Next, Lucas ran Malone’s name and DOB into the People Finder program and came up with a current residential address. Calvin Bates had been mistaken. Malone did not live in Columbia Heights, but rather in a house on Princeton Place, Northwest, in Park View. Lucas was familiar with the 700 block and knew it held smallish row homes on the south side. The “First Floor” designation told Lucas that Malone stayed in an apartment or rented a room in a house. Bates had been right about one thing: Malone was easy to find.
Lucas drove his Jeep down to Park View.
He parked on Princeton, the nose of his truck pointed east. Lucas knew that at the top of the grade was Warder Street and Park View Recreation Center, and one block beyond, the grounds of the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, which most folks called the Old Soldiers’ Home. Just five years earlier, Lucas would have stood out if he were parked on this street. Since the sixties, and for many years after the riots, the neighborhood had been almost entirely black. Park View also was home to the once-infamous Park Morton Complex and the Black Hole go-go club on Georgia, a trouble spot for police in 4D. But Park View’s demographics and amenities, like those citywide, were changing. There were whites, blacks, and Hispanics now on the streets, and new coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and condos opening on the Avenue. Lucas couldn’t decide if the changes were positive. Maybe it was just a cultural and economic evolution. Neither good nor bad, just different.
He waited in the car for a couple of hours, keeping an eye on Percy Malone’s residence, a two-story row home painted gray. He listened to music from his iPhone and peed once into an old water bottle. He was about to go home when Malone emerged from the house. Lucas mentally recorded the time.
Malone looked like his photograph. Average height, spidery, with skinny arms and legs, and gangly wrists. Malone glanced around the street. His eyes, even from this distance, had the alert but deadened look of an abused child.
Lucas had expected Malone to go down the block to Georgia, but instead he walked up Princeton toward Warder Place. Then Lucas saw him stop, cup his hands around a match, and light something thinly rolled. So Malone was smoking a little weed on the way to wherever he was going next. Lucas waited until he was out of sight, then started the Jeep and drove east, slowly following Malone’s path.
At the Warder intersection, Lucas looked right and saw Malone turn the corner on the other side of the rec center, onto Otis. Warder was one way heading north. Lucas took a chance and drove against traffic, and when he came to Otis and turned right, Malone had vanished.
Lucas pulled over and put the transmission into Park. As always, the map of the city was in his head. It helped that he’d done surveillance work in this neighborhood many times. He guessed that Malone had cut into the alley past the rec center field, at 6th, then made a left into the alley that ran between the backyards of Princeton and Otis. This would take him down to a sharp left turn and another short alley that would open back up to Otis, close to Georgia Avenue. Malone was “walking his smoke.” There was no need to follow in his Jeep, as the alley was narrow, sometimes clogged with trash cans, and hard to navigate by vehicle. Next time, Lucas would bring his bike.
Malone soon appeared at the bottom of Otis and headed for Georgia, where he crossed to the west side of the Avenue. Lucas drove down there and watched him enter a surprisingly upscale liquor and wine store.
Lucas waited. Malone reappeared ten minutes later with a long brown bag in hand and walked up Georgia toward Princeton. He was headed back to his spot. Lucas had seen enough. He drove home.
Back at his crib, Lucas smoked a joint, drank a couple of beers, and listened to some dub. He phoned Charlotte Rivers and fell asleep on his couch, waiting for her to return his call.
Early the next morning, he was woken by a phone call from Amanda Brand, his bartender friend, telling him that Grace Kinkaid had been stabbed in a street assault the previous day. Lucas fired down a cup of coffee and drove over to the Washington Hospital Center on Irving Street, where Grace had been taken for treatment. Amanda had said she’d meet him there.
He talked his way into the ER. Amanda was sitting in a chair outside one of the recovery rooms. Her eyes were shadowed, but she looked like she’d recently freshened up. She stood as Lucas came into the space. Standing nearby was a man in a suit and tie who had the look of MPD. He eyed Lucas as he and Amanda hugged.
“How is she?” said Lucas.
“Unconscious right now. Two deep cuts, one that severely damaged her breast. The blade collapsed her lung. They’ve catheterized her chest.”
“Is she going to make it?”
“They’re trying to reinflate her lung. They’ve done the irrigation and suturing, but there’s the risk of infection. Spero, I saw what that knife did to her...”
“Amanda,” he said, holding her shoulders, looking straight into her eyes, trying to get her to focus.
“I’m okay. I’ve been here all night. I’m just tired.”
“What did she say? Did she talk to the police?”
“No, not yet. There was a witness. She gave a description of the guy. Black man, wearing one of those knit hats, like a dread cap. He took her purse. Why would he do this if he only wanted to rob her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She called me a couple of days ago. Said you’d found her painting and brought it back.”
“I did.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?”
“No,” said Lucas, cutting his eyes away. “Take a walk, Amanda. Get something to eat. I’ll sit out here for a while.”
“You can’t go in there.”
He didn’t want to go in. He pushed her arm gently and said, “Go.”
Lucas watched her punch a wall button and walk through the swinging ER doors. He went to the doorway of Grace’s room and past a mobile curtain that partly obstructed his view. He saw her lying on the bed. A clear tube snaked out of her robe and there were thick bandages at the top of her chest. In the tube, blood and brown material flowed back and forth with each labored breath. A morphine drip led to her arm.
“You a friend of hers?” said a voice, and Lucas turned. The man in the suit, a guy in his thirties with broad shoulders, had approached him from behind.
“Yes,” said Lucas. “Actually, more of a friend to the woman who just left. I’m here because Amanda asked me to stop by.”
“Your name?”
“Spero Lucas.”
“Spell Spero,” said the man, and Lucas did. The man wrote this in a small notebook.
“You’re a detective?”
“Detective Paul Strong. Homicide and Violent Crimes. What do you do, Mr. Lucas?”
“I’m an investigator for a criminal defense attorney here in town.”
“One of those guys,” said Strong, without malice. “Ex-military?”
“Yeah. What happened here?”
“Are you working right now?”
“No.”
“Then allow me.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have any idea who would have perpetrated this crime on Miss Kinkaid?”
“None,” said Lucas. “Amanda told me what the witness saw. A guy with dreads stabbed her, then took her purse.”