The Double

Twenty-Four

Grace Kinkaid had a light day of work at her nonprofit and could have gone home early, but she usually stuck around till after five. She enjoyed the company of her coworkers. Also, if she went back to her condo too early, she’d start drinking, and the night would be too blurry and long. She was aware of her problem with alcohol and was making an effort to cut back. She’d heard that drink-counting was a warning sign of dependence, but she’d taken to doing just that, looking to keep her intake to three, four glasses of wine per day. Her intention was to get it down to two. As of yet, she’d not come close to achieving that goal. But she was trying.

Her office was on the sketchy side of the Hill, on one of the low-numbered streets in Northeast, between Constitution and H, but closer to H. She was an attorney but she earned a modest salary, not much more than the younger folks she worked with, who only had undergraduate degrees or no degree at all. The organization was called Food for Children, which was good for fund-raising and solicitation. People saw those words on a mailer, it was hard to throw away.

Grace didn’t have the high salary that came with a law firm, or its politics and rigidity. She liked the fact that she was doing something positive for her native city. Her work was mostly administrative, but in her mind she was helping to feed hungry kids.

“Good night, Neecie,” said Grace, to an overweight, pretty-faced woman with red lipstick, who sat at a nearby desk.

“Have a good one, Grace.”

Grace walked from the offices out to the street. There were neighborhood folks around but not too many, as most had not come home from work yet. Her car, a late-model Jetta, was parked down the block.

Grace had not yet gotten the money she owed Spero Lucas. Her intent was to close the deal with the painting’s buyer soon. She’d blown it off in part because he’d not reminded her, though she realized the responsibility was not his. It was funny about Spero. He didn’t even seem to want the money when he’d returned the painting. It was like it wasn’t important to him.

As she walked down the sidewalk, her purse in hand, she idly noticed a man get out of a nondescript sedan. In fact, it was an old Ford Taurus, a hack with stolen plates that the man had rented for one day from a resident of Lincoln Heights. The man wore a multicolored knit tam that normally covered dreads, but today covered wads of paper resting atop a modified Afro. His face had been shaven clean hours earlier, except for a thin Vandyke missing spots he couldn’t “get.” He wore aviator sunglasses with large lenses. To some, he went by Jabari Jones, but his surname was Alston. He was in disguise.

Grace did not pay much attention as the man approached her, and paid little more attention when he reached under the tail of his shirt. As he neared her, she saw his hand come out with a knife. It was long and serrated, and as he raised it, late-afternoon sun winked off its blade. Grace dropped her handbag to the sidewalk and turned her head, as if by looking away she could stop this. Alston grabbed Grace by the throat, came down with the knife, and stabbed her deeply in her right breast. Grace said, “Oh,” and felt the air go out of her as her knees buckled. Alston held her up and again plunged the knife into her chest. He released his hand from her throat, and as she fell, she felt blood leave her. Then a great deal of pain, but only for a moment, because she was going into shock. One leg twitched in spasm as she lay on the ground. Alston picked up her handbag and walked away.

A witness later described the assailant as “a Rasta dude with shades.” She said he’d gotten into an old blue “Ford or Chevy” and drove away. She noted that he’d looked “sick” as he’d quick-stepped to his car.

Lucas spent the latter part of the day in his apartment. Using the Intelius program on his laptop, he background-checked Percy Malone, found his record of multiple arrests and convictions, and brought up his photograph. Over a twenty-year period, since the age of fourteen, Malone had been into everything from drug distribution to felonious assault to pandering. His incarcerations had begun at the old Oak Hill facility for juveniles. He’d done a stretch at the now-shuttered Lorton Reformatory and one out-of-state facility as well. He was a career criminal, a poster child for those who were anti-rehabilitation or — reform. Lucas was all for redemption. He also knew that some men couldn’t be saved.

Next, Lucas ran Malone’s name and DOB into the People Finder program and came up with a current residential address. Calvin Bates had been mistaken. Malone did not live in Columbia Heights, but rather in a house on Princeton Place, Northwest, in Park View. Lucas was familiar with the 700 block and knew it held smallish row homes on the south side. The “First Floor” designation told Lucas that Malone stayed in an apartment or rented a room in a house. Bates had been right about one thing: Malone was easy to find.

Lucas drove his Jeep down to Park View.

He parked on Princeton, the nose of his truck pointed east. Lucas knew that at the top of the grade was Warder Street and Park View Recreation Center, and one block beyond, the grounds of the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, which most folks called the Old Soldiers’ Home. Just five years earlier, Lucas would have stood out if he were parked on this street. Since the sixties, and for many years after the riots, the neighborhood had been almost entirely black. Park View also was home to the once-infamous Park Morton Complex and the Black Hole go-go club on Georgia, a trouble spot for police in 4D. But Park View’s demographics and amenities, like those citywide, were changing. There were whites, blacks, and Hispanics now on the streets, and new coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and condos opening on the Avenue. Lucas couldn’t decide if the changes were positive. Maybe it was just a cultural and economic evolution. Neither good nor bad, just different.

He waited in the car for a couple of hours, keeping an eye on Percy Malone’s residence, a two-story row home painted gray. He listened to music from his iPhone and peed once into an old water bottle. He was about to go home when Malone emerged from the house. Lucas mentally recorded the time.

Malone looked like his photograph. Average height, spidery, with skinny arms and legs, and gangly wrists. Malone glanced around the street. His eyes, even from this distance, had the alert but deadened look of an abused child.

Lucas had expected Malone to go down the block to Georgia, but instead he walked up Princeton toward Warder Place. Then Lucas saw him stop, cup his hands around a match, and light something thinly rolled. So Malone was smoking a little weed on the way to wherever he was going next. Lucas waited until he was out of sight, then started the Jeep and drove east, slowly following Malone’s path.

At the Warder intersection, Lucas looked right and saw Malone turn the corner on the other side of the rec center, onto Otis. Warder was one way heading north. Lucas took a chance and drove against traffic, and when he came to Otis and turned right, Malone had vanished.

Lucas pulled over and put the transmission into Park. As always, the map of the city was in his head. It helped that he’d done surveillance work in this neighborhood many times. He guessed that Malone had cut into the alley past the rec center field, at 6th, then made a left into the alley that ran between the backyards of Princeton and Otis. This would take him down to a sharp left turn and another short alley that would open back up to Otis, close to Georgia Avenue. Malone was “walking his smoke.” There was no need to follow in his Jeep, as the alley was narrow, sometimes clogged with trash cans, and hard to navigate by vehicle. Next time, Lucas would bring his bike.

Malone soon appeared at the bottom of Otis and headed for Georgia, where he crossed to the west side of the Avenue. Lucas drove down there and watched him enter a surprisingly upscale liquor and wine store.

Lucas waited. Malone reappeared ten minutes later with a long brown bag in hand and walked up Georgia toward Princeton. He was headed back to his spot. Lucas had seen enough. He drove home.

Back at his crib, Lucas smoked a joint, drank a couple of beers, and listened to some dub. He phoned Charlotte Rivers and fell asleep on his couch, waiting for her to return his call.

Early the next morning, he was woken by a phone call from Amanda Brand, his bartender friend, telling him that Grace Kinkaid had been stabbed in a street assault the previous day. Lucas fired down a cup of coffee and drove over to the Washington Hospital Center on Irving Street, where Grace had been taken for treatment. Amanda had said she’d meet him there.

He talked his way into the ER. Amanda was sitting in a chair outside one of the recovery rooms. Her eyes were shadowed, but she looked like she’d recently freshened up. She stood as Lucas came into the space. Standing nearby was a man in a suit and tie who had the look of MPD. He eyed Lucas as he and Amanda hugged.

“How is she?” said Lucas.

“Unconscious right now. Two deep cuts, one that severely damaged her breast. The blade collapsed her lung. They’ve catheterized her chest.”

“Is she going to make it?”

“They’re trying to reinflate her lung. They’ve done the irrigation and suturing, but there’s the risk of infection. Spero, I saw what that knife did to her...”

“Amanda,” he said, holding her shoulders, looking straight into her eyes, trying to get her to focus.

“I’m okay. I’ve been here all night. I’m just tired.”

“What did she say? Did she talk to the police?”

“No, not yet. There was a witness. She gave a description of the guy. Black man, wearing one of those knit hats, like a dread cap. He took her purse. Why would he do this if he only wanted to rob her?”

“I don’t know.”

“She called me a couple of days ago. Said you’d found her painting and brought it back.”

“I did.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?”

“No,” said Lucas, cutting his eyes away. “Take a walk, Amanda. Get something to eat. I’ll sit out here for a while.”

“You can’t go in there.”

He didn’t want to go in. He pushed her arm gently and said, “Go.”

Lucas watched her punch a wall button and walk through the swinging ER doors. He went to the doorway of Grace’s room and past a mobile curtain that partly obstructed his view. He saw her lying on the bed. A clear tube snaked out of her robe and there were thick bandages at the top of her chest. In the tube, blood and brown material flowed back and forth with each labored breath. A morphine drip led to her arm.

“You a friend of hers?” said a voice, and Lucas turned. The man in the suit, a guy in his thirties with broad shoulders, had approached him from behind.

“Yes,” said Lucas. “Actually, more of a friend to the woman who just left. I’m here because Amanda asked me to stop by.”

“Your name?”

“Spero Lucas.”

“Spell Spero,” said the man, and Lucas did. The man wrote this in a small notebook.

“You’re a detective?”

“Detective Paul Strong. Homicide and Violent Crimes. What do you do, Mr. Lucas?”

“I’m an investigator for a criminal defense attorney here in town.”

“One of those guys,” said Strong, without malice. “Ex-military?”

“Yeah. What happened here?”

“Are you working right now?”

“No.”

“Then allow me.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any idea who would have perpetrated this crime on Miss Kinkaid?”

“None,” said Lucas. “Amanda told me what the witness saw. A guy with dreads stabbed her, then took her purse.”

“Black guy,” said Strong, who was black. “It’s okay to say it.”

“Kind of an extreme way to rob someone, isn’t it?”

“Homicides are way down in the city. We like to brag on that. But violent robberies and assaults are pretty much up citywide. East of the river, but also on the Hill. It can get pretty rough.”

“Why stab her, though? Why not just hit her on the head or push her to the ground?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Maybe he wanted to hurt her because she was white.”

“That’s your theory?” said Strong.

They looked at each other without speaking. It was perfectly comfortable, in the way that silence can be between men.

“Let me ask you something,” said Lucas. “You ever hear of the Ammidown killing, happened in D.C. around nineteen seventy-one?”

“You weren’t even born in seventy-one. Neither was I.”

“My father told me about it many times. He was a Washingtoniana freak. Loved his local history.”

“Go ahead.”

“Short version is, a white woman named Linda Ammidown was raped and murdered under the East Capitol Street Bridge. A black guy, a local pool player, was arrested and convicted of the crime, and sentenced to the chair by a Judge Sirica... the same Judge Sirica who would later get famous during the Watergate trials. A little more than a week later the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty, so the killer didn’t fry. Eventually, it came to light that Robert Ammidown, the victim’s husband, had hired the guy to kill his wife. It was a contract hit.”

“Black dude rapes and murders a white woman, it deflects the suspicion away from her husband.”

“Exactly.”

“What happened to those two gentlemen?”

“Ammidown pled to second-degree murder. Word is, the guy who did the killing is now out on the street. Friend of mine said he saw him recently in a pool hall on Central Avenue.”

“And the point of that story is what?”

“Something to think on, is all.”

“What do you know, exactly?”

“I’m making a suggestion, Detective. If you ever arrest this so-called Rasta and get him in the box, I’d ask him who paid him to do the job.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“Just doing my civic duty.”

“Fuck you and give me your phone number,” said Strong.

Lucas gave him the number to one of his disposables. Detective Strong drifted, and Lucas had a seat.

When Amanda Brand returned, he went home. There was nothing else for him to do.

Not long after he entered his apartment, he picked up one of several disposables he owned and dialed the number for Billy King that Charles Lumley had given up the day they’d tortured him and run him out of town.

King answered.

“Hello.”

“This is Spero Lucas. Is this Billy King?”

“Do I know you?”

“You know what I’ve done.”

After a silence, King said, “Are you on a clean line?”

“Yes. You?”

“Uh-huh. So you’re the one who stole my painting and murdered Serge. The guy in the parking lot, right? It’s good to put a name to the face. How’d you get this number?”

“Charles Lumley,” said Lucas. “We should talk.”

“I’m listening.”

“Face-to-face.”

“Call it,” said King.

They agreed on a place and time.