Even before we got close to the body in the park, I recognized Stanislaw Wajda’s filthy barn coat. He’d been left on his side, shoved under a clump of bushes, just like his own victims before him.
There was no carving this time. The only visible injury was a single puncture wound to the throat, similar to the one we’d seen on Anjali Patel.
The skin on his neck was a solid stain of dried blood, and it continued down under his shirt. That meant he’d most likely been sitting up when he was stabbed. Probably when he died, too.
We’d already run prints on the shopping cart and sledgehammer from Farragut Square. There was no doubt anymore that Wajda was our Numbers Killer. Still, whatever he’d done when he was alive, I felt a wave of pity for him now.
“What’s this?” Sampson pointed at something in Wajda’s hand. I pulled on some gloves and knelt down to take whatever it was from between the clenched fingers.
It was a small greeting card — the kind you usually send with flowers. This one had a picture of a wedding cake on the front, with an African-American bride and groom at the top.
“It’s my engagement present,” I said. I felt a little sick to my stomach.
When I opened the card, I instantly recognized the precise block letters of Kyle’s handwriting.
TO ALEX:
YOU’RE WELCOME.
— K.C.
Chapter 95
AFTER FIVE DAYS of lying low with Mitch in the West Virginia woods, Denny got the call he’d been waiting for. Then it was another several days for reconnaissance in DC before they were good to go. It wouldn’t be much longer now, just a little while and he’d be a free man. A very rich, free man.
The door banged open behind him as they came out onto the roof of the National Building Museum.
He turned around, and Mitch held up a hand.
“My bad,” he said.
“Just shut the damn thing and come on,” Denny said, harsher than he meant to.
It wasn’t as if the noise really mattered. The museum was closed for the night, and the nearest threat risk was the twentysomething mope sitting downstairs at a ground-floor security desk, watching horror movies on his laptop. It was more about having spent one too many nights sleeping elbow to elbow in the old Subaru with Mitch, living off of canned food and listening to him yammer on about the “mission.”
He shook it off and walked over to the southwest corner of the roof to look out.
Traffic on F Street was light for a Friday. There was a slight breeze, with the promise of showers for later, but so far everything was quiet. The first limos would start pulling up in front of Sidney Harman Hall — or just “the Harman,” to the locals — in about fifteen to twenty minutes.
Mitch came along and waited silently behind Denny as he unrolled the canvas tarp. Then Mitch set out his gear and started assembling the M110.
“You mad at me or something, Denny?” he said finally. “We got a problem?”
“Naw, man,” Denny said right away. There was no sense in making him uptight tonight. Especially not tonight. “You’re doin’ great. I’m just ready to get this one done, you know? A little overeager. My bad.”
That seemed to satisfy him. Mitch nodded once and went right back to business. He flipped down the bipod, set the rifle on the ledge, and put his eye up to the scope. Once he’d adjusted the buttstock against his cheek, he could start dialing in.
“We’re working in a range tonight,” Denny said, keeping his tone nice and easy now. “Cars are going to be stopping all up and down the block.”
Mitch swept left and right a few times, getting a feel for the sidewalk in front of the theater. “You said these crumbums are a couple of judges?”
“That’s right,” Denny said. “Two of the most powerful fuckers in the country.”
“What’d they do?”
“You know what an activist judge is?”
“Not really. What’s that?”