One to Go (6 page)

“We have four Emmas in Ms. Allen's class. Emma Stein's Emma 1, and Emma Wong's Emma 2. Why do you want to know?”

Tom used his right hand to punch the names into his iPhone notes app while keeping his left hand on the wheel.

“You're not allowed to text while driving, Daddy,” said Janie.

“You're right, honey.” He quickly finished inputting Emma 2, then made a show of putting the phone back in his pocket.

When they arrived at Angie's house, Tom used Gayle's key to unlock the door, then entered the large, two-story colonial with Janie and Angie following close behind him. He'd been in the Battaglia home on Rittenhouse Street on numerous occasions when he'd been married, and was familiar with the layout. He stopped in the foyer.

“You girls go on up and get Angie's clothes. And don't forget her toothbrush and bathroom stuff.”

Angela only made it up two stairs when she froze.

“Angie?”

“Maybe you should come with us,” said Janie.

He was such an idiot. “Of course.” He followed them up to Angie's room and made a big show of checking her closet and looking under the bed. He offered the most reassuring smile he could muster. “Everything's fine.”

“How long will I be gone?” asked Angie.

Very good question
. “I don't know, honey. I'd pack for three or four days. We can do a wash, or we can always come back if you need more stuff.”

“I think my suitcase is in my mom and dad's room,” said Angie.

“I'll get it, sweetie.”

Tom walked down the narrow hallway and entered the master bedroom. In the closet, he saw several suitcases of varying sizes on an upper shelf. Among them was a small pink case covered with pictures of the Muppets.

When he reached for the suitcase, his elbow caught the corner of one of the larger suitcases, moving it aside, revealing a small, polished maple box.

He pulled the box down and opened it. A silver pistol rested snugly in a green felt cut-out.

Tom didn't move. The words, “Ruger GP100” were engraved on the barrel.

He heard the girls in the hallway.

“Daddy?”

Tom stuffed the gun into his pocket, grabbed the pink Muppet case, and exited the room.

He'd been sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the draft due diligence agreement on his computer screen for hours. Katherine O'Neil wanted it first thing in the morning, and Tom needed to finish his redraft so she'd see it in her computer inbox when she arrived. But while his eyes faced the document, his mind focused on the Ruger lying next to the laptop. He knew next to nothing about guns.

Strike that. He knew
nothing
about guns.

He'd shot a 12-gauge once when his cousins had taken him duck hunting the previous December. He'd frozen his ass off in a rickety duck blind, blowing rain and sleet, conditions his enthusiastic cousins said were perfect for ducks. As Tom had explained in as clear a logic as he could muster: that's why they're ducks and we're not. It had been misty, so when Estin said, “There's one!” he'd shot at what he thought was a flying duck. His cousins had laughed so hard he thought they'd knock down the damn blind. Seems he was shooting at a passing airplane on its approach into BWI airport.

Tom had never held, much less fired, a handgun. He'd grown up in a suburb of Baltimore, a safe, middle-class community with wide streets, shady trees, and good schools. He supposed the Second Amendment gave people the right to have guns in their homes, and when he thought about it, believed the idea of everyone turning in their guns for some violence-free Utopia was naïve. But he rarely thought about it. Now, he had to think about it.

Scratch one
. What if the
one
had been Janie? What if the next one's Janie?

Then again, what if the whole Chad & Brit show wasn't real, and Rosie's death had been a coincidence? Coincidences happened, hence the need for the word. And here he was contemplating how to shoot a Ruger GP100 so he could kill a perfect stranger.

He'd looked up the weapon online and learned it was a double-action model, meaning he wouldn't need to fan the hammer with his palm like the gunslingers in old TV westerns. Just point and shoot. Snuff out a life. Easy peasy.

He knew he needed to talk to someone, but who? Zig? Zig knew of his bridge vision, but any suggestion that the vision might be real would result in his friend informing him in no uncertain terms he was bonkers—stress from Rosie's death, pressure at work—and take away his shiny Ruger.

And then, what if two weeks from now he'd get a hysterical call in the wee hours telling him Janie or Angie or Emma 2 was dead? No, he decided he couldn't tell a soul.
He would actually have to contemplate killing another human being
. But, not knowing whether Janie or one of the other three girls was on deck, he'd also have to make sure he didn't get caught because he might have to kill again.

Tom Booker, serial killer
.

Okay, okay. Think logically. As his Georgetown professors used to say, think like a lawyer. Could he take a chance with his daughter's life? No. He rubbed his fingers down the barrel of the Ruger. He now had the means, and he had the motive to kill, to save Janie. But did he have the balls?

He picked up the 5 x 7 framed photo on his desk. Halloween, two years earlier. Janie's face filled the frame. She wore a Hello Kitty costume. Eyebrow pencil-applied whiskers, a wide grin with a missing front tooth. Eyes sparkling with life.

He'd have to find the balls.

And a victim.

Over the next ten days, Tom felt like he was wearing someone else's body. He attended Rosie's funeral, focused on his legal work, and had beers with Zig at Napoleon's where they gossiped about their coworkers.

On Saturday, he took Jess out to dinner where he was charming and appeared interested in her every word. She looked sexy in a low-cut blouse and a short, yellow miniskirt. He'd barely taken a sip of his beer before she began rubbing first his thigh, then his groin under the table. She appeared perplexed, even hurt, when he didn't respond.

“Sorry, just a little self-conscious.”

“No problem,” said Jess. “I can wait. A little while.” She giggled.

It was after midnight when they left the restaurant. They'd barely gotten out of the parking lot before Jess was bent over his lap, tugging at his zipper. He gently lifted her up.

“Too distracting.” His attempt at a laugh was pathetic. “You don't want to cause an accident, do you?”
Don't you know, driving distractions kill?
“Let's wait till we get to your place.”

“Maybe I can't wait that long.” She kissed him, plunging her tongue down his throat. His view completely blocked by her head, he heard a horn blaring.

Bright headlights lit up the car's interior. He was driving in the oncoming lane. Swerving hard right, he just missed a head-on with a huge sedan. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Sorry, but let's just cool our jets here. We'll be at your place soon, then we—”

He saw her slowly rubbing her hips back and forth on the car seat. Jesus, was she going to masturbate right here in the car? Was this the way girls acted in Oklahoma?

“I got a better idea,” she said. “Let's go to the Lincoln Memorial. It's faster.”

“Faster?”

“Just do it, silly, or—” She made a move to bend over his lap again.

“Okay, okay.”

Given the hour, it took little time to reach the memorial and find a parking space on Ohio Drive.

Her skirt devoid of pockets, Jess carried her cell phone in her left hand, and took his hand in her right, then led him up the marble steps to the memorial.

“Expecting a call?” asked Tom.

She winked. “Photo op.”

“Is the memorial open?”

“Twenty-four hours,” responded Jess. “On-site rangers leave at 11:30. After that, it's just routine patrol.”

“And you know this how?”

She responded with a grin.

When they reached the memorial, she gently tugged him toward the Lincoln statue.

“Stand there, in front.” Tom complied, and while she fussed with her phone to take the picture, he looked up into the sixteenth president's face. From the sharp angle, it was as if God himself was staring down at him with an expression of weary disapproval. He whispered, “I have no choice.”

“What did you say?” asked Jess.

“Nothing.”

“Then smile.”

She took the photo. “Come on. Don't know when the next patrol's going to swing by.”

Tom looked around. No doors, just four walls, each bearing Lincoln's famous words. “Come where?”

She led him behind the statue. From the front, Tom had assumed the statue was positioned flush against the wall, directly beneath the words:
In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever
. But there was a gap between the wall and the back of Lincoln's chair—more of a throne—consistent with the artist's view of the memorial as a temple. A draped robe fell from Lincoln's shoulders down the back of the chair.

Jess pulled him into the tight space. They were hidden from everyone except somebody who might happen to walk around to the back of the statue.

She reached up high and set her phone deep into the folds of Lincoln's draped robe, then braced herself against the wall and lifted her skirt. No underwear.

Like a woman possessed, she pulled at his belt and zipper. Tom was surprised his body responded to her ministrations. Pleasantly surprised, actually. She wrapped her legs around him, and for a short time he forgot about death and lost himself in the essence of life.

By Thursday, he'd made no progress in finding a target. He'd early on come to an obvious decision—he would only target someone who deserved to die. A bad guy. He banished from his mind the natural follow-up questions: What if he couldn't find a bad guy? Would he let Janie die? Would he roll the dice and pray one of the other girl's number would come up? Could he pray for the death of an innocent child? Hopefully, matters wouldn't get to that point.

His only plan so far was to drive through the drug-infested streets of Southeast DC and lure a street dealer to his car. He'd shoot him, then drive away before anyone could mount a chase.
When reviewing the plan, he purposely glossed over the “shoot him” part. When the time came, could he really do it? Would he really do it? He had no idea.

Tom was familiar with the area from his five years as a teacher at Ray Jabazz Elementary School. The school was named for a famous tenor sax jazz musician who'd grown up in the nearby public housing complex and attended the school.

Tom had started off as an architecture major at Maryland, but after his mother's death, decided to follow in her footsteps and spend his life teaching young children. He'd never get rich, but he'd enjoy more personal fulfillment working with live kids than dead buildings.

In his first few years at Jabazz, he'd been fearful walking from the school to the parking lot a block away, particularly in the winter months when it was dark. But over time, he'd come in contact with some of the kids' more notorious family members, including a young drug kingpin named Chewy Lewis. After meeting Chewy, the word must've gone out to leave the teacher alone, and he'd never been bothered.

After he'd married Gayle, she'd made it plain she expected a lifestyle more elevated than a teacher's salary could provide. At her urging, he'd taken the LSATs and scored amazingly well. To his astonishment, he'd been admitted to Georgetown's night school, which allowed him to continue teaching while attending classes in the evening.

So, he would visit the old neighborhood and do it—the thing, the act, the
cold-blooded murder
—on Friday. He prayed he wouldn't run into anyone he knew.

Tom had gone over his plan a thousand times. A smart guy, he should be able to figure out how not to get caught. He wouldn't use his own car in case it got picked up on traffic cameras. Instead, he'd rent a car, but not from one of the big agencies; he'd find some small outfit that took cash and make sure the license plates were covered with mud. He'd wear a
disguise, but not so obvious as to be noticeable—a hat, sunglasses, and gloves.

Drug dealers were always killing each other, so, hopefully, the cops wouldn't spend too much time investigating.

Hopefully.

Friday, Tom felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't think about work, much less concentrate on drafting the SEC quarterly report for a large pharmaceutical company client. Katherine told him he looked ill and encouraged him to go home early. When he entered his apartment, he barely made it to the bathroom before he hurled the complete contents of his stomach.
This is crazy this is crazy this is crazy
.