'Where are the kids?' I called out as soon as I opened the car door and climbed out. A fractured BaI'man and Robin kite was still up in a tree in the yard and I was annoyed at myself for not getting it down a couple of weeks ago.
'I shackled them to the sink and they're doing the dishes,' Nana said.
'Sorry about missing dinner.' I told her.
Tell that to your children.' Nana said, frowning up a storm. She's about as subtle as a hurricane. 'You better tell them right now. Your friend Sampson called a little earlier. So did your compatriot Jerome Thurman. There's been more murders, Alex. I used the plural noun, just in case you didn't notice. Sampson is waiting for you at the so- called crime scene. Two bodies over in Shaw near Howard University, of all places. Two more young black girls are dead. It won't stop, will it? It never stops in Southeast.'
No, it never does.
Alex Cross 5 - Pop Goes the Weasel
CHAPTER Twenty-Nine
The homicide scene was an old crumbling brownstone in a bad section of S Street in Shaw. A lot of college kids and also young professionals live in the up-and-down, mostly middle-class neighborhood. Lately, prostitution has become a problem there. According to Sampson, the two dead girls were both prostitutes who occasionally worked in the neighborhood but mostly over in Retworth.
A single squad car and an EMS truck were parked at the homicide scene. A uniformed patrolman was posted on the front stoop, and he seemed intent on keeping intruders out. He was young, baby-faced, with smooth butterscotch skin. I didn't know him, so I flashed my detective's shield.
'Detective Cross.' He grunted. I sensed that he'd heard of me.
'What do we have so far?' I asked, before I went inside and trudged up four steep flights. 'What do you hear, Officer?'
'Two girls dead upstairs. Both pros, apparently. One of them lived in the building. Murders were called in anonymously. Maybe a neighbor, maybe the pimp. They're sixteen, seventeen, maybe younger. Too bad. They didn't deserve this.'
I nodded, took a deep breath, and then quickly climbed up steep, winding, creaking stairs to the fourth floor. Prostitutes make for difficult police investigations, and I wondered if the Weasel knew that. On average, a hooker out of Fletworth might turn a dozen or more tricks a night, and that's a lot of forensic evidence, just on her body.
The door to apartment 4A was wide open and I could see inside. It was an efficiency - one large room, kitchenette, bath. A fluffy white area rug lay between two daybeds. A lava lamp was undulating green blobs next to several dildos.
Sampson was crouched on the far side of one daybed. He looked like an NBA power forward searching the floor for a missing contact lens.
I walked into a small, untidy room that smelled of incense, peach blossom fragrance, greasy food. A bright red and yellow McDonald's container of fries was open on the couch.
Dirty clothes covered the chairs: bike shorts, short-shorts, Karl Kani urban clothes. At least a dozen bottles of nail polish, remover, files, and cotton balls lay on the floor. There was a heavy, cloying smell of fruity perfume.
I went around the bed to look at the victims. Two very young women, both naked from the waist down. The Weasel had been here -1 could feel it.
The girls were lying one on top of the other, looking like lovers. They looked as if they were having sex on the floor.
One girl wore a blue tank top, the other had on black lingerie. They both had on 'slides', stacked bath sandals that are popular nowadays. Most of the Jane Does had been left naked, but unlike many of the others, we would be able to identify these two fairly easily.
'No actual ID for either girl.' Sampson said, without looking up from his work.
'One of them rents the apartment, though,' I told him.
He nodded. 'Probably pays cash. She's in a cash business.'
Sampson was wearing latex rubber gloves and he was bent down close to the two women.
'The killer wore gloves,' Sampson said, still without looking up at me. 'Don't seem to be fingerprints anywhere. Thats what the techie says. First look-through. They both were shot, Alex. Single shot to the forehead.'
I was still looking around the room, collecting information, letting the details of the murder scene flow over me. I noticed an array of hair products: Soft Sheen, Care Free Curl, styling gel, several wigs. On top of one of the wigs was a green army garrison cap with stripes. It's commonly called a 'cunt cap' among military personnel because it's effective for picking up women, especially in the South. There was also a pager.
The girls were young and pretty. They had skinny little legs, small, bony feet, silver toe rings that looked like they came from the same shop. Their discarded clothes amounted to insignificant little bundles on the bloodied hardwood floor.
In one comer of the small room, there were vestiges of brief childhoods: a lotto game, a stuffed blue bear that was threadbare and looked about as old as the girls, a Barbie doll, a ouija board.
'Take a good look, Alex. It gets weirder and weirder. Our Weasel is starting to freak out.'
I sighed and bent down to see what Sampson had discovered. The smaller, and perhaps the younger of the two gjrls was lying on top. The girl underneath was on her back. Her glazed brown eyes stared straight up at a broken
