Agents, meanwhile, were searching McGuigan’s house and yard. Around noon, they found one of the diamonds from the MetroHartford job. McGuigan panicked and she changed her story. She told the FBI what she knew about Dr. Francis, Frederic Szabo, and the robberies and kidnappings.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Betsey Cavalierre said, and jumped around the back of the surveillance van when she heard the news. She bumped her head on the van roof. “That hurts. I don’t care. We’ve got him! Dr. Francis is going down.”
At a little past two that afternoon, she and I walked across the manicured front lawn and up the brick stairway into Francis’s building. My heart was thudding in my chest. This was it. It had to be. We took the elevator up to the fifth floor — the penthouse, the Mastermind’s lair.
“We’ve earned the right to do this,” I told her.
“I can’t wait to see his face,” Betsey said as she rang the bell. “Cold-blooded piece of shit. Ding-dong, guess who’s at the front door? This is for Walsh and Doud.”
“And the little Buccieri boy — all the others he killed.”
Dr. Francis answered the door. He was tan, dressed in Florida Gators sweatpants, a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, no socks or shoes. He didn’t look like a cold-blooded and heartless monster. So often they don’t.
Betsey told him who we were. She then explained to Dr. Francis that we were part of the team investigating the MetroHartford kidnapping and several bank robberies back East.
Francis seemed momentarily confused. “I don’t think I understand. Why are you here? I haven’t been in Washington, well, in nearly a year. I don’t see how I can help you with any bank robberies up north. Are you sure you have the right address?”
I spoke up. “May we come in, Dr. Francis? This is the right address. Trust me on that. We want to talk to you about a former patient of yours named Frederic Szabo.”
Francis managed to look even more confused. He was playing his part well, and I guess I wasn’t surprised.
“Frederic Szabo? You’re kidding me, right?”
“We kid you not,” Betsey said emphatically.
Francis became petulant. His face and neck flushed. “I’ll be in my office at the hospital in West Palm on Monday. The hospital is on Blue Heron. We can talk about my former patients there. Frederic Szabo? Jesus! That was almost a year ago. What has he done? Is this about his crank letters to the Fortune Five hundred? You people are incredible. Please leave my home now.”
Dr. Francis tried to slam the door in my face. I stopped it with the heel of my hand. My heart continued to beat hard. This was so good — we had him.
“This can’t wait until Monday, Dr. Francis,” I told him. “It can’t wait at all.”
He sighed but continued to look incredibly pissed off. “Oh, all right. I was just making myself coffee. Come in if you must.”
“We must,” I told the Mastermind.
Chapter 121
“WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE?” Francis asked again as we followed him through an all-glass loggia that looked down onto the rolling surf of the Atlantic several floors below. The view was spectacular, worth at least a couple of murders. The afternoon sun created countless stars and diamonds that danced on the water’s surface. Life was so very good for Dr. Bernard Francis.
“Frederic Szabo figured it all out for you, didn’t he?” I said, just to break the ice. “He had an elaborate fantasy for revenge against the banks. He had all the know-how, the obsession, the contacts. Isn’t that how it happened?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Francis looked at Betsey and me as if we were as deranged as some of his mental patients.
I ignored the look and the condescension in his voice. “You heard about his plans in your therapy sessions with Szabo. You were impressed by the detail, the precision. He’d thought through everything. You also learned he hadn’t been a drifter all those years since the war. You found out he’d worked for First Union Bank. Surprise, surprise. He’d been a security executive. He really did know about banks and how to rob them. He was crazy, but not in the way you had thought.”
Francis flicked on a coffeemaker on the kitchen counter. “I won’t even dignify this horseshit with a response. I’d offer you both coffee, but I’m angry. I’m really pissed off. Please finish with your nonsense, then you can both leave.”
“I don’t want coffee,” I said. “I want you, Francis. You killed all those people, without any remorse. You murdered Walsh and Doud. You’re the madman, the Mastermind. Not Frederic Szabo.”
“It’s you who is crazy. You’re both crazy,” Dr. Francis said. “I’m a respected physician, a decorated army officer.”
Then he smiled — almost as if he couldn’t help it — and the look on Francis’s face said it all: I can do anything I want to do. You’re nothing to me. I do what I want to. I’d seen that horrible look before. I knew it well. Gary Soneji, Casanova, Mr. Smith, the Weasel. Francis was a psychopath, too. He was as crazy as any of the killers I’d caught. Maybe he’d spent too long being underappreciated working in veterans hospitals. Undoubtedly, it went a lot deeper than that.
“One of the bank-crew members you interviewed remembered you. He described you as tall, broad forehead, hooked nose, large ears. That’s not Frederic Szabo.”
Francis turned away from his coffee making and let out a harsh, unpleasant laugh. “Oh, that’s very compelling evidence, Detective. I’d like to hear you present it to the district attorney in Washington. I’ll bet the D.A. would get a good belly laugh out of it, too.”
I smiled back at him. “We already have talked to the D.A. She didn’t laugh. By the way, Kathleen McGuigan has talked to us, too. Since you didn’t return her call, we went to see her. You’re under arrest for robbery, kidnapping, and murder. Dr. Francis, I see that you aren’t laughing anymore.”
I sensed that his mind was racing way ahead of the conversation. “You notice that I’m not rushing to call my lawyer, either.”
“You should,” I told him. “There’s something else you should know. Szabo finally talked this morning. Frederic Szabo kept a diary of your sessions, Doctor. He kept notes. He wrote about your interest in his plans. You know how efficient Frederic can be. How thorough. He said you asked more questions in his therapy sessions about the robberies than you asked about him. He showed you his blueprints for everything.”
“We want the money, the fifteen million dollars,” Betsey told Francis. “If we recover the money then everything will go easier for you. That’s the best offer you’re going to get.”
Francis’s disdain was blossoming. “Let’s suppose for a moment that I was this Mastermind you speak of. Don’t you think I’d have a stunning escape plan figured? You couldn’t just barge in here and capture me. The Mastermind wouldn’t allow himself to be caught by two peons like you.”
It was finally my turn to smile. “I don’t know about that, Francis. We peons might surprise you. I think you’re on your own now. Did Szabo give you an escape plan, too? He probably didn’t.”
Chapter 122
“ACTUALLY, HE DID,” Francis said, and his voice was at least an octave lower than it had been. “There was always a slim, slim possibility that you’d catch me. That I’d be faced with life in jail. That’s totally unacceptable, you understand. It isn’t going to happen. You do understand that?”
“No, actually, it is going to happen,” Betsey said with a firmness to match Francis’s statement. Meanwhile, my hand was already reaching for my gun.
Suddenly, Francis broke for the glass door that led out onto the rooftop deck. I knew there was nowhere for him to go out there. What was he doing?
“Francis, no!” I shouted.
Betsey and I pulled our guns simultaneously, but we didn’t fire. There was no reason to kill him. We rushed out through the door and followed Francis in a sprint across the weathered wooden deck.
When he reached the far wall of the roof deck, Francis did something I wouldn’t have ever imagined, not in a hundred lifetimes of polic
e work.
He dived off the deck — which was five floors above the street. Bernard Francis went down headfirst. He’d break his neck for sure. There was no way he’d live.
“I don’t believe it!” Betsey screeched as we got to the edge of the deck and looked down.
I didn’t believe what I saw, either. Francis had made a dive five stories down to a shimmery blue swimming pool. He surfaced and began to stroke rapidly toward the pool’s far wall.
I had no choice and I didn’t hesitate. I jumped off the high roof deck after Dr. Francis.
Betsey was no more than half a step behind me.
We both yelled as we cannonballed all the way down to the pool.
I hit the surface of the water with my backside first, and I was punished severely. My body went splat. My insides felt as if they’d been hastily rearranged.
I shot to the bottom, hit it pretty hard, but then I was paddling to the surface, swimming as fast as I could toward the far wall. I was trying to clear my head, to focus my eyes, to think clearly about stopping the Mastermind’s escape.
I climbed out of the pool and saw Francis running onto the property of the bordering condominiums. He was throwing off water like a duck.
Betsey and I started after him. Our shoes were squeaking and sloughing water. Nothing mattered except that we had to catch him.
Francis was picking up speed, and I did the same. I guessed he must have had a car parked in one of the neighboring lots — or maybe even a boat in a nearby marina.
I was gaining very little ground for all my efforts. Francis was running barefoot, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.
He peered over his shoulder and saw us. Then he straightened his head and saw something that changed everything.
Up ahead of Francis in the parking lot were three FBI agents. They had their guns drawn, aimed at him. They were yelling for him to stop.
Francis came to a dead stop in the crowded lot. He looked back at us, then faced the three agents. He reached into his pants pocket.
“Francis, don’t do it!” I yelled as I ran toward him.
But he didn’t pull a gun. He had a clear bottle in his hand. He poured the contents into his mouth.
Dr. Francis suddenly clawed at his throat. His eyes bulged to double their normal size. He fell to his knees, which cracked hard against the pavement.
“He poisoned himself,” Betsey said in a hoarse voice. “My God, Alex.”
Francis rose from the ground with a burst of strength. We watched in horror as he thrashed wildly around the parking lot, flailing both arms, doing a strange, straight-backed dance. He was frothing from the mouth. Finally, he smashed his face into a silver Mercedes SUV Blood spattered onto the hood.
He screamed, tried to tell us something, but it came out a tortured gargle. He had a severe nosebleed. He twitched and spasmed, and there was nothing any of us could do to help him.
More agents were flooding into the parking area. So were condo residents and visitors. There was nothing any of us could do for Francis. He’d killed people, poisoned some. He had murdered two FBI agents. Now we were watching him die, and it was horrifying. It was taking a long time.
He fell and thudded heavily to the ground again. His head cracked hard against the pavement. The spasms and twitching slowed noticeably. A terrible gargling sound escaped from his throat.
I got down on my hands and knees beside him. “Where is Agent Doud? Where’s Michael Doud?” I pleaded. “For God’s sake, tell us.”
Francis stared up at me, and he said the last words I wanted to hear. “You’ve got the wrong man.”
Then he died.
Epilogue
THE RIGHT MAN
Chapter 123
THREE WEEKS HAD PASSED, and my life was finally returning to something approaching normal. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about getting out of police work, though. I didn’t know if it had been the intensity of the Mastermind case, or an accumulation of cases, but I was experiencing all the basic symptoms of job burnout.
Most of the fifteen million dollars from Francis’s share hadn’t been found, and that was driving everybody at the FBI a little crazy. Locating it was consuming all of Betsey’s time. She was working weekends again, and I hadn’t seen much of her. She had said it all in Florida, I suppose. I’m going to miss you so much.
Tonight was Nana Mama’s fault; at least I blamed her for it. Here we were — Sampson and I — trapped inside the ancient and venerable First Baptist Church on Fourth Street near my house.
All around Sampson and me, men and women were sobbing. The minister and his wife were busy telling everybody that the outpouring of emotion was for the best — just to let it all out, the anger, the fear, the poison inside. Which just about everybody in the church was doing. Everybody but Sampson and me seemed to be crying their eyes out.
“Nana Mama owes us big time for this little number,” Sampson leaned in and said in a whisper.
I smiled at what he’d said, his lack of understanding of this woman he’d known since he was ten years old. “Not in her mind. Not to her way of thinking. We still owe Nana for all the times she saved our little butts when we were growing up.”
“Well, she does have a point there, sugar. But this wipes out a lot of old debts.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I told him.
“No, the choir’s busy wailing,” he said, and chuckled. “This is definitely a three-hankie evening.”
John and I were squeezed in tight between two women who were weeping and shouting prayers and amens and heartfelt petitions. The occasion was something called “Sister, I’m Sorry,” a special church service that was gaining popularity in D.C. Men came to churches and other venues to pay tribute to the women for all the physical and emotional abuse they had taken, and for the abuse they might have given women in their lifetimes.
“It’s so good of you to come,” the woman next to me suddenly proclaimed in a voice loud enough for me to hear over the shouting and screaming around us. She hugged my shoulder. “You’re a good man, Alex. One of the few.”
“Yeah, that’s my problem,” I muttered under my breath. But then, loud enough for her to hear, I said, “Sister, I’m sorry. You’re a good woman, too. You’re a sweetheart.”
The woman grabbed me harder. She was a sweetheart, actually. Her name was Terri Rashad. She was in her early thirties, attractive, proud, and usually joyful. I had seen her around the neighborhood.
“Sister, I’m sorry,” I heard Sampson say to the woman standing beside him in the church pew.
“Well, you damn well ought to be sorry,” I heard Lace McCray say. “But thank you. You’re not as bad as I thought you were.”
Sampson eventually nudged me and whispered in his deep voice, “It’s kind of emotional when you get into it. Maybe Nana was right to have us come.”
“She knows that. Nana is always right,” I said. “She’s like an octogenarian Oprah.”
“How’re you doing, sugar?” John finally asked as the singing and screeching and sobbing crescendoed.
I thought about it for a few seconds. “Oh, I miss Christine. But we’re happy to have the Boy with us. Nana says it will add years to her life. He lights up our whole house, morning to night. He thinks we’re all his staff.”
Christine had left for Seattle at the end of June. At least she’d finally told me where she was going. I’d gone over to Mitchellville to say good-bye to her. Her new SUV was packed up. Everything was ready. Christine gave me a hug and then she started to cry, to heave against my body. “Maybe someday,” she whispered. Maybe someday.
But now she was out in the state of Washington, and I was here in the Baptist church in my neighborhood. I figured Nana Mama was trying to get me a date. It was a funny idea, actually, and I finally started to laugh.
“You sorry for the sisters, Alex?” Sampson asked. He was getting gabby. I looked at Sampson, then around the church.
“Sure I am. Lots of good people he
re, trying to do the best they can. They just want to be loved a little bit now and then.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Sampson said, and clasped me hard around the shoulder.
“No. Nothing at all. Just trying to do the best we can.”
Chapter 124
A COUPLE OF NIGHTS LATER, I was home playing the piano on the sunporch at around eleven-thirty. The rest of the house was silent, nice and peaceful, the way I like it sometimes. I had just gone up, checked on the Boy, and found him sleeping like a precious little angel in his crib. I was playing Gershwin, one of my favorites, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
I was thinking about my family, about our old house on Fifth Street and how much I loved it here in spite of everything that was wrong with the neighborhood. I was starting to get my head on straight again. Maybe all that screeching and crying in the Baptist church had helped. Or maybe it was the Gershwin.
The phone rang, and I hurried to the kitchen to get it before it woke everyone up, especially little Alex, or A. J., as Jannie and Damon had started to call him.
It was Kyle Craig.
Kyle almost never called the house and never this late. This was how everything had started on the Mastermind case — with Kyle.
“Kyle,” I said, “why are you calling me here? What’s wrong? I can’t start on another case.”
“It’s bad, Alex. I don’t even know how to tell you this,” he said in the softest, quietest voice. “Oh, shit, Alex . . . Betsey Cavalierre is dead. I’m at her place now. You should come here. Just come.”
I hung up the phone a minute or so later. I must have — because it was back on its hook. My legs and arms had turned to jelly. I was biting the inside of my cheek and I tasted blood. I was reeling. Kyle hadn’t told me everything, just that I should come to Betsey’s house. Someone had broken in there and killed her. Who had killed her? Jesus! Why?
I was throwing on some clothes to go and meet Kyle when the phone rang a second time. I snatched it up. It had to be somebody else with the bad news. Probably Sampson, or maybe Rakeem Powell.