'It's Southeast all over again, ten years ago,' said Fink.

'It's the culture,' said Bonano. 'How the fuck you gonna change that?'

'Ward Nine,' said Fink. It had become either an affectionate or a pejorative term for P.G., depending on who was using it. It meant the county was no different from, and just as bad as, the eastern, crime-ridden, black-populated regions of D.C.

'What do you expect?' said West. 'Poverty is violence.'

'Really, Hillary?' said Bonano.

'No one respects the law anymore,' said Holiday very quietly. He looked into his glass, rattled the cubes, and downed the rest of its contents. He picked up his cigarettes and cell from the bar and got off his stool.

'Where you goin?' said Fink.

'Work,' said Holiday. 'I got an airport run.'

'Take it easy, Doc,' said Bonano.

'Gents,' said Holiday.

Holiday walked out of Leo's into a blinding light. He wore a white dress shirt under a black suit. His hat was out in the car.

CHAPTER 4

Detectives Ramone and Green walked down the center aisle of the Violent Crime Branch offices, a windowless jumble of loosely rowed cubicles and desks, the touch-base home for the dozens of detectives working murder cases and, as was said by some, those cases concerning victims who had not yet died but had been seriously fucked up. As they moved, there were scattered congratulations and some joking at Ramone's expense from the few detectives who were in the office. The comments alluded to the fact that Green had done the heavy lifting and Ramone would get the glory for closing the case. Ramone didn't mind. Everyone had his strengths, and Green's was in the box. He was happy for the assistance – anything to get this to the finish line. Point of fact, in every respect, all had gone smoothly from the start.

The previous day, Ramone had been on the bubble when a call came in from an apartment house resident manager who had discovered a body lying in the open doorway of one of his units. Ramone caught the homicide as the primary. Rhonda Willis, as close to a partner as he ever had, would assist.

Patrolmen and a 7D lieutenant were waiting in the street when Gus Ramone and Rhonda Willis arrived. The crime scene was in a third-floor apartment on Cedar Street, S.E., one of several boxy units that ran along both sides a short block off 14th and ended in a court.

Several hours later, after the decedent had been sheeted and removed, Ramone and Willis remained in the living room of the apartment, saying little to each other, communicating mostly with their eyes. A couple of uniforms stood outside the door, in a stairwell smelling faintly of marijuana smoke and deep-fried food. As techs and a photographer worked diligently and quietly, Ramone stared at an eating table in an open area off the living room near a pass-through to the kitchen.

The groceries interested him most. They were spilled on the table, coming out of a paper bag. Even the perishables, which meant the victim had just gotten in from the store and had not had time to put the milk, cheese, and chicken in the refrigerator before she had been assaulted. Stabbed near the table, he reckoned, since there were drops of blood on the tan pile carpeting there and a trail of it leading to the door. Then a whole lot of blood on the carpet at the door. That's where she had been, probably holding onto the open door, hoping for help before she had collapsed.

The groceries reached him on another level, too. In the mix of staples were other items she had bought at the store: Go-Gurt and Lunchables, strawberry Twizzlers, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, and the all-important Cocoa Puffs. All right, so she wasn't exactly a nutrition-conscious mother. She was one of those mothers who spent her dollars on things that would make her kids smile. It reminded Ramone of his wife, Regina, who never failed to bring home treats from the grocery store for their son, Diego, even though he was now in his teens, and their daughter, Alana, seven. He chided her for all her attentiveness to Diego especially, how she let him play her, how she couldn't stay mad at him for more than a few minutes, how she always gave in to his wants and requests. Well, if the worst thing a man could say about his wife was that she loved her children too much, he was doing all right.

The children who lived here had been picked up at school by their aunt, who had taken them to her home. Diego was still picked up almost daily at his middle school by a dutiful Regina, despite the fact that Ramone had told her she was going to make him soft.

It was good that the kids who lived in this apartment had not seen their mother in death. She had received multiple stab wounds to the face, breasts, and neck. A severed jugular accounted for the extreme volume of blood. Defense wounds were manifested in several slashes on the victim's fingers and a clean stab through the palm of one hand. She had voided her bowels, and her excrement had stained her white uniform brown.

Ramone and Willis walked the apartment, careful not to disturb the techs from the Mobile Crime Lab. Though they had yet to sum up their observations to each other, both had come to similar conclusions. The victim knew the assailant, as the front door showed no signs of forced entry. Also, the knifing had occurred twenty feet inside the apartment, by the table. She had allowed the assailant to come inside. This was not a drug-related killing, not a witness murder or retaliation against a relative of someone in the game. Knifings were almost always personal and rarely involved business.

The victim's purse was on the kitchen table but did not contain a wallet or keys. Upon questioning, the resident manager told Ramone that the decedent, Jacqueline Taylor, drove a late-model Toyota Corolla. That car was not now parked on the street. Ramone deduced that the assailant had taken her money, credit cards, car keys, and car. From the perspective of the case, this was a good thing: if the assailant used the credit card, it could be traced. Likewise, a stolen car would make the assailant easier to find.

The decedent was a single mother. There were some articles of clothing, underwear mostly, double-XL T-shirts and thirty-four-waist boxers, in a corner of one of her dresser drawers, indicating a frequent adult male visitor but not a permanent resident. The second bedroom held two small beds, one covered in a floral pattern and the other in printed Redskins helmets. The room was filled with dolls, action figures, stuffed animals, and athletic equipment, including a miniature basketball and a K2 football. Elementary school photographs of the children, a boy and a girl, were in the living room on a side table.

The decedent had worked as a nurse. A uniform hung in her bedroom closet, and she was wearing a nurse's uniform when she was found. The resident manager confirmed that she was an RN at D.C. General. She was there now, lying on a sheet of plastic in the city morgue.

The preliminary canvass produced no witnesses. A security camera, however, was mounted on the roof of the apartment building, pointed at its entrance. If there was tape in the camera and it was rolling, Ramone would be in business. The resident manager, a skinny guy dressed completely in black, told him that the camera was 'usually' working. The man had hard liquor on his breath at three in the afternoon. It was a small thing, but it gave Ramone doubt that the camera would be loaded and operable. Still, Ramone would check the camera. He could only hope.

To Ramone's surprise. The tape had been loaded and the camera was in perfect condition. A clear image of a man leaving the apartment building was produced, with a burned-in time confirming his exit roughly at the time of the assault.