DC By the Book

Excerpt: It was past seven when she emerged from the Metro station at Connecticut and Woodley. She turned left at Woodley and walked one block to 27th Street through one of the many residential pockets in urban Washington. The sidewalks were tipped from tree roots and worn smooth from generations of baby buggy wheels, roller skates, and leather-soled shoes. Four-story-high trees grew in the dirt median between sidewalk and street. The street was narrow from curb-parked cars and bumpy with patch jobs done by the D.C. Department of Transportation. It was a neighborhood pulling itself out of midlife crises, struggling with genteel neglect. It was a neighborhood of double-income families who require close-by gourmet takeouts and same-day shirt service....The ground floor of the row house had been converted into a traditional apartment with living room, dining room, kitchen, kitchen, and bedroom. The second floor, Louisa realized, was essentially two rooms--the bedroom, and a large living room/dining room with the kitchen area to the rear. It had hardwood floors covered by Oriental carpets, bit heavy furniture in muted tones, an odd assortment of tables, black-shaded brass lamps, and the largest flat-screen TV she'd ever seen. One wall was devoted to bookshelves, their contents spilling over onto a workstation that held a computer and laser printer....He left Connecticut Avenue with its neon-lit restaurants and twenty-four-hour traffic. A block off Connecticut on 27th Street, urban Washington was dark and quiet, settled in for the night behind locked doors. Globed streetlights dropped dim light over gray sidewalk and made the porch and shrub shadows seem black and deep. Pete always felt comfortable here. There was a softness to 27th Street. It was unpretentious with its old-fashioned above-ground wires, rickety garages, and messy lawns. The residents were busy but not unfriendly...27th Street was a place where privacy needn't be guarded. Privacy occurred naturally on 27th Street through a lack of interest and a shortage of idle hours. There was normality here, Pete thought. It was a place to raise children and grow old with grace.

Excerpt: Louisa worked in the Hart Building, just north of the Supreme Court and northeast of the Capitol itself. She stretched at her desk and looked beyond the heavy teal-and-gold drapes framing windows that opened to an inner courtyard, It was six-thirty and the courtyard was dark. She was the last one left in the office, and the exodus or workers had slowed in the outside corridor. all things considered, it hadn't been a bad day... She retrieved her purse from th bottom drawer and pushedf away from the desk. she buttoned her long wool greatcoat high to her neck, switched the lights off, and closed the office door behind her. She exited the building at C and 1st street, and her attention was immediately drawn to two men arguing half a block away.