He finally held up his index finger without actually looking around at me. One minute?
At that point, I opened the car door for him and showed my creds. “Now, sir? Please hang up the phone.”
“I gotta go,” he said to whoever, and stepped outside, full of piss and vinegar, I could tell. “Officer, can you, or somebody, tell me how long we’ll be stuck here?”
“Not long,” I said, rather than lecture him about the two kids who had just died. “But I need you to tell me exactly what you saw happen on the overpass.”
He talked fast, with an irritating nonchalance, but his story corroborated what we’d gathered so far. The driver of the Honda had come to a halt seconds after the young male had been thrown down into traffic.
“At first, I didn’t realize what the accident, or whatever, was all about. I just saw cars suddenly stopping in front of me. But then I saw the dead kid.” He pointed to the bridge. “And the one up there. The girl who got her throat cut. Terrible shit. Tragic, right?” He asked the question as if he couldn’t figure it out for himself.
“Right. Can you describe the man who was on the overpass? The killer?”
“Not really. He had on one of those Halloween masks. The rubber kind you put over your whole head? I think it was supposed to be Richard Nixon. I’m pretty sure. Does that make any sense?”
“It does. Thank you for your help,” I told the man. “Another officer will come by to take down a few more particulars.”
The next eyewitness I spoke to was a limo driver, who told me the killer looked taller and much heavier than the female victim. Also that he wore a dark Windbreaker with no insignia that the driver could make out. And then a few vaguely recollected bits of what had been said over the bullhorn. “That sonofabitch bastard yelled, ‘I’m back!’ Those were his first words.”
“Did you notice if he had any kind of camera or recording device up there?” I asked.
The limo driver shook his head. “I’m sorry, I honestly don’t know. Not that I saw, anyway. There was a lot of confusion.”
“Still is,” I said, and patted the guy on the shoulder. “Anything else you remember?”
The limo driver shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
I managed to squeeze in four more witnesses before the G.W. was opened to traffic again. Any further accounting would have to come later; I’d gotten as much during the critical first hours as I could get. I hoped it would help, but I didn’t think so. For someone who was putting on live shows, the killer was covering his tracks very well.
A few minutes later, Bree, Sampson, and I reconvened at the west end of the pedestrian bridge, where the killer had apparently fled, at least according to several of the witnesses.
“The bushes over there are all trampled down,” Sampson said, pointing to a stand of high grass out of sight from the road. “For all we know, he had a motorcycle or something stashed away. So far, we’ve got nothing more on him.”
Bree added, “No calling card, by the way.”
“That’s a little weird,” I said. “He forgot about his signature this time? Since when does that happen?”
“Or he changed his pattern,” said Sampson. “Again, since when does that happen?”
“Or”—I finally said what had been bothering me for a while—“this wasn’t the same guy.”
Then Bree’s cell went off. She listened, and her face couldn’t have been any more grim.
Finally she looked at the two of us. “Well, he’s struck again. There’s been another murder.”
Chapter 46
THEY WEREN’T GOING TO KNOW what hit them this time. The killer had arrived at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, about two hours before kickoff for the first football game of the season. He grabbed a soda and a hot dog, then browsed the Hall of Fame Store, not really interested in buying—he wasn’t a Redskins fan, not his hometown—but he wanted to blend in with the rest of the sports crowd.
For a while, anyway.
And then—he wanted to stand out. Really stand out. Make his bones. Play his role in the fourth story.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see some of the football players warming up—kickers booming high, long punts and making field-goal attempts. It was going to be another sellout crowd—there had never been a Redskins home game that wasn’t. There was about a thirty-year waiting list for season tickets.
And, man, did he love sellout crowds for his stories.
Some particularly high-spirited fans, the Hogettes, were singing “Hail to the Redskins” slightly off-key and with off-color lyrics liberally sprinkled in, which seemed weird since there were lots of kids in the crowd. The so-called superfans wore bright-colored wigs and polka-dot blouses and plastic hog snouts. Some of them were smoking extra-long cigars, which enhanced their piggy image.
He hadn’t gone quite that far with his outfit, but he was wearing a Redskins cap and jersey, and he had his face painted burgundy and gold, the home team’s colors. His persona was that of a disgruntled fan named Al Jablonski. A good, solid role to play.
Ninety-one thousand fans packed the stadium, all waiting for Al Jablonski. They just didn’t know it yet.
Close to game time, the First Ladies of football scampered onto the Technicolor-green field—masses of flying hair and pom-poms, skimpy red halter tops and white short shorts. Family entertainment at its most all-American, the killer couldn’t help thinking.
“Are you ready for some foot-ball?” he shouted from the stands. “Some foos-ball!” A few fans around him joined in or laughed at the familiar line from the Monday Night Football TV show. Al Jablonski knew his audience, and his game.
The control booth for the stadium scoreboard was located underneath the huge sign. He knew the way and arrived there in time for the national anthem to be sung by a soprano marine from the base down in Quantico.
Al Jablonski knocked on the metal door, said, “Couple of messages from Mr. Snyder’s office. Vanessa sent these down.” Vanessa was actually the name of one of the owner’s assistants. Easy enough to find out.
The door opened. There were two guys inside—stat geeks, from the looks of them, real antiques. “Hi, I’m Al Jablonski.” He shot them both, and the sound of the gun was completely lost under loud cheering from the crowd as the national anthem ended. Sort of took away his thunder.
So he sat at the geeks’ computer and put a message up on the big stadium screen for all to see.
I’M BACK! AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE THIS SUNDAY A REAL KILLER FOR EVERYBODY.
THE GUYS WHO USUALLY SEND OUT THESE ANNOYING MESSAGES AND PLUGS ARE DEAD INSIDE THE CONTROL BOOTH. SO ENJOY THE GAME WITHOUT ANY FURTHER INTERRUPTIONS FROM MANAGEMENT OR CORPORATE SPONSORS. PLEASE WATCH YOUR BACKS, AND YOUR FRONTS TOO. I’M IN THE BUILDING, AND I COULD BE ANYWHERE, AND ANYONE.
THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN FOOTBALL, DON’T YOU THINK? GO, SKINS!
Chapter 47
KYLE CRAIG HAD JUST HEARD the latest good news from Washington, DC, when his mother slowly opened the twelve-foot-high front door of the vacation house near Snowmass outside Aspen. When she saw who it was, the old woman fainted like somebody had hit her “off” switch.
Kyle managed to catch dear old Mom before she struck the stonework floor, and he smiled to himself. It was good to be home again, wasn’t it?
Moments later, he was reviving the old woman in the cavernous kitchen of the twelve-thousand-square-foot house. “Are you okay? Miriam? Mother?”
“William?” she groaned when she looked up at the face staring down at her. “Is that William?”
“Now how could that possibly be?” Kyle asked, and he frowned deeply. “For once, just once, use the intelligence that you were given, that you must have been given. Your husband, my father—William—has been dead for a long time. I helped you bury the general in Alexandria. Don’t you remember the glorious day? Sunny skies, crisp cool breeze, smell of burning leaves in the air. Good Lord, you’re losing it, woman. People sent all those flowers—congratula
ting you on gaining your freedom from that hypocritical tyrant and bastard.”
Suddenly, Kyle clasped both hands to his face. “Oh, my God. My fault! This is all my fault, Mother. The mask! These prosthetic masks are so damn realistic. I look just like Father in this one, don’t I? Finally I’m living up to the old man’s image for me.”
His mother began to scream, and he let her go on for a bit. There was no one around to hear her raving, anyway. His father had never allowed her household help when he was alive, and she still didn’t have any staff. How typical was that? She had all the money in the world and nothing to spend it on.
He watched the pathetic old woman shake and twist her head back and forth. Ironically, her face was more masklike than his, a mask of one family’s tragedy.
“No, it’s just me. It’s Kyle. I’m out and about again. I wanted to see you, of course, to visit. But the other reason I came—I need some money, Mom. Won’t be here for more than a couple of minutes. You’ll have to give me the numbers for the overseas accounts, though.”
After Kyle had finished at the computer in his father’s old office, he felt like a new man. He was wealthy now, nearly four million transferred into his account in Zurich, but even more important, he finally felt free. That didn’t happen just because a man got out of prison. For some prisoners, the sense of freedom never came again, even if they did get to see the sun.
“But I’m free, free at last!” he shouted to the high rafters of the Colorado house. “And I have important things to do. I have so many promises to keep.”
Chapter 48
WHEN HE CAME BACK downstairs to say good-bye to his mom, he had discarded the rubber mask. He’d worn it on most of the drive from Florence to Aspen, but it probably wasn’t wise to push his luck too far. The same could be said for being here at the house—except that few people knew his mother stayed here—and he did need the money after all, needed it for his plan, to make all his nightmares come true.
He snuck up on Miriam, whom he had hog-tied to his father’s old lounge chair in the family room. Right in front of the twelve-foot-high fireplace. God, how many memories were here—his father screaming at him until his veins looked like they would burst, the general striking him so many times he lost count. And Miriam—never saying a word, pretending that she didn’t know about the beatings, the tongue-lashings, the years of constant abuse.
“Boo—Mommy!” Kyle said as he popped up behind the old girl. He wondered if she remembered how he used to do this when he was just a little boy, five or six years old at the most. Boo—Mommy! Pay attention to me, please?
“Well, I’m through with the bulk of my business here in Colorado. I’m a wanted man, y’know, so I’d best hit the road. Oh dear, you’re shaking like a leaf. Listen, sweetie, you’re perfectly safe here in this house, this fortress of yours. Alarms everywhere. Even a snowmelt system on the walk and driveway.”
He leaned in close to her—smelled lavender, and it was like reliving a nightmare of things past, things gone terribly, terribly wrong in his life.
“I’m not going to murder you, for God’s sake. Is that what you were thinking? No! No! No! I want you to watch what I do from now on. You’re an important witness for me. I’m working to heap honor on you and Dad too.
“Speaking of which, tell me one thing—did you know that he struck me almost every day when I was a boy? Did you know that? Tell me that one thing. It will stay between the two of us. I won’t tell Oprah or anything like that. No memoirs for me. I’m no James Frey or Augusten Burroughs.”
It took her nearly a minute to get the words out. “Kyle . . . I didn’t, I didn’t know. What are you talking about, anyway? You always made things up.”
He smiled down at her. “Ahhh. That’s a relief.”
Then he pulled out a Beretta, one of the guns Mason Wainwright had left for him in his car.
“Changed my mind, Mom. Sorry. I’ve wanted to do this for so long. I’ve ached to do it. Now watch this. Watch the little black hole at the end of the barrel. You see that? Tiny eternal abyss? Watch the hole, watch the hole, watch the abyss, and—”
Bang!
He shot his mother right between the eyes. Shot her a couple of times for good measure. Then he left a few clues behind for the investigators who would show up at the house eventually.
Clue #1: In the kitchen—a half-finished bottle of Arthur Bryant’s barbecue sauce.
Clue #2: Propped on the bedroom dresser, a Hallmark card with no handwritten message.
Not easy clues but clues all the same. Something for the hunters to go on.
If they were any good at their jobs.
If Alex Cross was one of those hot on his trail, anyway.
“Catch me if you can, Dr. Detective. Figure out all the puzzles, and the murders will stop. But I doubt that’s what is going to happen. I could be wrong, but I don’t think anybody could catch me twice.”
Chapter 49
WHEN BREE STONE ARRIVED at work on Monday morning, the phone on her desk was already ringing. She set down an empty Slim-Fast can—she’d downed two on the way to the office—and snatched up the receiver. She’d been thinking about Alex, but now that nice thought was gone.
“Bree, it’s Brian Kitzmiller. Listen, I have something pretty neat to show you.”
“Something pretty neat, Kitz? What might that be? A new game for your Wii? You are a piece of work, you know that?”
She shrugged her work bag back onto her shoulder. “I can be there in a few minutes.”
“Not necessary. Stay right where you are. Do you happen to be near a computer?”
“Of course I am. Who isn’t nowadays?”
As soon as she was online, Kitz directed her to a site called SerialTimes.net. Bree rolled her eyes as she brought up the site. What now? The home page was a crowded and sloppy-looking collection of thumbnail images, “unofficial” updates, and actual news items. Really sick, gross stuff. Right up there with the worst she’d seen.
The most prominent item was a red-bordered box with the headline
Exclusive! Don’t miss this!
Message from DCAK!
Click here
“And I’m supposed to believe this is for real?” she asked, then added, “Is it, Kitz?”
“Just click it. Then you tell me.”
The next window had a black background with a short message in the same white typewriter font as the killer’s original blog, which was one of hundreds of leads she had followed that didn’t seem to go anywhere.
The familiar look of the site wasn’t what definitely answered Bree’s question, though. It was the two images pasted in at the top of the screen: a small Iraqi flag and a bright-green X-Files X—symbols from the first two homicides.
Yeah, they seemed to say, it’s me.
“Those two items aren’t public knowledge yet, are they?” Kitzmiller asked. “Am I right?”
Bree shook her head as if he could see her, then mumbled, “No, they aren’t, Kitz. We’ve kept them to ourselves.” She was already reading the message below. The latest mindblower.
“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”—Charles Caleb Colton
I’m setting the record straight for everybody who cares, or ought to care, about these things. That piece of shit work out at the George Washington Memorial Parkway? Someone else did that, not me. I’ll take the flattery, but don’t try to pin that one here, ’cause I don’t want it. I mean, “Nixon” just copycatted what I did at the Riverwalk! Didn’t even have the nerve to show his face. Plus, the work itself was amateurish. Not worthy of me or those I model myself on.
FedExField—that one was yours truly. Took some balls to get in and out of there. Imagine making a kill in a closed-in public area like that.
Make no mistake. There is only one DCAK. When it’s me, you’ll know it. You’ll know because I’ll tell you.
And the work will be done with some imagination and flair. Give me a little respect. I think I’ve earned that much.
/> At least now the police have someone they can catch—this imitator! Isn’t that right, Detective Bree Stone? ’Cause you’re not even close to catching me, are you?
Keep on living, fuckers.
—DCAK
For the next few seconds, Bree stood there, shaking her head back and forth. Alex had been right about the parkway murders . . . and probably everything else.
Chapter 50
PLUS, DCAK HAD USED HER NAME.
Bree finally sat back in her chair and tried to process that little nugget. She couldn’t believe how brazen and arrogant this prick was, and how completely messed up. And scary.
“Bree? You still there?” Brian Kitzmiller asked over the phone.
“Yeah. I’m here. Just having a depressed-cop moment. That was pretty neat, all right.”
“You okay? Other than the obvious?”
She focused on her hands, which were shaking only a little bit. “Yeah, Kitz. Thanks for asking. It’s creepy, but it makes sense to me. He’s probably a total junkie for his own coverage. Of course he knows who I am. And of course he knows about Alex. He’s watching us, Kitz.”
“In one way, that’s good news, isn’t it? We wanted to make sure we were in the same communication stream as the killer. I think we’re there.”
“Ya think?” Bree’s mind was racing with all kinds of questions. “When was this posted?”
“Eleven twenty last night. It’s already burning up the chat rooms. It’s everywhere, and I mean everywhere.”
“That might explain these calls.” She picked up the stack of pink message slips already in her in-box. The top one was from Channel Seven news. “Listen, I need a name to work with. Something solid. Whose site is this?”
“Still working on that. I’ve got an IP address, and I’m checking all the major registries. With any luck, I’ll have a name for you soon. Operative word—luck.”
“I hear you. Soon is good, though. Thanks, Kitz. We need you on this one.”