“Bernadette,” said Vaughn, his mouth spread in a canine grin.
He threw the tree up into park and got out of the Ford. He walked to the driver’s side of the squad car.
“What’s goin’ on, Detective?” said the fresh-faced blond kid behind the wheel. His name was Mark White.
“Stay here, White,” said Vaughn, studying the drop-down door on the garage, padlocked at the latch. “Anyone comes for that Rambler or the Plymouth, hold him.”
Vaughn walked through the backyard and around the side of the house to the porch, where he knocked on the front door. An old Italian woman in thick eyeglasses and a black dress answered his knock.
“Yes?”
“Frank Vaughn, ma’am,” he said, smiling, showing her his badge.
“Is my son all right?” said the woman, often a mother’s first question when a cop came calling at her door.
“Dominic?” said Vaughn. “Far as I know. Is he in?”
“No,” she said, looking away quickly.
“I’m looking to talk to his friends.”
“Buzz and Shorty,” she said, with a tinge of contempt. “I told him, stay away from those two.”
“They’re all together, right?”
Angela Martini nodded. “They went out.”
“You wouldn’t know where they went, would you?”
“No,” she said, blinking her eyes heavily. “Dominic said he’d be home for dinner.”
“I’m gonna need to get into your garage.”
That’s where I’ll find something, thought Vaughn. That’s where greasers like them make their plans.
“What for?”
“There might be something in that garage that will help me with a case I’m working on. It has to do with his friends.” Vaughn gave her the most sincere look a guy like him could manage. “Your son’s not in trouble yet. But Stewart and Hess might find him some.”
She looked back into the house, then back at Vaughn. She rubbed her hands. He knew she had no understanding of search warrants. He knew she didn’t care for his “friends.” She’d help him if it meant helping her son.
“I’m gonna get the key for you now,” she said.
In the garage, Vaughn found a duffel bag holding boxes of shotgun shells and bricks of ammunition for a.45 and a.38. A half dozen shells and many of the bullets were missing from the boxes. A set of D.C. license plates that matched the plates registered to the Nova was lying on the workbench as well. Vaughn now surmised that the three men were out on the street, armed, in a car bearing phony plates, and about to commit a robbery.
He came out of the garage, removed his gloves, and thanked Angela Martini, who was standing in the driveway. He told her not to worry, that everything would be all right, her son would be fine. He said he would only be a moment longer here, and that she should go back into her house.
When she did, Vaughn radioed in an all-points bulletin on Dominic Martini’s Nova, plate number unknown, along with an armed-and-dangerous description of Martini, Stewart, and Hess. He cradled the mic in his unmarked and walked back to the squad car.
“You guys sit tight and keep an eye on these vehicles,” said Vaughn to Officer Mark White.
“You leavin’?” said White.
“Gonna cruise around some,” said Vaughn. “See if I run into the owners of these cars.”
DEREK STRANGE AND Troy Peters came out of the precinct house on Nicholson in uniform and picked car number 63 for their shift. They pulled out of the station’s horseshoe-shaped driveway, going by Vaughn’s Polara, parked in a patch of dirt.
Peters went up 13th, passing Fort Stevens, and at the Piney Branch-Georgia intersection turned right, circling the Esso and American stations there. They were working the APB. Strange had recognized Martini’s name and told Peters to drive by the station.
“Nothin’,” said Peters. “You know one of those guys, right?”
“Same one I was telling you about the other day,” said Strange. “We saw him arguing with that big man, right there by the pumps.”
“Report said they’re wanted on a hit-and-run homicide. Think he’s right for that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him anymore. I didn’t really know him then.”
“I’m gonna cruise up to the District line,” said Peters. “We’ll turn around up there and do the north-south run.”
Peters kicked it coming out of the turn at Tuckerman. They went along past the Polar Bears ice cream and the Hubbard House. Strange could almost taste the sugar in the layered chocolate pie, see his father carrying that white box across the street, late on Saturdays, when they’d bring it home together to share with his mother and Dennis.
“You okay?” said Peters.
“Just thinking on something is all.”
“I mean your hand.”
Strange looked at his right hand, resting on his thigh. His knuckles, pink against his dark brown skin, were still showing a little blood. He’d cleaned the scrape but not covered it, not wanting to bring attention to the injury, not wanting anyone to tell him he couldn’t work. He needed to go to work.
“I punched a wall,” said Strange.
Peters looked him over. “It’s gonna be rough for a while.”
“Feels like it’s always gonna be.”
“Anything on the investigation?”
“No.”
Up past Aspen Street, they went by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and then a mix of low-rise commercial and residential structures. Peters accelerated as the squad car hit a long grade.
“I talked to your mother yesterday,” said Peters, side-glancing Strange. “Nice woman.”
“None better.”
“I mentioned her job in the dentist’s office.”
“That right.”
“She didn’t know what I was talking about. Told me she’d been working as a domestic most of her adult life.”
“You got me, Troy,” said Strange unemotionally. “You caught me in a lie.”
“Question is, why’d you feel like you had to tell me that story?”
“I wasn’t ashamed of my mother, if that’s what you think. I’m proud of her, understand?”