No one came to the door with bad news that I didn’t want to hear right now or maybe ever again.
No one was watching me from outside, in the shadows, or if they were, at least they weren’t being a nuisance about it.
I concentrated on getting into some songs by D’Angelo, and I was doing a pretty good job of it: “The Line,” “Send It On,” “Devil’s Pie.”
Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow was a big day too.
I was going to resign from the D.C. police force in the morning.
And something else, something good for a change: I thought that maybe I was falling in love.
But that’s another story, for another time.
Alex Cross returns in the most harrowing case of his career—one that risks the life of his closest friend and partner, John Sampson.
For an excerpt from the next Alex Cross novel,
turn the page.
THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY for Cumberland County, North Carolina, Thomas Kinder, pushed the old wood chair away from the prosecutor’s table. It made a loud scraping sound in the nearly silent courtroom. He rose and slowly approached the jury. Nine women and three men, six of them white, six African-American, waited with anticipation to hear his every word. They clearly liked Kinder. He knew that, even expected it. He also knew that he had already won the murder case, even without the summation he was about to give.
But he was going to give this speech anyway. Kinder felt the need to punish Sergeant Ellis Cooper. The soldier had committed the most heinous and cowardly murders in the history of Cumberland County, North Carolina. The so-called Blue Lady Murders. The people in this county expected Tom Kinder to punish Cooper, who happened to be a black man, and he wouldn’t disappoint them. There had never been a murder trial anything like this one in the area. The case should have been tried in Raleigh, but because Sergeant Cooper had been stationed at Fort Bragg, and his lawyers were Army and Cumberland, became the compromise site for the trial.
The regular courtroom was too small and a suitable place had eventually been found at the VFW hall. The building was vintage 1930s, built of pine with a sloping, green-painted tar paper roof. The auditorium was normally used for business luncheons and entertainments, but on this day it was filled with nearly three hundred spectators. The room had a musty smell of sweat, pine, and beer. Exposed wood beams spanned the ceiling. The windows were high. The old wood floor was scarred and creaked loudly as Tom Kinder walked back and forth in front of the jury box before he began to speak. After several minutes, his deep voice startled the jurors.
“I have been doing this for a while, seventeen years to be exact. In all that time, I have never encountered murders such as those committed in December last, by the defendant, Sergeant Cooper, who is an evil monster. What began as a jealous rage aimed at one victim, Tanya Jackson, spilled over into the shameless massacre of three women. All were wives, all were mothers. Together these women had eleven children, and of course, three grieving husbands, and countless other family members, neighbors, and dear friends.
“The fateful night was a Friday, ‘ladies’ night’ for Tanya Jackson, Barbara Green and Maureen Bruno. While their husbands enjoyed their usual card night at the Army base, the wives got together for personal talk, some laughter, and the treasured companionship of one another. Tanya, Barbara, and Maureen were great friends, you understand. This Friday night get-together took place at the home of the Jacksons, where Tanya and Abraham were raising their three children.
“Around ten o’clock, after consuming at least half a dozen shots of alcohol at the base, Sergeant Cooper went to the Jackson house. As you have heard in sworn testimony, he was seen outside the front door by two neighbors. He was yelling for Mrs. Jackson to come out.
“Then Sergeant Cooper barged inside the house. Using an RTAK survival knife, a lightweight weapon favored by United States Army Special Forces, this monster first attacked the woman who had spurned his advances. “He killed Tanya Jackson instantly with a single knife thrust expertly delivered to her throat.
“The monster then turned the knife on thirty-one-year-old Barbara Green. And, finally, on Maureen Bruno, who nearly made it out of the slaughterhouse, but was caught by Cooper at the front door. All three women were killed with thrusts delivered by a powerful male, who has taught hand-to-hand fighting techniques at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, headquarters for the Army’s Special Forces. For whatever reason, Sergeant Cooper then felt compelled to thrust his knife repeatedly into the backs, stomachs, breasts, and in the case of Mrs. Jackson, the face. Over a dozen savage strokes to her once-beautiful and serene face.
“The survival knife has been identified as the master sergeant’s personal property, a deadly weapon he had kept since the early 1970s, when he left Vietnam. Sergeant Cooper’s fingerprints were all over the bloody knife. All over it!
“His prints were also found on the clothing of Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Green. DNA from particles of skin found under the nails of Mrs. Jackson were matched to Master Sergeant Cooper. Strands of his hair were found at the murder scene. The murder weapon itself was discovered hidden in the attic of Cooper’s house. So were pathetic ‘love letters’ he had written to Tanya Jackson—returned unopened.
“You have seen grisly, unspeakable photographs of what Sergeant Cooper did to the three women. Once they were dead, the women’s faces were ‘painted’ with ghoulish-looking blue paint. So were their chests and stomachs. It is gruesome, sadistic, unbearably twisted. As I said, the worst murders I have ever encountered. You know in your hearts that there can only be one verdict. That verdict is guilty! Put this evil monster down!”
Suddenly, Sergeant Ellis Cooper rose from his seat at the defendant’s table. He was six feet four and powerfully built. At age fifty-five, his waist was still thirty-two inches, just as it had been when he had enlisted in the Army at eighteen. He was wearing his dress greens and the medals on his huge chest included a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross, and a Silver Star. He looked impressive, even under the circumstances of the murder trial.
“I’m innocent! I didn’t kill Tanya or any of those poor women. I never went inside the house that night. I didn’t paint any bodies blue. I’ve never killed anyone, except for my country. I swear that’s the truth. So help me God, it is. Why won’t anyone believe me? How could this have happened? My God, how? I am not a monster! I didn’t kill those women. I’m innocent.”
TODAY WAS THE day I planned to talk to Chief of Detectives George Pittman and hand in my resignation from the D.C. police. In terms of my life, I guess it would be a defining moment. Nothing would ever be the same for me, but it was time for a change. It was way past time. I’d thought about this for a long while, and now I was sure it was the right thing to do for everyone involved.
I came down to breakfast that morning and joined Nana and the kids around the kitchen table. I was feeling pretty good about things so far. No second thoughts and no regrets that I was aware of.
The kids were eating some kind of puffed-up chocolate-flavored Oreos cereal and Hershey’s chocolate milk. Just the thought of all that chocolate at seven in the morning made me shiver. Nana and I had eggs overeats and twelve-grain toast. Little Alex was feasting on a concoction of oatmeal, prune, and apple sauce that Nana claimed to have invented more than fifty years before.
“Now isn’t this nice,” I said as I sat down to the eggs. “I’m not even going to spoil it by commenting on the chocoholic breakfast two of my precious children are eating for their morning’s nourishment.”
“You just did comment,” said Jannie, never at a loss.
I winked at her. Everything was going pretty well for a change. The killer known as the Mastermind had been captured, and was now spending his days at a maximum-security prison in Colorado. My twelve-year-old, Damon, continued to blossom—as a student, as well as a singer with the Washington Boys’ Choir, and even as a shooting guard with his CYO basketball team. Jannie had taken up oil painting, and she was keeping a journal that contained some pretty good scribbling for a girl her age. Little Alex’s personality was emerging—he was a nice boy, just starting to walk at thirteen months. He loved to laugh, and we all loved his laugh.
I had met a woman detective, Jamilla Hughes, and I wanted to spend more time with her. The only problem was that she lived in California, and I lived in D.C. Not insurmountable, I figured. Love does conquer all, or at least most. I pretty much believe that old cliché.