“He gets up half an hour to forty-five minutes later than we do. His bus comes at six-thirty Please? What is this about?”
“We need to talk to your son, Colonel Moore,” I said to him.
Keep it real simple for right now.
“You have to do better --” Colonel Moore started to say “No, ;ve don't have to do better,” Sampson interrupted him.
“We need to see your son right now. We're here on a homicide investigation, Colonel. Two small children have already been killed. Your son may be involved with the murders. We need to see your son.”
“Oh, dear God, Frank,” Mrs. Moore spoke up for the first time. Connie, I remembered her name. 'This can't be happening.
Sumner couldn't have done anything.'
Colonel Moore seemed even more confused than when we first burst in, but we had gotten his full attention. “I'll show you up to Sumner's room. Could you please holster your weapons, at least?”
“I'm afraid we can't do that,” I told him. The look in his eyes was inching closer to panic. I didn't even look at Mrs. Moore anymore.
“Please take us to the boy's bedroom now,” Sampson repeated.
“We need to go up there quietly. This is for Sumner's own protection. You understand what I'm saying?”
Colonel Moore nodded slowly His face was a sad, blank stare.
“Frank?” Mrs. Moore pleaded. She was very pale.
The three of us went upstairs. We proceeded in single file.
I went first, then Colonel Moore, followed by Sampson. I still hadn't ruled out Franklin Moore as a suspect, as a potential madman, as the killer.
“Which room is your son's?” Sampson asked in a whisper.
His voice barely made a sound. Last of the Masai warriors. On a capital-murder case in Washington, D.C.
“It's the second door on the left. promise you, Sumner hasn't done anything. He's thirteen years old. He's first in his class.”
“Is there a lock on the bedroom door?” I asked.
“No... I don't think so... there might be a hook. I'm not sure. He's a good boy, Detective.”
Sampson and I positioned ourselves on either side on the closed bedroom door. We understood that a murderer might be waiting inside. Their good boy might be a child killer. Times two.
Colonel Moore and his wife might have no idea about their son, and what he was truly all about.
Thirteen years old. I was still slightly stunned by that. Could a thirteen-year-old have committed the two vicious child murders?
That might explain the amateurness at the crime scenes.
But the rage, the relentless violence? The hatred?
He's a good boy, Detective.
There was no lock, no hook, on the boy's door. Here we go. Here we go. Sampson and I burst into the bedroom, our guns drawn.
The room was a regular teenager's hideout, only with more computer and audio equipment than most I'd seen. A gray cadet dress uniform hung on the open closet door. Someone had slashed it to shreds!
Sumner Moore wasn't in his bedroom. He wasn't catching an extra half-hour of sleep that morning.
The room was empty.
There was a typewritten note on the crumpled bedsheets, where it couldn't be missed.
The note simply said Nobody is gone.
“What is this?” Colonel Moore muttered when he read it.
“What is going on? What is going on? Can somebody please explain? What's happening here?”
I thought that I got it, that I understood the boy's note. Sumner Moore was Nobody -- that was how he felt. And now, Nobody was gone.
An article of clothing lying beside the note was the second part of the message to whoever came to his room first. He had left behind Shanelle Green's missing blouse. The tiny electric-blue blouse was covered with blood.
A thirteen-year-old boy was the Truth School killer. He was in a state of total rage. And he was on the loose somewhere in Washington.
Nobody was gone.
THE SOJOURNER TRUTH SCHOOL killer traipsed along M Street reading the Washington Post from cover to cover, looking to see if he was famous yet. He had been panhandling all morning and had made about ten bucks. Life be good!
He had the newspaper spread wide open, and he wasn't much looking where he was going, so he bumped into various assholes on his way. The Post was full of stories about goddamn Jack and Jill, but nothing about him. Not a
