The Devil's Teardrop

  "That looks spooky," Parker conceded. "Sure does. But you know the Boatman was a long time ago." He wasn't going to minimize the boy's fear by pointing out that he'd been scared only by some scruffy bushes. But he wanted to give Robby a sense of distance from the incident.

  "I know. But . . ."

  "How long ago was it?"

  "Four years," Robby answered.

  "Isn't that a long time?"

  "Pretty long, I guess."

  "Show me." He stretched his arms out. "This long?"

  "Maybe."

  "I think it's longer." Parker stretched his arms out farther. "As long as that fish we caught at Braddock Lake?"

  "That was this long," the boy said, starting to smile and holding his own arms out.

  "Naw, it was this long." Parker gave an exaggerated frown.

  "No, no, it was this long." The boy danced from one foot to the next, hands up high.

  "It was longer!" Parker joked. "Longer."

  Robby ran the length of the kitchen, lifting one arm. Then he ran back and lifted the other. "It was this long!"

  "That's how long a shark is," Parker cried. "No, a whale, no, a giant squid. No, I know--a Tufted Mazurka!" A creature from If I Ran the Zoo. Robby and Stephie loved Dr. Seuss. Parker's nickname for the children was the "Whos"--after the creatures in Horton Hears a Who, which was their absolute favorite story of all time, beating even Pooh.

  Parker and Robby played a game of indoor tag for a few minutes then he caught the boy in his arms for a brief tickle fest.

  "Know what?" Parker asked, gasping.

  "What?"

  "How 'bout tomorrow we cut down all those bushes."

  "Can I use the saw?" the boy asked quickly.

  Oh, they're ready for any opportunity, he thought, laughing to himself. "We'll see," Parker said.

  "All right!" Robby danced out of the kitchen, memories of the Boatman lost under euphoria at the promise of power tools. He ran upstairs and Parker heard some gentle bickering between brother and sister about which Nintendo game to play. Stephanie, it seemed, won and the infectious Mario Bros. theme wafted through the house.

  Parker's eyes lingered on the brush in the backyard.

  The Boatman . . . He shook his head.

  The doorbell rang. He glanced into the living room but the children hadn't heard it. He walked to the door and swung it open.

  The attractive woman offered a broad smile. Her earrings dangled below her sharp-edged hair, which was bleached blonder than usual by the sun (Robby's was her shade while Stephanie's was closer to Parker's brown). Her tan was scrupulous.

  "Well, hello," Parker said tentatively.

  He glanced past her and was relieved to see that the engine of the beige Cadillac parked in the driveway was still running. Richard was behind the wheel, reading the Wall Street Journal.

  "Hi, Parker. We just got in to Dulles." She hugged him.

  "You were . . . where were you?"

  "St. Croix. It was wonderful. Oh, relax. God, your body language . . . I just stopped by a minute."

  "You look good, Joan."

  "I feel good. I feel really good. I can't tell whether you look good, Parker. You look pale."

  "The kids're upstairs--" He turned to call them.

  "No, that's all right--" Joan started to say.

  "Robby, Stephie! Your mommy's here."

  Thuds on the stairs. The Whos turned the corner fast and ran up to Joan. She was smiling but Parker could see that she was miffed he'd called them.

  "Mommy, you're all tan!" Stephie said, tossing her hair like a Spice Girl. Robby was a cherub; Stephanie had a long, serious face, which, Parker hoped, would start to look intimidatingly intellectual to boys by the time she turned twelve or thirteen.

  "Where were you, Mommy?" Robby said, frowning.

  "The Caribbean. Didn't Daddy tell you?" A glance at Parker. Yes, he'd told them. Joan didn't understand that what the children were upset about wasn't miscommunication about her travel plans but the fact she hadn't been in Virginia for Christmas.

  "Did you have a nice holiday?" she asked.

  "We got an air hockey and I beat Robby three games this morning."

  "But I got the puck in four times in a row!" he said. "Did you bring us something?"

  Joan looked in the direction of the car. "Of course I did. But, you know, I left them in the suitcase. I just stopped by for a minute now to say hi and to talk to your father. I'll bring your presents tomorrow when I come to visit."

  Stephie said, "Oh, and I got a soccer ball and the new Mario Bros. and the whole set of Wallace & Gromit--"

  Robby stepped on his sister's recitation. "And I got a Death Star and a Millennium Falcon. And tons of Micro Machines! And a Sammy Sosa bat. And we saw The Nutcracker."

  "Did you get my package?" Joan asked.

  "Uh-huh," Stephie said. "Thank you." The girl was impeccably polite but a Barbie doll in a pageant dress no longer held any interest for her. Eight-year-olds now were not the eight-year-olds of Joan's childhood.

  "Daddy took back my shirt," Robby said, "and got one the right size."

  "I told him to do that if it didn't fit," Joan said quickly. "I just wanted you to have something."

  "We didn't get to talk to you on Christmas," Stephie said.

  "Oh," Joan replied to her daughter, "it was so hard to call from where we were staying. It was like Gilligan's Island. The phones were never working." She tousled Robby's hair. "And after all you weren't home."

  She was blaming them. Joan had never learned that nothing was ever the children's fault, not at this age. If you did something wrong it was your fault; if they did something wrong it was still your fault.

  Oh, Joan . . . It was subtle lapses like this--the slight shifting of blame--that were as bad as slaps in the face. Still, he said nothing. ("Never let the children see their parents argue.") Joan stood. "Richard and I have to go now. We have to pick up Elmo and Saint at the kennel. The poor puppies have been in cages all week."

  Robby was animated once more. "We're having a party tonight and we're going to watch the fireworks on TV and play Star Wars Monopoly."

  "Oh, that'll be fun," Joan said. "Richard and I are going to Kennedy Center. For an opera. You like the opera, don't you?"

  Stephie gave one of the broad, cryptic shrugs she'd been using a lot lately in response to adults' questions.

  "That's a play where people sing the story," Parker said to the children.

  "Maybe Richard and I'll take you to the opera sometime. Would you like that?"

  "I guess," Robby said. Which was as good a commitment as a nine-year-old would ever make to high culture.

  "Wait," Stephie blurted. She turned and pounded up the stairs.

  "Honey, I don't have much time. We--"

  The girl returned a moment later with her new soccer outfit, handed it to her mother.

  "My," said Joan, "that's pretty." Holding the clothes awkwardly, like a child who's caught a fish and isn't sure she wants it.

  Parker Kincaid, thinking: First, the Boatman, now Joan . . . How the past was intruding today. Well, why not? After all, it was New Year's Eve.

  A time to look back . . .

  Joan was obviously relieved when the children ran back to Stephie's bedroom, buoyed by the promise of more presents. Then suddenly her smile was gone. Ironically, at this age--she was thirty-nine--she looked her best with a sullen expression on her face. She touched her front teeth with the tip of her finger to see if they were dotted with lipstick. A habit of hers he remembered from when they were married. "Parker, I didn't have to do this . . ." She was reaching into her Coach purse.

  Hell, she got me a Christmas present. And I didn't get her one. He thought quickly: Did he have any extra gifts he'd bought but hadn't yet given away? Something he could--

  But then he saw her hand emerge from the purse with a wad of papers.

  "I could've just let the process server take care of it on Monday."

  Process server?
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  "But I wanted to talk to you before you went off half-cocked."

  The top of the document read: "Motion to Modify Child Custody Order."

  He felt the blow deep in his stomach.

  Apparently, Joan and Richard hadn't come directly from the airport but had stopped at her lawyer's first.

  "Joan," he said, despairing, "you're not . . ."

  "I want them, Parker, and I'm going to get them. Let's not fight about it. We can work something out."

  "No," he whispered. "No." He felt the strength leach from his body as the panic swept through him.

  "Four days with you, Fridays and weekends with me. Depending on what Richard and I have planned--we've been doing a lot of traveling lately. Look, it'll give you more time to yourself. I'd think you'd look forward to--"

  "Absolutely not."

  "They're my children . . ." she began.

  "Technically." Parker had had sole custody for four years.

  "Parker," she said reasonably, "my life is stable. I'm doing fine. I'm working out again. I'm married."

  To a civil servant in county government, who, according to the Washington Post, just missed getting indicted for accepting bribes last year. Richard was just a bug-picking bird on the rump of Inside-the-Beltway politics. He was also the man Joan'd been sleeping with for the last year of her marriage to Parker.

  Concerned the children would hear, he whispered, "You've been a stranger to Robby and Stephie practically from the day they were born." He slapped the papers and rage took him completely. "Are you thinking about them at all? About what this'll do to them?"

  "They need a mother."

  No, Parker thought, Joan needs another collectible. Several years ago it had been horses. Then championship weimaraners. Then antiques. Houses in fancy neighborhoods too: She and Richard moved from Oakton to Clifton to McLean to Alexandria. "Moving up in the world," she'd said, though Parker knew she'd simply grown tired of each previous house and neighborhood when she failed to make friends in the new locale. He thought of what uprooting the children that frequently would do to them.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "I want a family."

  "Have children with Richard. You're young."

  But she wouldn't want that, Parker knew. As much as she'd loved being pregnant--she was never more beautiful--she had fallen apart at the work involved with infants. You can hardly have children when, emotionally, you're one yourself.

  "You're completely unfit," Parker said.

  "My, you have learned how to take the gloves off, haven't you? Well, maybe I was unfit. But that's in the past."

  No, that's in your nature.

  "I'll fight it, Joan," he said matter-of-factly. "You know that."

  She snapped, "I'll be by tomorrow at ten. And I'm bringing a social worker."

  "What?" He was dumbfounded.

  "Just to talk to the kids."

  "Joan . . . On a holiday?" Parker couldn't imagine that a social worker would agree to this but then he realized that Richard must have pulled some strings.

  "If you're as good a father as you think you are you won't have any trouble with them talking to her."

  "I don't have any trouble. I'm thinking of them. Just wait until next week. How do you think they'll feel having some stranger cross-examining them on the holiday? It's ridiculous. They want to see you."

  "Parker," she said, exasperated, "she's a professional. She's not going to cross-examine them. Look, I have to run. The kennel's closing soon because of the holiday. Those poor puppies . . . Oh, come on, Parker. It's not the end of the world."

  But, yes, he thought, that's exactly what it is.

  He began to slam the door but halfway through the gesture he stopped, knowing that the sound would upset the Whos.

  He closed the door with a firm click. Turned the dead bolt, put the chain on, as if trying to lock this cyclone of bad news out. Folding the papers without looking at them, he walked into the den and stuffed them into the desk, left a message for his lawyer. He paced for a few minutes then climbed the stairs and stuck his head in Robby's room. The children were giggling and tossing Micro Machines at each other.

  "No bombardiering on New Year's Eve," Parker said.

  "So it's okay to bombardier tomorrow?" Robby asked.

  "Very funny, young man."

  "He started it!" Stephie sniped, then returned to her book. Little House on the Prairie.

  "Who wants to help me in the study?" he called.

  "I do," Robby cried.

  Together, father and son disappeared down the stairs into his basement office. A few minutes later Parker heard the electronic music again as Stephie exchanged literature for computer science and sent intrepid Mario on his quest once more.

  *

  Mayor Gerald Kennedy--a Democrat, yes, but not that strain of Kennedys--looked at the piece of white paper on his desk.

  Mayor Kennedy--

  The end is night. The Digger is loose and their is no way to stop him.

  Attached to the sheet was an FBI memo, which was headed, "Annexed document is a copy. METSHOOT case, 12/31."

  METSHOOT, Kennedy thought. Metro shooting. The Bureau loved their labels, he recalled. Sitting hunched like a bear over the ornate desk in his Georgian office in the very un-Georgian Washington, D.C., City Hall, Kennedy read the note once more. Looked up at the two people seated across from him. A trim, attractive blond woman and a tall, lean gray-haired man. Balding Kennedy often thought of people in terms of their hair.

  "You're sure he's the one behind the shooting?"

  "What he said about the bullets," the woman said, "them being painted? That checked out. We're sure the note's from the perp."

  Kennedy, a bulky man comfortable with his bulk, pushed the note around on his desk with his huge hands.

  The door opened and a young black man in a double-breasted Italian suit and oval glasses walked inside. Kennedy gestured him to the desk.

  "This is Wendell Jefferies," the mayor said. "My chief aide-de-camp."

  The woman agent nodded. "Margaret Lukas."

  The other agent gave what seemed to Kennedy to be a shrug. "Cage." They all shook hands.

  "They're FBI," Kennedy added.

  Jefferies's nod said, Obviously.

  Kennedy pushed the copy of the note toward the aide.

  Jefferies adjusted his designer glasses and looked at the note. "Shit. He's gonna do it again?"

  "So it seems," the woman agent said.

  Kennedy studied the agents. Cage was from Ninth Street--FBI headquarters--and Lukas was the acting special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office. Her boss was out of town so she was the person running the Metro shooting case. Cage was older and seemed well connected in the Bureau; Lukas was younger and appeared more cynical and energetic. Jerry Kennedy had been mayor of the District of Columbia for three years now and he had kept the city afloat not on experience and connections but on cynicism and energy. He was glad Lukas was the one in charge.

  "Prick can't even spell," Jefferies muttered, lowering his sleek face to read the note again. His eyes were terrible, a malady shared by his siblings. A good portion of the young man's salary went to his mother and her two other sons and two daughters in Southeast D.C. A good deed that Jefferies never mentioned--he kept it as quiet as the fact that his father had been killed on East Third Street while buying heroin.

  For Kennedy, young Wendell Jefferies represented the best heart of the District of Columbia.

  "Leads?" the aide asked.

  Lukas said, "Nothing. We've got VICAP involved, District police, Behavioral down in Quantico, and Fairfax, Prince William and Montgomery County police. But we don't have anything solid."

  "Jesus," Jefferies said, checking his watch.

  Kennedy looked at the brass clock on his desk. It was just after 10 A.M.

  "Twelve hundred hours . . . noon," he mused, wondering why the extortionist used twenty-four-hour European, or military, time. "We have two hours."
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  Jefferies said, "You'll have to make a statement, Jerry. Soon."

  "I know." Kennedy stood.

  Why did this have to happen now? Why here?

  He glanced at Jefferies--the man was young but, Kennedy knew, had a promising political career ahead of him. He was savvy and very quick; Jefferies's handsome face twisted into a sour expression and Kennedy understood that he was thinking exactly the same thing that the mayor was: Why now?

  Kennedy glanced at a memo about the special reviewing stand at the New Year's Eve fireworks tonight on the Mall. He and Claire, his wife, would be sitting with Representative Paul Lanier and the other key congressional zookeepers of the District.

  Or they would have been if this hadn't happened.

  Why now?

  Why my city?

  He asked them, "What're you doing to catch him?"

  It was Lukas who answered and she answered immediately. "We're checking CIs--confidential informants--and Bureau handlers who've got any contact with domestic or foreign terrorist cells. So far, nothing. And my assessment is this isn't a terrorist profile. It smells like a by-the-book profit crime. Then I've got agents comparing past extortion schemes to try to find a pattern. We're looking at any other threats the District or District employees have received in the past two years. No parallels so far."

  "The mayor's gotten some threats, you know," Jefferies said. "About the Moss situation."

  "What's that?" Cage asked.

  Lukas answered, "The Board of Education whistle-blower. The guy I've been baby-sitting."

  "Oh, him." Cage shrugged.

  To Jefferies, Agent Lukas said, "I know about the threats. I've looked into them. But I don't think there's a connection. They were just your routine anonymous threats from pay phones. No money was involved and there were no other demands."

  Your routine anonymous threats, Kennedy thought cynically.

  Except that they don't sound so routine if your wife picks up the phone at 3:00 in the morning and hears, "Don't push the Moss investigation. Or you'll be as fucking dead as he's gonna be."

  Lukas continued. "In terms of standard investigation I've got agents running license plates from every car parked around City Hall this morning. We're also running the tags from cars around Dupont Circle. We're checking out the drop area by the Beltway and all the hotels, apartments, trailers and houses around it."

  "You don't sound optimistic," Kennedy grumbled.

  "I'm not optimistic. There're no witnesses. No reliable ones anyway. A case like this, we need witnesses."

  Kennedy examined the note once again. It seemed odd that a madman, a killer, should have such nice handwriting. To Lukas he said, "So. I guess the question is--should I pay?"