I slipped on a somewhat worn white satin robe. Muhammad Ali had worn it in his training camp in Manila before the Joe Frazier fight. Sampson had given it to me for my fortieth birthday. He appreciated the fact that while most people would treat the robe as some kind of sacred exhibit in their house, I routinely wear it to breakfast.

I love the old robe, which is unusual for me since I’m not particularly into mementos and souvenirs. Maybe part of it is that I’m supposed to resemble Ali physically, or so people tell me. Maybe I’m a little better looking, but he’s definitely the better man.

When I got down to the kitchen, Nana and the kids were sitting at the table watching the small portable TV that she keeps there but doesn’t use very often. She prefers to read or chitchat and, of course, cook.

“Ali.” Jannie looked up at me and grinned, but then her eyes went back to the TV. “You should watch this, Daddy.”

Nana muttered into her cup of tea. “Your British murderer is all over the news this morning. TV and the newspaper, too. ‘Diplomatic Immunity May Bar Prosecution of British Embassy Suspect,’ ‘Spy Linked to Detective Slay.’ They already interviewed people in Union Station and on Pennsylvania Avenue. Everybody’s mad as a hatter about this diplomatic-immunity disgrace, as they call it. It’s just terrible.”

“I’m mad. It’s not right,” Damon said. “Not if he did it. Did he, Dad? Did he do it?”

I nodded. “He did it.” I poured milk into my coffee. I wasn’t quite ready to deal with Geoffrey Shafer, or the kids, or especially the horrible, senseless murder the night before. “Anything else on the news?”

“The Wizards kicked butt,” Damon said with a straight face. “Rod Strickland had a double-double.”

“Shhhh.” Nana gave us both a mighty look of irritation. “CNN carried stories from London. The media there is already comparing this to that unfortunate nanny case in Massachusetts. They say that Geoffrey Shafer is a decorated war hero and that he claims, with good reason, that he was framed by the police. I assume that means you, Alex.”

“Yes, it does. Let’s watch CNN for a few minutes,” I said. Nobody objected, so I switched the channel. A hard knot was forming in my stomach. I didn’t like what I was seeing and hearing on TV.

Almost immediately, a reporter came on the screen from London. He introduced himself and then proceeded to give a pompous, thirty-second summary of the previous evening’s events.

The reporter looked gravely into the camera. “And now, in a dramatic turnabout, we have learned that the Washington Police Department is investigating a bizarre twist. The senior detective who arrested Geoffrey Shafer might himself be a suspect in the murder case. At least that’s what has been reported in the American press.”