Damon laughed. Nana probably knew more about NBA point guards than either of us. She could always get you if she wanted to.
We sat at the kitchen table and drank tea with milk and too much sugar, and we were mostly quiet, but it was kind of nice. I love family, always have. Everything that I am flows from that. Damon yawned and got up from the table. He went to the sink and rinsed out his cup.
“I can probably sleep now,” he reported to us. “Give it a try, anyway.”
He came back to the table and gave Nana and me a kiss before he went back upstairs to bed. “You miss her, don’t you?” he whispered against my cheek.
“Of course I miss Christine,” I said to Damon. “All the time. Every waking minute.” I didn’t make mention of the fact that I had been out late because I was observing the son of a bitch who might have abducted her. Nor did I say anything about the other detective on surveillance, Patsy Hampton.
When Damon left, Nana put her hand in mine, and we sat like that for a few minutes before I went up to bed.
“I miss her, too,” Nana finally said. “I’m praying for you both, Alex.”
Chapter 69
THE NEXT EVENING at around six, I took off early from work and went to Damon’s choir practice at the Sojourner Truth School. I’d put together a good-sized file on Geoffrey Shafer, but I didn’t have anything that concretely linked him to any of the murders. Neither did Patsy Hampton. Maybe he was just a fantasy-game player. Or maybe the Weasel was just being more careful since his taxi had been found.
It tore me up to go to the Truth School, but I had to go. I realized how hard it must be for Damon and Jannie to go there every day. The school brought back too many memories of Christine. It was as if I were suffocating, all the breath being squeezed out of my lungs. At the same time, I was in a cold sweat that coated the back of my neck and my forehead.
A little while after the practice began, Jannie quietly reached over and took my hand. I heard her sigh softly. We were all doing a lot more touching and emoting since Bermuda, and I don’t think we have ever been closer as a family.
She and I held hands through most of the choir practice, which included the Welsh folk song “All Through the Night,” Bach’s “My heart ever faithful, sing praises,” and a very special arrangement of the spiritual “O Fix Me.”
I kept imagining that Christine would suddenly appear at the school, and once or twice I actually turned back toward the archway that led to her office. Of course, she wasn’t there, which filled me with inconsolable sadness and the deepest emptiness. I finally cleared my mind of all thought, just shut down, and let my whole self be the music, the glorious sound of the boys’ voices.
After we got home from the choir practice, Patsy Hampton checked in with me from her surveillance post. It was a little past eight. Nana and the kids were putting out cold chicken, slices of pears and apples, cheddar cheese, a salad of endive and Bibb lettuce.
Shafer was still home, and of all things, a children’s birthday party was going on there, Patsy reported. “Lots of smiling kids from the neighborhood, plus a rent-a-clown called Silly Billy. Maybe we’re on the wrong track here, Alex.”
“I don’t think so. I think our instincts are right about him.”
I told her I would come over at around nine to keep her company; that was the time when Shafer usually left the house.
Just past eight-thirty, the phone in the kitchen rang again as we were digging into the cold, well-spiced, delicious chicken. Nana frowned as I picked up the phone.
I recognized the voice.
“I told you to back off, didn’t I? Now you have to pay some consequences for disobeying. It’s your fault! There’s a pay phone at the old Monkey House at the National Zoo. The zoo closes at eight, but you can get in through the gardening-staff gate. Maybe Christine Johnson is there at the zoo waiting for you. You better get over there quick and find out. Run, Cross, run. Hurry! We have her.”
The caller hung up, and I charged upstairs for my Glock. I called Patsy Hampton and told her I’d gotten another call, presumably from the Weasel. I’d be at the National Zoo.
“Shafer’s still at his kid’s birthday party,” she told me. “Of course, he could have called from the house. I can see Silly Billy’s truck from where I’m parked.”
“Keep in contact with me, Patsy. Phones and beepers. Beeper for emergencies only. Be careful with him.”
“Okay. I’m fine here, Alex. Silly Billy doesn’t pose too much of a threat. Nothing will happen at his house. Go to the zoo, Alex. You be careful.”
Chapter 70
I WAS AT THE NATIONAL ZOO by ten to nine. I was thinking that the zoo was actually pretty close to Dr. Cassady’s apartment at the Farragut. Was it just a coincidence that I was so close to Shafer’s shrink? I didn’t believe in coincidences anymore.
I called Patsy Hampton before I left the car, but she didn’t pick up this time. I didn’t beep her—this wasn’t an emergency —not so far.
I knew the zoo from lots of visits with Damon and Jannie, but even better from when I was a boy and Nana used to bring me, and sometimes Sampson, who was nearly six feet tall by the time he was eleven. The main entrance to the zoo was at the corner of Connecticut and Hawthorne avenues, but the old Monkey House was nearly a mile diagonally across the grounds from there.
No one seemed to be around, but the gardening-staff gate was unlatched, as the caller had said it would be. He knew the zoo, too. More games, I kept thinking. He definitely loved to play.
As I hurried into the park, a steep horizon of trees and hills blocked out the lights of the surrounding city. There was only an occasional foot lamp for light, and it was eerie and frightening to be in there alone. Of course, I was sure I wasn’t alone.