Cross Fire Page 17
“Hey, Strings!” I shouted over. “Can I use your system?”
“Knock yourself out! Password’s B-I-G-B-U-T-Z.”
“Of course it is,” I said.
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Once I got the prints onto the computer, it took IAFIS about half an hour to spit out four possible matches. A lot of the time, the final comparison is done by eye, which is good. It helps keep the process human.
And it didn’t take long for me to confirm one of the four.
The tented arch pattern on our man’s index finger was fairly distinctive, even as these little puzzles go.
With a few keystrokes, I had his name and record right there in front of me.
He was Stanislaw Wajda.
That explained the accent anyway. He’d been arrested just once, on a domestic assault charge in College Park, Maryland, a year and a half earlier. It didn’t seem like too much to go on.
But, in fact, I’d just stumbled onto a killer.
Chapter 88
AN INITIAL ONLINE search for “Stanislaw Wajda” brought up all kinds of different results. When I filtered for news reports, I got a whole slew of year-old stories about a missing-persons case.
That seemed promising, and I clicked on the first one, from the Baltimore Sun.
Questions Persist in Professor’s Disappearance
April 12, College Park — The search continues for University of Maryland professor Stanislaw Wajda, 51, who was last seen leaving the A. V. Williams Building on the university campus the evening of April 7.
Wajda’s mental state at the time of his disappearance has since become a matter of widespread speculation. While local police and UM officials have declined to comment on the issue, the professor’s erratic behavior over the last six months is a matter of public record.
In October, police were summoned to Wajda’s home on Radcliffe Drive for a domestic-disturbance call. Wajda, who had no previous criminal record, was charged with aggravated assault and held overnight, until the charges were dropped.
On campus, Professor Wajda has been brought before the university provost two times in the past year, once for unspecified aggressive behavior toward a graduate student, and a second time following what one eyewitness described as an explosive episode in the university library over a missing periodical.
Wajda, a professor of mathematics, came to the United States from Poland in 1983 to study at Boston University, where he won several top academic prizes in his field. More recently, he was featured in the PBS NOVA documentary “Ones to Watch” for his study of prime numbers, and specifically his pursuit of a proof for what many consider to be the holy grail of mathematics today: Riemann’s hypothesis.…
I stopped reading right there, got up, and dialed Sampson’s number on my way out the door.
“Strings, thanks much.”
“No problem. Glad to help out.”
Chapter 89
“WHERE ARE YOU, JOHN?”
“I’m outside of the damn shelter, if you can believe it. I can’t. Guy pushed a shopping cart around the block a few times and then checked back in for a bed before Siegel and the others were even gone. I’ve got Donny Burke coming to take the overnight for me.”
“We need to pull the guy out of there,” I said.
“Why do you sound like you’re running?”
“He’s a math professor, John. An expert in prime numbers. And Riemann’s hypothesis.”
“What?”
“Yeah. His name’s Stanislaw Wajda, and he’s been missing for a year. Wait for me. I’ll be right there.”
It was faster to run over to the shelter than get my car. I was already down the back stairs and cutting across Judiciary Square.
“I’ve got this,” Sampson said. “I’ll have him out by the time you get here.”
“John, don’t —”
But he’d already hung up. Sampson can be just as stubborn and pigheaded as I am sometimes, which is why it’s hard to hold it against him.
I picked up the pace.
From Judiciary Square, I came out on Fourth Street and cut around the block toward Second. Before I got there, though, I saw Sampson coming right toward me as if he’d just been around the back of the building.
“He’s gone, Alex! His cart’s not there anymore, and there’s a goddamn door in the back. He duped me! He’s out!” Sampson turned away and kicked a garbage bag off the curb, sending a shower of trash into the street.
Before he could take another swinging kick, I pulled him back. “Hang on, John. One thing at a time. We don’t know anything for sure yet.”
“Don’t even start with that,” he told me. “It’s him. I put that damn knife back in his hand, and then I let him get away.”
“We both did, John,” I said. “We both did.”
But Sampson wasn’t hearing me. I could tell he was going to blame himself no matter what I said, so I stopped trying and switched to action.
“He can’t be far,” I said. “It’s not like he hopped into a cab or something. We’ll walk the neighborhood all night if we have to. I’ll get this out on WALES right away. Put some more eyes on the street. Maybe get someone from Warrant Squad in the morning, if it comes to that. Those guys are bloodhounds. We’ll get him.”
Sampson nodded and started up the street without another word. No time like the present.
“What’d you say the name was?” he asked as I came up alongside him.
“Stanislaw Wajda,” I told him.
“Stanislaw…?”
“Wajda.”
“Screw it. I’ll learn to say it after we find the son of a bitch.”
Chapter 90
IT WAS THREE DAYS BEFORE we got anywhere even close to some forward movement. No Talley. No Hennessey. No Wajda.
And then the worst happened.
On Friday morning, for the third time that month, I got an early call from Sampson about a dead body. Another junkie had been beaten to death, with more of the same numbers gibberish carved into his forehead and across his back.
But one thing was different this time, and it changed everything.
“They found Stanislaw’s shopping cart next to the body,” Sampson told me. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s his. Hard to tell one from another, you know?” His voice was hoarse. I wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten since Wajda had disappeared. “This poor kid doesn’t look like he was much more than eighteen, Alex.”
“Sampson, are you going to be okay?” I asked. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I sure hope so.”
“This isn’t your fault, John. You know that, right?”
He still wasn’t ready to answer that one. All he said was “You don’t have to come down here.”
“I’m coming,” I said. “Of course I am.”
Chapter 91
THE SCENE AT Farragut Square was depressingly familiar when I got there. I’m never sure which is worse — the shock of something I’ve never seen before, or the weight of seeing it one too many times.
“The cart’s definitely his,” Sampson told me. “We just found this.”
He held up an evidence bag with my own smudged business card inside. It felt like a hard kick to the head. What a mess this was.
“There’s also visible blood spatter on the frame, and a sawed-off sledgehammer on the bottom rack. Presumably our murder weapon.”
“I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. “There’s a long underpass right by Lindholm. Homeless people sleep there all the time. That may be where he’s been hunting for his victims.”
“Maybe so,” John said. “But then why cart them all the way over here? I don’t get this at all. Why K Street?”
Not counting Kyle Craig’s fake-out with Anjali Patel, all three victims in this case had been left somewhere along K, each one near the intersection of a pri
me-numbered street — Twenty-third, Thirteenth, and now Seventeenth. With two incidents, it had been harder to see, but with three, the pattern popped right out. I wondered if the letter “K” represented something specific in mathematics, but I wasn’t sure. And, moreover, “The man’s insane, Sampson. That’s the one constant. We may not get very far looking for motive here.”
“Or for him,” John said, and thumbed over at the cart. “Whatever made him leave his stuff behind, something’s changed, Alex. I don’t know what it is, but I have a feeling we may never see this guy again. I think he’s history.”
Chapter 92
STANISLAW WAJDA BLINKED AWAKE. It was hard for him to see at first. A chiaroscuro of vague forms filled his vision. Then, slowly, things began to distinguish themselves. A wall. Concrete blocks. An old boiler on a cracked cement floor.
The last he remembered, he’d been in the park. Yes. The boy. Was it just last night?
“Hello,” someone said, and Stanislaw jumped. His heart lurched into a gallop as he suddenly knew enough to be scared.
A man was there. Dark hair. Vaguely familiar.
“Where am I?” said Stanislaw.
“Washington.”
“I mean —”
“I know what you mean.”
His hands were unbound, he realized. His feet, too. No chains, no handcuffs. He’d almost expected otherwise. He looked down and saw that he was sitting, half slumped, in an old wooden chair.
“Don’t get up,” the man said. “You’re still going to feel a little bit groggy.”
He’d seen this man’s face before. At the shelter. Yes. With the two black detectives. Yes. Yes.
“Are you the police?” he said. “Am I arrested?”
The man chuckled low, which was very odd indeed. “No, Professor. May I call you Stanislaw?”
Even as the situation began to take shape, none of it made any sense to him.
“How do you know my name?” he said.
“Let’s say I’m an admirer of your work,” the man told him. “I saw what you did in Farragut Square last night, and I don’t mind telling you, it was a thrill. Definitely worth the effort for me to get all the way over there.”
Wajda’s stomach lurched. He felt as though he might vomit. Or even faint.
“Oh Jezu —”
“Not to worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” The man pulled another chair over and sat down across from him. “But tell me something, Stanislaw. What’s with the prime numbers? The police reports say it’s something about Riemann’s hypothesis. Is that accurate?”
So he knew. This strange fellow knew what he’d done. Stanislaw could feel tears warming the corners of his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “Riemann’s. Yes.”
“But what about it, specifically? Enlighten me, Professor. I’m dying to know.”
It had been a long time since Stanislaw had seen curiosity in a young person’s eyes. Years and years. A lifetime ago…
“The Riemann zeta function zero, as you know, lies on the critical line with real part between zero and one, if the zeta function is equal to zero —”
“No,” the man said. “Listen to me carefully. Why do you kill for it? What does it mean to you?”
“Everything,” he said. “To understand it is to grasp infinity, do you see? To conceive of a framework so vast as to transcend ideas of size or even limitation —”
The man slapped him hard across the face. “I don’t want one of your stupid college lectures, Professor. I want to know why you kill those boys in the way that you do. Now, can you answer that for me or not? You’re intelligent — it should be simple.”
He could, Stanislaw realized suddenly. Yes. Yes. The outcome had been taken from his hands. There was no longer room for anything but the truth.
“Those boys are better off dead,” he said. “There is nothing here for them but misery and suffering. Don’t you understand? Don’t you see?”
“I do see.”
“They have fallen out of God’s reach, but I can still help them. I can give them that which is infinite,” he said. “I can give them back to God. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” the man said, and stood up. “This is very disappointing. We might have —” He paused and smiled. “Well, never mind about what might have been. Thank you, Professor. It’s been an education.”
“No,” Stanislaw said. “Thank you.”
He saw the ice pick then, and followed it with his eyes as the man raised it up and to the side until it disappeared into silhouette against a bare bulb in the ceiling. Then Stanislaw lifted his own chin high, opening himself as widely as possible so that no matter what happened, the man would be sure not to miss.
Chapter 93
I’M SO USED to my own phone going off at all hours that I was reaching for the nightstand before I realized it was Bree’s cell ringing, not mine. The clock by the bed said 4:21. Oh, good God Almighty, what now?
“This is Stone.” I heard her in the dark. “Who’s this?”
Right away, she sat up. When she turned on the light beside the bed, the phone was pressed against her chest, and she whispered so low that she practically mouthed the next words to me.
“It’s Kyle Craig.”
Now I was up, too. When I took the phone, I could hear Kyle still talking on the other end of the line.
“Bree, sweetheart? Are you there?”
If he’d been in front of me, I honestly believe I could have killed him without thinking twice. But I kept my head as best I could. I grabbed control of my emotions.
“Kyle, it’s Alex. Don’t ever call this number again,” I said, and hung up.
Bree’s jaw literally dropped. “What was that?” she said. “Why did you do that?”
“My line in the sand. It doesn’t do me any good to let him keep setting the rules.”
“Do you think he’ll call back?”
“Well, if he doesn’t, we’ll both get a little more sleep,” I said.
Something had changed in me. I wasn’t going to keep playing this game forever. I couldn’t.
And, in any case, my own cell phone rang a few seconds later.
“What?” I answered.
“Bree never answered my question,” Kyle said. “About how the wedding plans were coming along. I figured that was more her department than yours.”
“No,” I said. “You wanted to make yourself seem more threatening.”
He laughed almost congenially. “Did it work?”
“I’m hanging up, Kyle.”
“Wait!” he said. “There is something else. It’s important, or I wouldn’t be calling so early.”
I didn’t ask what it was. In fact, I was about to hang up anyway when he went on.
“I got you an engagement present,” he said. “Of sorts. Since I’m allowing you to get married and all. A little something to free up your schedule, so you can focus on that pretty little bride to be.”
Now my heart sank. I had to know. “Kyle? What have you done?”
“Well, if I told you, that would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it?” he said. “Twenty-ninth and K, northeast corner. And you might want to hurry.”
Chapter 94
BY SUNRISE, we had a full tactical team in place at the corner of Twenty-ninth and K. There was very little I’d put past Kyle, and while it could be a mistake to show up when and where he specified, I couldn’t just ignore the phone call. So we took precautions, as much as we possibly could.
The location was at the edge of Rock Creek Park, with the Whitehurst Freeway running overhead. We put officers with MP5s on the overpass, and a barrier of armored SWAT vans hugging the corner to block as many sight lines as possible.
Our nerve center was a coffee shop on K, where the SWAT unit commander, Tom Ogilvy, could stay in radio contact with his team. Sampson and I listened in on headsets.
EMS was on standby, with patrol units barring the street a block away in each direction. All personnel were outfitted wit
h Kevlar and helmets.
And maybe it was all for nothing. Was Kyle actually watching? Was he armed? Ready with something up his sleeve? Or maybe none of the above. I think that’s exactly what he wanted me to wrestle with now.
In any case, it didn’t take long for the entry team to find something. Less than five minutes after they’d snaked into the park from Twenty-ninth, their lead man radioed over.
“We’ve got a body here,” he said. “White male, middle-aged. Looks like it could be a homeless guy.”
“Proceed with caution,” Ogilvy radioed back. We’d already briefed everyone about the possibilities here. “I want a full visual check around that body before anyone touches it. B Team, I need you on high alert.”
Three more minutes of silence ticked by until the “all clear” came back — such as it was. When I reached for the coffee shop door, Sampson grabbed my arm.
“Let me do this one, Alex. If Kyle’s here, it could be you he’s waiting for.”
“No way,” I told him. “Besides, if Kyle ever comes for me, it’s going to be face-to-face, not from a distance.”
“Oh, because you know everything there is to know about that maniac?” he said.
“I know that much,” I said, and headed outside.
Even before we got close to the body in the park, I recognized Stanislaw Wajda’s filthy barn coat. He’d been left on his side, shoved under a clump of bushes, just like his own victims before him.
There was no carving this time. The only visible injury was a single puncture wound to the throat, similar to the one we’d seen on Anjali Patel.
The skin on his neck was a solid stain of dried blood, and it continued down under his shirt. That meant he’d most likely been sitting up when he was stabbed. Probably when he died, too.
We’d already run prints on the shopping cart and sledgehammer from Farragut Square. There was no doubt anymore that Wajda was our Numbers Killer. Still, whatever he’d done when he was alive, I felt a wave of pity for him now.