Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls (31 page)

The door opened all the way.

“Hello, my name is Will Rudolph,” the tall, good-looking man in the doorway said in a pleasant voice. “I like your plan very
much, but I don’t think it will work. Let me tell you why.”

I
WAS AT Raleigh-Durham International Airport at a little before nine on Wednesday morning. The cavalry was arriving. Fresh
troops were here. Team Sampson was back in town.

In contrast to the creeping terror and paranoia that were present everywhere on the streets of Durham and Chapel Hill, the
early-morning businesspeople at the airport seemed oblivious to harm in their dark, pressed suits, their floral print dresses
from Neiman Marcus and Dillard. I liked that. Good for them. Denial is an approach.

I finally saw Sampson loping through the USAir gate with long, determined strides. I waved my local newspaper at him. It was
characteristic of me to wave and for Man Mountain not to. He gave me a city-cool head nod, though. Bad to the bone. Just what
the doctor ordered.

I brought Sampson up to speed while we drove from the airport to Chapel Hill.

I needed to check out the Wykagil River area. It was just another hunch of mine, but it could lead to something… like the
location of the “disappearing house.” I had enlisted the help of Dr. Louis Freed, a mentor and former teacher of Seth Samuel’s.
Dr. Freed was a noted black historian on the Civil War, a period I was also interested in. Slaves and the Civil War in North
Carolina…. In particular, the Underground Railroad that had been used for slaves escaping to the North.

As we entered Chapel Hill, Sampson got to see for himself what the abductions and grisly murders had done to the once-peaceful
college town. The nightmarish scene reminded me of a couple of my subway trips in New York City. It also reminded me a little
of home, our nation’s capital. The people of Chapel Hill now hurried along the picturesque streets with their heads down.
They no longer made eye contact with one another, especially with strangers. Trust had been replaced by fear and terror. The
sweet small-townness had vanished.

“You think Casanova is enjoying this
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
aura?” Sampson asked as we cruised the side streets bordering the University of North Carolina campus, former home base of
Michael Jordan and too many other pro-basketball stars to mention.

“I think he’s learned to enjoy being a local celebrity, yes. He likes to play the game. He’s especially proud of his handiwork—his
art.”

“Doesn’t he want a larger venue? Larger canvas, so to speak?” Sampson asked as we climbed the gentle hills the college town
had apparently been named for.

“I don’t know about that yet. He might be a very territorial rec killer. Some recs are strictly territorial: Richard Ramirez,
the Son of Sam, the Green River killer.”

I then told Sampson about my theory on twinning. The more I thought about it, the sounder it got for me. Even the FBI was
starting to believe in it a little. “The two of them have to be sharing some big secret. That they abduct beautiful women
is only part of it. One of them thinks of himself as a ‘lover’ and artist. The other is a brutal killer, much more typical
of serial-killer cases. They complete each other, they correct each other’s weaknesses. Together, I think they’re virtually
unstoppable. More importantly, I think they do, too.”

“Which one is the leader?” Sampson asked a very good question. It was completely intuitive on his part. The way he always
solves problems.

“I think it’s Casanova. He’s definitely the more imaginative of the two. He’s the one who hasn’t made any major mistakes yet,
either. But the Gentleman isn’t really comfortable being a follower. He probably moved to California to see if he could succeed
on his own. And he couldn’t.”

“Is Casanova this kinky-assed college professor? Dr. Wick Sachs? The pornography professor you told me about? Is he our man,
Sugar?”

I peered across the front seat at Sampson. We were into the real deal now. Cop shop talk. “Sometimes, I think it’s Sachs,
and that he’s so goddamn clever and smart he can
let us know who he is.
He enjoys watching us squirm. That could be the ultimate power game for him.”

Sampson nodded—
one
nod. “And other times, Dr. Freud, what is your alternative thought process on Dr. Sachs?”

“Other times, I wonder if Sachs has been set up. Casanova is very bright, and he’s been extremely careful. He seems to send
out misinformation that has everyone chasing his own tail. Even Kyle Craig’s getting uptight and crazy.”

Sampson finally showed his large, very white teeth. Maybe it was a smile, or maybe he was going to bite me. “Looks like I’m
here just in the motherfucking nick of time.”

As I slowed for a stop sign on the side street, a man with a gun suddenly moved away from a parked car and toward us.

There was nothing I could do to stop him, nothing Sampson could do.

The gunman pointed a Smith and Wesson right into my face, up against my cheekbone.

Endgame! I thought.

Tilt!

“Chapel Hill police,” the man shouted into the open window. “Get the hell out of the car. Assume the position.”

“
Y
OU GOT here
just
in the nick of time,” I muttered to Sampson under my breath. We climbed out of the car very slowly and carefully.

“Looks like it,” he said. “Be cool now. Don’t get us shot or beat up, Alex. I wouldn’t appreciate the irony.”

I thought I knew what was happening and it made me incredibly angry. Sampson and I were “suspects.” Why were we suspects?
Because we were a couple of black males riding on the side streets of Chapel Hill at ten o’clock in the goddamn morning.

I could tell that Sampson was furious, too, but he was angry in his own way. He was smiling thinly and shaking his head back
and forth. “This is rich,” he said. “This is the best yet.”

Another Chapel Hill detective appeared to assist his partner. They were tough-looking studs, in their late twenties. Longish
hair. Full mustaches. Hard, muscular bodies from workout central. Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes in training.

“You think this is funny?” The second officer’s voice was disembodied, so low I could barely hear the words. “You think you’re
a laugh riot, Home?” he asked Sampson. He had a lead sap out and was holding it close to his hip, ready to strike.

“Best I could come up,” Sampson said, keeping his smile turned on low. He wasn’t afraid of saps.

My scalp was crawling and sweat dribbled slowly down my back. I couldn’t remember being rousted recently, and I didn’t like
it one bit. Everything bad I had felt since I’d been here fell into place. Not that rousting black males is peculiar to North
Carolina or the South anymore.

I started to tell the cops who we were. “My name is—”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole!” One of them popped me in the small of the back before I could finish. Not hard enough to leave
a bruise, but it stung like a good rabbit punch. It hurt in a couple of ways, actually.

“This one looks fucked up to me. Eyes are bloodshot,” the low-voiced patrolman said to his partner. “This one is high.” He
was talking about me.

“I’m Alex Cross. I’m a police detective, you
motherfucker!
” I suddenly yelled at him. “I’m part of the Casanova investigation. Call detectives Ruskin and Sikes right now! Call Kyle
Craig from the FBI!”

At the same time, I spun around fast and hit the closest one in the throat. He dropped to the ground like a stone. His partner
jumped forward, but Sampson had him on the sidewalk before he could do anything too dumb. I took away the first stud’s revolver
easier than I could disarm a fourteen-year-old hugger-mugger in D.C.

“Assume the position?”
Sampson said to his “suspect.” There was no merriment in his deep voice. “How many brothers you pull that shit on? How many
young men you call ‘homes’ and humiliate like that?—like you might fuckin’ understand what their life is about. Makes me
sick.
”

“You know damn well the serial killer Casanova isn’t a black man,” I said to the two disarmed Chapel Hill cops. “You haven’t
heard the last of this particular incident, gentlemen. Believe me on that one.”

“There been a lot of robberies in this neighborhood,” the deep-voiced one said. He was contrite all of a sudden, doing the
Corporate America step’n’fetchit, the old two-step backstep.

“Save the sorry bullshit!” Sampson said, jabbing out with his own gun, letting the two detectives feel a little humiliation
of their own.

Sampson and I got back into our car. We kept the detectives’ guns. Souvenirs of our day. Let them explain it to their bosses
back at police headquarters.

“Son of a bitch!” Sampson said as we pulled away. I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my palm. I hit it a second time.
The bad scene had shaken me more than I had realized, or maybe I was just too ragged and frayed right then.

“On the other hand,” Sampson said, “we did take those boys down like
snap.
Little bullshit racism gets my adrenaline flowing, blood boiling. Gets the demons going. That’s good. I have the proper
edge
now.”

“It’s nice to see your ugly face again,” I said to Sampson. I had to smile, finally. We both did. Then we were both laughing
out loud in the car.

“Nice to see you, too, Brown Sugar. You’ll be happy to know you’ve still got your looks. Strain’s not showing too bad. Let’s
go to work. You know, I pity the poor psycho if we catch him today—which is likely, I might add.”

Sampson and I were twinning, too. It felt as good as ever.

S
AMPSON AND I found Dean Browning Lowell working out at the new faculty gym in Allen Hall on the Duke campus. The gym was filled
with the latest and greatest muscle-building and toning equipment: shiny new rowing machines, StairMasters, treadmills, Gravitrons.

Dean Lowell was working with free weights. We needed to talk to him about Wick Sachs, doctor of pornography.

Sampson and I watched Browning Lowell do a tough set of lateral raises, then some leg curls and presses. It was an impressive
workout, even by the standards of two dedicated gym rats like ourselves. Lowell was quite a physical specimen.

“So this is what an Olympian god looks like up close,” I said as we finally strolled across the gym floor toward him. Whitney
Houston was playing from speakers in the gym’s walls. Whitney was getting all the professor types pumped up to the max.

“You’re walkin’ with an Olympian god,” Sampson reminded me.

“It’s easy to forget in the presence of the great, yet humble, ones,” I said and grinned.

Dean Lowell looked as he heard our street shoes tatooing on the gymnasium floor. His smile was friendly and welcoming. That
nice guy Browning Lowell. Actually, he did seem like a nice man. He went out of his way to create that impression.

I needed as much insider’s detail as I could get from him in a hurry. Somewhere in North Carolina there had to be a missing
puzzle piece that would begin to make sense out of all this murder and intrigue. I introduced Sampson and we skipped the polite
small talk. I asked Lowell what he knew about Wick Sachs.

The dean was extremely cooperative, as he’d been on our first meeting. “Sachs is our campus skell, has been for a decade.
Every university seems to have at least one,” Dean Lowell said and frowned deeply. I noticed that even his frown lines had
muscles.

“Sachs is widely known as ‘Doctor Dirt.’ He’s got tenure, though, and he’s never been caught at anything completely untoward.
I guess I should give Dr. Sachs the benefit of the doubt, but I won’t.”

“You ever hear about an exotic book and film collection that he owns, keeps at his house? Pornography masquerading as erotica?”
Sampson decided to ask my next question for me.

Lowell stopped his vigorous exercises. He looked at both of us for a long moment before he spoke again. “Is Dr. Sachs a serious
suspect in the disappearances of these young women?”

“There are a lot of suspects, Dean Lowell. I can’t say any more than that right now.” I told him the truth.

Lowell nodded. “I respect your judgment, Alex. Let me tell you some things about Sachs that might be important,” he said.
He had stopped exercising by now. He began toweling off his thick neck and shoulders. His body looked like polished rock.

Lowell continued to talk as he dried himself meticulously. “Let me start at the beginning: There was an infamous murder of
a young couple here a while back. This was in nineteen eighty-one. Wick Sachs was an undergrad at the time, a liberal arts
student, very brilliant mind. I was in the graduate school then. When I became dean, I learned that Sachs had actually been
one of the suspects in the murder investigation, but he was definitely cleared. There wasn’t any evidence that he was involved
in any way. I don’t know every detail, but you can check it for yourself with the Durham police. It was in the spring of ’eighty-one.
The murdered students were Roe Tierney and Tom Hutchinson. It was a huge scandal, I remember. In those days, a single murder
case could still actually shock a community. Thing is, the case was never solved.”

“Why didn’t you bring this up before?” I asked Lowell.

“The FBI knew all about it, Alex. I told them myself. I know that they talked to Dr. Sachs several weeks ago. It was my impression
that he wasn’t under suspicion, and that they had decided there was no connection with the earlier murder case. I’m absolutely
sure of it.”

“Fair enough,” I said to the dean. I asked him for another big favor. Could he dredge up everything on Dr. Sachs that the
FBI had originally requested? I also wanted to see the Duke yearbooks from the time when Sachs and Will Rudolph had both been
students. I needed to do some important homework on the class of ’81.

Around seven that night, Sampson and I met with the Durham police again. Detectives Ruskin and Sikes showed up, among others.
They were feeling heavy-duty pressure, too.