The police commissioner was involved in the Odenkirk case and was putting added pressure on the department. It was making everyone angry and a little crazy. Chief Pittman was riding his detectives hard, but the only case he seemed interested in was the Odenkirk killing, especially since a suspect had been arrested in the German tourist murder.

At around eleven that morning, Rakeem Powell stopped by my desk. He bent low and whispered, “Might have something interesting, Alex. Downstairs in the jail, if you’ve got a minute. Could be a first break on those two murdered girls in Shaw.”

The jail was down a set of steep concrete stairs, just past a tight warren of small interrogation rooms, a holding room, and a booking room. All over the ceiling and walls, prisoners had scratched their street names or used black ink from fingerprinting to write the names. This was incredibly dumb of them, since it gave us information for our files.

It’s purposely kept dark down in the jail. Each cell is six by five feet, with a metal bed and a combination water fountain/toilet. Sneakers had been tossed in the hallways outside several of the cells. It’s what experienced prisoners do who won’t take the laces out of their sneaks. Laces aren’t allowed in the jail for safety reasons.

A small-time drug runner and petty thief named Alfred “Sneak” Streek was seated like the Fresh Prince of D.C. in one of the holding cells. The street punk looked up at me as I entered his cell. A slicky-sick smirk crossed his face.

Sneak was sporting wraparound sunglasses, dusty dreadlocks, and a bright-green and yellow crocheted hat. His white T-shirt had a drawing of Haile Selassie’s face and read HEAD HUNTER. RASTAFARIAN.

“You from the D.A.’s office? I don’t think so. No dealee, no talkee, my man,” he said to me. “So get lost.”

Rakeem ignored him as he spoke to me. “Sneak claims to have some useful information about the Glover and Cardinal homicides. He would like us to extend him some courtesy in return for what he claims to know. He’s jammed up on a charge that he may have broken into an apartment in Shaw. He was caught coming out of a bedroom window with a Sony TV in his arms. Imagine that. Not very Sneaky of him.”

“I didn’t rob no ticky-tacky apartment. I don’t even watch TV, my man. And I don’t see no assistant district attorney present with the au-tho-rity to make a deal.”

“Take off your sunglasses,” I said to him.

He wouldn’t look at me, so I took them off for him. As one well-known street saying goes, his eyes were like tombstones. I could tell at a glance that Sneak wasn’t just running drugs anymore; he was using.