Jerome took five seconds, his eyes scanning over the images in the pictures, looking from one to the next until he came to the man from the park. When his eyes lit on that image, they widened, his mouth dropping open as he pointed. “That’s the motherfucker!” he shouted.
Train shot a glance at Cassian, who rubbed his temples as if in pain. “That’s what motherfucker, Jerome?” Train asked.
“Get the fuck outta here, Train,” Jerome said, his voice filled with anger. “You know goddamned well what motherfucker that is!”
“I don’t, Jerome. Tell me.”
“This is bullshit!” Jerome looked back and forth between the detectives. Then, at last, he threw his hands up. “That’s the motherfucker who bought the dime bag and the torch off me. That’s the motherfucker in the blue sedan who was down a digit.” He looked expectantly at Train. “This mean I get the fuck outta here now?”
Train shook his head. “No, Jerome. It doesn’t.”
“The fuck it don’t!” Jerome shouted back. “You found the man. He’s the one who did the bitch on G Street, not me. I know it, and now you know it, too. So you go on and get me the fuck outta here!”
“We don’t know shit, Jerome,” Cassian shot back. “All we know is that you’re looking at the needle, and so you’re looking for any way out of this mess. You’d say anything to make that happen.” He picked up the picture Jerome had identified. “We don’t have any idea who this guy is. Besides, you’re already being charged with possession, and as an accessory to attempted murder based on the shots your friend took at Sergeant Train.”
“Those are bullshit charges, and you know it!”
“Now you’re telling me what I know, Jerome?”
“Then why’d you bring me in here to show me these?” Washington demanded, his manacled hands slapping awkwardly at the pictures on the table. He stared down both officers, and this time it was Train and Cassian who looked away first. “Thought so,” he proclaimed in triumph.
Train looked back at Washington. “We’ll get back to you,” he said, filling his voice with as much moral authority as it would hold. He got up out of his chair and Cassian followed him toward the door.
“Man, that’s bullshit!” Washington called after them. “You’ll get back to me? I didn’t do the bitch, Train.” He was pulling at his shackles, straining to still be heard. “You know I didn’t do this, Train!”
The door closed behind the two detectives, and they could still hear Washington screaming in the room behind them. “What do you think now?” Train asked his partner.
Cassian shrugged. “I don’t know what to think at this point. Seems like a pretty big coincidence.” Train nodded. “Then again,” Cassian suggested, “we really don’t know what the hell’s going on. I mean, for all we know, Jerome killed our stiff from the park, and he made up the story hoping we’d find the body and it’d look like he’d been set up.”
“Interesting theory,” Train said. “You think it washes?” Cassian shook his head slowly. “Me neither.” Train rubbed his bald scalp. “The only thing I know at this point is that I don’t like the feeling this case is giving me. I think we may need to dig a little deeper into Elizabeth Creay’s life.”
T
HE SUN WAS OUT
on the Wednesday Elizabeth Creay was in
terred in the cemetery behind Christ Church in Washington, beating down on the mourners relentlessly as they sweated in the early summer D.C. humidity. The programs, which Lydia Chapin had ordered from a posh stationery in Georgetown, and which were filled with inspirational passages from the New Testament, were appreciated more as makeshift fans than as guides to spiritual healing. Dressed in a simple dark gray suit, Sydney thought the weather was the final cosmic insult heaped upon her sister, who had always preferred the cool of late autumn and had suffered terribly through Washington’s summers. She stood just behind her mother and Amanda, letting her eyes wander, taking in the somber menagerie that had gathered at the family plot.
She was amazed at the sheer number of people. The death of someone so young, brought about by such violent means, could, she supposed, bring out even the most casual acquaintance, but the mood of the crowd suggested a grief more genuine than mere curiosity could explain. Sydney found herself wondering how many people would show up at her own funeral were she to die so young. Fewer, certainly, she concluded. It was petty of her to feel the pangs of jealousy at seeing the outpouring of emotion at her sister’s funeral. But there it was; the final, dying gasp of a sibling rivalry that had defined her relationship with Liz until only months before her death.
Sydney put those thoughts out of her mind. Her focus should be on Amanda, she resolved, for whom the day would be the hardest. The girl was directly in front of her at the casket, standing straight and brave next to her grandmother. She was shorter than Lydia, and less substantial through the shoulders, but something about her posture suggested a kinship between the two. Both had their chins high, and carried themselves with a regal defiance. Lydia was wearing a black satin jacket buttoned at the front to the neckline, where the high lace collar of her white blouse took over. Amanda had been unable to find anything to wear that her grandmother deemed suitable, so she wore a newly purchased charcoal dress with a hint of a floral pattern sewn into the shadows of the fabric. “It sends the right message,” Lydia had explained when she picked out the dress, and while Sydney had been livid at her mother’s insensitivity, she had to admit that the outfit had a remarkably appropriate feel.
Sydney turned her attention back to the crowd. Most of Liz’s friends and coworkers from the
Post
were on hand; the editor in chief, the section heads, Liz’s editor, as well as an army of reporters and columnists. Many of the people with whom Liz had worked on various charities and civic organizations were also there. And then there were Lydia’s people, who included many of Washington’s power brokers, from senators and congressmen to high-priced lawyers and lobbyists. There were even a couple of talking heads from the twenty-four-hour news stations, no doubt looking for an angle on the story of Liz’s death.
As Sydney panned through the crowd, her eyes were drawn to an enormous, dark figure she recognized instantly on the outskirts of the gathering.
Detective Train
, she thought. He stood out in the crowd, as huge as he was, his head hovering several inches above the average attendee. Looking to the right of him, she saw Jack Cassian also. Her heart gave an involuntary start; not necessarily one of infatuation, she thought, but certainly one of curiosity—the seed of infatuation. She’d felt it before, the other night when he’d stopped by her mother’s house. It was a feeling of discovery and excitement that delivered a slow drip of adrenaline in his presence and made her extremities tingle.
Both detectives noticed her looking in their direction, and they nodded respectfully. Their expressions conveyed a sincerity of condolence that she had no reason to question, and yet she wondered why they were there. It would not be unusual, she supposed, for the detectives who had investigated a murder to develop some personal posthumous attachment to the victim, and for that attachment to draw them to a memorial service. But as she looked at their faces, she suspected there was something more. As sincere as their acknowledgment seemed, there was also something else mixed with the sympathy. There was an alertness to their eyes as they examined the crowd, almost as if they were evaluating and cataloging suspects. Jack noticed that she was continuing to watch him as he observed the crowd, and he seemed uncomfortable, as though he’d been caught at something illicit.
She frowned as she turned back to the interment. The Anglican priest, who had clearly never actually known Liz, was finishing his emotional and fictitious remembrance of her deceased sister. Others might find it comforting that one could be so fondly eulogized by a complete stranger, but it made Sydney feel sad. It was as though a person’s life meant little in its specifics; that the standard platitudes could be applied equally to all.
The service concluded, and Sydney approached the casket with Amanda and Lydia, each of them placing a rose on the expensive polished maplewood coffin. Then Liz’s remains were lowered hydraulically into the ground next to their father in the family plot that her parents had purchased over twenty years before. She noticed that the tract of land was large, pocked only by the two headstones marking the final resting spots for Liz and their father—plenty of room for generations to come and go, only to be corralled in death under the watchful eyes of her parents. The thought chilled Sydney.
After the priest finished the final benediction, and the light humming of the hydraulic winch ceased, signaling that Liz’s body had reached the bottom of the pit, the crowd began to disperse. A number of brave souls approached the family to offer their personal regrets, only to be greeted by her mother’s icy formality and her niece’s painful reticence. Sydney tried to generate enough small talk to paper over the uncomfortable moments, but even she found it difficult. After the first few attempts, she abandoned the effort and fell back on empty nods and vapid, expressionless “thank you”s in response to the myriad condolences.
When the stream of well-wishers hit a lull, Sydney took the opportunity to drift over toward Cassian and Train. She’d expected them to be among the first to depart the cemetery, unlikely to be interested in prolonged expressions of emotion, but they hadn’t left yet. They remained at the edge of the crowd, standing patiently as the mourners filed out past them.
She nodded at Train. “Detective,” she said. And then to Cassian, “Detective Cassian.” She held Cassian’s eyes for several beats longer than she had Train’s, and wondered whether Jack’s partner would notice. Not that she would care.
“Miss Chapin,” Train said politely, “once again, we’d like to express our deepest sympathies, and those of the entire department, at your sister’s death.”
“Thank you,” she replied after a moment. “I appreciate both of you being here.” She looked back over at her mother and Amanda. Lydia was shaking hands with one of Liz’s colleagues from the newspaper, her smile so waxy and stiff that it was painful to look at. Amanda, standing next to her grandmother, seemed to have drifted off into her own mind. She was staring at the ground, expressionless and still.
Cassian followed Sydney’s gaze and commented, “It looks like your niece could use your help.”
Sydney agreed. “So could anyone foolish enough to talk to my mother.”
“You should be over there with them,” Cassian said. Train cleared his throat to make a point, and Cassian added, “We do need to talk to you about something, though.”
Sydney frowned. “You want to talk now?”
Train seemed inclined to, but Cassian put his foot down. “No, you need to be with your family. We can handle it later.”
Sydney was perplexed, but another glance over at Amanda was sufficient to convince her that she needed to get back to her. She was reluctant to leave without some idea about what the detectives wanted. She hesitated, and then she said, “We’re having people back to the house for a light lunch following the funeral. Why don’t you stop by, and we can handle it then?”
Cassian looked doubtful. “Are you sure you don’t want the full day with your family? We can do it tomorrow.”
“Does it have anything to do with the investigation into Liz’s murder?”
Train nodded.
“Then I want to deal with it today,” Sydney said. “So would my mother, I’m sure.” Then, after a moment’s thought, she added, “And that’s what Liz would have wanted, too.”
Cassian looked at Train and the older officer nodded.
“I’ll see you there in a little while, then?” Sydney confirmed.
“Yeah,” Cassian said. “I guess you’ll see us there.”
T
RAIN FELT SELF
-
CONSCIOUS
as he looked around the huge dining room in the Chapins’ house. It wasn’t his skin color that set him apart so acutely, although there were very few black people there. No, what made him feel so out of place was far subtler than that; something in his stiff demeanor that seemed to flag the fact that he didn’t fit in. In most circumstances of his life, his size was a significant asset. He was able to utilize his phys
ical advantage to control situations, to intimidate when necessary, and to direct others as he deemed best. At this moment, however, his size seemed more a liability. He felt like a professional wrestler invited to tea at Buckingham Palace; as though with every turn of his enormous frame he was likely to smash into some priceless set of china. Worse still, there was no way to hide, and no way to blend in among those who had gathered to mourn at the Chapin mansion. He felt exposed as people cast curious, even concerned, glances his way when they passed him, and he started to wish he and Cassian could find a way to talk to Sydney Chapin quickly and get out of the house.
He slid his back against the wall in the dining room, trying to make himself as small as possible as he attempted to get his partner’s attention. Cassian was over at the dining room table, filling a plate with lobster salad, croissants, and a touch of caviar. “Might as well eat while we’re here,” he’d said. “After all, we’re not likely to get a meal this good anytime soon.” Cassian was right about that, thought Train. The spread on the dining room table was remarkable. Salads, meats, pastas, and soufflés were lined up along a number of dishes that Train couldn’t even identify, but which looked expensive. He found himself wondering how many semesters of his daughter’s college education he could pay for with the amount of money that had been expended on this meal.
“It’s delicious,” a voice interrupted his thoughts. Train turned to his left and faced a diminutive gentleman who appeared to be well into his eighties. His balding head held only a few wispy strands of gray hair, which were carefully matted down to his scalp and failed to cover the large liver spots and overgrown moles that crowded his skull. His shoulders were stooped, making him seem even smaller than he’d probably been as a younger man, and he craned his thin neck upward to look at Train. And yet for all of his obvious frailty there was a compelling twinkle in his eyes. He reminded Train of a kindly wizard from a child’s fairy tale. He was nattily dressed with a courtly manner, and there was something strangely familiar about him. “I noticed you weren’t eating,” the man continued. “I can assure you the food is delicious.” He smiled in a warm, friendly way that contained a hint of condolence and melancholy appropriate to the occasion.