Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

Sampson parked on Sixth Street and began the short walk into the desolate and dreary park. This is getting worse, he thought as he walked toward the red and yellow emergency lights flashing brightly up ahead.

“Detective Sampson. Let me through,” he said as he pushed his way inside a circle of police uniforms.

One of the uniforms was holding a gray-and-white yapping mutt on a leash. It was a weird touch at a weird scene. Sampson addressed the patrolman. “What’s with the dog? Whose dog?”

“Dog uncovered the victim’s body. Owner let it loose for a run after she got home from work. Somebody covered up the dead kid with tree branches. Not much else. Like he wanted somebody to find it.”

Sampson nodded at what he’d heard so far. Then he moved on, stepped closer to the body. The victim was clearly older than either Vernon Wheatley or Shanelle Green. Sumner Moore had graduated from murdering very small children. The creepy little ghoul was on a full rampage now.

A police photographer was taking pictures of the body, the camera’s harsh flashes dramatic against the blanket of snow covering the park.

The boy’s mouth and nose were wrapped with silver duct tape. Sampson took a deep breath before he stooped down low next to the medical examiner, a woman he knew named Esther Lee.

“How long you think he’s been dead?” Sampson asked the M.E. “Hard to say. Maybe thirty-six hours. Decomposition is slowed a lot in this cold weather. I’ll know more after the autopsy. The boy took a brutal beating. Lead pipe, wrench, something nasty and heavy like that. He tried to fight the killer off. You can see defensive bruises on both hands, on his arms. I feel so bad for this boy.”

“I know, Esther. Me, too.”

What John Sampson could see of the boy’s neck was discolored and badly bloated. Tiny black bugs crawled along the hairline. A thin line of maggots spilled from a split in the scalp above the right ear.

Sampson sucked it up, grimaced, and forced himself to move around to the other side of the boy’s body. Nobody knew it, not even Alex, but this was the part of homicide that he just couldn’t handle. DOAs. Bodies in decomposition.

“You won’t like it,” Esther Lee told him before he looked. “I’m warning you.”

“I know I won’t,” he muttered. He blew warmth on his hands, but it didn’t help much.

He could see the boy’s face now. He could see it—but he couldn’t believe it. And he certainly didn’t like it. Esther Lee was right about that.

“Jesus Christ,” he said out loud. “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Make this terrible thing stop.”

Sampson stood up straight. He was six nine again, only it wasn’t tall enough, wasn’t big enough. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen—the boy’s face.

This killing was too much even for him, and he had seen so much in D.C. during the past few years.

The murdered boy was Sumner Moore.

PART V

NO RULES. NO REGRETS.

CHAPTER

77

NOTHING EVER BEGINS at the time we believe it does. Still, this is what I think of as the beginning.

Jannie and I sat in the kitchen and we talked the talk, our own special talk. The words didn’t matter much, just the sentiments.

“You know, this is an anniversary for us,” I said to her. “Special anniversary.” I touched her cheek. So soft. Soft as a butterfly’s belly.

“Oh, really?” Jannie said and gave me her most skeptical Nana Mama look. “And what anniversary might that be?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. This just happens to be the five-hundredth time that I’ve read you The Stinky Cheese Man.”

“Okay, fine,” she said and smiled in spite of herself, “so read the story already! I love the way you read it.” I read the story again.

After we were done with our Stinky Cheese, I spent some time with Damon, and then with Nana. Then I went upstairs to pack.

When I came back down, I talked out on the porch with Rakeem Powell. Rakeem was waiting to be relieved. Sampson was coming over for the night. Man Mountain was late as usual, and we hadn’t heard from him