the viewer.
Still, anything can happen on Cable99, and often did.
In the upper-left-hand frame is a disheveled man, early forties, maybe. He is sitting in a chair, staring blankly at the camera. But not moving. The room he is in looks to have very dark walls, and the bright lights cast harsh shadows across his face.
In the upper-right-hand corner is a still photo of a very exotic-looking young woman, a fashion model head shot, a real dark-eyed beauty. The lower two squares are blank.
In the control booth at Cable99, Furnell Braxton, the unlucky low man on the totem pole who drew New Year’s Eve tech duty, casts a disinterested eye toward the monitor as he eats his Tony Roma’s.
At eleven-thirty-one, a DVD begins to play in the lower-right-hand frame. It looks like a video of a man standing in front of the Justice Center, a place Furnell Braxton tries to avoid at all costs. The video is pretty jerky, as always, but Furnell is not a big believer in streaming video anyway — half the time it lagged way behind the audio — and truly hopes all concerned here understand.
Still, the audio seems to be running smoothly.
“This was a cold-blooded killing of a police officer in the line of duty,” the smeary video image of the guy in front of the Justice Center says. “I think the evidence will show that the defendant, Sarah Weiss, pulled the trigger.”
Performance artists, Furnell thinks. What a bunch. Still, anything’s better than the woman who dresses her dogs up for tea once a month, then tapes the whole damn thing.
The tape continues: “Mike Ryan was a good cop… Mike Ryan was a family man… a man who woke up every day and chose-chose-to strap on a gun and jump into the fray… Mike Ryan died in the line of duty protecting the people of this city.”
Furnell pops open his diet Dr Pepper.
“So the next time you find yourself picking through a pile of garbage, or hiding in the bushes like some pervert, or running down the street with a forty-pound video camera just so you can invade the privacy of a heartbroken ten-year-old girl in a wheelchair, I want you to stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourself what the hell it is you do for a living…”
“Damn straight,” Furnell says as he unwraps his dessert.
“Sometimes, the monster is real, people,” the man says. “Sometimes, the monster has a pretty face and a perfectly ordinary name. This time, the monster is called Sarah Weiss.”
There is a break in the video, then, a new video image.
A young man, wearing Ray-Bans, sitting in a wing chair, in a brightly lit room.
Furnell nearly chokes on his soft drink when the man in the sunglasses says the words.
Within sixty seconds he is talking to his cousin Wallace. Wallace Braxton works the night shift at WKYC, the Cleveland affiliate station of NBC.
“Are you sure?” Wallace asks for the second time, already punching in his boss’s speed-dial number.
“Absolutely,” Furnell says. “Absolutely sure. He said, ‘Here, tonight, live, a police officer is going to commit suicide.’”
68
The house is dark.
Bobby Dietricht had rung the bell, knocked on the front door, knocked on the back door, listened for a dog, listened for footsteps, peered in the windows. He had even tossed a few pebbles at the upstairs windows before hiding behind the huge maple tree on the front lawn.
Nothing.
Then he had repeated everything, just to be sure.
The house is unoccupied, he concluded.
Or else someone inside sleeps the sleep of the dead.
Carla rolls up in front of Jeremiah Cross’s house, headlights off. She meets Bobby around back and apprises him of her meeting with Denny Sanchez. Together they climb the small back porch, position themselves on either side of the door. Bobby pulls open the storm door and knocks one last time. He presses the doorbell and, in the stillness of the night, they can both hear the bell, loud and clear.
No answer, no lights flipping on upstairs, no response at all. They draw their weapons.
Bobby holds open the storm door, tries the handle of the inner door, turns it. It is unlocked. He nods at Carla.
Weapons out front, the two police officers step inside, knowing that establishing probable cause to enter these premises, at this moment, is going to be uphill all the way if Jeremiah Cross has anything to do with these homicides.
But Jack Paris is in trouble, and thus there is no hesitation.
Silently, they agree to take their chances in court.
Five minutes later, at eleven-forty, the house has been searched, but not scoured. The first floor and basement contain nothing out of the ordinary, nothing any other upwardly mobile lawyer wouldn’t have in his house. They had found no bodies, no blood, no sacrificial altars, no body parts in the freezer. If Jeremiah Cross is a serial murderer, he is one of the tidiest ever.
As Bobby Dietricht and Carla Davis begin to mount the stairs to give the second floor a more thorough search-drawers, nightstands, some boxes they had seen in closets-Carla’s phone rings. “Hang on,” she says, but Bobby continues up the stairs.
Carla steps into the kitchen. The raid is coming down in twenty minutes and this is probably the call. Thankfully, she is still within five minutes or so of the Westwood Road address. She steps into the kitchen, pulls her phone from her pocket. “Davis.”
“Sergeant Davis, this is Dennis Sanchez.”
“Yes, Denny, thanks for calling me right back. I appreciate it.”
“Have you got a minute right now?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think we’ve got something,” Bobby yells from upstairs. “There’s a door at the back of the bedroom closet…”
“Wait for me, Bobby,” Carla says, then puts her finger in her other ear. “Go ahead. I’m sorry.”
Sanchez continues: “I talked to Chief Blake and he asked me to call you. Earlier, you made an inquiry about a man named Cross, yes?”
“That’s right.”
Bobby yells: “It looks like… like some kind of altar. I think we’ve got this prick.”
Sanchez asks: “As in Jeremiah Cross of Powell Road, Cleveland Heights?”
“Yes,” Carla replies, trying to pay attention to two things at once. “Why?”
“Can I ask what your interest is in Mr. Cross?”
“We like him in a homicide,” Carla says. “That’s really all I can say at this point.”
Bobby says: “Holy shit.”
Sanchez takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “Bad news, then, I’m afraid. We just got the dental lab records an hour ago. Jeremiah Cross was shot to death in Cain Park a week ago. Had his hands cut off, too.”
Jesus, Carla thinks. Cross is not our actor.
Cross was the DOA in Cain Park!
And that means Sanchez adds: “As of an hour ago, my John Doe became a good lawyer. I’ve got a team on the way to his house right now.”
— setup.
Bobby.
From upstairs: “There’s some kind of… hel-lo… what the fuck is this?”
“Bobby, no!”
