and this coming out in the media would be—”

  “The name,” Sampson growled.

  “Suzanne,” Moore said finally. “Suzanne Liu. She lives in—”

  “I know where she lives,” I said, my mind spinning a little. “And I have her phone number. She will say that she was with you that night?”

  “She will,” the researcher said without hesitation.

  “What about the nights the other families were murdered?” Sampson asked.

  “I was in New York all those times,” Moore said. “Also with Suzanne.”

  I asked, “How do you know that off the top of your head? The dates, I mean.”

  The researcher gave me a look. “Uh, I’m working on a book about the murders? I know all sorts of dates. It’s kind of the job.”

  Sampson said, “You have access to the Family Man laptop in Tull’s office?”

  “I know the password and I have e-mailed things to Thomas, but I haven’t been on it in at least a week.”

  “Convenient,” Mahoney said. “Tull believes you’re trying to frame him.”

  “Frame him?” she said. She threw back her head and laughed caustically. “I don’t need to frame him. He can do that himself. Play with the truth. You do know he makes stuff up, right?”

  “He admitted that he gins things up in his books,” I said. “Well, he admits that he pays you to gin things up, make them more dramatic than they really are. Is that true?”

  “If it is, it’s not a crime.”

  Sampson said, “How about taking the lives of an innocent mother and daughter in the Middle East? Was that a crime?”

  Moore swallowed hard. “That was investigated. I was totally exonerated.”

  “You can prove that?”

  “It would be a challenge, given certain national secrecy laws, but yes.”

  “You do know Thomas Tull is in custody and has been arraigned,” Sampson said.

  “I’d heard that.”

  “But you didn’t think to reach out and contact us?”

  “No,” she said. “I was in shock. I…I didn’t know what to think or believe at first.”

  I said, “So what do you think now? Is Thomas Tull the Family Man killer?”

  For a long time, she said nothing, just stared at the table.

  “Ms. Moore?” Mahoney said.

  “Little things in all the cases we worked together, you know?” she said, lifting her eyes to gaze at each of us in turn. “Little things Thomas would say or do. And the times he’d disappear for days. The facts he’d ignore or gloss over. In my heart I don’t want to believe it, but I guess it’s possible, Dr. Cross. Maybe more than possible.”

  Chapter

  87

  After several more questions, Mahoney, Sampson, and I left the interrogation room and walked down the hall.