“Our son’s going to be devastated,” Carrie said when she’d calmed down enough to talk. “Stuart has special needs too. They … they were the best of pals.”
“Any reason someone would target the family for murder like this?” I asked.
“Sue was a saint,” Carrie said, genuinely bewildered. “When my Stuart was born, she was the first one who reached out. She was always like that, looking out for others. People loved that family, all of them.”
Baldwin’s husband, Max, tilted his head and said, “Well, for the most part.”
I looked at him. He was dressed for a tennis outing. “How’s that?”
“Roger was a high-dollar divorce attorney,” Max said. “Super-nice dude here at home, but he had a reputation for tearing husbands’ throats out in family court.”
“Max!” his wife said. “Don’t speak ill of the dead!”
“Hey, it’s true, Carrie,” Max said. “Two guys in my office? Their ex-wives hired Roger. They said dealing with him was like being examined by an angry proctologist.”
“What?” his wife said.
“Think about it a little, Carrie,” Max said. He turned to me. “You want a list of suspects? Start looking at all the poor bastards Carpenter took to the cleaners.”
CHAPTER 5
THE WEATHER COULD NOT have been more perfect for a mid-April evening: temperature in the mid-seventies, low humidity. My wife, Bree Stone, and I decided to sit out on the front porch until dinner.
Bree used to be the chief of detectives for Metro PD and now worked for a private security company. Along with Sampson and Mahoney, Bree was who I went to when I was trying to figure out a case or when I wanted a different perspective on things.
After I’d described the investigation’s initial findings, Bree said, “It’s a little extreme to kill an entire family because of a lousy divorce settlement, don’t you think?”
“More than extreme,” I said. “And my gut says that’s not the motive for these killings. There’s no link that I know of to a bad divorce or divorce attorney in the Hodges or the Landau cases. Hodges was a petroleum lobbyist. Landau was a pilot for Delta.”
“What about the wives?” Bree asked.
“Mrs. Carpenter was evidently devoted to her children and did volunteer work, a pillar of the community. Mrs. Hodges taught school in Falls Church. Mrs. Landau was a CPA in DC. If there’s a common link, I’m not seeing it.”
From behind the blooming vines that shielded one end of the porch, a voice called out, “Maybe it’s their kids, Dad.”
Bree moaned her displeasure.
“Ali?” I said, crossing my arms.
My youngest came around where we could see him. Smiling, his dirty hands chopping the air, he said, “Think about it! They probably went to the same summer camp or had swimming lessons together, or maybe they were in the same Sunday school. I’m telling you, it’s the kids.”
Bree, who did not approve of Ali’s obsessive interest in our cases, said, “How long have you been eavesdropping, young man?”
Ali’s face fell. “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”
“What would you call it?” I asked.
“Weeding Nana Mama’s herb garden like she asked me to?”
I looked at Bree, who sighed.
I said, “You know the cases we work on are confidential.”
Ali nodded. “I’m not telling anyone anything.”
“That’s not really the point, pal,” I said. “I’d be in a heap of trouble if it got out at the Bureau or inside Metro that I shared information about an ongoing case with a ten-year-old, even one as sharp as you.”
He frowned. “I’m almost eleven. And you’re saying I shouldn’t weed for Nana?”
“No, we’re not,” Bree said. “But if you hear us talking in the future, do the right thing and let us know you’re there, please.”
Ali brightened a little. “I can do that.”
Before we could add anything, the front door opened, and my ninety-something grandmother peered out at us.
“Dinner’s ready,” Nana Mama said. “Spicy salmon-and-sweet-potato cakes, homemade tartar sauce, baby asparagus, and bow-tie pasta with garlic and butter.”
There was no argument from any of us, and we followed Nana back into her beloved kitchen, where the woman who’d spent many years as the vice principal of a tough inner-city school performed culinary magic every day. We sat at the table, said grace, and dug in.
After her first bite of the fish cake, Bree closed her eyes with pleasure. “Oh, Nana, that’s so good. Where did you get this recipe?”
My grandmother pushed her glasses higher up on the bridge of her nose. “I made it up.”
“C’mon,” I said. “This tastes like something you’d get in a restaurant.”
She grinned. “Except you can only get it here, tonight, for the first time ever.”
“So good,” Ali said. “The homemade tartar sauce too.”
“What’s in the cakes besides salmon and sweet potatoes?” Bree asked.
Nana Mama hesitated. “Green onions, some sriracha sauce, a little of this and a little of that. I’m still experimenting.”
“Make them exactly this way again next time,” Ali gushed. “You can’t make them any better than this!”
My grandmother laughed and said, “Want to bet?”
CHAPTER 6
BEFORE ALI COULD ANSWER, we heard the front door open and shut. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Jannie, came in a few moments later dressed in a blue tracksuit, her skin glowing, her eyes and smile wide.
“It smells so good,” Jannie said. “Sorry I’m late, Nana.”
“Everything’s still warm, child,” Nana Mama said. “You must be hungry.”
“I need a shower first.”
Bree waved at the food with her fork. “Take it after. Better sit down and have a few of these salmon cakes before we devour them all.”
Jannie took off her warm-up jacket, sat down, and heaped food on her plate. After several bites, she groaned and said, “These are incredible! Can you try them with crabmeat?”
“I can,” Nana Mama said.
“No,” Ali said. “Just like this.”
“I’ll make them both ways,” Nana promised, then looked at Bree. “You’ve been home quite a while, haven’t you? What exotic city are you off to next?”
Bree smiled. “I don’t know, Nana. I wrapped up a project last week and my boss is keeping my next assignment a secret until our meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Just as long as it’s not Paris again,” my grandmother said. “That was too dangerous, if you ask me.”
Bree and I exchanged glances, and I knew to change the subject. “I’m sure it will be a domestic deal, Nana,” I said, then I looked to Jannie. “How did practice go?”
Jannie was chewing, but she beamed and clapped until she finally swallowed. “Coach said it was my best workout of the season. I’m fast, hundredths off my best, consistently.”
Jannie had grown seven inches in eighth grade and four more in ninth, so she was taller, longer, and lankier than most girls her age. She was also stronger, with tremendous lung capacity and a God-given talent for running the grueling four-hundred-meter race.