I was becoming more and more disturbed and upset about the brutal and obscene murder, and about the fact that it probably wouldn’t get a decent investigation from the department, at least not officially. Nana Mama would chalk it up to her conspiracy theories about the white overlords and their “criminal disinterest” in the people of Southeast. She had often told me that she felt morally superior to white people, that she would never, ever treat them the way they treated the black people of Washington.

“Nina’s sister, Marie, takes care of the kids,” Sampson said as we rode down Monroe. “She’s a nice girl. Had a drug problem one time, beat it. Nina helped her. The whole family is close-knit. A lot like yours. This is going to be real bad, Alex.”

I turned to him. Not surprisingly, he was taking Nina’s death even harder than I was. It’s unusual for him to show his emotions, though. “I can do it, John. You stay here in the car. I’ll go up and talk to the family.”

Sampson shook his head and sighed loudly. “Doesn’t work that way, sugar.”

He snugged the Nissan up to the curb, and we both climbed out. He didn’t stop me from coming along to the apartment, so I knew he wanted me there with him. He was right. This was going to be bad.

The Childs apartment took up the first and second floors. The front door was slightly ornate, aluminum. Nina’s husband was already at the door. He had on the proletariat uniform of the D.C. Housing Authority, where he worked: mud-stained work boots, blue trousers, a shirt marked DCHA. One of the babies snuggled in his arms, a beautiful girl who looked at me and smiled and cooed.

“Could we come inside for a moment?” Sampson asked.

“It’s Nina,” the husband said, and started to break down right there in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, William,” I spoke softly. “You’re right. She’s gone. She was found this morning.”

William Childs started to sob loudly. He was a powerful-looking workingman, but that didn’t matter. He held his bewildered little girl to his chest and tried to control the crying, but he couldn’t.

“Oh, God, no. Oh, Nina, Nina baby. How could somebody kill her? How could anybody do that? Oh, Nina, Nina, Nina.”

A young, pretty woman came up behind him. She had to be Nina’s sister, Marie. She took the baby from her sister’s husband, and the little girl began to scream, as if she knew what had happened. I had seen so many families, so many good people, who had lost loved ones on these merciless streets. I knew it would never completely stop, but I felt it ought to get better. It never did.