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  Walking on, he thought of the woman he was about to meet for drinks. Sex took his mind off the stink of death.

  SIX

  Lucas valeted his Jeep outside a boutique hotel on the 1200 block of 16th Street, four blocks north of the White House. He wore a lightly textured powder-blue shirt, cream-colored 501s, and brown double-buckle monk straps made in Italy. He could clean up when he wanted to, and when it was appropriate. He’d heard about this hotel and its refurbishment in 2009. His brother Leo brought women to the bar here, if they and the occasion were special. Leo had said the place was first-class.

  Lucas walked on a checkerboard marble floor through a lobby lit by lamps and dusk filtered through skylights. He passed a pedestaled bust of Thomas Jefferson and a library whose shelves held leather-bound books, and he walked on into the bar, clean and subtly lit, and saw her sitting at the stick. She was wearing a simple orange dress with a low neckline that clung to her nicely rather than cheaply. The orange lighting of the bar complemented her dress. He stepped up to her and reached out his hand. She smiled, took it, and gripped it firmly.

  “I’m Charlotte.”

  “Spero Lucas. Now we’re properly introduced.”

  “Have a seat. I saved it for you.”

  “I bet that wasn’t easy. A buncha guys must’ve been trying to score this seat.”

  “Tons. I had to beat them off.”

  “Your hand must be awful tired.”

  Charlotte laughed charitably. “Please, sit down.”

  He took a seat beside her in a high black chair. They were by the turn in the bar, nearest the windows fronting 16th. There were others in the room, but Lucas took no notice.

  “I’m having wine,” said Charlotte. “Do you like Italian red?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “This Barolo’s pretty nice.” She offered him her glass to try it.

  He took a sip and nodded. “That’s good.”

  Charlotte looked him over. “Let’s have a bottle. You want to?”

  He stayed with her lovely blue eyes. “I’m game.”

  The bartender, a slender, quiet man, soon came with a bottle, showed its label to Charlotte, then uncorked it and poured a bit in a fresh glass. She tasted it and made a motion with her chin, and he poured her a full portion and some for Lucas.

  “Shall I leave the bottle on the bar?” said the tender.

  “Please,” said Charlotte.

  They tapped glasses. He watched her close her eyes as she drank. Now that he was close, he saw that she was older than him by several years. Late thirties if he had to guess. Her age was in her smile lines and the light imprints around her eyes, but it showed nowhere else. Her skin was smooth and her complexion was flawless. She smelled faintly of rainwater. He supposed it was her shampoo. For jewelry she wore a thin gold bracelet with a Grecian key inlay, and a strand of ice-blue crystals around her neck. A tan line showed on her ring finger.

  “Work today?” she said.

  “Yes. You?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a lobbyist over on K Street.” She gave him a brief history of her career. She had been a Hill staffer for several years and eventually had served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and traveled extensively overseas. The natural progression and her Middle East and Near East connections led her to lobbying, and her current firm.

  “Who are some of your clients?”

  “Pakistan,” she said.

  “Wow.”

  “It’s work. What did you do today?”

  Lucas described his day. He said that the secret most investigators keep is that the bulk of their modern-day work is done via computer programs, but that he preferred to get out and talk to people when he could. He described the Virginia Christian conversation, that technically they were on opposite sides of the fence, but that he’d liked her, and he felt she’d liked him.

  “I’m a marine,” he said, keeping it in the present tense, as he tended to do. He told her where he had served. He told her about his visit to Walter Reed, something he normally wouldn’t share with anyone but fellow veterans and family. It could come off as self-serving, but she seemed interested.

  “You look like you came out of the war all right,” said Charlotte.

  “I’m ahead,” said Lucas.

  “Why’d you settle back in D.C.?”

  “Home. Family.” And again, he began to talk unguardedly.

  He told her that he was the son of Greek-American parents, one of four siblings, three of whom had been adopted. His sister, Irene, was the biological product of the marriage, and was now an attorney in San Francisco. She was emotionally distant and largely absent from their lives. Dimitrius, the oldest brother, was a charming, degenerate criminal, and currently in the wind. Another brother, Leo, was a local high school teacher and a standout individual in every respect since childhood. A combination of rock star, athlete, do-gooder, and stud. Spero was the youngest of the bunch. High school wrestler, not particularly gifted academically, but a hard worker. Tried community college, then joined the Corps. His father passed while Lucas was serving in Iraq. He was still close to his mom.

  “Do you ever wonder who your real parents are?” said Charlotte.

  “I know who my parents are,” said Lucas. “Van and Eleni Lucas.”

  “Stupid question.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.”

  Charlotte leaned in toward him. “So what do you do for fun?”

  “I ride a bicycle and I have a kayak,” said Lucas. “I like to get out there.”

  “What else?”

  “I’m into older movies and music. I read a lot of books.”

  “What kind of music?”

  “Smart lyrics with guitars. Solos get me off. That takes away my punk credentials, but hey. I like stuff with a Southern bent or feel. Lucero, My Morning Jacket, DBT. The Hold Steady, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth… guitar-heavy stuff. At home I’ll listen to reggae.”

  “That means…”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t smoke marijuana,” said Charlotte.

  “I won’t hold it against you.”

  “It makes me sleepy.”

  “We wouldn’t want that.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” said Charlotte.

  Lucas studied the curve of her mouth as she poured him more wine. She poured a glass for herself.

  “Why’d you leave me your phone number the other night?” said Lucas.

  “I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s happened to you.”

  “They didn’t look like you.”

  “Stop.”

  “You’re a knockout,” said Lucas.

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I liked what I saw in you, too,” said Charlotte. “Even in a white T-shirt and a pair of shorts, you left an impression. And when you walked in tonight…”

  “What?”

  She looked directly into his eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

  “Huh,” said Lucas, clumsily. He felt himself blush.

  “Not that I’m all about that. Handsome alone doesn’t close it for me. I went back to Boundary Road the next night and talked with the bartender. She said good things about you. So it wasn’t much of a risk on my part to meet you here.”

  “Here we are.”

  “Yes.” She reached over and laid her hand upon his, right on the bar. He felt a warm current.

  “What now?”

  “You like the wine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got another bottle in my room.”

  “You have a room here?”

  “Uh-huh. Why don’t we go upstairs?”

  Lucas finished the wine in his glass. His trousers were tight, and he could feel his heart in his chest. He reached for his wallet, but she said, “No.” She paid the bartender in cash. Tan line on her ring finger, and she wasn’t le
aving a paper trail.

  Charlotte Rivers was a bundle of dynamite in a dress. She was smart, accomplished, and funny. She was also married. For now, Lucas didn’t care.

  “You ready?” said Charlotte, getting down off her chair.

  He was already standing. He stepped aside and let her lead the way.

  Her room was an elegant suite, tastefully decorated, and tomb-quiet, with a nearly soundless air-conditioning system keeping the space cool. The bed was a king dressed in custom linens and a down duvet, and at the foot of it sat a black velvet settee facing out. A bottle of the same Barolo they had drunk at the bar sat on a dresser.

  “Why don’t you take care of that?” said Charlotte, nodding to the bottle.

  Lucas uncorked it and poured wine into two short water glasses, while Charlotte went around the suite, lighting votive candles. When she was done she turned off the lamps and overhead lights and returned to him in the bedroom. The suite glowed in candlelight and the flame-light flickered on its walls.

  “You brought your own candles,” said Lucas, incredulously, as he handed her a glass.

  “The staff brought them up at my request,” she said. “My firm puts our visiting clients and dignitaries in the deluxe suites on the top floors. We spend a lot of money here, and I’m treated well. And they’re discreet.”

  Lucas sipped his wine and put the glass on the dresser. Charlotte set hers down as well.

  “You could have been up here with your candles all alone,” said Lucas.

  “But I’m not alone.”

  “What if I wasn’t what you expected?”

  “You are,” said Charlotte. “Stop talking.”

  They kissed. He touched her fingers and her hand. Her mouth fit his perfectly. He knew that it would.

  Standing, they kissed for ten, fifteen minutes, more. Their tongues touched but just as often it was with crushed lips. They stayed fully dressed. This was enough for now.

  Charlotte stepped out of her heels. He gathered her up in his arms, her breath warm on his face. She unbuttoned his shirt and he let her peel it off him and it fell to the floor. She ran her hands up his forearms and biceps and then put her hand under his wife beater and caressed his abs, driving her tongue deeply into his mouth. Both of them broke off and stepped back. They were sweating. Her hair had fallen about her face.

  “Badass,” said Lucas, with admiration.

  She turned and he unzipped her dress. He kissed her warm, damp neck as he undressed her, and she faced him then and unbuttoned his 501s. He stepped out of them and kicked them aside. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it to the carpet.

  She was wearing a thong and a lacy black bra and she was more than he had imagined. He had on only his boxer briefs. She reached out and stroked him through the fabric. He unfastened her bra at the front. When she was free, her breasts, full with dark, raised nipples, barely dropped, and the sight of her took his breath away. Lucas and Charlotte stayed standing in an embrace and kissed, and he set her breasts up high on his chest, and she said his name, and they kissed there and against the wall, and on the bed, and lost the rest of their clothing. Two hours passed with them simply, passionately making love with their mouths and hearts. Nothing like this had ever happened to Lucas before.

  Naked on the bed and so hard it ached, he tried to move between her thighs, but she stopped him.

  “Why not?” said Lucas.

  “Kiss me down there.”

  She got up off the bed and went to the black velvet settee at its foot and sat upon it, and Lucas kneeled in front of her on the carpet. He used his mouth, thumb, and forefinger, and his face became wet with her. She climaxed quietly, and after she caught her breath in the hum of the room she looked down at him and said, “Now you.” Back on the bed, she took him in her mouth, tongued his balls and shaft, and artfully, the head of his cock, and he felt himself panting, and his rapid heart rate, and he said, “Charlotte,” and came like a cannonball in a long, hot surge.

  Afterward they lay on the bed talking, laughing, drinking wine, and kissing. It wasn’t too long before he grew hard once again.

  “Impressive,” said Charlotte, reaching out and touching him.

  “It’s you,” said Lucas. “And I’m young.”

  They made love for a long time, and finished each other the same way. It was after midnight when she said it was time to go.

  “I’ll sleep here with you,” said Lucas.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Can we…”

  “Yes,” said Charlotte. “We’ll do this again.”

  He was still sweating when he got into his own bed at two in the morning, wide awake. The smell of her, the image of her hair down around her face, her beautiful breasts, her voice, they were still there with him in the room.

  Lucas got dressed and left his apartment. He went north on foot, through the dark alleys of 16th Street Heights. He was troubled and exhilarated, both at once.

  He thought that a walk in the night might clear his head.

  SEVEN

  Handy’s garage was located on a service road behind a strip center on the Cottage City side of Bladensburg Road, not far from the Anacostia River, which stretched up into Prince George’s County, Maryland. Lucas had ridden his bike along the river and paddled it many times, but this commercial section of fast-food, Chinese/steak-and-cheese, Laundromats, and check-cashing establishments was unfamiliar to him.

  Lucas parked his Jeep in a small lot crowded with older vehicles, mostly GM products: Cutlasses, Caprice Classics, Regals, and Grand Nationals. The lot edged a set of open bay doors. Two men worked on cars in the bay. One was tall with gray hair. He was holding a crescent wrench and looking at the undercarriage of a cream-colored Deville that was up on lifts. The other man was heavyset with a moon-shaped face. He was gunning the lug nuts off a half-ton GMC truck that was the sister to the Chevy Silverado. It was a hot day and both wore long pants and long-sleeve shirts rolled back off the wrists, and they looked to be suffering in the heat. Lucas recalled his father’s words: “That’s why they call it work.”

  An old Kool and the Gang track circa Wild and Peaceful played trebly from a boom box that looked like it had been through a paintball fight. Lucas’s brother Leo had called the group Kook and the Gang when he was a kid. Leo was a good English teacher but he had always mangled his words.

  “Excuse me,” said Lucas, staying outside the bay doors, observing mechanic’s protocol. Walking into a garage unannounced was akin to boarding someone’s boat without permission.

  “What can I do for you?” said the gray-haired man.

  “I was looking to talk to Brian Dodson,” said Lucas. “He around?”

  Eye contact passed between the gray-haired man and the moonfaced man, and Lucas caught it.

  “I’m Handy,” said the gray-haired man. “That Cherokee givin you any trouble?”

  “I take good care of it.”

  “They get a little funny on the back end after a while. And I bet your check engine light is on, too.”

  “It is,” said Lucas. “It stays on. That’s just an issue with air getting into the gas cap. These years had that quirk.”

  “So you don’t need repair work done?”

  “No. I’m just looking to get up with Brian Dodson.”

  “I’m Dodson,” said the moonfaced man, and he laid down the lug gun, picked up a shop rag, and walked out of the bay into the hot sunlight. He stood before Lucas and looked down on him. Dodson was a tall man with broad shoulders and back.

  “I’m an investigator. My name’s Spero Lucas.”

  Lucas put his hand out. Dodson wiped his hands on the shop rag and made no comment or movement to reciprocate. His eyes were flat and devoid of any emotion.

  “I’m here regarding the death of Edwina Christian. I understand the two of you dated. Is that correct?”

  “You’re not with Homicide.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Homicide police don’t dress
like you,” said Dodson, looking over Lucas’s blue Dickies, white T, and Nike boots.

  “I work for an attorney,” said Lucas, leaving out the fact that Petersen was a defender. “Mr. Dodson, I’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

  “You ain’t gonna take no minutes of my time,” said Dodson, and he turned and walked back into the bay, where he dropped the greasy rag to the concrete and picked up his lug gun.

  Lucas stood with his hands by his side.

  “You might just want to get a new gas cap, on account of it’ll give you a better seal,” said Handy, helpfully and with good cheer. “That is if the check engine light bothers you.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Lucas. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Don’t cost nothin,” said Handy.

  Lucas went back to his Jeep and drove away.

  He parked in the strip center and let his truck idle. He called Marquis Rollins’s cell and got him on the third ring.

  “Marquis.”

  “It is. Semper Fi.”

  “Busy today?”

  “I am right now. Hold on.” Marquis took his phone into another room and Lucas waited. “Had a date last night that turned into something good. Ethiopian lady. I’m about to take her to a late breakfast.”

  “I thought you couldn’t get to first base with African women.”

  “I took this gal around the bases.”

  “She blind or something?”

  “They say it heightens the other senses. Taste, touch, feel…and voice, too, if that’s a sense. When I got her there, you shoulda heard her calling out, with that accent of hers.”

  “She was calling for help, most likely. Will you be available late in the afternoon?”

  “What you got in mind?”

  Lucas told him, where and when.

  He had time, so he drove back into D.C. and over to North Capitol Street, the dividing line between the Northeast and Northwest quadrants of the city. He parked above Florida Avenue, where the neighborhoods of Bloomingdale, Eckington, and LeDroit Park were in the midst of a turnaround that was unlikely and nearly unbelievable to seasoned observers of the District’s renaissance. People with vision and money had been buying up row houses here in the past ten, fifteen years, putting down roots alongside longtime residents, and on North Capitol entrepreneurs both homegrown and immigrant had been opening up businesses and retail establishments that were not liquor stores, Chinese Plexiglas palaces, or check-cashing fleece operations. The area was moving in a forward direction, as was the city, a resurgence that started with the administration of Mayor Anthony Williams. Homicides were down, even in the poorer sections of town, and real estate values were up. More people were employed, making money, and issuing their children into the culture of work by example.