He walked in, rudely ignored by cops who had hated the paper so long they no longer remembered why.

“I need to find Deputy Chief West’s office.” Brazil would not be ignored.

The duty captain lifted another plastic-sheathed page of hard-boiled mugs up to the light. The sergeant turned his back to Brazil. Webb stopped what he was doing, his smile amused, maybe even mocking as he looked Brazil up and down, assessing this unfamiliar guy playing dress-up. Brazil had seen Webb enough on television to recognize him anywhere and had heard a lot about him, too. Other reporters called Webb The Scoop, for reasons Brazil had just witnessed.

“So how do you like being a volunteer?” Webb was condescending and had no idea who Brazil was.

“Which way to investigations,” Brazil replied, as if it were an order, his eyes piercing.

Webb nodded. “Up the stairs, can’t miss it.”

Webb studied the way Brazil was dressed and started laughing, as did the sergeant and duty captain. Brazil helped himself to the TV reporter’s briefcase and pulled out a handful of purloined offense reports. Brazil smoothed and shuffled them. He perused and stacked them neatly, taking his time, while everyone watched and Webb’s face turned red.

“Believe Chief Hammer might like to see The Scoop in action.” Brazil smiled at him.

Brazil’s boots were quiet as he walked off.

TWO

Patrol was the largest division of the Charlotte Police Department, but investigations was the most treacherous, it was Virginia West’s belief. Citizens followed burglaries, rapes, and homicides with fearful eyes. They complained when violent offenders weren’t instantly snatched off the street, as if the Rapture had come. West’s phone had not stopped ringing all day.

The trouble started three weeks ago when Jay Rule, a businessman from Orlando, arrived in the Queen City for a textile meeting. Hours after Rule left the airport in a rental Maxima, the car was found abandoned in a dark, overgrown vacant lot off South College Street, in the heart of downtown. The interior bell was dinging its complaint that the driver’s door was open and headlights on. A briefcase and overnight bag had been gone through in the backseat. Cash, jewelry, portable phone, pager, and no one was quite sure what else, were gone.

Jay Rule, thirty-three, was shot five times in the head with a .45 caliber pistol loaded with a high-velocity, extremely destructive hollowpoint ammunition called Silvertips. His body was dragged fifteen feet into kudzu, his pants and undershorts pulled down to his knees, his genital area spray-painted bright orange in the shape of a large hourglass. No one, including the FBI, had ever seen anything like this. Then the following week, it happened again.

The second homicide was less than two blocks from the first, just off West Trade Street, behind the Cadillac Grill, which wasn’t open at night, because of crime. Jeff Calley, forty-two, was a Baptist minister visiting Charlotte from Knoxville, Tennessee. His mission in the city was simple. He was moving his failing mother into a nursing home called The Pines and staying in the Hyatt while he did so. He never checked in. Late that night, his rental Jetta was found, driver’s door open, bell dinging, same modus operandi.