“What exactly are you doing, anyway?” Josh whispered over the Bluetooth.
“Something a little different this time,” Creem told him. “Wait and see.”
Bergman chuckled out his excitement, as a few more ice cubes dropped into his glass, a thousand miles away.
Inside the gate, Creem skirted around the pool enclosure to the house’s side entrance. The stone chess set on the patio was exactly as he’d left it, nearly eight months ago. He’d played Roger Wettig from next door. Beaten him, too, if memory served. The set had gone untouched in the meantime. Chess was a little above Miranda and the girls’ mental pay grade.
At the utility room door, he stopped and tried the knob. It was secure, of course, but the alarm system on this entrance had been fritzed out since two Christmases ago. He twisted the suppressor onto a small Beretta handgun from the inside pocket of his jacket, and shot the door handle right off. There was a fast, loud ping of metal. Nothing that would carry past the property line, anyway.
A moment later, he was in.
It was more than a little strange, sneaking into his own house like this. He left the lights off as he padded into the echoey back hall and up toward the kitchen. As he passed through the butler’s pantry, Creem stopped to take a white kitchen garbage bag out of a drawer, and stuffed it in his pocket.
He continued on, making a quick circuit around the first floor, just to look around. The whole place was making him ridiculously sentimental. There had, in fact, been some decent times in this house. A few Christmases and such, back before everyone started hating each other.
And it wasn’t the sex that had bothered Miranda. Not even close. She had her dalliances, and he had his.
No, it was the scandal in DC, and everything that had gone with it. There would be no more seven-figure income, no more white-cloth reputation, no more perfect imperfect life. It gave her all the excuse she needed to pull the trigger on something they both should have done a long time ago.
Except now, Miranda was pissed. And she was getting greedy, too.
Creem climbed the sculptural bamboo and steel staircase to the second floor. He took his time, opening doors along the hall. First was Chloe’s suite, then Justine’s. Neither of them had left much behind, but he did find a pair of diamond studs in Chloe’s dresser, and the opal ring he and Miranda had brought Justine from Santorini a few years back.
He’d loved his little blond beauties, once. But it was painfully clear what kind of women their mother was turning them into. Neither one had called in over a month, not even to say hello. There had been exactly one text, when Chloe wanted an increase on the limit of her Amex card.
Yes, indeed—just a couple of chips off the old bitch block. It was too late to save them now.
Creem kept moving. He passed the upstairs gym and a guest room, then up another half level to the master suite.
Inside Miranda’s dressing room, he opened every drawer, spilling her panties and knickknacks onto the carpet. He took what little of value was there, and a few old prescriptions from the medicine cabinet. It wasn’t much—not that it mattered. Tonight was all about appearances.
Finally, he turned and headed back outside.
“Josh?” he said, halfway up the hall. “You still conscious?”
“Still here,” Bergman answered. “Getting a little bored, though. What’s going on?”
“Just hang on,” Creem told him. “It’s about to get much more interesting.”
CHAPTER
69
FROM THE UTILITY ROOM DOOR, CREEM TRAVELED LATERALLY. HE SKIRTED THE side yard and pushed right through the ten-foot arborvitae between his own property and Roger Wettig’s next door.
It was a little like passing through the looking glass. The house on this side of the hedge was all lit up, with a soft golden light showing through the expanses of glass on both levels.
And in fact, Roger and Annette Wettig themselves were like some kind of skewed mirror version of the Creems. Roger was twenty years older than Elijah, and Annette was at least ten years younger than Miranda—the prototypical Palm Beach trophy wife, all set to be rich and single as soon as Roger had that inevitable second heart attack of his.
As he came onto the Ipe-planked deck around Roger’s pool, Creem went into his bit. He dragged his right leg behind him and held a hand up to the back of his head, limping the last twenty yards to one of the Wettigs’ back doors.
Inside, he could see Roger watching a Marlins game on an enormous television. His back was to the door, with his hands laced over the monk’s cap of bald scalp on his head.
When Creem banged on the glass, Roger nearly fell out of his chair.
“Hello?” Creem called through.
Roger stared back, squinting, but not coming any closer. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted.
Creem gestured toward the beach. “I was just attacked,” he said. “Could you please help me?”
From the way Roger was looking at him so intently, it was clear he had no idea who Creem was, inside the mask. Just some old stranger who’d had the nerve to be mugged on his spit of Palm Beach. He didn’t even try to hide his annoyance as he came closer.
“Hang on, hang on,” he said. He beeped out a code on the glowing keypad by the floor-to-ceiling sliders, and then pulled one open with a whoosh of air. The Marlins game inside was up at top volume.
“Reyes’s been looking good in early season play. . . .”
“Do you want me to call the police?” Roger said.
“No,” Creem told him. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Whether we’ll see last year’s kind of batting remains to be seen. . . .”
“Well . . . can I help you?” Roger said. “Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” Creem said. “Just my feelings, I suppose. You know, you could have at least called.”
Softly in the background, he could hear Josh laughing with a hand over the phone.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Roger demanded.
“A swing and a miss.”
“It’s me, Roger. Elijah Creem.”
That was all the fun Creem allowed himself. He produced the handgun from behind his back and fired into Roger’s left man boob before he could even try to turn away. So much for the heart attack. He dropped dead right there.
“Strike two! Maybe this isn’t José’s night, after all.”
Creem kept moving. He stepped over Roger’s heft and continued farther into the house. He’d been here for a few beers, a few dinner parties, and he knew the basic layout. The master bedroom was on the ground level, in its own wing off to the right.
As he left the great room behind, he could hear another TV up ahead, with whatever Annette was watching on her own back there.
“Roger?” she called out, just as Creem opened the bedroom door and fired his third shot of the night.
It caught her in the shoulder as she started to scramble off the bed. The next bullet hit her in the face, and she went down for good. She died in her husband’s Dallas Cowboys jersey, with little white pieces of cotton between her toes and a fresh coat of red on the nails.
A little knife work would have been more to Creem’s liking—probably Josh’s, too—but not tonight. There was no sense drawing any parallels for the police down here.
He emptied Annette’s drawers quickly, and bagged the two velvet boxes that fell out as he did. He dumped her purse, took the wallet, and then took Roger’s wallet as well, from the tall dresser in the closet.
That was enough. It didn’t really matter what he might have missed, and it was best to keep moving.
But then halfway out the door, Creem’s curiosity got the best of him. He turned around and went back to where Annette was laid out, all angles and wide eyes on the bed. With one gloved hand, he lifted up the hem of her nightshirt to have a look.
Sure enough, her breasts had a noticeable asymmetry, with the shadow of a scar still showing on either side. Roger had cheaped out on the one th
ing it made the least sense in the world to skimp on, and it showed. What a fool.
Two minutes later, Creem was back on the beach, walking north toward the lot where he’d parked his rental.
“That’s it, Josh,” he said. “It’s done. I’m calling it a night.”
“I still don’t get it,” Josh said. “What just happened?”
“Well, for one thing, I might have just single-handedly brought down the property values on this little stretch of Gold Coast. But more important? I made sure that Miranda and the girls are never going to want to use this place again.”
Not bad for a night’s work. Inside his mask, Dr. Creem smiled.
CHAPTER
70
THE NEXT DAY AT WORK STARTED WITH SOME DECENT NEWS. I GOT MY GUN and badge back from Sergeant Huizenga. The chief himself had to sign off on the Glock, so that felt like a vote of confidence in the right direction.
Too bad it didn’t change my work status. I was still stuck in the office, and basically spent the whole day doing three things—answering the phones, logging cold case reports in the file room, and taking the temperature of everyone I’d been working with up until now.
Technically I was off the Elizabeth Reilly case, off the Georgetown Ripper, and off the River Killer. But you don’t just work a multiple homicide one day and then stop caring about it the next. I wanted to know what was going on.
I also still had Ava on my mind, and Ron Guidice as well. In fact, my first detour that morning was over to Jarret Krause’s desk.
“Alex. How’s it hanging?” he said, sitting back as I came into his cube. I noticed he’d shut down whatever window he’d been working on, too.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Just wondered if you have anything new on Ron Guidice.”
Krause leaned farther back, with his hands on top of his head, like he was trying to get them as far off the keyboard as possible.
“Jeez, I’m not sure what to say,” he told me.
“Meaning what?” I asked, just to keep the pressure on. I knew what he meant.
“Huizenga was pretty specific. You’re noncontact, right? And frankly, aren’t you supposed to be laying off of Guidice?”
I wasn’t going to answer that one. The truth was, I understood where Krause was coming from. He was a newbie, and probably more ambitious than he was bold. That can change over time, but right now he was working his way up by staying inside the lines. It wasn’t up to me to change that for him. So I moved on.
The person who was the most open to me that morning was Errico Valente. The last we’d really talked was at the double homicide on Cambridge Place, right before my big blowout with Guidice. I still had access to the investigative files online, but Errico let me look through his notes as well.
What I learned was that the knife work on the mother and daughter victims was strikingly similar. The incisions were close enough to each other in placement and scope to indicate some level of expertise. Most of the seemingly random flesh tears were secondary, almost as if the cutter had deliberately gone back and added some messiness to the whole thing. At a minimum, our killer was getting better with practice.
Errico had also been researching mask fabricators. Based on the security camera footage, he’d narrowed it down to three possible companies, in North Carolina, Texas, and California. It seemed doubtful that the Barbie Killer, or Georgetown Ripper, or whoever he was, would do anything so obvious as to have these things shipped to a traceable address. But either way, MPD was now talking about the masks publicly, including at the press briefings.
It was a good move. If nothing else, it might put the killer on the defensive, and maybe even push him to make some kind of mistake. Anything you can do to upset a serial killer’s pattern can be a potent tool, especially when you have nothing else to work with.
By the end of the day, I knew a lot more than I had when I walked in that morning. But I was still frustrated. I wanted to help. Instead, all I could do was pace around the outside of it all, just waiting to get back in.
And so far, there was no sign of that changing anytime soon.
CHAPTER
71
ANOTHER ADVANTAGE TO WORKING THE SO-CALLED RUBBER GUN SQUAD WAS the hours. I went in at eight and signed out at five. There’s only so much office work you can do.
For the first time in a while, I beat Bree home, and even better, sat down to dinner with the family. If there’s one thing I could change about my life, it might just be all those dinners I miss.
After the ice cream was eaten and the dishes were washed, I was helping Jannie with some algebra, when Sampson came up onto the back porch.
“Knock knock,” he said, coming in. We were all feeling pretty down about Ava, but Sampson’s family. He’s welcome anytime.
“How are you holding up, Nana?” he said, giving her a hug in her chair.
“I’m just fine,” she said, but I think she’d been on the same page of Madeleine Albright’s new book for the last half hour. “You want some ice cream, dear?”
“Actually, I was hoping to grab Alex and Bree for a minute,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Maybe outside?” He leaned down to kiss Jannie on the cheek as we headed out to the picnic table in the yard.
“What’s up?” I asked, once John had closed the back door behind him.
Sampson settled his bear-size frame across from us and clasped his hands on the table. It took him a second to figure out what he wanted to say, or at least, how he wanted to start.
“Let me give you a hypothetical,” he said. “Suppose there’s some guy pressing charges against someone else—charges he knows are false. And say this guy’s gone to some lengths to set that person up, and make life difficult. Maybe he even breaks the law to get it done, but no one can prove it.”
“Okay,” I said. We were obviously talking about Guidice—but also not talking about Guidice. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and follow John’s lead for the moment. “Go on.”
“I’m thinking that sort of guy might have a few skeletons in his closet,” Sampson said. “The kind that don’t show up on a regular background check.”
I noticed Bree was sitting very still, not saying a word.
“What kind of skeletons?” I said.
Sampson leaned back and shrugged. “Drug habit? Bad debt? I don’t know, maybe he’s sleeping with his best friend’s wife. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say someone else finds out about it. Someone like me, for instance. That kind of information might be used to make a person reconsider these charges he’s pressing. And maybe that makes life a little easier for the other guy. Him, and his family.”
“Jesus, John,” I said. If I weren’t so on the rack about all this, the pretense might have almost seemed funny. “I couldn’t ask you to do something like that—”
“If we were even talking about it,” John said. “Which we’re not. But just for the record, Alex, you have asked me to do that kind of thing before. More than once.”
“Yeah, when I’m in on it,” I said. “This is different.”
Finally, Bree spoke up. Her voice was low, and I got the impression she’d been expecting this.
“My two cents?” she said. “I don’t think John would have come over here if he didn’t want to.”
“That’s true,” Sampson told me.
I believed him, but it was also true that Sampson would do anything for us. The same way I’d do anything for him. That’s not always a good thing. This was John’s career we were talking about.
“I don’t know, Sampson,” I said.
“But I do,” Bree told me. “There’s a lot at stake here, Alex, and you’re right in the middle of it. Let me call this one. Please.”
When I looked into her eyes, I saw something else. There was something she wasn’t saying—and I finally got the whole picture. Unless I was very much mistaken, this wasn’t just John’s idea. Bree had asked him to come over tonight.
I still felt conflicted about it all, b
ut she was right. There was a lot at stake here, either way. I was the one with the restraining order, and they were doing whatever they could to protect me—but also Ava.
Under other circumstances, I might have also still been caught up on the loss Guidice himself had incurred, back in 2007. But he’d trumped that issue the minute he’d started messing with my family.
So instead of saying anything else, I just stood up from the table and started back inside.
“I’m going to finish helping Jannie with her homework,” I said. “You two come on in when you’re done talking.”
CHAPTER
72
BY THE END OF THE NEXT DAY, WE WERE FINALLY PERMITTED TO GO VISIT Ava. Sampson’s wife, Billie, was nice enough to come over and watch the kids, while Nana, Bree, and I drove up to Quarles Street in Northeast.
The home where Ava had been placed was on the fringes of one of the city’s worst neighborhoods. It was a converted single-family house, called Howard House now. They had twelve girls living there, along with a house manager, a pair of overnight staff, and a couple of part-time counselors.
I don’t expect miracles from the city, and I’ve got plenty of respect for the job these people are up against. Still, I had to keep my feelings in check as we walked up the cracked sidewalk and rang the bell.
Inside, the place reminded me of a few of my college apartments. The furniture was old and mismatched, with a threadbare wall-to-wall carpet that looked like it had been new sometime in the seventies.
Several young women were hanging out in front of the TV in the living room, watching Judge Judy on a wall-mounted TV. I could hear cooking sounds from farther back, and half of a phone conversation, at full volume, from somewhere upstairs.
“Yes, I did. Nuh-uh! Don’t start, Lamar. Don’t even start with that shit!”
The truth was, Ava could be just as street as the next girl. I had no doubt she could stand up for herself, and even hold her own in a fight, if it came to that. But it made me sadder than I could say to know she was living here now. Just looking at Nana and Bree, I could tell they felt the same way.
Alex Cross, Run Page 16
