As we approached an intersecting street, the Volvo station wagon and the Lincoln joined the race. A few neighborhood kids who were playing flag football in spite of the miserable weather stopped to gawk wide-eyed at the real-life police chase roaring up the suburban street.
I had my Glock out and the window rolled down. I wasn’t going to fire unless he did. Kevin Hawkins wasn’t wanted for any specific crime yet. No warrants had been served. Why was he running? He sure was acting guilty about something.
Hawkins leaned the Harley into a steep curve as he downshifted into fourth. I remembered another life and time spent on a fast motorcycle. I recalled its amazing maneuverability. The rawness of the speed. The feeling when your skin begins to tighten against your skull. I remembered Jezzie Flanagan, and her motorcycle.
Hawkins’s bike made a deep, guttural roar as it climbed the hilly road like a ground rocket.
I tried to keep up, and was doing a pretty decent job. Amazingly, so were the Volvo wagon and the sedan. The chase scene was complete madness, though—suburbia suddenly racing out of control.
Was Jack up ahead?
Was Hawkins Jack?
I watched Kevin Hawkins stretch himself flat above the handlebars of the bike. He knew how to ride. What else did the trained killer know how to do?
He was accelerating into fifth, approaching ninety or so on a narrow suburban road repeatedly marked for thirty-five.
Then up ahead—traffic!
The bane of our existence was suddenly the most glorious and welcome sight in the world to me.
A traffic jam!
Several cars and vans were already backed up in the direction we were coming from.
A bright orange mini-school bus was stopped in the opposite lane. It was discharging a thin line of children, as it did probably every day about this time. Hawkins hadn’t slowed the cycle much, though. Suddenly, he was riding the double line in the road. He hadn’t slowed the cycle at all.
I realized what he was going to do.
He was going to split the stopped traffic, and keep on going.
I started to brake and cursed loudly. I knew what I had to do.
I swerved off the road again, traveling cross-country over more lawns. A woman in a black pea jacket and jeans screamed at me from her porch and waved a snow shovel.
I headed toward where the main road looped down ahead to meet the lane I had been stuck in traffic in only a few seconds ago.
Jeanne Sterling followed in her station wagon. So did the Lincoln sedan. Madness and chaos helter-skelter in Silver Spring.
Was this Jack up ahead? Were we about to nab the celebrity stalker and killer?
I had high hopes. We were so close to him. Less than a hundred yards.
I kept my eyes pinned on the bouncing, speeding motorcycle. Suddenly, it went down!
The bike slid on one side, sending up a sheet of bright orange and white sparks against the roadway black. A few kids were still walking in a line between the bus and the stopped traffic.
Then Hawkins went down!
He had gone down to avoid hitting the children.
He had swerved to avoid hitting the kids!
Hawkins was down on the road.
Could this be Jack up ahead?
If not, who in the name of God was he?
I was out of the car, holding my Glock, racing like a madman toward the bizarre accident scene. I was slip-sliding on the ice and snow, but I wouldn’t let it slow me down.
Jeanne Sterling and her two agents were out of their cars as well, but they weren’t doing as well in the slush. I was losing my cover.
Kevin Hawkins managed to pull himself up from the sprawling heap. He looked back. He saw us coming. Guns everywhere.
He had a gun out, but he didn’t fire. He was only a few feet away from the school bus and the children.
He left the kids alone, though. Instead, he ran to a black Camaro convertible at the head of the line of stopped cars.
What the hell was he up to now?
I could see him yelling into the driver-side window of the stopped sports car. Then blam, he fired directly into the open window.
Hawkins yanked open the car door, and a body fell out.
Jesus Christ, he’d shot the driver dead! Just like that.
I had seen it, but I couldn’t believe it.
The contract killer took off in the Camaro. He’d killed someone for his car. But he’d nearly killed himself to avoid hitting a row of innocent children.
No rules… or rather, make up your own.
I stopped running and stood helplessly in the middle of the street in Silver Spring. Had we just been that close to catching Jack? Had it almost been over?
CHAPTER
70
NANA MAMA was still up when I got home about eleven-thirty that night. Sampson was with her.
Adrenaline fired through my body the moment I saw them waiting for me. The two of them looked even worse than I felt after a long bear of a day.
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 I could comprehend—like electricity, lamps, moldings. No one can really understand a homicidal madman. They are like visitors from other plan
ets—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 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 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 André Gide’s Lafcadio’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?
Kevin Hawkins?
“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 w
ith 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.