Jack & Jill Read online

  I could already see that there were some obvious and striking similarities to the murder of Senator Fitzpatrick. The element of kinky sadism for one thing. Natalie Sheehan was manacled to the bedposts with handcuffs. She was seminude. She also seemed to have been “executed,” just as the senator had been.

  The news celebrity had received one close-range gunshot to the left side of her head, which hung to one side as if her long neck had been broken. Maybe it had been.

  Was this the Jack and Jill pattern? Organized, efficient, and cold-blooded as hell. Kinky for some reason known only to them. Pseudokinky? Sexual obsession, or a sign of impotence? What was the pattern telling us? What was it communicating?

  I was beginning to formulate a psychological personality print for the killers. The method and style of the killings were more important to me than any physical evidence. Always. Both murders had been carefully planned—methodical, very structured, and leisurely—Jack and Jill were playing a cold-blooded game. So far, there had been no significant slipups that I knew of. The only physical evidence left at the scenes was intentional—the notes.

  Sexual fantasy was obvious—both in exhibiting the female on her bed and in the senator’s case, male mutilation. Did Jack and Jill have trouble with sex?

  My initial impression was that both killers were white, somewhere between the ages of thirty and forty-five—probably closer to the latter, based on the high level of organization in both murders. I suspected well above average intelligence, but also persuasiveness and physical attractiveness. That was particularly telling, and bizarre to me—since the killers had managed to get inside the celebrities’ apartments. It was the best clue we had.

  There was much more for me to take in, and I did, madly scribbling away in my notepad. Occasionally, The Jefe looked my way and glared at me. Checking up on me.

  I wanted to go at him. He represented so many things that were wrong with the department, the Washington P.D. He was such a controlling macho asshole, and not half as bright as he thought he was.

  “Anything, Cross?” he finally turned and asked in his usual clipped manner.

  “Not so far,” I said.

  That wasn’t the truth. What definitely occurred to me was that Daniel Fitzpatrick and Natalie Sheehan might both have been “promiscuous,” in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Maybe Jack and Jill “disapproved” of them. Both bodies had been left exposed, in compromising and very embarrassing positions. The killers seemed preoccupied with sex—or at least the sex lives of famous people.

  Exposed… or to expose…, I wondered. Exposed for what reason?

  “I’d like to look at the note,” I told Pittman, trying to be civil and professional.

  Pittman waved a hand in the direction of an end table on the far side of the bed. His gesture was dismissive and rude. I wouldn’t treat the rawest rookie patrolman that way. I had shown more respect to Chop-It-Off-Chucky.

  I walked over and read the note for myself. It was another poem. Five lines.

  Jack and Jill came to The Hill

  To right another error.

  To make it short

  Her news report

  Was filled with her own terror.

  I shook my head back and forth a few times, but didn’t say anything about the note to Pittman. To hell with him. The rhyme didn’t tell me much of anything yet. I hoped it would eventually. Actually, the rhymes were clever, but without emotion. What had made these two killers so clever and cold?

  I continued to search the bedroom. I was infamous in homicide circles for spending a lot of time at crime scenes. Sometimes I’d spend a whole day. I planned to do the same thing here. Most of the dead woman’s effects seemed to tie in with her career, almost as if she had no other life. Videocassettes, expense sheets from her network, a pilfered stapler with CBS engraved on it. I observed the murder scene, and the dead woman, from several angles. I wondered if the killers had taken anything with them.

  I couldn’t concentrate the way I wanted to, though. Chief Pittman had gotten on my nerves. I had let him get to me.

  Why had both victims been left exposed? What was it that connected them in death—at least in the minds of the murderers? The killers felt compelled to graphically point out certain things to us. In fact, everything about Fitzpatrick and Sheehan was in public view now. Thanks to Jack and Jill.

  This is so bad, I thought and had to reach down deep for a breath.

  Worst of all, I was completely hooked on the case. I was definitely hooked.

  Then everything took a turn for the worse in the bedroom. A bad and unexpected turn.

  I was standing near George Pittman when he spoke again, without looking at me. “You come back after we’re finished, Cross. Come back later.”

  The Jefe’s words hung like stale smoke in the air. I had trouble believing that he’d actually said them. I have always tried to act with some respect toward Pittman. It’s been hard, nearly impossible most of the time, but I’ve done it anyway.

  “I’m talking to you, Cross,” Pittman raised his voice a notch. “You hear what I said? Do you hear me?”

  Then the chief of detectives did something he shouldn’t have, something so bad, something I couldn’t look past. He reached out and pushed me with the heel of his hand. Pushed me hard. I stumbled back a half-step. Caught my balance. Both my fists slowly rose to my chest.

  I didn’t stop to think. Maybe some stored-up venom and powerful dislike made me act. That was part of it.

  I reached out and grabbed Pittman with both hands. This unspoken thing between us, the pattern of disrespect from him, had been building for a couple of years—at least that long. Now it flared big-time and ugly. It exploded inside the dead woman’s bedroom.

  George Pittman and I are about the same age. He’s not as tall as I am, but he’s probably heavier by thirty pounds. He has the squat, blocklike build and look of a football linebacker from the early sixties. He’s bad at his job and he shouldn’t have it. He resents the hell out of me because I’m decent at what I do. Fucker!

  I grabbed and picked him up, right off the floor. I look fairly strong, but I’m actually a lot stronger. Pittman’s eyes widened in disbelief and sudden fear.

  I slammed him hard against the bedroom wall. Then I banged him into the wall a second time. Nothing lethal or too damaging, but definitely a bell-ringer, an attention-grabber.

  Each time his body hit, the staid Jefferson Hotel seemed to shake to its very foundation. The Jefe’s body went slack. He didn’t fight back. He couldn’t believe what I’d just done. To be honest, neither could I.

  I loosened my grip on Pittman. I finally let him go, and he wobbled on his feet. I knew I hadn’t hurt him much physically, but I had hurt his pride. I had also made a big mistake.

  I didn’t say a word. Neither did the other gray suit in the room. I took some solace in the fact that Pittman had pushed first. He had started this, and for no reason. I wondered if the other suit had seen it that way, but I doubted it.

  I left the crime-scene bedroom. Pittman never spoke to me.

  I wondered also if I had just left the Washington Police Department.

  CHAPTER

  22

  “THIS IS AN ALERT! Something is going down at Crown. Up and at ’em, everybody! We’ve got trouble at Crown. This is a real alert! This is not a drill! This is for real.”

  Half a dozen Secret Service agents took the sudden alert very seriously. They watched Jack through Rangemaster binoculars, three sets of them.

  Jack was on the move.

  They couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. Not one of the agents could believe this very bad scene playing out before them. The alert was definitely for real, though.

  “It’s Jack, all right. What is he—crazy?”

  “We have full visual contact with Jack. Where the hell is he going? Goddamn him. What’s going on?”

  The six watchers comprised three highly professional teams. They were all first-teamers, among the best
and brightest of more than two thousand Secret Service agents working around the world. They sat inside dark-colored Ford sedans parked on Fifteenth Street Northwest. This was getting very serious, and very scary, in a hurry.

  This is a real alert.

  This is not a drill.

  “Jack is definitely leaving Crown now. It’s twenty-three forty. At this moment, we have Jack in our crosshairs,” one of the agents spoke into the car mike.

  “Yeah. Jack can be a real tricky fellow, though. He’s proven it before. Keep him right in your sights. Where’s the lovely Jill, home base?”

  “This is home base,” a female agent’s voice came onto the line immediately.

  “Jill is nice and comfy up on the third floor of Crown. She’s reading Barbara Bush on Barbara Bush. She’s in her jammies. Not to worry about Jill.”

  “We’re absolutely sure about that?”

  “Home base is sure about Jill. Jill’s in bed. Jill is being a good girl, for tonight anyway.”

  “Good for Jill. How the hell did Jack get out?”

  “He used that old tunnel between the basement of Crown and the Treasury Building. That’s how he got out!”

  This is an alert.

  This is not a drill.

  Jack is on the move.

  “Jack is approaching Pennsylvania Avenue now. He’s near the Willard Hotel. He just glanced back over his shoulder. Jack’s paranoid, as well he should be. I don’t think he saw us. Oh, shit, somebody just flashed their high beams in front of the Willard. A vehicle is pulling out—and pulling up alongside Jack! Red Jeep! Jack is getting inside the fucking red Jeep.”

  “Roger. So much for having Jack in our damn crosshairs. We’ll follow him pronto. Virginia plates on the Jeep. License number two-three-one HCY. Koons dealer sticker. Start a trace on the Jeep, now.”

  “We’re following the red Jeep. We’re on Jack’s ass. Full alert for the Jackal. Repeat: full alert for the Jackal. This is not a drill!”

  “Do not lose Jack tonight of all nights. Do not lose Jack under any circumstances.”

  “Roger. We have Jack in plain sight.”

  Three dark sedans took off in hot pursuit of the Jeep. Jack was the Secret Service’s code name for President Thomas Byrnes. Jill was the code name for the First Lady. Crown had been the Service’s code word for the White House for nearly twenty years.

  Most of the current-duty agents genuinely liked President Byrnes. He was a down-to-earth guy, a very regular person as recent presidents went. Not too much bullshit about him. Occasionally, though, the President took off on an unannounced date with some lady friend, either in D.C. or on the road. The Secret Service referred to this as “the president’s disease.” Thomas Byrnes was hardly the first to suffer from this malady. John Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and especially Lyndon Johnson had been the worst offenders. It seemed to be a perk of high office.

  The coincidence of the names chosen by the two psychopathic killers in D.C., the so-called celebrity stalkers, wasn’t lost on the Secret Service. The Secret Service didn’t believe in coincidences. They had already met four times on the matter—long, difficult meetings in the Emergency Command Center in the West Wing basement of the White House. The name for any would-be assassins of the president was Jackal. Jackal had been used by the Secret Service for more than thirty years.

  The “coincidence” of the names worried the PPD, the Presidential Protection Division, a great deal—especially when President Byrnes decided to go out on one of his unannounced walks, which for obvious reasons didn’t include any of his bodyguards.

  There were two Jacks and two Jills.

  The Secret Service did not, could not, accept this as a coincidence.

  “We’ve lost the red Jeep around the Tidal Basin. We’ve lost Jack,” an agent’s voice suddenly exploded over the car-radio speakers.

  Everything was chaos. Full-alert chaos.

  This was not a test.

  PART II

  THE DRAGONSLAYER

  CHAPTER

  23

  ON MONDAY NIGHT something finally broke on Jack and Jill. It was something potentially big. I hoped it wasn’t a hoax.

  I’d just gotten home to try and catch a bite of dinner with the kids when the phone rang. It was Kyle Craig. He told me a videotaped message, reportedly from Jack and Jill, had been delivered to the CNN studios. The killers had made a home movie for the world to see. Jack and Jill had also sent cover letters to the Washington Post and the New York Times. They were planning to “explain” themselves that night.

  I had to rush out before Nana’s roast chicken hit the supper table. Jannie and Damon gave me their not-again looks. They were right to think that way.

  I hurried to the Union Station section of Washington, around H and North Capitol. I didn’t want to be late for the party that Jack and Jill were throwing. This was another example of the two of them demonstrating their control over us.

  I arrived at CNN headquarters just in time for the screening and only moments before the video was to be aired on Larry King Live. Senior agents from the FBI and Secret Service were crowded into a low-key, cozy CNN viewing room. So were various techies, administrators, and lawyers from the news network. Everybody looked incredibly tense and uptight.

  The room was completely silent as the filmed message from Jack and Jill began. I was afraid to blink. We all were.

  “You believe this shit?” somebody finally muttered.

  Jack and Jill had been filming us! That was the first shock of the night. They had actually filmed the police outside Senator Fitzpatrick’s apartment building a few days earlier. They had been right there in the crowd of onlookers, the ambulance-chasers.

  The film was a jarring, documentary-style collage of black and white, with some color. The opening shots were from several angles outside Senator Fitzpatrick’s building. It was like a well-made student film, but a little artsy. Then something even more unexpected and powerful came on the screen.

  The murderers had filmed the last moments of Senator Fitzpatrick’s life, seconds before his murder, I guessed. There were haunting shots of the senator alive. It got worse from there.

  We saw graphic shots of Daniel Fitzpatrick, naked, handcuffed to his bed. We heard his voice. “Please don’t do this,” he pleaded with his captors. Then we heard the click of a trigger. A shot was fired only an inch or two from Fitzpatrick’s right ear. Then came a second shot. The senator’s head exploded on film. People gasped at the awful image and sound that carried the senator into eternity.

  “Oh, Jesus! Jesus!” a woman screamed. Several people looked away from the screen. Others covered their eyes. I stayed with it. I couldn’t miss anything. This was all vital information for the case that I was trying to understand. This was more valuable than all the DNA testing, serology, and fingerprinting in the world.

  The tone of the film suddenly changed after the footage of Fitzpatrick’s vicious murder. Images of ordinary people on the streets of unidentified cities and small towns followed the chilling death sequence. A few of the people on camera waved, some smiled broadly, most seemed indifferent as they were being filmed, presumably by Jack and Jill.

  The film continued to weave together black-and-white and color footage, but not in a disorderly fashion. Whoever had stitched it together had a decent skill for editing.

  One of them is an artist, or at least has strong artistic tendencies, I thought to myself and made a mental note. What kind of artist would be involved in something like this? I was familiar with several theories about links between creativity and psychopaths. Bundy, Dahmer, even Manson, could be considered “creative” killers. On the other hand, Richard Wagner, Degas, Jean Genet, and many other artists had exhibited psychopathic behavior in their lives, but they didn’t kill anyone.

  Then, about sixty-five seconds into the film, a narration began. We heard two voices: a man’s and a woman’s. Something dramatic was happening. It caught all of us by surprise.

  Jack and Jill
had decided to speak to us.

  It was almost as if the killers were right there in the studio. The two of them alternated speaking as the film collage continued, but both voices had been electronically filtered, presumably so they couldn’t be recognized. I would move on unscrambling the voices as soon as the show was over. But the show sure wasn’t over yet.

  JACK: For a long time, people like us have sat back and taken the injustices dished out by the elite few in this country. We have been patient and suffering and, for the most part, silent. What is the cynical saying—don’t just do something, sit there? We have waited for the American system of checks and balances to take hold and work for us. But the system has not worked for a long, long time. Nothing seems to work anymore. Does anyone seriously dispute that?

  JILL: Unscrupulous people, such as lawyers and businessmen, have learned to take advantage of our innocence and our goodwill and, most of all, our generosity of spirit. Let us repeat that important thought—highly unscrupulous people have learned to take advantage of our innocence, our goodwill, and our wonderful American spirit. Many of them are in our government, or work closely with our so-called leaders.

  JACK: Look at the faces before you in this film. These are the disenfranchised. These are the people without any hope, or any belief in our country anymore. These are the victims of the violence that originates in Washington, in New York, in Los Angeles. Do you recognize the disenfranchised? Are you one of the victims? We are. We’re just another Jack and Jill in the crowd.

  JILL: Look at what our so-called leaders have done to us. Look at the despair and suffering our leaders are responsible for. Look at the sickness of cynicism they’ve created. The dreams and hopes they had wantonly destroyed. Our leaders are systematically destroying America.

  JACK: Look at the faces.

  JILL: Look at the faces.