Pop Goes the Weasel (20 page)

“I assume that neither abduction was ever solved, Alex. How about the women who were taken? Were they found?”

“No, neither woman was seen again. Not a sign of them. They’re still missing.”

He sighed into the phone receiver. “I hope your news is helpful in some way, Alex. I’ll certainly call the other islands and
check into it further. Anything else from Interpol or the FBI?”

I wanted to keep him on the line—the lifeline, as I now thought of it. “A few far-flung possibilities in the Far East, Bangkok,
the Philippines, Malaysia. Women abducted and murdered, all Jane Does. To be honest, nothing too promising at this point.”

I imagined him pursing his thin lips and nodding thoughtfully. “I understand, Alex. Please keep giving me whatever you get
from your sources. It’s difficult for us to get help outside this small island. My calls for assistance frequently aren’t
returned. I sincerely wish that I had some good news for you on my end, but I’m afraid I don’t.

“Other than Perri Graham, no one saw the man with the van. No one seems to have seen Christine Johnson in Hamilton or St.
George, either. It’s truly a baffling mystery. I don’t believe that she ever got to Hamilton. It’s frustrating for us, too.
My prayers are with you and your wonderful family and, of course, John Sampson.”

I thanked Patrick Busby and hung up the phone. I went upstairs and dressed for work.

I still had nothing really substantial on the murder of Frank Odenkirk, and The Jefe was contacting me daily on e-mail. I
certainly knew how the Odenkirk family felt. The media heat about the homicide had died down, though, as it often does. Unfortunately,
so had the
Post
stories about the unsolved murders in Southeast.

While I was taking a hot shower, I thought about DeWitt Luke and the mysterious “watcher” on S Street. What was the man in
the Mercedes doing out there for so long? Did he have some connection with the murders of Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal?
None of this was making complete sense to me. That was the truly maddening thing about the Jane Doe murders and the Weasel.
He wasn’t like other repeat killers. He wasn’t a criminal genius like Gary Soneji, but he was effective.
He gets the job done, doesn’t he?

I needed to think more about why someone had been lurking outside Tori Glover’s apartment. Was he a private detective? A stalker?
Or was he actually the murderer? One possibility hit me. Maybe the man in the car was an accomplice of the killer. Two of
them, working together? I’d seen that before in North Carolina.

I turned up the water, made it hotter. I thought it would help me to concentrate better. Steam out the cobwebs in my brain.
Bring me back from the dead.

Nana began banging on the pipes from downstairs in the kitchen. “Get down here and go to work, Alex. You’re using up all my
hot water,” she yelled above the noise of the shower.

“Last time I looked, my name was on the water and gas bills,” I shouted back.

“It’s still my hot water. Always was, always will be,” Nana replied.

EVERY DAY, EVERY NIGHT, I was out on the streets of Southeast, working harder than ever, but with nothing much to show for
it. I continued to search for the mysterious purple and blue cab, and for the late-model black Mercedes that DeWitt Luke had
seen on S Street.

Sometimes I felt as if I were sleepwalking, but I kept at it, sleepwalking as fast as I could. Everything about the investigation
seemed a long shot at best. I received tips and leads every day that had to be followed up; none of them went anywhere, though.

I got home at a little past seven that night, and tired as I was, I still let the kids drag me downstairs for their boxing
lesson. Damon was showing me a lot of hand speed, and also some pretty good footwork and power for his age. He’s always had
good spirit, and I was confident that he wouldn’t abuse his burgeoning boxing skills at school.

Jannie was more a student of boxing, though she seemed to recognize the value of being able to defend herself. She was quick
at mastering techniques, seeing connections, even if her heart wasn’t completely in the sport. She preferred to torture her
brother and me with her taunts and wit.

“Alex, telephone,” Nana called down from the top of the cellar stairs. I looked at my watch, saw it was twenty to eight.

“Practice your footwork,” I told the kids. Then I trudged up the steep stone stairs. “Who is it?”

“Wouldn’t say who it was,” Nana said as I got up to the kitchen. She was making shrimp and corn fritters, and the room was
also filled with the glorious smells of honey-baked apples and gingerbread. It was a late dinner for us—Nana had waited
until I got home.

I picked up the phone on the kitchen counter. “Alex Cross.”

“I know who you are, Detective Cross.” I recognized the voice immediately, though I’d heard it only once before—in the Belmont
Hotel, in Bermuda. A chill went right through me, and my hands shook.

“There’s a pay phone outside the Budget Drugs on Fourth Street.
She’s safe for now. We have her
. But hurry. Hurry! Maybe she’s on the pay phone right now! I’m serious.
Hurry!
”

I EXPLODED out the back kitchen door without saying a word to Nana or the kids. I didn’t have time to explain where I was
going, or why. Besides, I didn’t really know exactly what was happening. Had I just spoken to the Weasel?

Hurry! Maybe she’s on the pay phone right now! I’m serious
.

I sprinted across Fifth Street, then down a side alley and over to Fourth. I dashed another four blocks south toward the Anacostia
River. People on the streets watched me running. I was like a tornado suddenly roaring through Southeast.

I could see the metal frame of a pay phone from more than a block away as I approached Budget Drugs. A young girl was leaning
against the graffiti-covered wall of the drugstore, talking on the phone.

I pulled out my detective’s shield as I raced the final block toward her.

This particular phone gets a lot of use. Some people in the neighborhood don’t have phones in their homes.

“Police. I’m a homicide detective.
Get off the phone!
” I told the girl, who looked nineteen or so. She stared at me as if she couldn’t care less that a D.C. policeman was trying
to commandeer the phone.

“I’m
using
this phone, mister. Don’t care who you are. You can wait your turn like everybody else.” She turned away from me. “Probably
just calling your honey.”

I yanked the receiver away from her, disconnected her call.

“The fuck you think you are!” the girl shouted at me, her face screwed up in anger. “I was talking. The fuck you thinking.”

“I’m thinking you better get out of my face. This is a lifeand-death situation. Get away from this phone.
Now! Get out of here!
” I could see she had no intention of leaving. “There’s been a kidnapping!” I was yelling like a madman.

She finally backed away. She was afraid that I was really crazy, and maybe I was.

I stood there with my hand on the phone receiver, trembling, waiting for the call to come in. I was winded. Sweat covered
my body.

I stared up and down Fourth Street.

Nothing obvious or suspicious. I didn’t see a purple and blue cab parked anywhere. No one watching me. Somebody definitely
knew who I was. He had called me at the Belmont Hotel; he had called me at home.

I could still hear the caller’s voice echoing loudly inside my head. I’d been haunted by the same words for weeks.

“
She’s safe for now
.

“
We have her
.”

Those were the words written to me six weeks before, in Bermuda. I hadn’t heard another word from the caller until now.

My heart was pounding, sounding as if it were amplified in my ears. Adrenaline was rushing like powerful rivers through my
bloodstream. I couldn’t stand this. The caller had stressed that I
hurry
.

A young man approached the pay phone. He stared at my hand on the receiver. “Wuzup, man? I need to use the phone. The phone?
You hear me?”

“Police business.” I gave him a hard stare. “Take a walk, please. Go!”

“Don’t look like no police business to me,” he mumbled.

The man moved away, looking over his shoulder as he retreated down Fourth, frowning, but not stopping to argue with me.

The caller liked to be completely in control, I was thinking as I stood there helpless in front of the busy drugstore. He’d
made me wait this long since the Bermuda call, possibly to demonstrate his power. Now he was doing it again. What did he really
want, though? Why had he taken Christine?
We
have her, he’d said, and he’d repeated the very same words when he called my house. Was there really a
we?
What kind of group did he represent? What did they want?

I stood at the pay phone for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. I felt as if I were going mad, but I would stay there all night
if I had to. I began to wonder if this was the right phone, but I knew it was. He had been crystal-clear, calm, in control.

For the first time in weeks I allowed myself to truly hope that Christine might be alive. I imagined her face, her deep-brown
eyes that showed so much love and warmth. Maybe, just maybe, I would be allowed to talk to her.

I let my anger build toward the unknown caller. But then I cut it off, shut down my emotions, and waited with a cool head.

People came and went, in and out of the drugstore. A few wanted to use the phone. They took one look at me and then moved
on in search of another phone.

At five minutes to nine, the phone rang. I lifted the receiver instantly.

“This is Alex Cross,” I said.

“Yes, I know who you are. That’s already been established. Here’s what you should do.
Back all the way off. Just back away. Before you lose everything you care about
. It can happen so easily. In a snap. You’re smart enough to understand that, aren’t you?”

Then the caller hung up. The line was dead.

I banged the phone with the receiver. I cursed loudly. The manager from the drugstore had come outside and was staring at
me.

“I’m going to call the police,” he said. “That’s a public phone.” I didn’t bother to tell him I
was
the police.

WAS IT THE WEASEL who had called? Was I dealing with one killer, or more than one?

If only I had some idea who the caller was and who he meant by
we
. The message scared me just as much as the first one had, maybe even more; but it also gave me hope that Christine might
still be alive.

With hope came a jolting surge of pain. If only they would put Christine on the phone. I needed to hear her voice.

What did they want? “
Back all the way off
.” Back off from what?

The Odenkirk murder case? The Jane Does? Perhaps even Christine’s disappearance? Was Interpol or the FBI getting close to
something that had scared them? We weren’t close to anything that could solve any of the cases, and I knew timing was critical.

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.”