Pop Goes the Weasel (28 page)

“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—doctors’ 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 went over to 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 with perspiration, and his face was 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.

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
, the
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 fortuitous, 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. It’s Andrew
Jones. 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 someplace where 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, no?”

It did. We sat in a dark booth in back and got to know each other. 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, and 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 committed coldblooded murders while posted abroad, and that British intelligence
knew nothing about it, the scandal would be a true horror and a major embarrassment. But if MI-Six
knew anything
about what Colonel Shafer is suspected of doing! Well, it’s absolutely unthinkable.”

“Did it?” 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 be just the beginning of our problems.”

“All four of them are murderers?” I asked.

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

“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 to 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 may be for him, Alex. He may be telling the truth. He’s been in a wheelchair since ’eighty-five. Automobile accident.
His wife had just left him, and he cracked. He’s an enormous fellow, about three hundred pounds. I doubt that he’s getting
about and murdering young women in the scuffier neighborhoods 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 his 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 may have known, but there was also 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 do that, but could be a sort of controller. Then there’s a man named James Whitehead, in Jamaica, but
there have been no murders of the Jane Doe variety on that island or any other one nearby. 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 in 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 Pat Pong 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. Sound distressingly
similar to the two girls who were killed in Eckington?”

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 to Jones. “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 help us ? I
promise to do what I can to find out what happened to Christine Johnson.”

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 back. 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 it. He had taught me my craft, and he was still there, teaching others. I couldn’t
imagine why he would be called 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 one-seventy-six and two-eleven
provided by the D.A.’s office. You see the ones denominated?”

“Numbers one-seventy-six and two-eleven. I see them.”

“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 may be our murderer and rapist?”

“Objection!” Catherine Fitzgibbon stood up and shouted.

“Withdrawn,” said the defense attorney. “I’m finished here.”

LAWYERS FOR BOTH the prosecution and the defense continued to appear regularly on Larry King and other TV shows, and to 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.

The clown took the stand, and both the prosecution and the defense were immediately called forward for a sidebar by Judge
Fescoe. A heated discussion ensued that none of the rest of us could hear. The clown issue was apparently resolved in favor
of the defense. After being sworn in, the clown was asked his name for the record.

With his white-gloved right hand raised, he said, “Billy.”

The bailiff asked, “Last name, please?”

The clown said, “First name, Silly. Last name, Billy. Silly Billy. I had it legally changed,” he turned and confided to the
judge.

Jules Halpern then took over, and he treated the clown with respect and seriousness. First, he asked him to state his credentials,
which the clown did, politely. Then Halpern asked, “And what brings you here today?”

“I did a party for Mr. Shafer out in Kalorama on the fateful and terrible night of the murder. It was his twins’ fifth birthday.
I did a party when they were four as well. I brought a video along. Want to see?” he said, speaking as if he were addressing
a crowd of three-year-olds.

“Of course,” said Jules Halpern.