Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense (18 page)

“Got in a knife fight,” Jonas said, breaking off another piece of cookie.

No pause in the humming or chewing. Jonas stood and pushed the wheelchair down the corridor until they reached the small outside courtyard. The sun felt good on his face. The Captain recoiled from the sun as if someone threw water on his face, but moments later the smile reappeared and

Jonas knew his father was soaking in the freshness of an outside world he rarely experienced.

Jonas spoke as he wheeled his father. “Yeah, and it wasn’t a mugging like I told the Senator. It was the guy who tried to kill me in Somalia. You remember that, don’t you Dad? When I came home with cracked ribs and a concussion? His name is Rudy Sonman, and everyone thought he was dead.” The Captain hummed and rolled his head back and forth. Jonas leaned forward and gave him the last of the cookie.

“The motherfucker’s alive and he tried to kill me last night.”

An almost-laugh from the Captain. Jonas smiled.

“It’s true—swear to God. I don’t know why he wants me dead, but this woman—I told you about her last time, I think—she thinks he might be connected to a case she’s working on. Serial killer who crucifies people.”

As he said the last sentence, a woman with a walker standing near a small grouping of red and yellow rose bushes looked up.

“Oh, my,” she said. “That sounds simply awful.”

Jonas nodded to her. “Morning, Bennie.” Bennie was one of the more functional residents, which wasn’t saying much. “Yes, it is awful.”

She looked at him sternly. “People have enough troubles in this world without having to worry about being crucified.”

“Amen to that.” Jonas leaned down and snapped off the top of a yellow rose and handed it to her. He then took a red one and stuck it into a crack on the top of his father’s wheelchair. It was very therapeutic, Jonas decided, visiting his father. He could say whatever he wanted and not be judged or blamed. Jonas was the type who liked to vent now and then, but wasn’t necessarily looking for advice. An Alzheimer’s facility turned out to be the perfect venue.

“Want to walk with us, Bennie?”

“Oh, yes. That would be lovely.”

Jonas kept strolling at a snail’s pace, pushing his father, while Bennie kept up in her walker, which clunked along the stone path. There was no one else outside.

“I’m sorry, dear. What’s your name?” He had met her at least twenty times. “Jonas.”

“I’m Bennie.”

“Hi, Bennie.”

She nodded politely as she leaned over the walker. “I used to dance. New York City, of all places.”

Jonas nodded at his father. “He was a captain in the

Army.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes belying a sadness that seemed to have settled in out of nowhere. “I know that.”

“Does he...does he ever say anything? To you?”

Bennie grunted as her walker caught an edge of the stone path. She corrected it and continued forward. “Oh, no. He doesn’t say anything. Other than humming, he’s a quiet one. Quiet like the night.”

“He always was.”

Bennie stopped and stared at the Captain. “Yes,” she said finally. “He still knows. He’s still in there. Some are too far gone, but he still knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Knows the world. Knows things. Knows just enough.”

“Enough for what?”

A thin sheen of moisture glossed over her eyes. “Knows enough to be scared. Like me. I know too much. I’m here too early, but I guess there’s no other place for me. I’m waiting to forget, but it hasn’t happened yet. Only spots are black to me, here and there. But time will change that.” She looked up at him. “Jason?”

“Jonas.”

“Jonas. Of course, dear. Do forgive me.”

The Captain changed his tune, the humming taking on a slower and more sorrowful cadence. As his head sunk against his chest, sunlight highlighted the patchwork of white stubble on his ruddy cheeks.

“Do you have a wife, Jonas?”

Jonas laughed. “God, no. I don’t know who would put up with me.”

Bennie smiled but looked confused. “But you’re such a handsome man. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Maybe you need a better job,” she said. She nodded to herself. “Women like a man with ambition.”

Jonas considered this. “I’m briefing the President tomorrow.”

“Oh. Oh, my. Good for you.”

Jonas reached the end of the path and stopped pushing the wheelchair. “There
is
a woman. Not my girlfriend. I think she doesn’t even much care for me.”

Bennie leaned in with a conspiratorial grin. “But you’re

sweet on her.”

Jonas smiled. “Maybe I am.”

“Is she pretty?”

Despite the freedom of confiding in someone who wouldn’t remember him next time he came to visit, Jonas had to push through an ingrained reluctance to share. “Yes, Bennie. She is. She’s beautiful.” He turned the wheelchair around and Bennie deftly adjusted her walker behind him, following Jonas back toward the building. “She’s a medium,” he said.

”I was always a small,” she replied after some thought. The wheels of the chair crunched as they rolled over pea pebbles, and Bennie’s walker thudded in the packed dirt of the pathway. The sun felt hotter now and the Captain seemed to fade, as if the brightness of the day wilted him. The three of them remained in silence on the short trip back to the ward—even the humming from the Captain faded into a long and singular note until it died completely. Back inside, the air was antiseptic and cool, refreshing and depressing.

He parked his father’s chair at the end of a quiet hallway. It seemed almost heartless, like leaving a baby in a stroller in some abandoned building. But the Captain, when he was able, usually steered himself to this same place before falling asleep, so Jonas could only assume he liked it here. Maybe it was quieter here, away from the anxiety and fear that rippled through much of the ward. Maybe it provided the only sanctuary of peace the Captain could scratch out in a world of internal chaos. Whatever it was, Jonas wouldn’t ever know, and the mystery that was his father continued on, as it had since Jonas had first been able to say, “Daddy.”

Bennie continued on to her room without a goodbye or even an acknowledgement Jonas had been her date, if even for just a few minutes. Jonas was convinced his father was now asleep, and he leaned over and kissed the old man on top of the head.

“Bye, Dad. I’ll be back again soon. I love you.”

Jonas brushed the back of the Captain’s hand with his fingertips, and his father’s hand suddenly seized Jonas’s and held tight. The squeezing continued with unexpected force for a few seconds before slowly fading into the gentle grip of an old married couple holding hands as they walked down a city street. Jonas stood there, content with the touch, and waited until the Captain was the first to release the bond.

It took nearly ten minutes.

WASHINGTON D.C.

“YOU THREW
your BlackBerry at him?” Anne flipped the cracked phone over in her hand, trying to turn on the lifeless device.

“It was all I had. Hit him pretty good. Middle of the forehead.”

“Nice,” she said. “That must’ve been when the call disconnected. I didn’t hear the police arrive.” She handed the phone back to him and tilted her head to the side. “That call scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know what was going on.”

“Sorry I couldn’t call you sooner than I did. The police

weren’t too keen on letting me get near a phone.”

“Would it make me look weak to say I was worried sick?”

“Do you care about looking weak?”

“A little.”

“It doesn’t make you look weak.”

Dusk slowly succumbed to night as Anne leaned back on Jonas’s couch and swirled her fingertip along the rim of her wine glass. Jonas was exhausted from the day—the adrenaline from the night before had seeped from his system, leaving behind only a massive desire to sleep. Though he still had work to do before tomorrow’s briefing, Anne had insisted on coming by the scene of the fight to see if any residual evidence spoke to her special gifts. Jonas found himself eager to see her.

“I didn’t know much of what was happening either. He’s a strong motherfu—...
bastard
. Really strong. When he pulled the knife, I thought I was done for. Thank God you called the police.”

“Why does he want you?”

“No idea,” Jonas said. He held up the broken phone. “Did you get...anything from this? Did it tell you anything?”

“Just that you need a new phone.”

Jonas leaned forward. “I’m beginning to think you call yourself a medium just to get attention.”

Anne gave him a stupefied look. “I’m not a medium. And look at these legs,” she said, drawing the tips of her nails along the back of her calf, which spilled out beneath a thin black dress. “Do you really think I need attention?”

“Point taken.”

“Not everything leaves a signature with me,” she said. Jonas held up a Ziploc bag. Inside was the butt of a cigarette.

“How about this?”

“Is that from him?”

“Not sure. But I think so.”

“Shouldn’t the police have that as evidence?”

“Evidence of what? A mugging? Somehow I don’t think it would receive real high priority.”

She reached out and Jonas handed her the baggie. She turned it over in her hands. “Can I take it out?”

“Sure.”

Anne opened the top and carefully lifted out the butt between two fingernails. She then placed it in the palm of her left hand, where she cradled it like a newly hatched bird. She closed her eyes.

“Anything?” Jonas asked. “Shhhhh.”

Jonas waited and watched, the weariness of the day crawling slowly along his body like a sunbeam moving along the floor of an empty room. He needed to sleep. He needed to prepare for a presidential brief regarding the Peace Accords. He needed so many things that had nothing to do with the previous night’s events. But he couldn’t let it go, because it meant
something
.

Anne lowered her head and her lips moved, quickly, quietly, speaking half-words understood only by her. She clasped her hand around the cigarette, gently at first, then squeezing until her fingernails dug into her palm. Jonas leaned forward, wondering what it was she saw. He wanted to ask, but he remained silent. He could hear the wall clock in his nearby bedroom faintly ticking away the seconds.

Anne opened her eyes. Her clasped hand opened, and she dropped the cigarette butt back into the baggie.

“It’s his,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“What did you see?”

“I didn’t see anything. I
sensed
things.”

Jonas felt his patience slipping away. “Like what?”

She drew in a long breath. “You said he was strong. He
is
strong. I can feel it. But there’s something more about him. Something different.”

“He’s a serial killer, Anne. Of course there’s something different about him.”

“That’s not what I mean. What I mean is I sense some kind of...I don’t know...disability maybe?”

“What kind of disability?”

“I’m not sure. Not physical. Mental.”

“You mean he’s bat-shit crazy? That’s not a big leap.”

Her eyes flashed frustration. “Jonas, would you shut up for a second?”

“Sorry, I can be an ass.”

“Yes, you can be.” She looked back at the cigarette butt in the bag. “I don’t know what it is, but I get the sense he believes he’s doing the right thing. Which, of course, isn’t unusual for either serial killers or mass murderers. He’s not killing out of joy but out of...
duty.
”

“Duty? There was no duty in him when he killed that family in Somalia.”

“Maybe his motives have changed. Maybe he’s more... focused now. His need to kill is no longer just a base desire—he’s given meaning and purpose to it. I think he feels justified in what he’s doing.”

“So there’s a connection between a successful businessman in Pennsylvania, a student in West Virginia, and me?”

She shook her head. “If there is I have no idea what it could be. But I think he’s trying to find something. I think he’s on some kind of a mission. Religious killings often suggest some kind of goal is being sought.”

“So when he reaches that goal he stops killing?”

“Probably not. His mental illness will likely never let him think he’s reached whatever goal he’s set for himself.”

“Is that the disability you sense? Mental illness?”

She didn’t answer for a few moments as she considered the question. “I don’t know,” she concluded. “I think it’s something more than that. A condition. Some kind of mental illness that still allows him to function in society, but is directing him to kill. He...” She started to say something else but stopped, allowing herself instead another sip of wine and a moment of silence.

Jonas stared at the floor and tried to file everything Anne just said in a place that would make it make sense. He had to believe in her abilities, which was not easy.