Patterson, James - Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

PART ONE

THE LAST CASE

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Three

I came down to breakfast around seven that morning and joined Nana and the kids around the kitchen table. With little Alex starting to walk, things were back in' lock-down' mode. Plastic safety locks, latches and outlet caps were everywhere. The sounds of kid chatter, spoons clattering in cereal bowls, Damon coaching his baby brother in the art of blowing raspberries, made the kitchen almost as noisy as a precinct house on a Saturday night.

The kids were eating some kind of puffed-up chocolate-flavored Oreo's cereal and Hershey's chocolate milk. Just the thought of all that sugar at seven in the morning made me shiver. Nana and I had eggs over-easy and twelve-grain toast.

“Now isn't this nice,” I said as I sat down to my coffee and eggs. “I'm not even going to spoil it by commenting on the chocoholic breakfast two of my precious children are eating for their morning's nourishment.”

“You just did comment,” said Jannie, my daughter, never at a loss.

I winked at her. She couldn't spoil my mood today. The killer known as the Mastermind had been captured and was now spending his days at a maximum-security prison in Colorado. My twelve-year-old, Damon, continued to blossom as a student, as well as a singer with the Washington Boys' Choir. Jannie had taken up oil painting, and she was keeping a journal, which contained some pretty good scribbling and cartoons for a girl her age. Little Alex's personality was emerging he was a sweet boy, just starting to walk.

I had met a woman detective recently, Jamilla Hughes, and I wanted to spend more time with her. The problem was that she lived in California and I lived in DC. Not insurmountable, I figured.

I would have some time to find out about Jamilla and I. Today was the day I planned to meet with Chief of Detectives George Pittman and resign from the DC police. After I resigned, I planned to take a couple of months off. Then I might go into private practice as a psychologist, or possibly hook up with the FBI. The Bureau had made me an offer that was flattering as well as intriguing.

There was a loud rap at the kitchen door. Then it opened. John Sampson was standing there. He knew what I was planning to do today, and I figured he'd come by to show me some support.

Sometimes I am so gullible it makes me a little sick.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Four

Hello, Uncle John," Damon and Jannie chorused, and then grinned like the little fools they can be when in the presence of 'greatness', which is how they feel about John Sampson.

He went to the refrigerator and examined Jannie's latest artwork. She was trying to copy characters from a new cartoonist, Aaron McGurder, formerly from the University of Maryland and now syndicated. Huey and Riley Feeman, Caeser, Jazmine DuBois were all taped on the fridge.

“You want some eggs, John? I can make some scrambled with cheddar, way you like them,” Nana said, and she was already up out of her place. She would do anything for Sampson it had been that way since he was ten and we first became friends. Sampson is like a son to her. His mum was in jail much of the time he was growing up, and Nana raised him as much as anybody.

“Oh no, no,” he said, and quickly motioned for her to sit back down, but when she moved to the stove, he said,

“Yeah, scrambled, Nana. Rye toast be nice. I'm starved away to nothing, and nobody does breakfast like you do.”

“You know that's the truth,” she cackled, and turned up the burners.“ You're lucky I'm an old-school lady. You're all lucky.”

“We know it, Nana,” Sampson smiled. He turned to the kids. “I need to talk to your father.”

“He's retiring today,” Jannie said.

“So I've heard,” said Sampson. “It's all over the streets, front page of the Post, probably on the Today Show this morning.”

“You heard your Uncle John,” I told the kids.“ Now scoot. I love you. Scat!”

Jannie and Damon rolled their eyes and gave us looks, but they got up from the table, gathered their books into backpacks and started out the door to the Sojourner Truth School, which is about a five-block walk from our house on Fifth Street.

“Don't even think about going out that door like that. Kisses,”I said.

They came over and dutifully kissed Nana and me. Then they kissed Sampson. I really don't care what goes on in this cool, unsentimental post-modern world, but that's how we do it in our house. Bin Laden probably never got kissed enough when he was a kid.

“I have a problem,” Sampson said as soon as the kids left.

“Am I supposed to hear this?” Nana asked from the stove.

“Of course you are,” John said to her. “Nana, Alex, I've told you both about a good friend of mine from my Army days. His name is Ellis Cooper and he's still in the Army after all these years. At least he was. He was found guilty of murdering three women off post. I had no idea about any of it until friends started to call. He'd been embarrassed to tell me himself. Didn't want me to know. He only has about three weeks to the execution, Alex.”

I stared into Sampson's eyes. I could see sadness and distress there, even more than usual. “What do you want, John?”

“Come down to North Carolina with me. Talk to Cooper. He's not a murderer. I know this man almost as well as I know you. Ellis Cooper didn't kill anybody.”

“You know you have to go down there with John,” Nana said. “Make this your last case. You have to promise me that.”

I promised.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Five

Sampson and I were on 1-95 by eleven o'clock that morning, our car wedged between caravans of speeding, gear-grinding, smoke-spewing tractor-trailers. The ride was a good excuse for us to catch up, though. We'd both been busy for a month or so, but we always got back together for long talks. It had been that way since we were kids growing up in DC. Actually, the only time we'd been separated was when Sampson served two tours in Southeast Asia and I was at Georgetown, then Johns Hopkins.

“Tell me about this Army friend of yours,” I said. I was driving and Sampson had the passenger seat as far back as it would go. His knees were up, touching the dash. He almost looked comfortable somehow.

“Cooper was already a sergeant back when I met him, and I think he knew he always would be. He was all right with it, liked the Army. He and I were both at Bragg together. Cooper was a drill sergeant at the time. Once he kept me on post for four straight weekends.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Is that when the two of you got close? Weekends together in the barracks?”

“I hated his guts back then. Thought he was picking on me. You know, singling me out because of my size. Then we hooked up again in ”Nam."

“He loosened up some? Once you met him again in ”Nam?"

“No, Cooper is Cooper. He's no bullshit, a real straight arrow, but if you follow the rules, he's fair. That's what he liked about the Army. It was mostly orderly, consistent, and if you did the right thing then you usually did all right. Maybe not as well as you thought you should, but not too bad. He told me it's smart for a black man to find a meritocracy like the Army.”

“Or the police department,” I said.

“Up to a point,” Sampson nodded. “I remember a time,” he continued. “Vietnam. We had replaced a unit that killed maybe two hundred people in a five-month period. These weren't exactly soldiers that got killed, Alex, though they were supposed to beVC.”