Return of the Spider, page 4
part #33 of Alex Cross Series
We could hear raised voices inside.
A teenage girl came and looked out the side window. She was dressed all in black, from her Doc Martens to her cardigan, and wore dark eye makeup and a couple of nose rings.
I waved my badge and smiled. She rolled her eyes and opened the front door.
A man yelled, “How the hell should I know where he’d go all night in Geoff’s Bronco, Sue Ann? Am I supposed to be psychic?”
“Will, stop being dramatic! I’m on hold with the Fairfax sheriff and—”
Conrad’s mother appeared in the front hallway in a robe, her hair up in curlers, a cordless phone pressed to her ear. She took one look at us and scurried away.
The girl snorted.
“Will!” we heard the mother call. “There are two big Black men at the front door.”
“They’re the police, Mom!” the teen yelled. “They’ve got badges and everything!”
There was a brief silence, then the loud beep of the phone being clicked off. Will Talbot, a lanky blond man in his forties, came to the door. He wore tennis shorts, a Harvard Business School sweatshirt, and flip-flops. He squinted at us as we held up our badges and identified ourselves.
“Dad, I let them in,” the teenage girl said.
“And I’m glad you did,” her father said, attempting to smile at us. “What’s this all about, Officers?”
“Mr. Talbot, is there somewhere we can talk privately with you and your wife?” I asked.
The phone rang in the hallway. We heard Sue Ann Talbot answer it.
Will Talbot’s expression turned from defensive to uncertain. He looked at his daughter. “Stella, why don’t you go finish breakfast and ask Mom to come to my office for a second.” He turned to us and gestured to a room on his right. “We can talk in here.”
Before we could go into the office, his wife reappeared, looking stricken. “That was Lisa Howard. Abby’s in critical condition at GWU Hospital.”
I wished to God right then I had told Abby’s mother not to call Conrad’s family, but I nodded. “Yes, she is, ma’am.”
The implications registered with both the parents and their daughter at the same time.
“Conrad?” Will Talbot said in a voice that still held hope.
But Sue Ann knew even before I said, “I’m sorry.” Conrad’s mother looked stunned. She staggered, crashed against the wall, and slid down it, moaning, “No. No. No. No.”
Equally stunned, her husband looked past us and whispered, “Little Condor?”
Stella lost her sullen expression and started to cry, and right in front of our eyes, an innocent family crumbled and collapsed.
CHAPTER 8
I SHIFTED QUICKLY INTO support mode. During my years at Johns Hopkins, I’d spent as much time working in a counseling clinic as I had researching criminal behavior, so I listened in respectful silence as the Talbots, now sitting in the father’s office, poured out their grief and bewilderment.
“Car crash?” Will Talbot said between clenched teeth. “That damned piece-of-crap Bronco?”
Sampson shook his head. “I’m sorry to say your son was murdered, Mr. Talbot. Shot at close range.”
That further crushed their souls.
“Why?” Sue Ann sobbed as she held tight to Stella, who’d curled up in her arms.
“We don’t know, ma’am,” I said. “We’re trying to figure that out.”
“Where did this happen?” the father asked, his breathing choppy.
Sampson and I sat down and told him what we knew.
“What was he doing out there?” Stella asked.
“We think he took Abby there to be romantic,” I said softly.
Conrad’s mother shook her head, weeping. “And—what? Someone just walked up to them, way out on that island, and shot them?”
“Yes, ma’am,” John said. “It appears that way. One shot. Abby was wounded and is in critical condition, but it appears your son was blocking her. He slowed the bullet down and redirected it, which probably saved her life.”
That set them off all over again.
We waited until they could answer questions and then asked the most pressing ones as quickly and sensitively as we could so we’d better understand their son.
Conrad was their middle child. He’d been smart, athletic, and likable from a very young age. Schoolwork came easily to him. So did lacrosse, his first love.
Abby had entered his life the year before.
“She played lacrosse too. They were good together,” Sue Ann said, nodding. “Perfect for each other.”
“If you like that perfect type,” Stella said.
“No drugs?” Sampson asked.
The girl shook her head. “No way.”
Her father said, “They both wanted to play for Division One programs. They were focused. Conrad was so determined that he’d make it …” He choked up. “Just so unfair.”
“No enemies?” I asked.
His wife shook her head. “Conrad? He might have made a lot of people frustrated on the lacrosse field, but he didn’t have a negative bone in his body. Like Will said, people just liked our son.”
Even his sister agreed. “Conrad always just seemed to cartwheel through life. It was like nothing ever touched him.”
“He soared through it,” Will added. “That’s why I called him Condor. They’re the biggest birds on earth, built to soar.”
At that, the dead boy’s father broke down, and his wife and daughter went over to console him.
It felt like time to leave. After again expressing our condolences, we stood up.
Sue Ann said, “Can we call the rest of our family?”
Her husband said, “Conrad’s older brother, Geoff?”
“You can call anyone and everyone you want,” I said. “This is a time to be surrounded by the people who mean the most to you.”
Will Talbot asked, “When can we see him? Won’t someone have to identify him?”
“When the medical examiner’s work is complete,” Sampson said.
I said, “We’ll let you know as soon as that happens.”
“Detectives?” Stella said with misty red eyes. “Catch whoever did this.”
“Count on it,” Sampson said, and we left.
CHAPTER 9
“COUNT ON IT?” I asked Sampson when we were back in the car.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“We’re both learning.”
“Every day, brother,” Sampson said.
We talked on the drive to GWU Hospital, agreeing that unless we found a third party in a love triangle, we might be dealing with a random incident, some sort of thrill kill.
Lisa Howard and her father were in the waiting room outside the OR where surgeons were working on Abby. Abby’s father, a judge advocate general for the U.S. Marine Corps, was in the air, coming home from San Diego. We introduced ourselves and asked how they were holding up.
Lisa Howard wiped at tears. “We were doing okay until I heard about Conrad.”
“An out-and-out tragedy,” her father said. “Who does something like this?”
“And how are we going to tell Abby?”
“Trust me,” I said, “you will know how when the time is right.”
That seemed to calm the wounded girl’s mom enough for her and her father to answer our questions. Their version of Abby was the same as the Talbots’—she was filled with life and genuinely interested in both academics and athletics.
“When she met Conrad, it was like everything clicked. She’s the only girl in a family of boys, and her brothers are athletes, but not like Conrad. Her brothers are funny, but not like Conrad. Her dad is a guy’s guy, and Conrad had him charmed, I guess you’d call it, within minutes.”
Abby’s grandfather said, “That boy had it all, but he did not lord it over people, you know? No arrogance that I saw.”
“None,” Lisa said. “We were so impressed by that.” She paused, her lip quivering.
Sampson said, “Did any other boys show interest in Abby?”
“Interest? I’m sure they did, but honestly, she only had eyes for Conrad.”
“No exes? No stalkers? Nobody angry at her?”
To our surprise, Mrs. Howard started sobbing. “Other than me?”
“Ma’am?” I said.
Lisa’s father said, “She got angry at Abby yesterday over something.”
“Laundry!” the girl’s mother said. “I got angry and yelled at her over nothing, and it could have been the last thing I ever said to her.”
“But it won’t be,” her dad said, hugging her. “You heard the surgeon before he went in. She got lucky. She’s in for a tough road, but she got lucky.”
After asking them to keep us updated on Abby’s condition, we left. It turned out that Carl Dennis, the injured Senate aide, was also at GW and also in the OR; surgeons were stabilizing his femur, tibia, ulna, and humerus fractures. In addition to the broken bones, he had sustained a head injury despite the fact that he’d been wearing a helmet.
We spoke with his wife, Kathleen, who was in the waiting room. She said her husband often used the Route 50 bicycle path to commute from their Bethesda home to Capitol Hill.
“He loved it,” she said, sniffling. “The ride gave him space.”
“He rode at night?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “He had all the gear to make you safe, and he was on a designated bike path. You don’t expect to get run over there.”
We gave her our cards and told her we’d talk to her husband when he was up to it.
Back in our squad car, I said, “Downtown? Talk to the chief and the dynamic duo?”
“We can brief them at the end of the day,” Sampson said. “Or at least after we cover all our bases. Let’s talk to Conrad’s teachers and coaches at the Charles School.”
“Abby’s too,” I said. “Maybe a teacher saw something the parents didn’t.”
“Or one of their friends or teammates did,” Sampson said.
“Seems like the best way forward.”
“We’re in the rainforest phase of the investigation. Sometimes you just got to grab a machete, pick a direction, and start chopping a path.”
“Based on clues.”
“Based on evidence. Based on the verifiable facts at hand. Those’re your best guides.”
CHAPTER 10
AT THE BEGINNING OF the noon break at the Charles School, nine members of the teaching staff filed into a conference room, several vocally irritated at having their lunches interrupted.
Jenny Wolcott, the headmistress, stood near me and Sampson, looking slightly stunned. She waited until the last teacher—a tall, balding, somewhat disheveled man with an untrimmed mustache and round glasses—had closed the door behind him.
Then she smiled grimly.
“I’m afraid I have some tough news to share. These men are homicide detectives with Metro PD,” she said, indicating me and John. “Conrad Talbot was murdered last night.”
The gasps and groans were deep and real.
“No!” a man in his thirties said. He looked like he’d been kneed in the groin and began to cry. “Jesus, this is awful.”
“Abby Howard was also gravely injured, and is currently in the ICU,” Wolcott continued.
“That poor girl,” said an older woman. “Those two were joined at the hip.”
I said, “Abby was hit by the same bullet that killed Conrad, but surgeons are telling her family that she will recover.”
Sampson held up his hands. “I know you all had Conrad and Abby in your classes. We need to know if there was any friction between them and their classmates. Or their teammates.”
“No one on the lacrosse team,” said the sobbing man.
The other teachers all shook their heads. The guy with the round glasses shrugged.
“Sir?” I said. “Was there something you noticed?”
“Not at all,” he said, avoiding my gaze. “I’m just a short-term substitute. I barely know who Abby and Conrad are, so I can’t comment on their social situations.”
“Gary’s been here for only a few days,” the headmistress explained. “Lucy Porter, the regular instructor, has been out with a nasty flu, but I’ll call her and see if she saw anything before her illness.”
Sampson said, “That would help.”
“On another note,” I said, “you might want to call in grief counselors for the student body. When do you want to share the news?”
Wolcott thought, looked at her watch, then said, “The sooner the better, I think. I don’t want rumors of this to trickle out. Schoolwide assembly in the gymnasium at one p.m., followed by early dismissal. After-school meetings and athletic practices are canceled. The entire staff is expected to be here, and I will call in counselors as soon as I can.”
I had to hand it to the headmistress—she was an organizational dynamo. Within minutes she had the entire event arranged. At a quarter to one, she made an announcement about the assembly over the PA system.
Teachers stood outside classroom buildings and directed students returning from lunch to the gymnasium. Sampson and I went in and stayed off to the side as the students funneled in and took seats on the risers.
A kid wearing a Charles School lacrosse hoodie gestured at the man who’d cried in the meeting and asked, “What’s with Coach Eric?”
“What do you mean?” asked the kid in line behind him.
“Looks like he lost his best friend. Eyes are all puffy and red, man.”
“Who the hell knows, turd-head? Keep moving.”
Sampson and I shared a glance, then turned our attention to the headmistress. She picked up a microphone, marched out to the middle of the gym, and, in a soft voice, told the six hundred students gathered there about Conrad Talbot’s death and Abby Howard’s injuries.
There were shouts of disbelief, shocked faces, students and faculty crying; the entire school banded together in collective mourning. Eventually someone shouted, “How did it happen?”
Wolcott nodded to us. We came out onto the hardwood floor, and John took the microphone. “I’m Detective Sampson. This is Detective Cross. We’re sad to tell you that Conrad and Abby were both shot.”
That news set off another eruption of disbelief and shock.
“We need your help,” Sampson said after the reaction had died down, although several girls were still crying. “We’re establishing an anonymous tip line, a phone number that will be given to you all by tomorrow morning. If you think of anything you believe we should know, do not hesitate to call and leave us a message. Please. Any one of you might have the information we need to find Conrad’s killer.”
CHAPTER 11
AT HALF PAST ONE we left the school and started driving to Metro PD’s downtown Washington, DC, headquarters.
“How do we set up a tip line?” I asked.
Sampson shrugged. “They’ll handle that in the office. But I wouldn’t hold out much hope for an answer coming from the school. My gut says this was random.”
“Or there’s a psycho involved who’s running under the radar.”
“You’re Mr. Happy these days.”
“Just giving you the spectrum of possibilities.”
“Based on your PhD research, Dr. Cross?”
“That’s correct. And you probably shouldn’t refer to me as Dr. Cross.”
“Why not?” John said, taking the ramp for the Fourteenth Street Bridge. “You have a doctorate. And it adds a little mystery that might unsettle someone we’re talking to.”
“What, you think it’ll make people think I can read their minds?”
“That would help,” he said and chuckled. “Can you imagine?”
“Walking around with even more voices in my head? Pass.”
The radio squawked. It was Chief Pittman’s assistant, ordering us to meet the chief at the ME’s office. The ME had put a rush on Conrad Talbot’s autopsy.
“Meaning Chief Pittman pressured the ME to put a rush on it,” Sampson commented after I hung up.
“Could be.”
We entered the offices of the medical examiner twenty minutes later. Chief Pittman was already there waiting, along with Detectives Corina Straub Diehl and Edgar Kurtz.
“You were supposed to come to my office right after you notified the families,” Pittman growled. “The three of us were waiting.”
Sampson got that look in his eye that I knew meant he might be about to say the wrong thing, so I jumped in first. “Apologies, Chief. After we spoke to the families, we went to the Charles School so we could talk to students and staff before the media got hold of the story.”
The chief of detectives said, “The media has gotten hold of the story. They’re already teasing it for the evening news.”
Kurtz, a tree stump of a man with a shiny bald head, squinted and asked, “What did you learn about Talbot from his family and friends?”
I said, “Conrad was the all-around good guy, seemed to cartwheel and soar through life. No public beefs. Started dating Abby Howard about a year ago. It will all be in our reports by the end of the day.”
Sampson said, “One thing. Although I believe this shooting is most likely a random event, we told the student body there would be an anonymous tip line established for information about Conrad and Abby.”
Pittman’s eyebrows rose. “A tip line specifically for the school?”
We nodded.
Detective Corina Diehl said, “It’s not a bad idea. Kids might open up to us.”
Pittman’s nostrils flared as he studied us both. “Do it. Contact tech as soon as this autopsy’s done.”
At that moment, Emily Chin, the chief medical examiner, came through the autopsy suite’s double doors and said, “Okay, we’re ready for you, Chief.”
The chief of detectives looked over at me. “You’ve seen a few of these, Cross?”
“Only one so far,” I said.
“Rookie,” Kurtz said. “Just don’t leave your lunch near me.”
“Promise,” I said, and I followed Sampson and Dr. Chin through the double doors and into a hallway that reeked of antiseptic.
