Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

by Patterson, James

  There was no answer. Actually, he rather liked that. It made him respect her more than he had. What the hell, she was more screwed up than he was.

  'You know exactly what I'm going through. You're the only one who understands my episodes. I need you, Boo. You know I'm manic-depressive, bipolar, whatever the hell you shrinks want to call my condition. Boo?'

  Then Shafer actually started to cry, which nearly made him laugh. He uttered loud, wrenching sobs. He crouched on his haunches and held his head. He knew he was a far better actor than so many of the high-priced fakers he saw in movies.

  The door to the apartment slowly opened. 'Boo hoo,' she whispered. 'Is poor Geoff in pain? What a shame.'

  What a bitch, he thought, but he had to see her. She was testifying soon. He needed her tonight, and he needed her help in the courtroom.

  'Hello, Boo,' he whispered.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Eighty-Six

  Act Two of the evening's performance. She stared at him with huge dark-brown eyes that looked like amber beads, the kind she bought at her swanky shops. She'd lost weight, but that made her sexier to him, more desperate. She wore navy walking shorts and an elegant pink silk T-shirt - but she also wore her pain.

  'You hurt me like no one ever has before,' she whispered.

  He held himself under control, play-acting, a truly award-winning performance. I'm fighting for my life. I swear, all I think about is killing myself. Haven't you heard anything I've said? Besides, do you want your picture all over the tabloids again? Don't you see? That's why I've been staying away from you.'

  She laughed, bitterly, haughtily. 'It's going to happen anyway, when I testify. The photographers will be everywhere I go.'

  Shafer shut his eyes. 'Well, that will be your chance to hurt me back, darling.'

  She shook her head and frowned. 'You know I wouldn't do that. Oh, Geoff, why didn't you at least call? You're such a bastard.'

  Shafer hung his head, the repentant bad boy. 'You know how close I was to the edge before all this happened. Now it's worse. Do you expect me to act like a responsible adult?'

  She gave a wry smile. He saw a book on the hallway table behind her, Man and His Symbols. Carl Jung. How fitting. 'No, I suppose not, Geoff. What do you want? Drugs?'

  'I need you. I want to hold you, Boo. That's all.'

  That night, she gave him what he wanted. They made love like animals on the gray velvet loveseat she used for her clients, then on the JFK-style rocking chair, where she always sat for her sessions. He took her body, and her soul.

  Then she gave him drugs - antidepressants, painkillers, most of her samples. Boo was still able to get the samples from her ex, a psychiatrist. Shafer didn't know what their relationship was, and frankly, he didn't care. He took some Librium and shot up Vicodin at her place.

  Then he took Boo again, both of them naked and swearing and frenzied on the kitchen counter. The butcher's block, he thought.

  He left her place around eleven. He realized he was feeling worse than before he'd gone there. But he knew what he was going to do. He'd known before he went to Boo's. It would explode their little minds. Everyone's. The press. The jury. Now for Act Three.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Eighty-Seven

  At a little past midnight, I got an emergency call that blew off the top of my head. Within minutes I had the old Porsche up close to ninety on Rock Creek Parkway, the siren screaming at the night, or maybe at Geoffrey Shafer.

  I arrived in Kalorama at 12:25. EMS ambulances, squad cars, TV news trucks were parked all over the street.

  Several neighbors of the Shafers were up and had come outside their large, expensive houses to observe the nightmare scene. They couldn't believe this was happening in their upscale enclave.

  The chatter and buzz of several police radios filled the night air. A news helicopter was already hovering overhead. A truck marked CNN arrived and parked right behind me.

  I met a detective named Malcolm Ainsley standing on the front lawn. We knew each other from other homicide scenes, even a few parties. Suddenly the front door of the Shafer house opened.

  Two EMTs were carrying a stretcher outside. Dozens of cameras were flashing.

  'It's Shafer.' Ainsley told me. 'Sonofabitch tried to kill himself, Alex. Slit his wrist and took a lot of drugs. There were open prescription packets everywhere. Must've had second thoughts, though. Called for help.'

  I had enough information about Shafer from the discovery interviews preceding the trial and my own working profile on him to begin to make some very educated guesses about what might have happened. My first thought was that he suffered from some kind of bipolar disorder featuring both manic and depressive episodes. A second possibility was cyclohymia, in which case there can be numerous hypomanic episodes and also depressive symptoms. Associated symptoms could include inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, excessive involvement in 'pleasurable' activities, increase in goal-directed activity - such as winning his game.

  I moved forward as if I were floating in a very bad dream, the worst I could imagine. I recognized one of the EMS techies, Nina Disesa. I'd worked with her a few times before in Georgetown.

  'We got to the bastard just in time.' Nina said and narrowed her dark eyes. 'Too bad, huh?'

  'Serious attempt?' I asked her.

  Nina shrugged. 'Hard to tell for sure. He hacked up his wrist pretty good. Just the left one, though. Then the drugs, lots of drugs, doctor's samples.'

  I shook my head in utter disbelief. 'But he definitely called out for help?'

  'According to the wife and son, they heard him call out from his den: “Daddy needs help. Daddy is dying. Daddy is sick.”'

  'Well, he got that part right. Daddy is incredibly sick. Daddy is a monumental sicko.'

  I continued trudging forward toward the red-and-white ambulance. News cameras were still flashing all over the street. My mind was unhinged, reeling. Everything is a game to him. The victims in Southeast, Patsy Hampton, Christine. Now this. He's even playing with his own life.

  'His pulse is still strong,' I heard as I got close to the ambulance. I could see one of the EMT workers checking the EKG inside the van. I could even hear beeps from the machine.

  Then I saw Shafer's face. His hair was drenched in perspiration, and his face as pale as a sheet of white paper. He stared into my eyes, trying to focus. Then he recognized me.

  'You did this to me,' he said, mustering strength, suddenly trying to sit up on the stretcher. 'You ruined my life for your career. You did this! You're responsible! Oh God, oh God. My poor family! Why is this happening to us?'

  The TV cameras were rolling film, and they got his entire Academy Award-quality performance. Just as Geoffrey Shafer knew they would.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Eighty-Eight

  The trial had to be recessed due to Shafer's suicide attempt. The courtroom shenanigans probably wouldn't resume until the following week.

  Meanwhile, the media had another feeding frenzy, including banner headlines in the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today. At least it gave me time to work on a few more angles. Shafer was good; God, he was good at this.

  I had been talking with Sandy Greenberg nearly every night. She was helping me collect information on the other game players. She had even gone and talked with Conqueror. She said she doubted that Oliver Highsmith was a killer. He was late sixties, seriously overweight, and wheelchair-bound.

  Sandy called the house at seven that night. She's a good friend. Obviously, she was burning the midnight oil for me. I took the call in the sanctuary of my attic office.

  'Andrew Jones of the Security Service will see you,' she announced in her usual perky and aggressive manner. 'Isn't that great news? I'll tell you - it is. Actually, he's eager to meet with you, Alex. He didn't say it to me directly, but I don't think he's too keen on Colonel Shafer. Wouldn't say why. Even more fortuitou
s, he's in Washington. He's a top man. He matters in the intelligence arena. He's very good, Alex, a straight shooter.'

  I thanked Sandy and then immediately called Jones at his hotel. He answered the call in his room. 'Yes. Hello. Andrew Jones speaking. Who is this, please?'

  'It's Detective Alex Cross of the Washington police. I just got off the line with Sandy Greenberg. How are you?'

  'Good, very good. Well, hell, not really. I've had better weeks, months. Actually I stayed here in my room hoping that you'd call. Would you like to meet, Alex? Is there somewhere we wouldn't stand out too much?'

  I suggested a bar on M Street in half an hour, and I arrived there a minute or two early. I recognized Jones from his description on the phone: 'Broad, beefy, red-faced. Just your average ex-rugby type. Though I never bloody played, don't even watch the drivel. Oh yes, flaming red hair and matching mustache. That should help, shouldn't it?'

  It did. We sat at a dark booth in back and got to know one another. For the next forty-five minutes, Jones filled me in on several important things, not the least of which was politics and decorum within the English intelligence and police communities; Lucy Shafer's father's good name and standing in the army, the concern for his reputation; and the desire of the government to avoid an even dicier scandal than the current mess.

  'Alex, if it were true that one of our agents had committed cold-blooded murders while posted abroad, and that Intelligence knew nothing about it, the scandal would be a true horror and major embarrassment. But if MI6 knew anything about what Colonel Shafer is suspected of doing! Well, it's absolutely unthinkable.'

  'Did they?' I asked him. 'Is this situation unthinkable?'

  'I won't answer that, Alex, you know I can't; but I am prepared to help you if I possibly can.'

  'Why?' I asked, then. 'Why now? We needed your help on this before the trial began.'

  'Fair question, good question. We're prepared to help because you now have information that could cause us a hell of a lot of trouble. You're privy to the unthinkable.'

  I said nothing. I thought I knew what he was alluding to, though.

  'You've discovered a fantasy game called The Four Horsemen. There are four players, including Shafer. We know you've already contacted Oliver Highsmith. What you probably don't know yet, but will find out eventually, is that all the players are former or current agents. That is to say, Geoffrey Shafer might just be the beginning of our problems.'

  'All four of them are murderers?' I asked.

  Andrew Jones didn't answer; he didn't have to.

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Eighty-Nine

  'We think that the game originated in Bangkok, where three of the four players were posted in ninety-one. The fourth, Highsmith, was a mentor of George Bayer, who is Famine in The Four Horsemen. Highsmith has always worked out of London.'

  'Tell me about Highsmith,' I said.

  'As I said, he's always been in the main office, London. He was a high-level analyst, then he actually ran several agents. He's a very bright chap, well thought of.'

  'He claimed that The Four Horsemen was just a harmless fantasy game.'

  'It could be for him, Alex. He might be telling the truth. He's been in a wheelchair since eighty-five. Road accident. His wife had just left him and he cracked. He's an enormous fellow, about three hundred pounds. I doubt that he's going about murdering young women in the seedier areas of London. That's what you believe Shafer was doing here in Washington? The Jane Doe murders?'

  Jones was right and I didn't deny it. 'We know he was involved in several murders, and I think we were close to catching him. He was picking up victims in a gypsy taxicab. We found the cab. Yes, we knew about him, Andrew.'

  Jones tented his thick fingers, pursed his lips. 'You think Shafer knew how close you and Detective Hampton were getting?'

  'He might have, but there was a lot of pressure on him. He made some mistakes that led us to an apartment he rented.'

  Jones nodded. He seemed to know a great deal about Shafer, which told me he'd been watching him, too. Had he been watching me as well?

  'How do you think the other game-players might react to Shafer's being so out of control?' I asked.

  'I'm fairly sure they felt threatened. Who wouldn't? He was a risk to all of them. He still is.'

  Jones continued. 'So, we have Shafer, who's probably been committing murders here in Washington, acting out his fantasies in real life. And Highsmith, who probably couldn't have, but could be a sort of controller. Then there's a man called James Whitehead, in Jamaica, but there have been no murders of the Jane Doe variety on the island, or any nearby island. We've checked thoroughly. And there's George Bayer in the Far East.'

  'What about Bayer? I assume you've investigated him, too?'

  'Of course. There's nothing specific on his record, but there was an incident, a possible connection to follow up on. Last year, in Bangkok, two girls who worked in a strip bar in Pot Pol disappeared. They just vanished into the noisy, teeming streets. The girls were sixteen and eighteen respectively, bar dancers and prostitutes. Alex, they were found nailed together in the missionary position, wearing only garters and stockings. Even in jolly old Bangkok that caused quite a stir. Sounds distressingly similar to the two girls who were killed in Shaw.'

  I nodded. 'So we have at least two unsolved Jane Does in Bangkok. Has anyone actually questioned Bayer?'

  'At this point, no, but he's being watched. Remember the politics, the fear of a scandal that I mentioned earlier? There's an ongoing investigation of Bayer and the others, but to some extent our hands are tied.'

  'My hands aren't tied,' I said. 'That's what you wanted me to say, isn't it? What you expected? It's why you met with me tonight?'

  Jones turned very serious. 'It's how the world works, I'm afraid. Let's do this together from here on. If you do... I promise to do what I can to find out what happened to Christine Johnson.'

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Ninety

  The trial resumed sooner than expected, the following Wednesday in fact. There was speculation in the press about how serious Shafer's self-inflicted wounds had been. None of the public's perverse interest in the case seemed to have been lost.

  It seemed impossible to predict the outcome, a fact of life I tried not to let get me down too much. Both Shafer and I were present in the packed courtroom that first morning. Shafer looked pale, weak, an object of sympathy perhaps. I certainly couldn't take my eyes off him.

  Things got stranger and stranger. At least they did for me. Sergeant Walter Jamieson was called that morning. Jamieson had been at the Police Academy when I attended. He had taught me my craft, and he was still there, teaching others. I couldn't imagine why he was in court as a witness in Patsy Hampton's murder case.

  Jules Halpern approached the witness with a heavy-looking hardback book open in his hands.

  'I read to you from the textbook Preserving the Crime Scene: A Detective's Primer, which you wrote twenty years ago and which you still use in your classes: “It is imperative that the detective not disturb the crime scene until backup can be brought in to corroborate charges effected by the detective to unearth evidence, lest those charges be misconstrued to be those of the perpetration. Gloves must be worn at all times at a crime scene.” Did you write that, Sergeant Jamieson?'

  'Yes, I did. Most certainly. Twenty years ago, as you said.'

  'Still stand by it?' Halpern asked.

  'Yes, of course. A lot of things have changed, but not that.'

  And you heard earlier testimony that Detective Cross wore gloves both inside Detective Hampton's car and at the Cassady apartment.'

  'Yes, I heard the testimony. I also read the grand jury transcripts.'

  Halpern turned on the overhead projector in the courtroom. 'I direct your attention to prints number 176 and 211 provided by the DA's office. You see the ones denominated?'

  'Number 176 and 211. I see them.'

&n
bsp; 'Now, the prints are denominated “Detective Hampton Belt Buckle: ID: Alex Cross/Right Thumb.” And “Left Side Dashboard: ID: Alex Cross/Left Forefinger.” What does that mean? Can you explain the markings to us?'

  'It means that Alex Cross's prints were found on Detective Hampton's belt as well as on the dashboard of her car.'

  Jules Halpern paused for a full ten seconds before he went on. 'And may we not therefore conclude, Sergeant Jamieson, that Detective Cross himself could be our murderer.'

  'Objection!' Catherine Fitzgibbon stood up and shouted.

  'Withdrawn.' said the defense attorney. 'I'm finished here.'

  Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

  CHAPTER Ninety-One

  Lawyers for both the prosecution and defense continued to regularly appear on Larry King and other TV shows and boast that their cases were 'slam dunks'. If you listened to the lawyers, neither side could lose.

  In the courtroom, Jules Halpern had the fierce look and body language of someone brimming with confidence and determination. He was riding the case hard. He looked like a jockey whipping his thoroughbred to victory.

  The bailiff stood and announced, 'The defense calls Mr. William Payaz.'

  I didn't recognize the name. Now what? Now who?

  There was no immediate response in the courtroom.

  No one came forward.

  Heads craned around the room. Still no one responded. Who was the mystery witness?

  The bailiff repeated a little louder, 'Mr. Payaz, Mr. William Payaz.'

  The double doors in the back of the room suddenly opened, and a circus-style clown walked in. The gallery began to whisper loudly and a few people laughed. What a world we lived in; what a circus indeed.