Jack & Jill

the White House. A murder investigation.
    He left me alone inside the Map Room on the ground floor. I paced around the famous room, absently checking out the elaborately carved Chippendale furniture, an oil portrait of Ben Franklin, a landscape painting titled
Tending Cows and Sheep.
I already had a busy day ahead. I had appointments set up at the city morgue and with Benjamin Levitsky, the number two at the FBI’s intelligence unit.
    I continued to be frustrated about the Truth School child murders. For the moment, that was Sampson’s concern. Sampson’s and our part-time posse of detectives’. But I couldn’t keep it off my mind.
    Suddenly, someone entered the Map Room along with the national security advisor. I was taken by surprise. I was blown away, actually. No words could possibly describe the feeling.
    Don Hamerman stiffly announced, “President Byrnes will see you now.”

CHAPTER
36

    “GOOD MORNING. Is it Doctor or Detective Cross?” President Thomas Byrnes asked me.
    I had a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Cross would serve me much better at the White House. Like Dr. Bunche, Dr. Kissinger, or even Doc Savage. “I guess that I prefer Alex,” I said to him.
    The President’s face lit up in a broad smile, and it was the same charismatic one I had seen many times on television and on the front pages of newspapers.
    “And I prefer Tom,” the President said. He extended his hand and the two of us shook off our surnames. His grip was firm and steady. He held eye contact with me for several seconds.
    The President of the United States managed to sound both cordial and appropriately serious at the same time. He was about six feet tall, and he was trim and fit at fifty. His hair was light brown, trimmed with silver-gray. He looked a little like a fighter pilot. His eyes were very sensitive and warm. He was already known as our most personable president in many years, and also our most dynamic.
    I had read and heard a lot about the man I was meeting for the first time. He had been the successful and much-admired head of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit before he decided to go for an even higher executive office. He had run for the presidency as an Independent, and true to the polls of the past few years, the people had voted for fresh, independent thinking—or maybe they were just voting against the Republican and Democratic Parties, as some pundits believed. So far, he had shown himself to be a contemporary thinker, but a bit contrarian, a genuine maverick in high office. As an independent mover and shaker, the President had made few friends in Washington, but lots of enemies.
    “The director of the FBI highly recommended you,” he said. “I think Stephen Bowen’s a pretty good man. What do you think? Any opinion of him?”
    “I agree with you. The Bureau has changed a lot in the past couple of years under Bowen. We work well with them now. That didn’t used to be the case.”
    The President nodded. “Is this a real threat, Alex, or are we just taking wise precautions?” he asked me. It was a tough, blunt question. I also thought it was the right question to ask.
    “I think the concern of the Secret Service is definitely a wise precaution,” I said. “The coincidence of the names Jack and Jill being the same as your code names with the Secret Service, that’s very disturbing. So is the killers’ pattern of going after famous people here in Washington.”
    “I guess I fit that damn description. Sad but true,” President Byrnes said and frowned. I had read that be was as intensely private man and down-to-earth as well. He seemed that way to me. Midwestern in the best sense. I guess what surprised me the most was the warmth that came from the man.
    “As you have admitted yourself, you’re ‘shaking up the toy box.’ You’ve already disturbed a lot of people.”
    “Stay tuned, there are
a lot more
major disturbances to come. This government badly needs to be reengineered. It was designed for life in the eighteen hundreds. Alex, I’m going to cooperate in any way I can with the police investigation. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt, let alone die. I’ve certainly thought about it, but I’m not ready to die yet. I think Sally and I are decent people. I hope you’ll feel that way the more you’re around us. We’re far from perfect, but we are decent. We’re trying to do the right thing.”
    I was already feeling that way about the President. He had quickly struck a good chord