A Murder of Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

coming,” he said as they walked down the hall from Emerson’s office.
    Frank felt the knot of anger tight in his stomach. “Emerson the weatherman.”
    “Hunh. Weather vane. ”
    They stopped at a door with a sign that said “Records—Modus Operandi.” Frank tapped his five-digit access code into a keypad set into the wall beside the door.
    Nothing.
    Frowning, he entered the numbers again. Again, nothing.
    “Damn thing’s fighting you,” José said unhelpfully.
    Frank mentally went over the access code again. Bank PIN, Social Security number, health insurance group number, frequent flyer account number . “I thought it was only the army that made people into numbers.”
    He tried a third time. The door unlocked with a metallic click, and Frank pushed through. Battered ranks of old-fashioned file cabinets filled the left side of the cavernous room. On the right, records analysts sat at four rows of desks. The analysts, mostly women, faced their computer screens with a vacant stare—the empty look of combat veterans who’d seen too much and who knew they were going to see more.
    No one looked up as Frank and José made their way to a desk in the last row. There, a small-boned woman with short-cut iron-gray hair leaned forward, her fingers racing across her computer keyboard like those of a concert pianist at a Steinway. They stood watching until she looked up.
    Eleanor Trowbridge intrigued Frank. R&MO’s senior analyst was a constant in a constantly changing world. She’d had the wrinkles and the gray hair when he and Joséhad first met her twenty-six years before. She knew damn near all there was to know about crime in the District. She’d turned in her battered Olivetti typewriter for a Gateway computer, but she was still the person you went to if you wanted to make sense of things that didn’t make sense to anybody else.
    José started to say something.
    Before he could, Eleanor swiveled her chair around to a file cabinet and pulled a thick file jacket from a drawer. “James Culver Hodges. Aka ‘Skeeter.’ ” She handed it to José.
    José flashed a look of surprise, then smiled. “While you’re at it, got any picks for NBA playoffs?”
    “Maybe the Powerball numbers?” Frank asked.
    “Elementary, gentlemen,” Eleanor said, sighing. “Point one, Mr. Hodges is newly dead.”
    José’s smile turned wry. “Bingo.”
    “And you two want me to find you some cold cases you can bury with Skeeter?”
    “Double bingo,” Frank said.
    Eleanor looked at the two detectives over the top of her glasses. “This afternoon? After five?”
    B ack in the office, the answering machine flashed insistently. Frank jabbed the answer button.
    “Frank?” The words came out burgundy. “Call when you can.”
    José watched the smile gathering at the corners of Frank’s mouth. “Woman’s got a voice.”
    Frank nodded and slouched comfortably into his chair. “She does indeed.”
    He never thought about Kate without a flush of warmth somewhere between heart and stomach. He didn’t remember a world before her and couldn’t imagine a world after. He caught occasional reflections of himself in her, and it always surprised him, the goodness he saw there. Part of him marveled that the two of them had found each other,while another part worried how he’d be if she weren’t there.
    José watched Frank’s smile grow. “I know what you’re thinking.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. Meantime, you want to do . . . what?”
    Frank thought about Kate some more, then sat up, took a deep breath, and surveyed his desktop. The overflowing in-box drew his eyes.
    “We could”—he waved at the mound of paper—“get some of that done.”
    José looked at his own in-box in distaste. “Let’s not . Let’s go check the street.”
    Frank reached for his phone. “Let me call Kate first.”
    “I’ll get the car.”
    Frank picked up the phone and hit a speed dial. He looked out toward the Mall. The wind had picked up; the flags