Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

"Why would FBI have jurisdiction? Because they take it?"

"I didn't say that."

"No, I did." Vicki considered the situation. The FBI was the grabbiest federal agency in existence, after the IRS. "When is the task force meeting?"

"They were talking about Tuesday, but realistically, it'll be Wednesday. They need a day after the memorial service of your partner."

Morty's funeral. Vicki felt a tightness. She'd been so wrapped up in catching his killer, she hadn't thought about his burial. "When is the memorial service scheduled for?"

"I got a memo. The wake is tomorrow night, the memorial on Monday."

Vicki checked her emotions. "Wednesday is when you all meet? That's forever, in a murder investigation."

"This has to be done right," Detective Melvin said, but even he didn't sound like he believed it, and Vicki was shaking her head.

"Procedures?"

"In a word."

"So we have a tangle over whether it's state or federal, then we have a tangle over which federal it is, ATF, FBI, or DEA."

Detective Melvin looked almost as miserable as Vicki. "I'm not even invited to the meeting, only my captain and the feds."

"All that law getting in the way of justice."

Detective Melvin smiled crookedly, but Vicki was already rising to her feet.

"Got a Xerox machine?"

"Sure, why?"

"Time's a-wastin.' "

Vicki reached over and picked up her notes.

It was almost seven by the time Vicki made her way through the snowstorm to the United States Custom House. A frigid wind gusted from the Delaware River, snow flurries flew around the building, and the American flag at its top flapped madly. Custom House, only ten minutes by Cabrio from the Roundhouse, was a stolid gray edifice that anchored the corner of Second amp; Chestnut Streets and housed a number of federal agencies; the passport office, the FDA, GSA, and ATF. The building looked positively bureaucratic in contrast with the funky restaurants, art galleries, and bistros dotting Olde City, and only a single couple was out in this bitter night, walking cuddled together against the storm. Vicki hurried past them, up the cleared granite steps, and into Custom House.

At this hour, the building was closed to the public, and the lobby was empty except for two weekend security guards at the metal detector. She barely knew the unfriendly one sitting at a standard-issue wooden desk, reading the movie listings in the Daily News , but the other, her pal Samuel, looked up from peeling his fingernails. He blanched when he recognized Vicki, and she knew why.

"Yo, Samuel." Vicki was about to produce her ID when she remembered it was gone. "I don't have my ID with me, okay?"

"No sweat, Vicki." Samuel waved her around the metal detector. She'd been here almost every day last year, while she and Morty interviewed witnesses and laid out their case at the ATF offices.

"Appreciate it. Anybody up there still?"

"Oh yeah, plenty, even the brass."

"Great."

"Sorry about Agent Morton," Samuel said when Vicki had almost passed. It came out as an afterthought, though she knew it wasn't; he must've been getting up his nerve to say something, which touched her all the more.

"Thanks." Vicki checked her emotions before they got out of control. She was already feeling shaky, being in this lobby. The last time she had been here was with Morty. They had gone out to pick up hoagies and fought over who ordered the sweet peppers.

I swear I did , he had said.

Nah, you always get hot.

I'm evolving.

Vicki crossed to the small, circular lobby, which was vintage Art Deco. She knew its history, thanks to Morty, who had loved this building; Custom House had been built in the 1930s as a WPA project, and he had always claimed it was to keep South Philly stonemasons busy, because the lobby was fashioned completely of carved marble. A rosy-bronze marble covered the curving walls of the entrance rotunda, and remarkable royal-blue marble pillars, etched with long lines that lengthened their two-story stature, stood in a ring that anchored the domed ceiling. Gold-leaf florets twinkled in the dome against a celestial blue background, giving the entire lobby a heavenly, ethereal feel.

Morty .

Vicki hurried past and went upstairs, the clatter of her footsteps muffled by residual snow. She hit the second floor as she always used to, noting again the oddly painted mauve doorjambs, and pressed a code into the keypad by the unmarked purple door. It was an entrance used only by ATF agents, who bypassed the glass-walled reception area, and Morty had told her the code. She opened the door and had almost succeeded in setting her thoughts about him aside when he was suddenly staring her in the face.

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR BOB MORTON, read the typed headline, and an almost life-size photo of him hung on the wall, grinning in a tie he wore only for picture day. It was a photocopied announcement of the details of his wake and funeral. Vicki had almost forgotten how handsome he was; she swallowed hard and took a right turn down the hall into an off-white warren of offices, most of which were empty with the lights off, but some of which were not. The Philadelphia office of ATF contained one hundred agents in its several floors, and she could only imagine how busy these halls had been the past few days, buzzing with agents talking about Morty, comparing notes, and consoling one another. Given what had happened, she had guessed that people would be working this weekend; in fact, because the agents spent so much time in court, many routinely worked nights and weekends, catching up on paperwork, interviewing witnesses, and generally giving the lie to the cliché about "government work."

Going down the hall, Vicki waved briefly at the agents who looked up from their desks, nodding to acknowledge her; she hadn't gotten to know them with only a year on the job, much of it spent with Morty. She traveled down the purple-patterned carpet, feeling out of place without him. A sharp solvent smell filled the air in the next hall, and she passed a small room containing a trio of men in long white coats, cleaning rifles on a table. She finally reached the threshold of the large corner office, knocked on another purple doorjamb, and braced herself to meet the boss.

"Mr. Saxon?" Vicki began, then shut up, because he was talking on the telephone and taking notes. He saw her but didn't wave her in, and she wasn't surprised since she wasn't sure he knew who she was. In the meantime, she tried not to listen to any top-secret conversation.

"Eggs, milk, low-fat, no fruit in Phase I," Saxon said into the phone, and Vicki smiled. The whole world was on South Beach. The phone conversation sounded like an instant replay of Vicki's dinner with her parents, before they'd bitched her out. Maybe that was their problem. Not enough carbohydrates.

"Brown or white eggs, does it matter?"

Vicki eyed his office, the largest she'd seen here. The three windows were dark behind closed window shades, and the wall behind his desk bore the requisite framed movie poster from The Untouchables with Kevin Costner. ATF jocks loved The Untouchables , Hollywood's version of the beginnings of their agency, and they uniformly revered the real-life Elliott Ness. Every year, Morty had gone to the Elliot Ness party they held in Baltimore and returned with a killer hangover.

"Ricotta? Maggio? That has to be low-fat, too? Gimme a break here, Kath."

An American flag stood to the right of the desk, in the far corner, and a coat rack stood on the near corner, holding a baseball cap, winter coat, and navy-blue bulletproof vest that read ATF in characteristically bold yellow letters. The desk was large and simple, of light wood, and immaculately clean except for a plastic party-favor statue of Jesus Christ, still in the box, which sat next to a nameplate that read JOHN SAXON, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE.