Janet somehow managed to maintain her poise and glance casually back over her right shoulder. Pilcher’s right hand was nearly out of his cassock pocket, ready to drill Mr. Ponytail if he made a wrong move.
When they passed right by Janet, I still kept my eye on Mr. Ponytail. So did everybody else, which was why we all failed to notice that the big guy who’d been running with the cheerleader had departed his partner, done a U-turn, and was sprinting straight toward Janet.
It was too late when I did notice. He was within feet of her. Without thinking, I yelled, “Janet!” Her head swung around to look, but the fatal mistake had been made, and she was on her own. The guy’s approach was such that Janet was between us and him, and the odds of nailing her were greater than the odds of hitting him.
Janet was about five foot eight and he towered over her. His arm drew back and I saw a silvery glint that had to be a knife. Janet dropped the cell phone, her back to us, and she appeared to freeze in her tracks, too shocked to run or respond.
Just as his arm started to arc forward, he stepped toward her, twisted and moved sideways, and I heard a pop. Then he twisted again, and there was another pop. I was still forty yards away and sprinting, but I saw him bring his arm down, lower his shoulder, and slam into Janet like a middle linebacker sacking a wimpy quarterback. She flew about six feet through the air, landed on her butt, and somersaulted over backward from the force of the blow.
He then glanced at me and without a hint of confusion or hesitation sprinted immediately toward the four-lane highway above the pathway. He was incredibly fast, and was dodging around like a crooked Ping-Pong ball. Pilcher had dropped to a knee and was firing his pistol. Spinelli was standing upright and shooting. From the best I could tell, neither hit him.
I started sprinting after him, even as I knew it was useless. The guy had legs like pistons, and he was across the highway and dodging into the side streets of Cambridge before I could even reach Janet. Pilcher was screaming something into his microphone. A pair of seedy-looking bums who’d been loitering by the next bridge began running toward us. Presumably, these were the undercover cops we’d been promised.
Janet lay perfectly still. As I approached, I could see her pale blue eyes following me, which I took as a good sign.
I asked, “Are you hurt?”
She didn’t reply at first, and I realized she was trying desperately to suck oxygen into her deflated lungs. I knelt beside her and performed a quick visual inspection. No blood. No cuts. The killer had failed to stab her. I saw a bullet hole in her coat, but she didn’t appear to be wounded. She finally struggled into a sitting position and cursed a few times. That worked for me.
I said, “He got away.”
“How?” She added, “I shot him. Twice.”
That explained the holes in her coat. She apparently had a gun in her pocket and had fired right through her coat. But I’d seen the guy’s moves and technique, and I was fairly certain she had missed him, and I was definitely certain I knew why. Then Spinelli jogged over and said, “The Boston PD is moving on him. We know where he ran, and he won’t get out of the cordon.”
I nodded, and then looked down at Janet. “Are you all right?”
“No. I’m pissed. I heard you yell and… and I shot him.” She shook her head, and said, “From three feet away? How could I miss?”
Spinelli asked, “Where’d you get the gun?”
I reached out and helped her get to her feet. She brushed the leaves and dirt off her backside. She said, “I get death threats all the time, so I have a special permit. I even fly with it.”
I asked, “What kind of gun?”
She reached into her pocket and withdrew a. 22 caliber. She stared at the pistol and said, “Okay, it’s a peashooter, but I’m accurate with it, and there’s no kick.”
That made sense. It also explained how even if she had hit the killer-which I strongly doubted-he could still run away. I hadn’t seen his face, but I saw his size. About six foot four and perhaps 250-260 pounds of highly buffed muscle. A guy with that bulk could take a couple of. 22 slugs and, unless they penetrated a vital organ, regard them as beestings.
I asked Janet, “Did you get a good look at him?”
“Yes, I… too good. Long, dark hair, a thick mustache, a goatee, and green eyes. Give me a good profiler and I’ll give you a good picture.”
Pilcher was talking rapidly into his microphone, and listening to his earpiece, saying, “… yeah… nah, she’s okay.” He listened for a moment, then said, “She says she pumped two rounds into him.. . uh-huh… ah, shit. Okay, lemme know.”
He scowled.
Janet said, “What?”
“He just killed two of our guys five blocks from here. Came up from behind ’em, cut one guy’s throat, and butchered the other one. This is one bad motherfucker.”
I asked, “And did he get away?”
“Not yet. But he’s out of the cordon. We got an all-points on him, and cops are converging from all over the city. We’ll get this bastard.”
Spinelli was staring at the ground, and commented to no one in particular, “Not a prayer.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Good news was in short supply at the Federal Building in Boston.
After murdering Detective Sergeants Phillip Janson and Horace O’Donnell, the perp had vanished. A thorough investigation by the forensics crew at the running path revealed that he wore size 12 shoes, and chose New Balance 715s for his morning jog. It further revealed no trace of blood, hair, or other bodily fluids, which was unfortunate, because a DNA trace would’ve been invaluable to tie him to one attempted and two successful murders.
A statewide manhunt was in full swing. Roadblocks were erected at various state border crossing points. Airports and bus stations had been faxed a copy of the facial composite constructed from Janet’s description and ordered to detain anybody who bore the slightest resemblance. Hospitals in a two-hundred-mile radius were staked out for a big white man with one or possibly two bullet holes.
Still I think we all knew he was too smart for any of those steps to work. Of course the police and Feds had to go through the motions-to use a football analogy, the way a football team down 77-6 late in the fourth quarter kicks a field goal. Also, this guy had now added two cops to his ledger, and the blue brotherhood looks dimly upon that.
Four hours had passed since the screwup by the river. A plane-load of puffy, red-faced FBI agents had flown up from Washington to interrogate all involved. Understand that FBI people, once they’re drawn into a case, treat it as sort of a feudal setup, where they own the castles and playgrounds, and expect everybody else to grow their potatoes and kiss their asses. They felt jilted and mistreated. Their general mood was pissed.
Given that the FBI’s public affairs office was handling the press releases regarding this case, everybody felt like it was time to play round-robin cover-your-ass.
The potentially embarrassing problem for the Boston PD was they had had the baddest motherfucker in the land in their sights. I overheard some of their conversations in the hallways and their line of bullshit was that they’d lost two brave men in the pursuit of this badass, who wasn’t really their killer in the first place but a