Robert Bidinotto - Hunter

“Well, thank you, sir. We try to keep an eye on things, but it’s tough covering all these lots. We get more than our share of trouble around here. As you know.”

Right then, they heard the first siren.

He laughed. “As I know too well. Well, I better find out what the hell that is all about.”

“Yes sir,” said the blond guard. “Stay safe.”

“You too,” he replied. He walked back and slammed the trunk lid. “As for me, I’ve had all the action I need tonight, right here.”

They laughed with him again as he got into the car and drove away.

College Park, Maryland

Thursday, October 23, 8:25 a.m.

Maurice Juliette pulled off Route 1 and into the parking lot of the run-down office building. Normally he didn’t arrive at work until nine, but he needed to get a jump on the day. The grant proposal would take hours, and he had a lot of other stuff to do, besides.

Juliette grabbed his worn leather briefcase and brown tweed jacket from the back seat of his old Volvo. The door squeaked loudly when he closed it. He had to bang it twice before it stayed shut. Piece of junk. He wished he could afford better. But you don’t get rich working in a nonprofit. Not even if you’re an attorney. Not even if you’re the executive director.

Staring at the faded beige finish of the heap, he felt familiar pangs of resentment. He thought about how well so many of his classmates from Georgetown U Law Center were doing these days. Most had taken “Curriculum A” and gone into commercial and corporate law. Where the big bucks were. They’d all sold out. They lined their pockets helping the rich get richer by exploiting the underprivileged.

Not him, though. He was an idealist. He’d gone the “B” route, busted his ass learning from some of the foremost scholars in Critical Legal Studies. And he wound up here, running Class Justice Legal Services.

The breeze was chilly. He put down the briefcase to slip into the jacket.

Yeah, they had lots of money and material things and trophy wives, sure. But legal services had other compensations. Emotional rewards. Moral rewards they would never know. You get to help so many of this rotten society’s victims. People who never have a chance in life. Poor, disadvantaged people and minorities who get screwed by the system-by the same corporations his old fraternity pals now protect.

He thought of all the prisoners that Class Justice Legal Services represented pro bono. Victims of racism and injustice at the hands of the power structure. Treated like society’s refuse and warehoused out of sight. And what were their real crimes, anyway? Being poor or the wrong color or nationality in white, patriarchal, capitalist Amerika.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t rich. But being the champion of social victims earned you prestige. Street cred out in the community and in the media, but lots of respect on the Hill, too, where the progressives got it. Like the call he’d gotten returned yesterday from Congressman Horowitz’s office. The chief of staff said Horowitz would be delighted to lend his name as a reference for his grant proposal to the MacLean Family Foundation.

And ultimately, connections like that brought in whatever money CJLS really needed. Sometimes federal money, but mostly foundation cash. Now, planning next year’s budget, they really needed the MacLean money. The administrator there promised to fast-track his grant proposal if he submitted it by Friday. That was tomorrow. Where the hell did the week go?

He picked up his briefcase and headed for the entrance. Saw his approaching reflection as he reached the glass entrance. To himself, he looked skinny and kinky-haired and nerdy. Sheila told him he looked like a young Alan Dershowitz. Yeah, wish I had his bank balance.

He pulled out his key and was surprised to find the door already unlocked. He knew nobody else would have arrived this early. Goddamned cleaning crew. They always forgot something. Anybody could walk right in.

When he opened the door, he caught a faint, unpleasant smell. Great. Not only do they leave the place wide open, they don’t even clean it right. First thing, he’d call their super and chew him out. What are we paying them for?

He thought of stopping first at the kitchen and putting on some coffee, but he needed to get to that proposal. He crossed the small, shabby reception area to the hallway and headed back toward his office. The smell got worse with every step. Jesus, did the toilet overflow or something?

He pushed open his office door and stopped, startled.

He immediately recognized the client’s face. Tomas Cardenas. Sitting in his chair, behind his desk, nice as you please. Staring back at him arrogantly, holding an open newspaper spread across his chest.

“What the hell?”

But Cardenas was staring slightly to his left. And not reacting.

Then his skin crawled as he realized from the frozen, sleepy expression that the guy was dead.

And he knew what the smell was.

The briefcase fell from his nerveless fingers. His knees went wobbly and his face got warm and he turned and stumbled out into the hallway, hand against his mouth, staggering toward the bathroom and knowing that he wouldn’t make it in time…

Silver Spring, Maryland

Saturday, November 15, 1:17 p.m.

The rest of the investigators from the task force had been at the crime scene a while when Cronin and Erskine got there. They badged the uniforms standing outside, ducked under the yellow strand of tape, and went inside the high-rise office building. Another cop in the lobby directed them to the elevator bay and the twentieth floor. More crime-scene tape was strung across one of the elevators, so they took the freight car to the top. Its door opened onto a wide reception area of soft lighting and expensive wood-and-leather furniture.

Cronin stepped outside and looked around. The walls were paneled in polished mahogany and large Impressionist paintings adorned them. The place was crawling with about a dozen CSI. Off to the left, behind a wall of glass, a large conference room was adorned festively with colorful crepe ribbons and balloons. About two dozen well-dressed people, men and women, huddled there in small groups, looking stricken. A couple of the women were crying and being consoled by others.

Marty Abrams, the task force’s lead investigator, was talking to another detective near the reception desk and spotted them. He made a show of looking at his watch.

“Nice of you to join us, ladies,” he called out.

They went over. “Come on, Marty. It’s a long ride from Alexandria,” Cronin said. He glanced back at the other elevator, where three CSI and a photographer worked the scene. “What do we have this time?”

Abrams said, “Even cuter than College Park last month. Or the one in Fairfax last week. We don’t have a positive on the stiff yet, but it looks like a Darone Antoine Wallace, gang-banger from the District, northeast. At least that’s what the newspaper clip on the body says. Looks like our vigilantes whacked him last night, brought him up here this morning.”

Erskine raised his eyebrows. “This morning? You mean in broad daylight?”

“Yeah. Take a look. You’re gonna love this.”

They walked to the elevator and asked the crime-scene investigators to take five. Everyone backed out, and they stepped up to the open door.

Inside, secured with ropes onto a high-backed swivel chair, sat a dead African-American guy who appeared to be in his late twenties. He’d been shot between the eyes at close range. Tracks of dried blood ran from his ears and nose, and what they could see of the back of his head looked like a mass of dark jelly. The guy wore no shoes or socks, just jeans and a white t-shirt-or it had been white: Now it was covered with patches of blood, gone rusty brown. His right hand was clamped around a newspaper clipping and rested on his lap.