I followed the doorman down the steeply sloped concrete driveway leading into the garage.
'It's a woman,' he said. 'I'm pretty sure she's gone. I called nine-one-one.'
'Oh God,' I gasped out loud. My stomach clutched. Patsy Hampton's Jeep was tucked back in a corner space. The door of the Jeep was open and light spilled outside.
I felt terrible fear, pain, and shock as I hurried around the door. Patsy Hampton was sprawled across the front seat. I could tell she was probably dead.
We have her. That was what the message meant. Jesus God, no. They had murdered Patsy Hampton. They had told me to back off. For God's sake, no.
Her bare legs were twisted and pinned under the steering wheel. Her upper body was crumpled over, at almost a right angle. Her head was thrown back and lay partly off the seat, on the passenger's side. Her blonde hair was matted with blood. Her vacant blue eyes stared up at me.
Patsy was wearing a white knit sport shirt. There were deep lacerations around her throat. Bright-red blood was still oozing from the wound. She was naked below the waist. I didn't see any clothes anywhere.
I suspected she'd been strangled with some kind of wire, and that she'd only been dead for a few minutes. A rope or garotte had been used in some of the Jane Doe murders. The Weasel liked to use his hands, to work close to his victims, possibly to watch and feel their pain, maybe even while he was sexually assaulting them.
I saw what looked like paint chips around the deep, ugly neck wounds. Paint chips?
Something else seemed very strange to me. The Jeep's radio had been partly dislodged, but left behind. I didn't understand why the radio had been tampered with, but it didn't seem important right now.
I leaned back out of the Jeep. 'Is anyone else hurt? Have you checked?'
The doorman shook his head. 'No. I don't think so. I'll go look.'
Sirens finally screeched inside the garage. I saw red and blue lights flashing and whirling against the ceiling and walls. Some of the tenants had made it into the garage as well. Why did they have to come and gape at this terrible crime?
A very bad thought flashed in my head. I climbed out of the Jeep, grabbing Patsy's keys out of the ignition. I hurried around to the back. I pushed the release and the rear door came open. My heart was thundering again. I didn't want to look inside, but when I did, there was nothing. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We have her! Was Christine here too? Where?
I looked around the garage. Up near the entrance I spotted Geoffrey Shafer's sports car, the black Jaguar. He was there at the Farragut. Patsy must have followed him.
I ran across the garage to the Jag. I felt the hood, then the exhaust pipe. Both were still warm. The car hadn't been in the garage very long. The doors were locked. I couldn't break in. I was all too aware of the search and seizure constraints.
I stared inside the Jaguar. In the backseat, I could see dress shirts on wire hangers. The hangers were white and I thought of the chips in Detective Hampton's wounds. Had he strangled her with a hanger? Was Shafer the Weasel? Was he still in the building? What about Christine? Was she here, too?
I said a few words to the patrolmen who'd just arrived, the first on the scene after me. Then I took them with me.
The helpful doorman told me which floor Shafer's therapist's apartment was on. The number was 10D, the penthouse. Like all buildings in DC, the Farragut was restricted to a height no more than the Capitol dome.
I took the elevator with the two uniformed cops, both in their twenties, both scared shitless I'd bet. I was close to rage. I knew I had to be careful; I had to act professionally, to control my emotions somehow. If there was an arrest, there would be questions to answer, such as what I was doing here in the first place. Pittman would be on my case in a second.
I talked to the policemen on the way up, more to calm myself than anything else.
'You okay, Detective?' one of them asked me.
'I'm fine. I'm all right. The killer might still be in the building. The victim was a detective, one of our own. She was on surveillance here. The suspect has a relationship with a woman upstairs.'
The faces of both young cops tightened. It was bad enough to have seen the murdered woman in her car, but to learn that she was a policewoman, a detective on surveillance, made it worse. Now they were about to confront a cop killer.
We hurried out of the elevator to apartment 10D. I led the way and pressed the bell. I saw what appeared to be drops of blood on the hallway carpet near the door. I noticed the blood on my hands, saw the two cops staring at them.
No answer from inside the apartment, so I pounded my fist on the door. Was everyone okay in there? 'Police, open up! DC police!'
I could hear a woman shouting inside. I had my Glock out, the safety off. I was angry enough to kill Shafer. I didn't know if I could hold myself back.
The uniformed patrolmen took their pistols out of their holsters, too. After just a few seconds I was ready to kick down the door, search and seizure constraints or not. I kept seeing Patsy Hampton's face, her dead, vacant eyes, the savage wounds in her crushed throat.
Finally, the door to the apartment slowly opened.
A blonde woman was standing there. Dr. Cassady, I assumed. She wore an expensive-looking light-blue suit with lots of gold buttons, but she was barefoot. She looked frightened and angry.
'What do you want?' she demanded. 'What the hell is going on here? Do you know what you've done? You've interrupted a therapy session.'
