Line of Succession

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10:45 P.M. EST The girl’s body was found by a man in a raincoat. It was in an alley near the intersection of Euclid and Fourteenth Street Northwest — a black neighborhood of brick row-houses and urban ferment.

At first the man in the raincoat shrank from the body: he stood against the wall breathing shallowly, blinking, but in the end he knelt by the girl and began to search near and under the body, although there was little hope. If she had been mugged there would be no handbag.

A car was going by slowly. The man in the raincoat ignored it until it stopped, but then it was too late. The spotlight swiveled onto him and pinned him against the wall.

He threw up an arm in front of his eyes and heard the car door open and chunk shut. There was a voice:

“Turn around. Hands high against the wall.”

The man in the raincoat obeyed. He knew the routine. He splayed his feet a yard out from the base of the wall and leaned against his palms. The patrolman frisked him and found nothing and moved with a crunch of shoes to the girl’s body.

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