Chapter Thirty-Two

Mosby clicked on the television and stretched out on the couch to decide what he should do with the information he had uncovered. The local news had another story about the Redskins’ coaching shake up. Al Saunders was saying he’d only agreed to come to Washington because he’d been promised the head coaching job when Gibbs left. Now the owner was saying he wanted to bring in someone brand new to turn the team around. Mosby didn’t care much for football. He thought it was too violent. Baseball was his game. He liked the tempo and the strategy.

“We’ll be back soon with a look at your weekend weather and an unfolding story out of Calvert County where police are puzzled by the discovery of the body of another tattoo artist – the second in the last forty-eight hours”

Mosby had to sit though what seemed like an endless series of commercial for indigestion, insomnia and erectile dysfunction before the news returned.

“We take you now to Caroline Kitchens who is live at the Calvert County tattoo parlor where a friend of the owner made a grisly discovery this morning. What can you tell us, Caroline?”

“Not much, Jan. The sheriff’s department is releasing very little information. What we do know is that a little after nine o’clock this morning a friend of the deceased came by the Dog Tattoo Parlor just outside of Prince Frederick, Maryland to check on his friend who had failed to meet him at a concert in St. Leonard’s on Thursday night. He found Dennis Doggett dead. There are as yet unsubstantiated reports that the deceased had been stabbed.”

“Caroline, are the authorities saying whether this murder is tied to the death of Lillian Petulengro whose body was discovered in her tattoo parlor in the District of Columbia on Thursday night?”

“No official statement has been made, Jan, but unofficially one person who asked not to be identified told us that the murder scenes were very similar.”

“Thank you, Caroline. In an apparently related story, Frances Britt, the woman who D.C. police were holding as a person of interest in the death of Lillian Petulengro was released this afternoon. Ms. Britt has been transferred to Washington Hospital Center for observation. The doctors have not elaborated her condition. We’re looking at a video shot earlier today. We see Ms. Britt being helped into an ambulance accompanied by her attorney Gerald Benson.”

“Now for a look at our weekend forecast. Any rain in our forecast, Joe?”


Mosby turned off the television. He had to think. What did he know for sure so far? He knew that Senator Stuart Jaffe and a female companion had gotten matching tattoos from Lilly. He knew that the Senator’s companion had been found dead. He knew that Lilly had been murdered in a manner that was identical to the technique used to kill a union organizer who was a problem for Jaffe’s father forty years ago. And now another tattoo artist was dead, apparently by the same method. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Mosby had to tell someone what he knew before someone else died.