Violets Are Blue Page 25

  “The monster then turned the knife on thirty-one-year-old Barbara Green. And, finally, on Maureen Bruno, who nearly made it out of the slaughterhouse, but was caught by Cooper at the front door. All three women were killed with thrusts delivered by a powerful male, who has taught hand-to-hand fighting techniques at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, headquarters for the Army’s Special Forces. For whatever reason, Sergeant Cooper then felt compelled to thrust his knife repeatedly into the backs, stomachs, breasts, and in the case of Mrs. Jackson, the face. Over a dozen savage strokes to her once-beautiful and serene face.

  “The survival knife has been identified as the master sergeant’s personal property, a deadly weapon he had kept since the early 1970s, when he left Vietnam. Sergeant Cooper’s fingerprints were all over the bloody knife. All over it!

  “His prints were also found on the clothing of Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Green. DNA from particles of skin found under the nails of Mrs. Jackson were matched to Master Sergeant Cooper. Strands of his hair were found at the murder scene. The murder weapon itself was discovered hidden in the attic of Cooper’s house. So were pathetic ‘love letters’ he had written to Tanya Jackson—returned unopened.

  “You have seen grisly, unspeakable photographs of what Sergeant Cooper did to the three women. Once they were dead, the women’s faces were ‘painted’ with ghoulish-looking blue paint. So were their chests and stomachs. It is gruesome, sadistic, unbearably twisted. As I said, the worst murders I have ever encountered. You know in your hearts that there can only be one verdict. That verdict is guilty! Put this evil monster down!”

  Suddenly, Sergeant Ellis Cooper rose from his seat at the defendant’s table. He was six feet four and powerfully built. At age fifty-five, his waist was still thirty-two inches, just as it had been when he had enlisted in the Army at eighteen. He was wearing his dress greens and the medals on his huge chest included a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross, and a Silver Star. He looked impressive, even under the circumstances of the murder trial.

  “I’m innocent! I didn’t kill Tanya or any of those poor women. I never went inside the house that night. I didn’t paint any bodies blue. I’ve never killed anyone, except for my country. I swear that’s the truth. So help me God, it is. Why won’t anyone believe me? How could this have happened? My God, how? I am not a monster! I didn’t kill those women. I’m innocent.”

  TODAY WAS THE day I planned to talk to Chief of Detectives George Pittman and hand in my resignation from the D.C. police. In terms of my life, I guess it would be a defining moment. Nothing would ever be the same for me, but it was time for a change. It was way past time. I’d thought about this for a long while, and now I was sure it was the right thing to do for everyone involved.

  I came down to breakfast that morning and joined Nana and the kids around the kitchen table. I was feeling pretty good about things so far. No second thoughts and no regrets that I was aware of.

  The kids were eating some kind of puffed-up chocolate-flavored Oreos cereal and Hershey’s chocolate milk. Just the thought of all that chocolate at seven in the morning made me shiver. Nana and I had eggs overeats and twelve-grain toast. Little Alex was feasting on a concoction of oatmeal, prune, and apple sauce that Nana claimed to have invented more than fifty years before.

  “Now isn’t this nice,” I said as I sat down to the eggs. “I’m not even going to spoil it by commenting on the chocoholic breakfast two of my precious children are eating for their morning’s nourishment.”

  “You just did comment,” said Jannie, never at a loss.

  I winked at her. Everything was going pretty well for a change. The killer known as the Mastermind had been captured, and was now spending his days at a maximum-security prison in Colorado. My twelve-year-old, Damon, continued to blossom—as a student, as well as a singer with the Washington Boys’ Choir, and even as a shooting guard with his CYO basketball team. Jannie had taken up oil painting, and she was keeping a journal that contained some pretty good scribbling for a girl her age. Little Alex’s personality was emerging—he was a nice boy, just starting to walk at thirteen months. He loved to laugh, and we all loved his laugh.

  I had met a woman detective, Jamilla Hughes, and I wanted to spend more time with her. The only problem was that she lived in California, and I lived in D.C. Not insurmountable, I figured. Love does conquer all, or at least most. I pretty much believe that old cliché.

  I would have some time to find out about Jamilla and me. After I resigned from the police department, I planned to take a couple of months off and do nothing. Then I might go into private practice as a psychologist, or possibly hook up with the FBI. The Bureau had made me an offer that was attractive.

  There was a loud knock at the kitchen door. Then it opened fast. Sampson was standing there. He knew what I was planning to do today, and I figured he’d come by to show me some support.

  Read an extended excerpt and learn more about Four Blind Mice.

  Alex Cross gets a presidential request:

  “Please find my kids!”

  For an excerpt from the new Alex Cross novel,

  turn the page.

  IT BEGAN WITH PRESIDENT COYLE’S CHILDREN, ETHAN AND ZOE, BOTH high-profile personalities since they had arrived in Washington, and probably even before that.

  Twelve-year-old Ethan Coyle thought he had gotten used to living under the microscope and in the public eye. So Ethan hardly noticed anymore the news cameramen perpetually camped outside the Branaff School gates, and he didn’t worry the way he used to if some kid he didn’t know tried to snap his picture in the hall, or the gymnasium, or even the boys’ bathroom.

  Sometimes, Ethan even pretended he was invisible. It was kind of babyish, kind of b.s., but who cared. It helped. One of the more personable Secret Service guys had actually suggested it. He told Ethan that Chelsea Clinton used to do the same thing. Who knew if that was true?

  But when Ethan saw Ryan Townsend headed his way that morning, he only wished he could disappear.

  Ryan Townsend always had it in for him, and that wasn’t just Ethan’s paranoia talking. He had the purplish and yellowing bruises to prove it—the kind that a good hard punch or muscle squeeze can leave behind.

  “Wuzzup, Coyle the Boil?” Townsend said, charging up on him in the hall with that look on his face. “The Boil havin’ a bad day already?”

  Ethan knew better than to answer his tormenter and torturer. He cut a hard left toward the lockers instead—but that was his first mistake. Now there was nowhere to go, and he felt a sharp, nauseating jab to the side of his leg. He’d been kicked! Townsend barely even slowed down as he passed. He called these little incidents “drive-bys.”

  The thing Ethan didn’t do was yell out, or stumble in pain. That was the deal he’d made with himself: don’t let anyone see what you’re feeling inside.

  Instead, he dropped his books and knelt down to pick them back up again. It was a total wuss move, but at least he could take the weight off his leg for a second without letting the whole world know he was Ryan Townsend’s punching and kicking dummy.

  Except this time, someone else did see—and it wasn’t the Secret Service.

  Ethan was stuffing graph paper back into his math folder when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, Ryan? Wuzzup with you?”

  He looked up just in time to see his fourteen-year-old sister, Zoe, stepping right into Townsend’s path.

  “I saw that,” she said. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

  Townsend cocked his head of blond curls to the side. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Why don’t you just mind your own—”

  Out of nowhere, a heavy yellow textbook came up fast in both of Zoe’s hands.

  She swung hard, and clocked Townsend with it, right across the middle of his face. The bully’s nose spurted red and he stumbled backward. It was great!

  That was as far as things progressed before Secret Service got to them. Agent Findlay held
Zoe back, and Agent Musgrove wedged himself between Ethan and Townsend. A crowd of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders had already stopped to watch, like this was some new reality TV show—The President’s Kids.

  “You total losers!” Townsend shouted at Ethan and Zoe, even as blood dripped down over his Branaff tie and white button-down shirt. “What a couple of chumps. You need your loyal SS bodyguards to protect you!”

  “Oh yeah? Tell that to my algebra book,” Zoe yelled back. “And stay away from my brother! You’re bigger and older than him, you jerk. You shithead!”

  For his part, Ethan was still hovering by the lockers, half of his stuff scattered on the floor. And for a second or two there, he found himself pretending he was part of the crowd—just some kid nobody had ever heard of, standing there, watching all of this craziness happen to someone else.

  Yeah, Ethan thought. Maybe in my next lifetime.

  AGENT FINDLAY QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY HUSTLED ETHAN AND ZOE away from the gawkers, and worse, the kids with their iPhones raised: Hello, YouTube! In a matter of seconds, he’d disappeared with them into the otherwise empty grand lecture hall off the main foyer.

  The Branaff School had once been the Branaff Estate, until ownership had transferred to a Quaker educational trust. It was said among the kids that the grounds were haunted, not by good people who had died here, but by the disgruntled Branaff descendants who’d been evicted to make room for the private school.

  Ethan didn’t buy into any of that crap, but he’d always found the main lecture hall to be supercreepy—with its old-time oil portraits looking down disapprovingly on everybody who happened to pass through.

  “You know, the president’s going to have to hear about this, Zoe. The fight, your language back there,” Agent Findlay said. “Not to mention Headmaster Skillings—”

  “No doubt, so just do your job,” Zoe answered with a shrug and a frown. She put a hand on top of her brother’s head. “You okay, Eth?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, pushing her off. “Physically, anyway.” His dignity was another question, but that was too complicated for him to think about right now.

  “In that case, let’s keep this parade moving,” Findlay told them. “You guys have assembly in five.”

  “Got it,” said Zoe with a dismissive wave. “Like we were going to forget assembly, right?”

  The morning’s guest speaker was Isabelle Morris, a senior fellow with the DC International Policy Institute and also an alum of the Branaff School. Unlike most of the kids he knew, Ethan was actually looking forward to Ms. Morris’s talk about her experiences in the Middle East. Someday he hoped to work at the UN himself. Why not? He had pretty good connections, right?

  “Can you give us a teeny-tiny second?” Zoe asked. “I want to talk to my brother—alone.”

  “I said I’m fine. It’s cool,” Ethan insisted, but his sister cut him off with a glare.

  “He tells me things he won’t say to you,” Zoe went on, answering Findlay’s skeptical look. “And private conversations aren’t exactly easy to come by around here, if you know what I mean. No offense meant.”

  “None taken.” Findlay looked down at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “Two minutes is all I can give you.”

  “Two minutes, it is. We’ll be right out, I promise,” Zoe said, and closed the heavy wooden door behind him as he left.

  Without a word to Ethan, she cut between the rows of old desk seats and headed to the back of the room. She hopped up on the heating register under the windows.

  Then Zoe reached inside her blue and gray uniform jacket and took out a small black lacquered case. Ethan recognized it right away. His sister had bought it in Beijing this past summer, on a trip to China with their parents.

  “I’m all about a ciggie right now,” Zoe whispered. Then she grinned wickedly. “Come with?”

  Ethan looked back at the door. “I actually don’t want to miss this assembly,” he said, but Zoe just rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, please. Blah, blah, blah, Middle East, blah, blah. You can watch it on CNN any hour of the week,” she said. “But how often do you get a chance to ditch Secret Service? Come on!”

  It was a totally no-win situation for him and Ethan knew it. He was either going to look like a wimp—again—or he was going to miss the assembly speech he’d been looking forward to all week.

  “You shouldn’t smoke,” he said lamely.

  “Yeah, well you shouldn’t weenie out so much,” Zoe answered. “Then maybe assholes like Ryan Townsend wouldn’t be all over you all the time.”

  “That’s just because Dad’s the president,” Ethan said. “That’s all, right?”

  “No. It’s because you’re a geek,” Zoe said. “You don’t see Spunk-Punk messing with me, do you?” She opened the window, effortlessly pulled herself through, and dropped to the ground outside. Zoe thought she was another Angelina Jolie. “If you’re not coming, at least give me a minute to get away. Okay, Grandma?”

  The next second, Zoe was gone.

  Ethan looked over his shoulder one more time. Then he did the only thing he could to maintain his last shreds of dignity. He followed his sister out the lecture hall window—and into trouble he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  No one could.

  AS SOON AS THE DOOR TO THE LECTURE HALL SLAMMED SHUT BEHIND Agent Clay Findlay, he checked the knob—still unlocked. Then he checked the sweep hand on his stainless-steel Breitling. “I’m giving them another forty-five seconds,” he said into the mike at his cuff. “After that, we’ve got T. Rex going to assembly and Twilight headed to the principal’s office.”

  Word from the president and First Lady had been to allow Ethan and Zoe as normal a school experience as possible, including their own conflicts—within reason. That was easier said than done, of course. Zoe Coyle didn’t always operate within reason. In fact, she usually didn’t. Zoe wasn’t a bad kid. But she was a kid. Willful. And smart, and devoted to her younger brother.

  “l’m probably going to get reamed for this,” Findlay radioed quietly. “Tell you what, though. That Ryan Townsend kid’s a little prick. Not that you heard it here.”

  “Like father, like son,” Musgrove radioed back. “Kid got what he was asking for, and more. Zoe really clocked the little shithead.”

  There was some low laughter on the line. Ryan Townsend’s daddy was the House minority whip and a rabid opponent of virtually every move President Coyle ever made or even thought about. Sometimes the Branaff School could feel like Little Washington. Which it kind of was.

  Findlay checked his watch again. Two minutes exactly. End of recess for the Coyle kids. Now back to work for everybody.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the move,” he said into his mike. Then he knocked twice on the lecture hall door and pushed it open.

  “Time’s up, guys. You ready to… goddamnit.”

  The room was empty.

  No. No. No. Not this. Goddamn those kids. Goddamn Zoe!

  Findlay’s pulse spiked to a new high, at least for today. His eyes leapt to the multipaned windows along the back wall.

  Even as he moved toward them, he was opening all channels on his transmitter to address the Joint Ops Center as well as his on-site team.

  “Command, this is Apex One. Twilight and T. Rex are unaccounted for.” His voice was urgent but flat. There would be no panicking. “I repeat, both protectees are unaccounted for.”

  When he reached the windows, they were all pulled down to the sill, but one of them had been left unlatched. A quick scan of the grounds outside showed nothing but plush green playing fields all the way to the south fence.

  “Findlay? What’s going on?”

  Musgrove was there now, standing in the doorway from the hall.

  “They must have snuck outside,” Findlay said. “I’m going to kill her. I really am. Long overdue.” This thing had Zoe written all over it. It was probably her idea of a big game, or a joke on her keepers.

  “Command, A
pex One,” he radioed again. “Twilight and T. Rex are still unaccounted for. I need an immediate lockdown on all exits, inside and out—”

  All at once, a commotion broke out on the line. Findlay heard shouting, and the grating sound of metal on metal. Then two gunshots.

  “Command, this is Apex Five!” Another voice blared over the radio now. “We’ve got a gray panel van. Just evaded us at the east gate. It’s proceeding south on Wisconsin at high speed. Sixty, seventy miles an hour! Request immediate backup!”

  Read an extended excerpt and learn more about Kill Alex Cross.

  About the Author

  James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett.

  James Patterson also writes books for young readers, including the Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, and Middle School series. In total, these books have spent more than 220 weeks on national bestseller lists.

  His lifelong passion for books and reading led James Patterson to launch the website ReadKiddoRead.com to give adults an easy way to locate the very best books for kids. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

  For previews and information about the author, visit www.JamesPatterson.com.

  Follow James Patterson on Facebook.