MICHAEL TATE AND ERNEST Henderson, well fed, waited in the lot of the Hair Raisers on Riggs Road until Chantel Richards emerged from the shop and got into a red Toyota Solara.
“Nice car,” said Tate.
“For a girl,” said Henderson. “What, you want one now?”
“I’m sayin, it’s got style. Figures that she would be rockin it.”
Chantel drove it across the lot and out the exit lane.
“Be real hard for her to lose us,” said Tate. “Seein as how red it is.”
“’Less you let her.”
“Huh?”
“What you waitin on?”
“I’m about to go.”
“You ain’t gone yet?”
They followed her into Maryland, through Langley Park and up New Hampshire Avenue. She got onto the Beltway and took it deep through Prince George’s County. Nesto Henderson had been right. The color of the Solara made it an easy tail.
Chantel got off at the westbound ramp of Central Avenue and after a mile or so made a right onto Hill Road. Tate, behind the wheel, hung back, as the traffic had thinned. When Chantel parked behind another vehicle, on the berm at the crest of a rise, past a residential cluster that stopped at a large stand of trees, Tate slowed and put the Maxima to the shoulder a hundred yards back.
“What she doin,” said Henderson, “walkin into the woods?”
“Nah, that’s gravel. Can’t you see it? Some kind of road.”
“There’s a car parked in front of her.”
“Impala SS.”
“Could be that it’s our man’s car. Could be he stayin in a house back in there.”
“Okay, then,” said Tate. “We did our thing. We followed her and we know where she at. Let’s go back and tell Raymond.”
“We ain’t done.” Henderson pulled his cell and began to dial in a number. “Ray’s gonna want to come out.”
“For what?”
“Get his money. That boy Romeo took him off for fifty.” Henderson waited for the ring tone. “Ray Benjamin’s quiet till you scheme him. He gonna get serious behind this.”
Michael Tate’s mouth went dry. He was thirsty, and he wanted to run away. At the very least, he needed to be out of this car.
“While you talk to Ray,” said Tate, “I’ll go up in those woods, see what I can see.”
“Right,” said Henderson, just as Benjamin came on the line.
RAMONE PARKED HIS TAHOE on the 6000 block of Georgia Avenue, north of Piney Branch Road. He walked down the sidewalk, then turned right and took a few steps up to the iron gate that fronted the Battleground National Cemetery. Ramone lifted the latch on the gate, pushed it open, and stepped between two six-pound smoothbore guns and onto the grounds.
He went down a concrete walkway, past an old stone house that was a residence, and several large headstones, and continuing on to the centerpiece of the cemetery, an American flag flying from atop a pole surrounded by forty-one grave markers. There lay the Union soldiers who had died at the battle of Fort Stevens. Outside points of the circle were four poems mounted on brass plates, set up on stands. Ramone went to one of the plates and read its inscription:
THE MUFFLED DRUM’S SAD ROLL HAS BEAT
THE SOLDIER’S LAST TATTOO;
NO MORE ON LIFE’S PARADE SHALL MEET
THAT BRAVE AND FALLEN FEW.
Ramone looked around. It was quiet here, an acre of grass, trees, and spare commemoration in an urban environment. Despite the country atmosphere, the cemetery was visible from a highly traveled thoroughfare to the west and, on the eastward side, the residential block of Venable Place. There were less risky locations to meet partners. Ramone didn’t think Asa would have come here for sex. It was probably the closest spot to his house where he could escape his home life and neighborhood and find a little peace.
Asa had told the Spriggs twins that he was headed for the Lincoln-Kennedy Monument. He had wanted them to remember it. He had wanted someone to find something he had left behind, and it had to be here.
Ramone went back to the entrance to the cemetery, where the large headstones sat, four in a row. And there he saw that they were not traditional headstones but monuments to Army Corps, Volunteer Cavalry, and National Guard Units from Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania.
One monument that was topped with a peaked cap stood taller than the rest. Ramone stood before it and read its face: “To the Gallant Sons of Onondaga County, N.Y., who fought on this field July 12, 1864, in Defence of Washington and in the presence of Abraham Lincoln.”
Ramone stepped around the monument’s side. On it were listed the names of the killed and wounded. Among those listed was the name John Kennedy.
He looked at the ground surrounding the monument. He kicked at it. He went behind the monument and studied the turf and saw that a square of it had been placed or replaced there. He got down on one knee and lifted the square of turf. In the dirt beneath it lay a large plastic ziplock bag, the size used for marinating a piece of meat. A book with no letters on its cover or spine was in the bag.
Ramone took Asa’s journal out of the bag. He went to a maple tree in the corner of the grounds, sat down in its shade, leaned his back against the maple’s trunk, and opened the journal.
He began to read. Time passed, and the shadows in the cemetery lengthened and crawled toward his feet.