Four Blind Mice

thick roll of toilet paper in one hand.
    Skinny kid. Longish black hair. A day’s growth on his face. Not a threat.
    “We’re on maneuvers. Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Starkey said to the young man squatting before him. He chuckled lightly, then turned to Harris. “Who the hell is he?” he whispered.
    “Couple Number Three. Shit. They must have fallen behind Target Two.”
    “All right then. Change of plans,” Starkey said. “I’ll take care of this.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Starkey felt a coldness in his chest and knew that the others probably did too. It happened in combat, especially when things went wrong. The senses became more heightened. He was acutely aware of everything going on, even at the periphery of his eyesight. His heartbeat was strong, even, steady. He loved these intense feelings — just before it happened.
    “Can I get a little privacy here?” the shitter asked. “You guys mind?”
    A brighter light suddenly flashed on — Brownley Harris was shooting another video movie.
    “Hey, is that a fucking camera?”
    “Sure is,” Starkey said. He was on top of the crouching, shitting man before he knew what was happening. He picked the victim up by his long hair, and slit his throat with the K-Bar.
    “What’s the woman like?” Griffin turned to Harris, who was still shooting with the handheld camera.
    “Don’t know, you horny bastard. The girlfriend was sleeping this morning. Never saw her.”
    “Boyfriend wasn’t too bad-looking,” said Griffin. “So I’m hopeful about the chick. Guess we’ll soon find out.”

Chapter 46
    SAMPSON AND I were riding on I-95 again, heading toward Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. There had been a brutal double murder near there. So far, it didn’t make sense to the FBI or the local police. But it made perfect sense to us.
The three killers had been there.
    We hadn’t had this much time to talk in a long while. For the first hour we were cops discussing the murder victims, two hikers on the Appalachian Trail, any possible connection to Ellis Cooper or the victims in Arizona and New Jersey. We had read the investigating detectives’ notes. The descriptions were bleak and horrific. A young couple in their twenties, a graphic artist and an architect, had their throats slit. Innocents. No rhyme or reason for the murders. Both of the bodies had been marked with red paint, which was why I got the call from the FBI.
    “Let’s take a break from the mayhem for a while,” Sampson finally said. We had reached about the halfway point of our ride south.
    “Good idea. I need a break too. We’ll be knee-deep in the shit soon enough. What else is going on? You seeing anybody these days?” I asked him. “Anybody serious? Anybody fun?”
    “Tabitha,” he said. “Cara, Natalie, LaTasha. You know Natalie. She’s the lawyer with HUD. I hear your new girlfriend from San Francisco came to visit last weekend.
Inspector
Jamilla Hughes,
Homicide
.”
    I laughed. “Who told you about that?”
    John furrowed his brow. “Let’s see. Nana told me. And Damon. And Jannie. Little Alex might have said something. You thinking about settling down again? I hear this Jamilla is something else. Is she too hot for you to handle?”
    I continued to laugh. “Lot of pressure, John. Everybody wants me to get hooked up again. Get over my unlucky recent past. Settle down to a nice life.”
    “You’re good at it. Good daddy, good husband. That’s how people see you.”
    “And you? What do you see?”
    “I see all that good stuff. But I see the dark side too. See, part of you wants to be old Cliff Huxtable. But part is this big, bad lone wolf. You talk about leaving the police department; maybe you will. But you like the hunt, Alex.”
    I looked over at Sampson. “Kyle Craig told me the same thing. Almost the same words.”
    Sampson nodded. “See? Kyle’s no dummy. Sick, twisted bastard, but not dumb.”
    “So, if I like the hunt so much, who’s going to settle down first? You or me?”
    “No contest. My role models on family are bad ones. You know that. Father left when I was three. Maybe he had his reasons. My mother was never around much. Too busy hooking, shooting up. They both knocked me around. Beat up on each other too. My father broke my mother’s nose three times.”
    “Afraid you’ll be a bad father?” I asked. “Is that why you never settled down?”
    He thought about it. “Not really. I like kids fine. Especially when they’re yours. I like