He muscled ahead of Schaeffer and out the front door of Maison Rouge.
People were milling about in the street, awash in the eerie flash of police and ambulance lights. Everyone’s attention was directed off to Pace’s right, toward the entrance to the drugstore. With Schaeffer behind him, he jogged the 120 feet or so to the facade that proclaimed he had arrived at “Price-Less Drugs: Items for your home and hygiene, priced less.” Pace felt a hand on his arm.
“This is a crime scene, friend. You’ll have to move back.”
Pace turned and saw a D.C. police officer, a young black man with a hard-set face.
“What happened?” Pace demanded, extracting his press card from his wallet.
“Lieutenant over there’s in charge, sir,” the officer said. “Official comments from him only. But generally, it looks like it was a drug stickup gone bad. Some dude went in thinking he could muscle the pharmacist outta some speed. Pharmacist sounded an alarm, and the dude panicked. Some innocent bystanders got blasted.”
Pace’s breath was coming in short pumps. “Who?” he demanded. He grabbed the cop at the bicep hard enough the rookie thought for a moment he had a problem on his hands.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t. An old woman, I heard, a pharmacist, and some other customer. I don’t know names.”
“Dead?” Pace asked.
“Some of ’em, yeah.”
“No,” Pace breathed. “Goddamn it, this can’t be happening.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Schaeffer. “Let’s go see, Steve. There’s no sense standing outside speculating.”
They approached the lieutenant, whose nameplate identified him as Barnes.
“Lieutenant Barnes, I’m Avery Schaeffer, editor of the Chronicle, and this is Steve Pace, one of our reporters. We have reason to believe we know one of the people, uh, involved in there. Is there any way we can check on him?”
The lieutenant was sympathetic. “I recognized you when you walked up, Mr. Schaeffer,” he said. “I’ve seen you on TV a bunch of times. But we’ve got a multiple homicide under investigation, and I don’t have authority to let you in until the medical examiner’s people are finished.”
“Even if I can identify one of the victims?”
“Well…” Barnes hesitated. “Maybe if their personal effects have been collected, I can check out an ID for you, off the record. Who am I looking for?”
“Michael McGill,” Pace said. “He’s from Memphis. You should find a driver’s license and an air-transport pilot’s license.”
The lieutenant nodded. “Wait here,” he ordered.
He was back about two minutes later, looking solemn. “When was the last time you saw your friend?” he asked Pace.
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Can you describe what he was wearing?”
Pace did, down to the boots and the leather jacket.
“I’m sorry,” Barnes said. “He’s in there. But it’s just as well you not see him. The gunman took particular care to make sure he was dead. Some crazy motherfuckers we got on these streets.”
Pace was only half-listening. He was staring beyond Barnes, into the brightly-lighted drugstore, but he couldn’t see anything. He was breathing hard, feeling the light-headedness of early stages of hyperventilation.
“Mike was murdered,” he insisted.
“Yes, sir, they were all murdered, Mr. Pace. Three of ’em. When we catch whoever did this, the charge will be murder one.”
“Not that way, goddamn it! I don’t mean murdered that way. He was set up.”
If Pace had possessed any less self-control, he would have pushed by Barnes and gone right through everybody who tried to stop him from entering the store. Every muscle in him bunched and strained to hold him back, some logical portion of his brain managing to overcome the momentum of his fury.
“Those other poor people, they were window-dressing to make it look like a robbery,” he said with force, his words passing jaws set so tight they ached. “It wasn’t a robbery, damn it, it was an assassination!”
Barnes regarded Pace thoughtfully, and a crowd began to gather around them. Schaeffer put a hand on his reporter’s shoulder again.
“Let’s get out of here, Steve. I’ll take you home and get you a drink.”
Pace shook loose. “I’m not leaving,” he insisted.
“The medical examiner will need at least an hour in there, and he’s not even here yet,” Barnes said.
“I’ll wait,” Pace replied emphatically. “I’m not leaving.”
A huge man wearing gray slacks and a herringbone jacket with a gold shield hanging from the breast pocket approached them. He was built like a pro-football lineman who’d gone slightly to seed but still could take care of himself.
“Mr. Schaeffer, I’m Detective Lieutenant Martin Lanier.” He didn’t offer a hand. Schaeffer introduced Pace.
“I understand from Lieutenant Barnes here that the two of you knew one of the victims,” Lanier continued. “Then I couldn’t help but overhear that Mr. Pace apparently believes there was more than a robbery motive for this.”
“You’re goddamned right there was,” Pace insisted again.
“Listen to me, Pace,” Lanier snapped, dropping the Mr. “It’s not going to help your friend to go mouthing off at me. And it could get you in a lot of trouble. I’m sorry for your loss, but things like this happen when guns and drugs take over a city. All of a sudden, some junkie who can’t afford to buy what he needs walks into a store—”
Pace fairly jumped at Lanier. “This was no junkie, damn it!” He was shouting at Lanier. “It was a setup, and I’m not going to let you write it off as a simple homicide!”
Lanier stood perfectly still and spoke softly. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to let me do, Pace. You’re going to let me do my job. You’re going to let me tell you to keep your voice down. And you’re going to let me order you away from here. Otherwise, you might find yourself letting me toss you in jail on a disorderly conduct charge until you cool down.”
“Let’s go, Steve,” Schaeffer said. “We’ll go back to the office and get a reporter down here right away. Let’s give the police some room on this.”
Pace whirled on Schaeffer, glaring into his eyes and finding compassion where there should have been outrage. “I’m the one the police need,” he insisted. “I’m the one who can tell them who the suspects are.”
“Steve, listen. I don’t see how this could have been set up to kill Mike. Nobody knew he was coming here. Mike didn’t know himself until a few minutes before he was killed.”
Pace pushed himself out of the editor’s grip. He was trembling with fury. Did Schaeffer actually believe what he was saying?
He staggered away, not walking anywhere in particular; not even aware he was walking. He was only aware of his rage.
He took several long, ragged breaths, trying to calm himself. He was at the curb in front of the Chronicle building, standing at a lamp post with a trash receptacle chained to it. He kicked the trash bin as hard as he could, hearing it clang against the metal light post and seeing it rock against its restraints. Several passersby stared and moved away.
“Goddamn it,” Pace shouted. “Goddamn it to hell!”
He leaned over the receptacle and was sick for a long time.
It was after ten when Schaeffer got Pace up to the tenth floor men’s restroom.
Their entrance startled a copy boy named Rudy, who was washing his hands.
“Rudy, do me a favor and ask Paul Wister to come in,” Schaeffer said.
“Yes, sir,” Rudy replied. “Is there anything I can do to help?” He was looking with wide eyes from the slightly rumpled editor to the enraged reporter and back again.