“Did the boys, you know, leave you any kind of clue as to what was about to go down?”
Lucas thought of the last text message he received from Tavon Lynch. “No.”
“What do you think happened?”
“No idea. The police are conducting an investigation. If an arrest is made, I’ll hear about it, same as you.”
“What about their funerals?”
“They haven’t been announced. There’ve been no obits yet in the Post.”
“You gonna pay your respects?”
“No. The police will be there. Could be they’ll be shooting video footage from vans, taking still shots like they do. I’m not trying to put myself in the mix. Anyway, I barely knew those guys.”
“You don’t seem too interested.”
“And you don’t seem all that shook.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to them.”
“So am I,” said Lucas. “But I’m not getting involved in those murders. You hired me to retrieve your property or your cash. That’s it.”
“You’re not even curious?” said Hawkins.
“Homicide police close murder cases. Private investigators never do. I took this on to make money. With this third theft, the pot just grew. I still intend to honor our agreement.”
“I guess I can’t stop you.”
“What do I do if I’m successful?”
“Take your cut,” said Hawkins. “What’s left, get it to my son’s mother.”
“Right.”
“Watch yourself out there,” said Hawkins, looking hard into Lucas’s eyes.
“I will.” Lucas cradled the phone.
Lucas was not far from Capitol Hill and Lincoln Park. He left the jail and drove west on Massachusetts Avenue, turning to explore the neighborhoods and the streets, doing the same past Lincoln Park proper, the dividing line of sorts that brought him into the eastern portion of the Hill, where the homes were noticeably nicer and the income levels rose. He was looking for a 4044 address. He assumed the text from Tavon was meant to indicate the number on the house where the second drop had been made and lost. He found nothing to match the number, and if he had, he wouldn’t have known what to do. He felt lost.
Continuing west, toward his home, he suddenly said, “Yeah,” and pulled over to the side of the road, near the St. James Episcopal Church. Something had come to him. He remembered from the newspaper accounts that Tavon and Edwin had been found shot to death in their car, parked on Hayes Street, Northeast. More accurately, upper central Northeast, where the cross-numbered streets were in the forties. Tavon must have been trying to give him the location of the house. That’s where the drop was: the 4000 block of Hayes.
He drove in that direction, crossing the Anacostia, and ten minutes later was on Hayes. But the address did not appear to be a good one for the scheme that Tavon and Edwin had cooked up. There was a house there, but it was not the kind of place that you would ship a package to and expect it to go unnoticed. There were folks around, standing by their vehicles, going in and out of their homes, sitting on their porches. It did not look like they were typically away or at work during the day. Tavon wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have chosen this spot to drop the weed.
Lucas continued up the block to the dead-end court that stopped at a thin tributary of creek and woods that was a part of Watts Branch. The Impala was gone. Except for a piece of yellow tape lying in the street there was no sign that a crime of extreme violence had occurred here. The mobile crime technicians had completed their investigation of the scene, and the next task was in the hands of the chief medical examiner’s office, where the autopsies of the young men would be performed.
Lucas knew that this area had been murder notorious at one time, but it was quiet now. Serene almost, with the water cutting through the trees. Had to be dark at night back here, but still. It did look cleaned up and relatively safe. Tavon and Edwin could not have known what was coming to them. And then the fear and panic, when they did know. Lucas only hoped it had been quick for them. Pain and confusion for sure, but not prolonged.
Darkness, he thought, seeing his father in a box. Lucas closed his eyes.
He had a fish sandwich with hot sauce from a carryout on Benning Road and headed into Northwest, where he found himself once again parked on 12th Street. He was facing north, looking in his side-view at the students walking from the school, the uniformed police ushering them along. Soon the Lindsay boy appeared, wearing a purple polo, his braids touching his shoulders, talking to himself, walking home.
“Hey, Lindsay,” said Lucas, from behind the wheel of his Jeep.
The young man recognized him but kept walking without reply.
“Lindsay!”
“It’s Ernest,” he said, without breaking stride, going up the concrete steps and disappearing behind the front door of his house.
At least I know your name, thought Lucas. Progress.
A few minutes later, he phoned his brother, who was no doubt still inside the school.
“Leo.”
“It is me.”
“Got a question for you, man.”
“Where you at?”
“On Twelfth. You could throw a rock and hit me if you had an arm.”
“You wearin your decoder ring?”
“Doing surveillance.”
“That’s awesome! Do you have that piss jug in the car?”
“And my porta-potty.”
“Thought you had a question.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a student by the name of Ernest, would you? I been trying to get up with him.”
“I believe I got a couple of boys named Ernest. One goes by Ernie.”
“He called himself Ernest. Lindsay’s his last name.”
“He’s in my all-male class, in the morning.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“He’s all right. Sensitive, on the intelligent side. You’re not gonna get him in any kind of trouble, are you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Well, why don’t you come meet him?”
“Huh?”
“I been asking you to talk to my class.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Come past tomorrow.”
“For real?”
“Why not?”
“I need time to prepare.”
“No, you don’t. Just come in and be yourself. They don’t want to hear about, You can be anything you want to be, or any of that jive. Say what you been doing these last ten years. Be honest and real. That’s what the boys appreciate.”
“Okay.”
“Ten o’clock, Spero.”
“I’ll be there.”
He went home, showered and changed into street clothes, dropped some paperbacks off at Walter Reed for the soldiers and marines, and drove back toward Cardozo. At 13th and Clifton, where he was stopped at the red light, he saw people walking up the long hill, coming from the U Street Metro station in business attire, a mix of Hispanics, blacks, and many whites, all coming home from work. From a local’s perspective, it was startling to witness this neighborhood’s transformation.
He parked in shadow on 12th, on the east side of the street.
A half hour later, a woman walked down the sidewalk. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with long chestnut-colored hair, a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. She wore a gray business suit, a shirt-jacket-and-slacks arrangement that did not conceal her long-legged, thoroughbred build. She carried a briefcase and walked with good posture and confidence.
Lucas got out of his Jeep as she hit the steps leading to the house with the lime green trim. He jogged across the street and said, “Lisa Weitzman?”
She stopped and turned, cool and unafraid. “Yes?”
“Spero Lucas,” he said. “I’m an investigator.”
NINE
He sat on her porch, on a folding metal chair that was one of two situated around a small round metal table. Lucas had asked for ten minutes of her time. She had agreed and told him to wait outside. She went into her home and when she returned she had removed her jacket. Her white button-down shirt was fitted and served her well. She took a seat in the second chair. Dusk had come to the street.