The Big Bad Wolf (Alex Cross 9)

“Everybody had problems with Chief of Detectives Pittman,” I said.

Nooney’s eyes appeared glazed. It was obvious he didn’t see it that way. “Just about everybody has problems with me too. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the importance of building a team here. I’m not wrong, Cross.”

I resisted saying anything more. Nooney was coming down on me again. Why? I had attended the classes I could make; I still had work to do on White Girl. Like it or not, I was part of the case. And this wasn’t another practical—it was real. It was important.

“I have to get my work done,” I finally said. Then I walked away from Nooney. I was pretty sure I’d made my first enemy in the FBI. An important one too. No sense starting small.

Chapter 21

MAYBE IT WAS GUILT churned up by my confrontation with Gordon Nooney that made me work late in my cube on the lower level of the dining hall building where Behavioral Science had its offices. The low ceilings, bad fluorescent lighting, and cinder-block walls kind of made me feel as if I were back at my precinct. But the depth of the back files and research available to FBI agents was astonishing. The Bureau’s resources were better than anything I’d ever seen in the D.C. police department.

It took me a couple of hours to go through less than a quarter of the white-slave-trade files, and those were just cases in the U.S. One abduction in particular caught my attention. It involved a female D.C. attorney named Ruth Morgenstern. She had last been seen at approximately 9:30 P.M. on August 20. A friend had dropped her off near her apartment in Foggy Bottom.

Ms. Morgenstern was twenty-six years old, 111 pounds, with blue eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. On August 28, one of her identification cards was found near the north gate of the Anacostia Naval Station. Two days later, her government access card was found on a city street.

But Ruth Morgenstern was still missing. Her file included the notation Most likely dead.

I wondered: Was Ruth Morgenstern dead?

How about Mrs. Elizabeth Connolly?

Around ten, just as I was starting to do some serious yawning, I came across another case that snapped my mind to attention. I read the report once, then a second time.

It involved the abduction eleven months earlier of a woman named Jilly Lopez in Houston. The kidnapping had occurred at the Houstonian Hotel. A team—two males—had been seen loitering near the victim’s SUV in the parking garage. Mrs. Lopez was described as “very attractive.”

Minutes later, I was speaking to the officer in Houston who had handled the case. Detective Steve Bowen was curious about my interest in the abduction, but he was cooperative. He said that Mrs. Lopez hadn’t been found or heard from since she disappeared. No ransom was ever requested. “She was a real good lady. Just about everybody I talked to loved her.”

I’d heard the same thing about Elizabeth Connolly when I was in Atlanta.

I already hated this case, but I couldn’t get it out of my skull. White Girl. The women who’d been taken were all lovable, weren’t they? It was the thing they had in common. Maybe it was the kidnappers’ pattern.

Lovable victims.

How awful was that?

Chapter 22

WHEN I GOT HOME that night, it was quarter past eleven, but there was a surprise waiting for me. A good one. John Sampson was sitting on the front steps. All six-foot-nine, two hundred fifty pounds of him. He looked like the Grim Reaper at first—but then he grinned and looked like the Joyful Reaper.

“Look who it is. Detective Sampson.” I smiled back.

“How’s it going, man?” John asked as I walked across the lawn. “You’re working kind of late again. Same old, same old. You never change, man.”

“This is the first late night I’ve had at Quantico,” I responded a little defensively. “Don’t start.”

“Did I say anything bad? Did I even cut you with the ‘first of many’ line that’s right there on the tip of my tongue? No, I didn’t. I’m being good—for me. But since we’re talking, you can’t help yourself, can you?”

“Want a cold beer?” I asked, and unlocked the front door of the house. “Where’s your bride tonight?”

Sampson followed me inside and we got a couple of Heinekens each; we took them out to the sunporch. I sat on the piano bench and John plopped down in the rocker, which strained under his weight. John is my best friend in the world and has been since we were ten years old. We were homicide detectives, and partners, until I went over to the FBI. He’s still a little pissed at me for that.

“Billie’s just fine. She’s working the late shift at St. Anthony’s tonight and tomorrow. We’re doing good.” He drained about half of his beer in a gulp. “No complaints, partner. Far from it. You’re looking at a happy camper.”

I had to laugh. “You seem surprised.”

Sampson laughed too. “Guess I didn’t think I was the marrying kind. Now all I want to do is hang with Billie most of the time. She makes me laugh, and she even gets my jokes. How about you and Jamilla? She good? And how is the new job? How’s it feel to be a Feebie down at Club Fed?”

“I was just going to call Jam,” I told him. Sampson had met Jamilla, liked her, and knew our situation. Jam was a homicide detective too, so she understood what the life was like. I really enjoyed being with her. Unfortunately, she lived in San Francisco—and she loved it out there.