Criss Cross

Chapter 60

Uniformed officers stood by a cruiser parked in front of a bungalow across the street from the house of Nana Mama’s friends Jill and Neal Casey. They stood outside their place, looking worried.

“We called it in,” Jill said. She was in her eighties and still played tennis.

“I found them,” said Neal, who was less spry than his wife but still sharp.

They explained that the house had been recently rented to the Richardsons, a young couple from Newark. Mary was a night nurse at GW Medical Center. Keith was a day trader who was “deaf as a post” without his hearing aids.

The Richardsons had a Jack Russell terrier named Otto.

“Barked all night,” Jill said. “You could go over there and bang on the door, but if Keith had his hearing aids off, good luck.”

“Which was going on this afternoon,” her husband said. “I was trying to read, and the dog was barking, then finally stopped. I went over to talk to them about it and found their front door ajar. I looked inside and saw enough to call 911.”

Bree and I thanked them, then crossed the street to the uniformed officers.

“You been inside?” Bree asked.

“We figured you’d want to go in clean, Chief.”

“We do. Thank you, Officers,” she said and led the way up onto the porch where we paused to put on blue booties, disposable gloves, and surgical masks.

Bree pushed the door open. We peered into an entry with a staircase to our right. On the bottom step, the barking terrier was dead, apparently of a broken neck.

In the living area beyond the stairs, Mary Richardson lay on the floor by a large table. She wore green hospital scrubs, surgical gloves, and a heavy-duty respirator and visor. A blue-and-red rep tie was cinched tight around her neck.

Slumped in one of the high-backed chairs around the table, Keith Richardson was similarly dressed. The tie that killed him was a loud yellow-and-red paisley.

The table between the victims was set up as a repackaging operation for crystal methamphetamine. There was a typed note on the table in front of a kilo of the drug.