DETECTIVE Nathan Grady stood over Donut, who sat on the couch. Donut had invited Grady to have a seat with him, but Grady had said that he preferred to stand. Always look down on the person you were interviewing, and crowd them when you could.
Donut’s legs were scissoring back and forth, and sweat had formed on his upper lip, betraying his friendly, accommodating smile.
“So you don’t know about the whereabouts of your friend Mario.”
“Nah, uh-uh.”
“And you weren’t aware that he was wanted on a murder?”
“No, I wasn’t aware of that situation right there.”
“Seems like everybody in Anacostia’s heard about it but you.”
“Now that you tell me, though, I feel real bad about that girl got herself dead.”
“You haven’t heard from your friend in the past few days, have you?”
“Been a long while. I was just wonderin’ today where he been at.”
“I suppose we could go into your phone records. Ask around with your neighbors, too. Maybe they’ve seen him coming in and out of here.”
“You should. I’d like to know my own self where he is.”
Grady rocked back on the heels of his Rocksports. He looked back at the uniformed officer standing by the door, then lifted his head and made a show of sniffing the air. Donut watched him, thinking, Here it comes.
“That marijuana I smell, Dough-nut?”
“I don’t smell nothin’.”
“You got some priors, so it made me think, you know, you might still be dealing.”
“That was the old me. I been rehabilitated. And I go to church now, too.”
“So you wouldn’t mind if I looked around?”
Donut shrugged. This motherfucker did find something, it wouldn’t be but an ounce or so. What they call personal-use stuff. He’d be on the street in an hour, and the charge would get thrown out, anyway, come court date. He knew it, and so did this bobo with a shield. As for the stuff he had that looked like crack, shit, that wasn’t nothin’ but baking soda cooked hard. Make them all look stupid when they got it back to the lab.
“You know what an accessory-to-homicide conviction would do to you, with your history?”
“I got an idea. But, see, I don’t know where Mario is.”
“We’re gonna talk again. You’re holding out on me, it’s not gonna go your way come sentencing time.”
“You find Mario,” said Donut, “let me know. He borrowed a shirt from me and didn’t return it. A Sean John—wasn’t cheap, either.”
“Anything else?” said Grady, his jaw tight.
“Boy owes me five dollas, too.”
QUINN drove down the block, saw the unmarked with the GT plates and the 6D cruiser outside Donut’s building, and kept his foot on the gas. He turned the corner and idled the Chevelle against the curb. He phoned Strange on his cell.
“Derek.”
“Terry, what’s going on?”
“I found the building where Mario’s friend Donut lives. But I think Grady or some other cop might have found him first. They got cars outside the place now.”
“We can visit him later on.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m tailing Horace McKinley as we speak. I waited for him near his place on Yuma after I finished up with Devra Stokes. I followed him and his boy when they drove out in their Benz.”
“And?”
“They’re headed out of the city, going onto Wheeler Road right now. Passing a Citgo station…”
“Stay several car lengths back and try not to get made.”
“Funny,” said Strange.
“Want me to meet you?”
“I’ll call you in a few minutes. There they go, they’re turning.”
“Into where?”
Quinn waited. He could almost see Derek’s face, intense, as he watched the car up ahead.
“Looks to me,” said Strange, “like they’re driving right into the woods.”
chapter 27
STRANGE parked his Caprice beside the Citgo station, near the rest rooms and out of sight. He grabbed his 10 × 50 binoculars from the trunk, locked the car down, jogged around a fenced-in area holding a propane tank, and ran into the woods. He went diagonally in the direction that McKinley and his sidekick had gone, hoping that they were headed for a house set back not too far off Wheeler Road. He crashed through the forest like a hooved animal, unconcerned with the noise he made, and saw brighter light about a quarter mile in. He slowed his pace, approaching the light, which he knew to be a clearing, with care.
Strange took position behind the trunk of a large oak. A brick rambler, looked like it had some kind of deck on the back of it, stood in the clearing at the end of a circular drive. Parked in the drive were a late-model red El Dorado, McKinley’s black Benz, and a green Avalon with aftermarket alloy wheels.