Triple Cross

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.”