A maintenance worker had found the boy’s body that morning, lodged under one of their docks. By now someone had pulled him onto the shore and left him there, on a little spit of dirt and grass just beyond the white-clapboard-and-green-shingled building.

The first sight of him was a shock, even for me. The apparent cause of death was a gunshot to the face, with an ugly, wide-open entry wound that told me he’d been hit at close range. It was hard to know what kind of powder burns or stippling had washed away in the water, but there were still a few dark marks around the remains of his cheekbone. A couple of smashed teeth were exposed where the flesh had been blown away, and it gave him a kind of sideways grimace, almost as if he were still in pain.

That wasn’t all. His jeans were stained dark all around the hips and crotch, presumably from stabbing. There were at least half a dozen ragged perforations in the denim of his pants, clearly centered around the genital area. It was a horrible proposition to think about what had happened to this poor kid. I could only hope for his sake that he’d been shot dead first, and mutilated after. Not much consolation there.

The most depressing part was how young he was. He didn’t look any older than eighteen, and his waterlogged letterman’s jacket was from St. Catherine’s, a private high school in Northwest DC. How he had gotten here, like this, was anyone’s guess.

My one clear hit was that this had been done in anger—possibly at the victim himself, but also maybe out of the killer’s own sense of self-loathing. Mutilation can be a signifier of that, as often as not. Either way, our perpetrator obviously had some kind of demons to exorcise. You don’t need a gun and a blade if your motivation is strictly murder.

In fact, it felt a little to me like this killer was getting out all of his ideas at once—stabbing, shooting, drowning. But why? What need did that satisfy?

After I’d taken in all the details I could, I slipped on some gloves and checked the boy’s pockets. They were all empty, but I did find a name, Smithe, stenciled on the back of his jacket. I called it in right away.

It didn’t take long to get word back, either. A few minutes later, a call from our Command Information Center told me that an eighteen-year-old senior at St. Catherine’s, Cory Smithe, had been reported missing by his parents two days earlier. Six one, blond hair, and a small birthmark on his right wrist. Check, check, and check.

“Have you got an address?” I asked the dispatcher.

“Already sent it to your phone,” she told me.

Because we both knew what I had to do next.

CHAPTER

13

WHEN I HEADED BACK TO MY CAR ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE BOATHOUSE, I saw that the locust storm had descended—the kind with cameras, microphones, and broadcast towers.

Instead of the usual half-dozen reporters we might have seen by now, there were dozens of them, just waiting for the story. Trucks were lined up on Water Street, and without a designated press space everyone was right there on the tape line.

This was three bodies in less than a week, centered around one of DC’s least violent neighborhoods. By comparison, the previous three murders anywhere west of Rock Creek had been spread out over a fourteen-month period. People were definitely sitting up and taking notice.

“Detective Cross, over here!”

“Who’s the victim, Alex?”

“Are you considering this a serial investigation at this point?”

It’s a little like being a rock star, without any of the fringe benefits. I gave them the bare minimum, which was all I could afford to do right now.

“Sergeant Huizenga will be out to brief you after the family has been notified,” I told whoever was closest. “We won’t be releasing any details in the meantime.”

“Detective Cross, will you be overseeing all three of these cases?” Shawna Stewart from Channel Five asked me.

“I don’t know yet,” I told her.

“How are the Darcy Vickers and Elizabeth Reilly investigations coming along?”

“They’re coming,” I said, just as I reached my car.

“Hey, Alex, is it true you pulled Elizabeth Reilly’s dead body out of that window before a proper examination?” someone else yelled out. “Doesn’t that compromise the investigation?”

That one stopped me cold. Maybe I should have kept moving, but instead I turned around to see who had asked the question.

This guy struck me as a one-man operation from the first glance. I’d seen his type before—camera around his neck, a handheld recorder pointed my way, and a notebook sticking out of the pocket of his cargo shorts. He also had a full beard, and no press credentials that I could see. Everyone else around him had laminated badges from the city, clipped to their lapels or hanging on lanyards around their necks.

“I don’t recognize you,” I said. “Who are you with?”

“I’m just trying to get the facts, detective.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I said. “I asked who you’re with.”

He raised his voice then, enough to make sure the microphones all around us were picking him up. “Am I a suspect, detective? Are you saying you want to detain me?”

He was baiting me. I’ve seen it a million times. If they can’t get the story they want, they’ll try to create one—especially the hacks and the wannabes.

“No, I’m not detaining you,” I said. “It was just a simple question.”

“Why? Am I required by law to identify myself?” he said.

Now he was just being a dick. The civilian in me wanted to shove that recorder right down his throat.

“No,” I said again. “You’re not required to identify yourself.”

“In that case—no comment,” he said, fighting back a smile. It got a laugh from a few in the crowd, but not from me. The best thing I could do right now was get in my car and leave.

I had somewhere more important to be, anyway. And it couldn’t wait.

CHAPTER

14

BY THE TIME I PULLED UP IN FRONT OF CORY SMITHE’S HOME, I FELT LIKE I HAD a fifty-pound bag of gravel sitting on my chest. Family notifications are the hardest part of my job, hands down.

The Smithes lived in one of the thousands of early twentieth-century row houses that line the streets of Northwest DC. This one was on Shepherd Street in Petworth, with a tiny, terraced stamp of green lawn halfway up the stairs to the front door. In the middle of the grass was a statue of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by a bed of spring tulips. Maybe the Lady would give these people some comfort when they needed it most.

I’d already notified the Fourth District missing persons unit. They had Victims Services on the way over, but this part was all on me. I climbed the stairs and rang the bell.

Cory’s father answered the door almost right away. He looked a lot older than I would have expected, and had a cane hooked over his wrist.

“Can I help you?” he asked, a little warily.

“Mr. Smithe? I’m Alex Cross from the police department,” I told him. “I’m here to speak with you about Cory. May I come in?”

There are a few things you want to avoid in this kind of situation. One of them is mentioning up front that you’re from Homicide. Notifications need to unfold at the right pace—not too fast, but not too slowly, either.

“Come in,” he told me, and opened the screen door. “My wife’s in the back.”

He hobbled on ahead of me, and I followed him through to a screen porch off the kitchen. Mrs. Smithe was there, in slippers and a flowered housecoat. She clutched the neck of it closed and stood up as I came in. The cordless phone on her lap fell onto the floor, but neither of them seemed to notice.

“What is it?” she said. I could tell by her face that she’d already been contemplating the worst. I quickly reintroduced myself, and then got right to it.