Pop Goes the Weasel

this.”
    She stood. “You’re not in on it yet. Like I said, I’ll let you know.” Then she touched my hand. “I really am sorry about your friend.”

Chapter 68
    WE BOTH KNEW I was in, though. We’d made some kind of deal in the City Limits diner. I just hoped I wasn’t being set up by Hampton and Pittman or God knows who else.
    Over the next two days, we talked four times. I still wasn’t sure that I could trust her, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep moving forward. She had already visited the landlady who’d rented out the apartment and garage in Eckington. The landlady hadn’t recognized the pictures of Shafer. Possibly he’d worn a disguise when he met with her.
    If Patsy Hampton was setting me up, she was one of the best liars I’d met, and I’ve known some good ones. During one of our calls, she confessed that Chuck Hufstedler had been her source, and that she’d gotten him to keep the information from me. I shrugged it off. I didn’t have the time or the energy to be angry at either of them.
    In the meantime, I spent a lot of time at home. I didn’t believe the killer would come after my family, not when he already had Christine, but I couldn’t tell that for sure. When I wasn’t there, I made sure Sampson or somebody else was checking on the house.
    On the third night after I met her, Patsy Hampton and I had a breakthrough of sorts. She actually invited me to join her on her stakeout of Shafer’s town house in Kalorama Heights.
    He had arrived home from work before six and remained there until just past nine. He had a nice-looking expat family — three children, a wife, a nanny. He lived very well. Nothing about his life or surroundings suggested that he might be a killer.
    “He seems to go out every night around this time,” Hampton told me as we watched him walk to a shiny black Jag parked in a graveled driveway at the side of the house.
    “Creature of habit,” I said. A weasel .
    “Creature, anyway,” she said. We both smiled. The ice was breaking up a little between us. She admitted that she had checked me out thoroughly. She’d decided that Chief Pittman was the bad guy in all of this, not me.
    The Jaguar pulled out of the drive, and we followed Shafer to a night spot in Georgetown. He didn’t seem to be aware of us. The problem was that we had to catch him doing something; we had no concrete evidence that he was our killer.
    Shafer sat by himself at the bar, and we watched him from the street. Did he perch by the window on purpose? I wondered. Did he know we were watching? Was he playing with us?
    I had a bad feeling that he was. This was all some kind of bizarre game to him. He left the bar around a quarter to twelve and returned home just past midnight.
    “Bastard.” Patsy grimaced and shook her head. Her blond hair was soft and had a nice bounce to it. She definitely reminded me of Jezzie Flanagan, a Secret Service agent I’d worked with on the kidnapping of two children in Georgetown.
    “He’s in for the night?” I asked. “What was that all about? He leaves the house to watch the Orioles baseball game at a bar in Georgetown?”
    “That’s how it’s been the last few nights. I think he knows we’re out here.”
    “He’s an intelligence officer. He knows surveillance. We also know he likes to play fantasy games. At any rate, he’s home for the night, so I’m going home, too, Patsy. I don’t like leaving my family alone too long.”
    “Good night, Alex. Thanks for the help. We’ll get him. And maybe we’ll find your friend soon.”
    “I hope so.”
    On the drive home, I thought a little about Detective Patsy Hampton. She struck me as a lonely person, and I wondered why. She was thoughtful and interesting once you got past her tough facade. I wondered if anyone could ever really get through that facade, though.
    There was a light on in our kitchen when I rolled into the driveway. I strolled around to the back door and saw Damon and Nana in their bathrobes at the stove. Everything seemed all right.
    “Am I breaking up a pajama party?” I asked as I eased in through the back door.
    “Damon has an upset stomach. I heard him in the kitchen, so I came out to get in his way.”
    “I’m all right. I just couldn’t sleep. I saw you were still out,” he said. “It’s after midnight.”
    He looked worried, and also a little sad. Damon had really liked Christine, and he’d told me a couple of times that he was looking forward to having a mom