Easy pickin’s.
Ritter took fifteen minutes to walk to Parrish’s house, circling the block twice. Been better, he thought, if only he had a dog; he wondered briefly if Washington had a pit bull rental agency.
He saw nothing moving. The fact was, if the marshals were watching Parrish, they’d probably be on a roof somewhere, or in an apartment across the street. They wouldn’t be parked in a car where the cops might roust them.
Fifteen minutes after he left the Jitterbug, he rang the bell at Parrish’s.
* * *
—
WHEN PARRISH bought his house, the floors were either wooden or covered with carpet. The carpet would soak up blood like a sponge, but the wood, always well waxed, would repel it. The wooden floor in the kitchen had been refinished for the sale; it was worn smooth but shone with the golden glow of old chestnut, and that was where Parrish decided he would kill Ritter.
Parrish didn’t cook but had three cookbooks on a shelf under a kitchen cabinet. He put the gun between two of the books, cocked, safety off, a round of G2 RIP .45 ACP in the chamber.
There’d be no point in waiting, he thought.
When Ritter rang the doorbell, Parrish popped a chicken potpie in the microwave, turned the microwave on, and went to answer the door. The cooking pie would fill the kitchen with a homely aroma that might ease any suspicions in Ritter’s mind. Parrish was more tense than he’d expected. He’d realized, as he got the gun ready, that if he screwed it up, Ritter would kill him.
* * *
—
RITTER SLIPPED INSIDE, and Parrish shut the door behind him, and asked, “See anybody?”
“No, but if you’ve got professionals watching you, I wouldn’t. You think there might be somebody?”
“Not really, but since last week . . . we’ve got a problem. I’m cooking dinner. Come on back to the kitchen, and I’ll tell you about it.”
Ritter followed him down the hall to the kitchen. Walking with his back to Ritter made Parrish itch between the shoulder blades, but he focused on the job. In the kitchen, the potpie was beginning to heat up. Ritter said, “Smells good.”
Parrish opened the microwave, and, as he did, he said, “There’s milk, water, beer, and Pepsi in the refrigerator. Get me a Pepsi, and whatever you want.”
“’Kay . . . What’s the problem?” Ritter asked. As he answered, Ritter opened the refrigerator, the door swinging wide between himself and Parrish. Parrish pulled the gun out from between the books, and when Ritter shut the refrigerator, holding a two-quart carton of milk and a bottle of Pepsi, Parrish shot him twice in the chest, one of the slugs going through the milk carton, spraying milk over Ritter’s face and chest.
Ritter staggered, looking blankly at Parrish, then he dropped the Pepsi and the milk and twisted and fell face-first to the floor, where he spasmed for several seconds and finally went quiet.
Though silenced, the shots had been loud in the small kitchen. Not loud enough for his neighbors to hear, but loud enough that Parrish’s ears rang for a few seconds.
Parrish looked down at the body and felt some chemical flushing through his body. Not adrenaline, something else, something even more primitive, a kind of breath-robbing hormone, maybe a testosterone variant, whatever it is that makes warriors exult in a kill.
It produced a kind of . . . joy. Parrish stood still, closed his eyes, let himself feel it.
* * *
—
BEFORE HE’D LEFT Grant’s house, and the SCIF, Parrish, Grant, and Claxson had talked about what to do with Ritter’s body. Claxson had suggested taking it out into the woods somewhere and burying it. Grant said she’d let the professionals work that out but mentioned that she’d known of a situation where that had worked.
Parrish said he’d think some of something, but, in truth, he’d already thought of it: given the number of cops around D.C. and the surrounding countryside, he wasn’t going to move a body any farther than he had to, and sure as shit wasn’t going to stumble around in the woods, in the dark, with a shovel and a gunnysack.
He knew where the body would be going before he ever left Grant’s SCIF.
* * *
—
PARRISH HURRIEDLY stripped all the ID off the body—wallet, telephone, Rolex, an Army ring with a blue stone—set it aside, took a contractor’s trash bag out of the cupboard, knelt and pulled it over Ritter’s upper body. Ritter began shaking again as he did that: brain cells dying. He pulled another bag over Ritter’s legs, rolled the body over to look at the floor. There was a pink smear of blood mixed with milk. Parrish, scrubbing with household cleaner, wiped the blood and milk up with a paper towel, making sure he’d gotten it all. He remembered to pick up the .45 shells: once he was on the highway, he’d throw them out the window.
When he was done, he looked at the bagged body, then went on with the worst of it. The killing had been reasonably sanitary and drama-free. But if the body should be found, it would be best to delay identification as long as possible. He got a cleaver out of the hardware door and cut the third joint off each of Ritter’s fingers, grimacing at the sound of the cleaver going through bone and tendon.
He set the severed fingertips aside on a sheet of Saran Wrap, carried them to the bathroom. He flushed three at a time down the toilet, four with the last flush. When he was satisfied, and still with the strength and energy from whatever hormone he’d stirred up, he dragged Ritter’s body down the stairs to the garage tucked under the house and lifted it into the back of his Jeep.
Almost forgot: his own phone. He called Grant. She picked up, and neither of them said anything. After a minute had passed, he hung up and carried the phone upstairs and put it on the kitchen counter.
* * *
—
HE DROVE across the river to a brewpub called Applejack’s Burger & Beer, which happened to be near a metro station. The place had no cameras overlooking its dumpster, no windows. He parked next to the dumpster, looked for people out walking, and, in another ten-second burst of energy, boosted Ritter out of the Jeep and into the dumpster, where he landed almost soundlessly on a pile of cardboard and garbage.
He’d taken Ritter’s car keys and telephone. He crushed the phone under his foot, pulled out the battery, threw the pieces in the dumpster. Five seconds later, he was out of the parking lot and on his way back to Georgetown. He dropped the phone battery out the car window, along with the .45 shells, and after parking in his garage, and checking the back of the Jeep for any traces of blood, he walked to the Jitterbug Café, clicked the key fob, and spotted the flashing lights of Ritter’s Mazda.
He drove the Mazda carefully to the metro station, near the body dump site, parked it, and took the train back to Washington, to Foggy Bottom. He walked home from there, a bit more than a mile.
A mile was nothing.
He whistled most of the way, fighting back the adrenaline surging through him while reliving the shooting mentally in split-second frames.
Nobody, he decided, could have done it better.
At home, he called Claxson on his cell phone. Claxson didn’t answer, as planned. The call alone from Parrish’s number meant that everything had gone well.
He hadn’t liked seeing Jim go, but they’d sealed off the problem, and he’d gotten the thrill of a lifetime. He hoped to do it again someday.
18
When Allah wants to mess with a perfectly good murder, He doesn’t hesitate.
Jasim Nagi, a moderately faithful Islamic man of Arabic descent born in Atlantic City, who carried with him the full faith and credit of the New Jersey accent, drove a garbage truck.