The Devil's Teardrop

  He glanced into Stan Lewis's office again. Saw the books that he himself had used when this had been his department: Harrison's Suspect Documents, Housely and Farmer's An Introduction to Handwriting Identification and Scientific Examination of Questioned Documents by Hilton. And the Bible of the profession: Questioned Documents by Albert S. Osborn. He looked at the credenza behind the office chair and recognized the four bonsai trees he'd cultivated then left for Lewis.

  "Where's the note?" he asked Cage impatiently.

  "On its way. On its way."

  Parker turned on several of the instruments. Some hummed, some clicked. And some were silent, their dim indicator lights glowing like cautious eyes.

  Waiting, waiting . . .

  And trying not to think about his talk with the children an hour before--when he'd told them that their holiday plans were changing.

  Both of the Whos had been in Robby's room, the floor still awash with Legos and Micro Machines.

  "Hey, Whos."

  "I got to the third level," Stephie'd said, nodding at the Nintendo. "Then I got bomped."

  Robby'd had a full-scale invasion of his bed underway--with helicopters and landing craft.

  Parker had sat on the bed. "You know those people who were here before?"

  "The pretty lady you kept looking at," his son had said coyly.

  ("They're sharper than you'll ever guess," reports the Handbook.) "Well, they told me that a friend of mine is sick and I have to go visit him for a little while. Who do you want to baby-sit?"

  In addition to the standard cast of high-school and college sitters, Parker had a number of friends in the neighborhood--parents he socialized with--who'd gladly take the children for the evening. There was also his friend Lynne, who lived in the District. She would have driven to Fairfax to help him out but he was sure she'd have a date tonight (it was impossible to imagine Lynne without a date on New Year's Eve) and their relationship was no longer at the level where he could ask for a sacrifice like that.

  "You have to go?" Robby'd asked. "Tonight?"

  When he was disappointed, the boy would become very still, his expression remaining unchanged. He never pouted, never grumbled--which Parker would have preferred. He just froze, as if sadness threatened to overwhelm him. As Robby had looked up at him, unmoving, holding a tiny toy helicopter, Parker'd felt his son's disappointment in his own heart.

  Stephie was less emotional and wore those emotions less visibly; her only response had been to toss her hair from her face and give him a frown, asking, "Is he going to be all right? Your friend?"

  "I'm sure he'll be okay. But it would be a good thing for me to see him. So--do you want me to call Jennifer? Or Mrs. Cavanaugh?"

  "Mrs. Cavanaugh!" they'd said, almost in unison, Robby coming out of his dolor. Mrs. Cavanaugh, the neighborhood grandmother, baby-sat on Tuesdays--when Parker sat in on a local poker game.

  Parker had stood up, surrounded by the sea of toys.

  "But you'll be back before midnight," Robby'd asked, "won't you?"

  ("Never make promises if there's any chance you can't keep them.") "I'm going to try as hard as I can."

  Parker had hugged both of the children and then walked to the door.

  "Daddy?" Stephie had asked, pure innocence in her baggy black jeans and Hello Kitty T-shirt. "Would your friend like me to make him a get-well card?"

  Parker had felt his betrayal as a physical blow. "That's okay, honey. I think he'd like it better if you just had fun tonight."

  Now, intruding on these difficult thoughts, the door to the document lab swung open. A lean, handsome agent with swept-back blond hair walked into the room. "Jerry Baker," he announced, walking up to Parker. "You're Parker Kincaid."

  They shook hands.

  He looked across the lab. "Margaret," he called in greeting. Lukas nodded back.

  "You're the tactical expert?" Parker asked him.

  "Right."

  Lukas said, "Jerry's got some S&S people lined up."

  Search and Surveillance, Parker recalled.

  "Some good shooters too," Baker said. "Just dying for a chance to light up this beast."

  Parker sat down in the gray chair. He said to Lukas, "You've processed the unsub's body?"

  "Yes," Lukas said.

  "Do you have the inventory?"

  "Not yet."

  "No?" Parker was troubled. He had very definite ideas of running investigations and he could see Lukas would have definite ideas too. He wondered how much of a problem he'd have with her. Handle it delicately or not? Glancing at her tough face--pale as pale marble--Parker decided he had no time for niceties. In a case with so few leads they needed as many K's--known aspects of the unsub--as they could find. "We better get it," he said.

  She responded coolly, "I've ordered it sent up here ASAP."

  Parker would have sent somebody--Hardy maybe--to pick it up. But he decided not to fight this skirmish. He'd give it another few minutes. He looked at Baker. "How many good guys do we have?"

  "Thirty-six of ours, four dozen District P.D."

  Parker frowned. "We'll need more than that."

  "That's a problem," Cage said. "Most actives are on alert because of the holiday. There're a couple hundred thousand people in town. And a lot of Treasury and Justice agents're on security detail, what with all the diplomatic and government parties."

  Len Hardy muttered, "Too bad this happened tonight."

  Parker gave a short laugh. "It wouldn't have happened at any other time."

  The young detective gave him a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

  He was about to answer but Lukas said, "The unsub picked tonight because he knew we'd be shorthanded."

  "And because of the crowds in town," Parker added. "The shooter's got himself a fucking firing range. He . . ."

  He paused, listening to himself. He didn't like what he heard. Living with the children, working largely alone, he'd softened since he'd left the Bureau; the rough edges were gone. He never swore and he tempered everything he said with the Whos in mind. Now he found himself back in his former life, his hard life. As a linguist, Parker knew that the first thing an outsider does to adapt to a new group is to talk their talk.

  Parker opened his attache case--a portable document examination kit. It was filled with the tools of his trade. Also, it seemed, a Darth Vader action figure. A present from Robby.

  "'The Force be with you,'" Cage said. "Our mascot for the night. My grandkids love those movies."

  Parker propped it up on the examination table. "Wish it were ObiWan Kenobi."

  "Who?" Lukas frowned, shook her head.

  Hardy blurted out, "You don't know?" Then blushed when she glanced at him coldly.

  Parker was surprised too. How could somebody not know about Star Wars?

  "Just a character in a movie," C. P. Ardell told her.

  Without a reaction she turned back to a memo she was reading.

  Parker found his hand glass, which was wrapped in black velvet. It was a Leitz lens, twelve power, and was the essential tool of a document examiner. Joan had given it to him for their second anniversary.

  Hardy noticed a book in Parker's attache case. Parker saw the cop looking at it and handed it to him. Mind Twisters Volume 5. Hardy flipped through it then passed it to Lukas.

  "Hobby," Parker explained, glancing at her eyes as she scanned the pages.

  Cage said, "Oh, this man loved his puzzles. That was his nickname 'round here. The Puzzle Master."

  "They're lateral thinking exercises," Parker said. He looked over Lukas's shoulder and read out loud, "'A man has three coins that total seventy-six cents. The coins were minted in the United States within the last twenty years, are in general circulation and one isn't a penny. What are the denominations of the coins?'"

  "Wait, one of them has to be a penny," Cage said.

  Hardy looked at the ceiling. Parker wondered if his mind was as orderly as his personal style. The cop reflected for a moment. "Are they comme
morative coins?"

  "No, remember--they're in circulation."

  "Right," the detective said.

  Lukas's eyes scanned the floor. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Parker couldn't tell what she was thinking.

  Geller thought for a minute. "I'm not wasting my brain cells on that." He turned back to his computer.

  "Give up?" Parker asked.

  "What's the answer?" Cage asked.

  "He has a fifty-cent piece, a quarter and a penny."

  "Wait," Hardy protested, "you said he didn't have a penny."

  "No, I didn't. I said one of the coins wasn't a penny. The half-dollar and the quarter aren't. But one of them is."

  "That's cheating," Cage grumbled.

  "It sounds so easy," Hardy said.

  "Puzzles are always easy when you know the answer," Parker said. "Just like life, right?"

  Lukas turned the page. She read, "'Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens. One day he sees all three sitting on the roof of his chicken coop. The farmer has just one bullet in his gun and the hawks are so far apart that he can only hit one. He aims at the hawk on the left and shoots and kills it. The bullet doesn't ricochet. How many hawks are left on the roof?'"

  "It's too obvious," C. P. observed.

  "Wait," Cage said, "maybe that's the trick. You think it should be complicated but the answer really is the obvious one. You shoot one and there're two left. End of puzzle."

  "Is that your answer?" Parker asked.

  Cage said uncertainly, "I'm not sure."

  Lukas flipped to the back of the book.

  "That's cheating," Parker said, echoing Cage.

  She kept flipping. Then frowned. "Where are the answers?"

  "There aren't any."

  She asked, "What kind of puzzle book is that?"

  "An answer you don't get on your own isn't an answer." Parker glanced at his watch. Where the hell was the note?

  Lukas turned back to the puzzle, studied it. Her face was pretty. Joan was drop-dead beautiful, with her serpentine cheekbones and ample hips and buoyant breasts. Margaret Lukas, wearing a tight-fitting black sweater, was smaller on top and trimmer. She had thin, muscular thighs, revealed by tight jeans. At her ankle he caught a glimpse of sheer white stockings--probably those knee-highs that Joan used to wear under her slacks.

  She was pretty, Daddy.

  For a lady cop . . .

  A slim young man in a too-tight gray suit walked into the lab. One of the young clerks who worked in the Mail and Memo Distribution Department, Parker guessed.

  "Agent Cage," he said.

  "Timothy, what've you got for us?"

  "I'm looking for Agent Jefferson."

  Parker was saved from asking "Who?" by Cage. "Tom Jefferson?"

  "Yessir."

  He pointed to Parker. "This's him."

  Parker hesitated for only a moment then took the envelope and signed for it, carefully writing "Th. Jefferson" the same way the statesman had done, though with a much more careless hand.

  Timothy left and Parker cocked an eyebrow at Cage, who said, "You wanna be anonymous. Poof. You're anonymous."

  "But how--"

  "I'm the miracle worker. I keep telling you."

  *

  The Digger is standing in the shadows outside his motel $39.99 a day kitchenette and free cable we have vacancies.

  This is a lousy part of town. Reminds the Digger of . . . click . . . where, where?

  Boston, no, White Plains . . . click . . . which is near New . . . New York.

  Click.

  He's standing beside a smelly Dumpster and watching the front door to his comfy room.

  He's watching people coming and going, the way the man who tells him things told him to do. Watching his front door. Watching the room through the open curtain.

  Come and go.

  Cars speed by on the lousy street, people walk past on the lousy sidewalk. The Digger looks like them, the Digger looks like no one. Nobody sees the Digger.

  "Excuse me," a voice says. "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten--"

  The Digger turns. The man looks into the Digger's blank eyes and can't finish his sentence. The Digger shoots the man with two silenced bullets. He falls and the Digger hefts the body into the big blue Dumpster, thinking the silencer needs repacking; it's not that . . . click . . . not that silent anymore.

  But nobody's heard. Too much traffic.

  He picks up the shell casings and puts them into his pocket.

  The Dumpster is a pretty blue.

  The Digger likes colors. His wife grew red flowers and his wife grew yellow flowers. But no blue flowers, he believes.

  Looking around. Nobody else is nearby.

  "If somebody looks at your face, kill them," said the man who tells him things. "Nobody can see your face. Remember that."

  "I'll remember that," the Digger answered.

  He listens to the Dumpster. Silence.

  Funny how when you're . . . click . . . when you're dead you don't make any noise.

  Funny . . .

  He goes back to watching the door, watching the window, watching the people on the sidewalk.

  He checks his watch. He's waited for fifteen minutes.

  Now it's okay to go inside.

  Have some soup, reload his gun, repack the silencer. Which he learned how to do on a pretty fall day last year--was it last year? They sat on logs and the man told him how to reload his gun and repack the silencer and all around them were pretty colored leaves. Then he would practice shooting, spinning around like a whirligig, spinning around with the Uzi, as leaves and branches fell. He remembers the smell of hot, dead leaves.

  He liked the forest better than here.

  Opening the door, walking inside.

  He calls his voice mail and methodically punches in his code. One two two five. There are no messages from the man who tells him things. He thinks he's a little sad that he hasn't heard from the man. He hasn't heard a word since this morning. He thinks he's sad. But he isn't sure what sad is.

  No messages, no messages.

  Which means he should repack the silencer and reload his clips and get ready to go out again.

  But first he'll have some soup and put on the TV.

  Have some nice hot soup.

  6

  Mayor Kennedy--

  The end is night. The Digger is loose and their is no way to stop him. He will kill again--at four, eight and Midnight if you don't pay.

  I am wanting $20 million dollars in cash, which you will put into a bag and leave it two miles south of Rt 66 on the West Side of the Beltway. In the middle of the Field. Pay to me the Money by 1200 hours. Only I am knowing how to stop The Digger. If you apprehend me, he will keep killing. If you kill me, he will keep killing.

  If you don't think I'm real, some of the Diggers bullets were painted black. Only I know that.

  Documents have personalities. The Jefferson letter sitting in Parker's vault at home--whether a forgery or not--was regal. Scripty, and rich as amber. But the extortion note sitting on the FBI examination table here in front of him was choppy and stark.

  Still, Parker was examining it the way he approached any puzzle: with no assumptions, no preconceptions. When solving riddles the mind is like fast-drying plaster; first impressions last. He'd resist drawing any conclusions until he'd analyzed the note completely. Deferring judgment was one of the hardest parts of his job.

  Three hawks have been killing a farmer's chickens . . .

  "The bullets at the Metro?" he called. "You found some painted?"

  "Yup," Jerry Baker said. "A dozen or so. Black paint."

  Parker nodded. "Did I hear you say you'd ordered a psycholinguistic?"

  "We did." Geller nodded at his computer screen. "Still waiting for the results from Quantico."

  Parker looked at the envelope that had contained the note. It had been placed in an acetate sleeve to which was attached a chain-of-custody card headed with the word METSHOOT. On the front of the enve
lope was written, in the same handwriting as the note: To the Mayor--Life and Death.

  He donned rubber gloves--not worried about fingerprints but rather about contaminating any trace materials that might be found on the paper. He unwrapped his Leitz hand glass. It was six inches across, with a rosewood handle and a glistening steel ring around the perfect glass lens. Parker examined the glue flap on the envelope.

  "What've we got, what've we got, anything?" he muttered under his breath. He often talked to himself when he was analyzing documents. If the Whos were in his study while he was working they assumed his comments were directed at them and got a kick out of being included in Daddy's job.

  The faint ridges left by the glue application machine at the factory were untouched.

  "No spit on the glue," he said, clicking his tongue angrily. DNA and serologic information can be lifted from saliva residue on envelope flaps. "He didn't seal it."

  Lukas shook her head, as if Parker had missed something obvious. "But we don't need it, remember? We took blood from the corpse and ran it through the DNA database. Nothing."

  "I figured you'd run the unsub's blood," Parker said evenly. "But I was hoping the Digger'd licked the envelope and we could run his spit through the computer."

  After a moment she conceded, "Good point. I hadn't thought about that."

  Not too full of herself to apologize, Parker noted. Even if she didn't seem to mean it. He pushed the envelope aside and looked at the note itself again. He asked, "And what exactly is this 'Digger' stuff?"

  "Yeah," C. P. Ardell piped up. "We have a wacko here?"

  Cage offered, "Another Son of Sam? That Leonard Bernstein guy?"

  "David Berkowitz," Lukas corrected before she realized it was a joke. C. P. and Hardy laughed. You could never exactly tell when Cage was fooling with you, Parker recalled. The agent was often jokey when investigations were at their most grim. It was a type of invisible shield--like Robby's--to protect the man inside the agent. Parker wondered if Lukas had shields too. Maybe, like Parker himself, she sometimes wore her armor in full view, sometimes kept it hidden.

  "Let's call Behavioral," Parker said, "and see if they have anything on the name 'Digger.'"

  Lukas agreed and Cage made the phone call down to Quantico.

  "Any description of the shooter?" Parker asked, looking over the note.

  "Nope," Cage said. "It was spooky. Nobody saw a gun, saw muzzle flash, heard anything other than the slugs hitting the wall. Well, hitting the vics too."

  Incredulous, Parker asked, "At rush hour? Nobody saw anything?"