Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls (35 page)

Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes were inside the interrogation room in a flash, and Kyle and Sampson were right behind them. They
jammed into the room and tried to pull me off Sachs.

Actually, I pulled myself away from Wick Sachs. I didn’t hurt him, never intended to. I whispered to Sampson. “He isn’t physically
strong. Casanova is. He isn’t the monster.
He isn’t Casanova.
”

T
HAT NIGHT, Sampson and I had dinner together at a pretty good spot in Durham. Ironically, it was called Nana’s.

Neither of us was especially hungry. The overly large steaks with shallots and mountains of garlic mashed potatoes went to
waste. It was late in the game with Casanova, and we seemed to be falling all the way back to square one.

We talked about Kate. I had been told by hospital officials that her condition was still poor.
If
she lived, the doctors believed that she had little chance of full recovery, of ever being a doctor again.

“You two were more than, you know, good friends?” Sampson finally asked. He was gentle with his probing, the way he can be
when he wants to.

I shook my head. “No, we were friends, John. I could talk to her about anything, and in ways I’d mostly forgotten. I’ve never
been so comfortable with a woman so quickly, except maybe for Maria.”

Sampson nodded a lot, and mostly listened to me air it all out. He knew who I was, past and present.

My beeper sounded while we were still pushing around the generous portions of food on our plates. I called Kyle Craig from
a phone downstairs in the restaurant. I reached him in his car. He was on his way to Hope Valley.

“We’re about to arrest Wick Sachs for the Casanova murders,” he said. I almost dropped the receiver. “You’re about to
what
” I shouted into the phone. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.

“When the hell is this going to happen?” I asked. “When was the decision made?
Who
made it?”

Kyle kept his cool as always. The Iceman. “We’re going into the house in the next couple of minutes. This time it’s the Durham
police chief’s game. Something he found in the house.
Physical evidence.
It will be a joint arrest, the Bureau in cooperation with the Durham PD. I wanted you to know, Alex.”

“He’s not Casanova,” I said to Kyle. “Don’t take him down. Don’t arrest Wick Sachs.” The level of my voice was high. The pay
phone was in a narrow corridor of the restaurant, and people were filing in and out of the nearby restrooms. I was drawing
stares, both angry and fearful looks.

“It’s a done deal,” Kyle said. “I’m sorry about it myself.” Then he hung up the car phone on me. End of discussion.

Sampson and I rushed to Sachs’s house in the Durham suburbs. Man Mountain was quiet at first, then he asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar
question: “Could they have enough to convict, without you knowing anything?” It was a tough question for me. His meaning:
How out of the loop was I?

“I don’t think Kyle has enough for an arrest now. He would have told me. The Durham PD? I don’t know what the hell they’re
up to. Ruskin and Sikes have been off doing their own thing. We’ve been in their position ourselves.”

When we arrived in Hope Valley, I found out that we weren’t the only ones who had been called to the arrest scene. The quiet
suburban street was blocked off. Several TV station trucks and minivans were already there. Police cruisers and FBI sedans
were parked everywhere.

“This is
really
fucked up. Looks like a block party,” Sampson said as we got out of the car. “Worst I’ve seen, I think. Worst screwup.”

“It has been from the beginning,” I agreed.
“A multijurisdictional nightmare.”
I was shaking like a wino in winter on a D.C. street. I had taken one body blow after another. Nothing completely made sense
to me anymore. How out of the loop was I?

Kyle Craig saw me coming. He walked up to me and firmly grabbed my arm. I had the feeling he was ready to body-block me if
necessary.

“I know how damn upset you are. So am I” were his first words. He seemed apologetic, but Kyle also appeared angry as hell.
“This wasn’t our doing, Alex. Durham blindsided us this time. The chief of police made the decision himself. There’s political
pressure right up to the statehouse on this thing. Something smells so bad I want to put a handkerchief over my nose and mouth.”

“What the hell did they find in the house?” I asked Kyle. “What physical evidence? Not the dirty books?”

Kyle shook his head. “Women’s underwear. He had a large cache of clothes hidden in the house. There was a University of North
Carolina T-shirt that belonged to Kate McTiernan. Casanova apparently kept souvenirs too. Just like the Gentleman in L.A.”

“He wouldn’t do that. He’s different from the Gentleman,” I said to Kyle. “He has the girls and plenty of their clothes at
his hideaway. He’s careful, and obsessive about it. Kyle, this is fucking crazy. This isn’t the answer. This is a huge mess-up”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Kyle said. “Good theories aren’t going to stop this from happening.”

“How about good logic and a little common sense?”

“That won’t work, either, I’m afraid.”

We started to walk toward the back porch of the Sachs house. TV cameras whirred into action, shooting anything that moved.
It was a full-scale, three-ring media circus; a disaster of the highest order in progress.

“They searched the house sometime late this afternoon,” Kyle told me as we walked. “Brought dogs in. Special dogs from Georgia.”

“Why the hell would they do that? Why suddenly search the Sachs house now? Goddammit.”

“They received a tip, and they had reason to believe it. That’s what I’m getting from them. I’m on the outside, too, Alex.
I don’t like it any more than you do.”

I could barely see two feet ahead of me. My vision was tunneled. Stress will do that. Anger, too.

I wanted to shout, to scream out, at somebody. I wanted to punch out lights on the Sachses’ veranda-style porch. “Did they
tell you
anything
about this anonymous tipster? Jesus Christ, Kyle. Goddammit to hell! An anonymous tip. Awhh
goddammit!
”

Wick Sachs was being held hostage inside his own beautiful house. The Durham police apparently wanted this historic moment
recorded on local and national TV. This was it for them. North Carolina law-enforcement hall-of-fame time.

They had the wrong man, and they wanted to show him to off the world.

I
RECOGNIZED the Durham chief of police right away. He was in his early forties and looked like an ex-pro quarterback. Chief
Robby Hatfield was around six two, square-jawed, powerfully built. I had a wild, paranoid thought that maybe he was Casanova.
He looked the part, anyway. He even fit the psych profile of Casanova.

Detectives Sikes and Ruskin were flanking the prisoner, Dr. Wick Sachs. I recognized a couple of other Durham detectives.
They all appeared nervous as hell but jubilant, and mostly relieved. Sachs looked as if he’d taken a shower in his clothes.
He looked guilty.

Are you Casanova? Are you the Beast after all? If so, what the hell are you pulling now?
I wanted to ask Sachs a hundred questions, but couldn’t.

Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes joked around some with their brother officers in the crowded foyer. The two detectives reminded
me of a few professional jocks I’d known around D.C. Most of them like the spotlight; some of them lived for it. Most of the
Durham police force seemed to operate like that, too.

Ruskin’s hair was shiny and slicked back, combed back tight against his skull. He was ready for the spotlight, I could see.
Davey Sikes looked ready, too.
You too bozos should be checking your list of doctor suspects,
I wanted to tell them.
This thing isn’t over! It’s just starting now. The real Casanova is cheering for you right now. Maybe he’s watching from the
crowd.

I made my way up closer to Wick Sachs. I needed to see everything here, just as it was. Feel it. Watch and listen to it. Understand
it, somehow.

Sachs’s wife and the two beautiful children were being kept in the dining room off the vestibule. They looked hurt, very sad,
and confused. They knew something was wrong here, too. The Sachs family didn’t look guilty.

Chief Robby Hatfield and Davey Sikes finally saw me. Sikes reminded me of the chief’s favorite bird dog. He was “pointing”
at me now.

“Dr. Cross, thank you for your help on all this.” Chief Hatfield was magnanimous in his moment of triumph. I had forgotten
that I was the one here who’d brought back the photo of Sachs from the Gentleman’s apartment in Los Angeles. Such great detective
work… such a convenient goddamn clue to discover.

This was all wrong. It just felt wrong and it smelled wrong. This was a setup of the first order, and it was working perfectly.
Casanova was escaping; he was getting away right now. He would never be caught.

The Durham chief of police finally put out his hand. I took the chief’s hand and squeezed it tight, held on to it.

I think he was afraid I was going to walk out into the camera lights with him. Robby Hatfield had seemed like a hands-off
administrator up until now. He and his star detectives were about to parade Wick Sachs outside. It would be a big dazzling
moment under a full moon and the blazing klieg lights. All that was missing were the baying bloodhounds.

“I know I helped find him, but Wick Sachs didn’t do it,” I told Hatfield straight to his face. “You’re arresting the wrong
man. Let me tell you why. Give me ten minutes right now.”

He smiled at me, and it seemed like a goddamn condescending smile. It was almost as if he were stoned on the moment. Chief
Hatfield pulled away from me and walked outside.

He walked out in front of the bright TV camera lights, playing his part beautifully. He was so taken with himself that he
almost forgot about Sachs.

Whoever called about the women’s underwear is Casanova,
I was thinking to myself. I was getting closer in my mind to who that might be.
Casanova did this. Casanova is behind it, anyway.

Dr. Wick Sachs passed by me as they led him outside. He was dressed in a white cotton shirt and black trousers. All of his
fine clothes were drenched through with his sweat. I imagined he was swimming in his shoes, too: gold-buckled black loafers.
His hands were cuffed behind his back. All of his arrogance was long gone.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said to me in the softest, choking voice. His eyes were pleading. He couldn’t believe this, either.
Then he said the most pathetic thing of all. “I don’t hurt women. I love them.”

I was struck with a mad, absolutely dizzying, thought on the Sachs porch. I felt as if I were in the middle of a somersault,
and then I just stopped. Time stopped.
This is Casanova!
I suddenly understood.

Wick Sachs was the original model used for Casanova, anyway. That was the monsters’ plan from the start; they had a fall guy
for their perfect murders and de Sade-like adventures.

Dr. Wick Sachs was actually Casanova, but he wasn’t one of the monsters. Casanova was a front, too. He knew nothing about
the real “collector.” He was another victim.

I’M THE Gentleman Caller,” Will Rudolph announced with a polite, theatrical bow. He was wearing a dinner jacket, black tie,
dress shirt. His hair was tied in a tight ponytail. He’d bought white roses for the special occasion.

“And you know who I am, ladies. You all look so very lovely,” Casanova spoke at his side. He was a striking contrast to his
partner. Tight black jeans. Black cowboy boots. No shirt. His stomach washboard-hard. He had on a black fright mask with thick,
handpainted median-gray streaks.

The killers introduced themselves as the women filed into the living room at the hideaway. They lined up in front of a long
table.

This was to be a special celebration, they had been informed earlier in the day. “The mad dog Casanova has finally been caught,”
Casanova told them. “It’s all over the news. Turned out that he was some crazed college professor. Who can you trust these
days?”

The women had been asked to wear serious party clothes, whatever they would choose for a special night out. Gowns with plunging
necklines, high-heeled evening shoes with sheer stockings, and perhaps pearls or long earrings. No other jewelry. They were
to look “elegant.”

“Only seven pretty ladies here now,” Rudolph noted as he and Casanova watched the women enter the living room and form a receiving
line. “You’re too picky, you know. The original Casanova was a voracious lover who wasn’t choosy at all.”

“You have to admit that the seven are extraordinary,” Casanova said to his friend. “My collection is a masterpiece, the best
in the world.”

“I quite agree with you,” said the Gentleman. “They look like paintings. Shall we begin?”

They had agreed to play an old favorite game. “Lucky seven.” At other times it had been “luck four,” “lucky eleven,” “luck
two.” It was the Gentleman’s game, actually. This was his night. Perhaps the final night at the house for the two of them.

They calmly walked down the receiving line. They talked with Melissa Stanfield first. Melissa wore a red silk sheath. Her
long blond hair was pinned back on one side. She reminded Casanova of a young Grace Kelly.

“Have you been saving yourself for me?” the Gentleman asked.

Melissa’s smile was demure. “I’ve been saving my heart for someone.”

Will Rudolph smiled at the clever answer. He ran the back of his hand across her cheek. He let his hand slowly track down
her throat and over her firm breasts. She submitted without showing fear or revulsion. That was one of the rules when the
games were played.

“You’re very, very good at our little game,” he said. “You’re a worthy player, Melissa.”

Naomi Cross was next in the line. She had on an ivory cocktail dress. Very chic. She would have been the belle at some Washington
law firm’s ball. The scent of her perfume made Casanova feel a little giddy. He had been tempted to declare her off-limits
to the Gentleman. He wasn’t fond of her uncle, Alex Cross, after all.