Pop Goes the Weasel (11 page)

I sighed and bent down to see what Sampson had discovered. The smaller, and perhaps the younger, of the two girls was lying
on top. The girl underneath was on her back. Her glazed brown eyes stared straight up at a broken light fixture in the ceiling,
as if she had seen something terrible up there.

The girl on top had been positioned with her face—actually, her mouth—tilted down into the other girl’s crotch.

“Killer played real cute games with them after they were dead,” Sampson said. “Move the one on top a little. Lift her head,
Alex. You see it?”

I saw it. A completely new m.o. for the Jane Does, at least the ones I knew about. The phrase “stuck on each other” ran through
my mind. I wondered if that was the killer’s “message.” The girl on top was connected to the one underneath—by her tongue.

Sampson sighed and said, “I think her tongue is stapled inside the other girl. I’m pretty sure that’s it, Alex. The Weasel
stapled them together.”

I looked at the two girls and shook my head. “I don’t think so. A staple, even a surgical one, would come apart on the tongue’s
surface…. Krazy Glue adhesive would work, though.”

THE KILLER was working faster, so I had to do the same. The two dead girls didn’t remain Jane Does for very long. I had their
names before the ten-o’clock news that night. I ignored the explicit orders of the chief of detectives and continued to work
on the investigation.

Early the next morning, Sampson and I met at Stamford, the high school that Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal had attended.
The murdered girls were seventeen and fourteen years old.

The memory of the homicide scene had left me with a queasy, sick feeling that wouldn’t go away. I kept thinking,
Christine is right. Get out of this, do something else. It’s time
.

The principal at Stamford was a small, frail-looking, red-haired woman named Robin Schwartz. Her resource officer, Nathan
Kemp, had gotten together some students who knew the victims, and had set aside a couple of classrooms for Sampson, Jerome
Thurman, and me to use for interviews. Jerome would work in one room, Sampson and I in the other.

Summer school was still in session, and Stamford was busy as a mall on a Saturday. We passed the cafeteria on the way to the
classrooms, and it was packed, even at ten-thirty. No empty seats anywhere. The room reeked of French fries, the same greasy
smell that had been in the girl’s apartment.

A few kids were making noise, but they were mostly well behaved. The music of Wu Tang and Jodeci leaked from earphones. The
school seemed to be well run and orderly. Between classes a few boys and girls embraced tenderly, with loosely locked pinkies
and the gentlest brushes of cheeks.

“These were not bad girls,” Nathan Kemp told us as we walked. “I think you’ll hear that from the other students. Tori dropped
out last semester, but her homelife was the main reason. Marion was an honor student at Stamford. I’m telling you, guys, these
were not bad girls.”

Sampson, Thurman, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the kids. We learned that Tori and Marion were popular, all right.
They were loyal to their friends, funny, usually fun to be around. Marion was described as “blazing,” which meant she was
great. Tori was “buggin’ sometimes,” which meant she could be a little crazy. Most of the kids hadn’t known that the girls
were tricking in Petworth, but Tori Glover was said to always have money.

One particular interview would stick in my mind for a while. Evita Cardinal was a senior at Stamford, and also a cousin of
Marion’s. She wore white athletic pants and a purple stretchy top. Her black-rimmed, yellow-tinted sunglasses were propped
on top of her head.

She started to cry her eyes out as soon as she sat down across the desk from me.

“I’m real sorry about Marion,” I said, and I was. “We just want to catch whoever did this terrible thing. Detective Sampson
and I both live nearby in Southeast. My kids go to the Sojourner Truth School.”

The girl looked at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wary. “You won’t catch nobody,” she finally said. It was the prevailing
attitude in the neighborhood, and it happened to be mostly true. Sampson and I weren’t even supposed to be here. I had told
my secretary I was out working the murder of Frank Odenkirk. A few other detectives were covering for us.

“How long have Tori and Marion been working in Petworth? Do you know any other girls from school who work over there?”

Evita shook her head.
“Tori
was the one working the street in Petworth. Not Marion. My cousin was a good person. They both were. Marion was my little
doggie,” Evita said, and the tears came flowing again.

“Marion
was
there with Tori.” I told her what I knew to be the truth. “We talked to people who saw her on Princeton Place that night.”

The cousin glared at me. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Mister Detective. You’re
wrong
. You ain’t got the straight.”

“I’m listening to you, Evita. That’s why I’m here.”

“Marion wasn’t there to sell her body or like that. She was just afraid for Tori. She went to
protect
Tori. She never did nothin’ bad for money, and I know that for a fact.”

The girl started to sob again. “My cousin was a good person, my best girlfriend. She was tryin’ to just protect Tori and she
got herself killed for it. The police won’t do nothin’. You never come back here again after today. Never happen. You don’t
care about us. We’re nothin’ to nobody,” Evita Cardinal said, and that seemed to say it all.

WE’RE NOTHIN’ TO NOBODY. It was a horrifying and absolutely true statement, and it was at the deepest roots of the Jane Doe
investigation, the search for the Weasel. It pretty well summed up George Pittman’s cynical philosophy about the inner city.
It was also the reason I was feeling tired and numb to the bone by six-thirty that night. I believed that the Jane Doe murders
were escalating.

On the other hand, I hadn’t seen nearly enough of my own kids for the last few days, so I decided I’d better head home. On
the way, I thought about Christine and calmed down immediately. Since the time I was a young boy, I’ve been having a recurring
daydream. I’m standing alone on a cold, barren planet. It’s scary, but more than anything, it’s lonely and unsettling. Then
a woman comes up to me. We begin to hold hands, to embrace, and then everything is all right. That woman was Christine, and
I had no idea how she had gotten out of my dreams and into the real world.

Nana, Damon, and Jannie were just leaving the house when I pulled up into the driveway.
What’s this?
I wondered.

Wherever they were going, everybody was dolled up and looking especially nice. Nana and Jannie wore their best dresses, and
Damon had on a blue suit, white shirt, and tie. Damon almost never wears what he calls his “monkey” or “funeral” suit.

“Where’s everybody going?” I said as I climbed out of the old Porsche. “What’s going on? You all aren’t moving out on me?”

“It’s nothing,” Damon said, strangely evasive, eyes darting all over the front yard.

“Damon’s in the Washington Boys Choir at school!” Jannie proudly blurted out. “He didn’t want you to know until he made it
for sure. Well, he made it. Damon’s a
chorister
now.”

Her brother swatted her on the arm. Not hard, but enough to show he wasn’t pleased with Jannie for telling his secret.

“Hey!” Jannie said, and put up her dukes like the little semipro boxer that she is becoming under my watchful eye.

“Hey, hey!” I said, and moved in like a big-time referee, like that guy Mills Lane who does the big pro fights. “No prizefighting
outside the ring. You know the rules of the fight game. Now what’s this about a choir?”

“Damon tried out for the Boys Choir, and he was selected,” Nana said, and beamed gloriously as she looked over at Damon. “He
did it all by himself.”

“You sing, too?” I said, and beamed at him as well. “My, my, my.”

“He could be in Boyz Two Men, Daddy. Boyz Two Boyz, maybe. He’s smoo-ooth and silky. His voice is pure.”

“Is that so, Sister Soul?” I said to my baby girl.

“Zatso,” Jannie continued to prattle as she patted Damon on the back. I could tell she was incredibly proud of him. She was
his biggest fan, even if he didn’t realize it yet. Someday he would.

Damon couldn’t hold back a big smile, then he shrugged it off. “No big thing. I sing all right.”

“
Thousands
of other boys tried out,” Jannie said. “It
is
a big thing, biggest in your small life, brother.”

“Hundreds,” Damon corrected her. “Only hundreds of kids tried out. I guess I just got lucky.”

“
Hundreds
of
thousands!
” Jannie gushed, and scooted away before he swatted her like the little gnat she can be sometimes. “And you were
born
lucky.”

“Can I come to the practice?” I asked. “I’ll be good. I’ll be quiet. I won’t embarrass anybody too much.”

“If you can spare the time.” Nana threw a neat jab. She sure doesn’t need any boxing lessons from me. “Your busy work schedule
and all. If you can spare the time, come along with us.”

“Sure, Dad,” said Damon, finally.

So I came along.

I HAPPILY WALKED THE SIX SHORT BLOCKS to the Sojourner Truth School with Nana and the kids. I wasn’t dressed up. They were
in their finery, but it didn’t matter. There was suddenly a bounce in my step. I took Nana’s arm, and she smiled as I tucked
her hand into the crook of my arm.

“Now that’s better. Seems like old times,” I exclaimed.

“You’re such a shameless charmer sometimes,” Nana said, and laughed out loud. “Ever since you were a little boy like Damon.
You certainly can be one when you want to.”

“You helped make me what I am, old woman,” I confided to her.

“Proud of it, too. And I’m
so
proud of Damon.”

We arrived at the Sojourner Truth School and went directly to the small auditorium in back. I wondered if Christine might
be there, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Then I wondered if she already knew that Damon had made the Boys Choir, if he
had told her first. I kind of liked the thought that he might have told her. I wanted them to be close. I knew that Damon
and Jannie needed a mother, not just a father and a great-grandmother.

“We’re not too good yet,” Damon informed me before he left to join the other boys. His face clearly showed the fear and anxiety
of possibly being embarrassed. “This is just our second practice. Mr. Dayne says we’re horrid as a tubful of castor oil. He’s
tough as nails, Dad. He makes you stand for an hour straight without moving.”

“Mr. Dayne’s tougher than you, Daddy, tougher than Mrs. Johnson,” Jannie said, and grinned wickedly. “Tough as
nails.
”

I had heard that Nathaniel Dayne was a demanding maestro—nicknamed the “Great Dayne”—and that his choirs were among the
finest in the country and that most of the boys were said to profit immensely from the dedicated training and discipline.
He was already organizing the boys up on the stage. He was a very broad man of below-average height. I guessed he carried
about two hundred fifty pounds on his five-seven frame. He wore a black suit with a black shirt buttoned at the collar, no
tie. He started the boys off with a few playful verses of “Three Blind Mice” that didn’t sound half bad.

“I’m really happy for Damon. He looks so proud up there,” I whispered to Nana and Jannie. “He is a handsome devil, too.”

“Mr. Dayne is starting a girls choir in the fall,” Jannie loudwhispered in my ear. “You watch. I mean, you
listen
. I’ll make it.”

“Go for it, girl,” Nana said, and gave Jannie a hug. She is very good at encouraging others.

Dayne suddenly called out loudly, “Ugh. I hear a
swoop
. I don’t want any swoops here, gentlemen. I want clean diction and pure pitch. I want silver and silk. I do not want
swoops
.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw Christine in the hallway. She was watching Dayne and the boys, but then she looked
my way. Her face was principal-serious for just a moment. Then she smiled and winked.

I walked over to see her. Be still my heart.

“That’s my boy,” I said with mock pride as I came up to her. She was dressed in a soft gray pantsuit with a coral-pink blouse.
God, I loved seeing her now, being with her, hanging out, doing nothing—the works.

Christine smiled. Actually, she laughed a little at me. “He does everything so damn well.” She didn’t hold back, no matter
what. “I was hoping you might be here, Alex,” she whispered. “I was just this very minute missing you like crazy. You know
that feeling?”

“Yes, that feeling and I are well acquainted.”

We held hands as the choir practiced Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Everything felt so right, and it was hard to get
used to.

“Sometimes… I still have this dream about George being shot and dying,” she said as we were standing there. Christine’s husband
had been murdered in her home, and she had seen him die. It was one of the big reasons she was hesitant about being with me:
the fear that I might die in the line of duty, and also the fear that I could bring terror and violence into the house.

“I remember everything about the afternoon I heard Maria was shot. It eases with time, but it never goes away.”

Christine knew that. She had figured out the answers to most of her questions, but she liked to talk things through. We were
both that way.

“And yet I continue to work here in Southeast. I come to the inner city every day. I could choose a nice school in Maryland
or Virginia,” she said.

I nodded. “Yes, Christine, you do choose to work here.”

“And so do you.”

“And so do I.”

She held my hand a little tighter. “I guess we were made for each other,” she said. “Why fight it.”