Pop Goes the Weasel

by James Patterson

  Pittman looked my way, then answered. “A woman he was seeing disappeared while they were on a trip together in Bermuda. Since that time, he’s been distracted and distant, quick to anger, not himself.”

  Suddenly I wanted to speak up in the courtroom. Pittman didn’t know the first thing about Christine and me.

  “Chief Pittman, was Detective Cross ever a suspect in the disappearance of his girlfriend, Mrs. Christine Johnson?”

  Pittman nodded. “That’s standard police procedure. I’m sure he was questioned.”

  “But his behavior on the job has changed since her disappearance?”

  “Yes. His concentration isn’t the same. He’s missed days of work. It’s all a matter of record.”

  “Has Detective Cross been asked to seek professional help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ask him to seek help yourself?”

  “I did. He and I have worked together for a number of years. He was under stress.”

  “He’s under a lot of stress? Is that fair to say?”

  “Yes. He hadn’t closed a single case recently.”

  Halpern nodded. “A couple of weeks before the Hampton homicide, you suspended some detectives he was friendly with.”

  Pittman’s look was somber. “Unfortunately, I did.”

  “Why did you suspend the detectives?”

  “The detectives were investigating cases outside the auspices of the department.”

  “Is it fair to say they were making up their own rules, acting like vigilantes?”

  Catherine Fitzgibbon rose to her feet and objected, but Judge Fescoe allowed the question.

  Pittman answered, “I don’t know about that. Vigilantes is a strong word. But they were working without proper supervision. The case is still under investigation.”

  “Was Detective Cross part of the group that was making up its own rules to solve homicides?”

  “I’m not certain. But he was spoken to about the matter. I didn’t believe he could handle a suspension at that time. I warned him and let it slide. I shouldn’t have,” said Pittman.

  “No further questions.”

  None needed, I thought.

  Chapter 85

  THAT NIGHT, after he left the courthouse, Shafer was flying high. He thought that he was winning the game. He was manic as hell, and it felt both good and bad. He was parked in the dark garage under Boo Cassady’s building. Most manics aren’t really aware of it when they’re exhibiting signs of a manic episode, but Shafer knew. His “spirals” didn’t come out of nowhere; they built and built.

  The irony and the danger of being back in her building weren’t lost on him. Scene of the crime, and all that rot. He wanted to go to Southeast tonight, but that was too risky. He couldn’t hunt—not now. He had something else in mind: the next few moves in his game.

  It was unusual, though not unheard-of, for the defendant in a first-degree homicide trial to be out roaming the streets, but that had been one of the prerequisites of his dropping his immunity. What choice did the prosecution have? None at all. If the D.A. hadn’t agreed, he had a free pass to keep him out of jail.

  Shafer followed a tenant he’d seen several times into the lift from the garage and took it to Boo’s apartment. He rang the doorbell. Waited. Heard her padding across the parquet floor. Yes, Act One of tonight’s performance was about to begin.

  He knew she was watching him through the door’s peephole, just as he had watched Alex Cross through it on the night Patsy Hampton got her just deserts. He had seen Boo a few times after his release, but then he’d cut her off.

  When he’d stopped seeing her, she lost it. Boo had called him at work, then at home, and constantly on his car phone, until he changed the bloody number. At her worst, she reminded him of the nutcase Glenn Close had played in the movie Fatal Attraction.

  He wondered if he could still push her buttons. She was a fairly bright woman, and that was a large part of her problem. She thought far too much, double- and triple-think. Most men, especially dull-witted Americans, didn’t like that, which made her even crazier.

  He put his face against the door, felt its cool wood on his cheek. He started his act.

  “I’ve been petrified to see you, Boo. You don’t know what it’s been like. One slipup, anything they can use against me, and I’m finished. And what makes it worse is that I’m innocent. You know that. I talked to you the whole time from my house to yours that night. You know I didn’t kill that detective. Elizabeth? Boo? Please say something. At least curse at me. Let the anger out ? Doctor?”

  There was no answer. He rather liked that. It made him respect her more than he had. What the hell, she was more screwed up than he was.

  “You know exactly what I’m going through. You’re the only one who understands my episodes. I need you, Boo. You know I’m manic-depressive, bipolar, whatever the hell you shrinks want to call my condition. Boo?”

  Then Shafer actually started to cry, which nearly made him laugh. He uttered loud, wrenching sobs. He crouched on his haunches and held his head. He knew he was a far better actor than so many of the high-priced fakers he saw in the movies.

  The door to the apartment slowly opened. “Boo-hoo,” she whispered. “Is poor Geoff in pain? What a shame.”

  What a bitch, he thought, but he had to see her. She was testifying soon. He needed her tonight, and he needed her help in the courtroom.

  “Hello, Boo,” he whispered back.

  Chapter 86

  ACT TWO of the evening’s performance.

  She stared at him with huge dark-brown eyes that looked like amber beads, the kind she bought at her swanky shops. She’d lost weight, but that made her sexier to him, more desperate. She wore navy walking shorts and an elegant pink silk T-shirt—but she also wore her pain.

  “You hurt me like no one ever has before,” she whispered.

  He held himself under control, playacting, a truly award-winning performance. “I’m fighting for my life. I swear, all I think about is killing myself. Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? Besides, do you want your picture all over the tabloids again? Don’t you see? That’s why I’ve been staying away from you.”

  She laughed bitterly, haughtily. “It’s going to happen anyway when I testify. The photographers will be everywhere I go.”

  Shafer shut his eyes. “Well, that will be your chance to hurt me back, darling.”

  She shook her head and frowned. “You know I wouldn’t do that. Oh, Geoff, why didn’t you at least call? You’re such a bastard.”

  Shafer hung his head, the repentant bad boy. “You know how close I was to the edge before all this happened. Now it’s worse. Do you expect me to act like a responsible adult?”

  She gave a wry smile. He saw a book on the hallway table behind her: Man and His Symbols. Carl Jung. How fitting. “No, I suppose not, Geoff. What do you want? Drugs?”

  “I need you. I want to hold you, Boo. That’s all.”

  That night, she gave him what he wanted. They made love like animals on the gray velvet love seat she used for her clients, then on the JFK-style rocking chair where she always sat during sessions. He took her body—and her soul.

  Then she gave him drugs—antidepressants, painkillers, most of her samples. Boo was still able to get the samples from her ex, a psychiatrist. Shafer didn’t know what their relationship was, and frankly, he didn’t care. He swallowed some Librium and shot up Vicodin at her place.

  Then he took Boo again, both of them naked and sweating and frenzied on the kitchen counter. The butcher block, he thought.

  He left her place around eleven. He realized he was feeling worse than before he’d gone there. But he knew what he was going to do. He’d known before he went to Boo’s. It would explode their little minds. Everyone’s. The press. The jury.

  Now for Act Three.

  Chapter 87

  AT A LITTLE PAST MIDNIGHT, I got an emergency call that blew off the top of my head. Within minutes I had the old Porsche
up close to ninety on Rock Creek Parkway, the siren screaming at the night, or maybe at Geoffrey Shafer.

  I arrived in Kalorama at 12:25. EMS ambulances, squad cars, TV news trucks were parked all over the street.

  Several neighbors of the Shafers’ were up and had come outside their large, expensive houses to observe the nightmare scene. They couldn’t believe this was happening in their upscale enclave.

  The chatter and buzz of several police radios filled the night air. A news helicopter was already hovering overhead. A truck marked CNN arrived and parked right behind me.

  I joined a detective named Malcolm Ainsley on the front lawn. We knew each other from other homicide scenes, even a few parties. Suddenly, the front door of the Shafer house opened.

  Two EMTs were carrying a stretcher outside. Dozens of cameras were flashing.

  “It’s Shafer,” Ainsley told me. “Son of a bitch tried to kill himself, Alex. Slit his wrist and took a lot of drugs. There were open prescription packets everywhere. Must’ve had second thoughts, though. Called for help.”

  I had enough information about Shafer from the discovery interviews preceding the trial, and from my own working profile on him, to begin to make some very educated guesses about what might have happened. My first thought was that he suffered from some kind of bipolar disorder that caused both manic and depressive episodes. A second possibility was cyclohymia, which can manifest itself in numerous hypomanic episodes as well as depressive symptoms. Its associated symptoms could include inflated self-esteem, a decreased need for sleep, excessive involvement in “pleasurable” activities, and an increase in goal-directed activity—in Shafer’s case, maybe, an intensified effort to win his game.

  I moved forward as if I were floating in a very bad dream, the worst I could imagine. I recognized one of the EMS techies, Nina Disesa. I’d worked with her a few times before in Georgetown.

  “We got to the bastard just in time,” Nina said, and narrowed her dark eyes. “Too bad, huh?”

  “Serious attempt?” I asked her.

  Nina shrugged. “Hard to tell for sure. He hacked up his wrist pretty good. Just the left one, though. Then the drugs, lots of drugs—doctors’ samples.”

  I shook my head in utter disbelief. “But he definitely called out for help?”

  “According to the wife and son, they heard him call out from his den, ‘Daddy needs help. Daddy is dying. Daddy is sick.’”

  “Well, he got that part right. Daddy is incredibly sick. Daddy is a monumental sicko.”

  I went over to the red and white ambulance. News cameras were still flashing all over the street. My mind was unhinged, reeling. Everything is a game to him. The victims in Southeast, Patsy Hampton, Christine. Now this. He’s even playing with his own life.

  “His pulse is still strong,” I heard as I got close to the ambulance. I could see one of the EMT workers checking the EKG inside the van. I could even hear beeps from the machine.

  Then I saw Shafer’s face. His hair was drenched with perspiration, and his face was as pale as a sheet of white paper. He stared into my eyes, trying to focus. Then he recognized me.

  “You did this to me,” he said, mustering strength, suddenly trying to sit up on the stretcher. “You ruined my life for your career. You did this! You’re responsible! Oh, God, oh, God. My poor family! Why is this happening to us?”

  The TV cameras were rolling film, and they got his entire Academy Award-quality performance. Just as Geoffrey Shafer knew they would.

  Chapter 88

  THE TRIAL HAD TO BE RECESSED due to Shafer’s suicide attempt. The courtroom shenanigans probably wouldn’t resume until the following week.

  Meanwhile, the media had another feeding frenzy, including banner headlines in the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today. At least it gave me time to work on a few more angles. Shafer was good—God, he was good at this.

  I had been talking with Sandy Greenberg nearly every night. She was helping me collect information on the other game players. She had even gone and talked with Conqueror. She said she doubted that Oliver Highsmith was a killer. He was late-sixties, seriously overweight, and wheelchair-bound.

  Sandy called the house at seven that night. She’s a good friend. Obviously, she was burning the midnight oil for me. I took the call in the sanctuary of my attic office.

  “Andrew Jones of the Security Service will see you,” she announced in her usual perky and aggressive manner. “Isn’t that great news? I’ll tell you: it is. Actually, he’s eager to meet with you, Alex. He didn’t say it to me directly, but I don’t think he’s too keen on Colonel Shafer. Wouldn’t say why. Even more fortuitous, he’s in Washington. He’s a top man. He matters in the intelligence arena. He’s very good, Alex, a straight shooter.”

  I thanked Sandy and then immediately called Jones at his hotel. He answered the call in his room. “Yes. Hello. It’s Andrew Jones. Who is this, please?”

  “It’s Detective Alex Cross of the Washington police. I just got off the line with Sandy Greenberg. How are you?”

  “Good, very good. Well, hell, not really. I’ve had better weeks, months. Actually, I stayed here in my room hoping that you’d call. Would you like to meet, Alex? Is there someplace where we wouldn’t stand out too much?”

  I suggested a bar on M Street in half an hour, and I arrived there a minute or two early. I recognized Jones from his description on the phone: “Broad, beefy, red-faced. Just your average ex-rugby type—though I never bloody played, don’t even watch the drivel. Oh, yes, flaming red hair and matching mustache. That should help, no?”

  It did. We sat in a dark booth in back and got to know each other. For the next forty-five minutes, Jones filled me in on several important things, not the least of which was politics and decorum within the English intelligence and police communities; Lucy Shafer’s father’s good name and standing in the army, and the concern for his reputation; and the desire of the government to avoid an even dicier scandal than the current mess.

  “Alex, if it were true that one of our agents committed coldblooded murders while posted abroad, and that British intelligence knew nothing about it, the scandal would be a true horror and a major embarrassment. But if MI-Six knew anything about what Colonel Shafer is suspected of doing! Well, it’s absolutely unthinkable.”

  “Did it?” I asked him. “Is this situation unthinkable?”

  “I won’t answer that, Alex—you know I can’t. But I am prepared to help you if I possibly can.”

  “Why?” I asked, then, “Why now? We needed your help on this before the trial began.”

  “Fair question, good question. We’re prepared to help because you now have information that could cause us a hell of a lot of trouble. You’re privy to the unthinkable.”

  I said nothing. I thought I knew what he was alluding to, though.

  “You’ve discovered a fantasy game called the Four Horsemen. There are four players, including Shafer. We know you’ve already contacted Oliver Highsmith. What you probably don’t know yet, but will find out eventually, is that all the players are former or current agents. That is to say, Geoffrey Shafer might be just the beginning of our problems.”

  “All four of them are murderers?” I asked.

  Andrew Jones didn’t answer; he didn’t have to.

  Chapter 89

  “WE THINK that the ‘game’ originated in Bangkok, where three of the four players were posted in ’ninety-one. The fourth, Highsmith, was a mentor to George Bayer, who is Famine in the Four Horsemen. Highsmith has always worked out of London.”

  “Tell me about Highsmith,” I said.

  “As I said, he’s always been in the main office, London. He was a high-level analyst, then he actually ran several agents. He’s a very bright chap, well thought of.”

  “He claimed that the Four Horsemen was just a harmless fantasy game.”

  “It may be for him, Alex. He may be telling the truth. He’s been in a wheelchair since ’eighty-five. Automobile accident.
His wife had just left him, and he cracked. He’s an enormous fellow, about three hundred pounds. I doubt that he’s getting about and murdering young women in the scuffier neighborhoods of London. That’s what you believe Shafer was doing here in Washington? The Jane Doe murders?”

  Jones was right, and I didn’t deny it. “We know he was involved in several murders, and I think we were close to catching him. He was picking up his victims in a gypsy taxicab. We found the cab. Yes, we knew about him, Andrew.”

  Jones tented his thick fingers, pursed his lips. “You think Shafer knew how close you and Detective Hampton were getting?”

  “He may have known, but there was also a lot of pressure on him. He made some mistakes that led us to an apartment he rented.”

  Jones nodded. He seemed to know a great deal about Shafer, which told me he’d been watching him, too. Had he been watching me as well?

  “How do you think the other game players might react to Shafer’s being so out of control?” I asked.

  “I’m fairly sure they felt threatened. Who wouldn’t? He was a risk to all of them. He still is.” Jones continued, “So, we have Shafer, who’s probably been committing murders here in Washington, acting out his fantasies in real life. And Highsmith, who probably couldn’t do that, but could be a sort of controller. Then there’s a man named James Whitehead, in Jamaica, but there have been no murders of the Jane Doe variety on that island or any other one nearby. We’ve checked thoroughly. And there’s George Bayer in the Far East.”

  “What about Bayer? I assume you’ve investigated him, too.”

  “Of course. There’s nothing specific in his record, but there was an incident, a possible connection, to follow up on. Last year in Bangkok, two girls who worked in a strip bar in Pat Pong disappeared. They just vanished into the noisy, teeming streets. The girls were sixteen and eighteen, respectively, bar dancers and prostitutes. Alex, they were found nailed together in the missionary position, wearing only garters and stockings. Even in jolly old Bangkok, that caused quite a stir. Sound distressingly similar to the two girls who were killed in Eckington?”