Criss Cross

Chapter 56

John Sampson looked at the windshield in his flashlight beam.

“You drove over here trying to see the road through that?” he asked, gesturing to the small area I’d cleared directly in front of the steering wheel.

“I didn’t want to tamper with the evidence any more than I had to.”

“Why blood?” Ned Mahoney asked.

Ned had been working late downtown and came over as soon as I called. We were in Sampson’s driveway. An FBI forensics unit was on its way.

“No idea,” I said.

“You get a look at the guy who threw the balloon?” Mahoney asked.

“Yeah. You’re not going to like it. I certainly don’t like it.”

Sampson said, “Lot of that going around.”

I paced away from the car, still wrestling with what I’d seen, then I turned and gazed at the two men I trusted most in life.

“The man driving that car looked just like Kyle Craig.”

“Oh, c’mon, Alex,” Mahoney said, groaning. “Get over it. The man is dead.”

Sampson said, “You killed him, Alex.”

“I know! I know! At the very least, whoever was driving that BMW had an uncanny resemblance to what I imagine Craig might have looked like... had he...”

They both reacted with squints.

“Come again?” Sampson said.

“That’s it,” I said. “That guy looked like a pre-op Kyle Craig who’d aged. You know, like when we take photographs of people and have computers age them? But think about it. The real Craig had his face completely rebuilt by that plastic surgeon in Florida so he could impersonate an FBI agent before I figured it out and killed him.”

They were quiet for a moment.

Then Mahoney said, “Unless that wasn’t the real Craig you killed.”

“My head aches,” Sampson said. “Is that even possible?”

“No,” I said. “It was Kyle Craig who died that night. The guy I saw could have been him before the facial work. Even his voice sounded like Craig’s.”

“What, you had a chat during a car chase?” Mahoney said.

“He yelled out the window so loud, it could have been amplified: ‘M said you’d never learn, Cross!’ He had the same kind of drawl Craig used.”

“And then he threw the blood balloon at you?” Sampson said.

“Correct.”

“What the hell is this sick bastard up to?” Mahoney said.

“Sick bastards, plural,” Sampson said. “If Pseudo-Craig is to be believed, then M told him you would never learn.”

“Pseudo-Craig,” I said, and I smiled. “I like that. And correct.”

To my relief, John smiled back.

The forensics team showed up and peeled off and bagged several strips of blood before giving us the go-ahead to turn on Sampson’s hose and wash off the rest.

“You don’t think I’m nuts, do you?” I asked Mahoney.

“About seeing Craig? Nah. You say you saw someone who could have been his pre-op older brother, I believe you. Now I have to go home and get some sleep.”

“I appreciate it, Ned.”

“Anytime, my friend.”

We watched him go.

Sampson said, “Beer?”

“Definitely.”

He went to a fridge in his garage, got two bottles, and handed me one. I took a long draw off it, loving the cold pouring down my throat.

Lowering the bottle, I said, “I was on my way here to see you when Pseudo-Craig splattered me.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. I was upset and wanted to apologize again in person. I don’t take our friendship or brotherhood for granted. It will never happen again.”

Sampson’s head bobbed before he looked me in the eyes. “We’re good.”

“Thank you,” I said, holding out my beer. “I need everything about you in my life, John, now more than ever.”

He clinked it, said, “Ditto, Alex.”