Detective Cross

Chapter 24

By three that afternoon, Benjamin Banneker had been cleared for after-hours activities. Like the threats to the Washington Monument and the Air and Space Museum, it appeared to be a false alarm.

Jannie described the caller as a guy with a deep, hoarse voice, who told her there was a bomb in the school and hung up. Bree and I debated the likelihood that the incident was linked to the National Mall bombings. Did we have a copycat at play?

Banneker was not far from the Mall, maybe two and a half miles, but what was the message here? There was symbolism in disrupting access to the national monuments to avenge the wrongs done to veterans. It sent a clear, if misguided, message. How did our daughter’s charter high school fit into that?

Disturbingly, the caller had Jannie’s phone number, and the Mall bomber had Bree’s. We theorized that someone might have hacked into one or both of their phones, or downloaded their contact info from someone else. But when? And how?

These questions were still whirling around in my head early that evening when I boarded the DC Circulator Bus near the World War II Memorial. When I looked in and saw the person sitting three rows behind the driver, I smiled.

I paid the fare and took a seat next to Kate Williams, who stared straight ahead, looking like a poker player who’s been up too long.

“Thought surveillance wasn’t worth it,” she said.

“I didn’t say that. People over my pay grade make that decision.”

She didn’t reply.

“You still think he rides this bus?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“How long have you been looking for him?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know, forty? Forty-two hours total.”

I gave her an appraising glance. “In the past four days?”

“Whatever it takes, Doc.”

We pulled up to the Washington Monument stop, and I watched Kate studying each person who came on the bus. When they’d all paid their fares and taken their seats, I said, “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Their faces.”

As we drove on, making a few stops over the next ten or fifteen minutes, Kate explained her innate skill. I’d heard of super-recognizing and its opposite — some people could remember every face they’d ever seen, and others could not remember even familiar faces.

“Any interesting faces so far?” I asked as we left the US Capitol stop.

“They’re all interesting.”

“No duplicates?”

“A few times, but they’re usually tourists coming on and off, and I’ll remember them from a few hours before.”

“How about stand-outs? Someone who really hit you between the eyes?”

“You mean like my spider-sense?”

“Sure.”

Kate tilted her head, thinking. “There was one, earlier today. But he wasn’t on the bus. He was this homeless guy in Army fatigues, big crazy beard, pushing this grocery cart piled with his stuff in plastic bags, and he looked so... vacant... so... I don’t know. More than drugs. Like he was unplugged. I mean, a cop lit up his siren maybe fifty feet from him, and the guy didn’t startle, didn’t even flinch. For some reason, seeing that, every alarm in my head started ringing.”

Every alarm in my head started ringing as well. I asked her to describe the homeless guy in detail. As we pulled into the bus depot at Union Station, the end and beginning of the Circulator line, there was little doubt in my mind she was talking about Tim Chorey, the deaf vet who’d dismantled his Glock and submerged himself in the reflecting pool the day of the first bombing.

I didn’t tell that to Kate, though. She said, “I’ve had enough for today. Think I’ll catch a cab, head home from here.”

“I’ll get off here, too,” I said, glancing at my watch. “A walk over the hill will do me some good.”

Night had fallen during our ride. As we exited, a bus lumbered and sighed into the parking bay beside ours. The digital sign above the windshield blinked from D8 — HOSPITAL CENTER LINE SOUTHBOUND to UNION STATION.

“Good night, Dr. Cross,” Kate said, shaking my hand. “I appreciate you thinking enough of my theory to check it out.”

“A good idea is a good idea,” I said, and happened to glance over her shoulder at the sign on the other bus, now emptying of riders. The direction had changed.