Roses Are Red Read online

  Kyle knew Sampson and a few of my other detective friends. They came over and chatted with him as if this were a social visit. People tend to like Kyle. I do, too — but not now, not tonight. He said he had to peek in on little Alex before we talked business.

  Chapter 5

  I WENT ALONG WITH KYLE. The two of us stood over the Boy, who was now asleep amid colorful stuffed bears and balls in a port-a-crib in Nana’s room. He held on to his favorite bear, which was named Pinky.

  “The poor little boy. What a bad, bad break,” Kyle whispered as he looked down at Alex. “He looks like you instead of Christine. How are you two doing, anyway?”

  “We’re settling back into things okay,” I said, which wasn’t the truth, unfortunately. Christine had been gone from Washington for a year, and since she’d been back, we hadn’t done as well as I would have hoped. I missed the intimacy more than I could say. It was killing me. But I wasn’t able to tell anyone about it, not even Sampson or Nana.

  “Please, Kyle. Just leave me alone for tonight.”

  “I wish this could wait, Alex. I’m afraid it can’t. I’m on my way back to Quantico now. Where can we talk?”

  I shook my head and felt anger building up inside. I led him to the sunporch, where I keep an old upright piano that still plays about as well as I do. I sat down on the creaky piano bench and tapped out a few notes of Gershwin’s “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

  Kyle recognized the tune and he grinned. “I am sorry about this.”

  “Not sorry enough, obviously. Go ahead.”

  “You heard about the Citibank-branch robbery out in Silver Spring? The murders at the bank manager’s house?” he asked. “Manager’s husband, their nanny, three-year-old son?”

  “How could I not hear about it?” I said, and looked away from Kyle. The brutal, senseless murders had saddened me and knotted my stomach when I read about them. The story was all over the papers and TV. Even cops in D.C. were outraged.

  “I didn’t really understand what I heard so far. What the hell happened at the manager’s house? The perps had the money, right? Why did they have to kill the hostages if they had the money? That’s what you’re here to tell me, right?”

  Kyle nodded. “They were late getting out of the bank. The explicit order was that the crew member inside had to be out with the money by eight-ten exactly. Alex, the crew member at the bank was less than a minute late. Less than a minute! So they murdered the thirty-three-year-old father, the three-year-old boy, and the couple’s nanny. The nanny was twenty-five, and she was pregnant. They executed the father, the three-year-old, the nanny. You see the murder scene, Alex?”

  I rolled my shoulders, twisted my neck. I could feel the tension invading my body. I saw it, all right. How could they have murdered those people for no reason?

  I really wasn’t in the mood for police business, though, not even a bad case like this one. “Which brings you out to my house tonight? On my son’s christening day?”

  “Oh, hell.” Kyle suddenly smiled and lightened his tone. “I had to come over to see the promised child, anyway. Unfortunately, this case is really intense. There’s a possibility the crew is from D.C. Even if they’re not from Washington, there’s still a possibility somebody here might know them, Alex. I need you to look for the killers — before they do it again. We have the feeling this isn’t a one-shot. Alex, your baby is a beauty, though.”

  “Yeah, you’re a beauty, too,” I said to Kyle. “You are truly beyond compare.”

  “Three-year-old boy, the father, a nanny,” Kyle said one more time before he left the party. He was about to go through the door in the sunporch when he turned to me and said, “You’re the right person for this. They murdered a family, Alex.”

  As soon as Kyle was gone, I went looking for Christine. My heart sank. She had taken Alex and left without saying good-bye, without a single word.

  Chapter 6

  RELUCTANTLY, the Mastermind parked on the street, then walked toward an abandoned project within a stone’s throw of the Anacostia River. A full moon cast a cold, hard, bone white light on half a dozen crumbling three-story row houses with open, screenless windows. He wondered if he had the stomach for this. “Into the valley of death,” he whispered.

  To his further dismay, he found the Parkers’ hideout was in the row house farthest from the street. They were ensconced on the third floor. Their lovely little lodging was furnished with a grimy, stained mattress and a rusted lawn chair. Greasy wrappings from KFC and Mickey D’s were scattered on the floor.

  As he entered their room, he held up a couple of oven-warm pizza boxes as well as a brown paper bag. “Chianti and pizza! This is a celebration, isn’t it?”

  Brianne and Errol were evidently hungry and dug into the pizza pies immediately. They barely greeted him, which he took as disrespect. The Mastermind busied himself pouring Chianti into plastic cups he had brought for the occasion. He passed around the cups and then made a toast.

  “To perfect crimes,” he said.

  “Yeah, right. Perfect crimes.” Errol Parker frowned as he took two big sips of Chianti. “If that’s what you call what happened in Silver Spring. Three murders that could have been avoided.”

  “That’s what I call it,” said the Mastermind. “Absolutely perfect. You’ll see.”

  They ate and drank in silence. The Parkers seemed moody, even defiant. Brianne kept sneaking looks at him. Suddenly, Errol Parker began to rub his throat. He coughed repeatedly. Then he gasped loudly, “Aaagh! Aaagh!” His throat and his chest were burning. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to stand, but he immediately toppled over.

  “What is it? What’s wrong, Errol? Errol?” Brianne asked, alarmed and afraid.

  Then she grabbed at her throat, too. It was on fire. So was her chest. She shot up from the mattress. She dropped the cup of wine and held her throat with both hands.

  “What the hell is happening? What’s happening to us?” she screamed at the Mastermind. “What did you do?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he answered in the coldest, most remote voice she had ever heard.

  The tenement room seemed to be whirling out of control. Errol went into spasms, then fell to the floor in a seizure. Brianne bit a gash in her tongue. Both of them were still clutching at their throats. They were choking, gagging, unable to breathe. Their faces had taken on a dusky hue.

  The Mastermind stood across the room and watched. The paralysis from the poison they had imbibed was progressive and extremely painful. It started with the facial muscles, then moved to the glottis in the back of the throat. The Parkers obviously couldn’t swallow. Finally, it affected the respiratory organs. A high enough dose of Anectine led to cardiac arrest.

  It took less than fifteen minutes for the two of them to die, as mercilessly as those murdered in Silver Spring, Maryland. They lay motionless, spread-eagled on the floor. He was quite sure that they were dead, but he checked the vital signs, anyway. Their features were unbearably contorted and their bodies twisted. They looked as if they had fallen from a great height.

  “To perfect crimes,” the Mastermind intoned over the grotesquely sprawled bodies.

  Chapter 7

  I TRIED TO CALL CHRISTINE early the next morning, but she was screening her calls and wouldn’t pick up. She’d never done that to me, and it stung. I couldn’t get it out of my head as I showered and dressed. Finally, I went to work. I was hurt, but I was also a little angry.

  Sampson and I were out on the streets before nine. The more I read and thought about the Citibank robbery in Silver Spring, the more troubled and confused I was about the exact sequence of events. It didn’t make sense. Three innocent people had been murdered — for what reason? The bank robbers already had their money. What kind of cruel and twisted sickos were they? Why kill father and child and the family’s nanny?

  It turned out to be a long and consistently frustrating day. Sampson and I were still on the job at nine that night. I tried calling Christine at home
again. She still wasn’t picking up, or maybe she wasn’t there.

  I have a couple of tattered black notebooks filled with names of street contacts. Sampson and I had already talked to more than two dozen of the prime ones. That still left plenty for tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. I was pretty well hooked into the case already. Why kill three people at the bank manager’s house? Why destroy an innocent family?

  “We’re dancing around something,” Sampson said as we drove through Southeast in my old car. We had just finished talking to a small-time hustler named Nomar Martinez. He knew about the bank robbery in Maryland, but not who did it. The late, great Marvin Gaye was singing on the car radio. I thought of Christine. She didn’t want me out here on these streets anymore. She was serious about it. I wasn’t sure if I could quit being a detective. I liked my job.

  “I had that same feeling with Nomar. Maybe we should have brought his ass in. He was edgy, afraid of something,” I said.

  “Who’s not afraid of something in Southeast?” Sampson asked. “The question remains. Who’s gonna talk to us?”

  “How about that ugly mutt there?” I said, and pointed toward the street corner we were approaching. “He knows everything happening around here.”

  “He spotted us,” Sampson said. “Shit, there he goes!”

  Chapter 8

  I SPUN THE STEERING WHEEL hard to my left. The Porsche skidded toward a stop, then hopped the curb with a jolting thud. Sampson and I jumped out and started to run after Cedric Montgomery.

  “Stop! Police!” I yelled at him.

  We shot down a narrow, twisted alley behind the small-time enforcer and all-around tough guy. Montgomery was a source of information, but he wasn’t a snitch. He just knew things. He was in his early twenties; Sampson and I were both a whisker past forty. We worked out and we were still fast — at least in our minds.

  Montgomery could really move, though. He was a blur up ahead of us.

  “He’s just a sprinter, sugar,” Sampson huffed. He was at my side, matching me stride for stride. “We’re good for the long haul.”

  “Police!” I yelled again. “Why are you running, Montgomery?”

  Sweat was already forming on my neck and back. The perspiration was dripping down from my hair. My eyes were burning. But I could still run. Couldn’t I?

  “We can take him,” I said. I accelerated, turned up my jets. It was a dare — a challenge to Sampson, a game we’d been playing for years. Who can? We can.

  We were actually gaining some on Montgomery. He looked back — and couldn’t believe we were right behind him. Two freight trains on his tail, and there was no way for him to get off the track.

  “Put it in full gear, sugar!” Sampson said. “Prepare for impact.”

  I gave it everything. Sampson and I were still matching steps. We were having our own private footrace, and Montgomery was the finish line.

  We both hit him at the same time. He went down like a shocked wide receiver crushed between two very fast linebackers. I was afraid he would never get up again. But Montgomery rolled a few times, moaned, and then looked at us in total amazement.

  “Goddamn!” he whispered. That was all he said. Sampson and I took the compliment, then we cuffed him.

  Two hours later Montgomery was talking to us at the station house on Third Street. He admitted that he had heard something about the robbery and murders over in Silver Spring. He was willing to trade information if we would look past half a dozen dime bags he had in his possession when we gang-tackled him on the street.

  “I know who you lookin’ for,” Montgomery said, and he seemed sure of himself. “But you ain’t gonna like hearin’ who it is.”

  He was right — I didn’t like what he told me. Not at all.

  Chapter 9

  I WASN’T SURE whether I could trust Cedric Montgomery’s information, but he’d given me a good hard lead that I had to follow. He was right about one thing: His tip was disturbing to me. One of the people he’d implicated in the robbery was the stepbrother of my late wife, Maria. He’d heard that Errol Parker might have done the bank in Silver Spring.

  Sampson and I spent the next day trying to locate Errol, but he wasn’t at home or at any of his usual haunts around Southeast. His wife, Brianne, wasn’t around, either. No one had seen the Parkers for at least a week.

  Around five-thirty I stopped by the Sojourner Truth School to see if Christine was still there. I’d been thinking about her all day. She hadn’t answered my calls or returned any messages.

  I had met Christine Johnson two years before, and we’d almost gotten married. Then a sad and tragic thing had happened, and I still blamed myself: She was kidnapped by a monster who had committed several murders in Southeast. She had been held as a hostage for nearly a year. Christine was kidnapped because she was seeing me. She was missing for a year and believed to be dead. When Christine was found, there was another surprise. She had a baby, our son, Alex. But the abduction had changed her, wounded her in ways she didn’t understand, and she couldn’t cope with that. I’d tried to help in any way I could. It had been months since we’d been intimate. She kept pushing me farther and farther away. Now Kyle Craig had made it even worse.

  Nana usually watched over the baby while Christine was working at the Sojourner Truth School. Then Christine and little Alex went to her apartment in Mitchellville. It was the way she needed it to be.

  I entered the school through a metal side door near the gym and heard the familiar sound of basketballs pounding against hardwood and the laughter and joyful screams of kids. I found Christine huddled over the computer in her office. She is the principal at the Sojourner Truth School. Jannie and Damon are students there.

  “Alex?” Christine said when she saw me at the door. I read the sign on the wall: Praise loudly, blame softly. Was Christine able to do that for me? “I’m almost finished for the day. Just give me another minute or two.” At least she didn’t seem angry about the other night with Kyle Craig; she didn’t tell me to leave.

  “I came to walk you home from school. I’ll even carry your books,” I said, and smiled. “That’s all right?”

  “I guess so,” she said, but she didn’t smile back and she still seemed so far away.

  Chapter 10

  WHEN CHRISTINE WAS READY TO GO, we locked up the school together, then strolled down School Street toward Fifth. True to my word, I carried Christine’s briefcase filled with what felt like a dozen books. I tried a little joke. “You didn’t say anything about carrying your bowling ball, too.”

  “I told you the books were heavy. I’m a heavy thinker, you know. Actually, I’m kind of glad you came by tonight,” she said.

  “Couldn’t keep myself away.” I told the truth and shamed the devil. I wanted to take Christine’s arm, or at least her hand, but I held back. It seemed strange and wrong to be so close and yet so distant from her. I ached to hold her in my arms.

  “I want to talk to you about something, Alex,” she finally said. She stared into my eyes. I could tell from the look on her face that this probably wasn’t good news I was about to hear.

  “I was hoping that it wouldn’t bother me — your getting on a new murder case. But it does bother me, Alex. It makes me crazy. I worry about you. I worry about the baby. And I worry about my own safety. I can’t help it after what happened in Bermuda. I haven’t been sleeping since I returned to Washington.”

  It tore me apart to hear Christine talk like this. I felt terrible about what had happened to her. She had changed so much, though. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do to make it better, to help her. I’d been trying for months, but nothing worked. I worried that I wouldn’t just lose Christine, but little Alex as well.

  “I remember some of the dreams I’ve had lately. They’re so violent, Alex. And they’re so real. The other night you were chasing the Weasel again, and he killed you. He stood there calmly and shot you again and again. Then he came and killed the baby and me. I woke up
screaming.”

  I finally took her hand. “Geoffrey Shafer is dead, Christine,” I said.

  “You don’t know that. Not for sure,” Christine argued, and pulled her hand away from me. She was angry again.

  We walked along the edge of the Anacostia River in silence. After a while she told me about some of her other dreams. I sensed she didn’t want me to interpret them. Just to listen. The dreams were all violent — people Christine knew and loved were mutilated and murdered.

  Christine finally stopped walking at the corner of Fifth near my house. “Alex, I have to tell you something else. I’ve been going to a psychiatrist, Dr. Belair, in Mitchellville. He’s helping me.”

  Christine continued to stare into my eyes. “I don’t want to see you anymore, Alex. I’ve thought about this for weeks. I’ve talked about it with Dr. Belair. You can’t change my mind, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try.”

  She took her briefcase from me, then she walked away. She didn’t let me say a word, but I would have found it hard to speak, anyway. I had seen the truth in her eyes. She didn’t love me anymore. What made it so much worse was that I still loved her, and of course, I loved our baby boy.

  Chapter 11

  I REALLY DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE, so I threw myself into the bank robbery and multiple murders investigation. The newspapers and TV were still filled with sensational stories about the murdered father, child, and nanny. The picture of three-year-old Tommy Buccieri seemed to be everywhere. Did the killer want us to feel outrage? I wondered.

  Sampson and I spent most of one day trying to find Errol and Brianne Parker. The more I followed up on the Parkers with the FBI, the clearer it got that they had probably been robbing small banks in Maryland and Virginia for at least a year. The job at Silver Spring was different. If they had done it, something had happened to change their style; they had become brutal, heartless killers. Why?