Cross

detective, eager, but the kind who knew how to be helpful without getting underfoot.

'You only looked at female victims in your cross-refs?' she said. 'That's right, isn't it?'

'Why?' Sampson asked.

'Ever heard of Benny Fontana?'

Neither of us had.

'Midlevel mob soldier, underboss, I guess is the term. Was, anyway,' Betsey said. 'He was killed two weeks ago. In an apartment in Kalorama Park. Actually, on the night that Lisa Brandt was raped in Georgetown.'

'And?' Sampson asked. I could hear the same tired impatience in his voice that I felt. 'So?'

'And so, this.'

Betsey flipped open a file and spread half a dozen black-and-white photographs out on the table. They showed a white man, maybe fifty years old, dead on his back in a living room somewhere. Both of his feet were completely – and freshly – severed at the ankle.

All of a sudden, I wasn't so tired anymore. Adrenaline was pumping through my system.

'Jesus,' Sampson muttered. We were both on our feet now, scanning from one grisly photo to the other, repeating the process a couple of times.

'The ME's report says all the cutting on Mr. Fontana was done antemortem,' Betsey added. 'Possibly with surgical tools. Maybe a scalpel and saw.' Her expression was hopeful, kind of sweetly naive. 'So you think this is the same perp?'

I answered, 'I think I want to know more. Can we get the keys to that apartment?'

She fished a set out of her pocket, jangling them proudly. 'Thought you might ask me that.'

Chapter 72

'SHIT, ALEX. MULTIPLE RAPES, multiple murders. Now a mob connection?' Sampson punched the roof of the car. 'It can't all be coincidental. Can't be! Cannot!'

'Could definitely be something – if it's the same guy,' I reminded him. 'Let's see what happens here. Try not to get too far ahead of ourselves.'

Not that John was off base. Our suspect was looking more and more like a sadistic monster with a very bad, very distinctive habit. It wasn't that we'd been looking in the wrong place for him, just maybe not in enough places.

'But if this does pan out,' Sampson went on, 'no phone calls to your old pals tonight. All right? I want a little time with this before the Feds come on board.'

The FBI would already know about the Fontana murder, assuming it was mob related. But the rapes were still DCPD. Local stuff.

'You don't know that they'll necessarily take over the case,' I said.

'Oh, yeah.' Sampson snapped his fingers and pointed at me. 'I forgot. You had your memory wiped when you left the Bureau, like they do it in Men in Black. Well, let me remind you – they'll take over this case. They love cases like this one. We do all the work; the Feebies take all the credit.'

I stole a glance at him. 'When I was at the Bureau, you ever resent me coming in on a case? Did I do that?'

'If it happened, don't worry about it,' he said. 'If it was worth talking about then, I would have brought it up. Hell no, you never moved in on one of my cases!'

I pulled over in front of a tan brick apartment house across from Kalorama Park. It was a nice location; I'm sure the Fontana murder had rocked that building, if not the neighborhood. It was also less than two miles from the location where Lisa Brandt had been attacked not long after Benny Fontana died.

We spent the next hour inside, using crime-scene photos and the bloodstains still in the carpet to re-create what might have happened. It didn't give us any concrete connection to the other attacks, but it was a start.

When we left, we rode southwest into Georgetown, taking the most logical route to Lisa Brandt's neighborhood. By now, it was around midnight. Neither of us felt like stopping yet, so we did a full tour of the case, riding by each of the known rape sites in chronological order. They weren't that far apart.

At 2:30 a.m. we were in a booth at an all-night coffee shop. We had crime files spread out on the table and were reading them over, too revved up to stop, too tired to go home.

This was my first chance to really get into the Benny Fontana file. I had read the police and ME's reports several times. Now I was looking over the list of items taken from the apartment. On my fourth or fifth time through, my eyes stopped on one item in particular: a torn-off corner of a white foil-lined envelope. It had been found under the sofa, only a few feet from Fontana's body. Speaking of feet, or a lack of them.

I sat up. These are the moments you hope for in an unsolved case.

'We have to go somewhere.'

'You're right. We have to go home,' Sampson said.

I called to the waitress, who was half-asleep at the counter. 'Is there a twenty-four-hour drugstore somewhere around here? It's important.'

Sampson was too tired to argue. He followed me out of the coffee shop and around the corner, up a few blocks to a brightly lit Walgreens. A quick scan of the aisles inside and I found what I was looking for.

'Mena Sunderland said the pictures she saw were Polaroids.' I ripped open a box of film.

'You have to pay for that first,' a clerk called from the front. I ignored him.

Sampson was shaking his head. 'Alex, what the hell are you doing?'

'The evidence list from the Fontana murder scene,' I said. 'There was a white foil-lined envelope. A piece of one anyway'

I pulled the new envelope out of the box, tore off a corner, and held it up. 'Just like this.'

Sampson started to smile.

'He took pictures of Benny Fontana after he cut him up. It's the same guy, John.'

Chapter 73

I WORKED A LONG, LONG DAY, but the next night, I was grounded.

Nana had a weekly reading class she was teaching at the First Baptist-run shelter on Fourth Street, and I stayed home with the kids. When I'm with them, there's nowhere I'd rather be. The problem, sometimes, is just getting me there.

I played chef for the night. I made my and the kids' favorite, white-bean soup, along with a chopped Cobb salad, and I'd brought home some nice fresh cheddar bread from the bakery next to my office. The soup tasted almost as good as Nana's. Sometimes I think she has two versions of every recipe – the one in her head and the one she shares with me, minus some key secret ingredient. It's her mystique, and I doubt it has changed much in the last half century.

Then the kids and I had a long-overdue session with the punching bag downstairs. Jannie and Damon took turns pummeling leather, while Ali ran his trucks around and around the basement floor, which he declared was I-95!

Afterward we migrated upstairs for a swimming lesson with little brother. Yes, swimming. It was Jannie's concoction, inspired by Ali's reluctance to get into the bathtub. Never mind that it was even harder to get him out of the bath once he got started. That distinction was lost on him, and he fussed every single time, as if he were allergic to clean. I was skeptical about Jannie's idea until I saw how it worked.

'Breathe, Ali!' she coached him from the side. 'Let's see you breathe, puppy.'

Damon kept his hands under Ali's belly while Ali lay facedown on top of the water, mostly blowing bubbles and splashing around. It was hilarious, but I didn't dare laugh, for Jannie's sake. I sat at a safe – as in dry – distance, watching from the toilet seat.

'Pick him up for a second,' Jannie said.