Roses Are Red

She snorted out a laugh. "So he's pulled off five perfect crimes that we know of. And now he's retiring to the farm."

"Yeah. The fu

"Want to hear about my day?" she finally asked.

I nodded.

"Well, I visited First Union and I talked with everyone I could find who was there when Szabo was at the bank. He was considered very "dedicated," actually. But he was wound tight about efficiency and doing the right thing in exactly the right way. Some of the others used it to mock him."

"Mock him in what way?" I asked.

"Szabo had a nickname, Alex. Get this it was the Mastermind! The name was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke on Szabo."

"Well, I guess he's turned the joke around. Now the joke is on us."

Chapter One Hundred and Nine

The strangest thing happened the following morning. As Szabo was passing me in the hall, he rubbed against me. He managed to look flustered and he apologized for supposedly 'losing his balance," but I was almost certain he had done it on purpose. Why? What the hell was that all about?

About an hour later, I saw him leaving the ward. I was pretty sure he knew I was watching him go. As soon as he was out, I hurried to the door.

"Where's Szabo going?" I asked the aide who'd just let him out.

"PT. He signed out. Szabo has full grounds and town. He can go wherever he likes."

He had been vegetating on the ward for so long that he'd caught me off guard. Tell the head nurse that I had to leave," I said.

"Tell her yourself," The aide frowned and tried to blow me off.

I pushed past him," Tell her. It's important."

I let myself off the unit and took the rickety and temperamental elevator down to the lobby floor. PT was physical therapy, and Frederic Szabo hated the gym. I remembered reading it in his nursing notes. Where was he really going?

I hurried outside and saw Szabo skulking across the courtyard between hospital buildings. Tall and bearded like the physical description we'd gotten from Brian Macdougall.

When Szabo walked right past the gym, I wasn't surprised.

He was on the move!

He kept on going and I followed. He seemed kind of nervous and skittish. He finally turned his head in my direction and I ducked off the path. I didn't think he'd seen me. Had he?

Szabo continued on and walked through the hospital gates. The street outside was filled with traffic. He walked due south. Not a care in the world. Was this the Mastermind?

He hopped into a cab a couple of blocks from the hospital. There were three of them parked in front of a Holiday I

I hurried to one of the other cabs, got in, told the driver to follow.

The driver was Indian. "Where are we going, mister?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I said. I showed him my detective's badge.

The driver shook his head, then he moaned into his hands. "Oh brother. Just my bad luck. Like the movies -follow that cab."

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

Szabo got out of his cab on Rhode Island Avenue in Northwest. So did I. He walked for a while window-shopped. At least that's what it looked like. He seemed more relaxed now. His nervous tics had lessened once he was off the hospital grounds. Probably because he had been faking them.

He finally turned into a squat, dilapidated brownstone building, still on Rhode Island Avenue. The basement floor was a Chinese laundry

– A LEE.

What was he doing in there? Was he skipping out a back door? But then I saw a light flash in the second-floor window. Szabo crossed past it a few times. It was him. Tall and bearded.

My brain was starting to overload with possibilities. No one at Hazelwood knew about Szabo's apartment in DC. There wasn't any mention of it in the nursing notes.

Szabo was supposed to be a drifter. Hopeless, harmless, homeless. That was the illusion he'd created. I'd finally learned a secret of his. What did it mean?

I waited down on Rhode Island Avenue. I didn't feel in any particular danger. Not yet anyway.

I waited out on the street for quite a while. He was inside the building for nearly two hours. I didn't see him appear at the window again. What was he doing in there? Time flies when you're hanging by your fingernails.

Then the light in the apartment blinked out.

I watched the building with mounting apprehension. Szabo didn't come outside. I was concerned. Where was he?

A good five minutes after the light went out upstairs, Szabo appeared on the front doorstep again. His nervous tics seemed to have returned. Maybe they were for real.

He rubbed his eyes repeatedly, and then his lower chin. He twitched and continually pulled his shirt away from his chest. He finger-combed his thick black hair three or four times.

Was this the Mastermind that I was watching? It almost didn't seem possible. But if he wasn't, where did that leave us?

Szabo kept nervously looking around the street, but I was hidden in the dark shadows of another building. I was sure he couldn't see me. What was he afraid of?

He started to walk. I watched him retrace his steps up Rhode Island Avenue. Then he waved down a cab.

I didn't follow Szabo. I wanted to but I had an even stronger urge. A hunch I needed to play. I hurried across the street and entered the brownstone where he'd spent most of the afternoon.

I had to find out what Szabo had been doing in there. I finally had to admit he was driving me crazy. He was giving me nervous tics.