Patterson, James - Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

“Just keep those hands up. High!” the MP in charge barked.

Sampson spoke calmly to the leader of the three MPs who now crowded into the bedroom with their guns leveled at us.

“I'm a friend of Sergeant Cooper's,” Sampson told them.

“He's a convicted murderer,” snarled one MP out of the side of his mouth. “Lives on death row these days. But not for much longer.”

Sampson kept his hands high, but told them there was a note from Cooper in his shirt pocket and the house key we'd been given. The head MP took the note and read:

To whom it may concern, John Sampson is a friend, and the only person I know who's working on my behalf. He and Detective Cross are welcome in my house, but the rest of you bastards aren't. Get the hell out. You're trespassing!

Sergeant Ellis Cooper.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Sixteen

I woke the next morning with the phrase 'dead man walking' repeating itself in my head. I couldn't get back to sleep. I kept seeing Ellis Cooper in the bright orange death row jumpsuit.

Early in the morning, before it got too hot, Sampson and I took a run around Bragg. We entered the base on Bragg Boulevard, then turned onto a narrower street called Honeycutt. Then came a maze of similar side streets, and finally Longstreet Road. Bragg was immaculate. Not a speck of trash anywhere. A lot of soldiers were already up running

FT.

As we jogged side by side, we planned out our day. We had a lot to do in a relatively short time. Then we needed to get back to Washington.

“Tell you what's bothering me the most so far,” Sampson said as we toured the military base on foot.

“Same thing that's bothering me, probably,” I huffed. “We found out about Ronald Hodge and the Hertz car in about a day. What's wrong with the local police and the Army investigations?”

“You starting to believe Ellis Cooper is innocent?”

I didn't answer Sampson, but our murder investigation was definitely disturbing in an unusual way: it was going too well. We were learning things that the Fayetteville police didn't seem to know. And why hadn't Army CID done a better job with the case? Cooper was one of their own, wasn't he?

When I got back to my room after the run, the phone was ringing. I wondered who'd be calling this early. Had to be Nana and the kids. It was just past seven. I answered in the slightly goofy Damon Wayans voice I sometimes use around the kids. “Yeah-lo. Who's calling me so early in the morning? Who's waking me up? You have some nerve.”

Then I heard a woman's voice. Unfamiliar, with a heavy Southern accent. “Is this Detective Cross?”

I quickly changed my tone and hoped she didn't hang up. “Yes it is. Who's this?”

“I'd rather not say. Just listen, please. This is hard for me to tell you, or anyone else.”

“I'm listening. Go ahead.”

I heard a deep sigh before she spoke again.

“I was with Ellis Cooper on the night of the three terrible murders. We were together when the murders took place. We were intimate. That's all I can say for now.”

I could tell the caller was frightened, maybe close to panic. I had to keep her on the line if I could. “Wait a minute. Please. You could have helped Sergeant Cooper at the trial. You can still help him. You could prevent his execution!”

“No. I can't say any more than I already have. I'm married to someone on the base. I won't destroy my family. I just can't. I'm sorry.”

“Why didn't you tell the police in town, or CID?” Why didn't Cooper tell us? “Please stay on the line. Stay with me.”

The woman moaned softly. “I called Captain Jacobs. I told him. He did nothing with the information, with the truth. I hope you do something. Ellis Cooper didn't kill those three women. I didn't believe my testimony would be enough to save him. And... I'm afraid of the consequences.”

“What consequences? Think about the consequences for Sergeant Cooper. He's going to be executed.”

The woman hung up. I couldn't tell much about her, but I was sure she was sobbing. I stood there staring at the phone receiver, not quite believing what I'd just heard. I had just talked to Ellis Cooper's alibi and now she was gone.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Seventeen

Around five o'clock, Sampson and I received the terrifically good news that the commanding officer at Bragg was willing to see us at his house on the base. We were to be there at seven-thirty sharp. General Stephen Bowen would give us ten minutes, to share the information we had about the murder case. In the meantime, Sampson got through to Sergeant Cooper at Central Prison. He denied that he'd been with a woman that night. What was worse, Sampson said Cooper wasn't very convincing. But why would he hold the truth back from us? It didn't make sense.

General Bowen's quarters looked to be from the Twenties or Thirties, a stucco house with a Spanish tile roof. Up on the second floor there was a sun porch with glass on three sides, probably the master suite.

A man was watching from up there as we parked in the semicircular driveway. General Bowen himself?

We were met at the front door by an officer aide who identified himself as Captain Rizzo. The general's staff included an officer aide, an enlisted aide who was part of the general's security but also worked as the cook, and a driver who was also security.

We stepped into a large foyer with sitting rooms on either side. The decor was eclectic, and probably reflected the general's career around the world. I noticed a beautiful carved cabinet that looked German, a painted screen showing rolling hills and cherry trees from Japan, and an antique sideboard that suggested a possible posting in New England.

Captain Rizzo showed us into a small den where General Stephen Bowen was already waiting for us. He was in uniform. The aide leaned in to me. “I'll return in exactly ten minutes. The general wants to talk to you alone.”

“Please sit down,” said Bowen. He was tall and solidly built, probably in his mid-fifties. He tented his fingers on top of a well-worn desk that looked like it had been with him for most of his career. “I understand that you've come down here to try and re-open the Cooper murder case. Why do you think we should reconsider the case? And Cooper's death sentence?”

As concisely as I could I told the general what we had already found out, and also our reactions to the evidence as homicide detectives. He was a practiced listener, who punctuated what I had to say by uttering 'interesting' several times. He seemed open to other points of view and eager for new information. For the moment, I was hopeful.

When I stopped, he asked, Ts there anything else either of you wants to add? This is the time for it."

Sampson seemed unusually quiet and reserved in the general's presence. “I'm not going to get into my personal feelings for Sergeant Cooper,” he finally spoke, 'but, as a detective, I find it impossible to believe that he'd bring the murder weapon, plus several incriminating photographs, back to his house."

Surprisingly, General Bowen nodded agreement. “I do too,” he said. “But that's what he did. I don't understand why either, but then again, I don't understand how a man could willfully murder three women, as he most definitely did. It was the worst act of peacetime violence I've seen in my career, and gentlemen, I've seen some bad business.”

The general leaned forward across his desk. His eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. “Let me tell you something about this murder case that I haven't shared with anyone else. No one. This is just for the two of you. When Sergeant Cooper is executed at Central Prison by the state of North Carolina, I will be there with the families of those murdered women. I'm looking forward to the lethal injection. What that animal did revolts and disgusts me. Your ten minutes are up. Now get the hell out of here. Get the fuck out of my sight.”