Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

I met Sampson at the Boston Market restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue at three-thirty. It was time for our second job. Our other homicide case, the “back burner” case. This arrangement was definitely much better—not great, but a significant improvement over the past few days of frustration and utter madness for me.

“I think you might be right on the button about one thing, Alex,” Sampson told me over a lunch of double-glazed meat loaf and mashed potatoes made from scratch. “The Truth School killer is an amateur. He’s sloppy. Maybe a first-timer at this. He left prints all over the second crime scene, too. The techies got his prints, some hair, threads off his clothing. Based on the prints, the killer is a small man—or possibly a woman. If this squirrel isn’t careful, he or she is going to get their squirrel ass caught.”

“Maybe the killer wants to,” I said between bites of a meat loaf sandwich spiced with decent tomato sauce. “Or maybe the killer just wants us to think he’s a first-timer. That could be the act. Soneji might play it like that.”

Sampson grinned broadly. It was his best killer smile. “Do you have to double- and triple-think everything, Sugar?”

“Of course I do. That’s my job description. That’s Alex’s cross,” I said and offered my own killer smile.

“Oh, ho!” said Man Mountain and grinned again. Man, I loved being with him, loved to make him laugh.

“Anything in from the rest of the team?” I asked him. “Jerome? Rakeem?”

“They’re all working the case, but still no tangible results. Nothing yet from the go-team.”

“We need surveillance at the boy’s funeral and at Shanelle’s gravesite. The killer might not be able to stay away. A lot of them can’t.”

Sampson rolled his eyes. “We’ll do what we can. Do our best. Surveillance at a child’s gravesite. Shee-it.”

At quarter past four, the two of us split. I headed over to the Sojourner Truth School.

The principal’s car was sitting in the small, fenced-in parking lot. I remembered that Mrs. Johnson sometimes worked late after classes. That was good for me. I wanted to talk to her about Shanelle Green and Vernon Wheatley. What connection was there between the Truth School and the killer? What could it be?

I knew approximately where the principal’s office was located in the annexed building, so I walked directly there. It was a very nice school, for just about any area of the city. Outside, near the street, a chain-link fence with razor wire ran the perimeter of the schoolyard, but the inside was festive, very bright, imaginatively decorated.

I read several hand-lettered posters and banners as I walked.

CHILDREN FIRST. GROW WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED. SUCCESS COMES IN CANS, NOT CANNOTS. Cornball, but nice. Inspiring for the children, and for me as well.

That particular week the hallway display cases were filled with “animal shelters,” which were dioramas made by the kids, each one illustrating an animal and its habitat. It struck me that the Sojourner Truth School was a terrific habitat itself. Under normal circumstances, it was a sweet place for Damon to grow and learn.

Unfortunately, two little babies from this school had been murdered in the last week.

That made me furiously angry, and it also frightened me more than I wanted to admit. When I was growing up, tough as it was supposed to have been in D.C., kids seldom if ever died at our school. Now, for a lot of reasons, it happened all the time in schools. Not only in Washington but in L.A.’s schools. New York’s. Chicago’s. Maybe even Sioux City’s.

What the hell was going on from sea to shining sea?

The heavy wooden door to the inner administrative office was open, but the assistant appeared to have left. On her desk was a collection of Caucasian, African-American, and Asian play dolls. A sign read: Barbara Breckenridge, I can really tap-dance.

I felt like a housebreaker, a neighborhood break-and-enter artist, a bad character of some sort or other. Suddenly, I was concerned about the principal working late by herself in the school.

Anyone could walk in here, just as I had done. The Sojourner Truth School killer could walk in here some night. It would be so easy. This easy.

I turned the corner into the main office and was about to announce my presence when I saw Mrs. Johnson. I thought of my made-up name for her—Christine.

She was busy at work at an old-fashioned rolltop desk that looked at least a hundred years old. She was lost in the work, actually.

I watched her for a couple of seconds. She wore gold-wire glasses to do her paperwork. She was humming the “Shoop Shoop” song from Waiting to Exhale. Sounded nice.

There was something enormously right, even touching, about the scene—the dedicated teacher, the educator, at work. A smile passed across my lips. She’s even tougher than you are, Daddy.

I still wondered about that. She didn’t look tough at the moment. She looked serene, happy in her work. She looked at peace, and I envied her that.

I finally felt a little awkward standing in the doorway unannounced. “Hi there. It’s Detective Alex Cross,” I said. “Hello. Mrs. Johnson?”

She stopped humming and looked up. There was the slightest glint of fear in her eyes. Then she smiled. Her smile was warm and welcoming. Very nice to be on the receiving end of one of her easy smiles.

“Ahh, it is Detective Cross,” she said. “And what brings you to the principal’s office?” she said in a put-on voice of authority.