"You ever spend time with Errol?" Sampson wanted to know.

"Family get-tog ethers mostly, but he only came to a few that I can remember. I went fishing with him once. He was like a little kid as long as we were catching large-mouth bass and two- or three-pound catfish. Maria always liked Errol."

Sampson kept eating his meatloaf and double order of mashed potatoes. "You think about Maria much?"

I scrunched down into my seat. I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about this now. "Different things remind me of her. Especially Sundays. We'd sleep until noon sometimes, treat ourselves to a nice brunch. Or visit the duck pond near the river. St. Tony's. Long walks in Garfield Park. It's a sad, confusing thing, John that she died so young. It especially hurts that I could never solve her murder."

Sampson kept on hounding me with questions. He gets that way sometimes.

"You and Christine are doing all right?"

"No," I finally admitted. But I couldn't quite get out the whole truth. "She can't get over what happened with Geoffrey Shafer. I'm not even sure that the Weasel is dead. We finished here?"

Sampson grinned. "Food, or my cross-examination?"

"Let's go. Let's find Errol and Brianne Parker. Solve the bank robbery. Take the rest of the day off."

Around seven o'clock Sampson and I decided to take a dinner break. We figured we'd be working late, probably past midnight. It was that kind of case. I went home for supper with the kids and Nana Mama.

I ate, and complimented Nana on her cooking, but I didn't taste much of anything. I was keeping the Christine thing bottled up inside me. Not too bright on my part.

Sampson and I agreed to meet around ten to check out a few night crawlers who would be easier to find after darkness fell. At quarter past ten, we were trolling Southeast again in my car.

Sampson spotted a small-time drug hustler and snitch we knew. Darryl Snow was hanging out with his boys in front of a bar and grill that kept changing its name and now was called Used-To-Be's.

Sampson and I hopped out of the Porsche and came up fast on Snow. He had nowhere to run. As always, Darryl was a drug-hustler fashion-plate: Crimson nylon shorts over blue nylon pants, Polo T-shirt, Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker, Oakley shades.

"Hey there, Snowman," Sampson said in his deep voice. "You're melting away to nothing."

Even Snow's hustler friends laughed. Darryl was around five eleven, and I doubt he weighed a hundred and twenty pounds with his clothes on, designer labels and all.

"Walk and talk with me, Darryl," I told him. "This is not open to discussion."

His head shook like a dashboard doll's, but he reluctantly went along. "I don' wanna talk to you, Cross."

"Enrol and Brianne Parker," I said, once we were far enough away from the others.

He and I continued the floor-to-floor search. The building was damp and smelled of urine, feces, mildew. The stench was unbearable.

"I've seen better Holiday Inns," I said and Sampson finally laughed.

I shoved open another door, and knew by the putrescent odor that we'd found dead bodies. I waved the flashlight and saw Brianne and Errol. They no longer looked human. The building was warm and decomposition began faster. I calculated they'd been dead for at least a day, probably more.

I shone the Maglite flashlight at Errol first, then at his wife. I sighed and felt a little sick inside. I thought of Maria and how she had liked something about Errol. When he was little, my son Damon had called him Uncle Errol.

The corneas of Brianne's eyes were cloudy, as if she had cataracts. Her mouth was wide open, the jaw slack. Errol looked pretty much the same. I thought of the family that had been executed in Silver Spring. What kind of killers were we dealing with? Why had they killed the Parkers?

Brianne's top had been removed, and I didn't see it anywhere in the room. Her jeans were pulled down, exposing red panties and her thighs.

I wondered what it meant. Had the killer carried Brianne's top away? Had someone else been in here since the murders? Had they played around with Brianne after she was dead? Was it the killer?

Sampson looked troubled and puzzled. "Doesn't look like an overdose," he said. "Too violent. These two suffered."

"John," I finally spoke in a quiet voice, "I think they might have been poisoned. Maybe they were supposed to suffer."

I made a call to Kyle Craig and told him about the Parkers: We had solved part of the Silver Spring robbery, but at least one killer was still out there.

A rush-rush autopsy confirmed my suspicion that Enrol and Brianne Parker had been poisoned. The ingestion of a massive dose of Anectine had caused rapid muscle contractions and led to cardiac arrest. The poison had been mixed into a bottle of Chianti. Brianne Parker had been sexually violated after she was dead. What a mess.

Sampson and I spent another couple of hours talking to the hang-arounds, the homeless, the junkies living in the abandoned project buildings on First Avenue. No one admitted knowing Errol or Brianne; no one had seen any unusual visitors at the building where the couple had been hiding.

I finally drifted home for a few hours' sleep, but I was restless in my bedroom. I got up and hobbled downstairs. I was thinking about Christine and little Alex again. It was four a.m.

Nana's latest refrigerator note was posted. It read, Never once," did she wanna be white," to pass," dreamed only of being darker. I opened the fridge and took out a Stewart's root beer, then I wandered out of the kitchen. The poem from the refrigerator door drifted through my head.

I flicked the television on, then off. I played the piano in the sun room "Crazy For You' and then some Debussy. I played "Moonglow," which reminded me of the best times with Christine. I imagined ways that we might fix the relationship. I'd tried to be there for her every day since her return to Washington. She kept pushing me away. Tears finally welled in my eyes and I wiped them away. She's gone. You have to start over again. But I wasn't so sure that I could.

The floorboards squeaked. "I heard you playing' Clair de Lune. "Very nicely I might add." Nana was standing in the doorway with a tray in her hands. There were two steaming coffee mugs on it.

She pushed one of them toward me and I took it. She then sat in the old wicker rocker near the piano, quietly sipping her brew.

"This instant?" I kidded her.