Hunter dh-1 Page 9

  “ Unhappy? I’m not hearing this. How about a little compassion for his victims, Dad?”

  “Of course I feel for them, Annie! I feel terrible for them. Because they’re victims, too-victims of whatever happened to him early in his life.”

  “You mean they’re-what? Collateral damage?”

  “That’s a strange way of putting it. But in a sense, it’s causally true.”

  She looked at him, speechless.

  “Forget Adrian Wulfe for the moment,” he went on. “Let’s talk about your friend, Susie. She just can’t continue to wallow in anger. You can’t live that way. You have to learn at some point to forgive and move on.”

  Her eyes returned to a photo on his mantelpiece. “Like you forgave Julia?”

  From the corner of her eye she saw him wince. A moment passed. When he spoke, his voice was softer.

  “Annie, why don’t you call her ‘Mother’?”

  She had to fight down the anger to keep her own tone even. “She’s no mother to me. Just like she was no wife to you. Dad, she betrayed you. She betrayed both of us. How can you keep her photo up there?”

  He shook his head. “I forgave her long ago. I had to turn away from anger, or it would have consumed me.” He hesitated. “Just as you ought to forgive Frank.”

  “You want to forgive, go ahead. I don’t forgive the unforgivable.”

  “You should try to understand her. And him. Victor Hugo said it well. ‘To understand all is to forgive all.’ And you should give the Church a try, too. It turned my life around after your-after Julia left.”

  “You mean, after she betrayed you and abandoned both of us.”

  “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

  “For deception? For betraying her marriage vows? Are you saying she had no choice? That she was like some sleepwalker, driven by forces beyond her control?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I was to blame. Maybe I didn’t give her enough attention. Perhaps-”

  She picked up her purse from the floor and stood. “Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe about her. But I’ll tell you this: I wasn’t to blame for her leaving us. I didn’t deserve that. And I sure as hell didn’t deserve what Frank did to me, either.” She headed for the door.

  He rose. “Annie, please, wait-”

  She stopped. Faced him.

  “Wait? For what? For more excuses? For you to try to convince me that it’s acceptable for people like Julia and Frank and Wulfe to do monstrous things to other people?” She looked at him, thinking about it. “Or are you just trying to convince yourself, Dad? Does it make you feel better to imagine that she really didn’t want to hurt you?”

  She didn’t wait to see the impact of her words.

  THIRTEEN

  Claibourne Correctional Facility Claibourne, Virginia

  Tuesday, September 9, 12:15 p.m.

  Adrian Wulfe sprawled across the cement steps, letting the mid-day sun dry the sweat from his T-shirt.

  The steps led from the cellblock door down into the prison yard. He’d just finished his workout out there. Now a group of Hispanics had moved in to pump iron-grunting, clanking the plates on the bars, and spotting for each other. Most of them were big, some bigger than him. But they’d all gotten out of the way when he showed up. Just as the guys entering and leaving the entrance behind him made sure to pass by without touching him or asking him to move.

  He closed his eyes, savoring the memory of his first week here, when he’d settled all that. When that Spic giant in the shower had tried to make him his punk. He’d broken the bastard’s nose, right arm, and left tibia.

  Nobody ratted him out for it: He knew it was a matter of honor that the Spics would want to settle it themselves. So he was ready when three of them, also big guys, came for him the next day. It happened down in the laundry room, where he worked sorting clothes. He wasn’t as nice about it that time. He left them barely alive, two of them with their own shivs sticking out of their guts. The third would never again walk without crutches or see out of his left eye.

  Under questioning later, none of the eyewitnesses breathed a word about who had done it. Not after they saw what he could do. Not after he told them-with that little twisted smile that he had perfected in his youth-just what would happen to them if they did. Of course, he himself had no difficulty lying persuasively to the warden or staff. He could pass a polygraph with ease, and had. He’d once overheard his whore mother tell some John that her brat Addie could lie to God and get away with it. He smiled at the memory: It had been the only clever thing the bitch had ever said in her life.

  He stretched and shook his ape-like arms, loosening the tight muscles.

  So, from the beginning, things had been at least tolerable here. Not that he wanted to be here, of course. He wanted out. After all, he had plans. But, for the time being, whenever he told somebody to do something, they did it. Nobody had said no to Adrian Wulfe for decades.

  At least, nobody did and lived.

  Plans… He knew that the first things to do when he was free would be to settle some accounts. The call last night from Valenti had especially cheered him. That kid, at least, was reliable-not like the cokehead, Bracey. All impulse, no self-discipline. Little wonder that he’d gotten himself shot. From the story in the paper, there was little doubt he’d tried to stiff someone on a deal. On the other hand, with Jay-Jay, he’d picked well. The kid had come through for him again, this time with the information he needed about the two women.

  He remembered every word they’d said to him. Remembered how, with Frankfurt there, he had to just sit there and smile and take it.

  He closed his eyes, let his imagination run. First thing when he got out of here, it would be payback time. Especially with that arrogant Woods bitch. But damn, she was hot. She was going to be such fun…

  An image intruded. The guy who’d come after him, out in the hallway. He’d gotten the man’s name easily enough from a guard who owed him, and he immediately recognized it as the name of the reporter who wrote about him in the Inquirer. But Valenti couldn’t find an address or much of anything else about him. Like this Hunter was a ghost or something, the kid said.

  Strange. And why did this guy have such a hard-on about getting him, anyway? He recalled the guy’s eyes and voice. Both ice-cold, not at all frightened. How he moved: fast, smooth. No, not one of the usual pencil-neck reporters you run into.

  He raised his hands before his face, opened and closed them. They were big, veined mitts, calloused and hardened from years of hard dojo training.

  When he got out of here, he’d have to figure out a way to find him, too. After all, the man had threatened him. And in the presence of witnesses. That would never do.

  Nobody threatened Adrian Wulfe and lived.

  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

  Tuesday, September 9, 12:45 p.m.

  The dented old Chevy van bore the logo of Sorkin Cleaning Services. It was parked on a street in a quiet residential area, across from the entrance to a big, ornate, three-story Victorian sited on a spacious grassy lot. A small plate on the front door of the house, almost invisible to passers-by, bore the name Youth Horizons.

  From behind the tinted glass of the van’s rear windows, the bearded man watched his target emerge from the house. The young guy had dark, curly hair and a thin wispy mustache. He walked up the sidewalk to a black Mustang that had pulled up a few minutes earlier. The driver, a skinny blond kid, tossed a cigarette out his window as his buddy got in on the passenger side. He’d left his radio on, thumping out rap music loud enough to be felt even here, in a closed van.

  The man was back behind the wheel of the van as the Mustang’s driver revved his engine a few times, then screeched out of his parking space, laying down some rubber.

  He eased the van ahead, made a quick U-turn in a driveway, then followed the Mustang. He kept his distance, staying back just far enough so that they wouldn’t spot him. But with the noise and wild gesturing he could see inside the
car, he could have probably sat in their back seat without being noticed.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Tuesday, September 9, 7:30 p.m.

  “Come on, man. You go.”

  Stretched out on the threadbare sofa, Johnny Valenti tried to ignore his friend. He couldn’t take his eyes off the pay-per-view porn. The two babes getting it on were really putting him in the mood for when Jamie and Vicki would show up in just another half hour.

  “You hard of hearing, Jay-Jay?” Keith Janiels demanded. Valenti was dimly aware of the sound of the refrigerator closing, then steps approaching. He glanced up and saw his friend, beer in hand, walk to the end table, pick up the remote, then click it off.

  “Hey! What the hell!”

  “Screw you, Jay-Jay. I got the pizza last time.”

  “Look, you have the car, and I’m paying. So you go get it.” Valenti shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans, emerged with a crumpled twenty, tossed it onto the coffee table. “Come on, dickhead, they’ll be here soon.”

  Janiels cursed, grabbed the bill, and headed toward the door. His baggy, ripped-up jeans hung almost off his ass. “We shoulda just had it delivered.”

  “You know they don’t deliver in this neighborhood.”

  “Well, leave me a few beers, will you?” Janiels grabbed his worn leather jacket from a chair and left, banging the apartment door behind him.

  “Jerk-off,” Valenti said, reaching for the remote to click the porn back on. Then he noticed the coffee table was covered with crumbs and empty snack bags. His eyes drifted around the room, taking in the dirty clothes, beer cans, and butts scattered everywhere. Didn’t he ever clean this dump? Christ, what are the girls gonna think?

  He sighed and rolled off the sofa to his feet. He’d better tidy up a bit. Women were funny about stuff like that. No point in wrecking their mood.

  He was cramming a handful of trash into the heaping garbage can in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink when he heard the knocking.

  It had only been a couple of minutes. Goddamned Keith probably forgot his keys again. “Yeah, hang on.” He wiped off his hands on the sides of his jeans as he went to the door. “Lock yourself out again, moron?”

  He opened it and found himself staring into the eyes of a bearded stranger.

  Before he could react, the guy snapped a fast kick into his gut. As he buckled forward, there was another blur and something banged into his skull.

  His next memory was feeling his face being slapped, over and over, hard, stinging blows. His eyes flickered open on the face of the bearded dude, hovering just inches above his face. He now found himself on the floor. His head and abdomen hurt so damned much that his body shook with spasms and he couldn’t breathe or speak. The guy was saying something to him, words he couldn’t put together.

  Then the guy got up, leaving him curled on the floor, gasping and quivering. Eventually, the spinning slowed and the dude’s words began to come together. He wore a baseball cap and some kind of gray, cover-all uniform.

  And he pointed a black handgun right at his head.

  “You with me now, Jay-Jay? Did you hear a word I said?”

  He could only grunt and shake his head, which made it hurt worse.

  “While I hate to repeat myself, it’s only fair that you know what’s happening, and why. So I’ll say it again. Five years ago, you sexually brutalized a fourteen-year-old girl. I hear that she’s never been the same since. Four years ago, you kidnapped, tortured, and murdered another girl, Roberta Gifford. You left her in-”

  “No!” he grunted.

  The guy bent over him, waving the big gun barrel side to side, in a no-no motion. “Too late to lie, Jay-Jay. But I hear that your parents are good people. And practicing Catholics. So, out of respect for them, I’ll give you one more minute to confess your sins, before I blow your goddamned brains out.”

  His throat constricted with panic. He stared at the gun barrel, realizing now that it looked so big because it had a silencer on it. The dude was really going to kill him.

  He shook his head wildly. “Not me…swear… Please!”

  “Cut the crap, Jay-Jay. You’re down to forty-five seconds. Your dear mother wouldn’t want you to die with unconfessed sins on your soul, now would she?”

  “Not me… Wulfe…”

  The guy’s expression changed. “What did you say?”

  He sucked in a long breath. “Wulfe’s idea… I didn’t…kill her.”

  The guy leaned over him, sticking the muzzle right into his face. “Are you talking about Adrian Wulfe?”

  He nodded frantically. Then told the tale. It took only a couple of minutes. When he was done, the guy stood over him motionless, holding the gun down along his thigh. His eyes looked hard.

  “So you didn’t kill her. It was Wulfe.”

  “Yeah! You gotta believe me!”

  “Perhaps. But you and Bracey still helped him, right? You helped him kidnap her. Then you both joined in to rape and torture her. Didn’t you, Jay-Jay?”

  He couldn’t say anything. His eyes began to swim with tears.

  “And that other girl, the year before. You did that all by yourself. Didn’t you, Jay-Jay?”

  He began to cry.

  “Then, of course, there was Susanne and Arthur Copeland. We both know what you did to Susanne. Anything you care to say about that, Jay-Jay?”

  “I’m so sorry, man… I…don’t…know what-”

  “-got into you,” the man finished. “I know, I know. Poor Jay-Jay. The devil made you do it.”

  He nodded, sobbing.

  The man raised the pistol, pointed it at his chest. “Then go and take up your complaint with him.”

  Something banged against his chest, like a hammer. Then the bearded man’s face faded away…

  *

  He didn’t have much time.

  He unscrewed the AAC Evolution 9 suppressor from the barrel of the Glock 17, shoved the silencer into a pants pocket and the gun into the holster inside his windbreaker.

  He went to the door, opened it. Loud music down the hall, but nobody in the hallway. He grabbed the rolling plastic trash container that he had left just outside the door and rolled it into the apartment.

  Inside was a folded plastic tarp and a roll of duct tape. He opened it on the floor beside the body. Careful not to get blood on his uniform, he flipped Valenti’s body onto it, then wrapped it up, quickly sealing it with a few strips of the tape. He lowered the trash container onto its side, its bottom braced against a wall; then he slid and pushed the body inside. He muscled it upright, closed the lid, and rolled it out of the apartment toward the exit door down the hall.

  He was just hoisting the ramp back into the rear of the van when the Mustang pulled into the parking lot and took the space next to him, on his passenger’s side. The blond kid, never glancing his way, carried the pizza toward the apartment building.

  He slammed the back doors shut, then jumped in and drove off. He didn’t want to be in the neighborhood when the kid found nothing of Jay-Jay, except his blood on that filthy gray shag carpet.

  Alexandria Circuit Court Alexandria, virginia

  Tuesday, September 9, 8:48 p.m.

  George Crenshaw heard the noise before the cleaning guy rounded the corner and approached his security desk. The noise came from the wheels of the big plastic garbage bin he pushed in front of him.

  “Hi,” the bearded guy said, smiling at him. He wore a gray baseball cap with the brim pulled low over his eyes, and the gray Sorkin Cleaning Services uniform. “I’m the replacement they sent over.”

  “You’re early.” Crenshaw pawed through the papers on his desk and found the memo. “Yeah. Here it is. Your company called it in this afternoon. Said they’d be sending in somebody new tonight.”

  “That’s me.” The bearded guy tapped the plastic photo ID clipped to his uniform pocket.

  “Let me get the number off your badge. You can sign in here.”

  The guy didn’t use the
pen chained to the sign-in clipboard, but instead drew one out of his own pocket and scribbled his name. Crenshaw leaned forward, checked the photo on the badge against the guy’s face, then took down the name and number on it and entered them next to the signature.

  “Okay, that’s all I need Mr. Dantes.”

  “Just call me Edmond.”

  Crenshaw glanced at the guy and returned his smile. “Well, Edmond, I suppose you need help finding your way around here.”

  “No problem. I can figure it out if there’s a directory.”

  The security guard pointed. “Right over there near the elevators.”

  “Thanks. I won’t be long,” Dantes said. “I’ll leave some things upstairs, but then I have to go back to the office and get some stuff I forgot.”

  “Sure.” Crenshaw reached under his desk, pulled a key off a hook, and handed it to the cleaning man. “Here’s a copy of the master. You can just walk right around the metal detector.”

  “I appreciate your help. Well, I’d better get to it. See you in a bit.”

  He watched the guy head off toward the elevators, whistling. Crenshaw shook his head. Amazing that anybody could enjoy such a job.

  *

  This would be tricky.

  He emerged from the elevator with his latex gloves on. He rolled the trash bin down the hallway, noting the position and angles of the various closed-circuit cameras. He needed to find just the right spot.

  He did. The angle of the overhead camera in the reception area of the Commonwealth Attorney’s office appeared to leave a blind spot to the right of the receptionist’s desk. He also noticed the very tall, broad-leafed potted plant standing in the corner. He dragged the plant to where it would block even more of the camera’s line of sight.

  He pushed one of the chairs from the waiting area and positioned it beside the reception desk, facing the entrance. Then he rolled his trash container into the blind spot and carefully tipped it to the floor. After he slid out Valenti’s body, he used scissors from the receptionist’s desk to cut away the plastic tarp. He heaved the corpse onto the chair, tying it in position with a cord he’d found days ago in a Dumpster.