Detective Cross

Chapter 21

At two minutes to eight, the bell at our basement door rang, and I snapped awake from dozing in my office. After leaving Bree and Ned on the Mall in front of the National Air and Space Museum, I’d come straight home and shut my eyes.

“Coming!” I called, then went in the bathroom to splash cold water in my face.

I opened the door. The rain had let up and Kate Williams was beaming at me.

“Were you at the scenes this morning?” she asked, sounding breathless and excited.

“All night,” I said, following her toward my office.

“Oh? Well, I’m glad you didn’t cancel, Dr. Cross. I think I found something, something about the bomber.”

I closed my office door, feeling a headache coming on. “You know Kate, the FBI, Metro, Park Police, and Capitol Hill Police are working this pretty hard.”

Her expression turned stony. “And you don’t think I could come up with something the professionals couldn’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

I rubbed at my temples, and took a seat. “If I did, I apologize. I haven’t had much sleep. I’ve just found over the years that when amateurs get involved with cases as big as this one, they can find themselves working at odds with the authorities, and some get charged with obstruction.”

Kate crossed her arms. “I am not an amateur. I hunted bombs and bombers on a daily basis for more than three years, Dr. Cross. I’ve been in on explosive charges as many times as or more than anyone on your bomb squads.”

“I get it. But with bombs and bombers, there are protocols determined by people with bigger brains than mine, who—”

I was surprised when she suddenly burst into tears. “You don’t get it, do you? I have to do this, Dr. Cross. I have to help. You asked me about that day I got hit? I missed something. I turned the wrong way and missed something, and four IEDs went off at once. When I woke up, three of my people were dead. Brickhouse was dead, too. I lived, and good friends and the sweetest dog I’ve ever known died, Dr. Cross. So do you want to hear what I have to say, or not?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding out my hands. “Of course. What have you got?”

Kate dug in her raincoat pocket and came up with a tourist map of Washington, DC, which she unfolded and laid on the rug between us. Kneeling, she showed me where she’d marked and highlighted the bomb sites.

“Mall in front of the National Sculpture Museum,” she said. “Constitution Gardens Pond. Korean War Memorial. Union Station. Washington Monument.”

“False alarm there,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, before stabbing her finger at the map. “Air and Space Museum.”

“I’m predicting a false alarm there as well.”

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter if bombs were there or not.”

Ignoring the soft pounding at the back of my skull, I said, “Okay.”

“What do they have in common?”

“They’re all in and around the Mall?”

Reaching into her raincoat pocket again, she came up with a Metro transit map.

“They’re also all on this city bus route that started up in 2015,” she said. “The DC Circulator. It starts at Union Station and goes all around the monuments with stops that line up with the bombing sites.”

Instantly alert, I sat forward and studied the transit map.

“See?” Kate said. “I’m telling you, Dr. Cross. Your bomber rides that bus.”