Sam met Fletcher’s eyes. “A bisexual cross-dresser with film? Anyone ever gotten their hands on it?”
“I haven’t seen it. And a few of them have said he’s gone a bit too far before.”
“Too far how?”
“Choke and revive. People being asked to play dead. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds like you have more than rumors to go on,” Sam said.
“Listen, Doc. This guy is a really big deal. Former dove, now an outspoken proponent for the military, looking for funding from every quarter. Served for years, a decorated veteran. He has a kid in Afghanistan. He had a presidential run in mind. His proclivities get out, it’s embarrassing for a whole bunch of people, you know?”
“He’s just a study in contradictions.”
“Sam...”
“That’s fine, I understand. But why all the secrecy around his autopsy?”
“Because of this. A text that came to the congressman’s phone. His office reported it about an hour ago.”
Fletcher pulled his notebook from his pocket and read the text verbatim.
Dear Congressman Pervert,
You messed with the wrong people.
Today’s attack is on you, shithead.
Chapter 6
Washington, D.C.
Alexander Whitfield
Xander didn’t like waiting, even though it was something he was accustomed to doing. In the three years since he’d left the service, he’d been marching to the beat of his own drummer. His background made that an easy choice—his parents had been hippies who lived on a commune, and originally named him, in the trippy-dippy fashion of all their friends, Alexander Moonbeam. He’d taken the necessary steps to reclaim a normal name and was now legally Alexander Roth Whitfield. The Third.
And instead of Moonbeam, which his parents still preferred, he went by Xander.
Xander’s grandfather was a hearty son of a bitch who ran a television enterprise. Xander’s dad had told his father to take the money and shove it, and as such, married Xander’s mom, Sunshine, and had two children in quick succession, Xander and his sister Yellow. They moved their burgeoning little family from San Francisco to a mountain farm in Dillon, Colorado, when Xander was a baby. He’d grown up in the woods, homeschooled, self-motivated and a prodigy. His parents were furious when he enlisted instead of attending Julliard. Dedicated pacifists, they didn’t know where they’d gone wrong. They wanted a life of pleasure for him, a life without hatred or fear. Instead, he ran headlong in the other direction.
When he was eighteen, he didn’t know how to make them understand his point of view. He didn’t want to smoke dope and drop acid and find the universal meanings of life in the shiny swirls of colorful trips. He didn’t want to grow organically or manufacture hemp linens. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to give back to the land who’d given him the freedom to make that choice. Yellow had been a dutiful daughter, opened a metaphysical shop in Modesto, California, carried her parents’ all-natural products. Xander played with guns.
There was something as soothing about disassembling an assault weapon blindfolded as there was in mastering Chopin for him. He knew he was different. Smart, yes, but there was something more. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. His commanding officers called it courage, intelligence, instinct. The school psychiatrists called it genius. His parents called him gifted.
He just saw it as a way to distinguish right from wrong, to use his gifts to milk the world of its incredible beauty. Under his fingers, the piano could render 8400 chords, each of which, when combined with another, told a story with infinite possibilities. Bullets did the same thing, if used properly.
He ended up in infantry on purpose. He could have been a pilot, he just didn’t feel like dealing with all the extra training. It was more enjoyable to be on the ground than in the air, anyway. More chance for a little one-on-one action, instead of floating above it all. He’d actually started the Apache training once, but pulled out to go to sniper school when a candidate had to drop and a slot unexpectedly opened. He was nineteen at the time with a raging hard-on for the Army. Anything they wanted to teach him, he wanted to learn.