Stephen White - Cold Case

The man behind us seemed out of breath. He was wearing flower-print shorts, old Tevas, and a dirt brown T-shirt that was so faded I couldn't discern what had once been silk-screened on it. I pegged his age at around thirty-five.

"Whoa, glad I caught up with you. Traffic is something for a Saturday and I thought I was supposed to go to the terminal to get you. Had to find my way out here by Braille, I swear. Anyway, I'm your wheels. This way." He pointed behind him, pausing only to glance up at the Gulfstream and add, "Nice ride. Is it yours?"

He didn't wait to hear my reply, which was an amused "Hardly." We followed him to a red four-door Passat and loaded our own luggage into a trunk that was half-full of nylon ropes and harnesses, all neatly bundled. Lauren and I glanced knowingly at each other, recognizing the accoutrements of a rock climber.

Lauren patted herself gently on the bulge that barely protruded from her lower abdomen and urged me into the front seat. Our driver lowered some narrow sunglasses from the top of his head to his eyes and said," I'm Claven, russ Claven, by the way. I guess I should welcome you, at least unofficially, to the ranks of Clouseau. So… hey… welcome to Clouseau." He affected a pseudo French accent for his final pronunciation of Clouseau, and completed his welcome by saluting us in a quasi-military fashion.

"I'm Alan Gregory. This is my wife, Lauren Crowder. And… did you say Clouseau?" I asked.

"We were expecting to be met by somebody from a group called Locard."

He laughed with a robust roar that came straight from his belly.

"Clouseau… Locard… Vidocq. They're all just dead French detectives, right?" He laughed again, enamored with his own joke.

"Some of us affectionately call the group Clouseau. You like The Pink Panther?

Personally I think Sellers is hilarious.

"Does your dog bite?" was hilarious, anyway. You guys ever do the dead pool? Do they do that in Colorado? I do it every year. I almost won that year-the year that Sellers died? If Sinatra had kicked on time, it would have been mine. And John Paul? The man seems immortal. I had him on my list every year until they put him on the zombie list. I got Sonny Bono right, though, if you can believe it. Just a premonition on that one. But I always pick the wrong dead Kennedy.

Seems one dies every year but the rules say you have to pick the right one to get the points. And I can't tell you how many votes I wasted on Bob Hope before he got added to the cast of Night of the Living Dead."

I waited for him to pause for breath. He didn't.

"Anyway, welcome. You know the District at all? We meet in a place in Adams Morgan. Not too far. Then again, not too close." He hit the accelerator with great force, as though he were trying to kill a roach that was camping out on the pedal.

"Tell me. Which one of you is the shrink and which is the DA?"

Lauren clenched the armrest with one hand and my shoulder with the other as she identified herself as the deputy DA.

"Boulder, right? Colorado?"

"Yes," Lauren responded, her voice tentative. I could tell she knew what was coming.

"Did you do Jonbenet? Was that yours? And was it as crapped up as everybody says it was?" "It wasn't mine," she said, smiling insincerely.

"I was totally out of the loop on that one."

"You must hear things, though, right? That DA of yours pointing at the camera and saying he's gonna get his man. I loved it. Loved it. I have a friend who started calling him Wyatt Burp."

I knew Lauren desperately wanted Russ Claven to drop the Jonbenet questions. To my surprise, he did. I couldn't decide whether he was displaying some sensitivity to Lauren's discomfort or whether he suffered from a congenitally short attention span.

Claven drove the Passat aggressively. Lauren and I learned quickly that the German car accelerated with elan and thank God braked efficiently. He took us into the city across the Arlington Bridge and circled the Lincoln Memorial at a speed that made me grateful for centrifugal force.

"I'm avoiding construction," he explained as he downshifted and accelerated up Twenty-third, as though he feared I was going to question his choice of routes or argue the charge on the meter.

The morning in the capital was bright and warm. In some kind of seasonal time warp, Lauren and I had advanced a month further into spring by leaving Boulder, flying across country, and descending to sea level. She tapped me on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of the Tidal Basin and the sea of pink-white cherry blossoms. I heard her whisper, "Maybe we'll have time tomorrow."

I somehow doubted it.

In the next few minutes I recognized the fleeting images of the State Department, Washington Circle, and Dupont Circle, but we were soon traveling through the narrow, car-lined streets of an urban D.C. neighborhood that I'd never visited before. The way our driver was looking around from side to side I had the feeling he hadn't been here a whole lot, either.

"Parking's always a bitch around here, especially on weekends. Too many college kids live in this neighborhood. None of them are even up this early on Saturday morning, so none of them have moved their cars." The DJ on the car radio announced the time. In mock horror, Claven repeated, " Twelve-seventeen? Shit, were late. God I hope the sandwiches aren't gone. I'm starving. Man can't live on potato salad alone."

He squeezed the Passat into an impossibly small spot between a bread truck and a Chevy Impala that should have been in a museum, then removed the plastic faceplate from the front of his car stereo and slid it into the glove compartment. He apparently noticed my questioning stare and explained, "This isn't the best neighborhood in a city that's known for not having the best neighborhoods. Why do I leave it in the glove compartment, you ask? I figure that if they bother to steal the whole car, the thieves deserve a radio that works, don't you think? I mean, I could carry it with me, but what good does the front panel of a car stereo do me after my car is gone?"

For two blocks we followed Claven on foot, at a distance. We hung back mostly because we were weighed down with our carry-ons and couldn't keep up with him.

Finally, he ducked into the arched doorway of a stately old stone warehouse. He paused for a split second; I thought he wanted to be certain we were still on his trail. Once inside the building, there was again no sign of him.

Lauren said, "Poof. He disappeared."

"Back here," he yelled.

"Behind the mailboxes."

Behind the wall of mailboxes was a beautifully carved oak door. Behind that door was a tiny elevator. Claven called for the car with a key, escorted us inside, pulled the oak door shut, and tugged the gate closed. The elevator was about the size of a vertical coffin, sans satin.

"Can you get to that button?" he asked me.

"Which one?"

"There's only one button. Just lean against the wall until the elevator starts moving." I did. It did.

The elevator was patient. Russ Claven was not. He tapped his foot the whole time we were ascending. He was humming something by Bruce Springsteen. I couldn't remember the title, but thought Russ was carrying the tune quite well.

Finally, I remembered the name of the song. It was "Pink Cadillac."

After a long, slow ride we exited directly into the foyer of someone's loft.

Claven walked past us into a huge open room and explained, "This is Kimber Listers house. Mr. Lister has good taste and the resources to indulge it.

Family money."

Lauren was taking in the beautiful furnishings. She said, "Indeed he does. What floor are we on, Mr. Claven?" She had moved her gaze to a southern wall of metal-rimmed square-paned windows that revealed an admirable view of the distant government buildings and monuments.