No one would ever know how and why it had happened, or who was really responsible.
Just as it had been with JFK in Dallas.
And RFK in Los Angeles.
And Watergate and Whitewater and most every other significant event in our recent history. In truth, our history was not knowing; it was being carefully shielded from the truth. That was the American way
“I love you so much,” his wife whispered breathlessly against the side of his face. “You are my hero. You did such a good, brave thing.”
He believed it, too. He knew it deep within his heart.
He wasn't Jack anymore. Jack no longer existed.
IT WASN'T OVER!
At a little past noon, the Secret Service received news from the NYPD of another homicide. They had strong reason to believe it was related to the shooting of President Byrnes.
Jay Grayer and I rushed to the Peninsula Hotel, which is just off Fifth Avenue in midtown. We were completely numb from the horror of the morning and still couldn't believe the President had been shot. Even so, we had all the details of the latest murder.
A chambermaid at the hotel had discovered a body in a suite on the twelfth floor. There was also a poem from Jack and Jill in the room. A final poem?
“What is the NYPD saying?” I asked Jay during the ride uptown. “What are the details?”
“According to the initial report, the dead woman might be Jill. Jill could have been murdered -- or maybe she committed suicide. They're reasonably certain the note is authentic.”
The mysteries inside horrific mysteries continued. Was this death part of the Jack and Jill scheme, too? I thought that probably it was, and that there were even more layers to unravel -- layers upon layers -- before getting to the core of the horror.
Grayer and I emerged from a gold-plated elevator onto the crime-scene floor. New York police were everywhere. I saw emergency medics, SWAT team members in helmets with Plexiglas face masks, uniforms, homicide detectives. The scene was instant bedlam. I was worried about evidence contamination, leaks to the press.
“The President?” one of the New York detectives asked us as we arrived. “Any word? Any hope?”
“He's still hanging in there. Sure; there's hope,” Jay Grayer said; then we moved on, away from the cluster of detectives.
At least a dozen New York police and FBI agents were crowded into the hotel suite. The ominous sounds of police sirens rose from the streets below. Church bells pealed loudly, probably at nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral, just south on Fifth Avenue.
A blond woman's body lay on the plush gray carpet next to an unmade double bed. Her face, neck, and chest were covered with blood. She was wearing a silver-and-blue jogging suit.
A pair of wire-rim eyeglasses were on the rug near her Nike sneakers.
She had been shot execution-style -- as the early victims of Jack and Jill had been.
One shot, close to the head.
Very professional. Very cold.
No passion.
“Was she ever on any of our suspect lists?” I asked Grayer. We knew that the dead woman's name was Sara Rosen. She had been cleared as part of the White House staff. She'd escaped detection during two “thorough” investigations of the staff, and that was the scariest piece of evidence yet.
"Not that we know of. She was something of a fixture at the White House communications office. Everybody liked her efficiency, her professionalism. She was trusted. Jesus, what a mess.
What a disaster. She was trusted, Alex."
Part of the left side of her face was gone, ripped away as if by an animal. Jill looked as if she had been caught by surprise. Her eyebrows were arched. There was no fear in her eyes.
She had trusted her killer. Was it Jack who had pulled the trigger?
I noticed the smudging around the wound, the gray ring. It was a close-range discharge. It must have been Jack. Professional.
No passion. Another execution.
But is this really Jill? I wondered as I bent over the body The contract killer Kevin Hawkins had died at St. Vincent's Hospital downtown. We knew that Hawkins had disguised himself as a female FBI agent to get into Madison Square Garden. He had used the concussion bomb to get his target where he wanted, when he wanted. He'd been waiting in the exit tunnel, dressed as a woman. It had worked. What was Kevin Hawkins's relationship to this woman? What in hell was going on?
“He left a poem. Somebody did. Looks like the others,” Jay Grayer said to me. The note was in a plastic evidence bag. He handed it to me. “The last will and testament of Jack and Jill,” he said.
“The perfect assassination,” I muttered, more to myself than to Grayer. “Jack and Jill both dead in New York. Case closed, right?”
The Secret Service agent stared at me and then slowly shook his head. “This case will never be closed. Not in our lifetime, anyway”
“I was just being ironic,” I said.
I read the final note.
Jack and Jill came to The Hill Where Jill did what she must.
Her reason drove her The game is over Though dead Jill's cause was just.
“Fuck you Jill,” I whispered over the dead body “I hope you burn in hell for what you've done today I hope there's a hell just for you and Jack.”
NOWHERE was the news of the shooting taken any harder than in Washington. Thomas Byrnes was loved and he was hated, but he was one of the city's own, especially now.
Christine Johnson was in shock, as were her closest friends and most everyone that she knew. The teachers at Sojourner Truth and the children were completely destroyed by what had happened to the President in New York City. It was so horrifying and stark, but also so unbearably sad and unreal.
Because of the shooting, all D.C. schools had canceled classes for the afternoon. She had been watching the nightmarish TV coverage of the assassination attempt from the first moment she got home from school. She still couldn't believe what had happened.
No one could believe it. The President was still alive. No other bulletins were being released.
Christine didn't know whether Alex Cross had been at Madison Square Garden, but she imagined that he had been there. She worried about Alex, too. She liked the detective's sincerity and his tuner strength, but especially his compassion and his vulnerability She liked the way he looked, talked, acted. She also liked the way Alex was bringing up his son, Damon. It made her want children even more herself. She and George had to talk about that. She and George had to talk.
He arrived home before seven that night, which was an hour or two early for him. George Johnson was a hard worker in his corporate law job. He was thirty-seven years old and had a smooth, attractive baby face. He was a good man, although way too self-centered and, truthfully, a little bit of a buppie at times.
Christine loved him, though; she accepted the good and the bad. She was thinking that as she fiercely hugged him at the front door. There was no doubt of it in her mind. She and George had met at Howard University and been together ever since. That was the way she believed it ought to be, and would be as far as she was concerned.
“People are still out there crying in the streets,” George said.
After the hug, he shucked off his wool Brooks Brothers suit jacket and loosened his tie, but he didn't go upstairs to change. He was breaking all his usual patterns tonight. Well, good for George.
“I didn't vote for President Byrnes, but this has really gotten to me anyway, Chris. What a damn shame.” There were tears in his eyes, and that started her up again, too.
George usually kept his feelings to himself, everything all bottled up. Christine was touched by her husband's emotion.
She was touched a great deal.
“I've cried a couple of times,” she confided to George. "You know me. I did vote for the President, but that's not it. It just seems as though we're losing respect for every institution, everything permanent. We're losing respect for human life at a very fast rate. I even see it in the eyes of six-year-o
ld schoolchildren.
I see it every day at the Truth School."
George Johnson held his wife again, held her tight. At five eleven, he was exactly her height. Christine rested her head softly against the side of his. She smelled of light citrus fragrance. She'd worn it to school. He loved her so much. She was like no other woman, no other person he'd ever met. He felt incredibly lucky to have her, to be loved by her, to hold her like this.
“Do you know what I'm saying?” she asked, wanting to talk with George tonight, not willing to let him disappear on her, as he so often did.
“Sure I do,” he said. “Everybody feels it, Chrissie. Nobody knows how to begin to make it stop, though.”
“I'll fix us something to eat. We can watch the dregs on CNN,” she finally said. “Part of me doesn't want to watch the news, but part of me has to watch this.”
“I'll help with the grub,” George offered, which was rare. She wished that he could be like this more often and that it didn't take a national tragedy to get him in touch with his emotions. Well, a lot of men were like that, she knew. There were worse things in a marriage.
They made a vegetarian gumbo together and opened a bottle of Chardonnay. They had barely finished supper in front of the TV when the front doorbell rang. It was a little before nine, and they weren't expecting anyone, but sometimes neighbors dropped in.
CNN was covering the scene at New York University Hospital, where the President had been rushed after the shooting.
Alex Cross had appeared with various other officers who had been at the scene of the shooting, but he wouldn't say much to the media. Alex looked upset, spent, but also, well-noble.
Christine didn't mention to George that she knew him.
She wondered why. She hadn't told George about Alex's visit to their house late one night. He had slept right through it; but that was George.
Before he could get up off the couch, the doorbell rang a second time. Then, a third ring. Whoever it was wouldn't go away.
“I'll get it, Chrissie,” he said. “Don't know who in hell that could be, this time of night. Do you?”
“I don't, either.”
“All right, already,” he snapped. Christine found herself smiling.
George the Impatient was back.
"I'm coming for Christmas' sake. I'm coming, I'm coming.
Hold your water, I'm coming," he said as he hobbled toward the door in his stockinged feet.
He peered through the peephole, then turned to look at Christine with a questioning scowl on his face.
“It's some white kid.”
DANNY BOUDREAUX stood on the shiny, white-painted porch of the schoolteacher's house. He was dressed in an oversized army-green rain poncho that made him look bigger than he actually was, somewhat more impressive. The Sojourner Truth School killer in the flesh! He was in his glory now. But even in his megahyper mood, he sensed that something was wrong with him now.
He didn't feel good, and he was getting sad- kind of depressed as hell, actually. The machine was breaking down. The doctors couldn't figure whether he was a bipolar disorder or conduct disorder. If they couldn't, how the hell was he supposed to?
So what if he was a little impulsive, had huge mood swings, was a social misfit? The fuse was litHe was ready to blow. kike, who cared?
He had stopped his dosages ofDepakote. Just say no, right? He was humming the “Mmm mm mm” song over and over. Crash Test Dummies. Sad, angry music that just wouldn't stop playing in his head like MTV Muzak.
His “mad button” seemed to be stuck -- permanently.
He was mad at Jack and Jill. Real mad at Alex Cross. Mad at the principal of the Truth School. Mad at just about everybody on the planet. He was even mad at himself now. He was such a goddamn screwup. Always had been, always would be.
I'm a loser, baby.
So why don't you kill me?
He snapped back to semireality when a black fucker wearing a blue pinstriped shirt, suit trousers, and mellow-yellow suspenders answered the door. Hey, welcome to the Cyburbs!
At first, Danny Boudreaux didn't understand who the hell the round-faced black dude was. He'd been expecting the big-deal school principal Mrs. Johnson, or maybe even Alex Cross, if Cross hadn't gone to New York. He had seen Cross and the principal together on three different occasions. He guessed they were getting it on.
He didn't know why that made him mad, but it did. Cross was just like his goddamn father, his real father. Another fuck-up cop who had deserted him, who didn't think he was worth dogshit.
And now Cross was humping this teacher on the side.
Wait, wait, hold on, Danny Boudreaux suddenly got something clear. A flash. This self-righteous Kunta Kinte dude has to be her husband, right ? Of course he was.
“Yes? Can I help you with something?” George Johnson asked the strange-looking and disheveled young man on the porch.
He didn't know the paper-delivery boy in the neighborhood, but maybe this was he. For some strange reason, the white boy reminded him of a disturbing movie called Kids that he'd watched with Christine. The boy looked as if he had some trouble in his life right now.
In Danny Boudreaux's humble opinion, the black guy seemed real unfriendly and uppity as hell. Especially for the nobody husband of some nobody schoolteacher. That pissed him off even more. Made him see about twelve different shades of red. Put him over the edge.
He felt one of the worst rages coming on. Hurricane Daniel was about to strike in Mitchellville.
“Noooooo!” he nearly yelled at the man. “You can't even help yourself. You sure as shit can't help me!”
Danny Boudreaux suddenly yanked out his semiautomatic.
George Johnson looked at the gun in disbelief. He stepped back quickly from the door. He threw up both his arms in self-defense.
“Without any hesitation, Boudreaux fired twice. ”Take that, you silly black rabbit!" he yelled, letting the voices come as they may The two bullets hit George Johnson 4n the chest.
He flew back through the open door as if he'd been struck with a sledgehammer. He bounced once off the cream marble floor.
The cat was DOA for sure. Blood was surging from the two holes in his chest.
The Sojourner Truth School killer then walked right into the teacher's house. He stepped over the fallen body as if it were worth nothing. He was feeling nothing.
“I'll just go ahead in, thanks,” he said to the dead man on the floor. “You've been most helpful.”
Christine Johnson had risen from the couch in the living room when she heard the shots. He had forgotten how goddamn tall she was. Danny Boudreaux could see her from the front hallway She could see him and her husband's body as well.
She didn't look so almighty-in-charge anymore. He had knocked her ass down a peg real quick. She deserved it, too. She'd hurt his feelings the first time they met. She probably didn't even remember the incident.
“Remember me?” he called to her. “Remember hassling me, bitch? At the Truth School? You remember me, don't you?”
“Oh, my God. Oh, George. Oh, God, George,” she moaned the words. A dry sob was shaking her body She looked as if she might collapse. He saw that fucking Jack and Jill was on the tube.
Goddamnit. They were always trying to one-up him. Even here, even now Danny Boudreaux could tell that the schoolteacher wanted to run real bad. There was nowhere to go, though. Not unless she went right through the picture window and out onto her lawn.
She had her hand up to her mouth. Her hand looked as if it were stuck there with Velcro. Probably in shock.
“Don't yell anymore,” he warned her in a high-pitched scream of his own. “Don't scream again or I'll shoot you, too. I can and I will. I'll shoot you dead as the doorman.”
He closed in on her now. He kept the Smith & Wesson pointed out in front of him. He wanted her to see that he was very comfortable with the weapon, very expert with firearms -- which he was, thanks to the Teddy Roosevelt School His hand was shaking some, but so what?
He wouldn't miss her at this distance.
“Hi there, Mrs. Johnson,” he said and gave her his best spooky-guy grin. "I'm the one who killed Shanelie Green and Vernon Wheatley. Everybody's been looking all over for me.
Well, I guess you found me,“ he told her. ”Congratulations, babe.
Nice work."
Danny Boudreaux was crying now, and he couldn't remember why he was so sad. All he knew for sure was that he was furiously angry. With everybody. Everybody had fucked up real bad this time. This was about the worst so far.
No happy, happy. No joy, joy.
“I'm the Truth School killer,” he repeated. "You believe that?
You got it? It's a true tale. Tale of heartbreak and woe. Don't you even remember me? Am I that forgettable? I sure remember you."
I RUSHED BACK to the Washington, D.C., area that night about eleven o'clock. The Sojourner Truth School killer was rampaging. I had predicted he was going to go off, but being right held no rewards for me. Stopping the explosion might.
Maybe it was no accident that he was blowing the same night as Jack and Jill. He wanted to be better than them, didn't he? He wanted to be important, famous, in the brightest spotlight. He couldn't bear being Nobody.
I tried to put my mind somewhere else for the short time I was on the military jet. I was feeling so low, I could have jumped off a dime. I scanned the late papers, which carried front-page stories about President Byrnes and the shooting in New York. The President was in extremely critical condition at New York University Hospital on East Thirty-third Street in Manhattan. Jack and Jill were both reported dead. Doctors at University Hospital didn't know if the President would survive the night.
I was numb, disoriented, overloaded, on the slippery borderline of shock trauma myself. Now it was getting worse. I didn't know for certain if I could handle this, but I hadn't been given a choice.
The killer had demanded to see me. He claimed that I was his detective and that he'd been calling my house for the past few days.
A police cruiser was scheduled to meet me at Andrews Air Force Base. From there I'd be taken to nearby Mitchellville, where Danny Boudreaux was holding Christine Johnson hostage. So far, Boudreaux had murdered two small children, a classmate of his named Sumner Moore, and his own foster parents. It was an extraordinary rampage, and the case deserved more resources than it had received from the Metro police.
Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill Page 28