The Devil's Teardrop

  "Sorry, Parker," Cage said. "Things fall through the cracks sometimes. But I made a deal with you and we're keeping our end of the bargain. Oh, one thing--don't ever ask me how I did this one. You definitely don't wanna know. Now, we got one more chance. Let's nail this prick. And this time, no foolin'."

  *

  The limo eased up to the curb in front of City Hall like a yacht docking.

  Mayor Jerry Kennedy didn't like the simile but he couldn't help it. He'd just been at the Potomac riverside, comforting survivors and surveying the devastation that the Digger had caused. His tall, thin wife, Claire, at his side, they'd been astonished at how the bullets had torn the decks and cabins and tables to pieces. He could only imagine what the bullets had done to the bodies of the victims.

  He leaned forward and clicked the TV off.

  "How could he?" Claire whispered, referring to Slade Phillips's suggestion that Kennedy had in some mysterious way been responsible for the deaths on the boat.

  Wendell Jefferies leaned forward, resting his glossy head in his hands. "Phillips . . . I already paid him. I--"

  Kennedy waved him silent. Apparently the aide had forgotten about the huge, bald federal agent in the front seat. Bribing media was undoubtedly a federal offense of some kind.

  Yeah, Jefferies had paid Slade Phillips his twenty-five thousand. And, no, they'd never get it back.

  "Whatever happens," Kennedy said to Jefferies and Claire solemnly, "I don't want to hire Slade Phillips as my press secretary."

  His delivery was, as always, deadpan and it took them a minute before they realized it was a joke. Claire laughed. Jefferies still seemed shell-shocked.

  The irony was that Kennedy would never have a press secretary again. Former politicians don't need one. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry.

  "What do we do now?" Claire asked.

  "We'll have a drink and then go to the African-American Teachers' Association party. Who knows? The Digger might still come forward and want the money. I still may have a chance to meet him face-to-face."

  Claire shook her head. "After what happened on the boat? You couldn't trust him. He'd kill you."

  Couldn't kill me any deader than the press has done tonight, Kennedy thought.

  Claire tacked down her wispy hair with a burst from a small container of perfumed spray. Kennedy loved the smell. It comforted him. The vibrant fifty-nine-year-old woman with keen eyes had been his main advisor since his first days of public office, years ago. To hell with nepotism; it was only that she was white that kept her from being his primary assistant as mayor: a characteristic that she too insisted would put him at a disadvantage in the 60-percent-black District of Columbia.

  "How bad is all this?" she asked.

  "As bad as it gets."

  Claire Kennedy nodded and put her hand on her husband's substantial leg.

  Neither spoke for a moment.

  "Is there any champagne in there?" he asked suddenly, nodding toward the minibar.

  "Champagne?"

  "Sure. Let's start celebrating my ignominious defeat early."

  "You wanted to teach," she pointed out. Then with a wink she added, "Professor Kennedy."

  "And you did too, Professor Kennedy. We'll tell William and Mary we want adjoining lecture halls."

  She smiled at him and opened the minibar of the limo.

  But Jerry Kennedy wasn't smiling. Teaching would be a failure. A successful job at a Dupont Circle law firm would be a failure. Kennedy knew in his heart that his life's purpose was to make this struggling, oddly shaped chunk of swampy land a better place for the youngsters who happened to be born here and that his Project 2000 was the only thing faintly within his grasp that would allow that to happen. And now those hopes had been destroyed.

  He glanced at his wife. She was laughing.

  She pointed to the bar. "Gallo and Budweiser."

  What else in the District of Columbia?

  Kennedy lifted up on the door handle and stepped out into the cooling night.

  *

  The guns are finally loaded.

  The silencer he's been using has been repacked and the new one is mounted on the second gun.

  The Digger, in his comfy room, checks his pocket. Let's see . . . He has one pistol with him and two more in the glove compartment of his car. And lots and lots of ammunition.

  The Digger takes his suitcase out to the car. The man who tells him things told him that the room was paid for. When it was time to go all he had to do was leave.

  He packs his cans of soup and dishes and glasses and takes them in a box to the Everyday People Toyota.

  The Digger returns to the room and looks at thin Tye for a few minutes, wonders again where . . . click . . . where Out West is then wraps the blanket around him. And carries the boy, light as a puppy, down to the car and puts him in the back seat.

  The Digger sits behind the wheel but doesn't start the car right away. He turns around and looks at the boy some more. Tucks the blanket around his feet. He's wearing tattered running shoes.

  A memory of someone speaking. Who? Pamela? William? The man who tells him things?

  "Sleep . . ."

  Click, click.

  Wait, wait, wait.

  "I want you to . . ." Click, click.

  Suddenly there is no Pamela, no Ruth with the glass in her neck, no man who tells him things. There is only Tye.

  "I want you to sleep well," the Digger says to the boy's still form. These are the words he wanted to say to him. He isn't exactly sure what they mean. But he says them anyway.

  When I go to sleep at night,

  I love you all the more . . .

  He starts the car. He signals and checks his blind spot, then pulls out into traffic.

  25

  The last location.

  . . . place I showed you--the black . . .

  Parker Kincaid stood in front of the blackboard in the Document Division lab. Hands on his hips. Staring at the puzzle in front of him . . . place I showed you--the black . . .

  "The black what?" Dr. Evans mused.

  Cage shrugged. Lukas was on the phone with the PERT crime scene experts on board the Ritzy Lady. She hung up and told the team that, as they'd expected, there were few solid leads. They'd found bullet casings with a few prints on them. They were being run through AFIS, and Identification was going to e-mail Lukas the results. There was no other physical evidence. Witnesses had reported a white man of indeterminate age in a dark coat. He carried a brown bag, which presumably held the machine gun. A bit of fiber had been recovered. It was from the bag, techs from PERT had decided, but was generic and provided no clues as to the source.

  Parker looked around, "Where's Hardy?"

  Cage told him about the incident at the Ritz.

  "She fire him?" Parker asked, nodding toward Lukas.

  "No. Thought she should have but she gave him hell--and then a second chance. He's in the research library downstairs. Trying to make amends."

  Parker looked back at Geller. The young agent stared at the screen in front of him as the computer's improvised anagram program vainly tried to assemble letters following the word "black." The ash behind this word, however, was much more badly damaged than that in the Ritzy Lady notation.

  Parker paced for a moment then stopped. He stared up at the blackboard. He felt the queasy sense of nearly but not quite figuring out a clue. He sighed.

  He found himself standing next to Lukas. She asked him, "Your boy? Robby? Is he all right?"

  "He's fine. Just a little scared."

  She nodded. A computer nearby announced, "You've got mail." She walked to it and read the message. Shook her head. "The prints on the shell casings're from one of the passengers on the boat picking up souvenirs. He checks out." She clicked the save button.

  Parker gazed at the screen. "That's making me obsolete."

  "What?"

  "E-mail," he said. He looked at Lukas and added, "As a document examiner, I mean. Oh, people're writi
ng more than ever because of it, but--"

  "But there's less handwriting nowadays," she said, continuing his thought.

  "Right."

  "That'll be tough," she said. "Lose a lot of good evidence that way."

  "True. But for me that's not what's sad."

  "Sad?" She looked at him. Her eyes were no longer stony but she seemed wary once again of an inartful term echoing in such an esteemed forensic lab.

  "For me," he told her, "handwriting's a part of a human being. Like our sense of humor or imagination. Think about it--it's one of the only things about people that survives their death. Writing can last for hundreds of years. Thousands. It's about as close to immortality as we can get."

  "Part of the person?" she asked. "But you said graphoanalysis was bogus."

  "No, I mean that whatever somebody wrote is still a reflection of who they are. It doesn't matter how the words are made or what they say, even if they're mistaken or nonsensical. Just the fact that someone thought of the words and their hands committed them to paper is what counts. It's almost a miracle to me."

  She was staring at the floor, her head down.

  Parker continued. "I've always thought of handwriting as a fingerprint of the heart and mind." He laughed self-consciously at this, thinking that she might have another brusque reaction to a sentimental thought. But something odd happened. Margaret Lukas nodded and looked away from him quickly. Parker thought, for a moment, that another message had flashed on a nearby computer and caught her attention. But there wasn't any. With her head turned away from him he could see her reflection in the screen and it seemed that her eyes were glistening with tears. This was something he never would have expected from Lukas but, yes, she was wiping her face.

  He was about to ask her if anything was wrong but she stepped abruptly up to the glass panes holding the burnt yellow sheets. Without giving him a chance to say anything about the tears Lukas asked, "The mazes he drew? You think there's anything there? Maybe a clue?"

  He didn't answer. Just continued to look at her. She turned to him briefly and repeated, "The mazes?"

  After a moment he looked down, studied the sheet of yellow paper. Only psychopaths tend to leave cryptograms as clues and even then they rarely do. But Parker decided it wasn't a bad idea to check; they had so little else to go on. He put the glass panes holding the sheet on the overhead projector.

  Lukas stood beside Parker.

  "What're we looking for?" Cage asked.

  "Do the lines make any letters?" Lukas asked.

  "Good," Parker said. She was starting to get the hang of puzzles. They examined the lines carefully. But they found nothing.

  "Maybe," she then suggested, "it's a map."

  Another good idea.

  Everyone gazed at the lines. As head of the District field office Lukas was an expert on the layout of the city. But she couldn't think of any streets or neighborhoods the mazes corresponded to. Neither could anyone else.

  Geller looked back at his computer. He shook his head. "The anagram thing isn't working. There just isn't enough of the ash left to make any letters at all."

  "We'll have to figure it out the old-fashioned way." Parker paced, staring at the blackboard. "'. . . the black . . .'"

  "Some African-American organization?" Evans suggested.

  "Possibly," Parker said. "But remember the unsub was smart. Educated."

  Cage frowned. "What do you mean?"

  It was Lukas who answered. "The word 'black' is lowercase. If it were the name of a group he'd probably capitalize it."

  "Exactly," Parker said. "I'd guess it's descriptive. There's a good chance it does refer to race but I doubt it's a reference to a specific organization."

  "But don't forget," Cage said. "He also likes to fool us."

  "True," Parker admitted.

  Black . . .

  Parker walked to the examination table, stared down at the extortion note. Put his hands on either side of it. Stared at the devil's teardrop dot above the letter i. Stared at the stark ink.

  What do you know? he asked the document silently. What aren't you telling us? What secrets are you keeping? What--?

  "I've got something," the voice called from the doorway.

  They all turned.

  Detective Len Hardy trotted into the lab, a sheaf of papers under his arm. He'd been running and he paused, caught his breath. "Okay, Margaret, you were right. I don't shoot and I don't investigate. But nobody's a better researcher than I am. So I decided why don't I do that? I've found out some things about the name. The Digger." He dropped the papers on the desk and started through them. He glanced at the team. "I'm sorry about before. With the mayor. I screwed up. I just wanted to do something to keep people from getting hurt."

  "It's all right, Len," Lukas said. "What do you have?"

  Hardy asked Dr. Evans, "When you were checking out the name, what databases did you use?"

  "Well, the standard ones," the doctor answered. He seemed defensive.

  "Criminal?" Hardy asked, "VICAP, N.Y.P.D. Violent Felons, John Jay?"

  "Those, sure," Evans said, eyes avoiding Hardy's.

  "That was fine," Hardy said, "but I got to thinking why not try noncriminal resources? I finally found it. The database at the Religious History Department at Cambridge University." Hardy opened a notebook. There were dozens of pages inside, indexed and organized. The young detective was right; he sure knew how to research.

  "That group you mentioned in San Francisco in the sixties?" he asked Dr. Evans. "The one called the Diggers?"

  "But I checked them out," the doctor said. "They were just an acting troupe."

  "No, they weren't," Hardy responded. "It was a radical underground political and social movement, centered in Haight-Ashbury. I checked out their philosophy and history, and it turns out they took their name from a group in England in the seventeenth century. And they were a lot more radical. They advocated abolishing private ownership of land. Here's what's significant. They were mostly economic and social but they allied themselves with another group, which was political and more active--sometimes militant. They were called the 'True Levelers.'"

  "'Levelers,'" Cage muttered. "That's a damn spooky name too."

  Hardy continued. "They objected to control of the people by an upper-class elite and by a central government."

  "But what does it mean for us?" Lukas asked.

  Hardy said, "It might help us find the last target. What would he want to hit to quote level our capitalistic society?"

  Parker said, "Before we can answer that we need to know why he's got it in for society."

  "Religious nut?" Geller said. "Remember the crucifix?"

  "Could be," Evans said. "But most religious zealots wouldn't want money; they'd want a half hour on CNN."

  "Maybe he had a grudge," Parker said.

  "Sure. Revenge." Lukas said this.

  "Somebody hurt him," Parker said. "And he wants to get even."

  Evans nodded. "It's making sense."

  "But who? Who hurt him?" Hardy mused, staring again at the ghostly extortion note.

  "He got fired?" Cage suggested. "Disgruntled worker."

  "No," Evans said, "a psychotic might kill for that but he wasn't psychotic. He was too smart and controlled."

  Geller rasped, "Big business, big corporations, fat cats . . ."

  "Wait," Hardy said, "if those were his targets wouldn't he be in New York, not Washington?"

  "He was," Cage pointed out. "White Plains."

  But Hardy shook his head. "No, remember--White Plains, Boston, Philly? Those were just trial runs for him. This is his grand finale."

  "Government," Parker said. "That's why he's here."

  Hardy nodded. "And the Diggers objected to central government. So maybe it isn't upper-class society at all." He glanced at Evans. "But the federal government."

  Lukas said, "That's it. It's got to be."

  Parker: "The government was responsible for something that hurt him." Looki
ng over the team. "Any thoughts on what?"

  "Ideology?" Cage wondered aloud. "He's a communist or part of a right-wing militia cell."

  Evans shook his head. "No, he would've delivered a manifesto by now. It's more personal than that."

  Lukas and Hardy caught each other's eyes. It seemed to Parker that they came up with an identical thought at the same time. It was the detective who said, "The death of somebody he loved."

  Lukas nodded.

  "Could be," the psychologist offered.

  "Okay," Cage said. "What could the scenario've been? Who died? Why?"

  "Execution?" Hardy suggested.

  Cage shook his head. "Hardly ever see federal capital crimes. They're mostly state."

  "Coast guard rescue goes bad," Geller suggested.

  "Far-fetched," Lukas said.

  Hardy tried again, "Government car or truck involved in a crash, postal worker shooting spree, Park Service accident . . . diplomats . . ."

  "Military," Cage suggested. "Most deaths involving the federal government are probably military related."

  "But," Lukas said, "there must be hundreds of fatalities every year in the armed forces. Was it an accident? A training exercise? Combat?"

  "Desert Storm?" Cage suggested.

  "How old was the unsub?" Parker asked.

  Lukas grabbed the medical examiner's preliminary report. She read, looked up. "Mid-forties."

  Black . . .

  Then Parker understood. He said, "The black wall!"

  Lukas nodded. "The Vietnam Memorial."

  "Someone he knew," Hardy said, "was killed in 'Nam. Brother, sister. Maybe his wife was a nurse."

  Cage said, "But that was thirty years ago. Could something like this resurface now?"

  "Oh, sure," Evans said. "If your unsub didn't work through his anger in therapy it's been festering. And New Year's Eve's a time for resolutions and people taking bold action--even destructive action. There'll be more suicides tonight than on any other night of the year."

  "Oh, Jesus," Lukas said.

  "What?"

  "I just realized--the Memorial's on the Mall. There're going to be two hundred thousand people there. For the fireworks. We've got to close off that part of the park."

  "It's already packed," Parker said. "They've been camping out for hours."

  "But, Jesus," Cage said, "we need more manpower." He called Artie, the building's night entrance guard, who made an announcement over the PA that all available agents in the building were needed in the lobby for an emergency assignment.