Read Murder on the Potomac for Free Online Page A

Roosevelt memorial, crossed one of four small footbridges spanning a water-filled moat, and started down a foot trail, one of two-and-a-half miles of trails that criss-crossed the eighty-eight-acre preserve. The first flight out of nearby National Airport whined above; Mayes looked up and watched the jet become a black dragonfly against the reddening eastern sky. He stopped a number of times on his way to the river where a 170-foot pedestrian causeway linked the island to a parking lot just off the northbound lane of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. A startled red fox fixed him with wide eyes, then disappeared into a grove of tulip trees. A chipmunk crossed his path. Mayes smiled as the tiny, curious creature darted out of his way, perched on the fallen trunk of a maple, and sat up. “ ’Morning,” Mayes said.
    He enjoyed the early-morning peace at this place. There was no peace at home these days.
    As he neared the river, the ground became spongy. The island, he would point out to his first batch of tourists, consisted of three biological communities—swamp, marsh, and upland forest.
    Minutes later, he stood at the island end of the causeway and looked out over the Potomac. A small bass boat moved south, its two occupants heading for a day of fishing. Mayes envied them. Maybe he’d drag out his fishing gear that weekend.
    Every morning since being assigned to duty on the island,it was Mayes’s responsibility to cross to the opposite end of the causeway and unlock a padlock that secured a metal gate through which visitors would pass. There was no need this morning. When he’d arrived in the darkness, he’d noticed that the lock was undone, the gate partway open. The ranger who’d finished up yesterday must have forgotten; Mayes made a mental note to mention it to his colleague when he came on duty.
    He leaned on the railing and peered down at the shoreline below the causeway. He shook his head. Although the Potomac had been cleaned up over the past few years—it no longer was a vile, brown, polluted waterway and now supported an ample fish population—people still dumped garbage into it. “Slobs!” he said at the sight of plastic bags, tin cans, and other vestiges of human consumption that had drifted in to shore and were trapped by small broken branches and rocks. He turned and started back up to the memorial, hesitated after only a few feet, and returned to where he’d stood. He leaned over the railing as far as he dared and squinted.
    Then he said, “Oh, my God.”

7
    That Afternoon
    Mac Smith looked out over his one o’clock class and frowned. He was tired; he’d been lecturing for two hours on the subject of plea bargaining and its place in the criminal-justice system. The more pragmatic of his students accepted his thesis that plea bargaining was a necessary evil in a system choked with cases. Others, their idealism worn on their earrings, saw no rightful place for the distasteful practice of cutting deals with criminals. One, a pale young lady who’d been arrested more than once at White House demonstrations for causes unknown, was the most vocal. He enjoyed debates with most people, on most subjects, but she bothered him. There was an expression on her thin face that spoke of scorn for him and his anachronistic ideas. Disagreewith me, but keep your scorn to yourself, he thought.
    That day, she’d droned on about the government’s penchant for granting immunity, or reduced sentences, to violent, vicious members of organized crime in order to put away the top guy.
    “Like the Gotti case,” Smith said, checking his watch.
    “Exactly,” the student responded. “That guy, Sammy the Bull, was an acknowledged murderer. But because the feds had a thing for Gotti and his in-your-face style, they let slime like Sammy the Bull walk free.”
    Smith said that it was an imperfect world and that he was glad it was, because a perfect world would be boring. He patiently pointed out again that plea