Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

"Zoe, we're home!"

Vicki laughed. "Come in, it's cold. How'd you get her here?"

"Cab. She loved it. She has caviar tastes." Dan stepped inside, then leaned over the cat and kissed Vicki, his mouth an intriguing mix of cold and warm. She kissed him back, then again, and then another time, before they parted.

"Wow." Vicki closed the front door.

"I agree."

"I could get used to this."

"You'll have to, until I get new furniture." Dan looked her over with a smile. "You know, as good as you look right now, you'd look better in bed."

"Thank you." Vicki had showered, which made her feel almost human again in fresh jeans, a pink cashmere sweater, and no sunglasses. "Come into the kitchen and see your surprise."

"I'm getting a surprise?"

"Of course." Only because I'm so smooth .

"Look around, Zoe." Dan set down his briefcase and cat, and followed Vicki into the dining room. "Does the surprise involve you naked?"

"No."

"In a nurse's outfit?'

"No."

"A nun's habit?"

"That's so wrong, Malloy." Vicki reached the kitchen, and in the middle of the floor sat a pink plastic litter box, filled with gourmet litter and its own little scoop, resting casually against the side of the tray. "Romantic, huh?"

"Terrific! Thank you!" Dan grinned, pulling her to him and holding her close, and she could feel the cold air clinging to the scratchy wool of his topcoat. "I didn't know they sold litter boxes at Neiman Marcus."

Oops . "Uh, no, they don't. I didn't get the litter box there. I got it from the Acme, where I got groceries for dinner."

"Oh, nice." Dan released her to slide out of his topcoat and put it on the back of the kitchen chair. "What am I making?"

"Hey, I'm making it. We're having filet mignon, with onions and baked potatoes. It'll be ready in a minute. I'm Martha

Stewart, preincarceration."

"Funny, I don't smell anything."

D'oh! Vicki crossed to the oven and turned it on. "Okay, so we won't be eating in a minute."

Dan smiled. "Doesn't matter. What'd you get at Neiman Marcus?"

Eek . "Nothing. So what happened at the big meeting? Did you go?"

"Yes." Dan's expression changed, suddenly troubled. "Did you see the news, Vick? The shooting at Toys ‘R' Us? Seven people killed, three of them kids, and they say a fourth might not make it. It's disgusting."

"Horrible."

"They should hang that guy. And one was Jamal Browning, shot dead."

No, really ? "I heard that on TV. Jackson's boyfriend. Incredible."

"Don't worry, they're gonna get the guy. They already ID'ed him."

"How?"

"You're not gonna believe this. At the end of the business day, somebody sent us a photo of the shooter." Dan reached excitedly inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the photo she'd taken. "Look."

Vicki looked at the photo as if she'd never seen it before, which wasn't easy. "Somebody sent this to us?" And was she wearing Exxon sunglasses or Chanel?

"Dropped it off at the office. FBI, ATF, everybody got a copy, like manna from heaven. The FBI thinks somebody from the neighborhood took it and they're too afraid of retaliation to come forward."

The FBI are geniuses . "Probably."

"I'd be afraid, too. What kind of man guns down kids in a Toys ‘R' Us? They coulda hit Browning anywhere, if that's who they were after. It's true scum who does something like that."

Vicki nodded.

"Anyway, it's damn lucky they took the photo, though. The cops had no flash on the shooter. The Toys ‘R' Us surveillance cameras were pointing at the wrong side of the truck, and the eyewitnesses were so freaked out, their descriptions were all over the place. Philly police couldn't even get a composite they had faith in. Then this came in."

Damn, I'm good . "So who is he and what are they doing about it?"

"His name's Bill Toner. He has a record of bush-league crack dealing and ag assault, in Kensington. Philly put an APB out on him, with his last known address." Dan eyed the photo. "Dude's ugly as sin. A cold, cold killer."

"So Toner killed Browning?" Vicki fake-mulled it over. "Do they know why?"

"Not yet." Dan shook his head. "Or at least they're not saying so in an open meeting, with Strauss there."

"Strauss was there? Was Bale?"

"Yep."

"The triumvirate." Vicki would have felt left out if she hadn't been doing something more important. Like their jobs .

"I missed you today." Dan smiled, set the photo on the table, and reached for her, drawing her close. He didn't feel so cold anymore, his chest warm and strong, and Vicki pressed herself against him, his loosened tie silky on her cheek. She felt guilty deceiving him, but if he knew what she'd been doing, he'd try to stop her. She accepted his embrace, and the real, solid comfort it afforded, after the awful afternoon.

"It looked horrible, on TV. These poor people, getting shot."

"I know, I saw it, too. These are real bad guys. Dangerous guys." Dan's voice softened, and Vicki felt the reverberation within his chest as he spoke. "Problem is, you shoulda seen this meeting. The Toys ‘R' Us shooting threw a major wrench into the works. The mayor's on the phone, the city's in an uproar. Then the chamber of commerce starts screaming. Everybody's running around like a chicken and you could see it happen. It was like a tide shifting. I watched Morty go to the back burner."

"Why?" Vicki asked, stricken. "Browning's murder is related to Morty's. These things are of a piece, they have to be."

"Doesn't matter now." Dan frowned in disappointment, too. "Now it's about innocent people being killed while they shop, you can see that. Strauss has to shift priorities to the safety of shopping in the city, to babies and kids getting shot up on the evening news. You can't blame the man."

"But the CI was Browning's girlfriend and she got killed when his coke was stolen. Maybe somebody from the Toner crew, if not Toner himself, is trying to take over Browning's operation."

Dan nodded. "I'm not saying they won't follow up on that, but jurisdiction is still a live issue, unfortunately, and Toys ‘R' Us is an emergency. The situation is acute, and we're in triage. The murder of an ATF agent and a druggy girlfriend in a stash house will not get the same attention as kids shot up when they're at a Toys ‘R' Us. They're already pulling uniforms off the street."

No! "But Morty's life matters and so does hers. And what about her baby?" Vicki felt like the case was slipping away. "If you fix one, you fix the other, don't you see? They can't let Morty go!"

"Wait, there was one thing, hold on, I'll get it." Dan left the kitchen and returned with his briefcase, set it on the chair, and slid some papers out. "Look." He put the papers down on the kitchen table, next to the place setting.

Vicki came over. The papers were charts of first names and numbers in computer printing. The names ran down the left side of the chart, the numbers, ten digits, ran down the middle, and then after that was a second column of numbers.

After a minute, she recognized the ten-digit numbers in the middle as phone numbers because they all began with 215, the area code for Philly. Vicki asked, "A list of phone calls?"

"Yes. It's called a Call Frequency Chart. It's fascinating. ATF developed the software program that generates it, for HIDTAs."

"HIDTAs?"

"High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas. It's a task force within the agency, and ATF assigned the investigation of Morty's murder to them. They specialize in drug operations with an especially high level of violence."

Gulp . "And what does HIDTA do, exactly?"

"Investigate, tap, surveille, you know, get the info for search and arrest warrants, in the most dangerous cases." Dan returned to studying the charts. "HIDTA has developed its own program for investigations of cell phones. You see, dealers have to communicate with each other all the time, and they use Nextel phones or cell phones. It's very mechanical, the drug business."