Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(45)

He acted like I’d just thrown him a life preserver. “Thank you. Where are we going? What case?”

“The rapes and killings,” I said.

Sampson jumped up, said, “I got a car parked down the street.”

“Why don’t you go get it and I’ll make my calls,” I said.

He nodded, hugged Nana Mama, thanked her for the coffee, and left. When the front door banged shut, my grandmother came over and took my hand.

“You’re a good friend as well as his best friend,” she said.

“I know.”

“You’ll be doing two jobs out there with him.”

“I get that. You’re right. It could be a good thing.”

She gave my hand a little shake and said, “Cancel your appointments.”

Ten minutes later we were rolling, John at the wheel, driving to an address in Landover, Maryland. It was just like old times except for the ghost of Billie. I did not bring her up or ask how he was doing. Instead, I was quiet, present with him, waiting for him to talk. When we got close to the address, he finally asked, “Who are we speaking to here?”

“Peggy Dixon,” I said. “Several months before Elizabeth Hernandez was taken, Dixon claimed she was attacked by and escaped from a man trying to rape her after a party in Southeast DC. But she was evidently under the influence of an illegal substance at the time and unable to describe her assailant.”

He looked over at me. “Kind of a long shot going back to her, don’t you think?”

“You never know. There’s the address.”

We pulled over in front of a sign reading patrol, a unisex hair salon, parked, and got out. There was a line of ten people waiting to get in.

“Feel like a trim?” I asked, running my hand over my hair.

“I already keep mine high and tight,” Sampson said. “She work here?”

“That’s what I’m guessing,” I said. We cut to the front of the line, held up our IDs, and entered a small waiting area.

A receptionist with blue fingernails and long blue bangs like the rock star Sia’s sat behind the counter and said in a high nasal whine, “Wait your turn. No reservation, no cutting the line.”

Sampson held up his ID and badge, said, “Hey, Sia, do me a favor? Please tell Peggy Dixon we’re here and would like to talk to her.”

Fingers flew to the bangs and pushed them aside, revealing an Asian guy. “I’m not Sia,” he said. “I don’t do derivative. And Ms. Dixon is with clients. All day.”

I said, “Whatever your name is, have you heard of the Maya Parker case?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“We’re here about that.”

“Oh,” he said, perking up. “Oh, oh, okay, then, let me see what I can do.”





CHAPTER 50





WITH THAT, THE RECEPTIONIST JUMPED up and scurried through the salon, which seemed to be doing a bustling business; there were patrons in all ten chairs.

“Gold mine,” Sampson said.

Before I could answer, Sia, or whatever his name was, motioned for us to come through the salon. We ignored the looks of indignation from patrons and stylists alike and went to Sia.

“Peg’s upstairs,” he said. “With a client, but the old thing’s half deaf and under the dryer already, so she says go on up.”

We climbed narrow steps into an airy loft space with a single chair, sink, and dryer. There was an older woman under the dryer reading People magazine.

A plump woman in her late twenties with a wild hairdo — purple roots rising to frosted spikes — peasant clothes, and lots of piercings got up from behind a glass-and-steel desk. “I’m Peg Dixon. I thought someone might come months ago when she disappeared. Maya, I mean. It’s him, right? The guy who took Elizabeth Hernandez and who tried to take me?”

“You tell us,” I said after we showed her our credentials. “According to the report we saw, you were under the influence of an illegal substance at the time of the attack?”

She cackled with laughter. “Is that what it said? That dweeb. Sorry. Well, I suppose I was. A little, anyway. I mean, how long does a good dose of molly last? Eight, ten hours? And I was like twelve out from dropping, on the downward slide of the trip for sure, so I was like, you know, in that dreamy and unaware but, like, totally-there state you get into sometimes. That’s when he grabbed me.”

She cackled again. “He didn’t expect me. That’s for sure.”

I could see why the original detective had found Peggy Dixon frustrating, but I decided to relax and listen to her tell the story in her own way and at her own pace. Over the next fifteen minutes, until her client under the dryer was done, we listened to her ramble and spin and double-back in her narrative multiple times before we got a clear sense of what had happened.

She’d been at an underground rave at a condemned factory building in Southeast. There were four or five hundred people partying in the building, lots of people of all ages in rave-wear staples like bunny and raccoon suits.

“I was there from four in the afternoon, real early, dosed at five, and lasted until four in the morning,” she said. “I just hit that point where I was done and I couldn’t find my friend so I put it on autopilot and headed home.”