Roses Are Red

disrespect. The Mastermind busied himself pouring Chianti into plastic cups he had brought for the occasion. He passed around the cups and then made a toast.
    “To perfect crimes,” he said.
    “Yeah, right. Perfect crimes.” Errol Parker frowned as he took two big sips of Chianti. “If that’s what you call what happened in Silver Spring. Three murders that could have been avoided.”
    “That’s what I call it,” said the Mastermind. “Absolutely perfect. You’ll see.”
    They ate and drank in silence. The Parkers seemed moody, even defiant. Brianne kept sneaking looks at him. Suddenly, Errol Parker began to rub his throat. He coughed repeatedly. Then he gasped loudly,
“Aaagh! Aaagh!”
His throat and his chest were burning. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to stand, but he immediately toppled over.
    “What is it? What’s wrong, Errol?
Errol?
” Brianne asked, alarmed and afraid.
    Then she grabbed at her throat, too. It was on fire. So was her chest. She shot up from the mattress. She dropped the cup of wine and held her throat with both hands.
    “What the hell is happening? What’s happening to us?” she screamed at the Mastermind. “What did you do?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?” he answered in the coldest, most remote voice she had ever heard.
    The tenement room seemed to be whirling out of control. Errol went into spasms, then fell to the floor in a seizure. Brianne bit a gash in her tongue. Both of them were still clutching at their throats. They were choking, gagging, unable to breathe. Their faces had taken on a dusky hue.
    The Mastermind stood across the room and watched. The paralysis from the poison they had imbibed was progressive and extremely painful. It started with the facial muscles, then moved to the glottis in the back of the throat. The Parkers obviously couldn’t swallow. Finally, it affected the respiratory organs. A high enough dose of Anectine led to cardiac arrest.
    It took less than fifteen minutes for the two of them to die, as mercilessly as those murdered in Silver Spring, Maryland. They lay motionless, spread-eagled on the floor. He was quite sure that they were dead, but he checked the vital signs, anyway. Their features were unbearably contorted and their bodies twisted. They looked as if they had fallen from a great height.
    “To perfect crimes,” the Mastermind intoned over the grotesquely sprawled bodies.

Chapter 7
    I TRIED TO CALL CHRISTINE early the next morning, but she was screening her calls and wouldn’t pick up. She’d never done that to me, and it stung. I couldn’t get it out of my head as I showered and dressed. Finally, I went to work. I was hurt, but I was also a little angry.
    Sampson and I were out on the streets before nine. The more I read and thought about the Citibank robbery in Silver Spring, the more troubled and confused I was about the exact sequence of events. It didn’t make sense. Three innocent people had been murdered —
for what reason?
The bank robbers already had their money. What kind of cruel and twisted sickos were they? Why kill father and child and the family’s nanny?
    It turned out to be a long and consistently frustrating day. Sampson and I were still on the job at nine that night. I tried calling Christine at home again. She still wasn’t picking up, or maybe she wasn’t there.
    I have a couple of tattered black notebooks filled with names of street contacts. Sampson and I had already talked to more than two dozen of the prime ones. That still left plenty for tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. I was pretty well hooked into the case already. Why kill three people at the bank manager’s house? Why destroy an innocent family?
    “We’re dancing around something,” Sampson said as we drove through Southeast in my old car. We had just finished talking to a small-time hustler named Nomar Martinez. He knew about the bank robbery in Maryland, but not who did it. The late, great Marvin Gaye was singing on the car radio. I thought of Christine. She didn’t want me out here on these streets anymore. She was serious about it. I wasn’t sure if I could quit being a detective. I liked my job.
    “I had that same feeling with Nomar. Maybe we should have brought his ass in. He was edgy, afraid of something,” I said.
    “Who’s not afraid of something in Southeast?” Sampson asked. “The question remains. Who’s gonna talk to us?”
    “How about that ugly mutt there?” I said, and pointed toward the