The Double (8 page)

“Go up the hill and turn around,” said Lucas.

“What you suppose your man is doing in this part of town?”

“I don’t know. Guy leaves his nice, neat little neighborhood to come down here? I reckon he’s doing some kind of dirt.”

They made a turnaround and parked up the hill. They could see young men, mothers, and girls, some who were also mothers, out around the dwellings. A group of men were throwing dice. It was late afternoon, and this time of year folks stayed outside. Dodson got out of his car with his daypack and walked by a group of young men who eye-fucked him but said nothing. He passed under an archway and entered a door to one of the units.

“The Farms,” said Marquis. “This place was infamous when I was a youngster coming up in PG.”

“I’m working a case for a woman got murdered down in Charles County,” said Lucas. “The mother of the victim said her daughter was dating Dodson. Said he was a churchgoing type, steady worker, all that. Practically painted a halo over his head.”

“We don’t want to be sitting here too long, seeing as how we’re a salt-and-pepper team. We look like law.”

“
I
look like law,” said Lucas. “You look like Sabu.”

“Who’s Sabu?”

Wasn’t long before Dodson came out of the dwellings carrying his bag.

“What you think is in that bag?” said Marquis.

“Cash,” said Lucas. “Drugs…a gun. Who knows? Something bad, for sure.”

“Now you gonna tar all these people down here just ’cause they live in the Eights?”

“I’m not tarring anyone but Dodson. Tellin you, he’s wrong.”

“Want me to keep tailing him?”

“No,” said Lucas. “I’ve seen enough.”

At his apartment, Lucas ran a statewide and nationwide criminal background check on Dodson using his Intelius program, and came up with some minor convictions and one major conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. There was nothing since 1999. Lucas picked up his phone and searched his contacts for Tim McCarthy’s number.

Lucas had met McCarthy, a former 6D patrolman and Metropolitan Police Department investigator, through Tom Petersen. McCarthy had been in the Corps in peacetime and, in his fifties, had taken a leave of absence from the police force to return to Iraq to serve as a chaplain-with-an-M-16 for the marines. Now he was back, close to retirement. He would never give up police-business information to Lucas, but he could usually put him up with someone who could be more accommodating.

“Tim,” said Lucas, when he got him on the line. “Spero Lucas.”

“How’s it going, Marine?”

“Copacetic. I’m working on something, need a little intel on a guy.” Lucas gave him the name and address. “Also, any update on the Cherise Roberts murder would be much appreciated.”

“That girl who was found in the Dumpster?”

“Her.”

“You working murders now, Lucas?”

“I leave that to professionals. Just curious.”

“I have your number,” said McCarthy. “Someone will get back to you.”

“Pete Gibson?” said Lucas, hopefully.

“Take care.”

Lucas dressed, mindful of his brother Leo’s inevitable comments, and drove over the District line to Silver Spring, where his mom lived in one of the many bungalows that lined her street. Hers had been refashioned and expanded by her builder husband as their family had grown. It no longer had the architectural integrity of a Sears bungalow, but it had successfully sheltered and warmed six humans and many dogs.

He went by Afrikutz to say hey to his barber and stopped at the Safeway on Fenton and Thayer to sign a card for his friend Mike Kingsbury, who had passed a year earlier. Lucas bought a bouquet of daisies while he was there and drove over to his mom’s.

He entered the house and patted the dogs, Cheyenne and Yuma, short-haired Lab mixes from the Humane Society on Georgia at Geranium, who had greeted him with exuberant barks and swinging tails. He found his mother, Eleni, and his brother Leo back in the kitchen. His mother was working on a glass of white wine. It wasn’t her first; she smelled sharply of it as he kissed her.

“How’s it goin, Ma?” said Spero, handing her the daisies wrapped in damp paper.

“Thank you, honey. Leo?”

Leo fetched a vase from the top shelf of a cabinet, and she put the flowers in water.

Spero grabbed a couple of Stellas, which Eleni stocked for him, and popped the cap on one for himself and one for his brother. They tapped bottles and drank. Leo looked him over.

“You went for the fitted Polo,” said Leo. “That’s an upgrade for you.”

“And you’re like, what, a model for L.L.Bean now? You moving to Maine or sumshit?” Leo had on khakis with a green cloth belt and a neatly pressed blue chambray shirt.

“Brothers Brooks,” said Leo, and for some reason he did the Heisman pose.

“You must be the only brother who shops at Brooks Brothers.”

“See, you’re wrong. But you wouldn’t know ’cause you don’t go to the higher-end spots. You just don’t know fashion.”

“I’m guessing they had to custom-make those pants to allow for your big caboose.”

“Least I
got
one.”

“Please,” said Eleni, but she was half smiling.

“What’s for dinner, Ma?” said Spero.

They ate by candlelight on the screened-in porch out back. Eleni had grilled lamb skewered with vegetables out of her backyard garden, and served the kebabs over a bed of
pilafi
with a summer salad of tomatoes, onions, feta cheese, oregano, oil, and vinegar. Spero and Leo recalled stories about their father, discussed the latest news of their sister, Irene, noting her emotional and physical distance, and inevitably mentioned their wayward brother, Dimitrius, who hadn’t been heard from in years.

“He’ll turn up when he needs a loan,” said Leo, who had no love for the brother he called the Degenerate. “Or bail money.”

“Leonides,” said Eleni. “He’s got a sickness. You can’t hate someone for being sick.”

“I can come close to it.”

“He needs help,” said Eleni, her eyes increasingly unfocused, her speech a little slurred.

So do you, thought Spero. Leo would say to let her drink, if that’s what makes her feel better. But it wasn’t making her better. It was just aging her and ruining her health. Even in the forgiving candlelight, she was looking older than her sixty-plus years.

The sons cleared the table and returned to the porch. Eleni had insisted on doing the dishes herself.

“When I came in,” said Leo, “she was in front of the TV, watching the Encore Western channel. I think she keeps it on ’cause Pop liked it so much. She’d sit with him through all those spaghetti Westerns he liked.”

“Whenever they’d run
The Big Gundown,
” said Spero, “during that final scene? With Van Cleef and Tomas Milian riding across the desert, the Morricone music on the soundtrack?
Baba
would be on his feet, giving praise to the director. ‘Viva Sollima,’ he’d say.”

“It was his favorite Italian horse opera that wasn’t directed by Leone.”

“If they had a kung fu channel, Mom would be watching that, too.”

“She did indulge him.”

Leo watched as Spero checked his phone for messages. He’d been looking at his phone frequently throughout the night, but had not heard back from Charlotte Rivers. There was a text from Pete Gibson, though, telling Spero that he was available for a meet.

“What, you got a new girl?” said Leo.

“I think so.”

“You been checking your phone like it’s your first piece of ass. Stressin over a woman, that’s not like you.”

“She’s special,” said Spero.

“They’re all special when they’re new.”

“I’m serious.”

“So she’s got that good stuff?”

“It’s more than that. I opened up to her right away. I kissed her for what seemed like hours before I went any further.”

“But you did go further.”

“Yes.”

“Was it good?”

“It was incredible.”

“Careful. That oyster can make you light-headed. You might get dizzy and fall down.”

“There’s a big problem beyond that. She’s married, Leo.”

“Ho, shit.” Leo shook his head. “I don’t even know what to tell you about that. Except, step away.”

“It’s gonna be hard for me to do that. Haven’t you ever found yourself in that situation?”

“You don’t find yourself with a married woman. You make a choice.”

Spero looked at his brother. “That math teacher you were dating, wasn’t she married?”

“Separated,” said Leo, shrugging sheepishly.

“Now you’re splitting hairs.”

“I split more than that.”

“See?”

“I know.”

Later, Leo asked Spero if there had been any progress in the murder case of Cherise Roberts, who had been his student.

“It would mean something to me, and to Cherise’s family, if something got done on finding her killer,” said Leo. “The kids at school are still messed up over her death. Tell you the truth, I am, too.”

“I’ve got feelers out,” said Spero. “All you got to do is find one person who knows something.”

“And then get ’em to talk.”

“If they’re incarcerated, they generally won’t talk to police. But they might talk to Petersen. Or me.”

“And then what, you’d turn over the information to Homicide?”

“Yeah. I’d let the guys who do it for a living take over.”

“I appreciate you looking into it,” said Leo. “What else you working on?”

“I got a couple of cases, actually.”

“Any progress?”

“You know how I do. I get out there and talk to people.”

“And?”

“Things start to happen.”

“Mind yourself with that woman of yours.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Leo swigged his beer, set the bottle down gently on the glass table. “Don’t fall in love with someone you can’t have.”

NINE

L
ucas met Abraham Woldu, a well-dressed middle-aged man with curly black hair and an open smile, in front of his properties on North Capitol the next morning. Lucas had been honest about the fact that he was an investigator, though he declined to elaborate on the nature of the case, citing confidentiality. Nevertheless, Woldu appeared to be willing to talk. In the first few minutes of their conversation, Lucas learned that he was an immigrant from Eritrea, educated in Italy. He spoke several different languages, fluently. He had a wife and three sons who were now men. He owned the properties here and several others around town, served as his own broker, and had a license to do so.

“Are you Orthodox?” said Lucas.

“Yes.”

“Me, too. We’re brothers.”

“Yes, we’re brothers. But you don’t need to grease me up. What is it you’re looking for?”

“I’ll get right to the point. I have reason to believe that someone was running an Internet scam out of one of your properties this past year.”

“What kind of scam?”

“It’s not important. What’s pertinent is that it was an unlawful operation. And if it was conducted under your roof, you’re connected. I’d really like to have your help on this. I’d hate to have to go to the Feds.”

“There’s no need for threats,” said Woldu.

“What I’m trying to say is, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

Woldu looked toward one of the two properties, a ground-level portion of a turreted row home fronted by a plate-glass window. “I had a Jamaican in there for a while. He sold CDs, incense, juices, and the like. Before that, there was a coffee shop run by a lady from my country. Neither of them made it. You want those types of businesses to do well in the neighborhood. It’s good for property values, good for all of us eventually. But sometimes they just don’t work.”

“What about that one?” said Lucas, nodding to the first floor of the other Woldu property, the one with butcher paper taped over the window.

“That was a longtime hair and nail salon,” said Woldu. “The owner-operator died suddenly. I had a man in there for four months after that, a short-term thing, off the books.”

“What kind of business?”

“It was tax season. He said he was an accountant. He signed no lease. He paid me cash, well in advance, every month.”

“Off the books,” said Lucas.

“I reported the income to the IRS,” said Woldu. “It wasn’t me who asked for cash. He insisted.”

“Did you ever go in there and see what he was up to?”

“Only to collect the rent. There were a couple of desks, computers…crated goods. No decorations of any kind. He had the blinds drawn all the time. Just as quickly as he was here, he was gone.”

“Can I see the space?” said Lucas.

Woldu shrugged and pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. “Sure.”

They went inside. It was an empty rectangular room painted white. Lucas looked in the restroom, which was surprisingly large, with exposed pipes in the ceiling and a full bath.

“The lady who had the hair salon enlarged the bathroom,” said Woldu, seeing Lucas’s inquisitive expression.

“So, this tenant. He must have given you a security deposit. If he did, you sent it to an address later on, right?”

“He did, in cash. But he came down here and met me for the refund. I returned his deposit, again in cash.”

“For that meet, you must have communicated by phone.”

“I have his number in my contacts, right here.” Woldu produced a BlackBerry from his pocket. He scanned his contacts and said, “Serge Nikolai.” He said the phone number, and Lucas wrote it down.

“You ever see his name on an ID?” said Lucas.

“No.”

“Describe the guy.”

“Medium height, black hair, pale skin. He spoke with an Eastern European or Russian accent.”

That would be consistent with the mangled syntax of the e-mail message from Grant Summers to Grace Kinkaid, thought Lucas.

“Anyone else go in and out of the property while he was there?”

“Yes, there were people in there the few times I visited. Men in plain clothing.”

“Can you describe those men?”

“There was a young man. I can barely picture him in my head. He had a beard, I think. Another, older man, too. Blond-haired, I believe.” Woldu rubbed at a cluster of raised moles on his forehead. “When I saw them it was very briefly. I’d have to think about it.”