Pop Goes the Weasel Read online

  Shafer served the dinner himself, without any help, and he announced the name of each dish both in Thai and in English. “Plaa meuk yaang, or roast squid. Delicious.” “Mieng kum, leaf rolls with ‘treasures.’ Yummy.” “Plaa yaang kaeng phet, grilled snapper with red curry sauce. Delectable. A little hot, though. Hmmm.”

  He watched them tentatively sample each course; as they tasted the snapper, tears began to run down their faces. Erica began to choke.

  “Daddy, it’s too hot!” Robert complained, gulping.

  Shafer smiled and nodded blithely. He loved this—the flowing tears, his perfect little family in pain. He savored each exquisite moment of their suffering. He’d managed to turn the dinner into a tantalizing game, after all.

  At quarter to nine he kissed Lucy and started off on his “constitutional,” as he called his nightly disappearing act. He went out to the Jag and drove a few blocks to Phelps Place, a quiet street without many lights.

  He took liberal doses of Thorazine and Librium, then injected himself with Toradol. He took another Xanax.

  Then he went to his doctor’s.

  Chapter 59

  SHAFER DIDN’T LIKE the arrogant, asshole doormen at Boo Cassady’s building, and they didn’t like him, he decided.

  Who needed their approval, anyway? They were shiftless, lazy incompetents, incapable of doing much more than holding open doors and offering up ingratiating smiles to fat-cat tenants.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Cassady,” Shafer announced to the familiar black wanker with Mal jauntily pinned on his lapel. It was probably there so that he wouldn’t forget his own name.

  “Right,” said Mal.

  “Isn’t that ‘Right, sir’?”

  “Right, sir. I’ll ring up Dr. Cassady. Wait right here, sir.”

  He could hear Boo through the doorman’s staticky phone receiver. She had no doubt left explicit instructions that he be let up immediately. She certainly knew he was coming—they’d talked during the car ride from his house.

  “You can go up now, sir,” the doorman finally said.

  “I’m fucking her brains out, Mal,” Shafer said. He waltzed to the elevators with a grin. “You watch that door now. Don’t let anyone take it.”

  Boo was in the hallway to meet him when the elevator cruised to a stop on ten. She was wearing at least five thousand dollars’ worth of clothes from Escada. She had a great body, but she looked like a bullfighter or a marching-band leader in the gaudy outfit. No wonder her first two husbands had divorced her. The second husband had been a therapist and treating M.D. Still, she was a good, steady mistress who gave much better than she got. More important, she was able to get him Thorazine, Librium, Ativan, Xanax. Most of the drugs were samples from drug-company representatives; her husband had left them behind when they’d split. The number of “samples” left by the drug reps amazed Shafer, but she assured him it was common practice. She had other “friends” who were doctors, and she hinted to Shafer that they helped her out in return for an occasional fuck. She could get all the drugs he needed.

  Shafer wanted to take her right there in the hall, and he knew Boo would like the spontaneity and the passion that were so clearly missing from her life. Not tonight, though. He had more basic needs: the drugs.

  “You don’t look too happy to see me, Geoff,” she complained. She took his face in her manicured hands. Christ, her long, varnished red nails scared him. “What happened, darling? Something’s happened. Tell Boo what it is.”

  Shafer took her in his arms and held her tightly against his chest. She had large soft breasts, great legs, too. He stroked her frosted blond hair and nuzzled her with his chin. He loved the power he had over her—his goddamned shrink.

  “I don’t want to talk about it just yet. I’m here with you. I feel much better already.”

  “What happened, darling? What’s wrong? You have to share these things with me.”

  So he made up a story on the spot, acted it out. Nothing to it. “Lucy claims she knows about us. God, she was paranoid before I started to see you. Lucy always threatens to destroy my life. She says she’ll leave me. Sue for what fucking little I have. Her father will have me fired, then blackball me in the government and in the private sector, which he’s perfectly capable of doing. The worst thing is, she’s poisoning the children, turning them against me. They use the same belittling phrases that she does: ‘colossal failure,’ ‘underachiever,’ ‘get a real job, Daddy.’ Some days I wonder whether it isn’t true.”

  Boo kissed him lightly on the forehead. “No, no, darling. You’re well thought of at the embassy. I know you’re a loving dad. You just have a bitchy, mean-spirited, spoiled-rotten wife who gets you down on yourself. Don’t let her do it.”

  He knew what she wanted to hear next, so he told her. “Well, I won’t have a bitchy wife for much longer. I swear to God I won’t, Boo. I love you dearly, and I’m going to leave Lucy soon.”

  He looked at her heavily made-up face and watched as tears formed and ruined her look. “I love you, Geoff,” she whispered, and Shafer smiled as if he were pleased to hear it.

  God, he was so good at this.

  Lies.

  Fantasies.

  Role-playing games.

  He unbuttoned the front of her mauve silk blouse, fondled her, then carried her inside to the sofa.

  “This is my idea of therapy,” he whispered hotly in Boo’s ear. “This is all the therapy I need.”

  Chapter 60

  I HAD BEEN UP since before five that morning. I had to call Inspector Patrick Busby in Bermuda. I wanted to talk to him every day, sometimes more than once, but I stopped myself.

  It would only make things worse, strain my relations with the local police, and signal that I didn’t trust them to handle the investigation properly.

  “Patrick, it’s Alex Cross calling from Washington. Did I catch you at a good time? Can you talk for a moment now?” I asked. I always tried to sound as upbeat as possible.

  I wasn’t, of course. I had been up pacing the house, and already had breakfast with Nana. Then I’d waited impatiently until eight-thirty Bermuda time to call Busby at the station house in Hamilton. He was an efficient man, and I knew he was there every morning by eight.

  I could picture the thin, wiry policeman as we talked on the phone. I could see the tidy cubicle office where he worked. And superimposed over everything, I could still see Christine on her moped waving good-bye to me on that perfectly sunny afternoon.

  “I have a few things for you from my contact at Interpol,” I said. I told him about an abduction of a woman on Jamaica earlier in the summer, and another in Barbados; both were similar, though not identical, to Christine’s disappearance. I didn’t think they were connected, really, but I wanted to give him something, anything.

  Patrick Busby was a thoughtful and patient man; he remained silent until I had finished talking before asking his usual quota of logical questions. I had observed that he was flawed as an interrogator because he was so polite. But at least he hadn’t given up.

  “I assume that neither abduction was ever solved, Alex. How about the women who were taken? Were they found?”

  “No, neither woman was seen again. Not a sign of them. They’re still missing.”

  He sighed into the phone receiver. “I hope your news is helpful in some way, Alex. I’ll certainly call the other islands and check into it further. Anything else from Interpol or the FBI?”

  I wanted to keep him on the line—the lifeline, as I now thought of it. “A few far-flung possibilities in the Far East, Bangkok, the Philippines, Malaysia. Women abducted and murdered, all Jane Does. To be honest, nothing too promising at this point.”

  I imagined him pursing his thin lips and nodding thoughtfully. “I understand, Alex. Please keep giving me whatever you get from your sources. It’s difficult for us to get help outside this small island. My calls for assistance frequently aren’t returned. I sincerely wish that I had some good news for you on my end, bu
t I’m afraid I don’t.

  “Other than Perri Graham, no one saw the man with the van. No one seems to have seen Christine Johnson in Hamilton or St. George, either. It’s truly a baffling mystery. I don’t believe that she ever got to Hamilton. It’s frustrating for us, too. My prayers are with you and your wonderful family and, of course, John Sampson.”

  I thanked Patrick Busby and hung up the phone. I went upstairs and dressed for work.

  I still had nothing really substantial on the murder of Frank Odenkirk, and The Jefe was contacting me daily on e-mail. I certainly knew how the Odenkirk family felt. The media heat about the homicide had died down, though, as it often does. Unfortunately, so had the Post stories about the unsolved murders in Southeast.

  While I was taking a hot shower, I thought about DeWitt Luke and the mysterious “watcher” on S Street. What was the man in the Mercedes doing out there for so long? Did he have some connection with the murders of Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal? None of this was making complete sense to me. That was the truly maddening thing about the Jane Doe murders and the Weasel. He wasn’t like other repeat killers. He wasn’t a criminal genius like Gary Soneji, but he was effective. He gets the job done, doesn’t he?

  I needed to think more about why someone had been lurking outside Tori Glover’s apartment. Was he a private detective? A stalker? Or was he actually the murderer? One possibility hit me. Maybe the man in the car was an accomplice of the killer. Two of them, working together? I’d seen that before in North Carolina.

  I turned up the water, made it hotter. I thought it would help me to concentrate better. Steam out the cobwebs in my brain. Bring me back from the dead.

  Nana began banging on the pipes from downstairs in the kitchen. “Get down here and go to work, Alex. You’re using up all my hot water,” she yelled above the noise of the shower.

  “Last time I looked, my name was on the water and gas bills,” I shouted back.

  “It’s still my hot water. Always was, always will be,” Nana replied.

  Chapter 61

  EVERY DAY, EVERY NIGHT, I was out on the streets of Southeast, working harder than ever, but with nothing much to show for it. I continued to search for the mysterious purple and blue cab, and for the late-model black Mercedes that DeWitt Luke had seen on S Street.

  Sometimes I felt as if I were sleepwalking, but I kept at it, sleepwalking as fast as I could. Everything about the investigation seemed a long shot at best. I received tips and leads every day that had to be followed up; none of them went anywhere, though.

  I got home at a little past seven that night, and tired as I was, I still let the kids drag me downstairs for their boxing lesson. Damon was showing me a lot of hand speed, and also some pretty good footwork and power for his age. He’s always had good spirit, and I was confident that he wouldn’t abuse his burgeoning boxing skills at school.

  Jannie was more a student of boxing, though she seemed to recognize the value of being able to defend herself. She was quick at mastering techniques, seeing connections, even if her heart wasn’t completely in the sport. She preferred to torture her brother and me with her taunts and wit.

  “Alex, telephone,” Nana called down from the top of the cellar stairs. I looked at my watch, saw it was twenty to eight.

  “Practice your footwork,” I told the kids. Then I trudged up the steep stone stairs. “Who is it?”

  “Wouldn’t say who it was,” Nana said as I got up to the kitchen. She was making shrimp and corn fritters, and the room was also filled with the glorious smells of honey-baked apples and gingerbread. It was a late dinner for us—Nana had waited until I got home.

  I picked up the phone on the kitchen counter. “Alex Cross.”

  “I know who you are, Detective Cross.” I recognized the voice immediately, though I’d heard it only once before—in the Belmont Hotel, in Bermuda. A chill went right through me, and my hands shook.

  “There’s a pay phone outside the Budget Drugs on Fourth Street. She’s safe for now. We have her. But hurry. Hurry! Maybe she’s on the pay phone right now! I’m serious. Hurry!”

  Chapter 62

  I EXPLODED out the back kitchen door without saying a word to Nana or the kids. I didn’t have time to explain where I was going, or why. Besides, I didn’t really know exactly what was happening. Had I just spoken to the Weasel?

  Hurry! Maybe she’s on the pay phone right now! I’m serious.

  I sprinted across Fifth Street, then down a side alley and over to Fourth. I dashed another four blocks south toward the Anacostia River. People on the streets watched me running. I was like a tornado suddenly roaring through Southeast.

  I could see the metal frame of a pay phone from more than a block away as I approached Budget Drugs. A young girl was leaning against the graffiti-covered wall of the drugstore, talking on the phone.

  I pulled out my detective’s shield as I raced the final block toward her.

  This particular phone gets a lot of use. Some people in the neighborhood don’t have phones in their homes.

  “Police. I’m a homicide detective. Get off the phone!” I told the girl, who looked nineteen or so. She stared at me as if she couldn’t care less that a D.C. policeman was trying to commandeer the phone.

  “I’m using this phone, mister. Don’t care who you are. You can wait your turn like everybody else.” She turned away from me. “Probably just calling your honey.”

  I yanked the receiver away from her, disconnected her call.

  “The fuck you think you are!” the girl shouted at me, her face screwed up in anger. “I was talking. The fuck you thinking.”

  “I’m thinking you better get out of my face. This is a lifeand-death situation. Get away from this phone. Now! Get out of here!” I could see she had no intention of leaving. “There’s been a kidnapping!” I was yelling like a madman.

  She finally backed away. She was afraid that I was really crazy, and maybe I was.

  I stood there with my hand on the phone receiver, trembling, waiting for the call to come in. I was winded. Sweat covered my body.

  I stared up and down Fourth Street.

  Nothing obvious or suspicious. I didn’t see a purple and blue cab parked anywhere. No one watching me. Somebody definitely knew who I was. He had called me at the Belmont Hotel; he had called me at home.

  I could still hear the caller’s voice echoing loudly inside my head. I’d been haunted by the same words for weeks.

  “She’s safe for now.

  “We have her.”

  Those were the words written to me six weeks before, in Bermuda. I hadn’t heard another word from the caller until now.

  My heart was pounding, sounding as if it were amplified in my ears. Adrenaline was rushing like powerful rivers through my bloodstream. I couldn’t stand this. The caller had stressed that I hurry.

  A young man approached the pay phone. He stared at my hand on the receiver. “Wuzup, man? I need to use the phone. The phone? You hear me?”

  “Police business.” I gave him a hard stare. “Take a walk, please. Go!”

  “Don’t look like no police business to me,” he mumbled.

  The man moved away, looking over his shoulder as he retreated down Fourth, frowning, but not stopping to argue with me.

  The caller liked to be completely in control, I was thinking as I stood there helpless in front of the busy drugstore. He’d made me wait this long since the Bermuda call, possibly to demonstrate his power. Now he was doing it again. What did he really want, though? Why had he taken Christine? We have her, he’d said, and he’d repeated the very same words when he called my house. Was there really a we? What kind of group did he represent? What did they want?

  I stood at the pay phone for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. I felt as if I were going mad, but I would stay there all night if I had to. I began to wonder if this was the right phone, but I knew it was. He had been crystal-clear, calm, in control.

  For the first time in weeks I allowed myself to t
ruly hope that Christine might be alive. I imagined her face, her deep-brown eyes that showed so much love and warmth. Maybe, just maybe, I would be allowed to talk to her.

  I let my anger build toward the unknown caller. But then I cut it off, shut down my emotions, and waited with a cool head.

  People came and went, in and out of the drugstore. A few wanted to use the phone. They took one look at me and then moved on in search of another phone.

  At five minutes to nine, the phone rang. I lifted the receiver instantly.

  “This is Alex Cross,” I said.

  “Yes, I know who you are. That’s already been established. Here’s what you should do. Back all the way off. Just back away. Before you lose everything you care about. It can happen so easily. In a snap. You’re smart enough to understand that, aren’t you?”

  Then the caller hung up. The line was dead.

  I banged the phone with the receiver. I cursed loudly. The manager from the drugstore had come outside and was staring at me.

  “I’m going to call the police,” he said. “That’s a public phone.” I didn’t bother to tell him I was the police.

  Chapter 63

  WAS IT THE WEASEL who had called? Was I dealing with one killer, or more than one?

  If only I had some idea who the caller was and who he meant by we. The message scared me just as much as the first one had, maybe even more; but it also gave me hope that Christine might still be alive.

  With hope came a jolting surge of pain. If only they would put Christine on the phone. I needed to hear her voice.

  What did they want? “Back all the way off.” Back off from what?

  The Odenkirk murder case? The Jane Does? Perhaps even Christine’s disappearance? Was Interpol or the FBI getting close to something that had scared them? We weren’t close to anything that could solve any of the cases, and I knew timing was critical.