Frank felt his gut go heavy. He’d seen violent death, some of it in wholesale lots. He’d never gotten used to it. But he’d learned to wall it off. He’d kept the wall in good repair. Through Vietnam, through the years on the force, the wall had shielded him from the soul-searing exhibits of the horrific things people did to one another. Lately, though, it seemed too much was getting through. Too much was following him home.

He pulled over to the curb. He and Jose got out and walked toward the lights and the Notorious B.I.G. rap blaring from the Taurus.

At six-two, Frank was an inch shorter than Jose, and at one-ninety, thirty pounds lighter. Frank had run track and cross-country at the University of Maryland. Jose had played football at Howard, switching in his junior year to boxing. They’d been together on the force for twenty-six years. Roommates at the academy, beat cops in every tough neighborhood in the District, and now plainclothes in Homicide.

But the years had done more than produce the force’s two most senior detectives. Their off-duty lives had intersected and intertwined. The two men had supported each other through private triumphs and personal trials, through marriages and children, divorces and deaths. Years passed, and each became as comfortable with the other as he was with his own shadow.

One of the uniformed officers turned. Frank recognized Antwon Hawkins.

Hawkins walked toward them with the rolling swagger of a sailor on shore leave. One hand thumb-hooked over his pistol belt, he tossed Jose a casual salute with the other.

“Ho-zay can you see?” he singsonged.

Jose pointed at the car. “Who was that?”

“None other than the newly dead Skeeter Hodges.”

As they walked to the car, Frank felt the heaviness ease. “Somebody finally got him?”