Cross Country Read online

  “Okay,” she said, stroking my back, soothing me. “Tell me what I can do.”

  I folded us both under the covers. “Just lie here with me,” I said. “That’s all I need for now.”

  “You got it.”

  And soon, wrapped in Bree’s arms, I went off to sleep—for a whole two hours.

  Chapter 5

  “I SPY, WITH my little eye, a pink newspaper,” said Bree.

  “Over there!” Ali was quick to spot it. “I see it! It is pink. What kind of crazy newspaper is that?”

  To my family’s surprise and delight, I hadn’t left for work at some obscene hour the morning after I found Ellie and her family dead in their home. Today, I wanted to walk the kids to school. Actually, I wanted to do it most every day, but sometimes I couldn’t, and sometimes I didn’t. But today I needed lots of fresh air in my life. And smiles. And Ali’s giggles.

  Jannie was in her last year at Sojourner Truth, all ready for high school, while Ali was just starting out in the school world. It seemed very circle-of-life to me that morning, with Ellie’s family gone in a blink, and my own kids coming up strong.

  I put on my best cheerful dad face and tried to set aside the gruesome images of last night. “Who’s next?”

  “I’ve got one,” Jannie said. She turned a canary-eating grin on Bree and me. “I spy, with my little eye, a POSSLQ.”

  “What’s a possel-cue?” Ali wanted to know. He was already looking around, moving his head like a bobblehead doll’s, trying to spot it, whatever it was.

  Jannie practically sang out the answer. “P, O, S, S, L, Q. Person of the opposite sex, sharing living quarters.” She whispered the word sex in our direction, presumably to safeguard her little brother’s innocence. No matter, I could feel myself blushing slightly.

  Bree tagged Jannie’s shoulder. “Where exactly did you pick that one up?”

  “Cherise J. She says her mom says you two are, you know, living in sin.”

  I exchanged a look with Bree over the top of Jannie’s head. I guessed this was bound to come up in some way or another sooner or later. Bree and I had been together for more than a year now, and she spent a good amount of time at the house on Fifth Street. Part of the reason was that the kids loved having her around. Part was that I did.

  “I think maybe you and Cherise J. need to find something else to talk about,” I told her. “You think?”

  “Oh, it’s okay, Daddy. I told Cherise her mom needs to get over herself. I mean, even Nana Mama’s down with it, and her picture’s in the dictionary under ‘old-fashioned,’ right?”

  “You wouldn’t have any idea what’s in a dictionary,” I said.

  But Bree and I had stopped trying to be politically correct with Jannie, and we just let ourselves laugh. Jannie had that “crossroads” thing going on these days; she was right at the intersection of girl and woman.

  “What’s so funny?” Ali asked. “Somebody tell me. What is it?”

  I scooped him up off the sidewalk and onto my shoulders for the last half block of our walk to school. “I’ll tell you in about five years.”

  “I know anyway,” he said. “You and Bree love each other. Everybody knows. No big deal. It’s a good thing.”

  “Yes it is,” I said and kissed his cheek.

  We dropped him at the school’s east entrance, where the rest of his class of minicuties were lining up outside. Jannie called to him through the fence. “See you later, alligator! Love you.”

  “In a while, crocodile! Love you back.”

  With their older brother, Damon, off at prep school in Massachusetts, these two had grown closer than ever lately. On weekend nights, Ali often slept on an air mattress at the foot of his sister’s bed, in what he called his “nest.”

  We left Jannie at the opposite side of the school building, where all the older kids were streaming in. She gave us both hugs good-bye, and I held on a little longer than usual. “I love you, sweetie. There’s nothing more special to me than you and your brothers.”

  Jannie couldn’t help but look around to make sure no one had heard. “Me too, Daddy,” she said. Then, almost in the same breath, “Cherise! Wait up!”

  As soon as Jannie was gone, Bree took my arm in hers. “So what was that?” she said. “ ‘Everybody knows you and Bree love each other’? ”

  I shrugged and smiled. “What do I know? That’s the big rumor going around, anyway.”

  I gave her a kiss.

  And because that worked out so well, I gave her another.

  Chapter 6

  BY NINE A.M. I was all kissed out and getting ready to enter a most unpleasant multiple-homicide briefing at the Daly Building. It was being held in the large conference room right across from my office. Handy, anyway. Every available D-1 and D-2, and a contingent from Second District, which covered most of Georgetown, would be there.

  I still couldn’t get it in my head that Ellie was the victim. One of the victims.

  The ME’s Office had sent over a representative in the person of Dr. Paula Cook, a bright investigator who had the personality of tapioca pudding. The corners of Dr. Cook’s mouth actually twitched when we shook hands. I think it was an attempted smile, so I smiled back. “Thanks for coming, Paula. We need you on this one.”

  “Worst I’ve seen,” she said, “in fourteen years. All those kids, the parents. Turns my stomach. Senseless.”

  We had picked up a stack of crime scene photos on the way in, and now Paula and I pinned some of them up in the situation room. I made sure they were all 11 × 14s. I wanted everyone to feel some of what had happened last night in Georgetown, the way I still did.

  “This might be an isolated incident,” I stood in front and told the assembled group a few minutes later. “But I’m not going to assume it is. The more we understand, the more prepared we’ll be if this happens again. It might not be an isolated incident.” I figured some of the more jaded homicide detectives wouldn’t agree; they’d be thinking I’d worked one too many serial cases. I didn’t much care what they thought at that point.

  For the first fifteen minutes or so, I ran through the primary facts of the case for those who hadn’t been there the night before. Then I turned it over to Paula. She bounced up and talked us through the photos on the wall.

  “The cutting styles indicate a variety of weapons, strength, and ability,” she said, using a red laser pointer to highlight the slashes, punctures, and severing that had been done to the Cox family.

  “At least one blade had a serrated edge. One was unusually large—possibly a machete. The amputations, wherever they occurred, were never done cleanly. Rather, they were the result of repetitive trauma.”

  A detective named Monk Jeffries asked a pretty good question from the front row. “You think they were practicing? Had never done this before?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Paula told him. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Yeah,” I put in. “It’s like they were practicing, Monk.” I had my own opinion about the murders. “There’s something very young about this crime scene.”

  “As in inexperienced?” Jeffries asked.

  “No. Just young. I’m talking about the cutting, the broken bed, the vandalism in general. Also the fact that this was probably done by a group of five or more. That’s a big group of intruders. When I intersect all those factors, I get a few possibilities: gang, cult, OC. In that order.”

  “Gang?” another D-1 asked from the back. “You ever see gang violence like this massacre?”

  “I’ve never seen violence like this, period,” I said.

  “I’ve got twenty bucks on OC. Any takers?” It was Lou Copeland, a competent but thoroughly obnoxious D-1 with Major Case Squad. A few of his cronies laughed.

  Not me. I threw my clipboard across the room. It struck the wall and fell onto the tile. That wasn’t like me, so it made an impression.

  The room was quiet. I walked over to pick up my notes. I saw Bree and Sampson exchange a look I didn’t like. They
weren’t sure that I could handle this.

  Bree took it from there, and she started handing out assignments. We needed people recanvassing the Cambridge Place neighborhood, riding the lab for fast turnaround, and calling in any chits we had on the street for information about last night.

  “We need your best work on this one,” Bree told the group. “And we want some answers by the end of the day.”

  “What about—?”

  “Dismissed!”

  Everyone looked around. It was Sampson who’d spoken.

  “You all have any more questions, you can reach Stone or Cross on their cells. Meanwhile, we’ve got a buttload of fieldwork to do. This is a major case. So get started! Let’s hit it, and hit it hard.”

  Chapter 7

  THE TIGER WAS the tallest and strongest of ten well-muscled black men racing up and down a weathered asphalt basketball court at Carter Park in Petway. He understood that he wasn’t a skillful shooter or dribbler, but he rebounded like a pro and defended the basket fiercely, and he hated to lose more than anything. In his world, you lose, you die.

  The player he guarded called himself “Buckwheat” and the Tiger had heard that the nickname had something to do with an old TV series in America that sometimes made fun of black kids.

  Buckwheat either didn’t mind the name, or he’d gotten used to it. He was fast on the basketball court and a steady shooter. He was also a trash-talker, as were most of the young players in DC. The Tiger had picked up the game in London instantly while he was at university, but there wasn’t much trash-talking in England.

  “You talk a good game, but you’re going to lose,” the Tiger finally said as he and his opponent ran up the court, shoulder to shoulder. Buckwheat turned off a screen and took a bounce pass in the left corner. He proceeded to bury a long, perfectly arced jump shot even though the Tiger bumped him hard after the release.

  “Fuckin’ ape,” the other man yelled as the two of them ran back the other way.

  “You think so?”

  “Oh hell, I know so. ’Nother minute, you be the big monkey watchin’ on the sideline!”

  The Tiger laughed but said nothing more. He scored on a rebound, and then Buckwheat’s team raced the ball up the court on a fast break.

  Buckwheat caught a pass in full stride and brought it hard to the hoop. He had a step on the Tiger and called out, “Game!” even before he went up for the winning dunk.

  He was airborne, graceful and athletic, when the Tiger hit him with all his force and weight. He took the six-foot-three man down, drove him into the metal pole supporting the basket. The man lay sprawled on the asphalt with blood streaming from his face.

  “Game!” shouted the Tiger and raised both arms high over his head. He loved to play basketball—what great fun it was to beat these loudmouthed African Americans who didn’t know anything about the real world.

  On the sidelines, his boys cheered as if he were Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant rolled into one. He wasn’t any of that, he knew. He didn’t want to be like Mike or Kobe. He was much better.

  He decided life and death on a daily basis.

  He walked off the court, and a man came up to him. This particular man couldn’t have been more out of place, since he wore a gray suit and he was white.

  “Ghedi Ahmed,” said the white devil. “You know who he is?”

  The Tiger nodded. “I know who he used to be.”

  “Make an example of him.”

  “And his family.”

  “Of course,” said the white devil. “His family too.”

  Chapter 8

  I PUT IN a call for help to my friend Avie Glazer, who headed up the Gang Intervention Project in the Third District. I told Avie why it was important to me.

  “ ’Course I’ll help. You know me, Alex. I’m more tapped into La Mara R, Vatos Locos, Northwest gangs. But you can come over here and ask around Seventeenth and R if you want. See if anybody’s tuned in.”

  “Any way you could meet us?” I asked him. “I’ll owe you one. Buy you a beer.”

  “Which makes it how many total? Favors and beers?”

  That was his way of saying yes, though. Bree and I met Avie at a shitty little pool hall called Forty-Four. The owner told us that was how old he was when he opened the place. Avie already knew the story but listened politely anyway.

  “Seemed like as good a name as any,” the owner said. His what-ev attitude struck me as that of a long-term stoner. For sure, he wasn’t making his nut on billiards and sodas. His name was Jaime Ramirez, and Avie Glazer had advised me to give him room and a little respect.

  “You know anything about the murders in Georgetown last night?” I asked Ramirez after we’d chitchatted some. “Multiple perps?”

  “That was some awful shit,” he said, leaning on the bottom half of a Dutch door, a brown cigarette held between stubby fingers and tilted at the same angle as his body.

  He chinned up at the television in the corner. “Channel Four’s all I get in here, Detective.”

  “How about any new games opening up?” Bree asked. “Players we might not have heard about? Somebody who would wipe a family out?”

  “Hard to keep up,” Ramirez said and shrugged. That’s when Glazer gave him a look. “But yeah, matter of fact, there has been some talk.”

  His dark eyes flicked almost involuntarily past me and Bree. “Africans,” he said to Avie.

  “African American?” I asked. “Or—”

  “African African.” He turned back to Avie. “Yo, Toto, I’m gonna get something for this? Or this a freebie?”

  Avie Glazer looked at me first and then at Ramirez. “Let’s say I owe you one.”

  “What kind of African?” I asked.

  He shrugged and blew out air. “How’m I supposed to know that? Black-guys-from-Africa kind of African.”

  “English speaking?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “But I never spoke to them. Sounds like they’re into a little bit of everything. You know, four-H club? Hits, ho’s, heroin, and heists. This ain’t your graffiti-and-skip-party kind of gang.”

  He opened a glass-fronted cooler and took out a can of Coke. “Anyone thirsty? Two dollars.”

  “I’ll take one,” Glazer said. He cupped a couple of bills into Ramirez’s hand, and they didn’t look like singles.

  Then Glazer turned to me. “And I will collect from you too. Count on it.”

  “Africans,” Ramirez repeated as we headed toward the door, “from Africa.”

  Chapter 9

  THIS WAS THE last place I wanted to be in DC, or probably anyplace else.

  So unbelievably sad, and eerie, and tragic. So many memories rising to the surface for me.

  Ellie’s office was up on the second floor of the house in Georgetown. It was as tidy and meticulously organized as I remembered her being back when we thought we might love each other.

  A copy of Sidney Poitier’s The Measure of a Man was open on the arm of an easy chair. I’d liked the autobiography and remembered that Ellie and I had similar tastes in books, music, and politics.

  The shades were all drawn to exactly the same height. The desk held an iMac, a phone, an appointment book, and a few family photos in silver frames. The room felt strange compared with the downstairs of the house, which had been ransacked by the killers last night.

  I started with Ellie’s appointment book and then went on to the desk drawers. I wasn’t sure yet what I was looking for, only that I’d had to come back here with a clearer head than I’d had last night.

  I booted up Ellie’s computer and went into her e-mail—checking the in-box, sent items, and deleted folders, working backward in time. I was trying to get as close as possible to the moment of the murders. Had Ellie known the killers?

  The first thing to catch my attention was a note from an editor at Georgetown University Press. It concerned her completion schedule for “the new book.”

  Ellie had a new book coming out? I knew she was on the history
faculty at Georgetown, but I didn’t know much more than that. We had seen each other at a few charity events during the past fifteen years or so, but that was about it. She was married, I wasn’t for much of that time, and that fact can sometimes cut down contact and communication.

  I ran her name through Amazon and Barnes & Noble and found three book titles. Each had something to do with African sociopolitics. The most recent one, Critical Juncture, had been published four years ago.

  So where was the new book? Was there a partial manuscript I could read?

  I swiveled around to look over the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that took up two entire walls of the office. Ellie had hundreds of volumes here, mixed in with a collection of awards and citations.

  Kids’ artwork and framed photos covered the rest of the space.

  Then all of a sudden I was looking at a picture of myself.

  Chapter 10

  IT WAS AN old snapshot from our college days. I remembered the time as soon as I saw it. Ellie and I were sitting on a blanket on the National Mall. We had just finished finals. I had a summer internship lined up at Sibley Memorial, and I was falling in love for the first time. Ellie told me that she was too. In the photograph, we were smiling and hugging one another, and it looked as if we could be that way forever.

  Now here I was in her house, responsible for Ellie in a way I never could have imagined.

  I let myself stare nostalgically at the picture for a few more seconds, then forced myself to move on, to come back to the present mess.

  It didn’t take long to find three hundred typed pages of a manuscript titled Deathtrip. The subtitle on the title page read Crime as a Way of Life, of Doing Business, in Central Africa.

  A copy of a plane ticket had been inserted in the manuscript. The ticket was round-trip from Washington to Lagos, Nigeria. Ellie had returned from there two weeks ago.

  I looked through the index at the back of the manuscript and found a listing for “Violence, African Style,” and a subhead, “Family Massacre.”