Pop Goes the Weasel (22 page)

“You or me first?” Detective Hampton asked, after we’d ordered coffee. We were seated at a table in the City Limits diner,
near a window looking out on Connecticut Avenue.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what this is about,” I told her.

She sipped her coffee and gave me a look over the cup’s rim. She was a strong-willed, confident person. Her eyes told me that
much.

“You really didn’t know someone else was working the Jane Does?”

I shook my head. “Pittman said that the cases were closed. I took him at his word. He suspended some good detectives for working
the cases after hours.”

“There’s a lot of seriously nasty crap going on in the department. So what’s new, though?” she said as she set down her cup.
She gave a deep sigh. “I thought I could deal with it by myself. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Pittman assigned you to the Jane Does? Personally?”

She nodded, then her blue eyes narrowed. “He assigned me to the Glover and Cardinal murders, and any others I wanted to look
into. Gave me free rein.”

“And you say you have something?”

“Maybe. I’ve got a possible suspect. He’s involved in a role-playing game that features victims’ being murdered, mostly in
Southeast. It’s all after-the-fact stuff, so he could have read the news stories and then fantasized about them. He works
at the British Embassy.”

This was a new piece of information, and it surprised me. “How far have you gone with this?”

“Not to Pittman, if that’s what you mean. I’ve done a little discreet checking on the suspect. Trouble is, he seems to be
a solid citizen. Very good at his job—supposedly. At least that’s the official word from the embassy. Nice family in Kalorama.
I’ve been watching Shafer a little, hoping I’d get lucky. His first name is Geoffrey.”

I knew that she was supposed to be a little bit of a loose cannon, and that she didn’t suffer fools gladly. “You’re out here
alone tonight?” I asked her.

Hampton shrugged. “That’s how I usually operate. Partners slow me down. Chief Pittman knows how I like to work. He gave me
the green light. All green, all day long.”

I knew she was waiting for me to give her something—if I had anything. I decided to play along. “We found a cab that the
killer apparently used in Southeast. He kept it in a garage in Eckington.”

“Anybody see the suspect in the neighborhood?” She asked the right first question.

“The landlady saw him. I’d like to show her pictures of your guy. Or do you want to do it yourself?”

Her face was impassive. “I’ll do it. First thing in the morning. Anything revealing in the apartment?”

I wanted to be straight with her. She’d initiated the meeting, after all. “Photographs of me and my family covered a wall
in a closet. They were taken of us in Bermuda. While we were on vacation. He was there watching us all the time.”

Hampton’s face softened. “I heard your fiancée disappeared in Bermuda. Word gets around.”

“There were photographs of Christine, too,” I said.

Her blue eyes became sad. I got a quick look behind her tough facade. “I’m really sorry about your loss.”

“I haven’t given up yet,” I told her. “Listen, I don’t want any credit for solving these cases; just let me help. He called
me at home last night.
Somebody
did. Told me to back off. I assume that he meant this investigation, but I’m not supposed to be on it. If Pittman hears about
us—”

Detective Hampton interrupted me. “Let me think about everything you’ve said. You know that Pittman will totally crucify me
if he finds out. You have no idea. Trouble is, I don’t trust him.” Hampton’s gaze was intense and direct. “Don’t mention any
of this to your buddies, or Sampson. You never know. Just let me sleep on it. I’ll try to do the right thing. I’m not such
a hard-ass, really. Just a little weird, you know.”

“Aren’t we all?” I said, and smiled. Hampton was a tough detective, but I felt okay about her. I took something out of my
pocket. A beeper.

“Keep this. If you get in trouble or get another lead, you can beep me anytime. If you find something out, please let me know.
I’ll do the same. If Shafer’s the one, I want to talk to him before we bring him in. This
is
personal for me. You can’t imagine how personal.”

Hampton continued to make eye contact, studying me. She reminded me of someone I’d known a while back, another complicated
woman cop, named Jezzie Flanagan. “I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.”

“All right. Thanks for calling me in on this.”

She stood. “You’re not in on it yet. Like I said, I’ll let you know.” Then she touched my hand. “I really am sorry about your
friend.”

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

Over 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 a 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 our
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 the 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
her stakeout of Shafer’s town house in Kalorama Heights.

He had arrived home from work before six and remained there until just past nine. He had a nice-looking expat family—three
children, a wife, a nanny. He lived very well. Nothing about his life or surroundings suggested that 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 at 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 blond 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.”

“Good night, 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 ever really get through
that 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’d 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 now 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 at the playgrounds and probably even at the Sojourner Truth School.

“You sound like that poor excuse for an NBA point guard Allen 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 triumphant
little 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. Damon yawned and 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 had been out late because I was observing the son of a bitch who might 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.”

THE NEXT EVENING at around six, I took off early from work and went to Damon’s choir practice at the Sojourner Truth School.
I’d put together a good-sized file on Geoffrey Shafer, but I didn’t have anything that concretely linked him to any of the
murders. Neither did Patsy Hampton. Maybe he was just a fantasy-game player. Or maybe the Weasel was just being more careful
since his taxi had been found.

It tore me up to go to the Truth School, but I had to go. I realized how hard it must be for Damon and Jannie to go there
every day. The school brought back too many memories of Christine. It was as if I were suffocating, all the breath being squeezed
out of my lungs. At the same time, I was in a cold sweat that coated the back of my neck and my forehead.

A little while after the practice began, Jannie quietly reached over and took my hand. I heard her sigh softly. We were all
doing a lot more touching and emoting since Bermuda, and I don’t think we have ever been closer as a family.

She and I held hands through most of the choir practice, which included the Welsh folk song “All Through the Night,” Bach’s
“My heart ever faithful, sing praises,” and a very special arrangement of the spiritual “O Fix Me.”

I kept imagining that Christine would suddenly appear at the school, and once or twice I actually turned back toward the archway
that led to her office. Of course, she wasn’t there, which filled me with inconsolable sadness and the deepest emptiness.
I finally cleared my mind of all thought, just shut down, and let my whole self be the music, the glorious sound of the boys’
voices.

After we got home from the choir practice, Patsy Hampton checked in with me from her surveillance post. It was a little past
eight. Nana and the kids were putting out cold chicken, slices of pears and apples, cheddar cheese, a salad of endive and
Bibb lettuce.

Shafer was still home, and of all things, a children’s birthday party was going on there, Patsy reported. “Lots of smiling
kids from the neighborhood, plus a rent-a-clown called Silly Billy. Maybe we’re on the wrong track here, Alex.”

“I don’t think so. I think our instincts are right about him.”

I told her I would come over at around nine to keep her company; that was the time when Shafer usually left the house.

Just past eight-thirty, the phone in the kitchen rang again as we were digging into the cold, well-spiced, delicious chicken.
Nana frowned as I picked up the phone.

I recognized the voice.