CHAPTER THREE
2025 Words
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, at a quarter to six, Stella arrived at the FBI New Haven office feeling anxious. Roth had wanted to meet as soon as possible. She’d explained she was out of town and would only arrive home after midnight, so he’d scheduled the briefing for the early morning.
Stella had barely slept, knowing that every minute counted, and worrying that she was already compromising the success of this case.
She climbed out of her small Ford Fiesta at exactly the same time Rick Maxwell, her investigation partner, climbed out of his low-slung Mustang.
“Well, hey! You also got the memo about the meeting?” the fit, dark-haired Maxwell asked, a grin warming his tanned face.
“That’s a surprise! Maybe Roth sent it to the whole department?” Stella quipped back, and they laughed. The humor made her feel better. It eased the pressure she felt about handling this new case.
In fact, it wasn’t just the laughter that warmed Stella. Simply being in Maxwell’s presence was enough to lift her spirits, making her feel motivated to do her best, and be her best. Suddenly, the dark, chilly predawn seemed brighter.
The young, dynamic, ferociously intelligent Maxwell had been partnered with her for the past few cases they’d investigated. Although he’d started out resenting her the first time she’d been involved, things had changed a lot since then, and in surprising ways.
Stella wasn’t ready to classify her feelings as romance yet. Both of them were taking it slow. But, as they headed toward the main entrance, she felt a flash of warmth as his hand accidentally brushed hers.
Quickly, she walked ahead as they entered the main building. The security guard on duty at the door nodded politely as they hurried through. Even at this early hour, New Haven was bustling with activity. Mondays were always busy. The spacious lobby resounded with the trilling of phones, the muted chatter of voices, and the tapping of footsteps on the gleaming tiles.
The clean, distinct smell of polish had become a familiar scent to Stella as she entered the building.
They turned down the corridor where Roth had his offices. Striding alongside her again, Maxwell checked his watch.
“We’re early. Want coffee?”
“Thanks, I’d love some,” Stella said gratefully.
Maxwell peeled off, heading for the kitchenette, and Stella walked into the office.
She saw Roth’s laptop open on the desk. So he was here. A moment later, he appeared, talking on his phone and holding a bunch of papers. His chestnut-brown hair, although freshly cut, looked as if he’d slept on it wrong. Stella had often thought with some amusement since joining the team, that despite Roth’s incredible skills and leadership, every day was a bad hair day for her boss.
“Yes. Yes. Absolutely,” he said into the phone. “I’m about to meet with my agents. They’ll be on the scene in a couple of hours.” He disconnected and put the papers down on his desk. “Morning, Fall. Morning, Maxwell,” he said, as Maxwell rushed in with three steaming cups.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet yesterday,” Stella said, feeling guilty all over again that she’d chosen the wrong time to explore her father’s past.
“The local police made a start on it,” Roth reassured her. “However, it now means we need to move fast. We can’t afford any further delays.”
They sat down at Roth’s desk.
“Okay. First things upfront. For this murder case, you two will be working on your own.”
Stella exchanged a glance with Maxwell, feeling at once thrilled and terrified at the official confirmation of their first solo case. The pressure was on.
“Why’s that?” Maxwell asked.
“The money laundering case that Agent Billings is handling is becoming increasingly complex. The tentacles of the involvement go deep, and they go a long way. So, I said I’d join them on it.”
At that, Stella’s ears pricked up.
Her rival in the New Haven office, Carrie Potts, was working under Special Agent Billings. Ever since they’d been at the FBI Academy in Quantico together, Carrie had perceived Stella as a threat and had tried her best to jeopardize her career.
Having Roth working closely with her was not an ideal scenario. Carrie was intelligent and sneaky. Stella feared she would do her utmost to poison Roth against her, in subtle ways, while presenting herself as the most capable and sought-after young agent the FBI had ever employed.
Stella already felt under pressure and Roth hadn’t yet told them about the case he was handing to them. She wondered what it would be as he opened the file.
“Here’s the background. College kid in Putnam by the name of Clint Woods threw a house party while his parents were on a weekend trip out of town. They got back yesterday morning to find the place impressively trashed, and a dead body in the tub in the master bathroom.”
“Cause of death?” Maxwell asked.
Given the circumstances, Stella’s money was already on a fight. Things had gotten out of hand, alcohol had been a contributing factor, and two of the students had fought. Her mind was already racing ahead to the cause of death. A fist fight could have caused the death, more so if one of the fighters had slipped and fallen. A gunshot was possible, especially since the parents had been away and might have left access to the g*n safe.
A stabbing was also in the cards, but it was the cause of death she dreaded the most, thanks to her own experience. She’d never forgotten the utter shock she’d felt waking up next to her fiancé, Vaughn, and finding him in a pool of blood with a knife sticking out of his chest. Some images could never be forgotten. Time didn’t heal.
Stella knew she shouldn’t assume but couldn’t prevent herself from imagining the possibilities as she waited for what Roth would say.
A fight would probably have had witnesses, or people would have overhead it. Both parties might have injuries. Hopefully that would allow them to resolve the case quickly.
Of course, when he spoke, Roth surprised her completely and made Stella wish she hadn’t already started visualizing wrong scenarios.
“Victim was a woman. When the crime was called in, they hadn’t ID’ed her yet, but I believe they have since done so. They just haven’t gotten around to telling us. And the cause of death was strangulation. She had a cable tie slipped around her neck and tightened.”
“What?” Stella asked incredulously.
Roth’s explanation had veered all the way off-script. Strangled by a cable tie? That wasn’t a typical outcome for a drunken college party at all.
Strangulation? She simply couldn’t understand it. She saw her own surprise reflected in Maxwell’s face as Roth continued calmly.
“Jansen, the assistant investigator from the Putnam Police Department, called me yesterday and asked if we could handle it in tandem with them. I agreed and told him you’ll head to the scene immediately after your briefing.”
“Why do they want the FBI involved?” Stella asked.
She hoped that this family was not politically connected. She’d had more than enough trouble of that kind in her last murder case.
Luckily, her fears were put to rest by Roth.
“They want us to get involved because Clint Woods is a student at the University of Connecticut, and a lot of his friends and fellow students were at the party. Now, you may or may not know that the University of Connecticut has one of the highest numbers of international students in the wider area, including over a thousand internationals in Applied Mathematics, which is the degree Clint is studying.”
Stella didn’t know this and was surprised to learn it. Immediately, she could see how this would add to the complexity of the case.
“Forty-nine countries are represented in the university, including many students from China, India, and South Korea. Inevitably, some of them ended up at the party,” Roth sighed. “It’s a potentially sensitive situation, and there will be international implications if one of them is the killer. Jansen picked up on this immediately and called me. He’s been in touch with the university, and they are very anxious that it gets solved fast. You’ll be dealing with him, and with Detective Grover, who’s in charge.”
“I see,” Stella said, understanding the importance of their early involvement.
“Head there straight away. It’s a developing case and there’s new information becoming available by the minute. They’ll be able to tell you far more by the time you arrive, I should think. Keep me updated and let me know if there are any problems. If you guys need help, I’ll step in, but if you can handle it fast without me, that’ll be first prize.”
Stella drained her coffee and stood up. She felt ready for the challenge.
She grabbed her purse, and Maxwell signed out the keys for one of the unmarked vehicles. Then they walked out.
“Strangled by a cable tie?” Maxwell said in a soft, disbelieving voice, as they strode down the corridor to the exit.
“It feels surreal. It doesn’t make sense. Unless a cable tie was lying around somewhere, just as someone got mad?” Flimsy in the extreme, as theories go, Stella thought. She’d need to start reasoning better than that.
“Could it have been s****l, do you think?” Maxwell asked as they climbed into the unmarked.
“I guess so, but a cable tie? That sounds rather extreme. s****l strangulation with a silken rope or even a cord from a bathrobe would be more plausible,” she said.
Maxwell sighed. “Yeah. My thinking also. We’re being thrown in the deep end on something that looks to be far weirder than I thought.”
Maxwell’s music started up automatically when he hooked his phone up to the car’s Bluetooth. Quickly, he turned the sound off. Stella saw him shake his head somberly, as if this was not the time to be airing his eclectic mix of songs. Not when they were on their way to such a serious assignment.
It had started to rain. In the quietness of the car, cold drizzle spattered the windscreen in gusts as they headed out onto the road, and toward the highway that led to Putnam.
As they reached a red light at one of the main intersections, Stella noticed a newspaper billboard that chilled her blood.
“Shock Evidence in Marshall Trafficking Case,” it screamed.
She stared at it, feeling sick with worry.
This was her ex’s family. In the brief time she’d spent at the Marshalls’ Greenwich mansion, she had been the first to uncover the misdoings that the family had been involved in. The police had then investigated and laid charges.
The Marshalls had fought back hard, but from this headline, it seemed like their legal team was getting buried by the mountain of incriminating evidence. If any of the Marshalls were convicted, Stella knew their fury at her would know no bounds. The family already wanted nothing more than to destroy her.
How Stella wished this entire complicated mess would just go away. Instead, it sounded as if it was getting worse.
She turned her head away from the poster, not wanting to read those troubling words again, and stared out of the passenger window as the rain-swept landscape sped by.
She couldn’t do anything about the Marshalls, but their vendetta against her meant a constant need for her to perform at her best. She knew that they would quickly get to hear about any weakness, any fault, any mistake she made, and they would use it against her.
The pressure was on to solve her first solo case – fast, thoroughly, and without making any mistakes that might come back to haunt her.
- Writer
