'We're fixing to canvass,' said Wilkins, drawing Ramone's attention back to the scene.

'That's McDonald Place up there, isn't it?' said Ramone, nodding to the residential street on the edge of the garden.

'We'll be knocking on those doors first,' said Wilkins.

'And that church.'

'Saint Paul's Baptist,' said Rhonda.

'We'll get it,' said Loomis.

'They got night workers in the animal shelter, right?' said Ramone.

'We do have some ground to cover,' said Wilkins.

'We can help,' said Ramone, easing into it.

'Welcome to the party,' said Wilkins.

'I'm gonna get a look at the body,' said Ramone, 'you don't mind.'

Ramone and Rhonda Willis began to walk away. As they passed the nearby squad car, the uniformed officer pushed off it and spoke.

'Detectives?'

'What is it?' said Ramone, turning to the face the patrolman.

'I was just wondering if any witnesses have come forward.'

'None as of yet,' said Rhonda.

Ramone read the nameplate pinned on the uniformed officer's chest, then looked into his blue eyes. 'You got a function here?'

'I'm on the scene to assist.'

'Then do it. Keep the spectators and any media away from the body, hear?'

'Yessir.'

As they walked into the garden, Rhonda said, 'A little short and to the point, weren't you, Gus?'

'The details of this investigation are none of his business. When I was in uniform, I never would have thought to have been so bold like that. When you were around a superior, you kept your mouth shut, unless you got asked to speak.'

'Maybe he's just ambitious.'

'Another thing I never thought of. Ambition.'

'But they went ahead and promoted you anyway.'

The body was not far in, lying in a plot off a narrow path. They stopped well short of the corpse, mindful of altering the crime scene with their presence. A technician from the Mobile Crime Lab, Karen Krissoff, worked around Asa Johnson.

'Karen,' said Ramone.

'Gus.'

'Get your impressions yet?' said Ramone, meaning any footprints that could be found in the soft earth.

'You can come in,' said Krissoff.

Ramone came forward, got down on his haunches, and eyeballed the body. He was not sickened, looking at the corpse of his son's friend. He had seen too much death for physical remains to affect him that way, and had come to feel that a body was nothing but a shell. He was merely sad, and somewhat frustrated, knowing that this thing could not be undone.

When Ramone was finished looking at Asa and the immediate area around him, he got up on his feet and heard himself grunt.

'Powder burns prevalent,' said Rhonda, stating what she had observed from seven feet away. 'It got done close in.'

'Right,' said Ramone.

'Kinda warm out to be wearing that North Face, too,' said Rhonda.

Ramone heard her but did not comment. He was looking out to the road, past the spectators and the uniforms and the techs. A black Lincoln Town Car was parked on Oglethorpe, and a man in a black suit leaned against the passenger door of the car. The man was tall, blond, and thin. He locked eyes with Ramone for a moment, then pushed himself off the vehicle, walked around to the driver's side, and got under the wheel. He executed a three-point turn and drove away.

'Gus?' said Rhonda.

'Coat musta been fresh,' said Ramone. 'I'm assuming he got it recently and was showing it off. Couldn't wait to wear it.'

Rhonda Willis nodded. 'That's how kids do.'

Gonrad Gaskins came out of a clinic located beside a church off Minnesota Avenue and Naylor Road, in Randle Highlands, Southeast. He wore a T-shirt darkened with sweat stains and faded green Dickies work pants. He had been up since 5:00 a.m., when he had risen and walked over to the shape-up spot on Central Avenue in Seat Pleasant, Maryland. He was picked up there every morning by an ex-offender, one of those Christians who saw it as their duty to hire men like they themselves had once been. The shape-up spot was near the rental he shared with Romeo Brock, a shabby two-bedroom house in a stand of woods up off Hill Road.

Brock was waiting on him in the SS, idling in the lot of the clinic. Gaskins dropped into the passenger seat.

'You piss in that cup?' said Brock.

'My PO makes sure I do,' said Gaskins. 'She said I gotta drop a urine every week.'

'You can buy clean pee.'

'I know it. But at this clinic, they damn near search your ass before you go into the bathroom. Ain't nobody gettin away with that bullshit. Why my PO sends me here.'

'You be dropping negatives, anyway.'

'True. I ain't even fuck with no weed since I been uptown.'

Gaskins felt good about it, too. He even liked the way his back ached at the end of an honest day's work. Like his back was reminding him he did something straight.

'Let's get your ass cleaned up,' said Brock. 'I can't take your stink.'

They drove into Prince George's, crossing Southern Avenue, the border between the city and the county, where the dirt was done. Those on the outlaw side knew you could move back and forth across that border and rarely get caught, as neither police force had cross-jurisdiction. They had tried to enlist the aid of U.S. Marshals and ATF officers but as of yet had been unable to coordinate the various forces and agencies. Between the gentrification of the city, which had displaced many low-income residents to P.G., and the disorganization of local law enforcement, the neighborhoods around the county line had become a criminal's paradise, the new badlands of the metropolitan area.

'You all right?' said Brock.

'I'm tired, is all it is.'

'That all? You just tired? Or are you pressed about somethin? 'Cause you know I got everything fixed airtight.'

'Said I was tired.'

'You just mad 'cause you still on paper. You got to pee in a little old plastic cup, and here I am, free.'

'Hmph,' said Gaskins.

His young cousin was all bravado and had not yet seen the other side of the hill. Gaskins had been on both slopes. He had been involved in the drug trade at an early age. He had been an enforcer. He had fallen on agg assault and gun charges, and had done time in Lorton, and when they'd closed Lorton they moved him out of state. There was nothing about any of it that he wanted to visit again. But he had promised his aunt, Romeo Brock's mother, that he would stay by her son and see that he came to no harm.

So far he had made good on that promise. Mina Brock had raised Gaskins after his own mother died when he was a child. You couldn't go back on a blood oath made to a woman as purely good as his aunt. She was probably on her knees right now, scrubbing the urine from some hotel bathroom floor or cleaning the jam off someone's sheets. She had fed and clothed Gaskins, and tried to slap some sense into him when she had to. She was plain good. Least he could do was look after her natural child.

But Romeo wasn't right. He was inching toward that line and was close to crossing it, and though Gaskins would have liked nothing better than to bail out on him, he felt he was trapped. It sickened him to know where Romeo was taking him, and still he had to stay.

They were driving toward a cliff. The doors were locked and the car had no brakes.

Gaskins showered and changed in the single bathroom of their house, a one-story structure fronted by a porch, set back on a gravel drive and nearly hidden among old-growth maple, oak, and one tall pine. A large tulip poplar grew alongside the house. Branches from that tree had fallen and lay on the roof. The home was in need of repair, replumbing, and rewiring, but the owner never visited the property. The rent was small, in line with the physical condition of the house, and Brock always paid on time. He didn't want the landlord or anyone else coming around.