Roses Are Red - James Patterson [23]
Her words cut right through me. It was a terrible feeling not to be able to help. “I don’t think he’ll come back here,” I said.
Anger flashed in Christine’s eyes. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Shafer considers himself beyond us. We aren’t that important in his fantasy world. His wife was. I’m surprised that he didn’t murder the kids, too.”
“You see, you’re surprised. Nobody knows for sure what these insane, pathetic maniacs will do! And now you’re involved with more of them: depraved men who murder innocent hostages for no reason. Because they can.”
I started to walk into the office — but she raised her hand. “Don’t. Please stay away from me.”
Christine then rose from her chair and walked past me toward the teacher’s washroom. She disappeared inside without looking back.
I knew she wouldn’t come out — not until she was sure I was gone. As I finally walked away, I was thinking that she hadn’t asked about Jannie.
Chapter 33
I STOPPED AT ST. ANTHONY’S HOSPITAL again before I went to work. Jannie was up and we had breakfast together. She told me that I was the best dad in the world, and I said she was the best daughter. Then I told her about the tumor and that she needed to have surgery. My little girl cried in my arms.
Nana arrived, and Jannie was taken away for more tests. There was nothing I could do at the hospital for several hours. I went off to meet with the FBI again. The job was always there. Christine had told me, Your work is chasing insane, pathetic maniacs. There didn’t seem to be any end in sight.
Special Agent in Charge Cavalierre arrived precisely at eleven for her briefing of the team at the Bureau’s field office on Fourth Street in Northwest. It looked to me as if half the Bureau were there, and it was an impressive sight, somewhat reassuring.
I was reminded that the bank-robbing crew demanded exactness. Maybe that was the reason Kyle Craig felt Agent Cavalierre was right for this case. He’d told me that she was exacting and precise, one of the most professional agents he’d seen in his years at the Bureau. My thoughts kept going back to the high-profile bank jobs and the murders. Why did they want publicity, even infamy? Were the robbers preconditioning other bank employees and corporations for future robberies? Scaring the shit out of everyone so there would be no resistance? Or did the murders have to do with revenge? It made sense that one or more of the killers might have worked at a bank. We were chasing that lead with everything we had.
I peered around the overcrowded crisis room inside the FBI field office. Several partitions on one wall had been allotted to write-ups and photos of suspects and witnesses. Unfortunately, none of the suspects were particularly hot. Not even lukewarm. The partitions were titled “Fat Man,” “Manager’s Wife,” “Husband’s Girlfriend,” “Mustache.”
Why didn’t we have a single good suspect? What should that be telling us? What were we all missing?
“Hi and good morning. I want to thank everyone in advance for giving up your weekend,” Agent Cavalierre said with just the right amount of irony and humor. She was wearing khakis and a light purple T-shirt. There was a tiny purple barrette in her hair. She looked confident and surprisingly relaxed.
“If you don’t come in on Saturday,” an agent with a droopy mustache spoke up from the back of the room, “don’t bother to come in on Sunday.”
“You ever notice how the wiseasses always sit in the back?” Cavalierre cracked, and then smiled convincingly. She was as cool as they come.
She held up a thick blue folder. “Everybody has a big bad file like this one, containing past cases that might relate. The Joseph Dougherty robberies through the Midwest in the eighties were similar in some ways. There’s also material on David Grandstaff, who masterminded the largest single bank robbery in American history. Of some interest, Grandstaff was caught by the Bureau.