OxyContin is expensive, but there are also plenty of cheap, and more dangerous, knockoff drugs floating around out there. Ava was fourteen now, more than old enough to cross paths with any number of controlled substances on the street, especially considering her background. The few friends I knew about were street kids, who she used to crash with around Seward Square. Was that where she’d been tonight?
“What’s going on in here?” Nana said, suddenly appearing in the archway from the hall. Her room is on the first floor of the house, and she’s also the world’s lightest sleeper.
Ava scooted away from me, to the far end of the couch. “He’s saying I done something I didn’t do. Why he’s always gotta think I’m doing something bad? Damn!”
“Watch your mouth,” Nana said. She parked herself on the cushion between us and turned to face Ava. “What is it you didn’t do, honey?”
“He’s saying I’m high, but I ain’t.”
“I’m not,” Nana corrected her, probably because she couldn’t help herself.
“And why are you up this late?” I asked. “Did you sneak out?”
“See?” Ava said, pointing at me. “I can’t do nothing right for him.”
I looked at Nana, feeling more than a little frustrated. I had a crime scene to get to, and it couldn’t wait.
“I’m going to get Bree,” I said.
“No. Let her sleep. I’ll put Ava to bed in my room and keep an eye on her,” she said, eyeballing the keys and necktie in my hand. “You obviously have somewhere to be.”
Nana hates my job, a lot of the time. But why was I suddenly feeling like the bad guy here?
“Nana,” I said.
“Just go.”
I looked Ava over one more time. Was she just sleepy—or something else?
“I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” I said. “We’ll talk about this then.”
She rolled her eyes at me but didn’t answer. It wasn’t until I was almost all the way out of the house that I heard her speak up at all, somewhere behind me.
“It is first thing in the morning,” she said.
CHAPTER
30
I WASN’T THE FIRST ONE ON THE SCENE THIS TIME. BESIDES THE CRUISERS parked at the picnic area just off Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park, there were several unmarked cars in the lot when I got there.
The action was across the grass, at the edge of the woods, where Rock Creek itself runs through the park’s seventeen hundred acres. We’d have kliegs up soon, but for now everyone was working with flashlights and headlamps.
I found Sergeant Huizenga leaning against the edge of a picnic table, signing off on something for a uniformed officer and talking on the phone at the same time.
“Yes, sir, I know. Yes, yes, we’re all over it. We will.”
I figured it was either the chief or the mayor himself on the line. Not too many people get a willing “sir” out of Marti Huizenga. She’s a good cop, but her temper gets in her way sometimes.
“We’re screwed, Alex,” she said, just as she hung up. “We could solve this tonight, and we’re still screwed. I’ve got the mayor’s command center so far up my ass, I can’t even breathe. How did they even know about this yet?”
It was a rhetorical question more than anything. Not all mayoral administrations are created equally, and this one had a strong tendency to step in sooner rather than later. The fact that we were now getting a substantial boost in resources from the city only exacerbated the situation. Increased resources meant increased oversight, accountability, and yes, sometimes meddling. Just one of the reasons I tend to avoid upward mobility at the police department as much as I can. I like working the cases, not the politics, where I can help it.
I followed Huizenga into the woods and down to the creek bed where the body had been left.
Errico Valente was already there, along with Tom D’Auria. Valente was the lead investigator on the Darcy Vickers case, and D’Auria is MPD’s Homicide Division captain. It didn’t look like anyone was sitting this one out.
At their feet was a nude victim, facedown along the edge of the water. She’d been there long enough for postmortem lividity to set in, with a line of bright red coloration along the lower parts of the body, where her blood had settled by gravity since the time of death.