Текст книги "Alex Cross, Run"

Автор книги: James Patterson

Соавторы: James Patterson
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

CHAPTER

2

I GOT THE FIRST CALL AT HEADQUARTERS AROUND TWO O’CLOCK THAT afternoon.

A woman had been found dead in the trunk of her car, in a Georgetown parking garage. Pretty unusual for Georgetown, so my hackles were up more than usual. I took the elevator straight down to the Daly Building garage and headed out with an extra-large coffee in hand. It was going to be a long-ass day.

That said, I really do like my job. I like giving a voice to the people who can’t speak for themselves anymore—the ones whose voices have been stolen from them. And in my line of work, that usually means through some kind of violence.

The responding officer’s report was that a garage attendant at American Allied Parking on M Street had found what looked like a pool of dried blood underneath a BMW belonging to one Darcy Vickers. When the cops arrived, they’d forced open the trunk and confirmed what they already suspected. Ms. Vickers had no pulse, and had been dead for some time. Now they were waiting for someone from Homicide to arrive and take it from there.

That’s where I came in. Or at least, so I thought.

It was a beautiful spring day. The best time of year in DC. The National Cherry Blossom Festival was on, and we hadn’t yet gotten hit with the first wave of summer humidity—or summer tourists. I had my windows down and Quincy Jones’s Soul Bossa Nostra up loud enough that I almost didn’t hear my phone when the second call came in.

Caller ID told me it was Marti Huizenga, my sergeant at the Major Case Squad. I juggled the volume down on the stereo and caught the call just before it went to voice mail.

“Dr. C.,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Pennsylvania and Twenty-First,” I told her. “Why?”

“Good. Take a right on New Hampshire. Another body just popped up, and it sounds god-awful, to tell you the truth.”

“So you thought of me.”

“Natch. I need someone over there right away. It’s a bad scene, Alex—a dead girl, hanging out of a sixth-floor window. Possible suicide, but I don’t know.”

“You want me on this instead of Georgetown?”

“I want you on both,” Huizenga said. “At least for now. I need one set of eyes on both scenes, as fresh as possible. And then I want you to tell me this is all just a coincidence, okay? I’m asking politely here.”

Huizenga’s sense of humor was as dark as mine could be sometimes. I liked working with her. And we both knew that the difference between two unrelated dead bodies and two related ones was the difference between not getting much sleep for the next forty-eight hours, and getting none at all.

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“Vernon Street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth,” she said. “I’ll tell Second District to get started without you at the garage in Georgetown, but try to be there as soon as you can.”

That’s kind of like telling the clouds when to rain. I had no idea how long I’d be at this new scene. You never do until you’re there.

And this one turned out to be a nightmare.

CHAPTER

3

VERNON STREET IS JUST A SINGLE TREE-LINED BLOCK OFF THE WEST END of U Street. It’s a quiet residential area, but I could see a crowd of people pooled on the sidewalk as soon as I turned the corner from Eighteenth. Most of them were looking up and pointing at a mansard-roofed brick building on the south side of the street.

As soon as I got out of my car, I saw the girl. It was like a check in the ribs. She hung suspended by her neck on a length of rope, about three feet below one of the dormered sixth-floor windows. Her face was visibly discolored, and her hands seemed to be tied behind her back.

Jesus. Oh Jesus.

There were two cruisers and an ambulance parked out front, but the only personnel I saw was a single cop on the door of the apartment building. The rest of the sidewalk was filled up with looky-loos, snapping away on their phones and cameras. It pissed me off as much as it amazed me.

“Get this street roped off, right now!” I told the cop on my way into the building. “I don’t want to see anyone on that sidewalk by the time I’m up there looking down, you got it?”

I knew he had his hands full, but I couldn’t help feeling revved up by the whole thing. This girl was someone’s daughter. She had a family. They didn’t need her picture on some goddamn Facebook page for the world to see.

I left the cop to it and took the stairwell instead of the elevator. It seemed like a more likely exit, if this was in fact a murder we were talking about. And you only get one chance to see a crime scene for the first time.

When I came out into the sixth-floor hall, another cop and two EMTs were waiting outside an open apartment door. The building had three units on this level, all facing the street. Our dead girl was apparently in the center one.

“Door was locked when we got here,” the police officer told me. “That splintering on the frame is us. We were inside just long enough to get a flatline on the girl, but it wasn’t easy. I can’t guarantee we didn’t move anything in there.”

The apartment was a small alcove studio. There was a closet kitchen to one side, an open bathroom door on the other, and a futon couch that looked like it doubled for a bed. As far as I could tell, there were no signs of a struggle. In fact, the only thing that looked out of place was the old-fashioned coat tree, braced sideways against the open window, with a loop of rope hanging down from the center.

I forced myself to enter the room slowly, checking for drag marks, or anything that might have been left behind. When I got to the window and looked down, I could see the top of the girl’s head, just out of reach. Her heel had broken through the window of the apartment below, and the cord around her wrists seemed to be more of the same rope that had been used in the hanging.

That didn’t rule out suicide, either. A lot of people will bind themselves just before they do the deed, to keep from trying to struggle free in the heat of the moment.

Down below, another cruiser had arrived and the street was clear. But now I had another problem. When I looked straight across, I could see at least a dozen people in the windows of the facing apartment building, looking my way—more phones, more cameras. I wanted to give them all the finger, but I held back.

Still, I wasn’t going to let this go on for one second longer than I had to.

“Give me a hand over here!” I shouted toward the hall.

Technically, the body at any crime scene belongs to the medical examiner, not the cops. But I wasn’t thinking about technicalities right now. I was thinking about this girl and her family.

I already had my own phone out, and I fired off a bunch of shots. I got the coat tree, the window frame, the rope, and the girl, from above. I needed to preserve as much detail as I could before I did what I was about to do.

“Sir?” a cop said behind me.

“Help me pull her in,” I said.

“Um…don’t you want to wait for the ME?”

“No,” I said, pointing at the audience we had across the street. “Not anymore. Now give me a hand, or get me someone who will!”

CHAPTER

4

WE LAID THE GIRL OUT AS CAREFULLY AS WE COULD ON THE FLOOR OF THE apartment, and left the rope around her neck. As long as she was out of the public eye, that’s all I needed. The rest I could leave to the investigation.

Her name was Elizabeth Reilly. According to the driver’s license I found in a purse by the front door, she was just two weeks shy of turning twenty-one. The apartment had all the signs of someone who lived alone, from the Lean Cuisines in the freezer to the single towel and washrag hanging neatly in the bathroom.

Obviously there was more to the story here, but I wasn’t seeing it yet.

When the ME did arrive I was glad to see it was Joan Bradbury. Joan’s an easygoing, sixty-something Texan. As far as I knew, she never came to work in anything but top-stitched cowboy boots, even after twenty years in DC. She’s opinionated, but also easy to work with, and didn’t give me any big lectures when she saw what I’d done with the body. Joan has four daughters of her own; I think she instinctively got it.

While she started her initial exam, I got our team of investigators out knocking on doors, especially across the street. This hanging had gone down in broad daylight. Someone had to have seen something.

I also got some more info from Sergeant Huizenga on our victim. Elizabeth Reilly had been a nursing student at Radians College on Vermont Avenue until the previous December, when she’d dropped out. There was no word yet on recent employment, but other than one unpaid parking ticket her record was squeaky clean.

By the time I got back to Joan, they were ready to wrap and bag the body for transport to the morgue.

“I’m going to need a full autopsy,” she told me, “but I’m thinking this girl was dead before she went out the window. Maybe strangled with the same rope.”

She reached down and pointed at some dark, purplish marks on Elizabeth Reilly’s lower neck.

“You see these contusions? These are all consistent with manual strangulation. But up here, higher, where the rope caught her? Just faint bruising. If there was any blood flow when she was actually hanged, those marks would be darker.”

I rocked back on my heels and ran a hand over the bottom of my face.

“This is what I was afraid of,” I said.

“There’s more, Alex.”

Normally Joan was pretty matter-of-fact, even at the roughest scenes, but there was a tightness in her voice I’d never heard before. This one was getting to her.

“The abdomen’s still flaccid, and she’s got obvious striations around her midsection and breasts,” she told me. “As far as I can make out, our girl here had a baby recently. And, Lord help me, I mean recently.”

CHAPTER

5

IT WAS LATE EVENING BY THE TIME I FINALLY GOT OVER TO THE AMERICAN Allied Parking garage in Georgetown. The site was well preserved, but Darcy Vickers’s body had already been removed. I’d have to fill in some blanks with the crime-scene photography later and glean what I could for now.

Ms. Vickers’s silver BMW 550i was parked on the third level. That’s where she’d been found. One of the Second District detectives, Will Freemont, walked me through it. He seemed like he wondered what I was doing so late to the party, but that was the least of my worries right now. My thoughts were still consumed by the Elizabeth Reilly case.

“So, they found her in here,” Freemont said, pointing into the open trunk. “Stab wounds were here, here, and here.” He pointed with two fingers to his own chest, abdomen, and upper leg. “This lady didn’t die too well, but you can bet she died quick, for whatever that’s worth. And just for shits and giggles, I guess, he cut off her hair, too.”

Left behind were a yoga mat, a briefcase, a few shopping bags, and a garment bag, all covered in a combination of dried blood and a mess of loose blond hair, some of it matted with the blood.

There was also a good-size dark stain—more blood—pooled on the cement under the car.

“He would have needed it to be quick,” I said. “It’s a pretty risky site for a murder.”

“He?” Freemont said.

“I’m guessing,” I said. It was all about first impressions at this point. “What do we know about Darcy Vickers?”

The detective flipped open a small notebook, the same kind I carried, and looked down at it.

“Forty-two years old. Divorced, no kids. Works for Kimball-Ellis on K Street, mostly retainer work for a couple of the big tobacco companies. Supposedly she had a real cutthroat reputation, from what I’ve got so far.”

In other words, Darcy Vickers had plenty of enemies. Most lobbyists do. But not every lobbyist ends up stabbed to death in the trunk of a car. Who, exactly, would want to do this? And why?

And for that matter, could this possibly have anything to do with Elizabeth Reilly’s hanging?

Nothing obvious had been taken. Darcy Vickers’s wallet, cash, phone, and jewelry were all still there, as far as anyone knew. That led me to believe that the killing itself was the motive, either to satisfy some impulse for violence or to get rid of this woman in particular—or maybe both.

In those respects, the two cases seemed the same. But the m.o. was completely different.

Assuming Elizabeth Reilly hadn’t committed suicide, her killer wanted the body put on display for everyone to see. He would have had to go to some trouble for that. Whereas with Darcy Vickers, it was all about the act itself—the stabbing, and then for whatever reasons, the cutting of the hair.

My gut was telling me these were two different cases, but we still had a lot of background work to do. Maybe these two women shared some connection, somewhere.

“Any witnesses?” I asked Freemont.

“Not exactly,” he said. “But security cameras picked up something interesting.”

He unfolded several sheets from his pocket, and showed me a series of black-and-white screen captures.

“This is nine oh four last night. We’ve got Ms. Vickers, coming in the east entrance from the alley over there. Then, right behind her, we’ve got this guy.”

The image showed a middle-aged, or maybe elderly, white male. The picture quality wasn’t great, but it was clear enough for a few details. He was bald, with dark-rimmed glasses, and what looked like a Members Only jacket, with the snaps on the shoulders.

“At nine oh nine, we’ve got the same guy leaving a different way, out toward M Street, and still on foot,” the detective went on. “What he was doing in here for five minutes is anyone’s guess.”

“What about cameras on this level?” I said.

“Right there.” He pointed toward a badly battered unit in a corner of the ceiling. “Someone took it out just after eight o’clock last night. Threw a rock at it, or something.”

“So, then…” I stopped to think about this. “If the old guy has anything to do with it, why just take out one camera? Why let himself be seen on two others?”

“I know,” he said. “Good question. We’ve got a BOLO out on him right now. If we can get him in, we might start to put together some answers.”

Maybe, I thought. But something told me it wasn’t going to be that easy.

CHAPTER

6

I GOT HOME AROUND FIVE THAT MORNING, HOPING TO CATCH A COUPLE HOURS of sleep.

And I guess that’s what happened. I barely remember crawling into bed next to my wife, Bree. The next thing I knew, light was streaming in through the windows, and we were under attack by a small band of munchkins.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up! Doo-do-doo! It’s a big day!”

Ali, my youngest, had already crawled right up the middle of the bed, and was kneeling there between us. My daughter Jannie stood at the end, all dressed and ready to go.

“It’s seven thirty, Daddy,” she said. “We’re supposed to be there by nine!”

“Oh…right,” I said.

“You didn’t forget, did you?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. We’ll be right down.”

Of course—I had forgotten. I’d been planning on being at the ME’s office first thing for the morning briefing, and then sitting in on Elizabeth Reilly’s autopsy.

But the kids were right. Today was a big day.

This was lottery day at Marian Anderson Public Charter School, the best high school in Southeast, and one of the best in the city. Jannie, as well as Ava, who was living with us now, had both put in applications, along with four hundred and twenty other eighth graders, looking for one of the hundred and five spots available in that fall’s freshman class. By law, charter schools have to hold a lottery when supply exceeds demand—which it always does—and we were hoping against hope to get both girls in.

“You know, you don’t absolutely have to be there,” Bree said, rubbing my back on the side of the bed. “I saw the news last night. I know you’re buried at work. Nana and I can cover this.”

“No,” I said. “I’m coming. I just need to get this cement out of my head.”

Over the past several months, I’d missed Christmas Eve, Ali’s play, Damon’s quarterfinals, and most Sunday mornings at church, to name a few. This felt like my last line in the sand, and I wasn’t going to cross it. I’d call someone to cover for me at the ME’s office until I could get there.

Downstairs at breakfast, Nana Mama had the griddle fired up, and all the kids had stacks of pancakes in front of them when Bree and I came in. It was a full house these days, with Damon home for spring break, and now Ava bringing our total up to seven.

“Good morning, children,” Nana said, of course meaning me and Bree. She’s the undisputed matriarch of our family, and the kitchen is her throne room. “Blueberries or no blueberries?”

I went straight for the coffee.

“What’re you doing up? Didn’t you just get home?” Nana muttered at me from the stove. I mumbled back something about big day. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot more than caffeine at that moment.

“So who’s feeling lucky today?” Bree asked from the head of the table.

Everyone’s hand went up but Ava’s. She just kept shoveling her food in, eating fast like she always did.

“What about you, Ava?” I said. “Are you excited?”

She shrugged, and answered with a mouthful of pancakes. “S’not like I’m gonna get in.”

“Don’t be so gloomy, Gus,” Nana said from the griddle. “Attitude is everything.”

If I’m being honest, though, it wasn’t hard for me to understand Ava’s pessimism at all. She was far brighter than she let on—maybe even brighter than she knew. It wasn’t about that, though.

She’d landed in our laps some months back after her mother, a junkie, had OD’d and left her to live alone on the streets of Southeast. There were still plenty of issues for Ava to work through, and I’d set her up with my own therapist, Adele Finaly. In the meantime, we had our good days and bad days.

Basically, Ava had been hardwired not to expect too much from life—and consequently, not to want too much. Every now and then I caught a smile, or an unguarded moment, and in a way it showed me the potential she had waiting for her, if we could just help her see it, too. The one thing she didn’t have was hope. It’s what I’d call an inner-city epidemic—and nothing holds a person back more than that.

If there was anything we could do to change the shitty hand life had dealt Ava so far, we were going to do it.

One good day at a time.

CHAPTER

7

FILING INTO THE GYM AT MARIAN ANDERSON, YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT THERE was a carnival going on. There were balloons flying everywhere, and faculty and staff in bright yellow and green T-shirts, greeting everyone with big smiles.

Inside, the bleachers were all pulled out and chairs were set up on the gym floor. Between the kids who had applied, their parents, siblings, and school staff, there were nearly a thousand people in that gym, and the place was buzzing with nervous tension.

Nana’s lips were pursed from the second we got there. She tried to stay upbeat, for the girls’ sake, but she’d also been a teacher for forty-one years. She had some definite opinions about this particular ritual.

“Mm-mm-mm,” she said, looking around. “You know why we’re here today? Because we adults can’t get off our duffs to offer more than a random chance at a good education in this city, that’s why.”

I think the gridlock on education reform in Washington pisses Nana off more than anything else in life. There was no escaping the fact that three quarters of the people in that gym were going to leave disappointed today. Some of them—especially the poorer families—were going to be devastated. The only other free option for high school in our area was one of DC’s so-called dropout factories, where less than sixty percent of entering freshmen graduate.

We found a block of seats on the floor and settled in. Jannie stayed on her feet, looking around for some of her friends, but Ava just sat quietly in her chair.

Finally, just after nine, the school’s principal got up on stage to welcome everyone. And then they got right to it, pulling cards out of a rolling hopper and calling out the names, one by one.

“Monique Baxter…Leroy Esselman…Thomas Brown…”

With every new draw, there was a shout, or a scream, or some flurry of movement from somewhere in the gym. It really was like winning the lottery. Each kid whose name was called got to walk up on stage, cheered along by the faculty, where they got a welcome packet, and then they were ushered back out again in a flurry of applause.

As the names went by, lots of people were making hatch marks on pieces of paper in front of them, or counting down on their fingers. I had Jannie on one side of me and Nana on the other. The tension coming off both of them was palpable.

Within about ten minutes, the lottery was already starting to wind down. We got up to name number eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four…and then—

“Janelle Cross!”

Just like that, we were the ones jumping up and hugging each other, swept along in the excitement of the whole thing. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t thrilled, because I was. This was a great opportunity for Jannie. But even as I headed up to the stage with her, I couldn’t help looking back to see what Ava was doing.

She was just sitting there and staring at the floor like nothing had happened. Like she was made of stone—at least on the outside. Bree had an arm around her, and waved me on toward the stage. It was a tough bit of mixed feelings for me to juggle.

But maybe, just maybe, we could get lightning to strike twice before this whole thing was over.