Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

Jack and Jill came to The Hill.

To kill, to kill, to kill.

CHAPTER

29

ONE SPECIFIC, and particularly fascinating, detail about the murders was weighing heavily on my mind, troubling the hell out of me. I thought about it as I turned onto crowded Pennsylvania Avenue and double-parked in front of the Willard Hotel—the latest helter-skelter murder scene.

I thought about the troubling detail as I marched inside and headed up to Michael Robinson’s suite.

I thought about it as the smooth-riding elevator whooshed open on the seventh floor, where half a dozen uniforms were standing around, and rolls of crime-scene tape ribboned the hallway like a tangle of distasteful Christmas wrapping.

There wasn’t much evidence of passion in the first two killings, I was thinking. Especially the second murder. The murders were so cold-blooded and efficient. The arrangement of the bodies of the victims seemed to have been art-directed. The kinkiness of the scenes seemed too directed and orderly. This is the exact opposite of the Sojourner Truth School murders, which were violent explosions of pent-up anger and pure rage.

I didn’t get the full significance yet, and neither did anyone else I spoke to about the murder case. Not inside the D.C. police, and not at the Federal Bureau in Quantico. If, as a detective, I had one basic rule about premeditated murders, it was this: they were almost always based on passion. There usually had to be extreme love. Or hate. Or greed… but these killings seemed to have none of that. It kept bugging me.

Why Michael Robinson? I wondered as I walked toward the hotel room where he had been murdered. What are these two bizarre psychopaths doing here in Washington? What sick and cruel game are they playing… and why do they crave millions of spectators for their sensational blood sport?

I spotted Kyle Craig once again. The FBI senior agent and I talked for several moments outside the suite. All around us, usually sangfroid D.C. cops appeared in mild shock. A lot of them were probably disappointed Michael Robinson fans.

“The medical examiner figures he’s been a famous corpse for about seven hours. So it happened around twelve last night,” Kyle told me, giving me the lay of the land. “Two shots fired to his head, Alex. Close range, just like the others. Take a look at the tattooing for yourself. Whoever did the shooting is a real heartless bastard.”

I agreed with what Kyle was saying.

Heartless.

No passion.

No rage.

“How was Michael Robinson found?”

“Oh, that’s another good part, Alex. A new wrinkle. They phoned it in to the Post. Told the newspaper where to pick up the trash this morning.”

“Is that a quote?” I asked Kyle.

“I don’t have the exact quote they used, but pick up the trash was definitely part of it,” Kyle said.

I was interested in any irreverence or cynicism Jack and Jill might use in describing the killings. They were obviously into wordplay. They were artistes. I also wondered if they might be out there on Pennsylvania Avenue, watching us again. Filming us as we bumbled and stumbled over one another inside the Willard. I wondered if they were preparing a second film, with their usual wide-release distribution method in mind. Surveillance had been posted outside, so if they were there, we had them.

I entered the living room of the suite, and I was relieved to see that Chief of Detectives Pittman was nowhere on the scene. The film actor Michael Robinson was there, however. As they say, he had been born to play the role—perhaps his greatest.

His naked body was in a sitting position on the floor, the head against the couch. It seemed as if the actor had been propped up to see anyone entering the room, and maybe that was the killers’ idea. His eyes stared out at me. To see, or to be seen? I wondered. He was not a pretty sight. I took note of the lividity. The blood had already pooled in the lowermost parts of his body, which now had an ugly purplish red color.

Another celebrity had been exposed. Brought down to earth. Punished for some real or imagined sin? What connection was there with Fitzpatrick and Sheehan? Why a senator, a newswoman, and an actor?

Three murders in such a short time. Celebrities are supposed to be safer than the rest of us, more protected at least, and above all this. It got to me, seeing Michael Robinson dead and violated. There was something visceral and system-shocking about what the killers were doing.

What was the bizarre, complex message from Jack and Jill? That nobody was safe anymore? I rolled the outrageous thought around in my head. It was a good starting point, a concept to work with.

Nobody is safe? Jack and Jill were telling us they could come for anyone, at any time. They knew how to get inside.

There was another note with the body. Another Jack and Jill rhyme. It was on the night table, where the weird and ghoulish killers, or killer, had left it for us to find.

Jack and Jill came to The Hill

To do some deadly deeds.