The cop answered with a question, while his eyes played over the piles of junk in the backseat. “Where are you two coming from?”

“Johnsonburg, PA,” Denny said. “Nowhere you ever want to go, by the way. The place is a hole.”

“How long have you been gone?”

“Just since this morning. Day trip. So I guess you can’t tell me anything, huh?”

“That’s right.” The officer handed him back his items and motioned them on. “Move along, please.”

As they pulled away, Mitch pried his hands off his knee and heaved a big sigh. “That was too damn close,” he said. “That sonofabitch knew something.”

“Not at all, Mitchie,” Denny told him. “Not at all. He’s like everybody else — none of ’em have a clue, not a clue.”

It didn’t take them long to find some coverage on the radio. Word was coming in fast that the DC Patriot sniper had struck again. An unnamed police officer had been gunned down from a distance, right there on the DC side of the Potomac.

Sure enough, as they crossed the Roosevelt Bridge into the city, they could see a whole mass of law enforcement parked along Rock Creek Parkway off to the left. Denny hooted out loud. “Check out the piggy convention! Looks like Christmas came early this year.”

“What are you talking about, Denny?” Mitch still looked a little glazed from the checkpoint stop.

“The dead cop, man. Aren’t you listening?” Denny said. “It’s all going down exactly like we hoped. We just bagged ourselves a goddamn copycat!”

Chapter 62

NELSON TAMBOUR HAD been shot just before dusk, on a grassy strip of no-man’s-land between Rock Creek Parkway and the river. The highway was already shut down by the time I got there, all the way from K Street to the Kennedy Center. I parked as close as I could and walked the rest of the way in.

Tambour had been a detective with NSID, the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. I didn’t know him personally, but that didn’t make this incident any less of a nightmare. MPD had just lost one of its own, and horribly so. Detective Tambour had been found with his skull blown half open — a large-caliber bullet had passed right through his head.

It was dark now, but several klieg lights had the scene lit up like the inside of a football stadium. Two tents had been erected off to the side, one as a command center, and another for evidence collection out of sight of the pesky news choppers circling overhead.

We also had Harbor Patrol on the water, keeping pleasure craft at a good distance from the shore. And command staff were everywhere.

When I saw Chief Perkins, he motioned me right over. He was huddled off to the side with the assistant chiefs from NSID and Investigative Services, as well as with a woman I didn’t recognize.