Pop Goes the Weasel (Alex Cross 5)

“One of them rents the apartment, though,” I told him.

He nodded. “Probably pays cash. She’s in a cash business.”

Sampson was wearing latex rubber gloves, and was bent down close to the two women.

“The killer wore gloves,” Sampson said, still without looking up at me. “Don’t seem to be fingerprints anywhere. That’s what the techie says. First look-through. They both were shot, Alex. Single shot to the forehead.”

I was still looking around the room, collecting information, letting the details of the murder scene flow over me. I noticed an array of hair products: Soft Sheen, Care Free Curl, styling gel, several wigs. On top of one of the wigs was a green army garrison cap with stripes, commonly called a cunt cap among military personnel because it’s said to be effective for picking up women, especially in the South. There was also a pager.

The girls were young and pretty. They had skinny little legs, small, bony

feet, silver toe rings that looked like they’d come from the same shop. Their discarded clothes amounted to insignificant little bundles on the bloodied hardwood floor.

In one corner of the small room, there were vestiges of brief childhoods: a Lotto game, a stuffed blue bear that was threadbare and looked about as old as the girls themselves, a Barbie doll, a Ouija board.

“Take a good look, Alex. It gets weirder and weirder. Our Weasel is starting to freak out.”

I sighed and bent down to see what Sampson had discovered. The smaller, and perhaps the younger, of the two girls was lying on top. The girl underneath was on her back. Her glazed brown eyes stared straight up at a broken light fixture in the ceiling, as if she had seen something terrible up there.

The girl on top had been positioned with her face—actually, her mouth—tilted down into the other girl’s crotch.

“Killer played real cute games with them after they were dead,” Sampson said. “Move the one on top a little. Lift her head, Alex. You see it?”

I saw it. A completely new m.o. for the Jane Does, at least the ones I knew about. The phrase “stuck on each other” ran through my mind. I wondered if that was the killer’s “message.” The girl on top was connected to the one underneath—by her tongue.

Sampson sighed and said, “I think her tongue is stapled inside the other girl. I’m pretty sure that’s it, Alex. The Weasel stapled them together.”

I looked at the two girls and shook my head. “I don’t think so. A staple, even a surgical one, would come apart on the tongue’s surface…. Krazy Glue adhesive would work, though.”

Chapter 30

THE KILLER was working faster, so I had to do the same. The two dead girls didn’t remain Jane Does for very long. I had their names before the ten-o’clock news that night. I ignored the explicit orders of the chief of detectives and continued to work on the investigation.

Early the next morning, Sampson and I met at Stamford, the high school that Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal had attended. The murdered girls were seventeen and fourteen years old.

The memory of the homicide scene had left me with a queasy, sick feeling that wouldn’t go away. I kept thinking, Christine is right. Get out of this, do something else. It’s time.

The principal at Stamford was a small, frail-looking, red-haired woman named Robin Schwartz. Her resource officer, Nathan Kemp, had gotten together some students who knew the victims, and had set aside a couple of classrooms for Sampson, Jerome Thurman, and me to use for interviews. Jerome would work in one room, Sampson and I in the other.

Summer school was still in session, and Stamford was busy as a mall on a Saturday. We passed the cafeteria on the way to the classrooms, and it was packed, even at ten-thirty. No empty seats anywhere. The room reeked of French fries, the same greasy smell that had been in the girl’s apartment.

A few kids were making noise, but they were mostly well behaved. The music of Wu Tang and Jodeci leaked from earphones. The school seemed to be well run and orderly. Between classes a few boys and girls embraced tenderly, with loosely locked pinkies and the gentlest brushes of cheeks.

“These were not bad girls,” Nathan Kemp told us as we walked. “I think you’ll hear that from the other students. Tori dropped out last semester, but her homelife was the main reason. Marion was an honor student at Stamford. I’m telling you, guys, these were not bad girls.”

Sampson, Thurman, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the kids. We learned that Tori and Marion were popular, all right. They were loyal to their friends, funny, usually fun to be around. Marion was described as “blazing,” which meant she was great. Tori was “buggin’ sometimes,” which meant she could be a little crazy. Most of the kids hadn’t known that the girls were tricking in Petworth, but Tori Glover was said to always have money.

One particular interview would stick in my mind for a while. Evita Cardinal was a senior at Stamford, and also a cousin of Marion’s. She wore white athletic pants and a purple stretchy top. Her black-rimmed, yellow-tinted sunglasses were propped on top of her head.

She started to cry her eyes out as soon as she sat down across the desk from me.

“I’m real sorry about Marion,” I said, and I was. “We just want to catch whoever did this terrible thing. Detective Sampson and I both live nearby in Southeast. My kids go to the Sojourner Truth School.”

The girl looked at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wary. “You won’t catch nobody,” she finally said. It was the prevailing attitude in the neighborhood, and it happened to be mostly true. Sampson and I weren’t even supposed to be here. I had told my secretary I was out working the murder of Frank Odenkirk. A few other detectives were covering for us.

“How long have Tori and Marion been working in Petworth? Do you know any other girls from school who work over there?”

Evita shook her head. “Tori was the one working the street in Petworth. Not Marion. My cousin was a good person. They both were. Marion was my little doggie,” Evita said, and the tears came flowing again.