The Devil's Teardrop

  "So there was nobody in the house?" Lukas asked, understanding the scheme.

  "Nobody alive. The Butcher--the Digger--had already killed the family. Looks like he did it after she called her husband."

  Parker said, "He hit them at the weakest point in the kidnapping process. The police would have the advantage in a negotiation or in an exchange of the money. He preempted them." He didn't say aloud what he was thinking: that it was a perfect solution to a difficult puzzle--if you don't mind killing.

  "Anything in the bank's security video that'd help us?" Cage asked.

  "You mean, what color were their ski masks?"

  Cage's shrug meant, I had to ask anyway.

  "What about Philly?" Lukas asked.

  Czisman said cynically, "Oh, this was very good. The Digger starts taking the bus. He'd get on, sit next to someone and fire one silenced shot. He killed three people, then his accomplice made the ransom demand. The city agreed to pay the ransom but set up surveillance to nail him. But the accomplice knew which bank the city had its accounts in. As soon as the rookies escorting the cash stepped outside the door of the bank the Digger shot them in the back of the head and they escaped."

  "I never heard about that one," Lukas said.

  "No, they wanted it kept quiet. Six people dead."

  Parker said, "Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington. You're right--he was on his way south."

  Czisman frowned. "Was?"

  Parker glanced at Lukas. She told Czisman, "He's dead."

  "What?" Czisman seemed truly shocked.

  "The partner--not the Digger."

  "What happened?" Czisman whispered.

  "Hit-and-run after he dropped the extortion note off. And before he could collect his extortion money."

  Czisman's face grew still for a long moment. Parker supposed he was thinking: There goes the exclusive interview with the perp. The huge man's eyes darted around the room. He shifted in his chair. "What was his scheme this time?"

  Lukas was reluctant to say but Czisman guessed. "The Butcher shoots people until the city pays the ransom. . . . But now there's nobody to pay the money to and so the Butcher's going to keep right on shooting. Sounds just like their MO. You have any leads to where his lair might be?"

  "The investigation is continuing," Lukas said warily.

  Czisman stared at one of the prints. A pastoral landscape. He kneaded the water mug manically.

  Parker asked, "How did you follow him here?"

  "I read everything I can find about crimes where somebody has no qualms about killing. Most people do, you know. Unless their raison d'etre is killing--like Bundy or Gacy or Dahmer. No, most professional criminals will hesitate to pull the trigger. But the Butcher? Never. And when I'd hear about a multiple homicide that was part of a robbery or extortion I'd go to the city where it had happened and interview people."

  Lukas asked, "Why hasn't anybody made the connection?"

  Czisman shrugged. "Isolated crimes, small body counts. Oh, I told the police in White Plains and Philly. But nobody paid much attention to me." He laughed bitterly, waved his arm around the room. "Took--what?--twenty-five dead before anybody'd perk up their ears and listen to me."

  Parker asked, "What can you tell us about the Digger? Hasn't anybody gotten a look at him?"

  "No," Czisman said, "he's a wisp of smoke. He's there and then he's gone. He's a ghost. He--"

  Lukas had no patience for this. "We're trying to solve a crime here. If you can help us we'd appreciate it. If not we better get on with our investigation."

  "Sure, sorry, sorry. It's just that I've lived with this man for the past year. It's like climbing a cliff--it could be a mile high but all you see is a tiny spot of rock six inches from your face. See, I have a theory why people don't notice him."

  "What's that?" Parker asked.

  "Because witnesses remember emotion. They remember the frantic robber who's shooting someone in desperation, the cop who's panicked and firing back, the woman screaming because she's been stabbed. But you don't remember calm."

  "And the Digger's always very calm?"

  "Calm as death," Czisman said.

  "Nothing about his habits? Clothes, food, vices?"

  "No, nothing." Czisman seemed distracted. "Can I ask what you've learned about the accomplice? The dead man?"

  "Nothing about him either," Lukas said. "He had no ID on him. Fingerprints were negative."

  "Would you . . . Would it be all right if I took a look at the body? Is it in the morgue?"

  Cage shook his head.

  Lukas said, "Sorry. It's against the regs."

  "Please?" There was almost a desperation to the request.

  Lukas, though, was unmoved. She said shortly, "No."

  "A picture maybe," Czisman persisted.

  Lukas hesitated then opened the file and took out the photo of the unsub at the accident site near City Hall and handed it to him. His sweaty fingers left fat prints on the glossy surface.

  Czisman stared for a long moment. He nodded. "Can I keep this?"

  "After the investigation."

  "Sure." He handed it back. "I'd like to do a ride-along."

  Where a reporter accompanies police on an investigation.

  But Lukas shook her head. "Sorry. I'll have to say no to that."

  "I could help," he said. "I might have some insights. I might have some thoughts that'd help."

  "No," Cage said firmly.

  With another look at the picture Czisman rose. He shook their hands and said, "I'm staying at the Renaissance--the one downtown. I'll be interviewing witnesses. If I find something helpful I'll let you know."

  Lukas thanked him and they walked him back to the guard station.

  "One thing," Czisman said, "I don't know what kind of deadlines he"--Czisman nodded toward Lukas's file, meaning the unsub--"came up with. But now that he's gone there's no one to control the Butcher . . . the Digger. You understand what that means, don't you?"

  "What?" she asked.

  "That he might just keep on killing. Even after the last deadline."

  "Why do you think that?"

  "Because it's the one thing he does well. Killing. And everybody loves to do what they do well. That's a rule of life now, isn't it?"

  *

  They huddled once more in the surveillance room, in a cluster around Tobe Geller and his computer.

  Lukas said into the speakerphone, "How 'bout the other crimes he mentioned?"

  Susan Nance responded, "Couldn't get any of the case agents in Boston, White Plains or Philly. But the on-duty personnel confirmed the cases are all open. Nobody heard of the name Butcher, though."

  "Forensics?" Parker asked, just as Lukas started to ask, "Foren--?"

  "Nothing. No prints, no trace. And the witnesses . . . well, the ones who lived said they never really saw either the unsub or the Digger--if it was the Digger. I've put in requests for more info on the shootings. They're calling case agents and detectives at home."

  "Thanks, Susan," Lukas said.

  She hung up.

  Geller said, "I'm getting the other analysis . . ." He looked at the screen. "Okay . . . Voice stress and ret scans--normal readings. Stress is awfully low, especially for somebody being cross-examined by three feds. But I'd give him a clean bill of health. Nothing consistent with major deception. But then, with practice you can beat most polygraphs with a Valium and a daydream about your favorite actress."

  Lukas's phone rang. She listened. Looked up. "It's security. He's almost out of primary surveillance range. We let him go?"

  Parker said, "I'd say yes."

  "Agreed," Cage said.

  Lukas nodded. She said into her phone. "No detention for subject." She hung up then glanced at her watch. "The shrink? The guy from Georgetown?"

  "He's on his way," Cage said.

  Now Geller's phone rang. He answered and spoke for a moment. After he hung up he announced, "Com-Tech. They've found a hundred and sixty-seven working Web
sites that have information about packing silencers and full-auto machine-pistol conversions. Guess what? Not one of 'em'll hand over e-mail addresses. They don't seem inclined to help out the federal government."

  "Dead end," Lukas said.

  "Wouldn't do us much good anyway," Geller noted. "Com-Tech added up the hit counter totals from about a hundred of the sites. More than twenty-five thousand people've logged on in the last two months."

  "Fucked-up world out there," Cage muttered.

  The door opened. Len Hardy walked inside.

  "How's Moss?" Lukas asked.

  "He's okay. There were two hang-ups on his voice mail at home and he thought they might've been death threats."

  Lukas said, "We should have Communications--"

  Hardy, eyes on the elaborate control panels, interrupted. "I asked one of your people to check 'em out. One call was from Moss's brother. The other was a telemarketer from Iowa. I called 'em both back and verified them."

  Lukas said, "That's just what I was going to ask, Detective."

  "Figured it was."

  "Thanks."

  "District of Columbia at your service," he said.

  Parker thought the irony in his voice was fairly subdued; Lukas didn't seem to notice it at all.

  Parker asked, "What're we doing about that map? We've got to analyze the trace."

  Geller said, "The best one I can think of is in the Topographic Archives."

  "The Archives?" Cage asked, shaking his head. "There's no way we can get in there."

  Parker could only imagine the difficulty of finding civil servants willing to open up a government facility on a holiday night.

  Lukas flipped open her phone.

  Cage said, "No way."

  "Ah," she said, "you don't have the corner on miracles, you know."

  13

  The brass clock.

  It meant so much to him.

  Mayor Jerry Kennedy looked at it now, resting prominently on his desk in City Hall.

  The gift was from students at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, a school square in the war zone of Ward 8, Southeast D.C.

  Kennedy had been very touched by the gesture. No one took Washington the City seriously. Washington the political hub, Washington the federal government, Washington the site of scandal--oh, that was what captured everyone's attention. But no one knew, or cared, how the city itself ran or who was in charge.

  The children of Thurgood Marshall had cared, however. He'd spoken to them about honor and working hard and staying off drugs. Platitudes, sure. But a few of them, sitting in the pungent, damp auditorium (itself a victim of the school board scandal), had gazed up at him with the look of sweet admiration on their faces. Then they'd given him the clock in appreciation of his talk.

  Kennedy touched it now. Looked at the face: 4:50.

  So, the FBI had come close to stopping the madman. But they hadn't. Some deaths, some injuries. And more and more panic around the city. Hysteria. There'd already been three accidental shootings--by people carrying illegal pistols for protection. They thought they'd seen the Digger on the street or in their backyards and had just started shooting, like feuding neighbors in West Virginia.

  And then there were the press reports berating Kennedy and the District police for not being up to the challenge of a criminal like this. For being soft on crime and for hiding out. One report even suggested that Kennedy had been unavailable--on the phone trying to get tickets to one of his beloved football games--while the theater shooting was going on. The reviews of his TV appearance were not good either. One interviewee, a political commentator, had actually echoed Congressman Lanier's phrase, "kowtowing to terrorists." He'd also worked the word "cowardly" into his commentary. Twice.

  The phone rang. Wendell Jefferies, sitting across from the mayor, grabbed the receiver first. "Uh-huh. Okay . . ." He closed his eyes, then shook his head. He listened some more. He hung up.

  "Well?"

  "They've scoured the entire theater and can't find an iota of evidence. No fingerprints. No witnesses--no reliable ones anyway."

  "Jesus, what is this guy, invisible?"

  "They've got some leads from this former agent."

  "Former agent?" Kennedy asked uncertainly.

  "Document expert. He's found something but not much."

  The mayor complained, "We need soldiers, we need police out on every street corner, we don't need former paper pushers."

  Jefferies cocked his smooth head cynically. The possibility of police on every street corner of the District of Columbia was appealing, of course, but was the purest of fantasies.

  Kennedy sighed. "He might not have heard me. The TV broadcast."

  "Possibility."

  "But it's twenty million dollars!" Kennedy argued with his unseen foe, the Digger. "Why the hell doesn't he contact us? He could have twenty million dollars."

  "They nearly got him. Maybe next time they will."

  At his window Kennedy paused. Looked at the thermometer that gave the outside temperature. Thirty-three degrees. It had been thirty-eight just a half hour ago.

  Temperature falling . . .

  Snow clouds were overhead.

  Why are you here? he silently asked the Digger once again. Why here? Why now?

  He raised his eyes and looked at the domed wedding cake of the Capitol Building. When Pierre L'Enfant came up with the "Plan of the City of Washington" in 1792 he had a surveyor draw a meridional line north and south and then another exactly perpendicular to it, dividing the city into the four quadrants that remain today. The Capitol Building was at the intersection of these lines.

  "The center of the cross hairs," some gun-control advocate had once said at a congressional hearing where Kennedy was testifying.

  But the figurative telescopic sight might very well be aimed directly at Kennedy's chest.

  The sixty-three-square-mile city was foundering and the mayor was passionately determined not to let it go under. He was a native Washingtonian, a dying species in itself--the city population had declined from a high of more than 800,000 to around a half million. It continued to shrink yearly.

  An odd hybrid of body politic, the city had only had self-rule since the 1970s (aside from a few-year period a century earlier, though corruption and incompetence had quickly pushed the city into bankruptcy and back under congressional domination). Twenty-five years ago the federal lawmakers turned the reins over to the city itself. And from then on a mayor and the thirteen-member City Council had struggled to keep crime under control (at times the District had the worst murder rate in America), schools functioning (students testing lower than in any other major city), finances in check (forever in the red) and racial tensions defused (Asian versus black versus white).

  There was a real possibility that Congress would step in once more and take over the city; the lawmakers had already removed the mayor's blanket spending power.

  And that would be a disaster--because Kennedy believed that only his administration could save the city and its citizens before the place erupted into a volcano of crime and homelessness and shattered families. More than 40 percent of young black men in D.C. were somewhere "in the system"--in jail, on probation or being sought on warrants. In the 1970s one-quarter of families in the District had been headed by a single parent; now the figure was closer to three-quarters.

  Jerry Kennedy had had a personal taste of what might happen if the city continued its downward trajectory. In 1975, then a lawyer working for the District school board, he'd gone to the Mall--the stretch of grass and trees presided over by the Washington Monument--for Human Kindness Day, a racial unity event. He'd been among the hundreds injured when racial fighting broke out among the crowd. It was on that day that he gave up plans to move to Virginia and run for Congress. He decided to become the mayor of the nation's capital. By God, he was going to fix the place.

  And he knew how. To Kennedy the answer was very simple. And that answer was education. You had to get the children to stay in sch
ool and if you could do that then self-esteem and the realization that they could make choices about their lives would follow. (Yes, knowledge can save you. It had saved him. Lifting him out of the poverty of Northeast D.C., boosting him into William and Mary Law School. It got him a beautiful, brilliant wife, two successful sons, a career he was proud of.) No one disagreed with the basic premise that education could save people of course. But how to solve the puzzle of making sure the children learned was a different matter. The conservatives bitched about what people ought to be like and if they didn't love their neighbors and live by family values then that was their problem. We home-school; why can't everybody? The liberals whined and pumped more money into the schools but all the cash did was slow the decay of the infrastructure. It did nothing to make students stay in those buildings.

  This was the challenge for Gerald David Kennedy. He couldn't wave a wand and bring fathers back to mothers, he couldn't invent an antidote to crack cocaine, he couldn't get guns out of the hands of people who lived only fifteen miles from the National Rifle Association's headquarters.

  But he did have a vision of how to make sure kids in the District continued their education. And his plan could pretty much be summarized by one word: bribery.

  Though he and Wendell Jefferies called it by another name--Project 2000.

  For the past year Kennedy, aided by his wife, Jefferies and a few other close associates, had been negotiating with members of the Congressional District Committee to impose yet another tax on companies doing business in Washington. The money would go into a fund from which students would be paid cash to complete high school--provided they remained drug free and weren't convicted of any crimes.

  In one swoop, Kennedy managed to incur the political hatred of the entire political spectrum. The liberals dismissed the idea as a potential source of massive corruption and had problems with the mandatory drug testing as a civil liberties issue. The conservatives simply laughed. The corporations to be taxed had their own opinion, of course. Immediately, the threats started--threats of major companies pulling out of the District altogether, political action committee funds and hard and soft campaign money vanishing from Democratic party coffers, even hints of exposing sexual indiscretions (of which there were none--but try telling that to the media after they've gotten their hands on blurry videotapes of a man and a woman walking into a Motel Six or Holiday Inn).