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

I pulled out my detective's shield as I raced the final block toward her.

The phone gets a lot of use. Some people don't have phones in their homes in the neighborhood.

'Police. I'm a homicide detective. Get off the phone!' I told the girl, who looked nineteen or so. She stared at me as if she couldn't care less that a DC policeman was trying to commandeer the phone.

'I'm using this phone, mister. Don't care who you are. You can wait your turn like everybody else.' She turned away from me. 'Probably just calling your honey.'

I yanked the receiver away from her, disconnected her call.

'The fuck you think you are!' the girl shouted at me, her face screwed in anger. 'I was talking. The fuck you thinking.'

'I'm thinking you better get out of my face. This is a life-and-death situation. Get away from this phone. Now! Get out of here!' I could see she had no intention of leaving. 'There's been a kidnapping!' I was yelling like a madman.

She finally backed away. She was afraid that I was really crazy, and maybe I was.

I stood there with my hand on the phone receiver, trembling, waiting for the call to come in. I was winded. Sweat covered my body.

I stared up and down Fourth Street.

Nothing obvious or suspicious. I didn't see a purple-and-blue cab parked anywhere. No one watching me. Somebody definitely knew who I was. They had contacted me at the Belmont Hotel; they had called me at home.

I could still hear the words echoing loudly inside my head.

She's safe for now.

We have her.

Those were the words sent to me six weeks before in Bermuda. I hadn't heard anything from the sender until now.

My heart was pounding, sounding as if it were amplified in my ears. Adrenaline was rushing like powerful rivers through my blood stream. I couldn't stand this. The caller had stressed that I hurry.

A young man approached the pay phone. He stared at my hand on the receiver. 'Wuzup, man? I need to use the phone. The phone? You hear me?'

'Police business.' I gave him a hard stare. 'Take a walk, please. Go!'

'Don't look like no police business to me,' he mumbled.

The man moved away, looking over his shoulder as he retreated down Fourth, frowning, but not stopping to argue with me.

The caller liked to be completely in control, I was thinking as I stood there helpless in front of the busy drugstore. He'd made me wait this long since the Bermuda call, possibly to demonstrate his power. Now he was doing it again. What did he really want, though? Why had he taken Christine? We have her, he'd said, and repeated the very same words when he called my house. Was there really a we? What kind of group did he represent? What did they want?

I stood at the pay phone for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. I felt as if I were going mad, but I would stay there all night if I had to. I began to wonder if this was the right phone, but I knew it was. He had been crystal clear, calm, in control.

For the first time in weeks I allowed myself to truly hope that Christine might be alive. I imagined her face, deep brown eyes that showed so much love, and warmth. Maybe, just maybe, I would be allowed to talk to her.

I let my anger build toward the unknown caller. But then I cut it off, shut down my emotions, and waited with a cool head.

People came and went, in and out of the drugstore. A few wanted to use the phone. They took one look at me, then moved on, looked for another phone.

At five minutes to nine, the phone rang. I lifted the receiver instantly.

'This is Alex Cross.' I said.

'Yes, I know who you are. That's already been established. Here's what you should do. Back all the way off. Just back away. Before you lose everything you care about. It can happen so easily. In a snap. You're smart enough to understand that, aren't you?'

Then the caller hung up. The line was dead.

I banged the phone with the receiver. I cursed loudly. The manager from the drugstore had come outside and was staring at me.

'I'm going to call the police,' he said. 'That's a public phone.' I didn't bother to tell him I was the police.

Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Sixty-Three

Was it the Weasel who had called? Was I dealing with one killer, or more than one?

If only I had some idea who the caller was and who he meant by we. The message scared me just as much as the first one had, maybe even more; but it also gave me hope about Christine still being alive.

With hope came a jolting surge of pain. If only they would put Christine on the phone. I needed to hear her voice.

What did they want? Back all the way off. Back off from what?

The Odenkirk murder case? The Jane Does? Perhaps even Christine's disappearance? Was Interpol or the FBI getting close to something that had scared them? We weren't close to anything that could solve any of the cases, and I knew timing was critical.

Early Wednesday morning, Sampson and I drove to Eckington. A woman over there knew where a purple-and-blue cab was garaged. We'd followed up a dozen or so leads like this already, but it didn't matter. Every lead had to be investigated, every single one.

'Cab owner's name is Arthur Marshall.' I told Sampson as we walked from my car toward a red-brick garden apartment that had seen better days. 'Trouble is, Arthur Marshall seems to be a false identity. Landlady has him working at a Target store. According to Target, he doesn't. Never worked at any Target store. Hasn't been seen around for a while, according to the landlady.'

'Maybe we spooked him,' Sampson said.

'I hope not, but you may be right.'

I glanced around at the lower-middle-class neighborhood as we walked. Overhead, the sky was a bright-blue canvas, nearly empty of clouds. The street was packed with one- and two-story homes. Bright orange fliers were sticking out from the mailboxes. Every window was a possible lookout for the Weasel. Back away, he had warned. I couldn't. Not after what he'd done. I knew that I was taking a risk though.

He probably spotted us canvassing the streets. If he was responsible for the Jane Doe murders, he had been working undetected for a long while. He was skillful, good at killing, at not getting caught.

The landlady told us what she knew about Arthur Marshall, which wasn't much more than the information she needed to rent him a one-bedroom apartment and the attached garage. She gave us a set of keys for the place and said we could go look for ourselves.

The second house was similar to the landlady's except that it was painted Easter-egg blue. Sampson and I entered the garage first.

The purple-and-blue cab was there.

Arthur Marshall had told the landlady that he owned the cab and operated it as a part-time job. That was a possibility, but it seemed unlikely. The Weasel was close. I could feel it now. Had he known we would find the cab? Probably. Now what? What came next? What was his plan? His fantasy?

'I'm going to have to figure out how to get some techies in here,' I told Sampson. There has to be something in the cab, or maybe upstairs in the apartment. Hair, fibers, prints.'

'Hopefully no damn body parts,' Sampson said, and grimaced. It was typical cop humor, and so automatic that I didn't give it a second thought. 'Body parts are always popping up in these cases, Alex. I don't want to see it. I like feet attached to ankles, heads attached to necks, even if all the parts happen to be dead.'

Sampson searched around the front seat of the cab, with latex-gloved hands. 'Papers in here. Candy and gum wrappers, too. Why not call in a favor from Kyle Craig? Get the FBI boys over here.'

'Actually, I talked to Kyle last night,' I said. 'The Bureau's been involved for some time. He'll help out if we say the word.'

Sampson tossed me a pair of gloves and I examined the cab's backseat. I saw what could be bloodstains in the fabric of the seat cushion. The stains would be easy enough to check out.