Page 51

We followed Wilson downhill with flashlights in the dawn light as her team struggled to drag their hoses up out of the woods. Despite the lack of wind, the thermals were trending downward, so we didn’t get hit with the stench of the spent fuel and the badly charred body until we were close enough to see two Metro officers taping off a wide area around the burn.

We put on blue booties and gloves and ducked under the tape. The body was on a rocky outcrop about thirty yards off the trail.

Sampson called to Wilson and the police officers, “Is there a homeless camp around here?”

“Kind of a ritzy part of town for that,” the fire captain replied.

One of the officers said, “They might camp here for the night, but there aren’t any permanent shelters that I know of. The National Park Service frowns on that.”

I asked, “Has the Park Service been notified?”

“Not yet,” the other officer said.

The corpse was splayed belly-down on a blackened ledge, not curled in the fetal position like typical fire victims. I moved closer and crouched beside the body—which was still smoking—and shone my light on the back of the head.

“He shot first?” Sampson asked.

“Small-caliber entry wound high on the parietal bone,” I said. “So what are we thinking? Killer lures or ambushes him here in the middle of the night, shoots him, then douses him in avgas and torches him?”

Sampson scratched his head. “I can’t see someone coming here in the dark carrying a gun in one hand and, what, a heavy gas can in the other? If he used avgas, it must’ve been hidden nearby.”

“Possible,” I said. “There should be signs of that somewhere around here.”

Sampson walked around the scene slowly, studying the scorched earth. There was indeed some kind of sticky, oily substance visible on the ground and on the body when we played our flashlights on the scene. He gestured to the bottom of the ledge and an off-white blob about eighteen inches by eighteen inches. “Looks like something plastic melted there.”

“I see it,” I said, and marked it with a stick from outside the burn. “We’ll have them sample it, see if it was the fuel tank.”

Daylight was coming fast, revealing in more detail the oak and pine foliage overhead and the area around the body. Beyond the perimeter of the burn, I could make out where someone might have come through the brush from the hiking trail.

I left the crime scene and wandered slowly downhill, looking to the left and right of that suggestion of a path, using my flashlight until the sun was completely up. I reached the trail without finding any hard evidence that either the victim or the killer had come that way.

I scanned the woods on the other side of the trail. There was a brush-choked drainage ditch running parallel to the path toward Rock Creek and the parkway, where cars rumbled in the distance.

A circle of white and red in the ditch caught my eye.

47

I SLID DOWN THE steep bank into the ditch and landed in muck up to my ankles. Feeling the ooze going into my shoes, I swore as I pushed aside thorny branches and stalks. I quickly spotted the red and white circle I’d come searching for, attached to a backpack the color of dead grass.

Hanging upside down in a thick bunch of brush about three feet away, the khaki bag had a circular patch on the front. I had to tilt my head to make out the logo, which depicted the image of a curled-up red fox. Around the fox in red letters, it said FJÄLLRÄVEN KÅNKEN.

I knew the Fjällräven brand. Expensive, Scandinavian, well-made urban-warrior gear and clothing. This bag looked new. Not the kind of thing that got tossed in a ditch by its owner.

“John, I’ve got something here!” I yelled, pulling out my iPhone to take pictures of the bag and its position.

Sampson appeared above me. He grimaced. “You in the mud?”

“Up to my ankles, unfortunately. See this here, though? That is a ridiculously expensive, brand-new-looking backpack.”

The grimace vanished, replaced by interest. “I see it.”

“Take a picture and get me and the bag in it before I see what’s inside.”

Sampson took several shots, then said, “You’re good.”

I tried to step forward and immediately felt the suction that meant my shoe was coming off, but I pulled my foot up anyway. The other shoe came off with my next step. I kept moving through the muck in my socks and yanked the backpack down.

I turned it around and saw a bulge in the zipped front pocket. Inside I found a billfold with a driver’s license and a university ID.