Return of the Spider

Chapter 32

The Thursday after the Beltsville shooting, Sampson and I went to the rehab facility in Bowie, Maryland, where Senate aide Carl Dennis was being treated for his many injuries. Before we went to his room, his wife, Kathleen, warned us that he was heavily medicated and remembered very little of the night he was run over.

But we had to try. It was hard to look at all the casts, traction cables, tubes, and IV lines that held Dennis together. His head was heavily bandaged. His face was swollen and bruised.

“Carl, hon,” his wife said. “These police detectives want to talk to you about the night you were hit.”

He said, his words sounding slurred, “Don’t ’member.”

“Nothing?” Sampson said.

He thought several beats before he said, “A shot?”

“You heard a shot?”

“Think.”

“What else?”

He closed his eyes a few moments, then opened them. “Lights. Fast. Low lights.”

I thought about what we knew. “Fast, low headlights?”

“Guess.” He shrugged.

I said, “Could it have been vehicle headlights coming at you?”

The Senate aide nodded.

John opened a folder and retrieved a still shot of the white Ford Econoline van. He showed it to Dennis. “Is this the van that ran you over?”

He studied the picture for a long time before shaking his head. “Don’t know.”

“But it could be,” Sampson said.

“Don’t know,” the injured man said, tears coming to his eyes as he looked to his wife in desperation. “Don’t know anything, Kat.”

He began weeping.

His wife moved to his side, rubbing his arm and soothing him. “It’s okay. You heard what the doctors keep saying. This is going to take time, hon.”

He sighed again and shut his eyes.

Kathleen said, “He had a difficult night, Detectives. Can I call you when he begins to remember more of what happened?”

“Of course,” we said, and we left, feeling frustrated that we could not say for sure that the driver of the white van was responsible for the murder of Conrad Talbot and the attempted murder of Carl Dennis.

The next morning, word of my Berkowitz theory leaked.

The headline across the top of the front page of the Baltimore Sun read:

The police department phones began buzzing and jangling with calls from local and national news organizations keying in on the Berkowitz angle. The media set up camp outside Metro headquarters and squawked about it for hours, even dissecting the fact that the Son of Sam had first killed two women, then a man and a woman, the reverse of the current situation.

The Sun’s original piece — and almost every story afterward — named me as the theorist, noting my doctorate from Johns Hopkins and the parts of my dissertation that included Berkowitz. I declined to make any comment and deferred to Chief Pittman, who actually proved remarkably adept in the spotlight, running two crisp, efficient press conferences in which he confirmed that Metro and Prince George’s County detectives were looking into a Son of Sam copycat.

“It would be a dereliction of duty if we were not actively looking into Dr. Cross’s theory,” Pittman said on TV as Sampson and I watched from the squad room on Friday.

Detectives Kurtz and Diehl were there in the squad room as well, both with their arms crossed. Pittman went on, “We’re telling people in the greater DC area to beware. He’s now killed three people and gravely wounded a fourth. We want to stop him before there is a fifth.”

Kurtz reached over and clicked off the TV. Diehl shook her head.

“He’s left you dangling, and you don’t even see it, Dr. Cross,” Diehl said, putting heavy sarcasm on the title.

“How so?” I said, ignoring the edge.

Kurtz snorted at my naïveté. “Pittman’s smart. He’s thought ahead. He’s pinning this all on you, so if things go more sideways than they already have — if you don’t catch someone acting like Berkowitz or if the real killer’s off in a completely other direction and someone dies because of it — well, Pittman can say it was all your idea. Maybe you don’t survive your three-month probationary period.”

“Yeah,” Diehl said as she walked away. “Wake up, Doc. You’re in the big leagues now.”

Chapter 33

Sampson sat down. I caught him looking at me as I took my chair.

“Tell me I’m wrong about this,” I said, arms crossed.

“You’re not wrong,” John said. “Or at least, I don’t think you’re that far off. Let’s just get back to work and prove it.”

I nodded, feeling more pressure than I’d ever experienced in my career. And my home life was strained too. Maria and I had made up after our fight, our first real one in a long time, but damage had been done. I’d still sensed friction between us that morning when she set off for work.

Rather than think about that, I forced myself into action by taking a hard look at where we were in the four different cases battling for our attention.

John and I remained largely stalled in our probes into the deaths of Tony Miller and Shay Mansion, but I went back through my notes on our second interview with Mansion’s mother, Rosalina Mansion.

Her cousin Guillermo Costa had accompanied us when we’d informed Rosalina of her son’s death. She’d collapsed into her cousin’s arms, inconsolable. In our second interview with Rosalina, she’d been alone, but she claimed to have had no idea that her son had joined Lobos Rojos and vigorously disputed the suggestion that her cousin was the gang’s leader. She said that Costa had gone straight after prison.

“You cannot blame this on Guillermo at all,” she insisted. “If Shay was involved, it’s on him. Once he quit school, I lost control over him. With his father gone, he was out at all hours, sometimes sleeping at home, sometimes not. And he never asked for money.”

She hung her head. “I think I lost him almost a year ago, to be honest.”

I’d written that down, and now I stared at that sentence in my notebook, feeling the poor woman’s sadness all over again. Then I set the file aside and turned once again to the Bulldog murders, as I’d taken to calling them, after the unusual gun that had been used.

Over the past few days, Sampson and I had formed a decent alliance with Detective Matt Brady, who was damn good at his job.

In the first forty-eight hours, Brady and his partners had focused on the victims, both of whom were medical techs who worked at a hospital not far from the murder scene and who had been friends since their early teens. We checked everything they found out about the two women against our evidence in the Talbot murder case.

At first, John and I saw no definitive crossover, no commonality save the caliber of the weapon and the angle the killer had shot from. Then, yesterday afternoon, the full ballistics report came back from the Maryland crime lab, confirming that the bullets in both attacks had been fired from the same gun.

“This is interesting, Alex,” Sampson said now.

I looked up from the ballistics report. “What’s that?”

“The medical examiner’s autopsy report,” he said. “It notes that a sizable piece of scalp and hair from Alice Ways, one of the victims, is missing.”

“Saw that last night,” I said. “And Brady confirms the piece was not found in the car.”

“You think the shooter took it?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Could be a trophy.”

“Why didn’t he do it with Conrad and Abby?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t think of it. Maybe this time he thought having that piece of scalp and hair would remind him of the event more vividly.”

“That’s disturbing. I’ve heard of killers taking little mementos like bracelets or necklaces, but not a hunk of scalp.”

“I’m not saying it’s normal behavior, John. Quite the opposite. We’re dealing with an abnormal mind at play, which is how I think he sees this. As a game.”

“Like he’s saying, Catch me if you can?” Sampson said.

“Partially. It’s also a sign of increasing boldness.”

“You’re thinking he’ll do it again soon?”

I nodded. “He’ll escalate. Broaden the number of victims taken at once or kill again sooner than he did between the first and second murders.”

“So in the next five days?”

“That’s what has me on edge.”

Sampson’s desk phone rang. He answered. I returned to the Bulldog murder book.

“Thank you, Officer,” John said a moment later, and hung up. “We’re out of here, Alex.”

“What’s up?”

“That was Donovan, the undercover working LMC Fifty-One. Patrice Prince is on the move, and she thinks she knows where he’s going.”

Chapter 34

Chesapeake Beach, Maryland

Sampson pulled our squad car into a parking stall a block off the shore. Despite it being October, the resort town was surprisingly busy.

I commented on it as Sampson climbed out.

“It’s the warmth,” he said. “We haven’t had a really cool day yet. Might as well be August.”

That was true. Temperatures along the mid-Atlantic had been in the seventies or higher since August.

I got out, regretting the jacket almost immediately, feeling sweat beading on my brow and the nape of my neck. “I hope Donovan’s right. I’m going to have to dry-clean this coat, I’m sweating so much.”

“Good chance she is right,” John said. “Jibes with what Costa told us.”

“It does. Worst case, we have spicy crab for lunch.”

“Hope my gut can handle it.”

We walked past a British pub, crossed a street, and made our way to a restaurant in the middle of the next block.

This was TANTE COCO’S HAITIAN CRAB SHACK, according to the sign, and it featured eight picnic tables inside, five of which were occupied, two by older tourists, two by younger couples, and one by three surfer dudes in their late teens. The reputed gang leader of LMC 51 was nowhere in sight, although both Costa and Donovan had told us that Patrice Prince was often here. Prince loved the crab and spice in Tante Coco’s secret boil recipe.

The spice in the air tickled my nostrils and made my mouth water.

The other patrons hardly looked at us. They were eagerly breaking shells with wooden mallets and picking out the crab until they had suitable piles to gorge on.

The waitress, a big gal in her thirties, came out with several large sheets of brown wrapping paper that she taped to the top of one of the empty picnic tables. Then she nodded to us, set out two mallets, shell crackers, metal picks, plastic bibs, and a pile of napkins and motioned to us to sit.

“Your drink order?” she said in a light Haitian accent. “We have cold Pepsi products, homemade lemonade, Coors beer, and boxed white wine that isn’t half bad.”

“Lemonade,” I said.

“Same,” Sampson said.

The waitress turned to leave. I said, “Can we see a menu?”

She shook her head. “Boil’s the only thing we serve.”

John said, “Boil for two, then.”

“Way ahead of you, mon ami,” she said and went through a set of double doors.

About five minutes later, she returned with the drinks. She also brought warm corn bread in a basket and a heaping bowl of fresh coleslaw, both of which were some of the best I’d ever had. The boil that followed was equally impressive.

I’d been eating boiled crab since I was a kid, and I wasn’t bad at making them myself. But the spices used at Tante Coco’s gave the shellfish a smoky beginning and a fiery ending with just the right amount of balance between sweet and heat.

We were halfway through the mound of crabs set before us when a lean, powerfully built Black guy in his mid-twenties wearing Versace sunglasses, a black T-shirt, and dark slacks and sneakers came in. He scanned the place.

I did my best businessman-having-lunch-with-a-client act, laughing with Sampson as I picked at a crab leg. Versace left.

“Scout, probably,” I said quietly.

“My bet too,” Sampson said.

Three minutes later, Versace returned, this time followed by another big dude wearing a similar outfit. The waitress came out, taped wrapping paper onto the empty table next to us, and nodded at them.

The second guy went to the door and waved. A third man, the tallest of the three, entered. He wore pressed black slacks, black loafers, a black long-sleeved shirt, and Vuarnet cat-eye sunglasses with a mirror finish.

It was like Maria had said. When Patrice Prince came through the door and made his way to the table next to us, I felt a sense of menace, though I could not pinpoint exactly what about him was causing it.

Prince ignored us, sat between his two men, and began speaking in Haitian Creole. I put down my crab mallet, took off my bib, reached in my jacket, and retrieved my ID and badge.

I went over to their table, right hand inside my jacket, on the butt of my weapon. Versace and his friend saw me and started to reach around their backs, low at the waist.

“That would be a bad idea,” I said in a soft voice, showing them my badge, which I held cupped in my hand to the side of my hip.

“A very bad idea,” Sampson said, equally low-key. He was standing beside me now, one hand on his service weapon, the other holding his badge in a way that only Prince and his guys could see. “Hands on the table, everyone. Mr. Prince, we just want to talk.”

“About?” he said, not looking at us.

“Why don’t you lose the shades and join us,” I said. “We’ll take just ten minutes of your time. And the box wine is on us.”

Chapter 35

“I’ll pass on the box wine.” Prince sniffed, then nodded to his men, got up, and moved over to sit at our table. He took off his sunglasses, revealing hazel agate-like eyes that cut back and forth over us, and calmly folded his hands on the table. “What is it you want from me?”

“Information about Shay Mansion,” Sampson said.

Prince raised and lowered his shoulders slowly, his attention never leaving us, his calm demeanor and sharp gaze unchanged. “I do not know this name.”

“Sixteen-year-old kid,” I said. “Recruit to Los Lobos Rojos. Found wired to a tree in a park in Southeast DC. He’d been caned to death.”

The reputed gang leader winced, closed his eyes a second, then opened them and gazed at us unmoved once more. “How terrible. Who would do such a thing?”

Sampson said, “I don’t know. The son and grandson of Tonton Macoute members?”

Prince made a clicking noise and said in that same even, disarming tone, “I am hardly a secret policeman, Detective. But — how do you say it? The jury is out on you two.”

“We’re homicide detectives with Metro police,” I said.

“So you say. But who knows where your true allegiances lie.”

“They lie with the dead,” Sampson said, getting irritated.

“As they should,” Prince said. “But that has nothing to do with me.”

I said, “Or LMC Fifty-One?”

He did not react, just trained those odd hazel eyes on me, his expression serene, and yet somehow he broadcast a sense of deep, inner darkness that made me feel he was capable of unfathomable violence. Menace seemed to seep out of the man’s pores. I tried not to shiver.

“I run an import/export company,” Prince said finally. “We bring in Haitian cocoa and cane sugar, which we distribute to chocolate makers across North America. We try to send back whatever money we can to the markets in Haiti, and we make donations to many NGOs operating there.”

“So you’re really just a misunderstood humanitarian philanthropist,” Sampson said.

Prince smiled, revealing a gold canine on the lower left. “Now you’re beginning to understand my situation.”

I asked him where he’d been on the night of the murder.

He thought. “In bed. At home.”

“Can anybody confirm that?”

“The two women sleeping with me and my friends here, who were in the outer room,” Prince said. His men, who had been watching intently, nodded.

“We’d like names and phone numbers, please,” Sampson said.

Prince sighed. “Is that necessary?”

“It’s a murder investigation, so yes.”

“I say it again: I did not kill anyone, much less a boy only sixteen.”

I said, “How about Tony Miller? Kid who got stabbed and thrown in the Potomac?”

“Can’t say I know that name either,” Prince said, sounding weary. “And now I see my favorite corn bread and coleslaw coming. I wish to eat in peace. Any other questions, you must talk to my lawyer.”

He got up. “By the way, how did you know to find me here?”

We had prepared for that. John said, “Street soldiers with Lobos Rojos told us.”

Looking into those strange, agate-like eyes, I said, “Didn’t you know? They keep close tabs on you. They follow you, know all sorts of things about you.”

For a second, before Prince put his sunglasses back on, I saw rage flicker through his mask of a face.

Chapter 36

With a satisfied groan, Soneji rolled off his wife around ten p.m.

He’d seen her scowl as they’d started to make love, but he didn’t care. He’d just turned her facedown so he didn’t have to see her dissatisfaction.

Missy got up without looking at him and went to the bathroom. He closed his eyes, expecting their evening together to be done.

He’d needed the release. He’d read the story about the DC cop who theorized that he was copying Berkowitz. PhD in psychology. Profiler.

It doesn’t matter, Soneji told himself. He’d mastered Son of Sam, and he was restless, ready to move on.

Now I just have to make it until Monday to—

“You are not going to sleep on me, Gary Murphy,” Missy said.

He opened his eyes, saw her standing at the foot of their bed, nude, arms crossed, rage flaring in her eyes.

“What now?” he asked. Blond cow, he thought.

“You come home, spend half an hour at best with Roni, then disappear into your office to do God only knows what. You didn’t even kiss your daughter good night, you shit. And then you just get in bed and jump my bones.”

Soneji gazed at Missy dispassionately, had a fleeting fantasy of killing her naked.

Everything she’d said was spot-on. He’d come home to their perfect suburban house, a two-story white brick gingerbread Colonial on Central Avenue in Wilmington, and played with his toddler daughter, but there wasn’t really a connection between them. At least, he hadn’t felt one. Ever.

And he’d had to go into his home office to phone the Charles School and see about more opportunities to substitute-teach in the coming week.

Headmistress Jenny Wolcott had gotten on the line herself and informed him that there were no subs needed at the Charles School, but she’d heard there might be a longer-term substitute position opening up at Washington Day School. A teacher there was going on maternity leave.

His response to Wolcott was noncommittal, but afterward he’d immediately researched the school. It was an elite private school, an academy that catered to the children of the powerful, the celebrated, and the wealthy.

The Washington Day School, he’d thought excitedly. It’s perfect. I mean, we’re talking Lindbergh-baby territory. Who knows who walks those hallowed halls?

He knew his real résumé would not be enough to score the gig. He’d need academic credentials and references. But luckily, he’d already created a fictitious background for Gary Soneji. He had forged documents claiming he’d received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania as well as letters of recommendation from three professors and the superintendent of a school system in Delaware. He’d quickly written a cover letter and faxed copies of everything over to the school. Then he’d left his office, wanting a drink and sex.

“Say something!” Missy shouted now, breaking into his thoughts. “This is not a real marriage any more than our wedding was real.”

“Okay, here we go!” Soneji shouted. “Our wedding was real. We have a marriage certificate, Missy.”

“It was shotgun,” she said, and she burst into tears. “No one but us and some drunk stranger for a best man. Everyone told me not to go through with it. And now you won’t even look at me while we make love.”

“Who wants to have sex with someone who’s always angry at them?” he spat back.

“I have reason to be angry! You’re gone all the time. And when you’re here, you’re Mr. Secrets.”

“I have a job with your family’s company that requires me to be on the road five days a week. Ask your brother. But you know what? You’re right. I’m sorry that I have to be gone five out of every seven days. But that’s the job, and you knew it when I took it. You encouraged me to take it, remember? I wanted to teach.”

She said nothing.

“Remember?” he said again.

She shrugged and started to cry.

“Ah, Jesus,” he said, wanting to kill her again. “Now what’s the matter?”

“Since my dad passed last year,” she said, sniveling, “I’ve just been wanting to make it real, you know?”

“Make what real?”

“Our marriage, Gary,” she said. “I want a real wedding with all my friends and family and a beautiful reception. The way it should have been at the start.”

They’d met her senior year at the University of Delaware. He’d swept her off her feet and into bed within three dates. Three and a half years ago, after finding out she was pregnant, they’d eloped to Atlantic City.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“C’mon, Gary,” she said. “I know you hate crowds and all. But this will put us right, give us a new beginning.”

“You think having a big wedding is going to change things in our marriage?”

“It could be a start,” she said, wiping at her tears. “A restart?”

Soneji didn’t mind crowds as long as he was anonymous. But he did hate being the object of other people’s attention. Scrutiny made his skin crawl.

The members of Soneji’s own family were all long dead. But Missy had a huge extended family. Their tribal get-togethers always made him feel claustrophobic and cornered.

The idea of a wedding involving the entire Kasajian clan was sheer misery as far as Soneji was concerned, and he groped for a way out.

“But we don’t have the money for a big wedding. You know what I make.”

“My mother has money, and I’m going to inherit lots of it when she dies anyway. She could give me an advance on that.”

“You’ve talked with your mom about this?”

“A little.”

“And?”

“She’s for it,” Missy said, coming over and getting back into bed. “As long as you are, Gary.” She rolled into his arms. “Okay?”

He kissed her. “Tell you what — I’ll sleep on it.”

Missy stiffened as if to fight. He gazed at her neck, imagining what he could do to it if provoked further.

She sighed, shut her eyes, and rolled away from him, leaving Soneji with a different perspective on dear Missy’s neck. And in that moment, the student of homicide and kidnapping geniuses knew whom and what to study next.

Chapter 37

Though he made more of an effort to play with and care for his daughter and stayed attentive to Missy’s conversation, Soneji managed to avoid giving his wife a concrete answer all weekend.

He kissed Roni and Missy goodbye on Monday morning and told his wife he’d call in the evening.

“What about the wedding?” she asked just before he left.

“I don’t know,” he said evasively. “I don’t know if this is the right time, and I’m conflicted. Got to work some things out.”

“Like the fact no one from your family would be there?”

“You got it in one, smarty-pants,” he said, which made Roni giggle. He kissed Missy again and left.

He spent his day doing just enough sales work to satisfy his brother-in-law, then pulled the Saab onto I-95 and headed south toward Maryland. He thought about the power of simplicity and then about the power in his own hands and the ways that power could be enhanced with a rope, a sash, a noose, a wire garrote.

He saw himself throttling Missy in multiple ways and then imagined other women, nameless women, all of them fighting for air, their struggles as real to him as if he’d had a big fish on a line. It didn’t really matter to him who they were. They were all fish, swimming below the surface until he lured and caught them.

The idea of actually strangling someone, up close and personal, began to overtake Soneji’s mind. A part of him wanted to start casting about for a victim right then.

But he had not done his homework yet, and he had more important things to do. He began to breathe deep and slow, telling himself to calm down, to be patient.

Fifteen minutes later, he took the exit for Route 272 toward Bay View and the Pennsylvania line. He quickly drove north, passing the turnoff to the old Diggs farm, continued on through Oxford, and took Pennsylvania Route 472 toward Kirkwood and Quarryville.

Five miles beyond Kirkwood, he passed a sign for Keegan’s Granite, drove on a mile, then pulled off onto the shoulder. He waited until the road was clear, then took out his binoculars and a pack and entered the woods.

He heard a series of thuds, muffled explosions, then crashing. The temperature was dropping as he slipped forward, hearing cutting machines ahead. Within minutes he was in the shadows near a chain-link fence that surrounded the granite quarry where Eamon Diggs worked.

Soneji had done some research and discovered there was more than one sex offender working in the quarry; he wanted to see if he could spot the other man, Harold Beech.

He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and saw men moving through dusty air toward the big slabs of granite that had just been dynamited off the wall. Other workers maneuvered stone saws into position to cut the slabs into more manageable pieces.

A few minutes later, a horn sounded, announcing the end of the workday.

Soneji scanned the men walking out of the quarry and exiting the cabs of the big machines. He spotted Diggs — big dude, long beard, ponytail sticking out from under his hard hat. He was climbing down off a backhoe that had been clearing scrap rock from the quarry.

Diggs did not join the other machine operators climbing the hill to clock out at the end of their shift. He stood waiting until he was joined by another man, a squat little guy in a coverall, respirator, goggles, and yellow safety helmet, all of it covered in pale dust from cutting stone.

The man tore off the respirator and goggles, grinned, and laughed at something Diggs said. Together, they started up the hill.

It wasn’t until both men were close to Soneji and he saw them in full profile that he recognized the squat little guy as Beech. He smiled.

He suddenly had a desperate need to know what they were talking about and just how buddy-buddy the two sex offenders were. Soneji trotted back through the woods, dodging low-hanging branches, and skidded down the bank to the Saab.

Within minutes he was on the shoulder of the road across from the entrance to Keegan’s Granite. He watched a line of vehicles leave the quarry until he spotted Diggs’s old black Chevy K-10 four-by-four, followed by a very loud, very rusted Subaru sedan with cardboard duct-taped across the back window and a perforated muffler hanging by a wire.

The front passenger-side window was down. Beech was at the wheel, trying to light a cigarette as he followed Diggs toward Kirkwood.

Keeping a car or two between them, Soneji followed; he pulled over when they turned off and headed toward Diggs’s place, a dilapidated double-wide trailer. He waited five minutes and then drove there, saw the duo on the stoop drinking bottles of Budweiser.

To the far left of the trailer, closer to the road, a dead whitetail doe hung upside down off a rope rigged to a pulley and crossbar bolted into the trunks of two pines. An archery target sat a few feet away.

He drove past. The two sex offenders were laughing at some shared joke and barely noticed him. That was how he wanted it. Soneji noted faded clothes on a line close to the trailer and decided a return trip was needed in the near future.

They did time for their crimes, but they haven’t changed, he thought. Sexual violence was as much a part of Diggs and Beech as the insatiable need to watch the light go out in someone’s eyes was for Soneji. He couldn’t change that if he wanted to, and neither could they.

Heading south toward the interstate a few minutes later, Soneji felt confident that given the chance, Diggs would rape again, and given the same chance, Beech would go at some young girl with a broomstick or whatever.

They would not be able to help themselves. He was certain of it.

Soneji laughed. The situation could not have been better.

He decided to stop on the way home at a marine-supply store near Baltimore. There was a tool he needed to get that would be critical if he was to learn the lessons of the greatest asphyxiator of them all.

Chapter 38

I got home around seven that night to find Damon playing with his fire truck and blocks.

When my little boy saw me, he dropped his toys and waddled fast toward me, arms up, crying, “Daddy!”

I scooped him up and whirled him around, which made him crack up, then carried him like a football into the kitchen, where Maria was cooking chicken marsala in a deep-sided skillet. She tapped the spoon on the side of the skillet, covered it, and turned to me with her heart-melting smile.

“The love of my life returns and look who he’s carrying!”

I grinned and hugged her with one arm. “What a difference a few days make.”

She snuggled up to my chest with Damon, who laughed, then said he wanted to get down. I set him on the floor and he went back to his blocks.

“I just decided to let it go,” Maria said, rubbing her belly. “Besides, you were right to head up to Beltsville that night. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t know a serial killer was at work.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t handle it well. Given you were weaving a spell and all.”

She tilted her head back and gazed at me with sparkling eyes. “I was?”

“As I recall,” I said, and kissed her.

“Okay, now I kind of remember,” she said. She winked at me and slipped from my arms. “Wash up, dinner’s almost ready.”

When I came back from the bathroom, she had plates of steaming chicken marsala and fresh fettuccine on the table, along with a cold glass of beer for me. She cut up Damon’s food and I lifted him into his high chair, and he immediately started shoveling dinner into his mouth.

“Tell me about your day,” Maria said, sitting down and smiling at me.

After I’d taken several bites and moaned about how good everything was, I said, “Went out to Chesapeake Beach with Sampson, ate crab, and met Patrice Prince.”

Her smile disappeared. “How did that go?”

“Crab was great. Prince was as dark and unsettling as you described him.”

“I told you. Like there’s no soul there,” Maria said. “Get anything from him?”

“He denied everything. Involvement in the murders. LMC Fifty-One’s existence. He claims to be an import/export guy who’s a humanitarian at heart.”

She snorted. “Let me tell you another fairy tale.”

“I hear you. But he’s definitely aware of Los Lobos Rojos. It upset him when we said they were watching him.”

We ate quietly for several minutes.

“Are they watching him?” Maria asked.

“Good chance, anyway,” I said and drank some beer.

“Did you tell Pittman all this?”

“When we got back to the squad room. He gave us a copy of the most recent report from an officer working undercover inside LMC Fifty-One. She included an analysis of the number two and number three men in the gang and how they might be turned against Prince.”

“Philippe LeClerc and Valentine Rodolpho?”

That surprised me. “You know them too?”

“LeClerc was shot in the leg last year in a drive-by and spent some time with us. Rodolpho is the one I told you about, Prince’s cousin, the guy Prince came to see after he was beaten and left for dead in Southeast. I helped get him into a rehab unit.”

That made sense, especially in light of Officer Nancy Donovan’s report that Rodolpho was the weakest of the gang’s leaders. Evidently, he had never fully recovered from the beating, and he still walked with a pronounced limp. “The undercover officer said Rodolpho isn’t the smartest tool in the shed, but he’s wary, always on the alert for possible threats.”

Maria agreed. “Rodolpho doesn’t trust anyone except Prince. I worked with him off and on during his long rehab, and he sure didn’t trust me. And he checked with Prince before he said anything to me.”

“He have other relatives come in to see him?”

“No mom. No dad. No girlfriend that I remember. He had other visitors besides Prince, male and female, but I couldn’t tell you what their relationships were.”

“What about LeClerc?”

“Nontalker. Another suspicious, guarded guy.”

“Okay, of the two, who do you think might be involved in the murders of the two boys?”

Maria considered that for several moments as she chewed the last of her chicken. “Rodolpho. He and Prince are blood-related and Haitian-born. LeClerc was born in Miami, and I never saw Prince come to the hospital to see him. I don’t know how LeClerc and Prince connected.”

“Probably through LMC in South Florida.”

She nodded and put down her fork. “Makes sense.”

“You think we can turn Rodolpho or LeClerc against Prince?”

Maria scrunched up her face. “That’s going to be a tough one. I imagine it’ll take some heavy leverage to make that happen.”

“Two murder-one charges might do it,” I said. “But we’re a long way from that point, and I don’t want to talk about gangsters killing kids anymore.”

“Fine with me,” she said, smiling. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Spell-weaving?”

My wife threw her head back and laughed. “I was thinking the same thing!”

Chapter 39

Around nine in the morning two days later, Sampson and I were parked in a dark blue utility van down the street from Valentine Rodolpho’s row house in Capitol Heights. Sampson lowered his binoculars. “Our boy Valentino’s sleeping in again. We didn’t need to be here so early.”

“Valentine,” I said, suppressing a yawn.

“Not to me, he isn’t,” Sampson said. He reached for his Styrofoam coffee cup while I shifted uncomfortably, trying to get my right leg to stop cramping.

We’d had our eye on the number three in Prince’s gang for days and he’d made no suspicious moves whatsoever. He limped out once a day around ten, caught a taxi to La Coccinelle Café and Bakery, bought two cafés créoles and a large bag of beignets, then went home in another taxi. The rest of the time he stayed in his house.

“Wish to hell we could get a wiretap on his place,” Sampson said.

“Pittman said zero chance of that for the time being.”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

“Donovan did say in her report that Rodolpho can be reclusive.”

“Looks like that leg gives him a lot of pain.”

“Baseball bat will do that to you.”

“That’s what he was beaten with?”

“Maria said that leg was broken in six — there he is.”

Clutching a black cane with a carved ivory handle, Valentine Rodolpho, a long, lean man, limped out onto his front porch and squinted at the late-fall sunlight. He rested his cane against the wall, zipped up his hoodie, slipped sunglasses on, and put a New York Yankees ball cap on his head.

“Follow or go downtown?” I asked when I saw a Yellow Cab slow to a stop in front of Rodolpho’s house.

“Follow.”

Prince’s cousin picked up his cane, limped down to the taxi, and got in. Sampson trailed it loosely across the District line. We knew where he was going, and John took a shortcut, so we were in the parking lot of the strip mall in Suitland — Silver Hill where La Coccinelle Café and Bakery was located before Rodolpho arrived.

The past two days, he’d gone in and out quickly. This morning, however, he stayed in the small café for nearly forty minutes.

“He spot us and ditch us?” I asked finally.

John’s eyes were closed. “I hope not, but one of us better go inside and check.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. I was reaching for the door handle when Rodolpho exited. He laughed and pivoted on the sidewalk to say something to a woman behind him.

I got my binoculars on them and was shocked to see the woman following the gangster was undercover officer Nancy Donovan. She was laughing too.

Rodolpho held out his arms and she cocked her head as if considering before sliding over to him and surrendering to his kiss.

Chapter 40

“That’s not by the book,” Sampson said.

“Bad news, you think?” I said when Valentine Rodolpho and Nancy Donovan broke their embrace.

They held each other’s hands a moment. She smiled and slipped away into a playful skip down the sidewalk, then looked back at him and laughed again.

“Could be real bad news,” John groaned as Donovan disappeared around a corner. “I hope to God Pittman doesn’t know she’s crossed that kind of line.”

“We telling him?”

Sampson thought about that. “I don’t know yet.”

“Who’s this?” I said as a black Lincoln Town Car rolled to a stop by Rodolpho. He seemed buoyed by his kiss with Donovan and climbed in easily.

“Rodolpho’s rising up in the world,” Sampson said. “A hired car instead of a Yellow Cab? Let’s see if he goes home.”

He did not go home.

Rodolpho’s car took him straight east on Maryland Route 214. Thirty minutes later, the Lincoln turned north on a road just west of Davidsonville.

It was rural country, and the road was little traveled. We were nervous about being spotted and stayed well back for several miles. We lost them as the road passed through woods.

“Turn around,” I said when we emerged into farm fields and could see up the road. “They must have taken one of those gravel drives back there.”

John got the van turned around. We were no more than a quarter of a mile into the trees when we saw the Lincoln exit a drive on the left that had a large black mailbox out front. The car headed toward the highway.

“Drive in?” I said.

“Walk in,” Sampson said, driving past the dirt lane that vanished into the forest. “See what old Rodolpho’s got going on.”

“‘P and E Imports and Exports,’” I said, reading the words on the mailbox. “Could be Prince’s place.”

“Could be,” he said, pulling over on the shoulder a quarter of a mile past the drive.

We got out, crossed the road, and started through the trees. Three hundred yards in, we spotted an opening in the woods several acres in size steeply downhill from us.

We reached a forested outcropping that overlooked a patch of scrub grass surrounding a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Behind the fence, we could make out construction equipment, stacks of construction supplies, and a large steel-gray building.

“What’s with the razor wire?” Sampson said. “I mean, that’s a lot of expensive equipment in there, but it seems like he’s going overboard.”

Looking through my binoculars, I picked up movement inside the fence to our left. “And why are the two big guys near the gate carrying rifles?”

“Gotta be to protect all the humanitarian and philanthropic pursuits going on in there.”

“A Nobel Peace Prize is in the offing for Prince.”

“Without a doubt.”

Chapter 41

Wednesday evening, Gary Soneji kept watch on Eamon Diggs’s double-wide until midnight, when a drunk Harold Beech left in his beater Subaru. Soneji waited until the lights in the double-wide had been off for half an hour before making his move.

Wearing latex gloves, he came in from the east, creeping through the pines toward the game pole where Diggs had had his deer hanging. The carcass was no longer there, but it didn’t matter. The block and tackle remained, along with the rope that passed through the pulley overhead and was tied off around one of the tree trunks. Soneji went to the rope, untied a length equal to his spread arms, and cut it off.

He ground dirt into the freshly cut end, retied the remaining rope around the tree trunk, went to the clothesline and tore off a small piece of a faded flannel shirt hanging there, then hurried back to the Saab. He drove to the pull-off near Diggs’s late grandmother’s farm, cut through the woods wearing a headlamp, and retrieved the battered white panel van from the shed.

He navigated the van down back roads at or below the speed limit all the way to the Pine Barrens and arrived at his own cabin shortly before four a.m. He slept for six hours, then got up and went for a run. He always made sure to keep himself in good shape.

It was a crisp, chill morning in the Pine Barrens, the first real break in the weather. He could almost see his breath near the end of his route, which took him on an old two-track trail through public land that abutted the rear of his fifteen-acre property, farthest from the cabin and the road.

Soneji crossed his property line and cut left into the woods where he’d left two rocks arranged in a V shape just off the trail. His heart began to beat faster when he approached an uprooted and fallen birch tree.

He went to the massive root system, which had torn away a good foot of soil, and stood there looking at the exposed earth, knowing who lay deep in the dirt and reliving the memories of his best moments with Joyce Adams. He grew stronger and even more sure of himself.

That kidnapping had gone off without a hitch. And Joyce’s terror had been more than real. For Soneji, it had been soul-affirming, everything he’d ever desired.

Thoughts of the pleasure he’d enjoyed with his captive at the cabin swirled in Soneji’s mind, made him want to have another experience just like the one he had with Joyce. Maybe even better.

He looked at the grave and silently promised her she would not be alone much longer. As soon as his studies were complete, he planned to bring many others to this little cabin to feed his hungers, and when he was done with them, they would join Joyce here in the Pine Barrens for eternity.

Walking back through the trees to the trail and out to the yard, Soneji recognized that he was not ready yet for that phase of his secret life. He still had much to learn if he hoped to avoid detection later.

On the porch, he retrieved two gallon-size Ziploc bags. One contained the length of bloody, dirty nylon rope he’d taken from Diggs’s place. The other held a clean white marine rope of the same length. He took out that rope and went to an old fence post along the drive.

Soneji imagined the top of the fence post as a neck. He wrapped both ends of the rope around his fists and began experimenting with how best to quickly flip the slack line over an imaginary head, clear the chin, and cinch the rope tight around the windpipe.

He had to feel his way to the best technique because the master had not given details about that, had said only that he’d used his hands or a rope or an electrical cord.

But the Boston Strangler had taught him many things. After killing thirteen women in the 1960s, Albert DeSalvo had confessed. He’d been remarkably open and comprehensive with police and with his defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, who later wrote a book about the case.

DeSalvo had said that the key to strangling was getting close to your victim before you attacked. To do that, you had to set your victim at ease by appearing unthreatening. The Boston Strangler had often gained entry to women’s apartments by posing as a repairman sent by their landlord.

Soneji’s main takeaway from DeSalvo was that you had to fit into your environment so plausibly that the victims would let their guard down and offer you an opportunity to attack. He thought about that as he practiced his garroting technique and decided the repairman angle could work for him too.

He thought about other places that his presence might be naturally accepted by a solitary victim and remembered a conversation he’d overheard between his mother and an aunt, then a real estate agent. She’d told his mother she hated doing open houses because she felt vulnerable being alone in them.

He considered that as he flipped the rope over the fence post and leaned back against it, imagining a struggle.

That could work nicely, Soneji thought. Especially on a Saturday afternoon.

Chapter 42

At four p.m. on Saturday, Soneji parked the white Ford Econoline van on a tree-lined suburban street in Groveton, Virginia, down the road from a home with an OPEN HOUSE sign out front.

His mood swung between excitement at having been asked to come in for a preliminary interview at the Washington Day School and bubbling rage at Missy, who’d harped on about the goddamned wedding from the moment he’d walked in the door yesterday.

Missy had been so relentless, he felt homicidal toward her, and that would not do. Missy was a key part of his cover. Besides, they always suspected the husband first.

So he’d driven away before dawn that morning, leaving his wife a note saying that he needed to be by himself, that he’d be back when he was back, and they could discuss the whole wedding thing then.

Soneji was wearing the brown wig under a ball cap with a tool-company logo on it. He’d found a clean green workman’s coverall with an embroidered chest patch that said DENNY’S PLUMBING on it in a Goodwill store. He’d scraped and dented the toolbox that now sat on the passenger seat so it looked like it belonged to the journeyman plumber he was impersonating.

For the next forty-five minutes, Soneji watched the house through a pair of pocket binoculars. A slow trickle of potential buyers went to the porch, put on blue booties to protect the newly refinished floors, entered, and exited not long after. At a quarter to five, there were three visitors left in the house.

A single male in his forties left at ten to five, and Soneji made his move. He put on latex gloves, grabbed the toolbox, and left the van. It was windy, raw. He marched up the short drive in the remains of the daylight.

The final two viewers, a young couple, exited the house, pulled off their blue booties, and walked down the porch steps, heads lowered against the wind. Absorbed in a discussion about the kitchen, they barely looked up as they passed Soneji, who was standing where the walkway met the short drive.

“Oh, I think she’s closing up,” the woman called to him.

Soneji waved his gloved hand but did not turn to them. “Thanks, I’m not a buyer.”

He climbed up to the porch and put on a pair of the blue booties as the sign there requested. A help, as far as he was concerned. Then he went into a brightly lit, thoroughly renovated, and beautifully staged home.

Slate entry. Spacious great room. Hardwood floors. Nice, neutral paint job. The furniture looked custom-made.

He reached behind him to a panel by the door, flipped off the outdoor lights.

“I’m sorry, the open house is over,” a woman called out in a pretty Southern accent.

A bosomy platinum blonde in her early fifties came out of a hallway on the far side of the room and walked toward him. She wore a cream-colored pantsuit, matching high heels, a pink blouse, an imitation-pearl necklace, and a name tag.

“Not looking to buy, ma’am,” Soneji said, adjusting his accent to match hers. “I’m Denny Holder, just supposed to check the gas fittings on the boiler.”

He could see her suspicion and knew there was fear there as well.

“What could be wrong with the boiler?” she said, close enough for him to read the name tag — BRENDA MILES — on her blazer. “Everything in this house is brand-new.”

“I’m sure it is, Ms. Brenda,” he said amiably. “But the gas company’s done over-pressurized the lines in this part of the county. We’ve been getting forty calls an hour about people smelling gas, including one from the lady across the street. It’s easy to check, easy to fix, and I’d hate to see a house as pretty as this one explode or something.”

The real estate agent paled, looked at her watch. “Go ahead. Door to the basement’s over there in the corner. But could you be quick? I’ve got a dinner date.”

“Done in ten or less,” he promised, smiling at her.

He opened the basement door, pleased at how quietly it traveled on its hinges. He turned on a light, closed the door behind him, and set his toolbox on the riser.

Soneji got out the baggie containing the rope he’d stolen from outside Diggs’s trailer. He removed the rope and wrapped one end three times around his gloved left hand, holding the other end loosely with his right.

He used that same hand to crack open the door enough for him to peer into the great room. The real estate agent was nowhere to be seen.

He heard water running and then a cabinet shutting, and he figured she was in the kitchen, down the short hallway that began near the big mirror on the wall.

Quickly, quietly, Soneji crossed the great room to the hall entry and stood next to a sideboard artfully decorated with glossy coffee-table books.

“Ms. Brenda?” he called. “I need you to see something and sign something.”

“Two seconds,” she called in a weary voice.

Chapter 43

Soneji waited until he heard the click-click of the real estate agent’s heels coming his way before lobbing one of the books at the door to the basement. It made a solid thud when it hit.

“What was that, Denny?” Brenda Miles said.

He said nothing, waited, heard her come closer. As he’d hoped she would, she stepped out of the hall and looked around for the source of the thud.

Soneji took a half a step forward and flipped the rope over her platinum-blond do, her pert nose, and her chin. When he felt the loop hit her chest and stop, he wrenched back, almost taking her off her feet.

Stunned by the assault, the woman did not fight back at first, but then she began to struggle and kick at him with her spiked heels.

“Whoa there, Ms. Brenda,” Soneji said as he hauled her around, breaking her necklace. He got her up on her toes, both of them facing the big mirror.

Albert DeSalvo had hated seeing himself in mirrors while he attacked his victims. In one case, the Boston Strangler confessed that he became so disgusted with the reflected image of himself choking a Danish girl, he released her and begged her not to tell the police.

But Soneji had no qualms about mirrors. He leered at the reflection of Brenda Miles and himself as he twisted the rope. The fake pearls slipped off her necklace one by one as the fight seeped out of her.

Her fingers let go of the rope. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her eyes glazed over, wide open like her mouth, and she sagged down.

Only then did Soneji realize he was panting and inflamed with something like lust from her smell, from the adrenaline of it all.

And he’d been able to watch his own fascination in the mirror as the light went out of her eyes. He didn’t understand why DeSalvo disliked mirrors, but he completely understood the man’s obsession with strangling. He lowered Brenda Miles gently to the floor. She’d been so close to him!

He slipped the rope from her neck and admired the abraded wound it had left. Strangulation, he decided, was a very beautiful thing before, during, and after.

Soneji put the rope back in the Ziploc, which he stashed inside the coverall. He went into the kitchen and saw a crock filled with cooking utensils. He chose a wooden spoon and returned to the dead woman. He undid her pants and pulled them down around her knees with some difficulty, then rolled her over so she was facedown on the floor.

“Sorry about this, Ms. Brenda,” he said. He pushed her panties aside and jammed the spoon handle where it should not have been.

Then he retrieved the toolbox, flipped off the lights, walked onto the darkened porch in the dusk, and shut the door behind him. He heard kids playing in adjoining yards and saw headlights coming in both directions. He turned his collar up, tugged down the brim of his cap, and marched to the sidewalk. He held the toolbox on his right shoulder and lifted his left arm to further shield his face as he hurried across the street between two sets of approaching headlights. He reached the white van. The car to his right passed by a second before the car to his left.

Soneji opened the van door and climbed in. The drivers might have gotten a solid look at him, but they could not possibly identify him.

Chapter 44

Early on Saturday, Sampson and I had filed reports on our surveillance of Valentine Rodolpho. Monday was supposed to be our day off, but Chief Pittman’s personal assistant called us both into work early.

When we got to his office, we found Detectives Edgar Kurtz and Corina Diehl already there, both looking hungover and pissed to be here on what was supposed to be their day off too. Also there were Lieutenant Stacey Lindahl, commander of the narcotics unit, and undercover officer Nancy Donovan, who glared at us like we were traitors.

“Lieutenant Lindahl and I have read your reports on Rodolpho,” Pittman said to me and John. “You indicate, Detective Sampson, Detective Cross, that you observed Officer Donovan hug and kiss Valentine Rodolpho.”

We nodded, but I felt bad about the decision to report the undercover officer. I felt worse after Donovan blasted us.

“Try ‘You observed her hugged and kissed by Rodolpho,’” she said angrily. “Try ‘She made only the slightest of hugs and no reciprocity to his kiss.’”

Sampson held up his hands. “We didn’t expect you to be there, and suddenly you were in his arms and then skipping away. What did you want us to do, not report it?”

She shouted, “You could have told me you were putting Rodolpho under surveillance!”

“Calm down, Officer,” Lieutenant Lindahl said. “Don’t make this worse.”

I held up my hands too. “You are a difficult person to get in touch with, Officer Donovan, but you’re right, we should have told you.”

“If you’re following him without my knowledge, you are compromising my safety and my ability to work! Why were you following him, anyway?”

“Because you mentioned in one of your recent reports that Rodolpho is the weakest link.”

She calmed down. “I think he is. I also think there’s no way he’s going to expose his weaknesses to you or almost anyone else. Even with his leg, he’s too proud for that.”

Detective Diehl said, “But you think he’ll expose his weaknesses to you?”

“I’ll have to walk a thin line, but yes, I believe there’s a good chance that I can get him to confide in me. He’s at that playful, flirting stage at the moment.”

Chief Pittman frowned. “I don’t want it going farther than that stage on your part.”

Lieutenant Lindahl nodded. “If it does, you might as well come in from the cold, Nancy, because the entire case will be compromised.”

Donovan sobered and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Of course.”

I said, “What do you know about that minor fortress out in Davidsonville?”

“What?” Pittman said, puzzled. “What fortress?”

Donovan, Diehl, and Kurtz all looked clueless as well.

Sampson raised an eyebrow. “Did you read our report to the end or stop where Officer Donovan made her appearance?”

“I stopped,” Pittman admitted. “Fill us in.”

We described following Rodolpho to the driveway of P and E Imports and Exports outside Davidsonville and then the facility itself. Pittman, Lindahl, Kurtz, and Diehl seemed unimpressed until we told them about the fence, the razor wire, the big steel structure, and the guards with AR-15s.

Donovan said, “I heard something about that place.”

Lieutenant Lindahl said, “What have you heard?”

“Just that they call it the warehouse and they have meetings there.”

Kurtz said, “Who owns the company?”

Sampson said, “Incorporated in Delaware by Patrice Prince, who is listed as president. He used a rent-a-lawyer in Wilmington as counsel. Purpose of the company is import/export between the U.S. and Haiti.”

“Which is what he told us at the crab shack,” I added.

Diehl said, “What’s so important in his import/export business that it requires an East Jesus location, a security fence, dogs, and armed men?”

Sampson said, “We asked roughly the same question in our report.”

Kurtz scowled. “But what has this got to do with the deaths of those two kids? Isn’t that the case you’re supposed to be working on?”

I said, “We believe Tony Miller and Shay Mansion might have crossed someone in LMC Fifty-One and been killed for it. The warehouse seemed like an important find.”

Officer Donovan said, “And two killings are not beyond either Prince or Rodolpho.”

Pittman crossed his arms and sat back. “Well, hearsay and beliefs don’t get us search warrants on a place like this warehouse. We’re going to need more. Dismissed.”

He turned away from us, so we got up and left the room.

Kurtz looked at Diehl, murmured, “He does that kind of thing a lot.”

“He’s worse on the phone,” Sampson said.

“Got a personality disorder if you ask me,” Lieutenant Lindahl said.

“Low social skills, anyway,” I said.

Chapter 45

We followed Officer Donovan to the squad room, where we apologized again.

“Be safe,” Sampson said. “And keep an eye on that line you’re walking.”

“I’ll do that,” Donovan said. She smiled at us wanly and left.

“Fine-looking woman,” Sampson said when she was gone.

“Brave too,” I said. “Nerves of steel.”

Diehl and Kurtz went to their desks, grabbed their things, and left to spend the rest of the day with their families.

We were getting ready to leave ourselves when something on the muted television in the squad room caught my eye. Under the words BREAKING NEWS was a photo of a pretty, older blond woman. The chyron below read LOCAL REAL ESTATE AGENT STRANGLED. POLICE SEEK PUBLIC’S HELP.

Sampson left to use the men’s room. I unmuted the TV. The screen jumped to a young reporter standing near a strip of yellow police tape with officers behind him going to and from a house on a tree-lined street.

“Fairfax County detectives are telling us that Brenda Miles, a longtime real estate agent in Northern Virginia, was found strangled to death late yesterday by a friend who’d become concerned when she missed a dinner date Saturday evening and didn’t answer her door on Sunday.

“Miles, fifty-two, had held an open house here in Groveton shortly before she was murdered. Witnesses reported seeing a tall, slightly stooped man wearing a green coverall, running shoes, and a ball cap and carrying a toolbox leaving the scene.

“He drove away in an older white panel van with no markings on it. Detectives are asking anyone who may have seen the suspect or the white panel van in the Groveton area on Saturday night to call the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office.”

I stared at the screen, then muted it when the broadcast turned to other news. Sampson came back and said, “Ready?”

“Give me five minutes,” I said, and called the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office.

Dispatch patched me through to Detective Deb Angelis, the lead detective on the case, who was still on the scene.

“Angelis,” she said, sounding tired.

I identified myself and said, “I know you’re swamped, Detective, but did your witnesses get the license plate on the white van?”

“No. The light above the rear plate was conveniently out.”

“Not even the state?”

There was a pause before she said, “We’re withholding that for the moment.”

“Let me take a wild guess. Pennsylvania?”

After another pause, Angelis said, “How did you know that?”

I pumped my fist. “We had a van like that around the area where Conrad Talbot, the lacrosse player from Alexandria, was shot. We have footage of it.”

“That I would like to see, Detective Cross. Thank you.”

“Would you mind if my partner and I came and looked at the scene? We’ll share whatever we’ve got.”

“Sure,” she said. “Body’s long gone, but we’ll be here a few more hours.”

I hung up, looked at Sampson. “The white van is in play. We better tell Pittman.”

The chief groaned when we told him. “C’mon, there have to be a thousand panel vans like that in the greater metro area.”

“But not near murder scenes with broken lights over Pennsylvania plates,” I said.

The chief began to knead his temples. “So he’s no longer impersonating Berkowitz, is that what you’re telling me? After I went out on a limb to support your theory?”

I held up my hands. “I’m just following a common denominator, a beat-up white van with a faulty light above Pennsylvania plates. Shouldn’t we at least go and take a look, sir?”

The chief chewed on that a moment, then flicked his hand at us. “Go. But you’re not on department time. You’re on your own.”

Chapter 46

Fairfax County Sheriff’s detective Deb Angelis was in her forties, a little locomotive of a woman with tawny hair and a way of chopping at the air when she got worked up about something.

“I can give you twenty minutes, then I have to leave,” Detective Angelis said as we stood on the porch outside the crime scene putting on hairnets, latex gloves, and booties.

“We appreciate it,” Sampson said.

“Can you tell us what’s solid so far?” I asked.

“A couple from Chevy Chase were the last people to see Brenda Miles alive. They said they saw a workman on his way in as they left. A plumber, they thought,” Angelis said. She gestured down the street. “After the murder, two neighbors who were driving by reported seeing a man carrying a toolbox and wearing a green coverall and booties like these cross the street and go to a white panel van.”

A woman who’d been out walking her dog said she saw the van pull out fast.

“She said the rear plate wasn’t illuminated, but there was enough daylight left and she was close enough to see that the plates were gold and blue, like Pennsylvania plates.”

“She didn’t see any numbers at all?”

“She’s seventy-seven. We’re lucky she caught the colors. No one else got a good look at either his face or the plates.”

Sampson asked, “What about the headlights on the van? Was one missing?”

“No one mentioned that.”

That didn’t help us, but it didn’t rule out the van either. He could have fixed it.

We went inside. Angelis showed us the chalk outline where Brenda Miles had been found. A table and lamp were turned over. The floor runner had been kicked aside. Faux pearls from a broken necklace lay where they’d fallen. A crime scene photographer documented their locations.

Sampson said, “She fought him.”

The detective nodded. “Her fingernails were broken and so was one of her heels. But he had to have surprised her to begin with. The medical examiner said he used a rope from behind, crushed her larynx.”

Angelis said the ME believed the body had been moved postmortem, after the rope was taken from her neck.

“Then she was turned prone, and her slacks and panties were pulled to her knees,” the detective said. “He sexually abused her with a wooden spoon that he left in her.”

Sampson said, “He leave anything on her?”

“Nothing obvious. But her clothes haven’t been processed yet.”

“No other sign of sexual contact?”

She shook her head. “From the timeline we’ve put together, he was in and out of here in ten, fifteen minutes. No more. The couple said he came up the walk at roughly five minutes to five. The older lady with the dog thought it was no later than ten after five when he squealed out of his parking spot. Pretty brazen.”

This was wildly different from the Talbot and Beltsville shootings. I tried to imagine the same suspect doing this. Aside from the white van, nothing seemed connected.

Detective Angelis looked at me. “I read about your theory that the shooter in those other cases was imitating Berkowitz. You’re a profiler, right?”

I nodded. “I wrote my PhD dissertation on serial killers and mass murderers.”

Sampson said, “It’s gonna be published. The man’s got insight.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say my white van is your white van, and this same guy is responsible for five attacks, four dead bodies. Tell me who we’re looking for here, aside from the physical descriptions we’ve got.”

I thought about it for a few moments. “With the Bulldog shootings, there was a sense of randomness, that maybe those were crimes of opportunity. He might have seen people drive out to Bear Island and gone there knowing he’d find targets. Same thing with the two hospital techs.

“But if this is the same white Ford Econoline van, then the killer is more than just an opportunist, and we’d have to rethink. Similarities to Berkowitz’s MO aside, if we assume it’s the same perp, we can note he always kills up close, first with the forty-four and now with the rope. This suggests that it’s satisfying to him to be in proximity to his victim. He gets his jollies from being right there.”

I theorized that this seemed like an escalation, that the killer had probably enjoyed strangling Brenda Miles more than he had the close-range shootings. It likely excited him, sent his adrenaline surging.

“You described him earlier as brazen, Detective,” I went on. “But unless he’s an out-and-out homicidal maniac, he’s a thinker and a thorough planner, and that’s what allows him to act so brazenly.”

She crossed her arms. “Explain.”

“Think about it. Whether or not our guy personally knew Brenda Miles, he clearly knew how real estate open houses worked. The choice to come in at the last minute, dressed as a workman, carrying the toolbox? He had reason to believe that approach would allow him to get close to the victim.”

“At least get him in the door,” Sampson agreed. “But how’d he know she’d be solo?”

“No clue. But, and I’m speculating here, he could have just taken a chance that she’d be alone. Or he could have scouted the place, watched her earlier in the day.”

Angelis asked, “What does he get out of this?”

“Aside from the rush? He’s living out his fantasies, certainly. Maybe he became fixated on the Son of Sam murders and decided to copy them. And then he wanted a more intimate experience and picked up the rope.”

“Assuming it is the same van and the same driver,” Sampson said, “why did he leave the scene so quickly when there was still some daylight? Do you think he wanted to be seen?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he is completely unstable and does not care,” I said.

Angelis shook her head. “This guy cared. Sounds like he was intentionally hiding his face. Witnesses said he was carrying the toolbox up on his right shoulder and holding his left arm and hand across the other side, like he was shielding himself from the headlight glare. Totally blocked anyone’s view of his face.”

Sampson said, “So maybe he wanted to be partially seen leaving the house, crossing the street to the van, and driving away fast. What’s the motivation for that?”

Sampson was looking at me. I threw up my hands. “Even with my doctorate in the psychology of criminal minds, John, I have no good answer for that.”

Chapter 47

Within minutes of meeting Charles Pendleton Little, Gary Soneji pegged him as one of those scrubbed, preening, and entitled guys he used to see walking around Princeton when he was growing up, young men of practiced cheer and false camaraderie, the sort who threw around references to their pedigrees, education, and wealth as proof of their innate superiority.

“My ancestors were among the first Jamestown colonists,” the headmaster of the Washington Day School told Soneji, settling into a leather chair behind a neatly organized desk in his office. “Six generations of my family have attended William and Mary, my alma mater. I’m blessed to have that kind of tradition and history behind me, despite not following my father or brother into the family banking business. I believe, however, that my background has given me a unique perspective on the value of constancy, rigor, and growth, all of which are at the heart of the Washington Day School experience and tradition.”

Soneji had sailed through an initial interview with a vice principal, reveling in openly using his Gary Soneji pseudonym for the first time while honing a somewhat nerdy but affable persona, like Peter O’Toole’s beloved Mr. Chips from the old film.

Wearing the toupee with the bald spot, the facial prosthetics, the green contact lenses, and the English-schoolboy glasses — a look that aged him by at least ten years — Soneji brightened. “Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Little. And this school is remarkable. I would be thrilled to be a part of the faculty here,” he said. After purposely hesitating, he added, “Though it’s only fair for me to let you know that I’m also interviewing at other high-caliber schools in the area.”

Soneji saw the light of competition spark in Little’s eyes. Gotcha. He demurred politely when the headmaster pressed for more details, feigning embarrassment for even bringing up the specter of a counteroffer.

A trim man in his fifties with a full head of silver hair slicked back, Little reminded Soneji of one of those bronzed Ralph Lauren male models of a certain age, instantly at home on a golf course or on a tennis court or in Bimini, the kind of guy who breezes through life with nary a whisper of effort. He was unused to being denied once he decided to acquire something.

After some persuasive back-and-forth — in which Soneji manipulated the headmaster into increasing his pay and decreasing his hours — they came to an agreement, with Soneji agreeing to decline his other (fictitious) offers.

“Excellent,” Little said, pushing a piece of paper across the desk. “Now, I’m sure you are aware that among our student body are children whose parents are politically powerful, titans of finance, or celebrities.”

“I am,” Soneji said, feeling a little rush.

“That’s a nondisclosure agreement barring you from ever talking publicly about the students, with significant penalties if the contract is broken. Please date and sign, and I’ll take you on a little tour and introduce you to Mrs. Ravisky, whom you’ll be substituting for when she goes on maternity leave.”

Soneji scanned the document and signed it. He had no issue with keeping the students’ private lives private.

“Well, Mr. Soneji,” Little said, taking the paper and extending his hand, “welcome to the Washington Day family. You’ll be here Tuesdays and Thursdays starting this Thursday, with a full schedule of classes.”

With his best country-club grin, Soneji pumped the headmaster’s hand. “I’m delighted.”

Little led him on a tour of the facilities, which covered almost four acres in Georgetown, a campus of brick buildings, green lawns, and stately elms. As they walked, Headmaster Little praised Washington Day’s excellent academics, athletics, art, and theater.

A bell rang as they entered one of the larger buildings that Little said held classrooms for grades nine through twelve. With the sea of students suddenly surging around them, Soneji tried to pay attention to all that Little was saying, but he found himself glancing at various teens, wondering who their parents were and whether they were famous.

Soneji had long been fascinated by fame. His mother and grandmother always had issues of People magazine around the house, and they talked about celebrities and royalty as if they were all on a first-name basis.

He thought about the Lindbergh case again and felt a thrill surge inside him. He remembered feeling like this after snatching Joyce Adams and bringing her to the old cabin in the Pine Barrens. He remembered how he felt when he overheard Conrad Talbot’s plans in a school hallway and formulated his own.

Committing murder was often short and sweet, Soneji thought as he trailed Little up a staircase. But taking a captive — well, that was different, especially if you could grab a child of a high-profile parent. That would be the stuff of legend. That would mean fame of his own.

“Mr. Soneji?”

Soneji startled at the casual sound of his assumed name and realized they’d stopped outside a classroom.

“Right here, sir,” he said and grinned at the headmaster, who was frowning.

“This will be your classroom,” Little said. “Let’s meet Mrs. Ravisky, then I’ll leave you two to sort out your transition into Washington Day life.”

Soneji increased the wattage on his smile one more time. “Nothing could make me happier, Mr. Little. Nothing.”

Chapter 48

For several days, I felt like we’d hit a stone wall on both the shootings and our investigation into Patrice Prince and his gang. About the only real progress was made by Detective Angelis in Fairfax County.

Or, rather, by Virginia’s state crime lab on behalf of Angelis. An analysis of nylon fibers found in Brenda Miles’s neck abrasions had definitively identified the item used to strangle her as an MFP utility rope. Oddly, the rope analysis had also picked up blood traces that didn’t belong to the murdered real estate agent or to any other human. It was deer blood.

When we told Chief Pittman about the lack of progress at our midweek staff meeting, he told us to shift our focus and put heat on Prince’s cousin Valentine Rodolpho in a way that would signal to the gang leader that we were not easing up on him or his crew.

When we reminded the chief that undercover officer Nancy Donovan had asked us to lay off Rodolpho, Pittman said, “I have a little bit more experience than she does. I think you guys following him and hassling him a little could very well cause him to open up to her more. Or am I wrong on the psychology of this, Dr. Cross?”

I thought about it. “You’re not wrong, Chief.”

“There you go. Let’s see how Valentine responds to a little flame to the tush.”

A half an hour later, we were in a squad car down the street from Rodolpho’s row house.

Sampson was irritated. “Flame to the tush?” he said. “I don’t know about the chief sometimes.”

“He has solid instincts and ten times more experience than both of us.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’ll be two hours until Valentino shows. I’m going to grab a nap.”

“Not this morning,” I said, gesturing toward the row house where Rodolpho was holding tight to the banister and limping down the stairs.

A black Lincoln Town Car rolled up, and we were after him again. Only this time, there was no trip to the Haitian coffee shop or the warehouse in Maryland.

The car took him to a known open-air drug market in Southeast DC, where we watched Rodolpho speak to a number of young guys who seemed to know him. He talked to them for fifteen minutes before getting back in the car and leaving.

“I didn’t see any money or drugs changing hands,” Sampson said as I put the car in gear to follow.

“Neither did I,” I said.

Over the course of the next two hours, Rodolpho visited three more areas known for drug dealing and had several more brief conversations with various young men and women. Again, no drugs or money appeared to change hands.

“I say we put a little flame to his tush,” I said when Prince’s cousin got out of the car for the fifth time and limped toward a group of young men outside a housing project in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“Let’s,” Sampson said, opening his door as soon as I’d parked.

We rolled toward them, coats open, badges displayed on our belts. Rodolpho had his back to us, but his young friends saw us coming.

One of them said something I didn’t catch, and they all bolted. Prince’s cousin turned and smiled, revealing a gold upper incisor.

“Ah,” he said after glancing at our badges.

“Why’d they run?”

“A learned response,” he said in a thick Haitian accent.

“Why didn’t you run, Valentino?” Sampson said.

“Valentine,” Rodolpho said, his eyes going cold. “And I cannot run.”

“We noticed that,” I said. “We also noticed you’ve spent the morning doing a whirlwind tour of known areas where hard drugs are sold.”

“Did you?” Rodolpho said.

“We did,” Sampson said. “What’s up with that, Valentino?”

Rodolpho’s nostrils flared. “It is my give-back. I talk with the troubled youth, try to get them out of trouble before they are in bigger trouble.”

I squinted at him skeptically. “You’re telling us you’re running some kind of street ministry?”

“If you want to call it that.”

John said, “We’re not buying it, Valentino. You tell your cousin that despite his humanitarian work and your street ministry, we are not letting go of this. We know that you and Patrice were involved in the murders of Tony Miller and Shay Mansion, and no matter how long it takes, we are going to prove it.”

If Rodolpho felt threatened, he did not show it. “Good luck, because I do not know who those people are. Unless we have further business, I will go — my ride is here. Do not bother to follow me. Next stop is for the physical therapy.”

Chapter 49

We followed Valentine Rodolpho anyway. He did go to physical therapy, spent an hour there, then returned to his row house. We called off the surveillance at midnight and went home.

We were back in the morning in time to see Rodolpho go to his favorite café, where he stayed for an hour. We watched a visibly angry Nancy Donovan leave the café first, followed fifteen minutes later by an even angrier Rodolpho, who gave us the finger as he hailed a taxi.

This went on for two mind-numbing days. Rodolpho continued his daily trips to the café, though we did not see Officer Donovan again. By Saturday, figuring Rodolpho and Prince had gotten our message, we called off the stakeout.

It was time to enlist the public’s help.

That evening, Maria, Damon, and I had a nice dinner at an Italian place on Capitol Hill. The next morning, we met Sampson and Nana Mama before Mass.

According to Nana Mama, ten o’clock Mass on Sunday at St. Anthony’s was always the best attended service of the week. While Maria, Damon, and Nana found seats, Sampson and I went to see Father Nathan Barry back in the vestibule. We admitted to Father Barry that we were making little headway on the investigation into Tony’s murder and I asked if I could appeal directly to the congregation for aid.

Father Barry agreed, and before the parish announcements at the end of Mass, he called me up and introduced me: “Alex Cross, a longtime parishioner and now a detective with Metro PD.”

“Thank you, Father,” I said as I stood behind the lectern. “As Father Barry said, I grew up attending this church, as did my partner, John Sampson.”

I paused and saw many heads nodding. I pressed on with my plea.

“Because we’re from here and because we still live here, we have taken the investigation into the murders of Tony Miller and Shay Mansion as a deeply personal mission. We have been working hard to solve these murders, but to be honest, we have not made the kind of progress we would like. We need your help.

“As devastating as these killings were to the families of Tony and Shay, we have all been damaged by their murders. Two of our own young men were taken by what we believe was gang violence. For the mothers of these boys to get some kind of peace, their sons’ killers must be brought to justice. I believe this community needs that too.

“If you know anything, please call me or John Sampson through the Metro main number. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can leave your information on the department’s tip line. Thank you.”

I nodded to the parishioners and to Father Barry, then went back to my seat. Maria took my hand. Nana Mama whispered, “Well said.”

Damon had fallen asleep in my grandmother’s arms. I winked at her and squeezed my wife’s hand, hoping my words had been enough to shake something loose. When the service was over, we left the church.

I carried a still sleepy Damon down the church steps as many parishioners we’d known for years promised to help us in any way they could. Maria strolled over to my right to talk with Father Barry. Nana Mama was on my left, chatting with several old friends.

“Think it was enough?” I said to Sampson as I shifted Damon in my arms.

“Yeah,” he said, his head slowly craning around. “If someone in there knew something, I think we’ll hear about—”

He stared past me, his eyes widening. “Gun!” he whispered. “Eleven o’clock on the street and coming at us, Alex!”

I snapped my head around, saw a black Suburban heading our way. The rear passenger-side window was down, and a rifle barrel was sticking out.

“Gun!” Sampson roared. “Everybody, down!”

The gunman in the Suburban opened up, firing in bursts. Damon began to scream. A woman next to Sampson was hit, and panic took over.

Ignoring my son’s screams, the shooting, and the people running, I took two steps, tackled Nana Mama to the ground, and used my body to shield her and Damon as bullets pinged off the concrete all around us. Then I heard shots coming from much closer, and I looked up to see Sampson squared off in a horse stance and pouring lead at the open rear window of the Suburban before it screeched off up the street.

“You okay, Nana?” I gasped over Damon’s screeches.

“If you get off me, I will be!”

Maria!

I jumped up with Damon still in my arms and looked around frantically. Sampson was gone, and several people who’d been standing close to us now lay bleeding on the sidewalk in front of the church.

“Alex!”

My terrified wife rushed toward me, blood spattered on her face and down the front of her maternity dress. She ran into my arms, sobbing. “They shot Father Barry! Right next to me. He’s dead!”

The three of us stood there shaking, arms wrapped around each other.

“I go home, Mama?” Damon cried. “I go home, Daddy?”

“Soon, buddy,” I said to my son, feeling more vulnerable than I ever had. To my wife, I said, “We need to help the wounded. We can cry afterward. Okay?”

Maria shuddered, then nodded and pulled away. I handed her Damon, whose crying had eased.

Sirens wailed toward us as the first of the ambulances arrived.

Sampson returned.

“What the hell was that about?” I asked.

“I think Prince got our message and decided to reply,” Sampson said.

“You think we were the targets?”

“Yeah, Alex, I do.”

Chapter 50

Hurrying back downtown to headquarters later that afternoon, I knew I was late for a briefing with chief of detectives George Pittman, who had been horrified to hear that a Catholic priest had been gunned down in front of his own church and outraged that Sampson and I might have been the true targets.

While Pittman attended a sit-down with the chief of Metro about everything, I’d taken a walk with Ellen Bovers, the FBI agent who’d gotten us the CCTV footage of the white van.

When I returned, Sampson was already at his desk. “Where you been?”

“Out talking to my FBI friend. She tells me they’re becoming interested in Prince too.”

“Good, because we’ve got a big problem.”

I felt like we’d been constantly bombarded with big problems, one after another. The gang killings of two teens, the Bulldog murders, the drive-by shooting — and the slaying of Father Barry. How close my wife, my son, and my grandmother had all come to dying. How close I’d come.

“Tell me,” I said wearily.

“Donovan? The undercover officer? She’s missed her last few check-ins.”

“She could be deep into something and unable to communicate.”

“Or Rodolpho figured her out. Or Prince.”

We were in Pittman’s office five minutes later. Kurtz and Diehl were there too, as was Lieutenant Stacey Lindahl, Donovan’s narcotics commander.

“Shut the door,” Pittman said. “I want this kept quiet. I mean, if they’ll gun down a priest, they’ll do anything. Lieutenant? Can you bring us up to speed?”

Lindahl nodded, looking deeply concerned. “Donovan last checked in three days ago. She is supposed to be in contact once every twenty-four hours.”

“We saw her four days ago,” Sampson said. “At that café Rodolpho goes to all the time.”

I nodded. “She seemed upset.”

The lieutenant nodded. “She was angry that day when she checked in. She’d asked you to back off and yet you didn’t. Rodolpho told her you were following him.”

Pittman held up his hands. “That was my call, Lieutenant. We wanted to send Prince a message that we were not giving up on the Miller and Mansion murders.”

“I understand, Chief, but Donovan didn’t. She said she’d been getting closer to Rodolpho, but the surveillance spooked him. He’d gotten pissed with her and told her to leave.”

“Like I said, my call,” Pittman said. “But now I’m asking, how do we handle this?”

Lindahl said, “I’m concerned. But my gut says give her another day. She might be somewhere she can’t communicate from. Or she’s on the verge of something big and trying not to do anything to jeopardize it.”

Detective Kurtz said, “With all due respect, Lieutenant, you could also assume Donovan’s cover is blown, haul in every known member of LMC Fifty-One, and put the squeeze on them, bottom up, until we find her.”

Diehl said, “I agree. There’s a cop involved. They know the penalties. Someone will talk.”

Pittman thought for several moments. “I spoke with the commissioner right before I came here. He knows she’s missing and said that we were to prioritize her welfare, not the undercover operation.”

Lindahl looked somewhat unhappy about that but agreed. “Okay, there it is, then. I’ll get you a list of all known members of LMC Fifty-One in the greater DC area, along with last known addresses and aliases.”

I said, “Can I make a suggestion? Before you start hauling them in, put a few teams outside Rodolpho’s, at that café, at the crab-boil place Prince loves in Chesapeake Beach, and at the warehouse in Davidsonville.”

“Good idea, Cross,” Kurtz said. “Be in position if the rats start abandoning ship.”

Sampson raised his hand, said, “Since we found the place, we’d like to be in Davidsonville. See what they’re doing in there.”

Pittman thought about that. “I don’t know if we have enough to warrant a search.”

Diehl said, “Really? They tried to kill two of our people, they murdered a priest, they’ve done God knows what to Donovan, and it’s not enough?”

The chief said, “Problem is, Detective, no witnesses saw who was behind the gun at St. Anthony’s, and the car with the license plate Sampson reported had been stolen.”

John said, “That Suburban will have at least three of my bullets in it.”

“I’m sure,” Pittman said. “But until we know for certain that LMC Fifty-One was behind the shooting or Donovan’s disappearance or both, best we can do is put surveillance teams in place and start bringing them in. Let’s build the pressure fast until something pops.”