Pop Goes the Weasel (Alex Cross 5)

My mind in a haze, I tripped over a dark slab of rock, went down on one knee. I cut my hands, tore my pants. Then I was up again, running through thick high bushes that grabbed and ripped at my face and arms.

Animals all around the zoo howled, moaned, bellowed insanely. They sensed that something was wrong. I could make out the sounds of grizzlies and elephant seals. I realized that I had to be approaching Arctic Circle, but I couldn’t remember where it was in relation to the rest of the zoo or the city streets.

Up ahead was a high, Gibraltar-like rock. I clambered up it to try to get my bearings.

Down below I saw a cluster of cages, shuttered gift stores and snack bars, two large veldts. I knew where I was now. I hurriedly climbed back down the rock and started to run again. Christine was at the Farragut. Would I finally find her? Could it actually be happening?

I passed African Alley, then the Cheetah Conservation Station. I came to a vast field with what looked like large haystacks scattered everywhere. I realized that they were bison. I was somewhere near Great Plains Way.

The beeper in my pocket went off again.

Patsy! An emergency! Where is she? Why didn’t she call back at the pay-phone number I gave her?

I was soaked in sweat and almost hyperventilating. Thank God I could now see Cathedral Avenue, then Woodley Road up ahead.

I was a long way from where I’d parked my car, but I was close to the Farragut apartment building.

I ran another hundred yards in the dark, then climbed the stone wall separating the zoo from the city streets. There was blood smeared on my hands, and I didn’t know where it had come from. The knee I’d scraped? Scratches from swinging branches? I could hear the loud wail of sirens in the near distance. Was it coming from the Farragut?

I headed there in a sprint. It was a little past ten o’clock. Over an hour had already gone by since the call to my house.

The beeper was buzzing inside my shirt pocket.

Chapter 72

SOMETHING BAD HAD HAPPENED at the Farragut. The burping screams of approaching sirens were getting louder as I raced down Woodley. I was reeling, feeling dizzy. I couldn’t focus my mind, and I realized that for one of the few times in recent years, I was close to panic.

Neither the police nor the EMS had arrived at the apartment building yet. I was going to be the first on the scene.

Two doormen and several tenants in bathrobes were clustered in front of the underground-garage entrance. It couldn’t be Christine. It just couldn’t be. I raced across a quadrant of lawn toward them. Was the Weasel here at the Farragut?

They saw me coming and looked as frightened as I felt inside. I must have been quite a sight. I remembered that I’d fallen once or twice inside the zoo. I probably looked like a madman, maybe even like a killer. There was blood on my hands and who knew where else.

I reached for my wallet, shook it open to expose my detective’s shield.

“Police. What’s happened here?” I shouted. “I’m a police detective. My name is Alex Cross.”

“Somebody has been murdered, Detective,” one of the doormen finally said. “This way. Please.”

I followed the doorman down the steeply sloped concrete driveway leading into the garage.

“It’s a woman,” he said. “I’m pretty sure she’s gone. I called nine-one-one.”

“Oh, God,” I gasped out loud. My stomach clutched. Patsy Hampton’s Jeep was tucked back in a corner space. The door of the Jeep was open, and light spilled outside.

I felt terrible fear, pain, and shock as I hurried around the door. Patsy Hampton was sprawled across the front seat. I could tell she was probably dead.

“We have her.” This was what the message meant. Jesus God, no. They murdered Patsy Hampton. They told me to back off. For God’s sake, no.

Her bare legs were twisted and pinned under the steering wheel. Her upper body was crumpled over at almost a right angle. Patsy’s head was thrown back and lay partly off the seat, on the passenger’s side. Her blond hair was matted with blood. Her vacant blue eyes stared up at me.

Patsy was wearing a white knit sport shirt. There were deep lacerations around her throat; bright-red blood was still oozing from the wound. She was naked below the waist. I didn’t see any other clothes anywhere. She might have been raped.

I suspected that she’d been strangled with some kind of wire, and that she’d been dead for only a few minutes. A rope or garotte had been used in some of the Jane Doe murders. The Weasel liked to use his hands, to work close to his victims, possibly to watch and feel their pain—maybe even while he was sexually assaulting them.

I saw what looked like paint chips around the deep, ugly neck wounds. Paint chips?

Something else seemed very strange to me: the Jeep’s radio had been partly dislodged, but left behind. I didn’t understand why the radio had been tampered with, but it didn’t seem important right now.