Chapter 7
THE SCENE OUTSIDE Taberna del Alabardero was a total zoo when we got there. This was no ordinary hit or rubout. I knew that much without even getting out of the car. The radio had been blaring about a long-distance hit, from a gunman that nobody had seen, firing shots that nobody had heard.
And then there were the victims. Congressman Victor Vinton was dead, along with Craig Pilkey, a well-known banking lobbyist who had recently dragged both of them into the headlines. These homicides were a scandal wrapped in another scandal. So much for quiet times in Homicide.
Both dead men were the subject of a federal inquiry regarding influence-peddling on behalf of the financial services industry. There were allegations about backroom deals and campaign contributions and all the wrong people getting rich – or richer – while middle-class citizens had continued to lose their homes in record numbers. It wasn't hard to imagine someone wanting Vinton and Pilkey dead. A lot of people probably did.
Still, motivation wasn't the first question on my mind right now. It was method. Why the long gun, and how did someone pull this off so effortlessly on a crowded city street?
Both bodies were covered on the sidewalk when my buddy John Sampson and I reached the awning in front of the restaurant. Capitol Police were already there, with FBI on the way. 'High profile' means 'high pressure' in DC, and you could all but cut with a knife the mounting tension inside that yellow perimeter tape.
We found another of our own, Mark Grieco from Third District, and he briefed us. Given all the noise in the street, we had to shout just to hear one another.
'How many witnesses do we have?' Sampson asked.
'At least a dozen,' Grieco told us. 'We've got them all corralled inside, each one more freaked out than the last. No visual on the shooter, though.'
'What about the shots?' I asked in Grieco's ear. 'We know where they came from?'
He pointed over my shoulder, up Eighteenth Street. 'Way over there – if you can believe it. They're securing the building now.'
On the north corner of K Street, a couple of blocks away, there was a building under some kind of renovation. Every floor was dark except for the top one, where I could just make out people moving around.
'You've got to be kidding me,' I said. 'How far is that?'
'Two hundred fifty yards – maybe more,' Grieco guessed. The three of us started jogging in that direction.
'You said these were head shots?' I asked as we went. 'That's right?'
'Yeah,' Grieco answered grimly. 'Dead on, pardon my pun. Someone knew what the hell he was doing. Hope he's not still around somewhere, watching us.'
'Someone with the right equipment, too,' I said. 'Considering the distance.' With a suppressor, the shooter could have gone completely unnoticed.
I heard Sampson say under his breath, 'Damn, I hate this thing already.'
I looked back over my shoulder. From this level, I couldn't even see the restaurant anymore – except for the red-and-blue lights flashing off the buildings around it.
This whole MO – the distance of the shot, the impossible angle, the murders themselves (not one perfect hit, but two in a crowded environment) – was completely audacious. I think we were meant to be impressed – in a strictly professional capacity, I was a little stunned.
But I also had a sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. That ton of bricks I'd been wondering about – it had just fallen.
Chapter 8
BACK AT HOME, I high-stepped over the second and third porch steps, avoiding the squeak with my long legs. It was just after one thirty in the morning, but the kitchen still smelled like chocolate chip cookies when I came in. They were for Jannie, who had some kind of school function. I gave myself half credit for knowing she had a function but points off for not knowing what it was.
I stole one cookie – delicious, with a hint of cinnamon in the chocolate – and took off my shoes before I snuck upstairs.
In the hall, I could see Ali's light was still on, and when I looked in, Bree was sleeping next to the bed. He'd been running a slight fever before, and she had dragged in the ancient leather armchair, aka laundry stand, from our room.
A library copy of The Mouse and the Motorcycle was open across her lap.
Ali's forehead was cool, but he'd kicked off the blankets in the night. His bear, named Truck, was upside down on the floor. I tucked both of them back in.
When I tried to take the book from Bree, her hand tightened around it.
'And they all lived happily ever after,' I whispered in her ear.
She smiled but didn't wake up, as if I'd worked my way into a dream of hers. That was a nice place to be, so I slipped my hands under her knees and arms and carried her back to bed with me.
It was tempting to help her out of her pajama bottoms and T-shirt, and everything else while I was at it, but she looked so beautiful and peaceful like that, I didn't have the heart to change a thing. Instead, I lay down and just watched her sleep for a while. Very nice.
Inevitably, though, my thoughts returned to the case, to what I'd just seen.
It was impossible not to think about those dark days in 2002, the last time we'd witnessed anything like this. The word 'sniper' still strikes a bad chord with a lot of people in Washington, myself included. At the same time, there were some scary differences here, considering the skill of this shooter. It all felt more calculated to me, too. And then, thank God, I was asleep. Counting bodies instead of sheep, though.
Chapter 9
NANA MAMA ALREADY had the Washington Post spread out on the kitchen table when I came down at 5:30. The case was right there on page one, above the fold: 'Sniper Murder Downtown Leaves Two Dead.'
She double-tapped the headline with one bony finger, as if I might miss it.
'I'm not saying anyone, no matter how greedy, deserves to die,' she told me straight-out. 'This is absolutely awful. But those two men were no angels, Alex. People are going to take a certain satisfaction from this, and you're going to have to deal with that.'
'And good morning to you, too.'
I leaned down to kiss her cheek and instinctively put a hand on the mug of tea in front of her. A cold mug means she's been up for a long time, and this one was cool to the touch. I don't like to nag, but I do try to make sure she gets enough rest, particularly since her heart attack. Nana appears to be going strong, but she's still ninety plus.
I poured some coffee into a travel mug and sat down for a quick look at the paper. I always want to know what a killer might be reading about himself. The story was opinionated, and wrong in a few important places. I never pay attention when supposedly smart people write idiotic things – here was another example of news that needed to be ignored.
'It's just a big shell game anyway,' Nana went on, warming to her subject. 'Someone gets caught with a hand in the cookie jar, and we all pretend as though the ones we hear about are the only ones doing anything wrong. You think that congressman was the first and last to ever take a bribe here in Washington?'
I ruffled the paper open to the continuation on page twenty. 'An optimistic mind is a terrible thing to waste, Nana.'
'Don't be fresh with me so early in the day,' she said. 'Besides, I'm still an optimist, just one who happens to
