Roses Are Red

hurried to the kitchen to get it before it woke everyone up, especially little Alex, or A. J., as Jannie and Damon had started to call him.
    It was Kyle Craig.
    Kyle almost never called the house and never this late. This was how everything had started on the Mastermind case — with Kyle.
    “Kyle,” I said, “why are you calling me here? What’s wrong? I can’t start on another case.”
    “It’s bad, Alex. I don’t even know how to tell you this,” he said in the softest, quietest voice. “Oh, shit, Alex . . . Betsey Cavalierre is dead. I’m at her place now. You should come here. Just come.”
    I hung up the phone a minute or so later. I must have — because it was back on its hook. My legs and arms had turned to jelly. I was biting the inside of my cheek and I tasted blood. I was reeling. Kyle hadn’t told me everything, just that I should come to Betsey’s house. Someone had broken in there and killed her. Who had killed her? Jesus! Why?
    I was throwing on some clothes to go and meet Kyle when the phone rang a second time. I snatched it up. It had to be somebody else with the bad news. Probably Sampson, or maybe Rakeem Powell.
    I heard a voice on the line. It froze everything inside of me.
    “I just wanted to congratulate you. You did wonderful work. You caught and punished all my little minions, as I thought you might. Actually, they were put there for that very purpose.”
    “Who is this?” I asked. But I thought I knew who it was.
    “You know who it is, Dr. Detective Cross. You’re a smart-enough fellow. You knew that catching the good Dr. Francis was a little too convenient. Also my detective friends in New York — Mr. Brian Macdougall and his crew. And of course there’s still the matter of all that missing money. I’m the one you call Mastermind. That’s a name I can live with. It fits. I am
that good.
    “Good night for now. I’ll see you soon. Oh. And have a nice time over at Betsey Cavalierre’s.
I certainly did.
”

Chapter 125
    I CALLED SAMPSON first and asked him to come out and be with Nana and the kids. Then I raced out to Woodbridge, Virginia, and Betsey’s house. I drove the HOV lane all the way at speeds up to a hundred.
    I had never been there before, but I didn’t have any trouble finding her house. There were cars double-parked everywhere on the street. Several were Crown Victorias and Grand Marquises. I figured most of them were FBI. EMS was there, too. I could hear the burping screams of more sirens racing to the murder scene.
    I took a deep breath before I walked inside. Suddenly I felt dizzy. Kyle was still there, directing the Bureau’s Violent Crime Unit as it began to collect evidence. I shook my head: I doubted they would find much here. They hadn’t at crime scenes where the Mastermind had been involved before this.
    A few FBI agents were crying. I had cried during the car ride here, but right now I needed to be as clear and focused as possible. This was the only chance I would get to see Betsey’s house close to the way the killer had seen it, the way he had left it for us.
    It looked as if there had been a break-in. A window in the kitchen had been tampered with. FBI techs were videotaping it now. I couldn’t help noticing Betsey’s things, her style, her home. On the refrigerator was the
Newsweek
cover of the American Women’s World Cup soccer champion Brandi Chastain and the headline “Girls Rule!”
    The house looked to be close to a hundred years old and was filled with country clutter. Andrew Wyeth paintings, photos of loons in autumn on a gorgeous lake. On a hallway table I noticed a reminder for Betsey’s next mandatory shooting qualifier at the FBI range.
    Finally, I did the really hard thing, the impossible thing. I walked down a long hallway that led back from the living room. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. It was easy to tell that she had been murdered there. The FBI’s activity centered around the rear bedroom. The murder scene. It had happened right here.
    I still hadn’t spoken to Kyle, hadn’t bothered him, hadn’t pulled him away from the VCU team and their search of the place. Maybe we would get lucky this time. And maybe not.
    Then I saw Betsey and I lost it. My left hand flew to my face as if it had a mind and will of its own. My legs buckled badly. My entire body shook.
    I could hear
his
goddamn voice ringing inside my head:
Oh. And have a nice time over at Betsey Cavalierre’s. I certainly did.
    He had