Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

by Patterson, James

During the next two days we talked four times. I still wasn't sure that I could trust her, but I didn't have a choice. I had to keep moving forward. She had already visited the landlady who'd rented out the apartment and garage in Eckington. The landlady hadn't recognized the pictures of Shafer. Possibly he'd worn some kind of disguise when he met with her.

  If Patsy Hampton was setting me up, she was one of the best liars I'd met, and I've known some good ones. During one of the calls, she confessed that Chuck Hufstedler had been her source, and that she'd gotten him to keep the information from me. I shrugged it off. I didn't have the time or energy to be angry at either of them.

  In the meantime, I spent a lot of time at home. I didn't believe the killer would come after my family, not when he already had Christine, but I couldn't tell that for sure. When I wasn't there, I made sure Sampson or somebody else was checking on the house.

  On the third night after I met her, Patsy Hampton and I had a breakthrough of sorts. She actually invited me to join her on the stakeout at Shafer's town house in Kalorama Heights.

  He had arrived home from work before six and remained there until past nine. He had a nice-looking ex-pat family, three children, a wife, a nanny. He lived very well. Nothing about his life or surroundings suggested he might be a killer.

  'He seems to go out every night around this time,' Hampton told me as we watched him walk to a shiny black Jag parked in a graveled driveway on the side of the house.

  'Creature of habit,' I said. A weasel.

  'Creature anyway,' she said. We both smiled. The ice was breaking up a little between us. She admitted that she had checked me out thoroughly. She'd decided that Chief Pittman was the bad guy in all of this, not me.

  The Jaguar pulled out of the drive and we followed Shafer to a night spot in Georgetown. He didn't seem to be aware of us. The problem was that we had to catch him doing something; we had no concrete evidence that he was our killer.

  Shafer sat by himself at the bar and we watched him from the street. Did he perch by the window on purpose? I wondered. Did he know we were watching? Was he playing with us?

  I had a bad feeling that he was. This was all some kind of bizarre game to him. He left the bar around a quarter to twelve and returned home just past midnight.

  'Bastard.' Patsy grimaced, and shook her head. Her blonde hair was soft and had a nice bounce to it. She definitely reminded me of Jezzie Flanagan, a Secret Service agent I'd worked with on the kidnapping of two children in Georgetown.

  'He's in for the night?' I asked. 'What was that all about? He leaves the house to watch the Orioles baseball game at a bar in Georgetown?'

  'That's how it's been the last few nights. I think he knows we're out here.'

  'He's an intelligence officer. He knows surveillance. We also know he likes to play fantasy games. At any rate, he's home for the night, so I'm going home too, Patsy. I don't like leaving my family alone too long.'

  'Goodnight, Alex. Thanks for the help. We'll get him. And maybe we'll find your friend soon.'

  'I hope so.'

  On the drive home, I thought a little about Detective Patsy Hampton. She struck me as a lonely person, and I wondered why. She was thoughtful and interesting once you got past her tough facade. I wondered if anyone could really get through the facade though.

  There was a light on in our kitchen when I rolled into the driveway. I strolled around to the back door and saw Damon and Nana, in their bathrobes at the stove. Everything seemed all right.

  'Am I breaking up a pajama party?' I asked as I eased in through the back door.

  'Damon has an upset stomach. I heard him in the kitchen so I came out to get in his way.'

  'I'm all right. I just couldn't sleep. I saw you were still out,' he said. 'It's after midnight.'

  He looked worried, and also a little sad. Damon had really liked Christine and he told me a couple of times that he was looking forward to having a mom again. He'd already begun to think of her that way. He and Jannie missed Christine a whole lot. Twice, they'd had important women taken away from them.

  'I was working a little late. That's all. It's a very complicated case, Damon, but I think I'm making progress,' I said. I went to the cabinet and took out two tea bags.

  'I'll make you tea,' Nana offered.

  'I can do it,' I said, but she reached for the bags and I let her take them away from me. It doesn't pay to argue with Nana, especially not in her kitchen.

  'You want some tea and milk, big guy?' I asked Damon.

  'All right,' he said. He pronounced it ah-yite, as they do in the playgrounds, and probably even at the Sojourner Truth School.

  'You sound like that poor excuse of an NBA point guard Alan Iverson,' Nana said to him. She didn't much like street slang, never had. She had started off as an English teacher and never lost her love of books and language. She loved Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and also Oprah Winfrey for bringing their books to a wider audience.

  'He's the fastest guard in the league, Grandma Moses. Shows what you know about basketball,' said Damon. 'You probably think Magic Johnson is still playing in the league. And Wilt Chamberlain.'

  'I like Marbury with the Timberwolves, and Stoudamire with Portland, formerly with Toronto.' Nana said, and gave a little triumphant smile. 'Ah-yite?'

  Damon laughed. Nana probably knew more about NBA point guards than either of us. She could always get you if she wanted to.

  We sat at the kitchen table and drank tea with milk and too much sugar, and we were mostly quiet, but it was kind of nice. I love family, always have. Everything that I am flows from that. Finally, Damon got up from the table. He went to the sink and rinsed out his cup.

  'I can probably sleep now,' he reported to us. 'Give it a try anyway.'

  He came back to the table and gave Nana and me a kiss before he went back upstairs to bed. 'You miss her, don't you?' He whispered against my cheek.

  'Of course I miss Christine.' I said to Damon. 'All the time. Every waking minute.' I didn't make mention of the fact that I was out late because I was observing the sonofabitch who may have abducted her. Nor did I say anything about the other detective on surveillance, Patsy Hampton.

  When Damon left, Nana put her hand in mine and we sat like that for a few minutes before I went up to bed.

  'I miss her, too.' Nana finally said. 'I'm praying for you both, Alex.'

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Sixty-Nine

  The next evening, at around six, I took off early from work and went to Damon's choir practice at the Sojourner Truth School. I'd put together a good-sized file on Geoffrey Shafer, but I didn't have anything that concretely linked him to any of the murders. Neither did Patsy Hampton. Maybe he was just a fantasy-game player. Or maybe the Weasel was just being more careful since his taxi had been found.

  It tore me up to go to the Truth School, but I had to go. I realized how hard it must be for Damon and Jannie to go there every day. The school brought back too many memories of Christine. It was as if I was suffocating, all the breath being squeezed out of my lungs. At the same time, I was in a cold sweat that coated the back of my neck and forehead.

  A little while after the practice began, Jannie quietly reached over and took my hand. I heard her sigh softly.

  We were all doing a lot more touching and emoting since Bermuda, and I don't think we have ever been closer as a family.

  She and I held hands through most of the choir practice, which included the Welsh folk song 'All Through the Night'; Bach's 'My heart ever faithful, sing praises'; and a very special arrangement of the spiritual 'O Fix Me'.

  I kept imagining that Christine would suddenly appear at the school, and once or twice I actually turned back toward the archway that led to her office. Of course she wasn't there, which filled me with inconsolable sadness and the deepest emptiness. I finally cleared my mind of all thought, just shut down, and let my whole self be the music, the glorious sound of the boys' voices.

  After
we got home from the choir practice, Patsy Hampton checked in with me from her surveillance post. It was a little past eight. Nana and the kids were putting out cold chicken, slices of pears and apples, Cheddar cheese, a salad of endive and bibb lettuce.

  Shafer was still home and, of all things, a children's birthday party was going on there, Patsy reported. 'Lots of smiling kids from the neighborhood, plus a rent-a-clown called Silly Billy. Maybe we're on the wrong track here, Alex.'

  'I don't think so. I think our instincts are right about him.'

  I told her I would come over at around nine to keep her company; that was the time when Shafer usually left the house.

  Just past eight thirty the phone in the kitchen rang again as we were digging into the cold, well-spiced, delicious chicken. Nana frowned as I picked up the phone.

  I recognized the voice.

  'I told you to back off, didn't I? Now you have to pay some consequences for disobeying. It's your fault! There's a pay phone at the old Monkey House at the National Zoo. The zoo closes at eight, but you can get in through the gardening-staff gate. Maybe Christine Johnson is there at the zoo waiting for you. You better get over there quick and find out. Run, Cross, run. Hurry! We have her.'

  The caller hung up and I charged upstairs for my Glock. I called Patsy Hampton and told her I'd gotten another call, presumably from the Weasel. I'd be at the National Zoo.

  'Shafer's still at his kids'birthday party,' she told me. 'Of course, he could have called from the house. I can see Silly Billy's truck from where I'm parked.'

  'Keep in contact with me, Patsy. Phones and beepers. Beeper for emergencies only. Be careful with him.'

  'Okay. I'm fine here, Alex. Silly Billy doesn't pose too much of a threat. Nothing will happen at his house. Go to the zoo, Alex. You be careful.'

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Seventy

  I was at the National Zoo by ten to nine. I was thinking that the zoo was actually pretty close to Dr. Cassady's apartment at the Farragut. Was it a coincidence that I was so close to Shafer's shrink? I didn't believe in coincidences anymore.

  I called Patsy Hampton before I left the car, but she didn't pick up this time. I didn't beep her - this wasn't an emergency, or not so far.

  I knew the zoo from lots of visits with Damon and Jannie, but even better from when I was a boy and Nana used to bring me, and sometimes Sampson, who was nearly six foot by the time he was eleven. The main entrance to the zoo was at the corner of Connecticut and Hawthorne Avenues, but the old Monkey House was nearly a mile diagonally across the grounds from there.

  No one seemed to be around, but the gardening-staff gate was unlatched - as the caller said it would be. He knew the zoo, too. More games, I kept thinking. He definitely loved to play.

  As I hurried into the park, a steep horizon of trees and hills blocked out the lights from the surrounding city. There was only an occasional foot lamp for light, and it was eerie and frightening to be in there alone. Of course, I was sure I wasn't alone.

  The Monkey House was farther inside the gates than I had remembered. I finally located it in the dark. It looked like an old Victorian railway station. Across a cobble-stoned circle there was a more modern structure that I knew was the Reptile House.

  A sign over the twin doors of the old Monkey House read: WARNING: QUARANTINE - DO NOT ENTER! More eeriness. I tried the tall twin doors, but they were securely locked.

  On the wall beside the doors I saw a faded blue-and-white sign - the international pictograph indicating there was a phone inside. Was that the phone he wanted me to use?

  I shook the doors, which were old and wooden and rattled loudly. Inside, I could hear monkeys starting to scream and act out. First the smaller primates: spider monkeys, chimpanzees, gibbons. Then the deeper grunt of a gorilla.

  I caught sight of a dim red glow across the cobble-stoned circle. Another pay phone was over there.

  I hurried across the square. Checked my watch. It was two minutes past nine.

  He kept me waiting the last time.

  I thought about his game-playing. Was this all a role-playing game to him? How did he win? Lose?

  I worried that I wasn't at the right phone. I didn't see any others, but there was always the one locked inside the old Monkey House.

  Was that the phone he wanted me to use? I felt frantic and hyper. So many dangerous emotions were building up inside me.

  I heard a long, sustained 'aaaaahhhh', like the sound of a football crowd at the opening kickoff. It startled me until I realized it was the apes in the Monkey House.

  Was something wrong in there? An intruder? Something or someone near the phone?

  I waited another five minutes, and then it dragged on to ten minutes. It was driving me crazy. I almost couldn't bear it any longer, and I thought about beeping Patsy.

  Then my beeper went off, and I jumped!

  It was Patsy. It had to be an emergency.

  I stared at the silent pay phone; I waited a half-minute or so. Then I snatched it up.

  I called the beeper number and left the number of the pay phone. I waited some more.

  Patsy didn't call me back.

  Neither did the mystery caller.

  I was in a sweat.

  I had to make a decision now. I was caught in a very bad place. My head was starting to reel.

  Suddenly the phone rang. I grabbed at it, almost dropped the receiver. My heart was pounding like a bass drum.

  'We have her.'

  'Where?' I yelled into the receiver.

  'She's at the Farragut, of course.'

  The Weasel hung up. He never said she was safe.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Seventy-One

  I couldn't imagine why Christine would be at the Farragut in Washington, but he'd said she was there. Why would he do that if she wasn't? What was he doing to me? To her?

  I ran toward where I thought Cathedral Avenue was located. But it was very dark in the zoo, almost pitch-black. My vision was tunneling, maybe because I was close to being in shock. I couldn't think straight.

  My mind in a haze, I tripped over a dark slab of rock, went down on one knee. I cut my hands, tore my pants. Then I was up again, running through thick high bushes that grabbed and ripped at my face and arms.

  Animals all around the zoo howled, moaned, bellowed insanely. They sensed something was wrong. I could make out the sounds of grizzlies and elephant seals. I realized that I had to be approaching Arctic Circle, but I couldn't remember where it was in relation to the rest of the zoo or the city streets.

  Up ahead was a high Gibraltar-like rock. I clambered up the rock to try and get my bearings.

  Down below I saw a cluster of cages, shuttered gift stores and snack bars, two large veldts. I knew where I was now. I hurriedly climbed back down the rock and started to run again. Christine was at the Farragut. Would I finally find her? Could it actually be happening?

  I passed African Alley, then the Cheetah Conservation Station. I came to a vast field and what looked like large haystacks scattered everywhere. I realized that they were bison. I was somewhere near the Great Plains Way.

  The beeper in my pocket went off again.

  Patsy! An emergency! Where was she? Why hadn't she called back at the pay-phone number I'd given her?

  I was soaked in sweat and almost hyperventilating. Thank God I could finally see Cathedral Avenue, then Woodley Road up ahead.

  I was a long way from where I'd parked my car, but I was close to the Farragut apartment building.

  I ran another hundred yards in the dark, then climbed the stone wall separating the zoo from the city streets. There was blood smeared on my hands, and I didn't know where it had come from. The knee I'd scraped? Scratches from swinging branches? I could hear the loud wail of sirens in the near distance. Was it coming from the Farragut?

  I headed there in a sprint. It was a little past ten o'clock. Over an hour and a half had already gone by sinc
e the call to my house.

  The beeper was buzzing inside my shirt pocket.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Seventy-Two

  Something bad had happened at the Farragut. The burping screams of approaching sirens were getting louder as I raced down Woodley. I was reeling, feeling dizzy. I couldn't focus my mind. I realized that, for one of the few times in recent years, I was close to panic.

  Neither the police nor the EMS had arrived at the apartment building yet. I was going to be the first on the scene.

  Two doormen and several tenants in bathrobes were clustered in front of the underground garage entrance. It couldn't be Christine. It just couldn't be. I raced across a quadrant of lawn toward them. Was the Weasel here at the Farragut?

  They saw me coming and looked as frightened as I felt inside. I must have been quite a sight. I remembered that I'd fallen once or twice inside the zoo. I probably looked like a madman, maybe even like a killer. There was blood on my hands and who knew where else.

  I reached for my wallet, shook it open to expose my detective's shield.

  'Police. What's happened here?' I shouted. 'I'm a police detective. My name is Alex Cross.'

  'Somebody has been murdered, Detective.' One of the doormen finally spoke. 'This way. Please.'

  I followed the doorman down the steeply sloped concrete driveway leading into the garage.

  'It's a woman,' he said. 'I'm pretty sure she's gone. I called nine-one-one.'

  'Oh God,' I gasped out loud. My stomach clutched. Patsy Hampton's Jeep was tucked back in a corner space. The door of the Jeep was open and light spilled outside.

  I felt terrible fear, pain, and shock as I hurried around the door. Patsy Hampton was sprawled across the front seat. I could tell she was probably dead.

  We have her. That was what the message meant. Jesus God, no. They had murdered Patsy Hampton. They had told me to back off. For God's sake, no.

  Her bare legs were twisted and pinned under the steering wheel. Her upper body was crumpled over, at almost a right angle. Her head was thrown back and lay partly off the seat, on the passenger's side. Her blonde hair was matted with blood. Her vacant blue eyes stared up at me.