Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel

CHAPTER Sixty-Eight

We both knew I was in, though. We'd made some kind of a deal in the City Limits diner. I just hoped I wasn't being set up by Hampton and Pittman or God knows who else.

During the next two days we talked four times. I still wasn't sure that I could trust her, but I didn't have a choice. I had to keep moving forward. She had already visited the landlady who'd rented out the apartment and garage in Eckington. The landlady hadn't recognized the pictures of Shafer. Possibly he'd worn some kind of disguise when he met with her.

If Patsy Hampton was setting me up, she was one of the best liars I'd met, and I've known some good ones. During one of the calls, she confessed that Chuck Hufstedler had been her source, and that she'd gotten him to keep the information from me. I shrugged it off. I didn't have the time or energy to be angry at either of them.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time at home. I didn't believe the killer would come after my family, not when he already had Christine, but I couldn't tell that for sure. When I wasn't there, I made sure Sampson or somebody else was checking on the house.

On the third night after I met her, Patsy Hampton and I had a breakthrough of sorts. She actually invited me to join her on the stakeout at Shafer's town house in Kalorama Heights.

He had arrived home from work before six and remained there until past nine. He had a nice-looking ex-pat family, three children, a wife, a nanny. He lived very well. Nothing about his life or surroundings suggested he might be a killer.

'He seems to go out every night around this time,' Hampton told me as we watched him walk to a shiny black Jag parked in a graveled driveway on the side of the house.

'Creature of habit,' I said. A weasel.

'Creature anyway,' she said. We both smiled. The ice was breaking up a little between us. She admitted that she had checked me out thoroughly. She'd decided that Chief Pittman was the bad guy in all of this, not me.

The Jaguar pulled out of the drive and we followed Shafer to a night spot in Georgetown. He didn't seem to be aware of us. The problem was that we had to catch him doing something; we had no concrete evidence that he was our killer.

Shafer sat by himself at the bar and we watched him from the street. Did he perch by the window on purpose? I wondered. Did he know we were watching? Was he playing with us?

I had a bad feeling that he was. This was all some kind of bizarre game to him. He left the bar around a quarter to twelve and returned home just past midnight.

'Bastard.' Patsy grimaced, and shook her head. Her blonde hair was soft and had a nice bounce to it. She definitely reminded me of Jezzie Flanagan, a Secret Service agent I'd worked with on the kidnapping of two children in Georgetown.

'He's in for the night?' I asked. 'What was that all about? He leaves the house to watch the Orioles baseball game at a bar in Georgetown?'

'That's how it's been the last few nights. I think he knows we're out here.'

'He's an intelligence officer. He knows surveillance. We also know he likes to play fantasy games. At any rate, he's home for the night, so I'm going home too, Patsy. I don't like leaving my family alone too long.'

'Goodnight, Alex. Thanks for the help. We'll get him. And maybe we'll find your friend soon.'

'I hope so.'

On the drive home, I thought a little about Detective Patsy Hampton. She struck me as a lonely person, and I wondered why. She was thoughtful and interesting once you got past her tough facade. I wondered if anyone could really get through the facade though.

There was a light on in our kitchen when I rolled into the driveway. I strolled around to the back door and saw Damon and Nana, in their bathrobes at the stove. Everything seemed all right.

'Am I breaking up a pajama party?' I asked as I eased in through the back door.

'Damon has an upset stomach. I heard him in the kitchen so I came out to get in his way.'

'I'm all right. I just couldn't sleep. I saw you were still out,' he said. 'It's after midnight.'

He looked worried, and also a little sad. Damon had really liked Christine and he told me a couple of times that he was looking forward to having a mom again. He'd already begun to think of her that way. He and Jannie missed Christine a whole lot. Twice, they'd had important women taken away from them.

'I was working a little late. That's all. It's a very complicated case, Damon, but I think I'm making progress,' I said. I went to the cabinet and took out two tea bags.

'I'll make you tea,' Nana offered.

'I can do it,' I said, but she reached for the bags and I let her take them away from me. It doesn't pay to argue with Nana, especially not in her kitchen.

'You want some tea and milk, big guy?' I asked Damon.

'All right,' he said. He pronounced it ah-yite, as they do in the playgrounds, and probably even at the Sojourner Truth School.

'You sound like that poor excuse of an NBA point guard Alan Iverson,' Nana said to him. She didn't much like street slang, never had. She had started off as an English teacher and never lost her love of books and language. She loved Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and also Oprah Winfrey for bringing their books to a wider audience.

'He's the fastest guard in the league, Grandma Moses. Shows what you know about basketball,' said Damon. 'You probably think Magic Johnson is still playing in the league. And Wilt Chamberlain.'

'I like Marbury with the Timberwolves, and Stoudamire with Portland, formerly with Toronto.' Nana said, and gave a little triumphant smile. 'Ah-yite?'

Damon laughed. Nana probably knew more about NBA point guards than either of us. She could always get you if she wanted to.

We sat at the kitchen table and drank tea with milk and too much sugar, and we were mostly quiet, but it was kind of nice. I love family, always have. Everything that I am flows from that. Finally, Damon got up from the table. He went to the sink and rinsed out his cup.

'I can probably sleep now,' he reported to us. 'Give it a try anyway.'

He came back to the table and gave Nana and me a kiss before he went back upstairs to bed. 'You miss her, don't you?' He whispered against my cheek.

'Of course I miss Christine.' I said to Damon. 'All the time. Every waking minute.' I didn't make mention of the fact that I was out late because I was observing the sonofabitch who may have abducted her. Nor did I say anything about the other detective on surveillance, Patsy Hampton.

When Damon left, Nana put her hand in mine and we sat like that for a few minutes before I went up to bed.

'I miss her, too.' Nana finally said. 'I'm praying for you both, Alex.'