Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen

Ron Burns finally reached me at home the following afternoon. I was up in my office, standing at the bay window looking down on Fifth Street and the rest of the neighborhood.

Jannie was on the front lawn teaching little Alex how to play tag. She was even letting her brother win, but that wouldn't last long.

Burns was saying, “Alex, I just got off the phone with a special agent named Mel Goodes. He called me from a small town in upstate New York called Ellenville.You ever hear of Ellenville?”

“Actually, no. But I think I've been there recently,” I said. "Have

I?"

“Yeah, you have,” Burns said. “That's where they took you from West Point.”

“What was Agent Goodes doing in Ellenville?” I asked.

“We were called in by the local police from up that way. They were puzzled and, frankly, shocked, by a mess some local deer hunters found in the mountains this morning.”

“I'll bet they were. Three murder victims. A grotesque death scene. Ritualistic.”

“Three unidentified males. It really shook up the locals. They blocked off half the mountain. The victims had severe cuts and electrical burns all over their bodies. The initial police report said they'd been ”sodomized slash cauterized. “The faces had been painted.”

“Red, white and blue.”

I was only half listening now. Jannie was teaching little Alex how to lose at tag. He started to cry, and she picked him up and hugged him. She looked up at my window and waved. She had it all under control. That was Jannie. Meanwhile, I was thinking about torture, terrorism, things that happen in the name of war. Jihad. Whatever. When would it stop? Probably never, or not until somebody blew up our beloved planet. How totally insane of us.

“I was wondering if you could shed any more light on the three murders?” Burns asked. “Can you, Alex?”

I waved back to the kids, then I walked over to my desk and sat down. There was a picture of Maria with Jannie and Damon when they were little. I wondered what she would have thought of all this. The kids? Me? Jamilla? Murder victims painted the colors of the American flag?

Two of the victims are probably General Mark Hutchinson and a Colonel named Walker. The third man is a PFC at West Point. I didn't catch his name. Hutchinson was responsible for some atrocities over thirty years ago in Vietnam. It finally caught up with him."

I told Burns almost everything I knew about the night before. As always, he was a good listener. I appreciated that more and more. And I was beginning to think that I trusted him.

“You know who killed the three West Pointers?” he finally asked.

I thought about that for a moment, then I said that I didn't. Technically, that was true. Burns asked a few more questions, but he accepted what I'd told him. I liked that. It meant that he accepted my judgment. I made another judgment then and there about the FBI director.

“I'll come and work for you,”I told him. “I'll join the FBI. Like you said, it'll be fun.”

“Who says the offer is still open?” Burns said, and laughed. I liked that, too.