Patterson, James - Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

Busby had already told me that Graham was originally from London, and now worked as a porter and maintenance man at the semiprivate golf dub. He had also lived in New York City and Miami, and had a criminal record for selling crack in New York.

'I already told him everything I saw.' Perri Graham spoke defensively as soon as he opened the front door of his room and saw the two of us standing there. 'Go away. Let me be. Why would I hold back anything or--'

I cut him off. 'My name is Alex Cross. I'm a homicide detective from Washington. The woman you saw was my fianc‚e, Mr. Graham. May we come in and talk? This will only take a few minutes.'

He shook his head back and forth in frustration.

'I'll tell you what I know. Again,' he finally said, relenting. 'Yeah, come in. Only because you called me Mr. Graham.'

'That's all I want. I'm not here to bother you about anything else.'

Busby and I walked inside the room, which was little more than an alcove. The tile floors and all the furniture were strewn with wrinkled clothes, mostly underwear.

'A woman I know lives in Hamilton,' he said in a weary voice. 'I went to visit her this Tuesday past. We drank too much wine. Stayed the evening, you know how it is. I got up somehow. Had to be at the club by noon, but I knew I'd be late and get docked some of my pay. Don't have a car or nothing, so I hitched a ride from Hamilton, out South Shore Road. Walked along near Raget, I suppose. Damn hot afternoon, I remember. I went down to the water, cool off if I could. I came back up over a knobbly hill, and I witnessed an accident on the roadway. It was maybe a quarter of a mile down the big hill there. You know it?'

I nodded and held my breath as I listened to him. I remembered the stifling heat of that afternoon, everything about it. I could still see Christine driving off on a shiny blue moped, waving and smiling. The memory of her smile, which had always brought me such joy, now put a tight knot in my stomach.

'I saw a white van hit a woman riding a blue moped. I can't be sure, but it almost looked like the van hit her on purpose. Driver, he jumped out of the van right away and helped her up. She didn't look like she was hurt badly. Then he helped her inside the van. Put the moped inside, too. Then he drove off. I thought he was taking her to the hospital Thought nothing else of it.'

'You sure she wasn't badly hurt?' I asked.

'Not sure. But she got right up. She was able to stand all right.'

There was a catch in my voice when I spoke again. 'And you didn't tell anybody about the accident, not even when you saw the news stories?'

The man shook his head. 'Didn't see no stories. Don't bother with the local news much. Just small-time shit and worthless gossip. But then my girl, she keep talking about it. I didn't want to go to the police, but she made me do it, made me talk to this inspector here.'

'You know what kind of van it was?' I asked.

'White van. I think it was maybe a rented one. clean and new.'

'License plate?'

Graham shook his head. 'Don't have no idea.'

'What did the man in the van look like?' I asked him. 'Any little thing you remember is helpful, Mr. Graham. You've already helped a lot.'

He shrugged, but I could tell that he was trying to think back to that afternoon. 'Nothing special about him. Not as tall as you, but tall. Look like anybody else. Just a black man, like any other.'

Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Forty-Nine

In a small apartment in a suburb of Washington called Mount Rainier, Detective Patsy Hampton lay in bed, restlessly flipping through the pages of the Post. She couldn't sleep, but there was nothing unusual about that. She often had trouble sleeping, ever since she'd been a little girl in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her mother said she must have a guilty conscience about something.

She watched a rerun episode of ER, then fetched herself a Stonyfield yogurt with blueberries and logged onto America Online. She had e-mail from her father, now relocated in Delray Beach, Florida; and also from an old college roommate from the University of Richmond, whom she had never been that close to anyway.

The roommate had just heard from a mutual friend that Patsy was a hotshot police detective in Washington, and what an exciting life she must lead. The roommate wrote that she had four children and lived in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, but that she was bored with everything in her life. Patsy Hampton would have given anything to have just one child.

She wandered back to the kitchen and got a cold bottle of Evian mineral water. She was aware that her life had become ridiculous lately. She spent too much time on her job, but also too much time by herself in the apartment, especially weekends. It wasn't that she couldn't get dates - she was just turned off by men in general lately.

She still fantasized about finding someone compatible, having children. But increasingly, she thought about the depressing and maddening cycle of trying to meet someone interesting. She usually ended up with guys who were hopelessly boring or thirty-something jackasses who still acted like teenagers, though without the charm of youth. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, she thought as she sent off a cheery lie to her dad in Florida.

The phone rang and she glanced at her wristwatch - it was twenty past twelve.

She snatched up the receiver. 'Hampton speaking.'

'It's Chuck, Patsy. Really sorry to call so late. Is it okay? You awake?'

'Sure, no problem, Chucky Cheese. I'm up with the other vampires, yourself included, I guess.'

It was kind of late but she was glad to hear from Chuck Hufstedler, who was a computer geek at the FBI in Washington. The two of them helped each other out sometimes, and she'd recently talked to him about the unsolved murders in Washington, especially the Jane Does. Chuck told her that he was also in contact with Alex Cross, but Cross had trouble of his own right now. His fianc‚e had been kidnapped, and Patsy Hampton wondered if it had anything to do with the murders in Southeast.

'I'm wide awake, Chuck. What's up? What's on your big mind?'

He started with a disclaimer, which said volumes about Chuck's incredibly low self-esteem. 'Maybe nothing, but maybe something a little interesting on those killings in Southeast, and particularly the two young girls in Shaw. This really comes out of left field, though.'

The FBI computer expert had her attention. 'That's where this killer lives, Chuck, deep left field. Tell me what you have. I'm wide awake and listening. Talk to me, Chucky Cheese.'

Chuck hemmed and hawed. He was always like that, which was too bad because he was basically a real nice guy. 'You know anything about RPGs, Patsy?' he asked.

'I know that it stands for role-playing games and, let's see, there's a popular one called Dragon and Dungeons, Dungeons and Dragons - whatever the order.'

'It's Dungeons and Dragons, or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Confession time, kiddo. I occasionally play an RPG myself - it's called Millennium's End I play a couple of hours a day usually. More on weekends.'

'New to me. Go on, Chuck.' God, she thought, cyber-space confessions in the middle of the night.

'Very popular game, even with so-called adults. The characters in Millennium's End work for Black Eagle Security. It's a private organization of troubleshooters who hire themselves out for investigative services around the world. The characters are the good guys, crusaders for good.'

'Uh-huh, Chuck. Say six Hail Marys, now make an Act of Contrition, then get to the damn point. It is around twelve thirty, pal.'

'Right, I am heartily sorry, and deeply embarrassed, too. Anyway, there's a chatroom online that I visited. It's called the Gamesters' Chatroom and it's on AOL. As I speak, there's a fascinating discussion going on about a new kind of game. It's more an anti-game, though. All the role-playing games I know are about good characters trying to conquer chaos and evil The game under discussion has a couple of evil characters trying to become good. Specifically, Patsy, one of the characters is attacking and murdering women in the Southeast part of DC. Lots of lurid detail on the murders. These aren't the actual players - but they know about the game. The game itself is probably protected. Thought you should know. It's called The Four Horsemen.'