There was a catch in my voice when I spoke again. “And you didn’t tell anybody about the accident, not even when you saw the news stories?”

The man shook his head. “Didn’t see no stories. Don’t bother with the local news much. Just small-time shit and worthless gossip. But then my girl, she keep talking about it. I didn’t want to go to the police, but she made me do it, made me talk to this inspector here.”

“You know what kind of van it was?” I asked.

“White van. I think it was maybe a rented one. Clean and new.”

“License plate?”

Graham shook his head. “Don’t have no idea.”

“What did the man in the van look like?” I asked him. “Any little thing you remember is helpful, Mr. Graham. You’ve already helped a lot.”

He shrugged, but I could tell that he was trying to think back to that afternoon. “Nothing special about him. Not as tall as you, but tall. Look like anybody else. Just a black man, like any other.”

Chapter 49

IN A SMALL APARTMENT in a suburb of Washington called Mount Rainier, Detective Patsy Hampton lay in bed, restlessly flipping through the pages of the Post. She couldn’t sleep, but there was nothing unusual about that. She often had trouble sleeping, ever since she was a little girl in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her mother said she must have a guilty conscience about something.

She watched a rerun episode of ER, then fetched herself a Stonyfield yogurt with blueberries and logged on to America Online. She had an e-mail from her father, now relocated in Delray Beach, Florida, and one from an old college roommate from the University of Richmond, whom she had never been that close to anyway.

The roommate had just heard from a mutual friend that Patsy was a hotshot police detective in Washington, and what an exciting life she must lead. The roommate wrote that she had four children and lived in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, but added that she was bored with everything in her life. Patsy Hampton would have given anything to have just one child.

She wandered back to the kitchen and got a cold bottle of Evian mineral water. She was aware that her life had become ridiculous. She spent too much time on her job, but also too much time by herself in her apartment, especially on weekends. It wasn’t that she couldn’t get dates; she was just turned off by men in general lately.

She still fantasized about finding someone compatible, having children. But she was increasingly tired of the depressing and maddening cycle of trying to meet someone interesting. She usually ended up with guys who were either hopelessly boring or thirty-something jackasses who still acted like teenagers, though without the charm of youth. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, she thought as she sent off a cheery lie to her dad in Florida.