Page 26 of Return of the Spider
“Good. Good. For today and tomorrow and for the next week or so, I want you to get through your day by remembering Conrad and letting his love for you fill you up. I want you to use his love to give you the strength to start getting better. Just for the next week. Okay?”
She gazed at me, tears seeping from her eyes, and nodded.
“We’ll see you soon, Abby,” I said, and we left. We thanked her parents and told them she’d been a big help.
In the elevator, Sampson said, “Where’d you get all that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Telling her to rely on Conrad’s love—that stuff. That from psychology school?”
I thought about it. “Not really. It just felt like the right thing to say at the time.”
I looked over and found my oldest friend studying me. “What?”
He laughed. “I’ve known you since we were nine, Alex Cross, and you’re still showing me sides of you I’ve never seen.”
“It’s called evolution, man.”
“I’ve heard of that concept,” he said as the elevator door opened. “Guess I’m one of the less evolved.”
“And judging from your tone, being one of the less evolved makes you happy.”
Sampson thought about that, then grinned. “Yeah, I guess it does. All warm and happy.”
CHAPTER
17
Before we left thehospital, we learned that Carl Dennis, the injured Senate aide, had been transferred to a rehab facility in Bowie, Maryland.
The less-evolved detective had a dentist appointment, so he dropped me off at Metro PD headquarters shortly after noon. Before I could get to my desk, Chief Pittman leaned out of his office and motioned me in.
“Tell me something I don’t know about Conrad Talbot,” he said once I was there.
“Abby Howard got a glimpse of the killer before he fired the gun.”
“Okay, okay, that’s a step,” Pittman said, thinking. “She remember enough to work with a sketch artist?”
“Maybe if you give her a few days. She said it was pretty dark and he was wearing a hood of some kind, but she saw the pistol in the moonlight.”
“A few days,” the chief said, staring off into space.
“Or send one now and send another in a week,” I said.
Pittman snapped his fingers. “Good thinking. She still in the hospital?”
“Yes. For two more days at least.”
“I’ll make it happen, then. Keep me posted on all new developments.”
“Absolutely,” I said, and left his office.
I went to my desk and found a small pile of faxes, almost all of them the results of various tests in the Conrad Talbot case. On top, the most recent, was an extensive report of the crime scene.
I looked at the photographs of the scene from multiple angles but spent more time studying a diagram that included the line of indistinct footprints between the cutoff road and the Bronco. There was an asterisk by the footprints. I looked down at the comments and saw:Prints show wool fabric, possibly indicating a covering pulled over assailant’s footwear to avoid leaving identifiable tread marks.
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to imagine the killer pulling woolen coverings over his shoes and a hood over his head, then sneaking out of the woods, seeing the Bronco, and creeping forward.
