Alex Cross 03 - Jack & Jill Read online

  “We get the word out that we’re personally looking for the Truth School killer,” I said. “We show our pretty faces around. Make the families here feel as safe as we can.”

  “Yeah, and then we catch Chop-It-Off-Chucky and chop his off,” Sampson said and grinned like the big bad wolf that he can be. “I’m not kidding.”

  I didn’t doubt it for a minute.

  When I finally got home that night, it was past ten. Nana Mama was waiting up for me. She had already put Damon and Jannie to bed. The concerned look on her face told me that she couldn’t get to sleep, which is unusual for her. Nana could sleep in the eye of a hurricane. Sometimes, she is the eye of a hurricane.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” she said to me. “Bad day for you? I can see that it was.” Sometimes she can be unbelievably sympathetic and kind and sweet, too. I like that she goes both ways equally well, and I can never predict which way is coming at me next.

  As we sat together on the living room couch, my eighty-one-year-old grandmother held my hand in both of hers. I told her what I knew so far. She was shaking slightly and that wasn’t like her, either. She is not a weak person, not in any way. She rarely shows her fear to anyone, even me. Nana Mama does not seem to be losing anything of herself; instead, she is becoming more luminous and concentrated.

  “I feel so bad about this killing at the Sojourner Truth School,” Nana said, and her head lowered.

  “I know. It’s all I’ve thought about today. I’m working every angle I can.”

  “You know much about Sojourner Truth, Alex?”

  “I know she was a powerful abolitionist, an ex-slave.”

  “Sojourner Truth should be talked about when they mention Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alex. She couldn’t read, so she memorized most of the Bible for her teaching. She actually helped stop segregation of the transportation system here in Washington. And now we have this abomination at the school named in her honor.

  “Catch him, Alex,” Nana suddenly whispered in a low, almost desperate, voice. “Please catch this terrible man. I can’t even say the name they call him—this Chucky. He’s real, Alex. He’s not a made-up bogeyman.”

  I would definitely try my damnedest. I was on the murder case. I was chasing down the chimera as best I could.

  My mind was working overtime already. A child molester? Boys and girls. Now a child killer? Chop-It-Off-Chucky? Was he real, or had he been made up by frightened children? Was he a chimera? Had he murdered Shanelle Green?

  I needed to pound the piano on our porch for a little while after Nana went up to bed. I played “Jazz Baby” and “The Man I Love,” but the piano wasn’t the ticket that night.

  Just before I fell off to sleep, I remembered something. Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick had been murdered in Georgetown. What a day it had been. What a nightmare.

  Two of them.

  CHAPTER

  7

  JACK AND JILL.

  Sam and Sara.

  Whoever they really were, the two of them Jay on their stomachs on a tasteful, knock-off Persian rug in the small living room of her Washington pied-à-terre. It was a kind of safe house. A fire blazed and crackled; fragrant apple logs were being crisped. They were playing a board game on the rug, which covered a hatched parquet floor. It was a special game. Unique in every way. The game of life and death, they called it.

  “I feel like a damn Washington, D.C., Georgetown University white liberal yuppie,” Sam Harrison said and smiled at the unlikely image created in his mind.

  “Hey, I resemble that remark.” Sara Rosen made a pouting face. She was kidding. She and Sam weren’t yuppies. Sam certainly wasn’t.

  And yet a guinea hen was roasting in the kitchen, the aroma sweetening the air. They were playing a parlor game on the living room rug.

  The game wasn’t anything like Monopoly or Risk, though.

  Actually, they were playing a game to choose their next murder target. In turn, they calmly rolled the dice, then moved a marker around a rectangle of photos. The photos were of very famous people.

  The board game was important to Jack and Jill. It was a game of chance. It made it impossible for the police or FBI to predict their movements or their motive.

  If there was a motive. But of course there was a motive.

  Sam rolled the dice again. Then he moved the marker. Sara watched him in the warm, flickering glow of the fire. Her eyes glazed over slightly. She was remembering their very first meeting, the initial contact between them. The beginning of everything that was happening now.

  This was how the complex and beautiful and very mysterious game had begun. They had agreed to meet at a coffee shop inside a bookstore in downtown D.C. Sara had arrived first, her heart trapped in her throat. Everything about the meeting was insane, maybe dangerously insane, and insanely irresistible to her. She couldn’t pass up this chance, this opportunity, or especially this cause. The cause was everything to her.

  At the time of their first meeting, she had no idea what Sam Harrison would look like, and she was surprised and delighted when he sat at her table. He excited her.

  She had seen him enter the coffeehouse area,-watched him order espresso and a scone. She hadn’t imagined that the dreamy-looking man at the counter would turn out to be Harrison, though.

  So this was The Soldier. This was her potential partner. He kind of fit in at the bookstore. He would fit in anywhere. He didn’t look like a killer, but then again, neither did she. He looks a little like an airline pilot, Sara thought as she sized him up. A successful Washington lawyer? He was over six feet tall, trim and fit. He had a strong, confident face. And he also had the brightest, clearest blue eyes. He had a sensitive, gentle look about him. Not at all what she had expected. She liked him immediately. She knew that they agreed on the important things in life, that they shared a vision.

  “You’re looking at me as if I’m supposed to be a bad person, and you’re surprised that I’m not,” he’d said as he sat across from her at the café. “I’m not a bad person, Sara. You can call me Sam, by the way. I’m a pretty good guy, actually.”

  No, Sam was much better than that. He was amazing—extremely smart, strong, and yet always considerate of her feelings, and committed to their cause. Sara Rosen had fallen in love with him within a week of their meeting. She knew that she shouldn’t, but she had; and now here they were. Living this secret life.

  Playing the game of life and death as a guinea hen slowly spun on the spit. Sitting before a cozy fire. Thinking about making love—at least, she was. She thought about being with Sam, with Jack, all the time. She loved it when he was inside her.

  “This roll should do it,” Sam said, and he handed her the dice. “Your turn. Six rolls for each of us. You do the honors, Sara.”

  “Here we go, huh?”

  “Yes, here we go again.”

  Sara Rosen’s heart began to thunder. She could feel it thump, thump under her blouse. She had the paralyzing thought that this single roll of the dice was like the murder itself. It was almost as if she were pulling the trigger right now.

  Who was going to die next? It was all in her hand, wasn’t it? Who would it be?

  She squeezed the three dice incredibly tight. Then she shook them and let the dice go, watched them wobble and roll forward and then stop abruptly, as if someone had pulled an invisible string. She quickly added up the number of the roll—nine.

  Sam picked up the marker and counted off nine places, nine photographs.

  She stared down at the face of the next target, the next celebrity to die. It was a woman!

  It’s for the cause, she told herself, but Sara Rosen’s heart continued to beat loudly all the same.

  The next victim was a very famous woman.

  Washington, the whole world, would be shocked and outraged for a second time.

  CHAPTER

  8

  SAMPSON AND I walked into the fog-shrouded heart of Garfield Park, which borders the Anacostia River and the Eisenhower Fr
eeway and isn’t far from the Sojourner Truth School. The color of truth is gray, I was thinking as we entered the ground smog. Always gray. We weren’t out for an early-morning run—we were hurrying to the place where Shanelle Green had actually been murdered, her skull crushed by some fiend.

  Several uniforms, a captain, and another detective were already at the homicide scene. A dozen or so casual onlookers were on hand—looky-loos. Search dogs originally brought in from Georgia had led a search party to the murder site. I could see Sixth Street from the thicket of evergreens where the killer had brutally savaged the little girl. I could almost see the Sojourner Truth School.

  “Think he carried the body out of here to the schoolyard?” Sampson asked. His tone of voice indicated he didn’t believe it. Neither did I. So how did the little girl’s body get to the schoolyard?

  A bright red balloon floated a couple of feet above the overgrown bushes where the terrible murder had occurred.

  “O marks the spot?” Sampson asked. “That balloon the marker?”

  “I don’t know … I wonder,” I muttered as I pushed aside the thick evergreen branches and made my way into the hideaway. The smell of pine was heavy, even in the cold air. Reminded me that the Christmas season was here.

  I could feel the presence of the killer inside the tree branches, challenging me. I sensed Shanelle’s presence as well, as if she were trying to tell me something. I wanted to be alone in here for a moment or two.

  It was a small clearing where the murder had actually taken place. Dried blood was on the ground and had even splashed across some of the branches. He lured her in here. How did he do that? She’d be suspicious, or scared, unless she knew him from the neighborhood. It suddenly struck me. The balloon! It was just a guess, but it seemed right to me. The red balloon could have been the lure, the killer’s bait for the little girl.

  I crouched down and was very still inside the tent of trees.

  The killer liked it in here, hiding in the darkness. He doesn’t like himself much, though. Prefers the dark. He likes his mind, his thoughts, but not what he looks like. There’s probably something distinctive about him physically.

  I didn’t know any of that for sure, but it seemed right; it felt right as I crouched at the murder site.

  He was hiding in here, probably because there’s something about him people might remember. If so, it was a good clue.

  I could see Shanelle Green’s battered face again. Then an image of my dead wife, Maria, came to me. I could feel the rage climbing from my gut to my throat, blowing and billowing inside me. I thought of Jannie and Damon.

  I had one more thought about the child killer: anger usually implies an awareness of self-worth. Strange, but true. The killer was angry because he believed in himself much more than the world did.

  Finally, I rose up and pushed my way back out of the hideaway. I’d had enough.

  “Haul down that balloon,” I called to a patrolman. “Get that damn balloon out of the tree now. It’s evidence.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  THERE WAS SOMETHING distinctive about him physically. I was almost certain of it. It was a place to start.

  That afternoon Sampson and I were out on the street again, working near the Northfield Village projects. The Washington newspapers and TV hadn’t bothered much about the murder of a little girl in Southeast. Instead, they were filled with stories about the killing of Senator Fitzpatrick by the so-called Jack and Jill stalkers. Shanelle Green didn’t seem to matter very much.

  Except to Sampson and me. We had seen Shanelle’s broken body and met her heartbroken parents. Now we talked to our street sources, but also to our neighbors. We continued to let people see us working, walking the streets.

  “I sure do love- a good homicide. Love walking the mean streets in the dead cold of winter,” Sampson opined as we went past a local dealer’s black-on-black Jeep. It was blaring rap, lots of bass. “Love the suffering, the stench, the funky sounds.” His face was flat. Beyond angry. Philosophical.

  He was wearing a familiar sweatshirt under his open topcoat. The shirt had his message for the day:

  I DON’T GIVE A SHIT

  I DON’T TAKE ANY SHIT

  I’M NOT IN THE SHIT BUSINESS

  Concise. Accurate. Very much John Sampson.

  Neither of us had felt much like talking for the past hour or so. It wasn’t going all that well. That was The Job, though. It was like this more often than it wasn’t.

  Man Mountain and I arrived at the Capitol City Market about four in the afternoon. The Cap is a popular gyp joint on Eighth Street. It’s just about the dingiest, most depressing bargain-basement store in Washington, D.C.—and that takes some doing.

  The featured products are usually written in pink chalk on a gray blue cinder block wall in front. That day the specials were cold beer and soda pop, plantains, pork rinds, Tampax, and Lotto—your basic complete-and-balanced breakfast.

  A young brother with tight wraparound Wayfarer sunglasses, a shaved head, and small goatee caught our immediate attention in front of the minimart. He was standing next to another man who had a chocolate bar hanging from his mouth like a cigar. The shaved head motioned to me that he wanted to talk to us, but not right there.

  “You trust that rowdyass?” Sampson asked as we followed at a safe distance. “Alvin Jackson.”

  “I trust everybody.” I winked. No wink came back from Sampson.

  “You are badly fucked-up, Sugar,” he said. His eyes were still seriously hooded.

  “Just trying to do the right thing.”

  “Ah, yeah, you’re trying too hard, then.”

  “That’s why you love me.”

  “Yes, it is,” Sampson said and finally grinned. “If lovin’ you is wrong, I don’t want to be right,” he talk-sang a familiar lyric.

  We met Roadrunner Alvin Jackson around the corner. Sampson and I had occasionally used Alvin as a snitch. He wasn’t a bad man, really, but he was living a dangerous life that could suddenly get much, much worse for him. He had been a decent high school track star who used to practice in the streets. Now he was running a little base and selling smoke as well. In many ways, Alvin Jackson was still a man-child. That was important to understand about a lot of these kids, even the most dangerous and powerful-looking ones.

  “Thalilshanelle,” Alvin said as if the three words were one, “you still lookin’ for information on who ice her and alladat?”

  Alvin’s car coat was unbuttoned. He was sporting the current fashion look that’s called jailin’, or baggin’. His red-and-white pinstriped underwear was visible above the waistband. The look is inspired by the fact that a prisoner’s belt is taken away in jail, tending to make the trousers droop and the underwear be accentuated. Role models for our neighborhood.

  “Yeah. What have you heard about her, Alvin, but no Chipmunks?” Sampson said.

  “Man, I’m tryin’ to do you a solid,” Alvin Jackson protested in my direction. His shaved head never stopped bobbing. His hoop earring jangled. His long, powerful arms twitched. He kept picking his Nike-sneakered feet up and putting them back down.

  “We appreciate it,” I told him. “Smoke?” I offered Alvin a Camel. Joe Cool, right?

  He took it. I don’t smoke, but I always carry. Alvin had smoked like a chimney when he was a high school road-and-track man. Things you notice.

  “Lil Shanelle, she live in my auntie’s building. Over in Northfield? I think I know ‘bout somebody maybe ‘sponsible. You unnerstand what I’m sayin’?

  “So far.” Sampson nodded. He was trying to be nice, actually. A head of lettuce could follow Alvin Jackson’s patter.

  “You want to show us what you got?” I asked him. “Help us out here?”

  “I’ll show you Chucky myself. Howzat?” He smiled and nodded at me. “But only cuz it’s you and Sampson. I tried to tell some a them other detectives, months back. They wouldn’t have none of it. Man, they wouldn’t listen to jack shit. Didn’t have the ti
me of day for my airplay.”

  I felt like his father or uncle or older brother. I felt responsible. I didn’t like it so much.

  “Well, we’re listening,” I told him. “We’ve got the time for you.”

  Sampson and I went with Alvin Jackson to the Northfield Village projects. Northfield is one of the most dangerous crime areas in D.C. Nobody seems to care, though. The 1st District police have given up. You visit Northfield once, it’s hard to blame them completely.

  This didn’t seem like a very promising lead to me. But Alvin Jackson was a man on a mission. I wondered why that was. What was I missing here?

  He pointed a long, accusatory finger at one of the yellow-brick buildings. It was in the same shabby state of disrepair as most of the others. An electric-blue metal sign was over the double front doors: BUILDING 3. The front stairs were cracked and looked as if they’d been hit by lightning or somebody’s sledgehammer.

  “He lives in there. Ak-ak city. Leastways, he did. Name’s Emmanuel Perez. Sometimes he works as a porter at Famous. You know, Famous Pizza? He goes after the little kids, man. Real freakazoid. He’s a nasty fucker. Scary fucker, too. Don’t like it none when you call him Manny. He’s Ee-man-uel. Insists on it.”

  “How do you know Emmanuel?” Sampson asked.

  Alvin Jackson’s eyes suddenly clouded over and looked hard as rocks. He took a few seconds before he spoke. “I knew him. He was around when I was a little kid. Buggin’ back then, too. Emmanuel always been around, you unnerstand?”

  I got it. I understood now. Chop-It-Off-Chucky wasn’t a chimera” anymore.

  There was an asphalt-topped playground across the quad. Young kids were playing hoops, but not very well. The basket had no net. The rim was bent this way and that Nobody any good played on these particular courts. Suddenly, something in the playground caught Alvin Jackson’s eye.

  “That’s him over there,” he said in a high-pitched whine. Fearful. “That’s him, man. That’s Emmanuel. Perez doggin’ those kids.”