Something was wrong. Something was very wrong at our house. I could tell it for sure. Sampson and Nana didn’t have casual visits after eleven o’clock at night.
“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked as I came in through the kitchen door. My stomach was dropping, plunging. Nana and Sampson sat at the small dining table. They were talking, conspiring over something.
“What is it?” I asked again. “What the hell is going on?”
“Someone’s been calling on the telephone all night tonight, Alex. Then they just hang up when I answer the phone,” my grandmother told me as I sat at the kitchen table beside her and Sampson.
“Why didn’t you call me right away?” I asked, firmly but gently. “You have my beeper number. That’s what it’s for, Nana.”
“I called John,” Nana answered the question. “I knew you were busy protecting the President and his family.”
I ignored her usual rancor. This wasn’t the time for that, or for a tiff. “Did the caller ever say anything?” I asked. “Did you actually speak to anyone?”
“No. There were twelve calls between eight-thirty and ten or so. None since then. I could hear someone breathing on the line, Alex. I almost blew my whistle on them.” Nana keeps a silver referee’s whistle near the phone. It’s her own solution to obscene calls. This time I almost wished she had blown the damn whistle.
“I’m going to bed now,” she said and sighed softly, almost inaudibly. For once, she actually looked her age. “Now that you’re both here.”
She strained as she pushed herself up out of the creaking kitchen chair. She went over to Sampson first. She bent just a little and kissed him on the cheek.
“ ‘Night, Nana,” he whispered. “There’s nothing to worry about We’ll take care of everything, bad as it seems right now.”
“John, John,” she gently scolded him. “There’s a great deal of worry about, and we both know it. Don’t we, now?”
She came and kissed me. “Goodnight, Alex, I’m glad you’re home now. This murderer stalking our neighborhood worries me so. It’s very bad. Very bad. Please trust my feelings on this one.” ‘
I held her frail body for a few seconds, and I could feel the anger building inside. I held her tightly and thought about how terrible this was, what she was intimating, this evil incarnate following me home. No one in his right mind goes after a cop’s family. I didn’t believe the killer was in his right mind, though.
“Goodnight, Nana. Thank you for being here for us,” I whispered against her cheek, smelled her lilac talc. “I hear what you’re saying. I agree with you.”
When she had left the room, Sampson shook his head. Then he finally smiled. “Tough as ever, man. She’s really something else. I love her, though. I love your grandma.”
“I do, too. Most of the time.”
I was staring up at the ceiling light, trying to focus on something that I could comprehend—like electricity, lamps, moldings. No one can really understand a homicidal madman. They are like visitors from other planets—literally.
I was almost speechless, for once in my life. I felt violated, incredibly angry, and also afraid for my family. Maybe these phone calls were nothing, but I didn’t know that for sure.
I got a couple of beers from the fridge, popped them open for the two of us. I needed to talk to Sampson, anyway. There hadn’t been a free moment all day long.
“She’s afraid for the kids’ sake. That gets the fur up on her neck. Claws out,” Sampson said, then took a long sip of beer.
“Sharp claws, man.” I finally managed a half-smile in spite of the incredibly bad circumstances and my weariness.
We both listened to the silence of the old house on Fifth Street for a long moment It was finally punctuated by the familiar dull clanging of the heating pipes. We took pulls on our bottles of ale. No invasive phone calls came now. Maybe Nana’s whistle wasn’t such a bad idea.
“How are you and the all-stars doing with the search for the Moore kid?” I asked Sampson. “Anything today? Anything new from the rest of our group? I know our surveillance is breaking down. Not enough manpower.”
Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders, moved in his seat His eyes turned hard and dark. “We found traces of makeup in his room. Maybe he used makeup to play the part of an old man. We will find him, Alex. You think he’s the one who called here tonight?”
I spread my hands, then I nodded my head. “That would make sense. He definitely wants special attention, wants to be seen as important, John. Maybe he feels Jack and Jill is taking attention away from him, stealing the spotlight from his show. Maybe he knows I’m working Jack and Jill, and he’s angry with me.”
“We’ll just have to ask the young cadet,” Sampson said. He smiled a truly malevolent smile, one of his best, or worst, ever. “Sure wish I was popular like you, Sugar. No freaks call me late at night. Write me mash notes at my house. Nothing like that.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” I said. “Nobody’s that crazy, not even the Truth School killer.”
We both laughed, a little too loudly. Laughter is usually the best and only defense in a really tough murder investigation. Maybe Jack and Jill had called me at home. Or Kevin Hawkins had called here. Or maybe even Gary Soneji, who was still out there somewhere, waiting to settle his old score with me.
“Technician will be at the house first thing in the morning. Put a crackerjack hookup on your phone. We’ll put a detective in here, too. Until we find the boy wonder anyway. I talked to Rakeem Powell. He’s glad to do it”
I nodded. “That’s good. Thanks for coming by and being here for Nana.”
Things had taken a turn for the worse. They were threatening me in my own house now, threatening my family. Someone was. The freaks were right at my doorstep.
I couldn’t get to sleep after Sampson left that night.
I didn’t feel like playing the piano. No music in me for the moment I didn’t dare call christine Johnson. I went up and looked in on the kids. Rosie the cat followed me, yawning and stretching. I watched them, much as Jannie had watched me sleep the other morning. I was afraid for them.
I finally dozed off about three in the morning. There were no more phone calls, thank God.
I slept on the porch with the Glock in my lap. Home, sweet home.
CHAPTER
71
I HEARD THE KIDS squawking and squealing first thing the next morning. They were laughing loudly, and it both raised my spirits and mildly depressed me.
I immediately remembered the situation we were in: the monsters were at our doorstep. They knew where we lived. There were no rules now. Nobody, not even my own family, was safe.
I thought about the Moore boy for a moment or two as I lay on the old sofa on the porch. Strangely, nothing in his past history fit in with the two murders. It just didn’t track. I considered the monstrous idea of a thirteen-year-old boy committing purely existential murders. I had a lot of material stored in my head on the subject I vaguely recalled Andre Gide’s Lafca-dio’s Adventures from grad school. The twisted main character had pushed a stranger from a train just to prove that he was alive.
I glanced at the portable alarm clock beside my head. It was already ten past seven. I could smell Nana’s strong coffee wafting through the house. I refused to let myself get down about the lack of progress. There was a saying I kept around for just such occasions. Failure isn’t falling down… it’s staying down.
I got up. I went to my room, showered, put on some fresh clothes, rumbled back downstairs. I wasn’t staying down.
I found my two favorite Martians spiraling around the kitchen, playing some kind of tag game at seven in the morning. I opened my mouth and did my imitation of the silent scream from Edvard Munch’s painting The Shriek.
Jannie laughed out loud. Damon mimed a silent scream of his own. They were glad to see me. We were still best pals, best of friends.
Somebody had called our house last night.
Sumner Moore?
“Morning, Nana,” I said as I poured a cup of steaming coffee from her pot. The best to you each morning and all that. I sipped the coffee and it tasted even more wonderful than it smelled. The woman can cook. She can also talk, think, illuminate, irritate.
“Morning, Alex,” she said, as if nothing bad had happened the night before. Tough as nails. She didn’t want to upset the kids, to alarm them in any way. Neither did I.
“Somebody will be by to look at our phone.” I told her what Sampson and I had discussed the night before. “Somebody will be around for a few days, too. A detective. Probably it will be Rakeem Powell. You know Rakeem.”
Nana didn’t like that news one bit. “Of course I know Rakeem. I taught Rakeem in school for heaven’s sake. Rakeem has no business here, though. This is our home, Alex. This is so terrible. I just don’t think I can stand it… that it’s happening here.”
“What’s wrong with our telephone?” Jannie wanted to know.
“It works,” I told my little girl.
CHAPTER
72
THE TWO MURDER CASES were beginning to feel like a single, relentless nightmare. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath anymore. My stomach was in knots and apparently would stay that way for the duration of the investigation. The situation was Kafkaesque, and it was wearing down the entire Metro police force. No one could remember anything like it.
I had decided to keep Damon home with Nana and Detective Rakeem Powell for a few days. Just to be on the safe side. Hopefully, we’d find thirteen-year-old Sumner Moore soon, and half the horror story would be ended.
I continued to suspect either that Sumner Moore wanted to be caught or that he would be soon. The carelessness in both murders indicated it. I hoped that he wouldn’t kill another child before we found him.
I considered moving Nana and the kids to one of my aunts’, but held back. Rakeem Powell would stay with them at the house. That seemed enough chaos and disruption to force into their lives. For the moment, anyway.
Besides, I was almost certain Nana wouldn’t have moved to one of her sisters’ without a huge battle and casualties. Fifth Street was her home. She would rather fight than switch. Occasionally, she had.
I drove to the White House very early in the morning. I sat in a basement office with a mug of coffee and a two-foot-thick stack of classified papers to read and ponder. There were literally hundreds of CIA reports and internal memos on Kevin Hawkins and the other CIA “ghosts.”
I met with Don Hamerman; the attorney general, James Dowd; and Jay Grayer at a little past nine. We used an ornate conference room near the Oval Office in the West Wing. I recalled that the White House had originally been built to intimidate visitors, especially foreign dignitaries. It still had that effect, especially under the current circumstances. The “American mansion” was huge, and every room seemed formal and imposing.
Hamerman was surprisingly subdued at the meeting. “You made quite an impression on the President,” he said. “You made your point with him, too.”
“What happens now?” I asked. “What actions do we take? Obviously, I’d like to help.”
“We’ve initiated some extremely sensitive investigations,” Hamerman said. “The FBI will be handling them.” Hamerman looked around the room. It seemed to me that he was reaffirming his power, his clout.
“Is that it, what you wanted to tell me?” I asked him after a few seconds of silence.
“That’s it for now. You got it started. That’s something. It’s a really big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” I said. “It’s a fucking murder investigation in the White House!” I got up and went back to my office. I had work to do. I kept reminding myself that I was part of the “team.”
Hamerman peeked his head into the office about eleven-thirty. His eyes were wider and wilder than usual. I thought that maybe he’d changed his mind about the latest investigation—or had his mind changed for him.
He didn’t look himself.
“The President wants to see us immediately.”
CHAPTER
73
PRESIDENT BYRNES personally greeted each of us on the crisis team as we entered the Oval Office, which was indeed oval. “Thank you for coming. Hello, Jay, Ann, Jeanne, Alex. I know how busy you are, and the tremendous pressure you’re all working under,” he said as we walked in and began to take seats.
The crisis team had been assembled, but President Byrnes clearly dominated the room and the unscheduled meeting. He was dressed in a dark blue chief executive’s business suit His sandy-brown hair was freshly barbered, and I couldn’t help wondering if it had just been cut that morning, and if it had, where did he get the time?
What had happened now? Had Jack and Jill contacted the White House again?
I glanced across the room at Jeanne Sterling. She shrugged her shoulders and widened her eyes. She didn’t know what was up, either. No one seemed to know what the President had on his mind, not even Hamerman.
When we were seated, President Byrnes spoke. He stood directly in front of a pair of flags, army and air force. He seemed in control of his emotions, which was quite a feat.
“Harry Truman used to say,” he began, “ ‘if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.’ I think I’ve experienced the precise feelings that inspired his wit. I’m almost sure that I have.”
The President was an unusually engaging speaker. I already knew as much from his address at his convention and other televised talks—his version of FDR’s fireside chats. He was clearly able to bring his oratory talents to a much smaller room and audience, even a tough, cynical crowd like the one before him. “What a royal pain in the butt this job can be. Whoever coined the phrase ‘If drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve’ had the right idea. Believe me on that one.”
The President smiled. He had an ability to make anything he said sound personal. I wondered if he planned it. How much of this was a first-rate acting job?
The President’s intense blue eyes circled the room, stopping for a moment on each face. He seemed to be judging us, but more important, communicating with us individually. “I’ve been thinking a great deal about this current, unfortunate situation. Sally and I have talked about it upstairs, late into the night, several nights in a row. I’ve been thinking about Jack and Jill too much, in fact. For the past few days, this miserable three-ring circus has been the focus, and a major distraction to the executive branch of our government. It’s already disrupted cabinet meetings and played havoc with everyone’s schedule. This situation simply can’t be allowed to continue. It’s bad for the country, for our people, for everybody’s mental health, including my own and Sally’s. It makes us look weak and unstable to the rest of the world. A threat by a couple of kooks can’t be permitted to disrupt the government of the United States. We can’t allow that to happen.
“As a consequence, I’ve made a tough decision, which ultimately has to be mine to make. I’m sharing it with you this morning, because the decision will affect all of you as well as Sally and me.”
President Byrnes let his eyes quickly roam around the room again. I didn’t know where this was going yet, but the process was fascinating to me. The President led us a step, then he checked to make sure we were still with him. He was clearly issuing an order, but he made it seem as if he were still seeking some consensus in the room.
“We simply have to return to business-as-usual at the White House. We have to do that. The United States can’t be held hostage to real or imagined dangers or threats. That’s the decision I’m making, and it goes into effect at the end of today. We have to move on, to move ahead with our programs.”
As the President told us his decision, there was uneasy movement in the room. Ann Roper groaned out loud. Don Hamerman dropped his head down low, close to his knees. I kept my eyes pinned on the President.
“I fully understand that this makes your jobs more difficult, to say the very least. How in hell c
an you protect me if I won’t cooperate, won’t follow your recommendations? Well, I can’t cooperate anymore. Not if it means sending a message to the world that a couple of psychopaths can completely alter our government. Which is exactly what is happening. It’s happened, folks.
“Starting tomorrow, I’m back on my regular schedule. There will be no further debate on that subject. Sorry, Don.” He looked at his chief of staff as he officially rejected his advice.
“I’ve also decided to make my scheduled visit to New York City on Tuesday. Sorry again, Don, Jay. I wish the best to all of us on our appointed tasks. You do your jobs, please. I’ll try to do mine. We will have absolutely no regrets, no matter what happens from this point on. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.” Everyone in the room nodded yes. Every eye was intensely focused on the President, mine included. President Byrnes had been both impassioned and impressive.
Absolutely no regrets, I repeated the phrase inside my head. I was sure I’d remember it for the rest of my life, no matter what happened, no matter what Jack and Jill had planned from here on.
Thomas Byrnes had just put his life on the line, really on the line.
The President had just put his life in our hands.
“By the way, Don,” President Byrnes said to Hamerman as the meeting was starting to break up. “Have somebody run out and get me a goddamn dog. I think I need a friend.”
We all laughed, even if we didn’t quite feel up to it.
CHAPTER
74
THAT NIGHT it snowed about an inch in Washington. The temperature dropped way down into the teens. The Truth School killer woke up feeling scared. Feeling very alone. Feeling trapped. Feeling quite sad, actually.
No happy, happy. No joy, joy.
He was in a cold, greasy sweat that grossed him out completely. In a dream that he remembered now, he had been murdering people, then burying them under a fieldstone fireplace at his grandparents’ country home in Leesburg. He’d been having that same dream for years, ever since he could remember, ever since he was a Ida.
Alex Cross 03 - Jack & Jill Page 23