Pop Goes the Weasel

by James Patterson

  Early Wednesday morning, Sampson and I drove to Eckington. A woman over there knew where a purple and blue cab was garaged. We’d followed up a dozen or so leads like this already, but it didn’t matter. Every lead had to be investigated, every single one.

  “Cab owner’s name is Arthur Marshall,” I told Sampson as we walked from my car toward a redbrick garden apartment that had seen better days. “Trouble is, Arthur Marshall seems to be a false identity. Landlady has him working at a Target store. According to Target, he doesn’t. Never worked at any Target store. Hasn’t been seen around for a while, according to the landlady.”

  “Maybe we spooked him,” Sampson said.

  “I hope not, but you may be right.”

  I glanced around at the lower-middle-class neighborhood as we walked. Overhead, the sky was a bright-blue canvas, nearly empty of clouds. The street was packed with one- and two-story homes. Bright-orange fliers were sticking out from the mailboxes. Every window was a possible lookout for the Weasel. “Back away,” he had warned. I couldn’t. Not after what he’d done. I knew I was taking a risk, though.

  He probably spotted us canvassing the streets. If he was responsible for the Jane Doe murders, he had been working undetected for a long while. He was skillful, good at killing, at not getting caught.

  The landlady told us what she knew about Arthur Marshall, which wasn’t much more than the information she needed to rent him a one-bedroom apartment and the attached garage. She gave us a set of keys for the place and said we could go look for ourselves.

  The second house was similar to the landlady’s, except that it was painted Easter-egg blue. Sampson and I entered the garage first.

  The purple and blue cab was there.

  Arthur Marshall had told the landlady that he owned the cab and operated it as a part-time job. That was a possibility, but it seemed unlikely. The Weasel was close. I could feel it now. Had he known we would find the cab? Probably. Now what? What came next? What was his plan? His fantasy?

  “I’m going to have to figure out how to get some techies in here,” I told Sampson. “There has to be something in the cab, or maybe upstairs in the apartment. Hair, fibers, prints.”

  “Hopefully no damn body parts,” Sampson said, and grimaced. It was typical cop humor, and so automatic that I didn’t give it a second thought. “Body parts are always popping up in these cases, Alex. I don’t want to see it. I like feet attached to ankles, heads attached to necks, even if all the parts happen to be dead.”

  Sampson searched around the front seat of the cab with latex-gloved hands. “Papers in here. Candy and gum wrappers, too. Why not call in a favor from Kyle Craig? Get the FBI boys over here.”

  “Actually, I talked to Kyle last night,” I said. “The Bureau’s been involved for some time. He’ll help out if we say the word.”

  Sampson tossed me a pair of gloves, and I examined the cab’s backseat. I saw what could be bloodstains in the fabric of the seat cushion. The stains would be easy enough to check out.

  John and I finally climbed upstairs into the apartment above the garage. It was dusty, grimy, without much furniture. Eerie and unpleasant on the eyes. It didn’t look as if anyone lived there, but if someone did, he was really weird. The landlady had said as much.

  The kitchen was mostly empty. An expensive juicer was the only personal indulgence. Not a low-end model—expensive. I took out my handkerchief and opened the refrigerator. There was nothing in it but bottled water and some aging fruit. The fruit was rotting, and I hated to think of what else we might find here in the apartment.

  “Health nut,” Sampson offered.

  “Nut, anyway,” I said. “There’s a sense of animal fear in here. He gets very tense, excited, when he comes to this place.”

  “Yeah,” Sampson said. “I know the feeling.”

  We entered the bedroom, which was furnished with only a small cot, a couple of stuffed chairs, nothing else. The sense of fear was here, too.

  I opened the closet door, and what I saw stopped me dead. There was a pair of khaki pants, a blue chambray shirt, a blue blazer —and something else.

  “John, come here,” I called. “John!”

  “Oh, shit. Do I have to? Not more bodies.”

  “Just come here. It’s him. This is the Weasel’s place. I’m sure of it. It’s worse than a body.”

  I opened the closet door wider and let Sampson see what I’d found there.

  “Shit,” he groaned. “Goddamn it, Alex.”

  Someone had put up pictures. Half a dozen black-and-white photographs were taped to the wall of the closet. It wasn’t a killer’s shrine; it was meant to be found.

  There were pictures of Nana, Damon, Jannie, me, and Christine. Christine almost seemed to be smiling at the camera, that incredible smile of hers, those big, welcoming eyes.

  The pictures had been taken in Bermuda. Whoever had rented this apartment had taken them. Finally, I had something to link Christine’s abduction to the murders in Washington. I knew who had taken her.

  “Back off.

  “Before you lose everything.”

  I sensed fear again. It was my own.

  Chapter 64

  PATSY HAMPTON had decided that she wasn’t ready to confide in Chief George Pittman just yet. She didn’t want The Jefe interfering or crowding her. Also, she flat out didn’t trust or like the bastard.

  She still hadn’t made up her mind what to do about Alex Cross. Cross was a complication. The more she checked him out, the better he looked. He seemed to be a very good, dedicated detective, and she felt bad about keeping Chuck Hufstedler’s information away from him. Chuck had been Cross’s source first, but she’d used the techie’s crush on her to gain an advantage. She didn’t like herself for doing that.

  She drove her Jeep to the British Embassy late that afternoon. She had Geoffrey Shafer under limited surveillance—hers. She could get more teams, but that would mean going to Pittman now, and she didn’t want anyone to know what she had. She didn’t want to be crowded.

  She had done her preliminary homework on Shafer. He was in the Security Service, which meant he was British intelligence, operating outside England. Most likely he was a spy working out of the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. His reputation was okay—good, actually. His current assignment supposedly had to do with the British Government’s human-rights program, which meant the assignment was bullshit. He lived in Kalorama, a high-rent district, one he couldn’t afford on his salary. So who the hell was this Shafer chap?

  Hampton sat parked in her vehicle outside the embassy on California Street. She smoked a Marlboro Light and started to think things through. She really ought to talk to Cross about where he was with his investigation. Did he know anything that could help? Maybe he was onto Shafer, too? It was almost criminal for her not to contact Cross and share what she’d gotten from Chucky Cheese.

  Pittman’s dislike for Cross was well known; he considered him competition. She didn’t know Cross that well, but he got too many headlines. Still, she wished she knew what Cross had in his files, and especially whether Geoffrey Shafer had appeared on Cross’s radar.

  There was too much fricking noise on the fricking street near the British Embassy. Workers were doing construction on the Turkish Chancery across California Street. Hampton already had a headache—her life was one big headache—and she wished they would stop pounding and hammering and battering and sawing. For some reason or other, there was a crowd of people swarming all over the National Mosque today.

  At a few minutes past five, Shafer got into his Jaguar in a parking lot outside the glass-walled Rotunda.

  She’d seen him twice before. He was in very good shape, and attractive, too, though not a physical type she herself responded to. Shafer sure didn’t hang around long after the workday ended. Hampton figured he either had someplace to go or really hated his day job. Possibly both.

  She stayed a safe distance behind the black Jag, following it along crowded Massachusetts Avenu
e. Shafer didn’t seem to be heading home, and he wasn’t going to Southeast, either.

  Where are we going tonight? she wondered as she tailed him. And what does it have to do with the Four Horsemen? What game are you really playing? What are your fantasies?

  Are you a bad man, a murderer, Geoffrey? You don’t look like it, blondie. Such a nice, spiffy car for a scumbag killer.

  Chapter 65

  AFTER WORK, Geoffrey Shafer joined the clogged artery of rush-hour traffic inching along Massachusetts. Turning out of the embassy, he had spotted the black Jeep behind him.

  The tail was still there as he drove down Massachusetts Avenue.

  Who’s in the Jeep? One of the other players? D.C. police? Detective Alex Cross? They’ve found the garage in Eckington. Now they’ve found me. It has to be the bloody police.

  He watched the black Jeep as it trailed four cars behind him. There was only one person inside, and it looked like a woman. Could it possibly be Lucy? Had she discovered the truth about him? God, had she finally figured out who and what he was?

  He picked up his mobile phone and made a call home. Lucy picked up after a couple of rings.

  “Darling, I’m coming home, after all. There’s a bit of a lull at the office. We can order in or something—unless you and the children already have plans.”

  She blathered on in her usual maddening way. She and the twins had been going to catch a movie, Antz, but they’d rather stay home with him. They could order from Pizza Hut. It would be fun for a change.

  “Yes, what fun,” Shafer said, and cringed at the thought. Pizza Hut served indigestible cardboard drenched with very bad tomato soup. He hung up, then took a couple of Vicodin and a Xanax. He thought he could feel cracks slowly opening up in his skull.

  He made a dangerous U-turn on Massachusetts Avenue and headed toward home. He passed the Jeep going in the opposite direction and was tempted to wave. A woman driver. Now, who was she?

  The pizza got to the house at around seven, and Shafer opened an expensive bottle of Cabernet. He washed down another Xanax with the wine in the downstairs bathroom. Felt a little confused, fuzzy around the edges. That was all right, he supposed.

  Jesus Christ, he couldn’t stand being with his family, though; he felt as if he were going to crawl out of his skin. Ever since he was a boy in England he’d had a repetitive fantasy that he was actually a reptile and could shed his own skin. He’d had the dream long before he read any Kafka; he still had the disturbing dream.

  He rolled three dice in his hand as he sipped his wine, played the game at the dinner table. If the number seventeen came up, he would murder them all tonight. He swore he would do it. First the twins, then Robert, and then Lucy.

  She kept prattling on and on about her day. He smiled blithely as she told him about her shopping trip to Bloomingdale’s and Bath & Body Works and Bruno Cipriani at the mall. He considered the supreme irony of his taking truckloads of antidepressants and only becoming more depressed. Jesus, he was cycling down again. How low could he go?

  “Come, seventeen,” he finally said aloud.

  “What, darling?” Lucy suddenly asked. “Did you just say something?”

  “He’s already playing tonight’s game,” said Robert, and snickered. “Right, Daddy? It’s your fantasy game. Am I right?”

  “Right, son,” Shafer replied, thinking, Christ, I am mad!

  He let the dice gently fall on the dining table, though. He would kill them—if their number came up. The dice rolled over and over, then banked off the greasy pizza box.

  “Daddy and his games,” Lucy said, and laughed. Erica and Tricia laughed. Robert laughed.

  Six, five, one, he counted. Damn, damn.

  “Are the two of us going to play tonight?” Robert asked.

  Shafer forced a smile. “Not tonight, Rob Boy. I’d like to, but I can’t. I have to go out again.”

  Chapter 66

  THIS WAS GETTING VERY INTERESTING. Patsy Hampton watched Shafer leave the large and expensive house in Kalorama at around eight-thirty. He was off on another of his nightly jaunts. The guy was a regular vampire.

  She knew that Cross and his friends called the killer the Weasel, and it certainly fit Shafer. There was something uncomfortable about him, something bent.

  She followed the black Jag, but he didn’t head toward Southeast, which disappointed her. He drove to a trendy supermarket, Sutton on the Run, just off Dupont Circle. Hampton knew the pricey store and called it Why Pay Less.

  He parked the sports car illegally, then jogged inside. Diplomatic immunity. That pissed her the hell off. What a weasel he was, real Euro-trash.

  While he was in the market, Hampton made a command decision. She was pretty sure she was going to talk to Alex Cross. She had thought a lot about it, the pros and cons. Now she figured that she might be endangering lives in Southeast by not sharing at least some of what she knew. If someone died, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Besides, Cross would have gotten the information if she hadn’t interceded with Chuck Hufstedler.

  Shafer shuffled back out of Sutton on the Run and glanced around crowded Dupont Circle. He had a small bag of overpriced groceries clutched in one arm. Groceries for whom, though? He didn’t look in the direction of her Jeep, which was just peeking around the corner.

  She followed the black Jag at a safe distance in the light traffic. He got onto Connecticut Avenue. She didn’t think he’d spotted her, though he was an MI6 man, so she needed to be careful.

  Shafer wasn’t far from Embassy Row. He wouldn’t be going back to work now, would he? Why the groceries if he was headed to the embassy?

  The Jaguar eventually turned into the underground garage of a prewar building in Woodley Park. THE FARRAGUT was engraved on a brass sign in front.

  Patsy Hampton waited a few minutes, then pulled into the garage behind the Jag. She needed to look around, check things out if she could.

  The garage was public-private, so it wasn’t any big deal. She walked over to the attendant in the small kiosk and identified herself.

  “The Jag that came in before me, ever see it here before?” she asked.

  The man nodded. He was around her age, and she could tell he wanted to impress her if he could. “Sure. I don’t know him to talk to, though. Comes here to visit a lady on ten. Dr. Elizabeth Cassady. She’s a shrink. I assume he’s a patient. He’s got a funny look in his eyes,” the attendant said, “but so do most people.”

  “How about me?” Hampton asked.

  “Nah. Well, maybe a little,” the attendant said, and grinned.

  Shafer stayed upstairs with Dr. Cassady for nearly two hours. Then he came down and went straight back to the house in Kalorama.

  Patsy Hampton followed him, then watched the house for another half hour. She thought that Shafer was probably in for the night. She drove to a nearby diner but didn’t go inside right away. She picked up her mobile phone before she had too many second thoughts. She knew Cross’s street and got the phone number through information. Was it too late to call? Screw it, she was going through with this.

  She was surprised when the phone was picked up on the first ring. She heard a pleasant male voice. Nice. Strong.

  “Hello. Alex Cross.”

  She almost hung up on him. Interesting that he’d intimidated her for a moment. “This is Detective Patsy Hampton. I’ve been doing some work on the Jane Does. I’ve been following a man who is a suspect. I think we should talk.”

  “Where are you, Patsy?” Cross said, without hesitation. “I’ll come to you. Just tell me where.”

  “I’m at the City Limits diner on Connecticut Avenue.”

  “I’m on my way,” said Cross.

  Chapter 67

  I WASN’T TOTALLY SURPRISED that Pittman had assigned someone to the Jane Does. Especially after Zach Taylor’s article in the Washington Post. I was interested in any leads Detective Hampton might have turned up.

  I had seen Patsy Hampton around, and she obviously knew who I
was. She was supposed to be on a fast track; she was a smart and effective senior homicide detective, though from what I’d heard, she was also a lone wolf. She didn’t have any friends in the department, as far as I knew.

  She was much prettier than I remembered. She was in very trim, athletic shape, probably early thirties, short blond hair, piercing blue eyes that cut through the diner haze.

  She’d put on bright-red lipstick for our meeting, or maybe she wore it all the time. I wondered what was on her mind and what her motives were. I didn’t think I could trust her.

  “You or me first?” Detective Hampton asked, after we’d ordered coffee. We were seated at a table in the City Limits diner, near a window looking out on Connecticut Avenue.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what this is about,” I told her.

  She sipped her coffee and gave me a look over the cup’s rim. She was a strong-willed, confident person. Her eyes told me that much.

  “You really didn’t know someone else was working the Jane Does?”

  I shook my head. “Pittman said that the cases were closed. I took him at his word. He suspended some good detectives for working the cases after hours.”

  “There’s a lot of seriously nasty crap going on in the department. So what’s new, though?” she said as she set down her cup. She gave a deep sigh. “I thought I could deal with it by myself. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Pittman assigned you to the Jane Does? Personally?”

  She nodded, then her blue eyes narrowed. “He assigned me to the Glover and Cardinal murders, and any others I wanted to look into. Gave me free rein.”

  “And you say you have something?”

  “Maybe. I’ve got a possible suspect. He’s involved in a role-playing game that features victims’ being murdered, mostly in Southeast. It’s all after-the-fact stuff, so he could have read the news stories and then fantasized about them. He works at the British Embassy.”