Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 27

D NEVER HAD MUCH TROUBLE laughing at my frustrations as a cop or a psychologist. This time it was lot tougher to take in stride. Soneji had beaten us down South, in Florida and Carolina. We hadn't gotten Maggie Rose back. We didn't know if she was alive or dead.

After I was debriefed for five hours by the Federal Bureau, I was flown up to Washington where I got to answer all the same questions from my own department. One of the last inquisitors was Chief of Detectives Pittman. The Jefe appeared at midnight. He was all showered and shaved for the occasion of our special meeting.

“You look like absolute hell,” he said to me. Those were the first words out of his mouth.

“I've been up since yesterday morning, ” I explained. "I know how I look. Tell me something I don't already know.

I knew that was a mistake before the words got out.

I don't usually lead with my chin, but I was groggy and tired and generally fucked up by that time.

The Jefe leaned forward on one of the little metal chairs in his conference room. I could see his gold fillings as he spoke to me. “Sure thing, Cross. I have to blow you off the kidnapping case. Right or wrong, the press is pinning a lot of what went haywire on you, and us. The FBI isn't taking any of the heat. Thomas Dunne's making a lot of noise, too. Seems fair to me. The ransom's gone; we don't have his daughter.”

“Most of that is pure bullshit,” I told Chief Pittman. “Soneji asked for me to be the contact. Nobody knows why yet. Maybe I shouldn't have gone, but I did. The FBI blew the surveillance, not me.”

“Now tell me something I don't already know,” Pittman came back. “Anyway, you and Sampson can go back on the Sanders and Turner murders. Just the way you wanted it in the first place. I don't mind if you stay in the background on the kidnapping. That's all there is to talk about. ” The Jefe said his piece, and then he left. Over and out. No discussion of the matter.

Sampson and I had been put back in our place: Washington Southeast. Everybody had their priorities straight now. The murders of six black people mattered again.