“The director has given me wide latitude to decide what I want to work on personally and what I want to delegate. This interests me, especially in light of my ties to Ray. I don’t mind going.”

“That would be very helpful. Thank you.” And it would save her limited travel budget from taking a big hit. It occurred to her that once again she’d be indebted to him. His chips were starting to pile up. She wondered when, if ever, he’d call them in.

“No problem,” he said as they got into his car. “Where to now?”

“I want to see Jamie Clark again.”

“What’s the quickest way to get to Adams Morgan?”

“This time of day, take the Whitehurst to Rock Creek. Get off at Calvert Street.”

“Um, okay. Whatever you say.”

“I’ll show you.” Sam said, directing him as she pondered the meeting with Carmen and the next steps with Jamie. “I like Carmen. I don’t want to think he was cheating on her.”

“I know. I’d hate to have to tell her that.”

“It would almost be worse than telling her he was killed,” Sam said. She watched the city fly by through the passenger window as she went over the parts and pieces of what they’d learned so far. “If he was fooling around, let’s hope that info never has to come from us.”

“If this is a case of a random fan exacting revenge, we might never figure out who did it,” Hill said after a long period of silence.

“That thought has occurred to me, but there was just enough chaos in Willie’s life and in the lives of people involved with the team to make it worth our time to dig a little deeper into the people around him. If we’re spinning our wheels, I guess we’ll figure that out soon enough.”

“I don’t get the feeling that we’re spinning our wheels.”

“Neither do I,” Sam said. “Willie missing that ball screwed something up for someone, and that someone was mad enough to kill him. Or it had nothing at all to do with missing the ball, and the error gave someone the opportunity to commit the perfect crime.”

“Also a good possibility.”

“I need to see where we are with Collins.” As she reached for her cell phone it rang. She glanced at the caller ID to find Darren Tabor’s number. Her first impulse was to ignore the pesky reporter, but he’d been good to her in the past so she took the call. “I’m busy, Darren.”

“I know, and I’m sorry to bother you. I just need you to confirm one detail before I run it in an update to the online version of the Vasquez story.”

“What detail is that?”

“Is it true he was found in a Dumpster?”