“I’m going with you next time,” Bree said.
“Probably a good idea,” I said, reached out and squeezed her hand.
She held on to it while we ate, and when she finished, said, “Do you know how lucky we are, Alex?”
“Of course,” I said, rubbing her knuckles with my thumb. “We’ve got our health, each other, the kids, the jobs, a house. I’m grateful.”
“So am I,” she replied. “Sometimes I forget, but then I see people like the Bransons losing their baby daughter, and…”
Tears began to drip down her cheeks.
“Any ransom note?” I asked.
“No,” Bree said, frustrated. “And she was smart, the kidnapper. She didn’t seem to touch anything in that day care other than Joss. Just in, out, vanish.”
“Woman that age, could be the ticking clock drove her to it.”
“I thought of that,” Bree said. “No ransom note will be coming, in that case, and we’ve got way too little to go on. I don’t know how I’m going to tell the Bransons that tomorrow.”
“You’ll get her back for them,” I said, standing up to hug her.
But as I moved into her arms I found myself looking over my wife’s shoulder at Ava’s sweater and wondering if that was true.
Chapter
20
At two that Saturday morning, Marcus Sunday checked to make sure that the sperm from Preston’s used condom was triple-wrapped in Baggies and hidden in a cold cuts drawer in the fridge. Then he tied a rope around the computer genius’s ankles.
Lights off in the apartment, he and Acadia pushed the corpse out the window and lowered it until the head was about three feet shy of the alley pavement. Sunday tied the rope off around a heating pipe and went down the back stairs to the alley. He backed up the van, got out, and opened the rear door.
Getting hold of the dead programmer’s torso, he made a meowing sound and soon felt the rope slacken. He had the body inside and under a carpet in less than a minute. Before he moved on, he changed the magnetic signs on the sides of the van. It now belonged to the Ralston Feed Company.
That was the thing about embracing an existential lifestyle, Sunday mused as he shut the doors and started to drive. With an existential lifestyle you ascribe no meaning to anything, even your identity, so you can be anyone you want, at any moment you want.
A corollary of this philosophy was that the writer did not believe in good or evil. Nor did he believe in justice. Like crime, justice was an abstract, something cooked up by men. It wasn’t intrinsic to the universe. Life just was. It happened, sometimes meagerly, sometimes abundantly, sometimes in violent excess. There was no right or wrong about any of it.
As far as Sunday was concerned, there was no recipe that ensured a good life, and virtue was a joke. So was Karma. Life slapped down the righteous and the spiritual just as easily as the wicked and the free. The trick was to embrace this reality wholeheartedly. In so doing the smart man, the perfect man, the free man could act without fear of consequences.
Bolstered by these thoughts, Sunday drove to Purcellville, Virginia. It took him an hour. He drove another fifteen minutes toward Berryville before he took a side road south through farm country.
As the writer drove the Berryville Road, he kept thinking back to Acadia and how wild she’d become sexually after they’d let the computer genius’s body crumple to the floor between them, as if murder was her aphrodisiac, which of course it was. It was Sunday’s aphrodisiac, too. Once you were free, killing became a turn-on, the strongest he’d ever known.
Reaching the four-mile marker, Sunday pulled into a grassy lane on the right and drove into the woods far enough not to be seen. He put on a headlamp, turned on the red light, and got out, aware of a familiar, terrible smell almost immediately. Cutting Preston Elliot’s body free of the garbage bags, he turned off his headlamp and got the corpse up on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He set off into the wind toward the stench.
With a half-moon to guide him, Sunday soon reached the edge of a clearing. He peered out at a farmhouse a solid half-mile away and down the hill. A farmyard light shone, but no other, and he knew there likely would not be any real activity for another hour, maybe longer. It was only three thirty, after all.
Turning his attention toward the long, low-roofed building in front of him, Sunday hurried to a door, dropped Preston’s body, and pushed the door open. He heard only a few muffled grunts as he dragged the corpse up onto a narrow catwalk with rails and low steel mesh fencing on either side.
The smell inside was ungodly. Closing off his nasal passages with practiced ease, Sunday pulled the programmer’s body a solid twenty-five feet across the catwalk. Sweating, he turned on the red headlamp again and saw more than a thousand young pigs crammed wall to wall below him.
Most of the shoats in the feedlot were lying all over each other, less than a hundred pounds each, covered in crap and sleeping. But then a few of the pigs that were awake saw his light and began grunting noisily, waking others.
As Sunday struggled to lift the programmer’s body up onto the catwalk rail, he flashed again on himself at eighteen, fighting to get another body over into the pigsty on the farm where he grew up in West Virginia. Both bodies tipped and fell over the side.
The stutterer’s corpse landed on pigs that screamed and squealed in alarm. But other young hogs sensed a meal and began to crowd in.
Sunday remembered how the pigs his father fed for years had attacked the old man’s dead body with similar enthusiasm. Pigs will eat you—clothes, skin, meat, and bones—if you give enough of them enough time. Not even a piranha will do that.
It’s the endless story, he thought, turning off his headlamp. One life takes another, consuming it, ending it. There’s nothing good or bad about that at all.
Creeping from the building, Sunday listened as the squealing and grunting behind him built into a blind bloody riot that seized the pigsty from one end to the other. But he crossed back to the forest relatively unconcerned, knowing from personal experience that the farmers would not come out to investigate.
This kind of feeding frenzy went on all the time inside commercial hog operations, especially when one pig died and the others turned cannibal.
Chapter
21
The problem with cases like the Mad Man Murders, as the New York tabloids were now calling the killings, is that there are too many angles, too many potential avenues of investigation to run down in that critical first forty-eight hours, especially if there is only a team of two working full-time.
Which is why I was at work early Saturday morning with Sampson, waiting for Captain Quintus to arrive.
“Tell me something good, Alex,” Quintus said by way of greeting.
“We need help,” I said.
“Still bucking for that slot on Letterman?”
Sampson grimaced, said, “Guess you’re ready to take the heat, explain why the killing of Pete Francones doesn’t merit more manpower?”
“It’s the damn murder rate,” Quintus fumed. “If I put more people on him, I’ll have relatives of every victim we got in here ready to wring my neck!”
“You don’t get it,” I said. “The Francones murder is the murder rate, at least to everyone else in the world. You give us the legs, we’ll close the case. And everyone will think you’re acting boldly.”
Quintus studied me. “Comedian and master strategist?”
I smiled. “A man of many dimensions.”
The homicide captain sighed. “I’ll give you two more men part-time, in their spare time.”
“Cap,” Sampson started to complain.
“It’s the best I can do.”
“You’ll be able to claim a task force is on the case,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Close this, Cross,” Quintus said.
“Fast as we can, Captain,” I assured him.
Sampson and I made a list of what we wanted the other detectives to run down, including the location of Trent
on Wiggs, the massage parlor owner, and Cam Nguyen, who was now officially a missing person. Just after two that afternoon, we got good news: a Virginia judge had given us a warrant to search the Mad Man’s home in McLean. On the way there we stopped for a meeting with the Mad Man’s agent and business manager at the Willard Hotel.
“Maybe these guys will give us someone who wanted Francones dead,” I said before we entered the lobby.
“Maybe,” Sampson said. “Unless it was just random, some crazy fucker, and the Mad Man just got unlucky.”
“In which case, every victim was the target, and our shooter is a psychotic,” I said. “But until we determine that, we need to focus on Francones.”
“Best way to keep the heat off us,” Sampson agreed as we went in.
We found Alan Snyder, the Mad Man’s agent, and J. Barrett Timmons, his business manager, waiting for us in the lobby, a grand, elegant space. Snyder, a short, intense man who was constantly checking his phone, suggested we have coffee in the restaurant.
But Timmons, a puckered sort in his fifties, shook his head.
“I’d rather we did this privately,” he said. “The press has been hounding me nonstop. They’re not above trying to eavesdrop in a public restaurant.”
Sampson spoke with the head of security, an old friend, and within ten minutes we were locked inside an unused office with a full pot of coffee and a plate of pastries.
“I wish to say that I’m pleased you two are on the case,” said Snyder, the agent. “We’ve heard of you, Dr. Cross. And you, Detective Sampson.”
“Flattering,” I said. “Tell me why Mad Man would be in a place like the Superior Spa, and why he would be the primary target of a mass murderer.”
Timmons frowned and shook his head as if he still could not believe the circumstances of his client’s death.
“I can’t square it any way I look at it,” Snyder said. “The Pete Francones I represented the last fifteen years is not the person who died in that massage parlor. And the primary target? No, I can’t believe that. What could possibly be the motive?”
“Money problems?”
“Hardly,” Snyder snorted. “He had plenty. Thirty million.”
“Death beneficiary?” I asked.
Timmons’s eyes crinkled up. “Two nephews, his sister’s sons, are provided for in well-endowed trusts. Otherwise, all money is to be divided among the various charities Mad Man tirelessly championed.”
I figured it was time to drop the bomb. “Tell us about his cocaine use.”
“You’ve lost your mind if you think Pete Francones used drugs of any kind,” Snyder snapped at me without hesitation. “He was the cleanest guy I knew. Had his head on straight. That high? It was life, Detective.”
Francones’s manager nodded softly, but there was something in his posture that made me say, “That your assessment, Mr. Timmons?”
Timmons hesitated, cleared his throat, and said, “I have no personal knowledge of drug use.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Sampson said.
Timmons struggled until I said, “You didn’t hear it from us, but Mad Man died with three grams of high-grade blow in his pocket, and a gram at least up his nose. According to our medical examiner, the condition of his upper respiratory tract indicates he was a chronic user. And the size of his heart said he wasn’t going to last long because of the coke use.”
The agent looked stunned, bewildered by all this, but the manager sat forward, cupped his face in his hand. “For Christ’s sake. It’s one of those things you choose to look away from.”
“Tell us,” Sampson said.
Timmons described Francones’s “slush fund.” It was the Mad Man’s mad money, which amounted to quite a lot: ten thousand a month, which bumped to twenty grand a month in his latter years as a player, and bumped again to thirty K a month after he landed the gig with Monday Night Football.
“Even if he spent twenty percent of that, it’s a lot of blow,” I said.
“Yes, but that’s not what I’m…” The manager stopped, then said, “Beginning shortly before Christmas, Mad Man started burning through money and asking for supplements. Ten, sometimes twenty thousand.”
“In cash?” I asked.
“Transferred to his cash accounts, yes,” Timmons said.
“He a gambler?” Sampson asked.
“Well, before today I would have told you not a chance,” said Snyder, shrugging. “But now? Who knows?”
“Gambling wasn’t the issue, in my opinion,” the manager said, glancing at Snyder. “Mandy was the—”
On the table in front of him, his cell phone rang. He sat forward, frowned. “I’m sorry, this must be an emergency of some kind. I asked them not to call unless it was.”
Timmons picked the phone up, answered.
“He was talking about Mandy Bell Lee?” Sampson said to Snyder.
The agent’s face soured, but before he could reply, Timmons roared, “That conniving bitch!”
He slammed his phone down, his face beet red. “Mandy Bell’s holding a live press conference out at the house. She’s claiming that she and the Mad Man were married secretly last month, and that she plans to contest the will!”
Chapter
22
We got to the gates of Francones’s sprawling manor in McLean, Virginia, around four p.m. Satellite TV trucks were parked up and down the road, with reporters gushing into cameras about the latest turn of events.
A Fairfax County deputy sheriff sat in a patrol car to the left of the gate, facing the road. She climbed out when we pulled up and showed her our badges.
“She’s in there, waiting for you,” the deputy said. “Mandy Bell.”
“Wait, you let her in?” I demanded.
“Not like it’s a crime scene,” she replied defensively. “And she has a marriage license that’s clear: she was the Mad Man’s wife, which means she has a right to be in her home.”
Sampson said, “What, did she give you an autograph, or promise you concert tickets?”
The deputy reddened, then said, “She’s a widow, Detective. I tried to show her some respect in her grief.”
I sighed. I didn’t like the fact that Francones’s alleged wife had had access to the house, but it was water under the bridge. “Let us in, please.”
The deputy nodded, walked to the right side of the gate, and pressed a button. The gate swung back. We drove up a winding driveway to a house Tony Soprano would have loved. I half expected to see Carmela opening the front door. Instead, a long, lanky man answered. He wore a dark suit, no tie, and black cowboy boots, and sported a jaw that looked straight out of central casting.
“Tim Jackson,” he said in a Tennessee twang, extending his hand. “I’m Ms. Lee’s attorney. How can I help you, Officers?”
“We’re running the investigation into Mr. Francones’s death,” Sampson said. “We’d like to ask Ms. Lee some questions.”
“Is Ms. Lee a suspect?”
“She claims to be the deceased’s wife,” I said.
“She is the deceased’s wife,” the attorney said, bristling. “We’ve got documents, witnesses. It’s iron-clad.”
“All the more reason for us to want to talk to her,” Sampson said.
“As you might imagine, this has been a terrible blow, having to keep the depth of their relationship secret, and then to have him die, well, she’s devastated and exhausted. Could we—?”
“She wasn’t too devastated and exhausted to hold a press conference,” I observed. “In any case, it’s not your call, Counselor.”
Sampson reached into his jacket, pulled out the search warrant, and handed it to the attorney. I pushed by him into the house, which was not at all like its exterior. Either the decorator or Francones had a strong interest in modern art, because there were pieces of it in every room except the library, which was a shrine to the Mad Man, with all his trophies, framed photographs, game balls, and other sports memorabilia.
In there we found Mandy
Bell Lee, curled up on a leather couch and drinking bourbon neat, and not quite three sheets to the wind.
Chapter
23
Mandy Bell Lee was, as Sampson later described her, built for speed.
Tall, curvy, and busty, Mandy Bell had a hairdo that screamed Texas, but her face looked straight out of Vogue. Her skintight jumpsuit in mourning black looked ready to pop every time she moved, which was often. And the diamond engagement ring on her right hand was, well, huge.
Her attorney moved to her side, saying, “Mandy, these detectives would like to talk to you. I would advise against doing that in your present condition.”
She blinked blurry eyes at us. She’d clearly been crying.
“You investigating my M&M’s death?” she asked in a soft, soulful voice.
“We are,” I said, identified myself, and introduced Sampson.
“How can I help y’all?”
“Mandy—” her attorney began.
“I got nothing to hide, Timmy,” she snapped, and then tried to refocus on us. “Whaddya wanna know?”
“When did you and Mad Man get married?” Sampson asked.
“She already covered that in the press conference,” Jackson complained.
“Unthinkable, I know, but we missed it,” I said.
“Last month, March twelfth, in Playa Del Carmen,” Mandy Bell said dully.
“A spur-of-the-moment kind of thing,” her attorney explained, handing me a wedding certificate and several photographs of a simple service by the sea at sunset. “Their families didn’t even know.”
“You both look happy,” I said.
“Isn’t that what you look like on your wedding day?” she asked as if I’d implied something, and began to cry.
“I was saying it out of compassion, Mrs. Francones,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a balled-up Kleenex. “I’m sorry. I just never lost somebody I loved like this.”