it had been important Diane would have e-mailed again with the full message, or else called him. He checked his cell phone. No messages from her. He brought up his recent phone call list just in case she had called but left no message. Nothing.
A-?
It didn’t ring any immediate bells for him. If it was referring to a client, it could be any number of them. He brought up the list on his screen and counted. Twenty-eight clients beginning with the letter A. And eleven of them were ones that he and Diane routinely worked on together. They repped several firms in the Middle East, so it was Al-this and Al-that. Another lawyer at the firm? There were nearly fifty here, with twenty-two more overseas. He knew all of the D.C. folks personally. Doing a quick count in his head, there were ten whose first or last names started with A. Alice, Adam, Abernathy, Aikens, Chester Ackerman.
The police, he knew, had already copied the computer files from Diane’s office, so they already had what he had just found. Still, should he call them and tell them what he’d just discovered?
Maybe they wouldn’t believe me.
For the first time Roy knew what his clients had felt like when he’d worked criminal defense. He left his office and took the elevator down, with the idea of simply going for a walk by the river to clear his head. On the fourth floor the doors opened and the sounds of power saws and hammers assailed him. He watched as an older man in slacks, short-sleeved white shirt, and a hard hat stepped on the elevator car.
The fourth floor had been gutted and was being built out for a new tenant. All the rest of the building’s occupants were counting down the days until completion, because the rehabbing was a very messy and noisy affair.
“How’s it coming?” he asked the man, who was holding a roll of construction drawings under one arm.
“Slower than we’d like. Too many problems.”
“Guys not showing up to work? Inspectors slow on the approval?”
“That and things going missing.”
“Missing? Like what?”
“Tools. Food. I thought this building was supposed to be secure.”
“Well, the uniform at the front desk is basically useless.”
“Heard about some lady lawyer getting killed here. Is it true?”
“Afraid so.”
CHAPTER 23
ROY HEADED ALONG the riverfront, stopping near one of the piers where a forty-foot cabin cruiser was docked. What would it be like, he wondered, to live on a boat and just keep going? Watch the sunset and grab a swim when he wanted? See the world? He’d seen his hometown, lived in D.C., Charlottesville. He’d visited lots of cities, but only to bounce basketballs on hardwood before heading on. He’d viewed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at forty thousand feet. He’d seen Big Ben, and sand in the Middle East. That was about it.
He smelled him before he saw him.
He turned, his hand already reaching into his pocket.
“Hey, Captain.”
“Roy.” The man gave him a quick salute.
The Captain was in his late fifties and the same height as Roy. However, whereas Roy was lean, the Captain was built like a football lineman. He must’ve outweighed Roy by eighty pounds. It had once all been muscle, Roy was sure, but the streets had made a fatty transformation of the man’s once impressive physique. His belly was so swollen now that the bottom three buttons on the jacket could no longer be used. And his body listed heavily to the left, probably as did his spine. Eating crap out of Dumpsters and sleeping on cement did that to you.
Roy called him the Captain because of the marks on his jacket. From what he’d learned of the man’s history, the Captain had once been an Army Ranger and had distinguished himself in Vietnam. But after returning home things had not gone well. Alcohol and then drugs had ruined what should have been an honorable military career. Apparently the VA had tried to help him, but the Captain had eventually fallen through the cracks and into a life on the streets of the capital of the country he had once defended with his blood.
He’d been homeless for over a decade now. And each year his uniform grew more tattered and his skin more permanently stained by the elements, much in the same way that buildings became filthy. However, there was no one to come and give him a good power wash. Roy had first met him when he’d worked as a CJA. Before he’d settled