Jack had to remind himself that he was stalking Natalie. Nothing must stop this from happening now. The final decision had been made. The die was cast. Literally.
He forced himself not to be sentimental. Just like that! He could be so cold, and so good at this.
He thought about throwing the high-spirited and beautiful newswoman through the plate glass window of her bedroom. He wondered if she would crash through or just bounce back off the glass.
Instead, he set Natalie down gently on a bed covered with an Amish quilt. He pulled out handcuffs from his jacket pocket.
He let her see them.
Natalie Sheehan frowned, her blue eyes widening in disbelief. She seemed to deflate, to depress, right before his eyes.
“Is this some kind of joke?” She was angry with him, but she was also hurt. She figured he was a freak, and she was right beyond her wildest nightmares.
His voice was very low. “No, this isn’t a joke. This is very serious, Natalie. You might say that it’s newsworthy.”
There was a sudden and very sharp knock at the door to the demi-apartment. He held up a finger for Natalie to be quiet, very quiet.
Her eyes showed confusion, genuine fear, an uncustomary loss of her cool demeanor.
His eyes were cold. They showed nothing at all.
“That’s Jill,” he told Natalie Sheehan. “I’m Jack. I’m sorry. I really am.”
CHAPTER
20
I EASED MY W AY inside the Jefferson Hotel just before eight in the morning. A little Gershwin was rolling through my head, trying to soothe the savage, trying to smooth out the jagged edges. Suddenly, I was playing the bizarre game, too. Jack and Jill. I was part of it now.
The cool dignity of the hotel was being scrupulously maintained; at least, it was in the elegant front lobby. It was difficult to grasp the reality that a bizarre and unspeakable tragedy had struck here, or that it ever could.
I passed a fancy grillroom and a shop displaying couture fashion. A century-old clock gently chimed the hour; otherwise, the room was hushed. There was no sign, not a hint, that the Jefferson—indeed the entire city of Washington—was in shock and chaos over a pair of grisly, high-profile murders and threats of still more to come.
I am continually fascinated by facades like the one I encountered at the Jefferson. Maybe that’s why I love Washington so much. The hotel lobby reminded me that most things aren’t what they appear to be. It was a perfect representation for so much that goes on in D.C. Clever facades fronting even more clever facades.
Jack and Jill had committed their second murder in five days. In this serene and very posh hotel. They had threatened several more murders—and no one had a clue why, or how to stop the celebrity stalking.
It was escalating.
Clearly, it was.
But why? What did Jack and Jill want? What was their sick game all about?
I had already been on the phone very early that morning, talking to my strange friends in abnormal psych at Quantico. One of the advantages I have is that they all know I have a doctorate in psych from Johns Hopkins and they’re willing to talk with me, even to share theories and insights. So far, they were stumped. Then I checked in with a contact of mine at the FBI’s evidence analysis labs. The evidence hounds didn’t have much of anything to go on, either. They admitted as much to me. Jack and Jill had all of us chasing our tails in double time.
Speaking of which, I had been ordered by the chief of detectives to work up “one of your famous psych profiles” on the homicidal couple, if that’s what they really were. I felt the task was futile at this point, but I hadn’t been given a choice by The Jefe. Working at home on my PC, I ran a wide swath through the available Behavioral Science Unit and Violent Criminal Apprehension Program data. Nothing obvious or very useful popped up, as I suspected it wouldn’t. It was too early in the chase, and Jack and Jill were too good.
For now at least the correct steps were (1) gather as much information and data as possible; (2) ask the right questions, and plenty of them; (3) start collecting wild hunches on index cards that I would carry around until the end of the case.
I knew about several stalker cases, and I ran the information down in my head. One inescapable fact was that the Bureau now had a database of more than fifty thousand potential and actual stalkers. That was up from less than a thousand in the 1980s. There didn’t seem to be any single stalker profile, but many of them shared traits: first and foremost, obsession with the media; need for recognition; obsession with violence and religion; difficulty forming loving relationships of their own. I thought of Margaret Ray, the obsessed fan who had broken into David Letterman’s home in Connecticut numerous times. She had called Letterman “the dominant person in my life.” I watched Letterman sometimes myself, but he’s not that good.
Then there was the Monica Seles stabbing in Hamburg, Germany.
Katarina Witt had nearly suffered the same fate at the hand of a “fan.”
Sylvester Stallone, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Jodie Foster had all been seriously stalked and attacked by people who claimed to adore them.
But who were Jack and Jill? Why had they chosen Washington, D.C., for the murders? Had someone in the government harmed one or both of them in some real or imagined way?
What was the link between Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick and the murdered television newswoman Natalie Sheehan? What could Fitzpatrick and Sheehan possibly have in common? They were liberals—could that be something? Or were the killings random, and therefore nearly impossible to chart? Random was a nasty word that was sticking in my head more and more as I thought about the case. Random was a very bad word is homicide circles. Random murders were almost impossible to solve.
Most celebrity stalkers didn’t murder their prey—at least, they didn’t use extreme violence right away. That bothered the hell out of me about Jack and Jill. How long had they been obsessed with Senator Fitzpatrick and Natalie Sheehan? How had they ultimately chosen their victims? Don’t let these be random selections and murders. Anything but that.
I was also intrigued by the fact that there were two of them, working closely together.
I had just come off a dizzying, high-profile case in which two friends, two males, had been kidnapping and murdering women for more than thirteen years. They had been cooperating, but also competing with each other. The psychological principle involved was known as twinning.
So what about Jack and Jill? Were they freak-friends? Were they romantically involved? Or was their bond something else? Was it a sexual thing for them? That seemed like a reasonable possibility. Power dominance? A really kinky parlor game, maybe the ultimate sex fantasy? Were they a husband-and-wife team? Or maybe spree killers like Bonnie and Clyde?
Was this the beginning of a gruesome crime spree? A multiple-murder spree in Washington?
Would it spread elsewhere? To other large cities where celebrities tend to cluster? New York? Los Angeles? Paris? London?
I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Jefferson Hotel and looked into a corridor of dazed and confused faces. Judging from the looks at the crime scene, I was pretty much up to speed.
Jack and Jill came to The Hill
To kill, to kill, to kill.
CHAPTER
21
“THE GOOD DOCTOR CROSS, the master of disaster. Well, I’ll be. Alex—hey, Alex—over here!”
I was lost in a bad jumble of thoughts and impressions about the murders when I heard my name. I recognized the voice immediately, and it brought a smile to my lips.
I turned and saw Kyle Craig of the FBI. Another dragon-slayer, this one originally from Lexington, Massachusetts. Kyle was not your typical FBI agent. He was a totally straight shooter. He wasn’t uptight, and he usually wasn’t bureaucratic. Kyle and I had worked together on some very bad cases in the past. He was a specialist in high-profile crimes that were marked by extreme violence or multiple murders. Kyle was an expert in the nasty, scary stuff most Bure
au agents didn’t want to be involved with on a regular basis. Beyond that, he was a friend.
“They’ve got all the big guns out on this one,” Kyle said as we shook hands in the foyer. He was tall, still gaunt. Distinctive features and strikingly black hair, coal black hair. He had a long hawk’s nose that looked sharp enough to cut.
“Who’s here so far, Kyle?” I asked him. He would have everything scoped out by now. He was smart and observant, and his instincts were usually good. Kyle also knew who everybody was and how they fit into the larger picture.
Kyle puckered up. He made a face as if he had just sucked on a particularly sour lemon. “Who the hell isn’t here, Alex? Detectives from D.C., your own compadres. The Bureau, of course. DEA, believe it or not. The blue suit is CIA. You can tell by the clipped wings. Your close friend Chief Pittman is in visiting with Ms. Sheehan’s lovely corpse. They’re in the boudoir as we speak.”
“Now that’s scary,” I said and smiled thinly. “About as grotesque as you can get.”
Kyle pointed to a closed door, which I assumed was the bedroom. “I don’t think they want to be disturbed. A rumor circulating at Quantico has it that Chief of Detectives Pittman is a necrophiliac,” he said with a deadpan look. “Could that be true?”
“Victimless crimes,” I said.
“How about a little respect for the dead,” Kyle said, peering down his nose at me. “Even in death, I’m certain Ms. Sheehan would find a way to rebuff your chief of detectives.”
I wasn’t surprised that The Jefe himself had come to the Jefferson. This was developing into the biggest D.C. homicide case in years. It definitely would be if Jack and Jill struck again soon—as they had promised.
Reluctantly, I parted company with Kyle and walked toward the closed bedroom door. I opened it slowly, as if it might be booby-trapped.
The one and only Chief George Pittman was in the bedroom with a man in a gray suit Probably a forensics guy. They both glanced around at me. Pittman was chomping on an unlit Bauza cigar. Pittman frowned and shook his head when he saw who it was. Nothing he could do about it. It was Commissioner Clouser’s invitation-order that I be on the case. It was obvious that The Jefe didn’t want me here.
He muttered “the late Alex Cross” to the other suit. So much for polite introductions and light banter.
The two of them turned back to the famous corpse on the bed. Chief Pittman had been abusive for no apparent reason. I didn’t let it bother me too much. It was business-pretty-much-as-usual with the rude, bullying prick. What a useless bastard, a real horse’s ass. All he ever did was get in the way.
I breathed in slowly a couple of times. Got into the job, the homicide scene. I walked over to the bed and started my routine: the collection of raw impressions.
A G-string was pulled partly over Natalie Sheehan’s head, and the waistband was wrapped around her throat Panties covered her nose, chin, and mouth. Her wide blue eyes were fixed on the ceiling. She was still wearing black stockings and a blue bra that matched the panties.
Here was evidence of kinkiness again, and yet I didn’t quite believe it. Everything was too orderly and arranged. Why would they want us to suspect kinky sex might be involved? Was that something? Were Jack and Jill frustrated lovers? Was Jack impotent? We needed to know whether anyone had sex with the victim.
It was a particularly disturbing death scene. Natalie Sheehan had been dead for about eight hours, according to Kyle’s information. She was no longer beautiful, though, not even close. Ironically, she had taken her biggest news story with her to the grave. She knew Jack—and maybe Jill.
I could remember watching her on TV, and it was almost as if someone I knew personally had been murdered. Maybe that’s why there’s such fáscination with celebrity murder Cases. We see people like Natalie Sheehan on almost a daily basis; we come to think that we know them. And we believe they lead such interesting lives. Even their deaths are interesting.
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 coldblooded 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 h
im 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!
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