Free Difficult Run by John Dibble Page B

  She held out the leash and the dog took it, ran to the front of the tent, dropped it and came back for a second treat, looking up at M.J. with wide eyes and a smile.   “OK,” M.J. said, “I’ll give you another one this time, but only because you did such a good job of keeping up.”
    Doc came around the corner of the tent and said with a smile, “You’re really spoiling my dog, M.J.”
    “I know,” she replied. “See you next time.”
    The next morning, she parked unobtrusively outside the church where the boys’ funeral was being held and watched the arrival of the mourners.   She knew that killers sometimes attended the funerals of their victims for reasons that she found hard to fathom.
    The parking lot filled up quickly and the Fairfax County Police started directing traffic to an alternate lot where a shuttle bus had been hastily called into service.   By her rough count, around a thousand people came to the funeral, most of them kids from Langley, many of them crying and leaning on each other for support. She watched until they had all either entered the main sanctuary or been diverted to an attached fellowship hall with a closed-circuit television hook-up.   She knew this showing of love and support would help the parents of the boys and she felt a twinge of guilt for being there to spy on the crowd.   It was, however, part of her job. Unfortunately, she didn’t see anyone who even remotely raised her suspicions.
    She continued to run almost every day in the park, both because she enjoyed running and because it was a good way to watch the comings and goings there.   She ran at different times of the day and on different trails to make sure she was observing the totality of the park visitors.   She also went back to Difficult Run several times at night to observe the activity there.
    After several weeks, she knew many of the regulars on the trails, some of whom said “hello” when they saw her.   For the most part, the consistent park visitors were either young runners, hikers, people walking their dogs or older people just taking a leisurely walk.   There were also the daily visits to Mather Gorge by kayakers and rock climbers.
    Before starting her daytime runs, M.J. always stopped by Doc’s camp.   She rationalized this in her own mind as being the same as checking in with an informant when doing undercover work, but she knew that she had actually developed a degree of affection for Doc and, of course,   Lola, who she always took along on her runs.   On several occasions, she had even given them both a ride into town so Doc could pick up his mail and supplies and return library books.
    Jake had distributed the TipLine posters to the schools in the area and the case had been added to the Most Wanted List on the Park Police web site.   So far, neither had produced any information.
    In early May, she and Jake were assigned as backup for a raid by the Narcotics and Vice Unit in the notorious Trinidad section of the District of Columbia.   They donned bullet-proof vests and pulled in behind the “jump-outs”, a slang term used by residents for the unmarked cars carrying plainclothes narcotics officers. Their main function was to handcuff and guard some of the dozen or so people arrested until the van arrived to take them to jail.
    During the week before Memorial Day, they, along with all uniformed and plainclothes Park Police, were assigned to security on the National Mall and at Arlington National Cemetery for the ceremonies and other events.
    Even with these duties and the assignment of other criminal investigations, M.J. was able to go to Great Falls Park every day.   She failed to see anyone suspicious, but she kept running and watching.

CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    M .J. WENT RUNNING WITH LOLA on the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day and repeated the routine on Wednesday. She still didn’t see anyone suspicious on the trails.
    By Wednesday night, she was tired, troubled and frustrated, and