“Couldn’t hurt,” I say.

He starts calling out the intersections Jennifer nicknamed the people she was blackmailing. Washington, DC, is a grid of numbered streets and lettered streets and most have one or the other, some both. She shortened most of the longer street names: Lexington became Lex, Manchester became Man, Massachusetts became Mass.

2nd and R. Paid. Red.

3rd and H. Paid. Red.

D and Mass. Red.

H and North Capitol. Yellow.

7th and Kentucky. Red.

G and Man. Yellow.

Plymouth and Spruce. Didn’t pay. Blue.

2nd and Lex. Red.

“What’s at 2nd and Lex?” I ask.

“The Wilmore Motel. Seems to be a favorite spot for an illicit affair.”

He keeps going.

Ten more.

Five more.

Until the entire four feet of map is littered with red, blue, and yellow thumbtacks.

He yells out the final five:

L and 13th. Red.

S and Man. Yellow.

3rd and Kentucky. Red.

4th and A. Blue.

4th and Constitution. Yellow.

“Is that all of them?” I ask.

“Yep,” he says, walking over.

The two of us stand in the living room, gazing at the map.

“There are five at the Wilmore.”

He nods. “Yeah, but they all paid.”

“True.”

“Let’s concentrate on the yellows.”

“Right, but wouldn’t it make sense it would be the last one, the one on 4th and Constitution, that got her killed?”

“It would, though the last one she was working was a woman.”

“The woman could have paid a guy to kill her. Or I mean, she could have done it herself. Jennifer was tiny.”

He shrugs, but I can tell his gut is telling him it had nothing to do with the woman.

“Okay, so there are nine yellows,” my dad says, pointing out each one with his finger.

He gets to the eighth one. The second to last.

“S and Man.”

“Do we know what is there? Where they went?”

He walks to the kitchen and grabs the green sticky note off the entry and returns.

He hands me the green sticky note:

S and Man.

Guy in suit leaves Capitol Building.

Jennifer thinks he is a congressman.

Meets woman.

Went to A Nightmare on Elm Street with Megan and Derrick.

I stare at the green sticky note. Something on it is pinging, but I can’t make out what.

A congressman?

That might be a big deal, but that isn’t it.

It’s the intersection.

S and Man.

S Street and Manchester Avenue.

For some reason, I feel like I know something there. I’d driven downtown DC with my father a handful of times, but mostly to see the touristy stuff: the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Smithsonian.

What was it about S and Man that intrigues me?

“Holy shit,” I blurt a moment later.

“What?” my dad asks.

“S and Man,” I say.

“What about it?”

“Put it together.”

He shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“S-and-Man. Put it all together.”