Page 36 of The Night Of
“Did you bring the case file? And where are his belongings?”
“You gonna sign for ’em? No one has claimed this guy yet. He’s got no family we can get a hold of. He stays here much longer, he’s gonna get a city burial.”
“I’ll sign. Where’s the case file?”
“Here.” Casey dropped the folder on top of Rose’s stomach, then passed over a manila envelope folded in half. “He didn’t have much on him. Car was so clean you could eat off the seats. Least it was before he bled all over it.”
I ignored Casey and riffled through his belongings. Wallet, nearly empty, with cash and his driver’s license. A set of keys, what looked like a car key and two house keys. A pair of sunglasses. Nothing else. No CIA ID, no key card or badge. “Was anything stolen from the car?”
“Nah. The perps who did this never even reached in.”
I flipped through the file as Casey ran me through the particulars. Rose had been driving north on MLK in Anacostia. He pulled to a stop at a red light bracketed by a liquor store and an elementary school. Three figures dressed in oversized hoodies and baggy jeans were crossing the street. They saw him pull up. Eyed the car. With a nod from what seemed to be the group leader, they surrounded the car, and the same leader pulled a gun and smashed the driver’s-side window. Moments later, there were three shots, and then all three took off running, disappearing into the warren of Anacostia. Everything had been captured on the surveillance cameras of the liquor store and the school.
“Looks like a standard carjacking to me,” Casey said, slurping his coffee again. “Why is the Secret Service interested in this vic? He one of yours? We didn’t find any creds on the body.”
“Not one of ours, no.” I ripped the photos of the gangbangers who had swarmed the car out of the report.
“Hey,” Casey protested. “You can’t do that—”
I spun the photo toward him. “What do you see?”
“Three punks.” He shoved the printout out of his face. “And an asshole right in front of me.”
“Are dress shoes the kind of kicks the punks you arrest in Anacostia usually wear?” I jabbed my finger on the photo, pointing to the dark shoes the leader was wearing. I could barely make out the heel on the hard leather sole. A shine of light from the liquor store’s Open sign caught the polished toe. Those were not sneakers. And those weren’t gangbangers, not wearing hoodies that covered their faces from every angle. They’d wanted to be seen but not identified.
Casey’s fat cheeks wobbled as he fumed. “You can’t tell what kind of shoes they’re wearing!”
“You don’t think it’s odd that this happened at six p.m.? In daylight?”
“You ever been to Anacostia?” Casey eyeballed me. “Doesn’t seem like you get over to that side of town much. You know, where real folk live. Outside of the ivory tower of the White House.”
“I know the people of Anacostia deserve better if this is the kind of police work they get. If this is the level of investigative quality they can rely on.”
“You little shit,” Casey hissed. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Coming down here, throwing your bullshit around. This was a carjacking! They happen a dozen times a month down here!”
“No. This was a murder made to look like a carjacking, and you fell for it.”
“Who the fuck is this guy?” Casey shouted.
I folded the printed pictures I’d ripped out of the case file and stuffed them in my jacket pocket. “Keep up the good work, Detective,” I said, patting Casey on the shoulder as I walked out.
“Asshole,” Casey called after me. “Go fuck yourself!”
I had more questions than I had answers, though. When I got to my SUV, I punched the address on Rose’s license into my GPS. It popped up in northwest DC, out in the posh burbs, clear on the opposite side of the city from where he had been shot and killed.
What was he doing down in Anacostia? Had he been at the military base for some reason? If so, why not get on I-295 and wind up through the city on the highway? Who voluntarily drove through Anacostia?
No one.
But Rose was CIA, and if there was one thing the CIA did exceptionally well, it was to arrange meetings in the worst possible fucking locations around the world. This stank of the CIA, of arranging a meet in some shadowed dark corner, trying to hide in the underbelly of DC where no one paid attention to anything.
Someone, though, had known where he was going. And someone had sent out a hit team.
A hastily assembled hit team, if they hadn’t bothered to change their shoes. Though they needn’t have bothered with that level of detail, thanks to Detective Casey’s crack investigative skills. The detective had wanted to find a carjacking, and he had, which was exactly what the perps were relying on.
I wanted to find a murder. And I had.
I put the SUV in gear and backed out, taking 395 north until I hit US 29. I needed more answers.
