Page 5 of The Family Cross

“How many in the tribe?” Sampson asked.

Dennison shrugged. “Two hundred? Maybe more than that? I don’t know. Hard to tell. Place like this, people come and go, you know? Anyway, Gleason, my partner, he’s in there guarding the scene, waiting on you.”

We thanked Dennison and walked to where an old road of sorts cut into the dense wet foliage, which in the building heat made us feel like we were in a steam room. Drenched with sweat, we came to an overgrown clearing in the trees that gave us a cleaner look at the ramp and the stanchions that supported it.

Graffiti covered almost every inch of the massive concrete structure.

“That kind of sums it up, I guess,” I said.

“What does?” Sampson said as we began to pick our way down the old roadbed.

I gestured at the biggest, most colorful graffiti painted in ornate scrollwork along the side of the ramp. It read The Bridge to Nowhere.

“I see it,” John said. “And they see us.”

“Who?”

“The trolls. The PUBs. Quite a few of them. Look up, under the ramp.”

I shaded my eyes from the sun and saw a score of adults and teens watching us from high up. There were more people down on the embankments that supported the ramp’s opposing stanchions, and I saw the suggestion of primitive shelters beyond.

I said, “Didn’t Anna Bananas use that same phrase this morning? People under the bridge?”

Sampson shrugged. “Dunno. I was focused on bacon.”

“You’re very mission-oriented.”

“I’ll own that.”

We rounded a corner. The ground ahead was a quagmire of reddish mud and broken pavement pieces that ran under the ramp to the car, which was still smoking.

Officer Gleason saw us and waved us to the right of the mess, where we were able to cross toward him and the yellow tape without losing our shoes. As we got closer, I could see more of the Bridge to Nowhere encampment. The shanties and tents started about a third of the way up each embankment and grew denser higher up beneath the ramp.

It was shocking to see. It was worse to smell.

Knowing we were being observed by dozens of eyes as we neared the police tape, Sampson muttered, “Looks like a miniature version of a slum I saw in Rio once.”

“People shouldn’t have to live this way,” I said. “Especially in the nation’s capital.”

“People shouldn’t have to live like this anywhere,” Sampson said. We jumped across a small rivulet of rainwater and came up alongside Officer Gleason. Gleason’s partner was right. The muddy area around the burned Audi had been trampled.

We introduced ourselves to Gleason. “No one’s talking,” he told us.

“Heard that,” I said. I ducked under the tape and walked to the burned vehicle, smelling the acrid odors still coming from the smoking wreckage.

Sampson followed, putting his mouth and nose in the crook of his arm as we came up alongside the Audi. The explosive heat had been so extreme, the glass in all the windows was blown out, giving us an unobstructed view from several angles of the charred corpse inside.

5

AWARE OF THE AUDIENCE still monitoring us from above, John Sampson and I moved slowly counterclockwise around the car and the burned body. The upper torso had pulled away from what remained of the front seat and was curled forward and down, arms at the sides, forehead resting against what was left of the dash.

“Male, I think,” John said, peering in the driver’s side.

“Male,” I agreed, looking through the windshield frame at the blackened back of the skull. “And I don’t think he burned to death.”

Sampson stood up. “Died somewhere else and was brought here?”

“Gimme a second,” I said, returning to the side of the car. I stuck my head in and held my breath while I quickly inspected the charred flesh and bone at the back of the victim’s skull. I found the injury I’d suspected would be there, low on the left occipital bone.