Page 107

“People shooting at him, chasing him? He’s definitely gone to ground,” Sampson said, irritated.

“We’ve got an APB on him,” I said. “Someone will spot him. He’s too—”

I was interrupted by an echoing vibration coming from above me. Mass didn’t start until ten, so I was surprised to hear the church organ—and even more surprised to hear the soaring tenor voice accompanying it.

Sampson and I looked at each other. “Gotta be,” he said.

We went up the back stairs and into the church. The organ music filled the space as we climbed to the choir loft and spotted the vocalist at the keyboard.

At first I thought we’d made a mistake, that a total stranger was behind the music. But then Aldous Campbell glanced over, saw us standing there, smiled, and quieted the organ and his song. The young man’s short hair, clean clothes, and scrubbed skin made for a complete transformation. Choir Boy’s eyes were clear but a little misty when he said, “Detective Cross. Detective Sampson. Bless you both for saving my life.”

“I’m having a hard time believing it’s you, Aldous,” John said, walking toward him.

“I’m having a hard time believing it’s me too,” he said and laughed. “I went to the Salvation Army after a few days in detox. They gave me a place to stay and they’re helping me make all my meetings. They kind of said the same things you did, Detective Sampson, about music being my way out.”

“Course it is,” Sampson said. “You can’t bottle up the kind of talent you have. It will eat you up inside if you do.”

“It almost did,” Campbell said. “But I feel like I’ve turned the corner. And the best part? The Salvation Army has a regional choir and I’m joining!”

“Good for you,” I said. “Damn it, we needed some good news after yesterday.”

Choir Boy frowned. He looked shocked when I told him that during his stint in rehab, the Firebug investigation had turned away from Alejandro Rodriguez and toward Colin O’Hare because of O’Hare’s personal connection to the murdered Georgetown professor and the fact that he had pumped fuel at the same private airfield where Hawk worked.

“And we think O’Hare figured out that Anna Bananas was onto him and he killed her too,” I said. “Did you know Anna? Her son and daughter and a kid named Boog have been missing since right after her body was found.”

Campbell was stunned by this news. “Yeah, I knew Anna and her kids. And that boy Boog and his mother, Nelly. That woman can really sing. I mean, she does it professionally.”

“So we’ve heard,” Sampson said.

“This is just awful,” Choir Boy said sadly.

“Any idea where they’d go?” I asked. “Anna’s kids? Boog?”

Choir Boy looked down at his long, delicate fingers as if they held the answers, then he cocked his head to one side and said, “I can’t say for sure if I told Boog about this or not. It’s a stab in the dark is what I’m saying, but it could be, you know?”

Less than a week ago in this same choir loft, a drunk Choir Boy had told us about a condemned apartment building he sometimes went to. It wasn’t far from where the first known Firebug victim—and now Frost—had died, and he’d gone there after the reverend was shot and the Audi was set ablaze beneath the Bridge to Nowhere.

“Place was like my own private bunkhouse,” Campbell told us now. “No one ever bothered me there. I got in under the chain-link fence out back and through a broken basement window. And I tried to keep it quiet. Didn’t want to attract more users, ’cause that always pulls in the police.”

“Uh-huh,” Sampson prompted.

“I was pretty bad there for a while, you know. Days of blackout. But I think I might have told Boog about it,” Choir Boy said. “Might have told him it was a safe place to crash.”

“Worth a shot,” I said. “You have an address?”

“No. But I can tell you how to find the place.”

94

CHOIR BOY’S DIRECTIONS WERE spot-on.

Forty minutes later we stood in the heat and drizzling rain on a cracked sidewalk in front of a chain-link fence that surrounded a five-story apartment building six blocks east of New Hampshire Avenue and three blocks south of the District’s boundary with Takoma Park.

A condemned notice and an announcement of pending demolition had been wired to the chained and locked gate. The notice said the District was in possession of the property, seized for back taxes.

John Sampson called a friend of his in the city planning department to find out about the building’s history. It did not take a lot of imagination to figure out why the building was slated for the wrecking ball. The southern half of the fifth floor looked like it had recently burned. The roof had gaping charred holes in some places and a lattice of black rafters in others. The entire building appeared to list to the right.

Sampson hung up, said, “Suspected arson by the former owner three months ago. With all the water laid on the fire, the place shifted off its foundation, which triggered the condemning and seizure proceedings.”