had sandwiches and thermoses of strong black coffee brought out from the academy’s commissary. Fellows, to his credit, stood back, sipping coffee, silently observing him as he worked. Jack was unfamiliar with McKinsey, but he had gotten to know Naomi well enough when she was guarding the FLOTUS. Carson had plucked Naomi out of her daily assignments specifically to guard his wife. That was how Edward Carson did things—by instinct. In thinking of Lyn Carson, Jack realized that no one had informed Alli that her mother was dead. On reflection, Jack supposed such news was better left undelivered for the time being.
Jack had spent his time wisely. As soon as there was sufficient natural light he switched off the spots and got to work. He had learned to distrust spotlights, which tended to distort perspective and played havoc with the impressions received by his brain. Circling the body in ever closing circles, his dyslexic brain literally took pictures of the corpse—not only the ashen color and unnatural granular quality of the skin, the grotesque disfigurement of body and face, but aspects other people could not see or perhaps accurately interpret. His brain, however, worked more than three hundred times faster than other people’s, and so it could recognize tiny anomalies and dislocations, and, in the time it took a human being to inhale and exhale, analyze them.
This was how he discovered the fracture below the left eye. It was precise, like a break a surgeon would make in the process of resetting a bone. There was, also, a deliberateness about it that intrigued him. He said nothing of either his find or his musings to the people in the grove with him.
He stood up and said to Fellows, “Commander, do you really believe Alli capable of this crime?”
Fellows’s meaty shoulders lifted and fell. “To be honest, Mr. McClure, I found myself a failure at human psychology the moment my wife of twenty years walked out on me without a word of explanation.”
He turned. “Naomi?”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine it.” Her brow furrowed. “On the other hand, she’s like a closed book to everyone except you, so I’d ask you the same question: Is she capable of this kind of protracted violence?”
“Absolutely not,” Jack said.
“But we have the vial with traces of roofies under her bed,” McKinsey pointed out, “and a bloody knife in the trash behind her dorm.”
Jack nodded. “We’ve yet to determine whether it’s Billy’s blood on the blade, or if her prints are on the haft.”
“And if they are her prints?” Naomi asked.
He waved away her concern. “Someone has gone to a lot of trouble setting her up. This has been meticulously thought out.”
“What about the bizarre nature of the murder?” McKinsey said. “The knife wounds, draining the victim of blood?”
“Red herrings,” Jack said, “designed to get us going around in circles.”
McKinsey made a noise in the back of his throat.
“What,” Jack said, “you think there’s a vampire infesting Fearington?”
“Of course not, but don’t you think it’s possible that when Alli found out about this other girl…” He snapped his fingers.
“Arjeta Kraja,” Naomi cut in helpfully.
“Right. Isn’t it possible that when Alli found out Billy was boffing Arjeta Kraja she flipped out?”
“And the sky could be falling,” Jack said acidly. “Let’s deal with reality.”
McKinsey shrugged, as if to say, I tried.
“Something stinks in this setup.” Jack peered again at the corpse. “It’s weird, gothic, over the top. We need to find out where the stink is coming from.”
“We need to talk to this Arjeta Kraja,” Naomi said. “ASAP.”
Jack nodded, only partly engaged. There was another thing he was reluctant to share with Naomi and McKinsey. He had the nagging suspicion that Alli knew more about this girl than she had let on. Why she would keep that secret was anyone’s guess, but Jack knew Alli well enough to know that she must have a damn good reason. She better have.
No one would tell him where she was taken. Jack had called Henry Carson’s townhome in Georgetown without luck.
Jack, his mind made up, turned to Fellows. “I want to interview Alli’s roommate.”
VERA BARD lay on a bed in the academy infirmary. The pinkish light of dawn streamed in through windows and a small skylight high up in the ceiling. The walls were painted a cheerful yellow, but the floor was institutional gray linoleum, a veteran from another era.
The nurse led Jack over to Vera’s bed. Alli’s roommate was a dark-haired girl with large, slightly upswept chocolate eyes, an assertive nose, and a wide, expressive mouth.
“Please, just for a few minutes,” the nurse cautioned. “She is still very weak.”
Fluids dripped into Vera’s arm and her eyes were hooded, as if she was having trouble staying awake, but this only made her seem sultry. She looked vaguely Eurasian. Her long hair had lost its sheen to sweat; it lay lankly on the pillow in thick, Medusan coils. Still and all, Jack observed, she was an exceptionally beautiful young woman.
He sat on a painted metal chair and introduced himself. “Vera, would you tell me what happened last night?”
“I … I don’t know.” Her voice was soft and husky. “I went to bed as usual, read for a bit, took my pill, as usual, and went to sleep.” She licked her dry lips. “The next thing I knew I woke up here.”
“Alli was in the room when you went to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“And while you were reading?”
“Yes.”
“Did you two talk at all?”
“Before I went to the bathroom we were talking about…” Her brow crinkled. “I can’t remember about what. Boys, maybe.”
“About Billy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And after you came back from the bathroom?”
Vera shook her head and a lock of hair fell across her cheek.
Jack sat for a moment more. He smiled at her. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
Vera seemed not to have heard him. She licked her lips again. “I want to see Alli.”
“I’ll speak to Commander Fellows.” Jack rose. “By the way, what medication are you taking?”
“Crestor. I have high cholesterol.”
Jack nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Vera.”
ON THE way out of the infirmary, Jack encountered Naomi.
“DNA is going to take at least a week,” she said, “but the forensic team found Alli’s fingerprints on the water glass beside Vera’s bed.”
“Anyone else’s?”
“Just Alli’s.”
Jack’s cell phone buzzed, and then Dennis Paull was speaking rapidly and tensely in his ear. He strode down the hall, away from Naomi and McKinsey, who had appeared.
“A new position?” Jack said after a moment. “Is Crawford kicking you out?”
“Not exactly.” Paull further explained the changes. “You’re coming with me, Jack. I’m pulling all the details together. At midnight you and I are going to fly to Macedonia, then trek west into the mountains to a shithole called Tetovo, where we will terminate this sonuvabitch Arian Xhafa.”
Jack bit back a protest. Though Paull had made it clear that he was sympathetic to Alli’s plight, Jack suspected he’d simply argue that there were other people—Naomi Wilde chief among them—who were perfectly adequate to being Alli’s advocate. Besides, in Harrison Jenkins she had one of the most savvy criminal attorneys on the planet. Jack could hear him now:
