Free The Night Crew by Brian Haig

sole copy of the photo she had earlier revealed to me. I inquired, “What’s this about?”
    Before he answered, he walked over to a chair in the corner of the room. He sat, then spent a moment getting comfortable, tugging his pants out of his crotch, and whatever. As I said, he was a career cop, and he was prolonging this pause to exert control over this conversation and also, I thought, using the moment to get a better handle on us. He looked at Katherine, then at me. “You two should sit. This could take a while.”
    I sat on the edge of the desk, whereas Katherine chose to cross her arms and stand. I believe I already mentioned that she has some serious authority issues.
    Without further ado, O’Reilly informed us, “This morning, Major Martin Weinstein was found dead in his car.”
    I looked at Katherine. She was staring at him with a completely impassive expression.
    I said to O’Reilly, “I’m sorry to hear that, but this means what to me?”
    “Well . . . by dead, I meant murdered.”
    I shrugged. “Once again, what does this mean to me?”
    “You don’t know?”
    Obviously not.
    “Shit . . . I thought all you defense attorneys knew one another. Weinstein was handling the defense for Sergeant Elton.”
    This would be Danny, the soldier, director, choreographer, and perhaps photographer of all my client’s naughty deeds. Katherine had now traded her impassive expression for a pensive one, and asked, “How was he murdered?”
    He looked at her a moment. Cops don’t like to share information about ongoing murder investigations, especially with a pair of nosy defense attorneys.
    Actually, I fully expected Chief O’Reilly to tell Katherine to screw off, though, in fact, he did not. He instead explained, “Okay, here’s what we’ve got. Weinstein left his townhouse—part of a small complex near Quantico—slightly before six this morning. He was dressed for physical training, in sweats. Got into his car, a gray Lincoln LS, was just inserting the key into the ignition when somebody grabbed his hair, yanked his head back, and used a nonserrated blade to slash his throat.”
    Without losing a beat, Katherine theorized, “Indicating the killer was hiding in the backseat?”
    “It does suggest that, yes. No signs of a break-in though. And the victim was obviously surprised because there are no indications of a struggle. It’s a nice, peaceful community where nobody locks their cars. So probably, he—the killer—just slipped in and waited for his moment.”
    Katherine asked, “Do you know who the killer is? Maybe you have a preliminary list of suspects? A promising lead or two?”
    “Nope.”
    “You said he .”
    “That is what I said, yes.”
    “Then how can you be confident of the gender of the killer?”
    “Because the cut . . . all the way through the soft tissue, sheared the throat cavity, and actually nicked the cervical spine. One slice, and”—with his hand, as if we needed a visual, he made a quick slashing motion—“the victim was nearly decapitated. Takes a lot of strength to do that.”
    Katherine, thankfully, did not take offense at this unliberated view of female virility.
    But since we seemed to be into conjecture and opinions, I stated, “Further suggesting that the killer knew the victim’s personal habits.”
    “That’s possible.”
    “No, that’s likely.”
    Cops love know-it-all lawyers, and he smiled, wearily. “Is it?”
    “Did the family have two cars?”
    “Yeah, they did. A red Dodge minivan was also parked in the driveway.”
    “So even aside from knowing where the victim lived, the killer was aware of which car was for the wife and kids to mess up, and which car the man of the house drove. He knew the victim did physical training in the mornings, and he knew what time he left his home.” O’Reilly did not disagree with any of these points, and I asked, “How was the body discovered?”
    “By Mrs. Weinstein. Like many military families, he always got