Patterson, James - Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

I listened as I drove. Sampson's voice became far away and distant.

This kind of military operation was called “mopping up”. This one time, we came into a small village, but another unit was already there. An infantry officer was “interrogating” a prisoner in front of these women and children. He was cutting skin off the man's stomach.

“Sergeant Cooper went up to the officer and pressed his gun to the man's skull. He said if the officer didn't stop what he was doing, he was a dead man. He meant it, too. Cooper didn't care about the consequences. He didn't kill those women in North Carolina, Alex. Ellis Cooper is no killer.”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Six

I loved being with Sampson. Always had, always will. As we rode through Virginia and into North Carolina, the talk eventually turned to other, more hopeful and promising subjects. I had already told him everything there was to tell about Jamilla Hughes, but he wanted to hear more scoop. Sometimes he's a bigger gossip than Nana Mama.

“I don't have any more to tell you, big man. You know I met her on that big murder case in San Francisco. We were together a lot for a couple of weeks. I don't know her that well. I like her, though. She doesn't take any crap from anybody.”

And you'd like to know her more. I can tell that much." Sampson laughed and clapped his big hands together.

I started to laugh too. “Yes, I would, matter of fact. Jamilla plays it close to her chest. I think she was knocked about somewhere along the line. Maybe the first husband. She doesn't want to talk about it yet.”

“I think she has your number, man.”

“Maybe she does. You'll like her. Everybody does.”

John started to laugh again. “You do find nice ladies. I'll give you that much.” He switched subjects. “Nana Mama is some kind of piece of work, isn't she?”

“Yeah, she is. Eighty-two. You'd never know it. I came home the other day. She was shimmying a refrigerator down the back stairs of the house on an oil cloth. Wouldn't wait for me to get home to help her.”

“You remember that time we got caught lifting records at Specter's Vinyl?”

“Yeah, I remember. She loves to tell that story.”

John continued to laugh. "I can still see the two of us sitting in that store manager's crummy little office. He's threatening us with everything but the death penalty for stealing his crummy forty-five records, but we are so cool. We're almost laughing in his face.

“Nana shows up at the record store, and she starts hitting both of us. She hit me in the face, bloodied my lip. She was like some kind of mad woman on a rampage, a mission from God.”

“She had this warning: ”Don't cross me. Don't ever, ever cross me, ever.“ I can still hear the way she would say it,” I said.

“Then she let that police officer haul our asses down to the station. She wouldn't even bring us home. I said, ”They were only records, Nana.“ I thought she was going to kill me. ”I'm already bleeding!“ I said. ”You're gonna bleed more!“ she yelled in my face.”

I found myself smiling at the distant memory. Interesting how some things that weren't real funny at the time suddenly get that way. "Maybe that's why we became big,

bad cops. That afternoon in the record store. Nana's vengeful wrath."

Sampson turned serious and said, “No, that's not what straightened me out. The Army did it. I sure didn't get what I needed in my own house. Nana helped, but it was the Army that set me straight. I owe the Army. And I owe Ellis Cooper. Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Seven

We drove onto the sobering and foreboding high-walled grounds of Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The security housing unit there was like a prison within a prison. It was surrounded by razor-sharp wire fences and a deadly electronic barrier; armed guards were in all the watchtowers. Central Prison was the only one in North Carolina with a death row. Currently, there were over a thousand inmates, with an astounding two hundred twenty on the row.

“Scary place,” Sampson said as we got out of the car. I had never seen him look so unsettled and unhappy. I didn't much like being at Central Prison either.

Once we were inside the main building it was as quiet as a monastery, and the extremely high level of security continued. Sampson and I were asked to wait between two sets of steel-bar doors. We were subjected to a metal detector, then had to present photo IDs along with our badges. The security guard who checked us informed us that many of North Carolina's "First In Flight' license plates were made here at the prison. Good to know, I suppose.

There were hundreds of controlled steel gates in the high-security prison. Inmates couldn't move outside their cells without handcuffs, leg irons and security guards. Finally, we were allowed to enter death row itself, and taken to Sergeant Cooper. In this section of the prison each block consisted of sixteen cells, eight on the bottom, eight on top, with a common dayroom. Everything was painted the official color, known as' lark

“John Sampson, you came after all,” Ellis Cooper said as he saw us standing in a narrow corridor outside a special hearing room. The door was opened and we were let in by a pair of armed guards.

I sucked in a breath, but tried not to show it. Cooper's wrists and ankles were shackled with chains. He looked like a big, powerful slave.

Sampson went and hugged Cooper. He patted his friend's back and they looked like a couple of large, socialized bears. Cooper had on the orange-red jumpsuit that all of the death row inmates wore. He kept repeating, “So good to see you.”

When the two men finally pulled apart, Cooper's eyes were red and his cheeks wet. Sampson remained dry-eyed. I had never, ever seen John cry.

“This is the best thing that's happened to me in a long, long while,” Cooper said. “I didn't think anybody would come after the trial. I'm already dead to most of them.”

"I brought along somebody. This is Detective Alex

Cross,“ Sampson said, and turned my way. ”He's the best I know at homicide investigations."

“That's what I need,” said Cooper as he took my hand, 'the best."

“So tell us about all this awful craziness. Everything,” Sampson said. “Tell us from start to the finish. Your version, Coop.”

Sergeant Cooper nodded. “I want to. It will be good to tell it to somebody who isn't already convinced that I murdered those three women.”

“That's why we're here,” Sampson said. “Because you didn't murder the women.”

“That Friday was a payday,” Cooper began. "I should have gone straight home to my girlfriend, Marcia, but I had a few drinks at the club. I called Marcia around eight, I guess. She'd apparently gone out. She was probably ticked off at me. So I had another drink. Met up with a couple of buddies. I called my place again it was probably close to nine. Marcia was still out.

"I had another couple highballs at the club. Then I decided to walk home. Why walk? Because I knew I was three sheets to the wind. It was only a little over a mile home anyway. When I got to my house, it was past ten. Marcia still wasn't there. I turned on a North Carolina Duke basketball game. Love to root against the Dukies and Coach K. Around eleven o'clock I heard the front door open. I yelled out to Marcia, asked her where she had been.

"Only it wasn't her coming home after all. It was about a half-dozen MPs and aCID investigator named Jacobs.

Soon after that, supposedly, they found the RTAK survival knife in the attic of my house. And traces of blue paint used on those ladies. They arrested me for murder."