"I remember some of the dreams I've had lately. They're so violent, Alex. And they're so real. The other night you were chasing the Weasel again, and he killed you. He stood there calmly and shot you again and again. Then he came to kill the baby and me. I woke up screaming."
I finally took her hand. "Geoffrey Shafer is dead, Christine," I said.
"You don't know that. Not for sure," Christine argued and pulled her hand away from me. She was angry again.
We walked along the edge of the Anacostia River in silence. After a while she told me about some of her other dreams. I sensed she didn't want me to interpret them. Just to listen. The dreams were all violent -people Christine knew and loved were mutilated and murdered.
Christine finally stopped walking at the corner of Fifth near my house. "Alex, I have to tell you something else. I've been going to a psychiatrist, Dr. Belair, in Mitchellville. He's helping me."
Christine continued to stare into my eyes. "I don't want to see you anymore, Alex. I've thought about this for weeks. I've talked about it with Dr. Belair. You can't change my mind, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try."
She took her briefcase from me, then she walked away. She didn't let me say a word, but I would have found it hard to speak anyway. I had seen the truth in her eyes. She didn't love me anymore. What made it so much worse was that I still loved her, and of course, I loved our baby boy.
Chapter Nine
I really didn't have a choice, so I threw myself into the bank robbery and multiple murders for the next couple of days. The newspapers and TV were still filled with sensationalistic stories about the murdered father, child, and nanny. The picture of three-year-old Tommy Buccieri seemed to be everywhere. Did the killer want us to feel outrage? I wondered.
Sampson and I spent most of the next day trying to find Errol and Brianne Parker. The more I followed up on the Parkers with the FBI, the clearer it got that they had probably been robbing small banks in Maryland and Virginia for at least a year. The job at Silver Spring was different. If they had done it, something had happened to change their style; they had become brutal, heartless killers. Why?
Sampson and I stopped for lunch at a Boston Market around one o'clock. It wasn't our first, or even second choice, but it was handy and the big man was hungry, wouldn't be denied. I could have continued on without eating.
"You think the Parkers are off doing another job?" he asked me as we dug into orders of meatloaf, corn, and mashed potatoes.
"If they're the ones who did the bank in Maryland, they're probably hiding out. They know the heat is on. Errol sneaks off to South Carolina sometimes. He's a fisherman. Kyle already has FBI agents on the ground there."
"You ever spend time with Errol?" Sampson wanted to know.
"Family get-tog ethers mostly, but he only came to a few that I can remember. I went fishing with him once. He was like a little kid as long as we were catching large-mouth bass and two- or three-pound catfish. Maria always liked Errol."
Sampson kept eating his meatloaf and double order of mashed potatoes. "You think about Maria much?"
I scrunched down into my seat. I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about this now. "Different things remind me of her. Especially Sundays. We'd sleep until noon sometimes, treat ourselves to a nice brunch. Or visit the duck pond near the river. St. Tony's. Long walks in Garfield Park. It's a sad, confusing thing, John that she died so young. It especially hurts that I could never solve her murder."
Sampson kept on hounding me with questions. He gets that way sometimes.
"You and Christine are doing all right?"
"No," I finally admitted. But I couldn't quite get out the whole truth. "She can't get over what happened with Geoffrey Shafer. I'm not even sure that the Weasel is dead. We finished here?"
Sampson grinned. "Food, or my cross-examination?"
"Let's go. Let's find Errol and Brianne Parker. Solve the bank robbery. Take the rest of the day off."
Chapter Ten
Around seven o'clock Sampson and I decided to take a dinner break. We figured we'd be working late, probably past midnight. It was that kind of case. I went home for supper with the kids and Nana Mama.
I ate, and complimented Nana on her cooking, but I didn't taste much of anything. I was keeping the Christine thing bottled up inside me. Not too bright on my part.
Sampson and I agreed to meet around ten to check out a few night crawlers who would be easier to find after darkness fell. At quarter past ten, we were trolling Southeast again in my car.
Sampson spotted a small-time drug hustler and snitch we knew. Darryl Snow was hanging out with his boys in front of a bar and grill that kept changing its name and now was called Used-To-Be's.
Sampson and I hopped out of the Porsche and came up fast on Snow. He had nowhere to run. As always, Darryl was a drug-hustler fashion-plate: Crimson nylon shorts over blue nylon pants, Polo T-shirt, Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker, Oakley shades.
"Hey there, Snowman," Sampson said in his deep voice. "You're melting away to nothing."
Even Snow's hustler friends laughed. Darryl was around five eleven, and I doubt he weighed a hundred and twenty pounds with his clothes on, designer labels and all.
"Walk and talk with me, Darryl," I told him. "This is not open to discussion."
His head shook like a dashboard doll's, but he reluctantly went along. "I don' wanna talk to you, Cross."
"Enrol and Brianne Parker," I said, once we were far enough away from the others.
He and I continued the floor-to-floor search. The building was damp and smelled of urine, feces, mildew. The stench was unbearable.
"I've seen better Holiday Inns," I said and Sampson finally laughed.
I shoved open another door, and knew by the putrescent odor that we'd found dead bodies. I waved the flashlight and saw Brianne and Errol. They no longer looked human. The building was warm and decomposition began faster. I calculated they'd been dead for at least a day, probably more.
I shone the Maglite flashlight at Errol first, then at his wife. I sighed and felt a little sick inside. I thought of Maria and how she had liked something about Errol. When he was little, my son Damon had called him Uncle Errol.
The corneas of Brianne's eyes were cloudy, as if she had cataracts. Her mouth was wide open, the jaw slack. Errol looked pretty much the same. I thought of the family that had been executed in Silver Spring. What kind of killers were we dealing with? Why had they killed the Parkers?
Brianne's top had been removed, and I didn't see it anywhere in the room. Her jeans were pulled down, exposing red panties and her thighs.
I wondered what it meant. Had the killer carried Brianne's top away? Had someone else been in here since the murders? Had they played around with Brianne after she was dead? Was it the killer?
Sampson looked troubled and puzzled. "Doesn't look like an overdose," he said. "Too violent. These two suffered."
"John," I finally spoke in a quiet voice, "I think they might have been poisoned. Maybe they were supposed to suffer."
I made a call to Kyle Craig and told him about the Parkers: We had solved part of the Silver Spring robbery, but at least one killer was still out there.
Chapter Twelve