“Screw you, Puller.”
“Speaking of, your little maneuver on the bed last night? If that was your way of getting me to trust you, it seriously failed.”
She sighed. “Okay, I guess I deserved that. And I’m sorry.” She sat up straighter. “So, Vincent DiRenzo?”
Puller’s shoulders relaxed with the change in direction of the conversation. “Had a solid career in CID. Nothing spectacular, but no big screwups either. He returned my call this morning and agreed to meet with us.”
“You said he lives on a lake?”
“Smith Mountain Lake. I’ve been there before when I was working a case. Beautiful place. Mountains rise up right out of the water. It’s a hydroelectric lake,” he tacked on. “About forty miles long with more shoreline than the state of Rhode Island. Calling it a lake doesn’t seem to do it justice.”
She nodded. “Sounds great.”
“We should also talk to the local police back in Williamsburg who handled the serial murders.”
“I’ve already made calls. Waiting to hear back. And the FBI was involved too.”
He nodded. “I was hoping you could make a call about that. You have more pull in that circle than I do.”
“You expect me to make a lot of calls,” she said sharply.
“Isn’t that why you’re here? To help?”
She looked out the window again and didn’t answer him.
* * *
Vincent DiRenzo was a widower who lived in a three-bedroom gray shingle-sided cottage set on a small cove with mountain views in the distance. The yard was full of flowerbeds and neatly maintained.
They rang the doorbell several times and received no answer. Knox peered into the garage.
“There’s a car in there.”
Puller looked around. “Let’s try the dock. It’s a nice day, he might be down there.”
“Nice place to retire,” commented Knox as they walked to the dock.
“You ever expect to retire?”
“Neither one of us can do what we do forever.”
“Some days it seems like it’s the only thing I can do.”
“Then you have my sympathy.”
Though it was a freshwater lake, Puller could smell the brine in the air. A flotilla of ducks was making its way across the water as a boat pulling a slalom skier turned to avoid them. The ducks paddled quickly out of harm’s way.
Puller and Knox went around a curve in the path and the dock came into view. It had two boat slips, a small enclosed kitchen and gazebo, and a storage shed, all on pilings with a pressure-treated wooden deck as the floor.
They spotted DiRenzo standing next to a boat up on a lift. Puller called out and DiRenzo turned and motioned them over.
The former CID agent was short and muscular. Introductions were made and he shook their hands with a firm grip. He was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt that read Army Strong. His hair was close-cropped and mostly gray. A matching mustache spread over his top lip.
He had the engine compartment open on a trim yellow-and-white Chaparral twenty-five-footer that was up on the lift.
“Nice boat,” commented Puller.
“Handles the wake well and it’s got a lot of pep when I need it.”
“Sailor can’t ask for more than that,” replied Puller.
“You mind if I keep working while we talk?” asked DiRenzo.
“Not at all. Can I help you with anything?”
“You can hand me some tools when I ask you.”
“Sure thing.”
DiRenzo climbed into the boat and started taking off some bolts from the engine using a socket wrench.
“So, the Jackie Puller case,” began Knox.
DiRenzo finished loosening one bolt and dropped it into a bucket on the boat’s deck. He asked Puller for another size socket. Puller handed it to him and DiRenzo took a moment to pop it on before glancing at Puller.
“Notice you had the same last name.”
“She was my mother.”
“I actually remember you and your brother, although I’m sure you don’t remember me. And everybody knew about your dad.” He started loosening another bolt. “After you phoned, I made some calls to old buddies still in harness. You’ve got one helluva rep at CID, Chief Puller.”
“I try to do my job like the Army taught me to do it.”
“No argument there.” DiRenzo wiped some grease off his hands and sat on the boat’s gunwale. “Over the years I’ve thought about your mother’s case from time to time. Damnedest thing I’d ever seen. It was like she vanished into thin air. No one saw, heard anything. I worked my ass off trying to get traction. A one-star’s wife goes missing? You better cover all your bases. And it wasn’t just any one-star. Hell, it was Fighting John Puller. You didn’t want to face that man with no answers. Intimidating doesn’t come close to describing your father.”
“But you never reached any sort of resolution?”
DiRenzo shook his head. “We never even had one solid lead.”
“I’ve looked at the case notes. You were thorough. Followed all the right procedures.”
“But as you well know, some of it, maybe the most important parts of it, are what you feel in the gut. Probably eighty percent of the cases I solved were like that. You get a feel for the situation and then your instincts tell you when something doesn’t smell right. But with that case I never got a feel for anything. I hit a total wall at the end. It was the most frustrating point of my career. I almost quit CID because of it. I felt like a failure. And it wasn’t just me. They had other agents on the case. Again, it was Fighting John Puller. They were going scorched earth.”
“Did you personally speak to General Puller?” asked Knox.
“Several times. As you know, he was out of the country when his wife disappeared.”
Puller and Knox exchanged a subtle look that DiRenzo failed to notice.
“There was never any motive,” continued DiRenzo. “That’s what always bugged the hell out of me. There usually is. Random crimes, particularly on a military installation, aren’t all that common. The people usually know each other.”
“At the time my mother disappeared there was a series of murders in Williamsburg?” He paused and studied DiRenzo for his reaction to this.
The older man finished wiping off his hands and took up his socket wrench once more. But he didn’t start loosening bolts. He just held it in his hand, tapping it against his other palm.
“We knew about that, of course. But your mother didn’t fit that pattern, as I recall.”
“She wasn’t exactly the right age, but she could have passed for at least five years younger,” pointed out Knox. “And she was well dressed that night. That’s not so far off from the victims in Williamsburg. They were young professional women.”
“But all those other killings took place in the Williamsburg area. The bodies were all found within five miles of the place.”
“But Hampton is not that far away. And serial killers have been known to have one-offs. Seize an opportunity.”
“Well, what you say is true,” conceded DiRenzo. “But I remember back then that it was not deemed to be connected.”
“Do you know who made that determination?” asked Puller.
“Well, it wasn’t me. It came from higher up.”
“In CID or somewhere else?”
“Just higher up. It filtered down to us grunts. Not sure of the origin. You know the Army. You follow orders.”