Michele Martinez - Most Wanted

“Yes. Do that. I’m pretty good, but even I can’t make a case if the witnesses are dead.”

AS THEY TALKED, MELANIE FILLED PAGES OF a yellow legal pad with notes on what they needed to do. And do fast. Identifying and apprehending Slice was the top priority. If he was the perpetrator, they could assume he would try to eliminate the housekeeper and Jed Benson’s daughter. They needed to stop him before he did any more damage.

Dan pointed to the second mug shot, of a huge, hulking guy who wore his hair in dreadlocks wrapped in a bandanna. “Jason Olivera, street name Bigga, a known C-Trout Blade. We should go after him because he’s gonna be easier to find than Slice. Bigga has a rap sheet a mile long, small-time stuff mostly, but nasty. Assault, weapons possession. He’s been getting arrested his whole life, never done a stretch longer than six months, and he’s left a trail of addresses. I’m gonna start beating the bushes for him, hit all the locations from that old drug wire, see what crawls out.”

“Okay, order your files from the old drug wiretap,” she said, jotting on the legal pad with a felt-tip marker. “I’ll order the records from the original Delvis Diaz case, the one Jed Benson prosecuted years ago. Who knows, maybe those locations are still active. And what about the informant you mentioned? Would he have any leads on where we can find Bigga?”

“If I can find my informant, I’ll find Bigga,” he said. “But so far the son of a bitch isn’t returning my beeps. I’ve been working terrorism, so I haven’t kept up with my old drug snitches.”

“What about posting a lookout with the police in other jurisdictions?”

“Already taken care of. I had my office teletype all known information about Slice and Bigga to every state law-enforcement agency as well as Immigration and Customs. If they come into contact with the law or try to leave the country, we’ll hear about it. But that’s a big if. It can take years for something like that to pan out. To find ’em fast, there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned shoe leather.”

“I want to speak to the housekeeper and Benson’s wife right away,” Melanie said, “and his daughter the minute she’s able to.”

“Write that down. Oh, and I’ll contact the lab to get copies of any test results. They already called me this morning. Apparently the crime-scene guys lifted a latent fingerprint from a can of kerosene left behind in Benson’s house. They can’t identify the print. It doesn’t belong to any of the Bensons, but it doesn’t match up with any violators in the FBI database either. If one of the perps left it, he has no criminal record.”

“Was the print checked against our people?” she asked.

“They don’t do that unless you ask for it special. It’s like you’re saying somebody screwed up the crime scene, mishandled evidence.”

“They need to run that check. I like to know before the grand jury if the crime scene was contaminated. I can’t worry about hurting somebody’s feelings.” She made another note.

“Okay. That’s your call.”

“That’s all I can think of right now,” she said, shaking her hand to stop it from cramping.

“That’s plenty for starters. Let me have that list so I can burn a couple copies, wouldja? I’m gonna get with Randall Walker and divide up the work.”

She tore off the pages and handed them across the desk. As he stood up to go to the copy station, she stopped him.

“Uh, can I ask you something about Randall?”

“What about him?”

“This investigation is gonna be pretty fast-paced. He’s definitely up for the job, right?”

He sat back down, brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Um…well, Bernadette said Randall’s kind of burned out.”

“Burned out? That nasty bitch. She has to bad-mouth everybody.”

“So it isn’t true?”

He sighed in frustration. “Look, normally I would never dignify bullshit like that with a response. But you seem like a nice person. I hate to see Bernadette poisoning your mind with lies before you even meet Randall Walker, who happens to be one of the finest detectives I’ve ever worked with.”

“Okay, so he’s on his game? You’ll vouch for that?”

“Maybe he has a little too much on his plate now, personal-wise, but he’s still a great detective.”

So there was something to this. She looked Dan straight in the eye. “What’s the problem? Drinking? Marriage troubles?”

“I don’t like to talk about my partner’s personal business.”

“Just give me enough so I understand.”

“Okay. But it stays in this room.”

She nodded, feeling honored he would confide in her. “Cross my heart.”

“Randall’s son died of a drug overdose about five years ago. His only kid. Randall’s okay, but his wife is a mess. Never got past it. She’s got a lot of problems, mental and physical. Diabetes, asthma, major depression. It really brings him down.”

“That’s awful!”

“Yeah. But seriously, Randall more than pulls his weight.”

“Okay.” She stared into his eyes, trying to decide if he was telling her everything. He fidgeted under the intensity of her gaze.

“And if for some reason he can’t pull his weight, I pull it for him.”

“Okay. Now I get the picture.”

He stood up again, shaking his head.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He broke into a grin.

“ What ?”

“Nah, it’s just…I gotta watch myself with you. It’s not smart to go telling the prosecutor everything. Only causes trouble. But I can already see that you’re gonna get stuff out of me whether I like it or not.”

He was looking at her eagerly, in a way she found flattering and uncomfortable at the same time. Could it be that he liked her? Instinctively she scooped up Maya’s photograph, which sat on her desk in a frame that said I LOVE MY MOMMY.

“She yours? Can I see?” he asked quietly, glancing at her wedding ring. She remembered that she almost hadn’t worn it this morning. Good thing she had. She wouldn’t want to give a wrong impression.

“Her name’s Maya.” She handed him the photograph.

He smiled. Everybody always smiled when they saw those cheeks.

“What a cutie! How old?”

“Six months.”

“I always wanted kids. Always thought I’d have a passel of ’em. Guess life never works out how you expect,” he said, eyes somber as he handed the picture back.

Melanie carefully set it in its place. Dan left to make the copies. When she was sure he was gone, she kissed her fingertip and brushed it lightly across Maya’s picture. She felt strange. Sad and weirdly guilty at the same time. She realized that it was because she found Dan attractive, and finding him attractive brought home to her how damaged her marriage was.

Dan returned from the copy machine. As he gave her back her list, she looked up at his face and couldn’t help wondering how someone like him ended up single. He must be around thirty and so good-looking-maybe he was just a ladies’ man. Maybe the stuff about wanting kids was only talk. Somehow she didn’t think so, though. His sadness at the mention of kids had seemed genuine, making her identify with him, making her want to hear the story behind his solitude. But she would never ask him about it. She’d keep things on a professional footing-that was obviously the right thing to do. She just had a funny feeling it might not be so easy.

THE SLICK TILES OF THE LINCOLN TUNNEL flashed by at warp speed as Melanie raced toward New Jersey in a government car, heading for the hotel where the housekeeper who witnessed Jed Benson’s murder was under protection. A few hours after leaving Melanie’s office with the to-do list, Dan had called from the hotel and told her to get there fast.