up the driveway toward the emergency-room entrance quickly, but without flashing lights. There were two cops in the front seat, the smaller one behind the wheel. The car coasted smoothly up to the curb in front of the emergency-room entrance and stopped. Both front doors swung open, and the cops got out.
The one on the far side of the car was a big man who immediately opened the back door on his side, leaned in, and pulled out a thin passenger who seemed to think there was still a roof over his head. Even after he had taken two unsteady steps away from the car he was still bent over, as though he didn’t want to bump his head. The cop said something to his partner and ushered his charge toward the double doors. The person was not handcuffed, but seemed not to be entirely free, either. He straightened and became recognizable as a teenaged boy in a T-shirt that had been stretched out of shape, and he had a trickle of blood running from his hairline down the side of his temple to his neck. He had to be a victim, Varney decided: a loser.
The shorter cop had come around the front of the car to help but had found nothing to do, and now returned and approached the open door on the driver’s side. Varney could see that this one was a woman. Her dark hair was tied back in a tight bun, and the body armor under her shirt made her look rectangular. The heavy, blunt-toed black shoes she wore seemed calculated to make her walk like a man. She got into the car quickly, restarted the engine, and drove it around the building to a reserved space by the wall at the edge of the driveway.
Varney was up and moving into the darkness along the wall as soon as she started the car. He reached the spot he wanted while the car was still moving, then crouched and froze. He was twenty feet from the driver’s door, behind a large electrical-circuit box in the shrubbery by the wall. He listened for her footsteps as she hurried along the driveway by the dark wall to join her partner in the emergency room. She came along quickly, almost trotting, and he knew from the sound that he had chosen the right place to hunt. She was busy, her brain was fully occupied, and she was not feeling any sense that she could be threatened. She hurried past his hiding place, but he didn’t move until she was two paces beyond him and her peripheral vision would not help her.
He sprang. His right hand delivered a blow to the side of her head to stun her, then moved smoothly to her wrist so she could not reach the big, blocky grip of the pistol in its holster. His left forearm was around her throat. He crushed the trachea and let his weight drag her down, then quickly broke her neck. He pulled her pistol out and stuck it into his belt at the back, then lifted her body and propped it in the driver’s seat of the car with the feet out on the ground and the steering wheel holding her up as though she were sitting there listening to the police radio. He searched the leather cases on her belt for useful tools. He found a set of handcuffs and a short, broad-bladed knife for cutting seat belts to remove accident victims from cars.
He went back to his hiding place and waited. It was a pleasant surprise to him that the male police officer was coming out of the hospital alone. Either the victim they had brought was being admitted or the cop was wondering what had become of his partner and had left him for a moment. The cop called, “Marianne!” but he didn’t seem alarmed when she didn’t answer him or move. Instead, he quickened his pace toward her, and gave Varney a chance to take him.
The cop did not hear Varney, but he seemed to have a sudden suspicion that made him spin to look around him. Varney was already in the air, and the knife was in his right hand. Varney knew better than to try to cut through the Kevlar vest, so he slashed at the throat above it. The cop looked surprised, then lowered his head and saw that his blood was spurting into his hands. Varney went low and kicked to sweep his legs out from under him, then plucked out his sidearm and tossed it out of reach. He stood beside the body and waited until the cop had lost consciousness.
When Varney was sure the cop was dead, he considered slipping off into the darkness to his rental car. But things were going so well that he decided to take a risk. He took the man’s wrists, dragged him to the side of the police car, opened the rear door, and backed in, then hauled the body in after him. He climbed out the other side and stepped to the front. He pushed the female to the passenger side, strapped her upright with the seat belt, took her place behind the wheel, and started the car. He knew he probably had little time to do what he wanted, but he judged it would be worth the effort.
Two hours later, the telephone in Millikan’s living room rang. It was very late, but he had not been to bed. He picked up the receiver on the first ring. “Yes?” he said.
Prescott’s voice came on. “He did it.”
“How? When?”
“Not long ago. He just called me.”
“Do you believe him? There’s nothing stopping him from lying.”
Prescott’s voice was tired, but insistent. “I recorded it. Listen.”
Millikan could hear a hissing sound, then, “Prescott. In the morning they’re going to find the bodies of Marianne Fulco, badge number 4852, and Jonathan Alkins, badge number 3943. You should get a kick out of them.”
Millikan heard Prescott’s voice come on again. “Thanks for trying to warn them, Danny.”
Millikan said quietly, “I’d better let them know.”
Millikan got out of his car and walked slowly and cautiously toward the row of police cars and emergency vehicles parked along the side of the road. There were more than usual for a murder scene, but he had expected that. When a police officer was murdered, there was always anger and sadness at the death of a colleague, but there was also a public-safety concern.
People who did this were something special. They were attacking someone they knew would be heavily armed and well trained and who could get reinforcements almost instantly by pressing a radio button and asking for them. But most alarming, they were killing a person they almost certainly had never seen before. What they hated had to be the uniform. And that made several thousand other people potential victims.
Millikan moved toward one of the cars near the center of the line and a cop came around it, walking briskly toward him with his hand up, palm outward, as though to stop him. But now they were both illuminated by a set of headlights. “Millikan,” he said, and lowered his arm.
“Hi, Pete,” said Millikan, and stepped closer. “Did they tell you I was coming?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t recognize you at first.” He shook Millikan’s hand. “I thought you might be the first of the reporters.” They began to walk toward the park together. Carrera was much taller than Millikan, and he had always made the most of his height, carrying himself with his spine straight. Now he glanced down at Millikan, just moving his eyes and not his head. “It’s good to see you, Danny.”
“I’m sorry it has to be like this,” said Millikan. “How’s Denise?” He brought back a memory of children. “And the kids?”
“Not bad. We split up a few years ago, but I still see the kids. I’ll tell Denise you asked about her. And how’s your family?”
Millikan could tell that Carrera was as embarrassed as he was. They had seen each other every day for years, but after all this time, neither could remember the names of the other’s children. “We’re fine,” said Millikan.
Carrera said, “They say you knew this was going to happen: predicted it.”
“Not me,” said Millikan. “Roy Prescott. He got a threat from this guy. I decided I should be the one to call it in.”
Carrera nodded slightly, but the name Prescott seemed to puzzle him. “Makes sense. I’ll show you what we’ve got.”
As they approached, two other cops turned their heads and made moves as though to challenge them.
“It’s all right,” Carrera said softly. “It’s Lieutenant Carrera.”
Millikan said quietly, so only Carrera could hear, “Why is everybody so jumpy? Trying to keep something back from the reporters to sort out false confessions?”
“You’ll see.”
Millikan came down the hillside to the picnic area of the park. The police car was stopped among the wooden picnic tables. There were several people from the forensics team stepping gingerly around the car, shining lights on every inch of ground, and others taking pictures or brushing surfaces for fingerprints. Millikan came closer.
When Millikan started around the car, the nearest forensics officer, a woman named Dale Chernoff, spun her head toward him with an expression that was almost angry.
“Hello, Dale,” he murmured.
She nodded and gave him a small, sad smile as she returned to her work. He stepped past her, saw the picnic table, looked down at the ground beside it, and winced. It was all clear to him now. The two bodies had been posed.
