A single squad car and an EMS truck were parked at the homicide scene. A uniformed patrolman was posted on the front stoop, and he seemed intent on keeping intruders out. He was young, baby-faced, with smooth, butterscotch skin. I didn’t know him, so I flashed my detective’s shield.

“Detective Cross.” He grunted. I sensed that he’d heard of me.

“What do we have so far?” I asked before I went inside to trudge up four steep flights. “What do you hear, Officer?”

“Two girls dead upstairs. Both pros, apparently. One of them lived in the building. Murders were called in anonymously. Maybe a neighbor, maybe the pimp. They’re sixteen, seventeen, maybe younger. Too bad. They didn’t deserve this.”

I nodded, took a deep breath, and then quickly climbed up the steep, winding, creaking stairs to the fourth floor. Prostitutes make for difficult police investigations, and I wondered if the Weasel knew that. On average, a hooker out of Petworth might turn a dozen or more tricks a night, and that’s a lot of forensic evidence just on her body.

The door to apartment 4A was wide open, and I could see inside. It was an efficiency, with one large room, kitchenette, bath. A fluffy white area rug lay between two daybeds. A lava lamp was undulating green blobs next to several dildos.

Sampson was crouched on the far side of one daybed. He looked like an NBA power forward searching the floor for a missing contact lens.

I walked into a small, untidy room that smelled of incense, peach-blossom fragrance, greasy food. A bright red and yellow McDonald’s container of fries was open on the couch.

Dirty clothes covered the chairs: bike shorts, short-shorts, Karl Kani urban clothes. At least a dozen bottles of nail polish and remover, a couple of nail files, and cotton balls lay on the floor. There was a heavy, cloying smell of fruity perfume in the room.

I went around the bed to look at the victims. Two very young women, both naked from the waist down. The Weasel had been here — I could feel it.

The girls were lying one on top of the other, looking like lovers. They looked as if they were having sex on the floor.

One girl wore a blue tank top, the other black lingerie. They both still wore “slides,” stacked bath sandals that are popular nowadays. Most of the Jane Does had been left naked, but unlike many of the others, these two would be fairly easy for us to identify.

“No actual I.D. on either girl,” Sampson said, without looking up from his work.

“One of them rents the apartment, though,” I told him.

He nodded. “Probably pays cash. She’s in a cash business.”

Sampson was wearing latex rubber gloves, and was bent down close to the two women.