"Please, Kyle. Just leave me alone for tonight."
"I wish this could wait, Alex. I'm afraid it can't. I'm on my way back to Quantico now. Where can we talk?"
I shook my head and felt anger building up inside. I led him to the sun porch, where I keep an old upright piano that still plays about as well as I do. I sat down on the creaky piano bench, and tapped out a few notes of Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."
Kyle recognized the tune and he grinned. "I am sorry about this."
"Not sorry enough, obviously. Go ahead."
"You heard about the Citibank-branch robbery out in Silver Spring? The murders at the bank manager's house?" he asked. "Manager's husband, their nanny, three-year-old son?"
"How could I not hear about it?" I said and looked away from Kyle. The brutal, senseless murders had saddened me and knotted my stomach when I read about them. The story was all over the papers and TV. Even cops in DC were outraged.
"I didn't really understand what I heard so far. What the hell happened at the manager's house? The perps had the money, right? Why did they have to kill the hostages if they had the money? That's what you're here to tell me, right?"
Kyle nodded his head. "They were late getting out of the bank. The explicit order was that the crew member inside had to be out with the money by eight-ten exactly. Alex, the crew member at the bank was less than a minute late. Less than a minute! So they murdered the thirty-three-year-old father, the three-year-old boy, and the couple's nanny. The nanny was twenty-five, and she was pregnant. They executed the father, the three-year-old, the nanny. You see the murder scene, Alex?"
I rolled my shoulders, twisted my neck. I could feel the tension invading my body. I saw it, all right. How could they have murdered those people for no reason?
I really wasn't in the mood for police business, though, not even a bad case like this one. "Which brings you out to my house tonight? On my son's christening day?"
"Oh, hell." Kyle suddenly smiled and lightened his tone. "I had to come over to see the promised child anyway. Unfortunately, this case is really intense. There's a possibility the crew is from DC. Even if they're not from Washington, there's still a possibility somebody here might know them, Alex. I need you to look for the killers before they do it again. We have the feeling this isn't a one-shot. Alex, your baby is a beauty, though."
"Yeah, you're a beauty too," I said to Kyle. "You are truly beyond compare."
"Three-year-old boy, the father, a nanny," Kyle said one more time before he left the party. He was about to go out through the door in the sun porch when he turned to me and said, "You're the right person for this. They murdered a family, Alex."
As soon as Kyle was gone, I went looking for Christine, but she had already left. My heart sank. She had taken Alex and left without saying goodbye, without a single word.
Chapter Four
Reluctantly, the Mastermind parked on the street, then walked toward an abandoned project within a stone's throw of the Anacostia River. A full moon cast a cold, hard, bone-white light on half a dozen crumbling, three-story row houses with open, screen less windows. He wondered if he had the stomach for this. "Into the valley of death," he whispered.
To his further dismay, he found the Barkers' hideout was in the row house farthest from the street. They were ensconced on the third floor. Their lovely little lodging was furnished with a grimy, stained mattress and a rusted lawn chair. Greasy wrappings from KFC and Mickey D's were scattered on the floor.
As he entered their room, he held up a couple of oven-warm pizza boxes as well as a brown paper bag. "Chianti and pizza! This is a celebration, isn't it?"
Brianne and Errol were evidently hungry and dug into the pizza pies immediately. They barely greeted him, which he took as disrespect. The Mastermind busied himself pouring Chianti into plastic cups he had brought for the occasion. He passed around the cups and then made a toast.
"To perfect crimes," he said.
"Yeah, right. Perfect crimes." Errol Parker frowned as he took two big sips. "If that's what you call what happened in Silver Spring. Three murders that could have been avoided."
"That's what I call it, "said the Mastermind. "Absolutely perfect. You'll see."
They ate and drank in silence. The Parkers seemed moody, even defiant. Brianne kept sneaking looks at him. Suddenly, Errol Parker began to rub his throat. He coughed repeatedly. Then he gasped loudly. "Aaagh! Aaagh!" His throat and his chest were burning. He couldn't breathe. He tried to stand, but he immediately toppled over.
"What is it? What's wrong, Errol? Errol? "Brianne asked, alarmed and afraid.
Then she grabbed at her throat too. It was on fire. So was her chest. She shot up from the mattress. She dropped the cup of wine and held her throat with both hands.
"What the hell is happening? What's happening to us? "she screamed at the Mastermind. "What did you do?"
"Isn't it obvious?" he answered in the coldest, most remote voice she had ever heard.
The tenement room seemed to be whirling out of control. Errol spasmed, then fell to the floor and had a seizure. Brianne bit a gash into her tongue. Both of them were still clutching at their throats. They were choking, gagging, unable to breathe. Their faces had taken on a dusky hue.
The Mastermind stood across the room and watched. The paralysis from the poison they had imbibed was progressive and extremely painful. It started with the facial muscles, then moved to the glottis in the back of the throat. The Parkers obviously couldn't swallow. Finally, it affected the respiratory organs. A high enough dose of Anectine led to cardiac arrest.
It took less than fifteen minutes for the two of them to die, as mercilessly as those they had murdered in Silver Spring, Maryland. They lay motionless, spread-eagled on the floor. He was quite sure that they were dead, but he checked the vital signs anyway. Their features were unbearably contorted and their bodies twisted. They looked as if they had fallen from a great height.
"To perfect crimes," the Mastermind intoned over the grotesquely sprawled bodies.
Chapter Five
I tried to call Christine early the next morning, but she was still screening her calls and wouldn't pick up. She'd never done that to me and it stung. I couldn't get it out of my head as I showered and dressed. Finally, I went to work. I was hurt, but I was also a little angry.
Sampson and I were out on the streets before nine. The more I read and thought about the Citibank robbery in Silver Spring, the more troubled and confused I was about the exact sequence of events. It didn't make sense. Three innocent people had been murdered for what reason? The bank robbers already had their money. What kind of cruel and twisted sickos were they? Why kill a father and child and the family's nanny?
It turned out to be a long and consistently frustrating day. Sampson and I were still on the job at nine that night. I tried calling Christine at home again. She still wasn't picking up, or maybe she wasn't there.
I have a couple of tattered black notebooks filled with names of street contacts. Sampson and I had already talked to more than two dozen of the prime ones. That still left plenty for tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. I was pretty well hooked into the case already. Why kill three people at the bank manager's house? Why destroy an innocent family?