The Double (2 page)

“On the Bates thing?” said Petersen. “Get me something.”

Lucas said, “I will.”

That evening, Lucas smoked a little weed, then grabbed his newest road bike, put it up on his shoulder, and walked it down the stairs of his crib. Summer nights were his favorite time to ride.

Lucas rented the top floor of a house on Emerson and Piney Branch Road, in Northwest, a four-square backed to a bucolic stretch of alley in 16th Street Heights. His landlord, an elderly fourth-generation Washingtonian named Miss Lee, lived on the first floor. His rent was reasonable and there was ample space for his bikes and kayak, which he hung from hooks on the back porch. When Miss Lee asked, he performed routine maintenance on the house and sometimes he did so unprompted. The setup, a country spot in the city, was perfect for him, though he suspected that his peace would soon be disrupted. A huge Mormon church had been erected across the alley in the past year and was due to open its doors. For now, though, all was quiet.

He had recently bought a used Greg LeMond bike from a friend who was about to leave the country for redeployment to Afghanistan. It was a righteous machine, but he didn’t care for its rainbow of colors, and he wasn’t into labels. Immediately he degreased, sanded, primed, and painted the tubes and forks a flat black. He kept the red wheels because he found them hot. It was a fast bike, significantly quicker than the one he had been riding for years.

Lucas swung onto his saddle, put his feet in the clips, and took 14th all the way downtown, then cut over into Northeast via K Street, and over to the 400 block of H, where he locked his bike to a post and entered Boundary Road, a restaurant on the edge of the thriving Atlas District. Unlike the riot corridors of U and 7th Streets, which had benefited more quickly from the construction of the Metro and its subway stations, H Street had taken forty years to be reborn after the ’68 fires. Lit-up business establishments and the sounds of conversation and laughter on the street said that it was flourishing now.

Boundary Road was an airy two-story space: brick walls, a distinctive chandelier, low-key atmosphere. Lucas had a seat at the bar. The night manager, Dan, frequently played reggae and dub through the house system, an added attraction for Lucas. Plus, he could come as he was—tonight, black mountain-bike shorts and a plain white T-shirt—and not feel out of place. He ordered a Stella from the bartender, a friend named Amanda Brand, who had called and asked to see him. He had silent-bounced for Amanda in other establishments, so they had a history. She also knew of his side work and what he could do.

“You eating tonight, Spero?” said Amanda as she served him his beer.

“I’ll have that flank steak, medium rare.”

“We’ll talk in a little bit, okay? I’m half in the weeds.”

“I’m in no hurry,” he said.

He listened to the Linton Kwesi Johnson coming through the system and drank from the neck of his cold beer. At the end of the full bar he noticed a nice-looking woman sitting alone. Their eyes met and hers did not cut away. It was he who blinked and lowered his gaze. He was typically a man of confidence, but her bold nature disturbed him. The next time he looked back at her she was getting up off her stool. He watched her walk toward him, heading for the restroom. She wore black jeans, a black tank top, and brown motorcycle boots with a T-strap and buckle. Her chestnut hair was shoulder length with cognac highlights. She had a strong, prominent nose and as she passed he saw her bright blue eyes, brilliant even in the low light of the room. She was tall, curvy, and full-breasted, built like a sixties movie star imported from Sweden or Italy. As she passed he studied her shoulders, her arms, and her back, and Lucas’s mouth went dry. He had a long pull off his beer.

Amanda returned with his meal. The bar crowd had thinned out somewhat.

“Eat,” she said, nodding at his steak.

Lucas dug in and had his first taste. He swallowed and said, “What’s up?”

“I have a friend, a woman named Grace. She’s had a little trouble lately. I think you might be able to help her.”

“What kind of trouble, exactly?”

“Man trouble. Not unusual for her, actually. Grace seems to attract a certain kind of guy. She’s divorced, with a long line of cumsack boyfriends. They don’t stick around long.”

“Maybe it’s her.”

“If I didn’t know her, I’d say the same thing. Thing is, she’s a good person. She works for one of those feed-the-children nonprofits, even though she has a law degree and could be doing a lot better.”

“So her flaw is her choice in men.”

“This last guy she got tangled up with? If he’s not a sociopath, he’s in the next zip code.”

“I’m no leg breaker.”

“This is in your wheelhouse. He stole something from her, and she’d like to have it back. She suspects it wasn’t the first time he took her off. But she can’t prove it. The police won’t do her any good. She needs some private help.”

“What’d this gentleman take?”

“A painting. That’s all I know. But I think he stole a lot more from her than that.”

“Emotionally, you mean.”

“You’ll get it when you meet her.”

“Is she aware of my cut?”

“I told her that you take forty percent.”

“And if this turns into something, you’ll get a piece of my recovery fee yourself, for the referral.”

“Not on this one, Spero. Like I say, she’s a friend.”

“Give me her contact information,” said Lucas. “And the contact information of that woman sitting down there on the end of the bar.”

Amanda turned her head and saw the woman, still seated alone, a drink before her. “Does your periscope ever go down?”

“I like to live a full life. Do you know her name?”

“Grey Goose martini, rocks, three olives.”

“Maybe I should buy her one.”

“That’s original.”

“I never said I was clever. Just determined.”

“Sure you wanna spring for the high shelf?”

“Please ask her if she’d like a drink, on me.”

Amanda drifted. Lucas watched her make the pitch to the woman, and shortly thereafter the woman gathered her phone and shoulder bag. She left money and something else on the bar before she got up. Her eyes briefly found his as she passed by, and her lovely mouth turned up in a hint of a smile. And then she was gone.

Amanda returned. “She politely declined your offer.”

Lucas spread his hands. “See? I don’t always win.”

“But the thing is, you pretty much do.” Amanda placed a beverage napkin on the bar in front of Lucas. “She left her digits for you, handsome.”

He looked at the name and phone number, folded the napkin, and stuffed it into a pocket of his shorts. “Sometimes a fella just gets lucky.”

“What is it with you?”

“I don’t know.” And this was true. He was always somewhat surprised when a woman was interested in him. It wasn’t like he was trying.

Lucas stood and reached for his wallet. He left twenty on thirty. If Amanda wasn’t going to take a bite of his fee, at least he could treat her right.

“Thanks, Marine.”

“My pleasure.”

“Do me a favor. I’m going to give you Grace’s contact information.  Call her.”

“I’ll hit her up.”

On the bike ride uptown, Lucas thought of the woman at the end of the bar, the challenge of a new job, the comfort of a payday, the night of sleep that was to come. Sex, work, money, and a comfortable bed. Everything he dreamed of when he was overseas. A guy didn’t need anything else. He shifted into a lower gear and found his groove. It had been a good night, filled with promise.

He couldn’t know of the trouble yet to come.

TWO

T
he next morning, Lucas read the
Post
while sitting on the back porch of his apartment as a robin tended to her nest in the eaves and a pair of mockingbirds tormented a cat crossing the alley. In Metro an article detailed the noted drop in homicides and higher closure rate under the stewardship of Chief Cathy Lanier. A cultural shift, a civil servant–based economy mostly immune to the recession, and gentrification had played a role in the city’s resurgence as well. Still, for many, tragedy was not a stranger, and several high-profile murders, both long ago and in the not-too-distant past, were on the mind of Washington’s residents.

The vicious murder of Catherine Fuller, a ninety-nine-pound housewife and mother, in a Northeast alley in 1984 was perhaps the most brutal and senseless crime in D.C. history, emblematic of a decade gone wrong. Fuller had been beaten to death and sodomized with a metal pipe for fifty dollars and the cheap rings she wore on her fingers. Her ribs had been broken, her liver torn. Several young men went to prison for the crime, and those who were still alive were now being retried. Allegedly, confessions had been coerced, false testimony given, evidence suppressed. The retrial, for some, had reopened wounds.

The loved ones of Nori Amaya, found murdered in October 2009 in her apartment at the Woodner, her fingernails removed to erase DNA evidence, had yet to find justice or peace. Nori’s killer was in the wind, and questions of investigative neglect persisted. Similarly, closure had not come to the friends and family of Lucki Pannell, eighteen, shot and killed in a drive-by. Racist reader comments in the
Washington Post
notwithstanding, Lucki was not a thug or corner girl, but a straight, vivacious high school student whose murder remained unsolved. District Councilman Jim Graham, when asked to comment, said that the victim was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Lucas could only shake his head when he’d read the quote. Wrong place? Lucki had been on the porch of her own house when she was shot.

For Lucas, the most haunting murder of late had been that of Cherise Roberts, found in a Dumpster, strangled, with traces of semen on her face and in her rectum, blocks north of Cardozo High School, where Lucki Pannell had also been enrolled, in March. Cherise had been a student of Leo Lucas, an English teacher at the school. After her death, Leo had counseled many of the students who had been her friends and classmates. Spero, who had seen much death, had done the same for Leo over beers on many late nights, and he knew Leo remained deeply troubled by her murder. Cherise’s killer still walked free.

Lucas ate some breakfast and packed a lunch. He lashed his kayak to foam blocks fitted on the crossbars of his Cherokee, stowed his bike and paddling gear, and drove down to Charles County, Maryland, via Route 210, which most still called the Indian Head Highway. The trip was only thirty-some miles south of the Capital Beltway, but culturally much further. He saw fundamentalist churches, Harley-riders with Confederate flag decals on their helmets, barbecue joints whose smoke made his mouth water, and many liquor stores. Lucas turned on Mattingly, the last possible left before hitting the entrance to the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Lucas unloaded his boat near Slavin’s Launch, on Mattawoman Creek, and pulled the green Wilderness Systems fourteen-foot touring kayak down to the waterline. Fishermen, county locals, cast from the shore, while others used boats of various size and horsepower from the launch. Mattawoman was one of the richest fishing areas of all the Potomac River branches, home to largemouth bass, perch, river herring, and shad. It was a pristine area for paddlers as well.

Lucas approached a man who had just now pulled an aluminum V-hull out on his trailer. The man had a great belly and pants held up by camouflage suspenders showing geese in flight and shotgun barrels pointing out of tall grass.

“How was it out there?” said Lucas.

“This creek is a fickle bitch,” said the man. “I caught twelve healthy bass in one day, just a week ago, but today, nary a one. I did get these bad boys, though. Come see.”

Lucas went with the man to the side of the boat and watched as he reached over the gunwales and removed the cover on a Styrofoam cooler. In it were a half dozen long, fat fish whose bodies were scaled and marked in the manner of pythons. Lucas had not seen anything quite like them.

“Snakeheads,” said the man, grabbing one firmly with one hand and opening its mouth with a set of pliers he had removed from a hip sheath. Lucas saw rows of sharp teeth.

“What the hell?” said Lucas.

“Don’t know how they got introduced to these waters, but they’re here to stay. They’re predators, but nothin preys on them. And the females carry hundreds of eggs in their sacs, so it ain’t like they’re going away. Know what else? They got legs.” The man smiled at Lucas’s wide-eyed expression. “That’s right. They can walk on land.”

“What are you gonna do with them?”

“Oh, I’ll grill ’em up. I don’t take nothin from out the water that I don’t eat.” The man looked at Lucas’s kayak and grinned. “Don’t fall in. These suckers bite.”

Lucas paddled out into the creek, going left, away from the Potomac, deep into the freshwater marsh, along bottomland forest, wetlands, and acres of American lotus. He powered through wet grass, his stroke even and sure, the sun hot on his shoulders and back. He saw bald eagles in their distinctive gliding flight, and many egrets, and turtles, and a water snake swimming in an S-curve across his bow. After forty-five minutes the veins had popped out on his forearms and biceps, and his back had a pleasant ache. He pulled in to a sand berm at the end of a small island and beached his boat. From a collapsible cooler in the stern bulkhead he retrieved a spicy salami sandwich and a cold bottle of beer. He sat on a blanket, which he’d spread over shells and goose poop, and ate and drank under the spotted shade of a sparsely leafed tree, looking out at the sun mirroring off the creek and the deep green forest of oak and pine on a nearby shore.

On the paddle back to the launch, Lucas saw three more snakes cutting through the water. This was unusual and disturbing. Once, when he was a kid, he had awakened from a nightmare to find his father sitting on his bed. He told his dad that, in his bad dream, he had been chased by a snake, and he could not seem to get away.

“Only one snake?” said Van Lucas.

“Yes,” said Spero.

“Then you got nothin to worry about, boy. The Greeks say that when you dream of one snake, it’s your friend. More than one, it means something else.”