My stomach soured, but I shook it off, said, “Mikey Edgerton did the dirty work on the eight and maybe more. There’s no doubt about it in my mind.”
There was a long pause as Sampson took the exit off 95 onto the Beltway, heading toward my home on Fifth Street in Southeast DC.
“No doubt in mine either,” Sampson said at last. “But still, you know?”
I swallowed hard. Before I could respond, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, saw a familiar number, and answered. “This is Cross,” I said. “How are you, Chief?”
“I should be asking you that,” said Metro Police chief of detectives Bree Stone, my wife. “But I don’t have time, and neither do you.”
I sat up straighter, said, “What’s going on?”
She gave me an address in Friendship Heights and said to go there immediately. Then she told me why, and the sourness that lingered in my stomach became the worst kind of nausea, that terrible taste you get at the back of your throat just before you say goodbye to everything you’ve eaten all day.
“We’re on our way,” I said, then hung up.
“What’s the matter?” Sampson said.
“John,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “What in God’s name have we done?”
Chapter 3
We drove to friendship heights, in the far northwest corner of DC, parked on Forty-First Street, and ran up the sidewalk to Harrison Avenue, where a patrol car with lights flashing was in front of a barrier.
“Which one is it?” Sampson asked the patrol officer.
“Third on the right, sir. There’s a few plainclothes there already.”
“And I imagine there will be more,” I said, moving around the barrier toward a gray Craftsman house with a tidy front yard and a medical examiner’s van parked out front.
On the scene, there were three uniformed officers and two in plainclothes whom I recognized as junior homicide detectives Owen Shank and Deana Laurel.
They were talking to two very upset women in their late thirties. Laurel spotted us, excused herself, and came over.
She told us that the two women — Patsy Phelps and Anita Kline — were neighbors of the Nixons, who owned the Craftsman. Gary Nixon, the father, was a successful attorney on K Street. Mr. Nixon had taken his two young children on a four-day trip to see his ailing mother in San Diego. Katrina, his wife of fifteen years, had a successful speech-pathology practice and couldn’t make the trip.
“They said the Nixons made it a point to talk twice a day, no matter where they were,” Detective Laurel said. “So when Mrs. Nixon didn’t answer her phone this morning or this evening, Mr. Nixon called Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Kline to go over and check on their—”
Detective Shank came over and cut her off. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Dr. Cross, Detective Sampson. But are you sure it’s okay for the two of you to be here? I mean, isn’t this kind of a conflict of interest?”
“We’re here on orders,” Sampson said. “Take us inside.”
Shank, a tough, wiry guy who’d once served in a Marine Force Recon unit, didn’t like it, but he understood orders. “Straightaway, sir.”
Detective Laurel returned to the neighbors. We followed Shank into the house, which had been decorated by Pottery Barn and Toys R Us.
Shank told us there were no signs of forced entry, and although the house was in the disarray you’d expect with a young, affluent family, we saw no indications of a struggle as we moved down a short hallway to the type of kitchen you see in gourmet ads.
There were kids’ drawings taped to the stainless-steel fridge along with a calendar page where the Nixons kept track of babysitters and doctors’ appointments. It wasn’t until we got past the stove that we saw evidence of a fight.
A kitchen chair had fallen over. A glass vase lay shattered on the floor by a breakfast nook. Beyond it was a family room. The television was on, blaring the news about the police presence currently building on Harrison Avenue in Friendship Heights.
The body of Katrina Nixon, who’d been a pretty brunette in her late thirties, was on the far side of the room, naked and slumped in an overstuffed chair. Her skin was bluish and coated in a thin white film. Her mouth was stretched wide, as if she’d tried to scream, and locked in rigor. Her eyes were open and dull.
The air reeked of bleach. The instrument of her death, a red and purple Hermès silk scarf, was wrapped impossibly tight around her neck.
A piece of plain white paper lay on her lap.
As I walked over to look at it, I felt as if something foundational was cracking inside me. I read the note and felt a chunk of myself break free and fall.
You messed up big-time, but don’t sweat it, Dr. Cross, it read. Ultimately, for his past sins, Mikey Edgerton got what he deserved when he rode old Sparky right into the great hereafter. — M
Chapter 4
M.
I was still rattled when I pulled up in front of my house two hours later. The rain had stopped, and a breeze that was unnaturally warm for mid-March was blowing.
I saw Bree sitting on the porch swing with a light blanket around her. She patted the seat beside her, said, “True?”
I nodded and took a seat. “He signed it.”
She was quiet. Then: “You know the Edgertons are going to use this as evidence to prove that their son was framed and someone else was responsible.”
I sat back, exasperated. “Unless we tell the press about M, and the whole mess comes out.”
“Nothing stays a secret forever, Alex,” she said, stroking my head.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. “Then I become the story.”
“You are his focus.”
“I get that,” I said. “But it’s just...”
“What?”
“Confusing.”
“Mikey Edgerton was guilty.”
“I know that,” I said, spotting something in our neighbors’ dark front yard. “M’s just playing his games. What’s going on over there?”
“Scaffolds. Morse said they were doing it right, inside and out.”
“More banging,” I said, irritated. “They moved away for the year just so they wouldn’t have to hear it.”
“They’re both on sabbatical.”
“Lucky for them,” I said, getting up. “I’m hungry.”
“Nana’s getting dinner ready for you. I’m going to sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow could be difficult.”
I kissed her, told her I loved her, and went inside.
The television in the living room was streaming Terriers, currently the favorite show of my seventeen-year-old daughter, Jannie. The air in the front hall was perfumed with the scent of garlic, onions, and basil wafting from the kitchen.
The smells and sounds calmed me. I went into the front room, where Jannie was on the couch in her running sweats, dozing. A biology textbook lay open in her lap, but she held the remote for the TV.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, giving her a little shake.
Jannie startled awake and punched the pause button. “Hi, Dad,” she said sleepily.
“You sleeping, studying, or watching?”
“All three,” she said, smiling through a yawn.
“You can’t do all three.”
“Most men can’t, but most women can.”
“Run that one by me.”
“So, like, in class last week? We learned that the latest research says male minds are hardwired for single tasks. They learn best and do best when everything comes at them one at a time, you know, like one project and then the next. And it probably helps if they can move around. While they’re studying, I mean.”