closed the garage doors, and locked them with the padlock. Alonso paid the boys to watch the garage and alert him if anyone tried to break in. Gas was so precious thieves siphoned it from vehicles all over the city.
The boys stood at attention and saluted. “At ease, men,” Alonso called with a salute of his own.
They rolled down the narrow alley between grim two-story tenements. This was the other Washington, Negro Washington. Alleyways like this lay tucked away all over the city. Behind a white neighborhood was a Negro one. The newspapers called the alleyways the secret city.
Jess noticed cardboard stars taped in some tenement windows, signifying these families had a member fighting in the war. Patriotism existed here, where running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity didn’t.
From several windows, oil lamps gave off soft glows, but from the window closest to the garage, an electric bulb came on, lighting the alley like a beacon.
Jess stared at that bright window. “Ruth’s waving at you, Al.”
Without turning his head, Alonso touched his fedora’s brim to her.
“What happens when Mrs. Trundle discovers you’re sending electricity from her house to Ruth’s?” Jess asked.
“Let there be light,” Alonso said, a smile in his voice. “Don’t worry, Jess. Mrs. Trundle never comes out here.”
Women with babies in their laps and elderly men sat on stoops, fanning themselves. Someone played a spiritual on a harmonica. Voices sang along softly. Men rolling dice moved out of the way to let their sedan pass. Standing with hands on hips, the dice players glared at Alonso, a mulatto.
Jess rubbed the notch in his chin. “No wonder Ruth brings you collards and cornbread all the time.”
“Ruth needed better light to study. She wants to become a government girl, but I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“Why not? This war’s opening up opportunities for everyone. Only in wartime would the FBI hire a one-armed man.”
“They hired the famous Alabama detective, Jessup Lindsay. And you forced them to take me.”
Jess took in Alonso’s profile, so like his own. “Brother, I let Fred know I never solved anything without you, that you and me are two crackers from the same cracker barrel.”
The corners of Alonso’s mouth lifted at the word brother for they were half-brothers, not that anything between them felt divided. On his own, Jess couldn’t cuff a suspect, but Alonso could. They worked like a pair of hands and traveled from job-to-job. This one with the FBI was temporary. Once they solved this case, they’d be on their way. Unless they didn’t solve it quickly enough for Director Hoover and were fired.
Alonso braked at the street. “Where was her body found, Jess?”
“Arlington National Cemetery.” Jess took the map from the glove compartment. “Know where that is?” They had been on the job a month now and were still learning Washington.
“Sure. Put the map away.” Alonso stuck his arm out the window, signaling a left turn.
They took Georgia Avenue, which became 7th Street, through the city. Whenever their motor car crossed streetcar tracks, Alonso reached over to steady his camera.
“He’s right on schedule,” Alonso said, a catch in his voice.
Jess understood how his brother felt. They hadn’t found the killer yet. A young woman died tonight because they had failed to find this killer, and for that they grieved.
“Oh, yes,” said Jess. “He’s punctual and ritualistic.”
Everywhere, streets were brightly lit, and sidewalks filled with uniforms, Navy whites and jaunty sailor hats, marines and army in summertime khaki. A long line waited to get into the Apex Movie Theater on 14th Street to see Double Indemnity.
“It’s after 10:00 on a Sunday night, but this city’s still having a Saturday night party.” Jess scanned the faces in the crowd. Was the killer among them? “Only the party guests keep changing.”
This was the strangest case they had ever worked. They hadn’t found a single witness who remembered the victim when she disappeared, much less the man at her side.
Alonso stopped at a light. “According to that Bureau report, 15,000 servicemen from military bases a bus or train ride away pour into Washington every weekend.”
“That’s like having 15,000 suspects.”
MPs, their whistles shrill, ran toward a crowd of sailors fighting with some soldiers.
Alonso pulled out from the light and steered around a telegram boy pedaling fast on his bicycle. The government sent telegrams to the families of servicemen wounded, missing in action, or killed. This boy would deliver bad news to some family tonight.
“You suppose if we questioned all 15,000 every weekend, we’d find him?” Jess sighed. “Which reminds me. We’ve got a few cells of servicemen to question after this is done tonight. The officer on duty blamed the heat for the rise in assaults on women.” He heard his own discouragement.
“Sometime soon we’re going to catch a break.”
A police siren wailed in the distance.
“Hope you’re right, Al. Most of these servicemen aren’t stateside long enough to kill anyone. And we both know these kinds of killings are the hardest to solve because the victim doesn’t know her killer.”
Jess went over his notes in his head. They were overlooking something. “If government girls are so khaki wacky, how come they can’t distinguish one uniform from another?”
The first victim told her roommates she’d met a Naval officer in Lafayette Park, but the second government girl, whose body was found in Rock Creek Park, wrote in her diary she met a handsome Marine at the USO. Were any of these the man the girls went off with? The man who wrapped his belt around their necks and squeezed the life out of them?
“I tested Ruth and Miss Minnie with those photographs.” Alonso nodded at the windshield. “They got all the branches of the service right as well as each man’s rank. What do you make of that?”
Jess considered. “Well, Ruth and her mother have lived in Washington a long time, so they’ve been around the military, and Miss Minnie works in a laundry, cleaning and mending uniforms. Whereas most government girls are new to the city, like these two coming to live at Mrs. Trundle’s tonight. Maybe they’ll allow us to test them.”
They passed the Lincoln Memorial covered in darkness. Couples walked up its marble steps hand-in-hand. The memorial, kept dark at night as a conservation measure, had become a lovers’ lane. Couples went there to kiss and pet.
But the killer found even more remote places to leave his victim’s body.
They drove between the twin statues of muscular men on horseback flanking the Memorial Bridge and crossed the Potomac. Reflected light from the bridge’s equidistant lamps flickered in the dark water.
“This river is a common thread in all the murders,” Jess said. “Every place
