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“That’s not my problem, Ms. Stone. Or Arcadia’s.” Frost shrugged. “They’ll have to move elsewhere. Unless they wish to stay for demolition, which would be very dangerous.”

“You also own an old apartment building east of New York Avenue in Northeast DC?”

“A derelict and condemned building. Yes.”

“Thank you,” she said and then let herself go steely. “Can you tell me about the homeless man who was shot and lit on fire behind that building?”

He appeared surprised and responded, “I’m sorry, but I did not know about that. I admit I’ve lived a privileged life. I can’t begin to understand the dangers associated with poverty and homelessness.”

What an ass, she thought, but said, “Do you know about the man who was shot to death and set on fire three days ago below that ghost ramp you want to buy? He was driving a very expensive Audi.”

Frost looked genuinely surprised at that. Then he pursed his lips and said, “You’re full of novel information, Ms. Stone. We had nothing to do with either of those deaths. However, investor concerns or not, this conversation is over until I’ve had a chance to consult our attorneys.”

49

JOHN SAMPSON AND I worked the Drake Conway case at a feverish pace the entire day, well aware of the media storm building to gale force as word of the theology professor’s killing spread.

We put in a request to search security footage from the vast federal CCTV network in Washington, DC. We wanted to look for footage of the Georgetown professor near the entrances to Rock Creek Park closest to where his body was set on fire, including the one northwest of the Broadmoor, off Connecticut Avenue, by an entrance to the Reservation 630 trail. Unfortunately, that fell within the perimeter of the White House, and due to a state dinner with the Saudi king the following evening, we would not have access until Wednesday morning at the earliest.

At the same time, we had uniformed officers canvassing residents of the Broadmoor’s northeast side, the one facing the park, and we tried to find out everything we could about Drake Conway, the murdered professor.

Gail Grover, chair of the theology department at Georgetown, was crushed when we informed her of Conway’s death. She told us that Conway had been at the university for more than thirty years and was respected and well liked by both faculty and students. She described Conway as an affable and intellectually curious man and an excellent teacher whose research was well received.

His wife, Julia, had died of ovarian cancer six years before. They had had no children, and to Grover’s knowledge, Conway had no new girlfriend or love interest. He’d lived in a modest duplex off Connecticut Avenue and was something of a loner who spent his free time hiking in national parks around the country.

She gave us the number for Conway’s missing iPhone. Sampson and I searched Conway’s office and apartment and seized his work and home computers. We turned them and the tablet from his backpack over to our techs for analysis.

A phone number written in pencil on the prior day’s page in the professor’s Franklin planner proved to belong to a burner phone. Both it and Conway’s iPhone had pinged off cell towers in the vicinity of the professor’s house and the park shortly after midnight.

According to the late professor’s cell provider, he had otherwise not used his iPhone the entire day. The burner phone, however, had pinged off cell towers in Arlington, Virginia, around ten the morning before and then near the Columbia Heights Metro stop in Southeast DC four hours later. A more comprehensive dive into the burner was going to take a warrant.

We explained all this in a meeting with chief of detectives Willard Kane around six p.m., some fifteen hours after the professor’s body had been discovered.

Chief Kane said he was under intense pressure from his bosses about Conway’s murder, and he assured us that he would get the warrant.

“The media’s calling this killer ‘the Firebug,’” Kane said, disgusted. “Why do they always have to come up with a name?”

“Storytellers,” Sampson said sourly. “It’s in their nature.”

“Well, it’s in my nature and yours to find bad guys with media nicknames,” Kane growled. “Solve this case and solve it fast. We can’t have people in the nation’s capital in a panic that they’ll be shot and set on fire, can we?”

“No, sir,” Sampson said, the exasperation clear in his voice.

“You have a problem, Detective?” the chief asked.

“I have a problem with the media being all over this case but ignoring the young woman who was killed just the other day. And the one in Northeast DC before her. They were just homeless people. Just throwaways.”

“Welcome to reality,” Kane said. “Take it up with the journalists. Or their bosses.”

“I’d rather watch paint dry, actually.”

“How about finding out who did it? Until then, I want both of you on this case twenty-four/seven.”

I cleared my throat, held up my hands. “I promise you I will put in long days. But my grandmother, who raised me, is having a tough time. I need to be home at night with her and my family.”

“And my daughter takes precedence as well,” Sampson said. “Give us some bodies to pick up the slack, and I guarantee you we will find the killer.”

Kane chewed his lower lip. He wasn’t happy about it, but he said, “Done. I’ll put Tommy Hayes and Judy Winthrop on it as well, reporting to you two. Good?”