It was tempting to help her out of her pajama bottoms and T-shirt, and everything else while I was at it, but she looked so beautiful and peaceful like that, I didn’t have the heart to change a thing. Instead, I lay down and just watched her sleep for a while. Very nice.

Inevitably, though, my thoughts returned to the case, to what I’d just seen.

It was impossible not to think about those dark days in 2002, the last time we’d witnessed anything like this. The word “sniper” still strikes a bad chord with a lot of people in Washington, myself included. At the same time, there were some scary differences here, considering the skill of this shooter. It all felt more calculated to me, too. And then, thank God, I was asleep. Counting bodies instead of sheep, though.

Chapter 9

NANA MAMA ALREADY had the Washington Post spread out on the kitchen table when I came down at 5:30. The case was right there on page one, above the fold: “Sniper Murder Downtown Leaves Two Dead.”

She double-tapped the headline with one bony finger, as if I might miss it.

“I’m not saying anyone, no matter how greedy, deserves to die,” she told me straight-out. “This is absolutely awful. But those two men were no angels, Alex. People are going to take a certain satisfaction from this, and you’re going to have to deal with that.”

“And good morning to you, too.”

I leaned down to kiss her cheek and instinctively put a hand on the mug of tea in front of her. A cold mug means she’s been up for a long time, and this one was cool to the touch. I don’t like to nag, but I do try to make sure she gets enough rest, particularly since her heart attack. Nana appears to be going strong, but she’s still ninety plus.

I poured some coffee into a travel mug and sat down for a quick look at the paper. I always want to know what a killer might be reading about himself. The story was opinionated, and wrong in a few important places. I never pay attention when supposedly smart people write idiotic things — here was another example of news that needed to be ignored.

“It’s just a big shell game anyway,” Nana went on, warming to her subject. “Someone gets caught with a hand in the cookie jar, and we all pretend as though the ones we hear about are the only ones doing anything wrong. You think that congressman was the first and last to ever take a bribe here in Washington?”

I ruffled the paper open to the continuation on page twenty. “An optimistic mind is a terrible thing to waste, Nana.”

“Don’t be fresh with me so early in the day,” she said. “Besides, I’m still an optimist, just one who happens to have her eyes wide open.”