across the desk to pass them out. Flipping his open, Adam saw it contained copies of the case file. Regardless of the minutes wasted trying to convince him to bow out, a file had already been prepared for him just in case. Which made him wonder if his response to Hedgelin’s persuasive tactics had been predicted from the start, or whether the extra file had been prepared for the absent DCPD lieutenant.
The thought vanished when he focused on the pictures contained in the first manila folder inside. There was a clutch in his chest when he recognized his friend crumpled on top of the stained, broken plywood, bright yellow roses crushed beneath him. The depth of emotion blindsided him. He took a moment to acknowledge the feeling before tucking it away. Subjectivity crippled an investigator. Turning those feelings into purpose was the only way to help Byron Reinbeck.
With that intent in mind he riffled through the pictures, plucking out a few to arrange on his lap atop the open folder, side by side. After studying them for a moment he looked up. “The shooter was on a rooftop across the street?” His gaze lowered again. “The building was at least five stories. Rooftop most likely. Or top floor, although being inside the building would increase his risk of being identified.”
“The roof,” Cleve affirmed. “Seven-story building. The second folder has the scenes shot there.”
There was a note in the man’s voice that alerted Adam. He went to the next folder and shuffled through the photos there. There was little to see in the images. No evidence of a rifle or scope. No tripod. No shell casings. The shooter had coolly taken the time to pick up before fleeing the scene. There was nothing except . . . He squinted his one good eye at a photo of what looked like an ordinary five-by-eight white index card encased in a plastic Ziploc. On it was scrawled one word in what looked to be red marker.
Wrath.
As if reading his thoughts, Jaid said, “Wrath? The shooter was angry at the victim?”
Riffling through the rest of the photos in that file, he stopped at one that showed the card before it’d been disturbed. “Oh, he wanted this to be found, didn’t he?” Adam murmured. He’d first thought the bag protecting the card was one used by the crime scene technicians, but now he realized the shooter had left it that way. Encased in plastic, with a fist-sized piece of broken concrete holding it in place on the pebbled flat roof of the building. “Wrath. One of the seven deadly sins.” Feeling the others’ eyes on him, he looked up. “Not that I’m all that well versed in the tenets of Catholicism, but I had some exposure in my youth.”
“A passing exposure, obviously.” Jaid’s wry remark had the corner of Adam’s mouth quirking.
“It didn’t take, no. Much to the Jesuits’ despair.”
“Funny you should mention it, though.” Hedgelin took a large manila envelope off his desk and opened it to shake out a single photo. Bracing himself with one fist planted on the desk, he leaned forward, holding the image up for them to see.
“That’s not Reinbeck,” Shepherd noted, shifting to better view what was obviously a crime scene photo.
“This victim’s name was Oliver Samson.” The deputy director paused but when no one commented he went on. “He had a global investment and securities firm. Samson Capital.”
“One of the too-big-to-fail companies that plundered unfettered until the financial collapse a few years ago.” Recognition was filtering now, of the victim’s name and his company. Both had been on the receiving end of some unbelievably bad press after the upheaval, worsened further when its obscene bonuses paid to top executives came to light. Adam assumed Samson had ridden out the rocky times with help from the government-issued bailout funds. He recalled the media surrounding the man’s death had been lacking in details. “When was he killed? Last month?”
“Five weeks ago in the parking garage of his building on I Street NW. Stabbed. You can’t tell in this picture but there was an identical card left at the scene.” Cleve’s expression turned grim. “It was impaled on the knife left in his heart.”
Intrigue spiking, Adam guessed, “Avarice.”
The deputy director nodded. “Close enough. The word ‘greed’ was written on the card, in red marker, much like the one found at the site of Reinbeck’s shooter. If I’m not mistaken, that’s yet another biggie according to church dogma. The DCPD is compiling