Chapter 69

THE NEXT EVENING at around six, I took off early from work and went to Damon’s choir practice at the Sojourner Truth School. I’d put together a good-sized file on Geoffrey Shafer, but I didn’t have anything that concretely linked him to any of the murders. Neither did Patsy Hampton. Maybe he was just a fantasy-game player. Or maybe the Weasel was just being more careful since his taxi had been found.

It tore me up to go to the Truth School, but I had to go. I realized how hard it must be for Damon and Jannie to go there every day. The school brought back too many memories of Christine. It was as if I were suffocating, all the breath being squeezed out of my lungs. At the same time, I was in a cold sweat that coated the back of my neck and my forehead.

A little while after the practice began, Jannie quietly reached over and took my hand. I heard her sigh softly. We were all doing a lot more touching and emoting since Bermuda, and I don’t think we have ever been closer as a family.

She and I held hands through most of the choir practice, which included the Welsh folk song “All Through the Night,” Bach’s “My heart ever faithful, sing praises,” and a very special arrangement of the spiritual “O Fix Me.”

I kept imagining that Christine would suddenly appear at the school, and once or twice I actually turned back toward the archway that led to her office. Of course, she wasn’t there, which filled me with inconsolable sadness and the deepest emptiness. I finally cleared my mind of all thought, just shut down, and let my whole self be the music, the glorious sound of the boys’ voices.

After we got home from the choir practice, Patsy Hampton checked in with me from her surveillance post. It was a little past eight. Nana and the kids were putting out cold chicken, slices of pears and apples, cheddar cheese, a salad of endive and Bibb lettuce.

Shafer was still home, and of all things, a children’s birthday party was going on there, Patsy reported. “Lots of smiling kids from the neighborhood, plus a rent-a-clown called Silly Billy. Maybe we’re on the wrong track here, Alex.”

“I don’t think so. I think our instincts are right about him.”

I told her I would come over at around nine to keep her company; that was the time when Shafer usually left the house.

Just past eight-thirty, the phone in the kitchen rang again as we were digging into the cold, well-spiced, delicious chicken. Nana frowned as I picked up the phone.

I recognized the voice.