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By Root 641 0

Devine and Charlie Chakely, and the watcher. Jezzie couldn’t help too much. She told me I was probably looking in the wrong place with the Secret Service agents. She said that Chakely was an excitable type who just might blow up over a call to Arizona. She told me he was bitter on the job, so he’d probably be bitter off it. In her opinion, Mike Devine and Chakely were both good, but not great, agents. If something was worth noting during the Goldberg family surveillance, they would have seen it. Their logs would have been accurate. Neither of them was clever enough to pull off a cover-up. Jezzie was sure of that.

She didn’t doubt that Nina Cerisier had seen a car parked on her street the night before the Sanders murder, but she didn’t believe that somebody had been watching Soneji/Murphy. Or even that Soneji had been down near the projects himself.

“I’m not on the case anymore,” Jezzie finally said to me. “I don’t represent the interests of Treasury or anybody else. Here’s my honest opinion, Alex. Why don’t you just give it up? It’s over. Let it go.”

“I can’t do that,” I told Jezzie. “That isn’t how we do things at King Arthur’s Round Table. I can’t give up on this case. Every time I try, something pops up and changes my mind.”

That night we went to bed fairly early. Nine, nine-fifteen. The Chassagne-Montrachet, Premier Cru did its job. There was still passion, but there was also warmth and tenderness between us.

We cuddled, and we laughed, and we didn’t go to sleep early. Jezzie dubbed me “Sir Alex, the Black Knight of the Round Table.” I called her “Lady of the Lake.” We finally fell asleep whispering like that, peaceful in each other’s arms.

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up. I was on top of ruffled bed covers and comforter, and it was very cold.

There was still an orangish glow from the fire, a quiet crackling noise. I wondered how it could be so cold in the bedroom with the fire still going.

What my eyes saw, what my body was feeling, didn’t add up. I mulled on that for a few seconds.

I crawled under the covers and pulled them up to my chin. The glow reflected against the windowpane looked strange.

I thought about how odd it was to be there with Jezzie again. In the Middle of Nowhere. I couldn’t imagine ever not being with her now.

I was tempted to wake her. Tell her that. Talk to her about anything and everything. The Lady of the Lake. And the Black Knight. Sounded like Geoffrey Chaucer for the 1990s.

Suddenly I realized it wasn’t a glow from the fireplace that was flickering against the window.

I jumped out of bed and ran to take a look. I was witnessing something I had heard about all of my life, but had never expected to see.

A cross was burning very brightly on Jezzie’s lawn.

CHAPTER 73

A MISSING LITTLE GIRLnamed Maggie Rose.

Murders in the projects. The thrill-killing of Vivian Kim.

A psychopath. Gary Soneji/Murphy.

An “accomplice.” A mystery watcher.

A fiery cross in North Carolina.

When would the pieces finally fit together? Would the pieces ever fit? From that moment in Jezzie’s cottage until the end of everything, my head was filled with powerful, disturbing images. I couldn’t give up the case, as Jezzie had suggested. Events the following week added to my paranoia.

I came home late from work on Monday. Damon and Janelle swarmed all over me as I stomped the dozen paces from the front door to the kitchen.

“Phone! Phone! Phone!” Damon chanted as he romped along at my side.

Nana was holding the phone out to me from the kitchen. She said it was Wallace Hart calling from Fallston Prison.

“Alex, I’m sorry to bother you at home,” Wallace said. “Could you swing by here? It might be important.”

I was trying to peel my jacket off. I stopped—one arm in, one out. The kids were helping me. Sort of helping me; sort of trying to get me to throw out my back.

“What is it, Wallace? I’ve kind of got my hands full tonight.” I stuck my tongue out at Damon and Jannie. “Couple of little problems around the house. Nothing I can’t handle, though.”

“He’s asking for you. He wants to talk