First Daughter

He wonders what Gus is going to make for breakfast this morning. He hopes it's wild-blueberry pancakes. Since he doesn't smell anything cooking from downstairs, he knows there's time enough to put in his request with the chef.

Padding out into the hallway in just his underwear, he yawns hugely, scratches his stomach. He knocks on the partly open door of Gus's bedroom, calls his name, and walks in. The curtains are drawn and it's dim, still night here.

Gus is lying on the bed, the sheets and blanket rucked beneath his huge frame. He's facedown, his arms splayed wide. Jack assumes he's in a drunken stupor, calls his name more loudly. Getting no response, he pulls the curtains. Morning steps into the room, floods the scene.

Jack sees the bedclothes are black and shiny. He sees Gus's mouth half-open, as if he's about to yell at someone. He's staring right at Jack.

"Gus?"

Then Jack sees a knife with an odd-looking hilt jammed into Gus's back.

MUCH LATER, after the police have come and gone, after he's given his statement, after Reverend Taske has come, prepared food for Jack, after the house empties of light and life, Jack goes to the stereo, puts on Out of Our Heads. As Mick Jagger begins his aural strut, Jack stands fixed, staring at nothing at all. He knows he'll spend the night down here-maybe many nights to come. He can't bring himself to go upstairs, either to his room or to Gus's. But he wonders if that bird is still in the oak. He wonders what he was looking for.

Nearly a month after that, Detective Stanz comes to see him at the Hi-Line, the ru

At last, he gets to where Jack is standing behind the register. He clears his throat. "You have some, uh, documents that Gus was keeping for me. I'd, uh, I'd like to have them back."

Jack considers for a moment. "I know what documents you mean. They belonged to Gus; now they belong to me."

Stanz's face looks like a fist. "Why, you little-!"

Jack reaches under the counter, pulls out a plain manila envelope. "I have one of them here."

He opens it, so Stanz can see the photocopies of the paperwork Stanz signed when he got his safe-deposit box at the Riggs National Bank.

Stanz snorts. "So what? Most everybody has a safety deposit box."

Jack slides a photocopy of another document from under the paperwork. "Not when two million dollars of Luis Arroyo Ochoa's money goes from the box to this offshore account in the Caymans."

Stanz goes white. He grips the display case so as not to lose his balance. "But this is impossible! Those accounts are sealed."

Jack nods. "So I understand, but that tax lawyer you went to who set up the account? He works for Gus."

Stanz wipes his sweating face. He moves to gather in the damning evidence against him, but Jack is quicker. He spirits the folder away.

"There's a price for everything," he says.

Shooting him a bleak stare, Stanz says, "What's yours?"

"I want to know who murdered Gus."

Stanz breathes a sigh of relief, and Jack knows why. He was terrified that Jack would demand half of the two million he stole. But Jack wants no part of Ochoa's blood money, and he's quite certain neither would Reverend Taske. Besides, Gus provided generously for Renaissance Mission Church in his will, just as he provided for Jack.

The detective licks his lips. "What about the other one?"

"The receipt for the gun you used to kill Ma

Stanz ponders the unexpected situation he finds himself in. At length, he nods. "As it happens, I can help."

He holds out his hand. Jack gives him the folder and he stashes it away.

"The knife we took out of Gus's back is so unusual, it took the ME two weeks to track it down," Stanz says. "It's called a paletta. It's used in bakeries. Gus introduce you to any bakery-store owners? Yeah, I thought so. His calling card, right?" His glittery eyes regard Jack without even the smallest measure of sympathy. This is a business transaction, pure and simple. "The thing of it is, there's no prints, so we can't prove anything. The Metro Police's hands're tied, know what I mean?"

Jack, his mind already fixed on Cyril Tolkan, knows precisely what he means.

THIRTY — SIX

UNLIKE OTHER places in his past Jack had visited recently, the Marmoset's house looked just as he remembered it, with its deep-blue exterior and white shutters. It must have been repainted recently, he thought.

With the real possibility of a kidnap victim inside, along with her abductor, Jack wasn't prepared to take any chances of some overeager idiot tipping Kray/Whitman off. He got no argument from Nina. What he didn't tell her was that, incredible as it seemed, he was now quite certain that Kray/Whitman was the same person who had killed the two nameless men at McMillan Reservoir, the Marmoset, and Gus twenty-five years ago. He was also the man who had abducted Alli Carter, and Jack had little doubt that he would slip his paletta into Alli Carter's back if he was given the slightest hint his lair had been compromised. What he couldn't work out as yet was the overarching pattern into which all these terrible offenses fit, because there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that all the crimes were somehow co

There was something else the developing pattern told him: In gu

Jack sat stu

At last, he roused himself. "I know this place," he said as they sat in the car where they'd parked down the block. "I'll take the back, you take the front."

They synchronized their watches. It was dusk, the light grimly fading from the sky as if whisked away by a sooty broom. The air was cold but still. Dampness lay on the ground like trash.

"Give me ninety seconds from the time we split up to get into position," he continued, "okay?"

Nina nodded and they both got out of the car. Together, they glanced at their watches as they parted company on the pavement. Jack counted to himself as he made his way down the side of the house, past a couple of garbage cans on his right, a chain-link fence on his left. Jack thought of Zilla, the huge German shepherd Gus treated so well.

He arrived at the back door with sixteen seconds to spare. On his way, he'd passed three windows. Two were heavily curtained, making it impossible to see in. The third looked past lacy curtains to a kitchen, yellow as butter. It was deserted.

Inserting a pair of hooked picks into the lock, he manipulated them so that they simulated the turn of the proper key. The door popped open at almost the same time Nina was knocking on the front door. Glock drawn, Jack went from room to room, listened for any human sounds in between Nina's insistent knocking. It was dim, gloomy, full of bad memories that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. In the hallway, he paused at the line of photos. His hair stood on end-they were all of Alli Carson. They had the telltale flatness associated with a long telephoto lens. Then his breath caught in his throat, for there in the middle was a photo of Alli and Emma walking together on the Langley Fields campus. As he stared at the two girls, Emma's image seemed to flicker, grow wavy, and move toward him. He could swear she knew he was here; he thought the smile on her face was for him.