Pop Goes the Weasel (31 page)

There was a sharp bend in the hallway near the exit to the parking lot. I came around the turn and saw him. I couldn’t believe
it. The Weasel was right there.

He was the first to speak. “What a surprise, Dr. Cross. Sneaking away from the madding—or is it ‘maddening’?—crowd. Tail
between your legs today? Don’t fret, you did all right upstairs. Was that you yelling in the halls? Primal screams are the
best, aren’t they?”

“What the hell do you want, Shafer?” I asked him. “We’re not supposed to meet or talk like this.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, wiped his blond hair away from his eyes. “You think I care about rules? I don’t give a shit
about rules.
What do I want?
My good name restored. I want my family not to have to go through any more of this. I want it all.”

“Then you shouldn’t have killed all those people. Especially Patsy Hampton.”

Shafer smiled. “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you? You don’t back down. I admire that, to a degree. I played the game
of being a hero once myself. In the army. It’s interesting for a while.”

“But it’s much more interesting to be a raving lunatic murderer,” I said.

“See? You just don’t back down from your bullheaded opinions. I love it. You’re wonderful.”

“It’s not opinion, Shafer. You know it, and so do I.”

“Then prove it, Cross. Win your pitiful, sodding case, will you? Beat me fair and square in a court of law. I even gave you
a home-court advantage.”

I started to walk toward him; I couldn’t help myself. He stood his ground.

“This is all an insane game to you. I’ve met assholes like you before, Shafer. I’ve beaten better. I’ll beat you.”

He laughed in my face. “I sincerely doubt it.”

I walked right past him in the narrow tunnel.

He pushed me—
hard
, from behind. He was a big man, and even stronger than he looked.

I stumbled, almost went over onto the stone floor. I wasn’t expecting the outburst of anger from him. He held it in so well
in court, but it was close to the surface. The madness that
was
Geoffrey Shafer. The violence.

“Then go ahead, beat me. See if you can,” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Beat me right here, right now. I don’t think
you can, Cross. I know you can’t.”

Shafer took a quick step toward me. He was agile and athletic, not just strong. We were almost the same size—six-two or
-three, two hundred pounds. I remembered that he’d been an army officer, then MI6. He still looked to be in excellent shape.

Shafer pushed me again with both hands. He made a loud grunting noise. “If you’ve beaten better, then I should be a pushover.
Isn’t that so? I’m just a
pushover.
”

I almost threw a punch; I wanted to. I ached to take him down, to wipe the smug, superior look off his face.

Instead, I grabbed him hard. I slammed Shafer up against the stone tunnel wall and held him there.

“Not now. Not here,” I said in a hoarse, raw whisper. “I’m not going to hit you, Shafer. What? Have you run to the newspapers
and TV? But I am going to bring you down. Soon.”

He came out with a crazy laugh. “You are fucking hilarious, do you know that? You’re a
scream
. I love it.”

I walked away from Shafer in the dark tunnel. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I wanted to beat the answers out
of him, get a confession. I wanted to know about Christine. I had so many questions, but I knew he wouldn’t answer them. He
was here to bait me, to
play
.

“You’re losing… everything,” he said to my back.

I think I could have killed Geoffrey Shafer on the spot.

I almost turned, but I didn’t. I opened the creaking door and went outside instead. Sunlight streamed into my eyes, half blinding
me for a dizzying moment. Shading my face with an arm, I climbed the stone stairs to the parking area, where I got another
unwanted surprise.

A dozen grim-faced members of the press, including some well-known reporters, were gathered in the back parking lot. Someone
had alerted them; someone had tipped them off that I was coming out this way.

I looked back at the gray metal door, but Geoffrey Shafer didn’t come out behind me. He had retreated and disappeared back
into the basement.

“Detective Cross,” I heard a reporter call my name. “You’re losing this case. You know that, don’t you?”

Yes, I knew. I was losing everything. I just didn’t know what I could do to stop it.

THE FOLLOWING DAY was taken up with my cross-examination by Catherine Fitzgibbon. Catherine did a good job of redressing some
of the harm done by Jules Halpern, but not all of it. Halpern consistently broke up her rhythm with his objections. Like so
many recent high-profile trials, this one was maddening. It should have been easy to convict and put away Geoffrey Shafer,
but that wasn’t the case.

Two days later, we got our best chance to win, and Shafer himself gave it to us, almost as if he were daring us. We now realized
that he was even crazier than we’d thought. The game was his life; nothing else seemed to matter.

Shafer agreed to take the stand. I think I was the only one in the courtroom who wasn’t completely surprised that he was testifying,
that he was playing the game right in front of us.

Catherine Fitzgibbon was almost certain that Jules Halpern had advised, begged, and warned him not to do it, but there Shafer
was anyway, striding toward the witness stand, looking as if he had been called up there to be ceremoniously knighted by the
queen.

He couldn’t resist the stage, could he? He looked every bit as confident and in control as he had the night I arrested him
for Patsy Hampton’s murder. He was dressed in a navy-blue double-breasted suit, white shirt, and gold tie. Not a single blond
hair was out of place, nor was there any hint of the anger that was boiling just under the surface of his meticulously groomed
exterior.

Jules Halpern addressed him in conversational tones, but I was sure that he felt uneasy about this unnecessary gamble.

“Colonel Shafer, first, I want to thank you for coming to the witness stand. This is completely voluntary on your part. From
the very beginning, you’ve stated that you wanted to come here to clear your name.”

Shafer smiled politely and then cut off his lawyer with a raised hand. The lawyers on both sides of the bar exchanged looks.
What was happening? What was he going to do?

I leaned way forward in my seat. It struck me that Jules Halpern might actually
know
that his client was guilty. If so, he wouldn’t be able to cross-examine him. Legally, he couldn’t ask questions that disguised
the real facts as he knew them.

This was the only way Shafer could have his moment in the sun: a soliloquy. Once called to the stand, Shafer could give a
speech. It was unusual but absolutely legal—and if Halpern knew that his client was guilty, it was the only way Shafer could
take the stand and not be incriminated by his own attorney.

Shafer had the floor. “If you will please excuse me, Mr. Halpern, I believe I can talk to these good people myself. I really
can manage. You see, I don’t need a lot of expert help to tell the simple truth.”

Jules Halpern stepped back, nodded sagely, and tried to keep his poise. What else could he do under the circumstances? If
he hadn’t known before that his client was an egomaniac or insane, he surely knew it now.

Shafer looked toward the jury. “It has been stated here in court that I am with British intelligence, and that I was MI-Six,
a spy. I’m afraid that I am actually a rather unglamorous agent—Double-or-Nothing, if you will.”

The light, well-aimed jab at himself drew laughter in the courtroom.

“I am a simple bureaucrat, like so many others who toil away their days and nights in Washington. I follow well-established
procedures at the embassy. I get approvals for virtually everything I do. My homelife is simple and orderly as well. My wife
and I have been married nearly sixteen years. We love each other dearly. We’re devoted to our three children.

“So I want to apologize to my wife and children. I am so frightfully sorry for this hellish ordeal they’ve had to go through.
To my son, Rob, and the twins, Tricia and Erica, I’m so sorry. If I’d had any idea what a circus this would become, I would
have insisted on maintaining diplomatic immunity rather than trying to clear my name, our name,
their
name.

“While I’m making heartfelt apologies, I’ll make one to all of you for being a bit of a bore right now. It’s just that when
you’re accused of murder, something so heinous, so unthinkable, you want desperately to get it off your chest. You want to
tell the truth more than anything else in the world. So that’s what I’m doing today.

“You’ve heard the evidence—and there simply isn’t any. You’ve heard character witnesses. And now you’ve heard from me. I
did not kill Detective Patsy Hampton. I think you all know that, but I wanted to say it to you myself. Thank you for listening,”
he said, and bowed slightly in his seat.

Shafer was brief, but he was poised and articulate and, unfortunately, very believable. He always held eye contact with the
jury members. His words weren’t nearly as important as the way he delivered them.

Catherine Fitzgibbon came forward to do the cross-examination. She was careful with Shafer at first; she knew he had the jury
on his side for the moment. She waited until near the end of her cross-exam to go after Shafer where he might be most vulnerable.

“Your statement was very nice, Mr. Shafer. Now, as you sit before this jury, you claim that your relationship with Dr. Cassady
was strictly professional, that you did not have a sexual relationship with her, correct? Remember, you are under oath.”

“Yes, absolutely. She was, and hopefully will continue to be, my therapist.”

“Notwithstanding the fact that she admits to having a sexual relationship with you?”

Shafer held his hand out toward Jules Halpern, signaling for him not to object. “I believe that the court record will show
that she did
not
admit to such.”

Fitzgibbon frowned. “I don’t follow? Why do
you
think she didn’t answer counsel?”

Shafer shot back, “That’s so obvious: because she didn’t care to
dignify
such a question.”

“And when she hung her head, sir, and looked down at her lap? She was nodding assent.”

Shafer now looked at the jury and shook his head in amazement. “You misread her completely. You missed the point again, Counselor.
Allow me to illustrate, if I may. As King Charles said before being beheaded, ‘Give me my cloak lest they think I tremble
from fear.’ Dr. Elizabeth Cassady was deeply embarrassed by your associate’s crude suggestion, and so was my family, and so
am I.”

Geoffrey Shafer looked at the prosecutor with steely eyes. He then acknowledged the jury again. “And so am I.”

THE TRIAL was almost over, and now came the really hard part: waiting for the verdict. That Tuesday, the jurors retired to
the jury room to commence their deliberations in the murder trial of Geoffrey Shafer. I allowed myself to actually think the
unthinkable—that Shafer might be set free.

Sampson and I sat in the rear row of the courtroom and watched the twelve members depart: eight men and four women. John had
come to court several times, calling it the “best and sleaziest show this side of the Oval Office,” but I knew he was there
to give me support.

“The son of a bitch is guilty; he’s mad as little Davey Berkowitz,” Sampson said as he watched Shafer. “But he has a lot of
good actors on his side: doting wife, doting mistress, well-paid lawyers, Silly Billy. He could get away with it.”

“It happens,” I agreed. “Juries are hard to read. And getting harder.”

I watched as Shafer courteously shook hands with the members of his defense team. Jules and Jane Halpern both had forced smiles
on their faces.
They know, don’t they? Their client is the Weasel, a mass murderer
.

“Geoffrey Shafer has the ability to make people believe in him when he needs to. He’s the best actor I’ve seen,” I said.

Then John left and I snuck out the back way again. This time neither Shafer nor the press was lying in wait downstairs or
in the rear parking lot.

In the lot, I heard a woman’s voice, and I stopped moving.
I thought it was Christine
. A dozen or so people were walking to their cars, seemingly unaware of me. I felt fevered and hot as I checked them all.
None of them was her. Where had the voice come from?

I took a ride in the old Porsche and listened to George Benson on the CD player. I remembered the police report about Shafer’s
thrill-seeking ride that ended near Dupont Circle. It seemed a strangely appealing prospect. I took my own advice not to try
to guess how the jury would decide the case. It could go either way.

I let myself think about Christine, and I choked up. It was too much. Tears began to stream down my cheeks. I had to pull
over.

I took a deep breath, then another. The pain in my chest was still as fresh as it had been the day she disappeared in Bermuda.
She had tried to stay away from me, but I wouldn’t let her. I was responsible for what had happened to her.

I drove around Washington, riding in gently aimless circles. I finally reached home more than two and a half hours after leaving
the courthouse.

Nana came running out of the house. She must have seen me pull into the driveway. She’d obviously been waiting for me.

I leaned out of the driver’s-side window. The deejay was still talking congenially on Public Radio.

“What is it, old woman? What’s the matter now?” I asked Nana.

“Ms. Fitzgibbon called you, Alex. The jury is coming back. They have a verdict.”

I WAS APPREHENSIVE as could be. But I was also curious beyond anything I could remember.

I backed out of the driveway and sped downtown. I got back to the courthouse in less than fifteen minutes. The crowd on E
Street was even larger and more unruly than it had been at the height of the trial. At least a half-dozen Union Jacks waved
in the wind; contrasting with them were American flags, including some painted across bare chests and faces.