Bree drank from a cup of hot black coffee as she surveyed the scene inside the apartment in Georgetown. The victim, a white male in his fifties, sat slumped in a club chair. Blood had spilled from his neck wound to his lap and clotted on his chest and belly like an apron.
“Time of death?” she asked Evelynn Kincaid, a top medical field examiner.
“Four or five hours ago?” said Kincaid, a tall lanky woman who used to play volleyball at Purdue. “The heat was turned up, so I’ll need more tests to be precise.”
“Nasty neck wound. The knife?” Bree said, gesturing to a switchblade on the carpet near the corpse.
Kincaid shook her head. “That’s his knife. There’s a scabbard for it around his right ankle, and there’s no blood on the blade.”
“So what was the weapon?”
The ME put on reading glasses, peered at the victim’s neck. “He’s got bruising and skin abrasions above and below the wound. And the edges are ragged. Could be a thin rope, but I’m thinking small-gauge wire.”
“From behind?”
“I’d say so,” Kincaid said. “The killer had to be plenty strong for the wire to cut deep like that. And smart. Victim got a shot off with that little Ruger in the corner, but it missed. Bullet hole is in the south wall, over there.”
“No one heard the shot?”
Natalie Parks, the detective on the scene, said, “No one yet.”
“We have an ID? Who found him?”
Detective Parks said they’d found a driver’s license and credit cards that identified the deceased as Carl Thomas of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and business cards that pegged him as a medical-equipment salesman. A maid for the apartment’s owners had arrived to bring clean towels around seven p.m. and found Thomas in his present state.
“I’ve already spoken with the owners,” Parks said. “Thomas booked online nine days ago. He indicated in his application he was going to combine business with tourism and stay for three nights.”
Bree thought about that. “Anything linking him to Senator Walker’s killing?”
Parks and Kincaid both seemed surprised by the question.
“Two killings seventeen hours and five blocks apart,” Bree said. “And this guy is armed not only with a pistol, but a knife he carries in an ankle sheath. So until we prove otherwise, we’re considering these murders connected. Meantime, I want his prints run. Anything else? Itinerary? Phone? Computer?”
Parks shook her head. “Nothing beyond the wallet and the IDs, Chief.”
“Killer took them. Clothes?”
“An overnight suitcase. A down parka, hat, gloves.”
“How’d he get here? Where’s his car?”
“No idea yet.”
“Nothing that said ‘shooter’ in that overnight bag?”
“No bullets or rifle components, if that’s what you mean,” Parks said.
Bree’s phone rang. Dispatch.
Bree sighed and answered. “This better be good. I’m running on fumes.”
“Chief, we’ve had officers under fire, a high-speed chase on Blair Road, and now an armed standoff in Takoma, multiple weapons involved,” the dispatcher said.
Bree started toward the door fast, barking questions at the dispatcher. She was told that it started when a Metro patrol unit had pulled over a Cadillac Escalade with California plates for failure to make a full stop at a blinking light. There were three males in the car. The officer ran the plates and found them registered to Fernando Romero of Oakland.
The name had rung bells.
“What kind of bells?” Bree demanded, leaving the apartment crime scene.
“Romero’s a big gangbanger with ties to the Mexican drug cartels. He’s got a long history of violence and three felony warrants out for his arrest, including one for threatening bodily harm to a U.S. senator two weeks ago.”
“Betsy Walker?” Bree said, running now.
“That’s affirmative.”