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  Wallace took a swig from his straw. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I don’t buy the corporate assassin line. Maybe if she were a lead attorney.”

  “Well, the corporate assassin line may be the only possibility that remains open. And, for the record, you don’t see the corporate assassin possibility and I don’t see the single mom from Trader Joe’s as the killer,” Emily stated.

  “Well, we know someone killed the lawyer,” Wallace said.

  “Unfortunately, that is still the only piece of real evidence we have,” Emily replied.

  “I think it’s time we start looking for other suspects.”

  Chapter 14

  Dan walked the prescribed route from Born Again to the Wellington home on Thirty-Fourth Street, a block south of Volta Park. He walked the route again from the opposite direction, took a lap around the neighborhood at a two-block perimeter, and returned to a bench in the park. The stench of pooch poop from the dog park on the corner of the block ruined an otherwise perfect location. Dan turned away from the offensive smell and filtered through his list of contacts in his phone.

  *

  Jim Singleton, Arlington County police detective, answered his phone from his glass-walled cubicle in police headquarters, on the other side of the Potomac.

  “Yo, Jim.”

  “Danno,” Jim replied,

  “You know I hate that name.”

  “Someday you’re going to warm up to it. What do you want?”

  “You make it sound like I always want something.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Are you saying our relationship isn’t symbiotic? I seem to recall doing you a couple of surveillance favors; off the clock, off the record, and in conflict with some aspects of the US Constitution.”

  “We might be running even right about now,” Singleton admitted, stroking his beard in the faint reflection of the glass cubicle wall. “But I get the feeling we won’t be after this call.”

  “Probably not. I’m looking for any info you have on Marcus Losh. Killed at his apartment last week.”

  “The disabled ex-Army vet?”

  “Nice recall.”

  “This is Arlington. We average two murders a year. It’s a short list.”

  “What can you tell me that wasn’t covered in the paper?”

  “The shooting was pretty straight forward. Tapped three times at point blank range with a .45. Through the door. A partially open door. The chain lock was still engaged when the EMTs arrived. They clipped the chain when they got there. The dead bolt was open. Looked like the victim was opening the door just enough to take a peek.”

  “Robbery?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. There was cash on his person. A few hundred dollars. Nothing else in the apartment seemed to be disturbed. The living room was clean, for the most part. There were a dozen or so empty liquor bottles in a recycling box on the floor. A pile of newspapers, about waist high, was neatly stacked in a corner. He may have needed help getting stuff to the dumpster on account of the disability.”

  “How disabled was he?”

  “He had hand controls on his car, but wasn’t a paraplegic. He had those big crutches or braces, whatever you call them, with the wraparounds on the wrist.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “Anyhow, living room was unremarkable. Just the empty liquor bottles and stack of newspapers.… And then things got a little interesting.”

  “How’s that?”

  “There was a roll of duct tape and a pair of police-grade handcuffs on the kitchen table next to a photo of a boy. There was an empty prescription bottle on the kitchen table. Nothing in it. No markings. We ran toxicology on Marcus’ body and he had a ton of oxy in his blood.”

  “Ex-baby momma says he’d been hooked for a few years. She had a restraining order on him. They had custody issues. They hadn’t spoken in years, according to my client,” Dan said.

  “Do you think this ex-girlfriend had anything to do with this? Revenge for past misdeeds?”

  “I doubt it. You want to guess who the ex-girlfriend is married to?”

  “Already know. Her phone number was found on the back of the boy’s photo on the table. And I saw the records for the restraining order in the system. Her husband is John Wellington. Just your average congressman. Someone who can end your career and make life miserable. Don’t take this the wrong way, Dan, but you need to get some new clients.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement. And I think the congressman’s current title is ‘Senator hopeful Wellington.’”

  “There you go. Someone who can make life miserable.”

  “He doesn’t know his wife hired me.”

  “What did she hire you to do?”

  “Find who killed Marcus.”

  “We’re working it.”

  “I know. What else do you have?”

  “Well, if the duct tape and handcuffs on the kitchen table didn’t throw you for a loop, maybe the bedroom will.”

  “Kinky sex?”

  “More like dirty sex. In the bedroom we found a box of adult diapers in the corner, a rubber sheet on the mattress, and a couple of gallon jugs on the bedroom floor full of water with tubes running out of them. The tubes ran from the bottom of the water-filled milk jugs up to the wrought iron headboard on the bed. The tubes were strapped to the headboard with a thick wad of duct tape.”

  “Some kind of set up where he could get a drink without having to get out of bed?”

  “That was our guess. I mean, he was disabled.”

  “Right assumption, wrong reasoning. Let me ask a question. Were there any full liquor bottles in the house? You mentioned a bunch of empties. Any full ones?”

  “Now that you mention it, no.”

  “Sounds like he was about to embark on a homemade rehabilitation program.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he was getting ready to strap himself to the bed and ride out withdrawals. He would probably start by duct taping his ankles, then lock himself to the headboard somehow with the handcuffs. Adult diapers for obvious reasons. Rubber sheets for overflow and puke.”

  “Jesus. You heard of anyone doing that before?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sure. If it doesn’t kill you.”

  “That helps. No offense, Dan, but if the congressman’s wife hadn’t heard from this guy in years and she had a restraining order on him, why in the hell would she care who killed him?”

  “She thinks she’s next.”

  There was a very long pause while Jim considered the additional tidbit of information. “She thinks she’s next?”

  “She is concerned.”

  “And she lives in DC, right?” the police officer asked.

  “Georgetown.”

  “Good. Keep her on the other side of the river. DC is not my problem. We like it quiet here in Virginia.”

  “Very professional. So, who do you like for a suspect?”

  “No one yet. We’re running the usual possibilities. Drug dealers. Friends. Coworkers. I mean, the lack of a robbery in this case makes it seem a little less random.”

  “Unless the perp was scared off before he could steal anything.”

  “Possibly. But between you and me, maybe the congressman’s wife is right. Maybe she should be afraid. You know how hard it is to shoot someone in the middle of the afternoon and no one see anything? No one hears anything?”

  “Not surprising if the weapon had a suppressor.”

  “We’re assuming it did.”

  “So where’s the surprise? No one heard anything because there was nothing to hear.”

  “Want to guess the last time a silencer was used in a killing in Northern Virginia?”

  “Ten years?”

  “Try never.”

  “So it would be rare.”

  “Never is very rare.”

  “The deceased was ex-Army. Could have been an old military acquaintance.
It’s not that much of a stretch.”

  “We kicked that idea around the water cooler. We’re going through a list of old Army buddies. Most of them are still in the service. So far, all of the men in his unit are either deployed or they have alibis. It was a weekday afternoon, after all.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “The daughter of a woman who lives in the apartment upstairs. Happened to walk by and see part of the body through the cracked open door. Not to mention the bullet holes in the door itself.”

  “Did you speak with the rest of the neighbors? Maybe they saw something but don’t want to talk. Those apartments on the south side of Columbia Pike are full of illegals. They don’t like the police.”

  “We call them undocumented. And they like the police, they’re just afraid of us. But, yeah, we sent people in. Every Spanish speaking officer we have. Talked to the whole building and the one next to it. No one saw anything. But, once again, most of the tenants work during the day. Probably fewer people home in the afternoon than any other time.”

  “It’s a curious time for a shooting.”

  Detective Jim Singleton stood up and looked over the cubicles in the surrounding aisles before sitting down again. “Off the record, here are my top three bets. The most likely scenario is a personal relationship gone bad. Someone pissed enough to just walk up and shoot him through the door without stealing anything. We looked to see if he had called the cops on any of his neighbors. Nothing. We checked to see if he had any recent car accidents. He hadn’t. We checked into his coworkers at the last place he had worked. No good suspects there either. Statistically speaking, the most likely scenario is a relationship gone sour. The suppressor, if one was used, throws a wrench into that scenario.”

  “Unless it’s an Army buddy.”

  “And we are nearing a dead end on those. For the scenario of a relationship gone bad, we first need to find a relationship. And for the last few years, this dead guy has been a bit of a loner. Doesn’t get out much. Doesn’t have a wide circle of friends. No girlfriends. Not a lot of interaction with the real world. The less time you spend with other people, the harder it is to create ill will. And this guy somehow created enough ill will that someone decided to off him with a silenced weapon…”

  “Only takes a second to piss someone off.”

  “It’s possible, and statistically speaking it’s the most likely possibility, I just don’t think that’s the deal with this guy. If it was an acquaintance, something will turn up. But so far we have nothing.”

  “What’s number two on your list of possibilities?”

  “The second most likely scenario is a drug deal gone bad. But if you follow the drug deal gone bad scenario, why is the dead guy the one with the money on him? Usually, and I mean virtually always, the killer takes the money in a drug deal gone bad.”

  “Unless it was vindictive in nature. A revenge killing.”

  “Revenge for what? For not paying? So then why did they leave the money behind?”

  “Just to make a point.”

  “To who? Who are they making a point to? This guy is a recluse.”

  “You’ve got me there. What’s option C?”

  Officer Singleton sighed. “I think it could be a professional hit.”

  “Besides the suppressor, why?”

  “A couple of things have been bothering me. First off, why shoot the victim through the door? If the guy is opening the door—and he’s your friend, acquaintance, whatever—why not wait for him to invite you in? At least invite you through the door where you can get a clear shot. Why through the door, leaving it cracked open?”

  “Not sure.”

  “And if you’re not going to wait for him to invite you in, why wait for the door to open a crack? If you’re the killer, why give the guy a chance to see your face? Who would risk that?”

  “Someone he didn’t know. Someone he couldn’t identify.”

  “Right. So now we’re talking about someone he didn’t know, who wasn’t interested in stealing anything, who was using a silencer, shooting through the door, in the middle of the afternoon.”

  Dan paused. “Someone did their homework on this guy.”

  “Yes they did.”

  “But there’s also a problem with the professional hit scenario,” Dan said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A professional would confirm the target has been eliminated. As a hired assassin, I would take a chest shot or two as soon as the door opened and then follow that up with a couple of shots to the head. But not this killer. This guy does all his homework, all the surveillance, gets a suppressor, allows the door to open a crack and then shoots the disabled vet through the door. But he doesn’t check to see if the job has been completed. People get shot and survive all the time.”

  “True.”

  “So shooting someone through the door doesn’t allow for a clear confirmation of the kill. It smells like a professional hit in many ways, but a messed up one.”

  “Maybe it will prove to be a random. Once again, statistically speaking, a random murder is what, a thousand times more likely than a professional hit?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So then answer me this. Why did a congressman’s wife hire you and give you some story about her baby daddy warning her she was in danger? Add that to the equation and you can throw statistics out the window. The likelihood of this being a random killing and a nervous congressman’s wife hiring you with a story about her baby daddy being worried is virtually zero.”

  “Keep me posted,” Dan replied after another long pause.

  “What’s your next move?”

  “Going to find a junkie.”

  “We’ve put the squeeze on most of the oxy dealers. No one knows anything about this guy.”

  “I guess you’re not talking to the right person.”

  Chapter 15

  Dan parked on the street next to a car repair shop and weaved his way across two lanes of traffic without waiting for the light to change. On the opposite side of the road, two guys standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the public housing development perked up. When Dan turned in their direction and showed no sign of changing course, the men huddled together and whispered to one another.

  Dan closed the gap with a measured, steady pace. The two men stopped whispering and stared menacingly down the sidewalk as Dan approached. Dan made eye contact and considered the likelihood of a confrontation. The larger man with the blue do-rag on his head stood two inches taller and outweighed Dan by at least fifty pounds. Mostly muscle. A little chub. The skinnier man was about Dan’s height and perhaps thirty pounds lighter. Someone has been stealing his friend’s lunch, Dan thought.

  Dan focused his gaze on the larger man in the do-rag and the skinnier counterpart moved from his position, distancing himself from his friend and creating two angles for Dan to defend. Not today fellas, Dan thought. Tactically a correct move, but not today.

  “Good evening. Have either of you gentleman seen Darren C. around?”

  “Who the fuck is asking?” the larger man with the blue do-rag asked.

  “Dan Lord. Attorney. I represented Darren a while back. I have business with him, but he moved from his old place off Route 1. I heard he was in the neighborhood.”

  “Dan who?”

  “Lord.”

  “As in Lord have mercy?”

  You have no idea. “Fellas, this can go easy, or this can go hard. You won’t like the hard route. I guarantee it.”

  The man with the do-rag looked up at the setting sun in the distance. “You have about an hour before you don’t walk out of here without some kind of backup.”

  Dan didn’t blink, staring straight into the man’s eyes. Without warning, Dan snapped a fifty between his fingers, the cash appearing as if by magic. “Why don’t you keep an eye on my car for me? It’s just across the street. I’ll give you fifty now, and another fifty when I get back. In the meantime, get Beanpole over there to take me t
o Darren C. I know Darren is around somewhere because you didn’t ask who he was when I mentioned his name.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Dan mentally measured the distance between himself and the man before he offered a one-syllable chuckle and slipped the money back into his pocket. “Okay, big boy. You have a decision to make. A quick hundred, or a quick ass-kicking. A hundred won’t even cover the cost to remove the teeth I break.”

  The man in the blue do-rag slowly pulled up is T-shirt and brandished the handle of a black semi-automatic pistol. “First, you’ll have to go through my friend, here.”

  Dan’s eyes dropped to the weapon and then back up to the man’s face. “And I don’t think my friend behind you is going to allow you to pull that weapon,” Dan said, motioning down the sidewalk, looking beyond the face of the man with the do-rag. Do-rag shifted his gaze for a split second before seeming to realize he had been duped.

  It was too late.

  Dan closed the gap between himself and the gun in the waistband before the large man flinched. By the time Do-rag reached his gun, the grip on his weapon was occupied by Dan’s left hand. With his left hand firmly on the weapon, Dan moved his right hand upward until his pointer finger pressed into the man’s the throat, just above the top of the breastplate and below the Adam’s apple. Dan now controlled two locations on the body that were hard for most men to ignore.

  “Move and I pull the trigger,” Dan said.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You willing to take that chance?”

  Do-rag removed his hand from the top of Dan’s hand, the gun still aimed at his manhood. Do-rag scowled at Beanpole who, ten feet away, seemed oblivious to the current circumstance. With slow realization, Beanpole started to move to his friend’s aid accompanied by a string of vulgarities. Without moving his torso, Dan offered Beanpole a sidekick to the abdomen for his delayed heroism.

  As Beanpole hit the ground, Dan pressed his finger deeper into the neck of the big man, hooking the top of the breastplate. “I assume you don’t have a conceal and carry permit. And I’m guessing that chain-link fence around the elementary school down the block is less than a couple of hundred yards away. You know what that means?”