Lisa Scottoline - Devil's corner

Vicki raised an eyebrow. Merry Christmas, Mr. Montgomery. It was a sweet deal for conspiracy to distribute, especially in this climate. Whose case had this been? She turned to the last page and checked the signatures. Strauss and Bale, who signed every plea agreement, and underneath them, the AUSA who had worked the case: Dan Malloy.

Vicki blinked. Odd. It wasn't like Dan to let anybody off so easy. Still, so what? She had to get ready for that Kalahut meeting. She stuck the plea agreement on top of the other papers, stood up with the To Be Filed bin, and replaced it on the top of the file cabinet. She had to get out of here. The Jackson transcript was gone. She went over to the dolly to leave, then stopped. Pergola Street. Looking would take only another second, and she'd come this far.

Vicki went back to the file cabinets, took the plea agreement out of the bin, and double-checked the name. David Montgomery. She went to the M's, opened the drawer, and thumbed though the files to see if there was a case file for David Montgomery. She flipped through Martin, Michelson, then, Montgomery. In fact, there were three David Montgomerys, aka, respectively, "Meenie," "Holy Man," and finally, the one she'd seen on the agreement, "Kermit." Bingo .

She pulled out the third Montgomery file, which was fairly thick, and opened it. It was a typical legal-size manila folder, and on the left side, attached by a steel fastener, a copy of Montgomery's mug shot was attached to his criminal record. He had narrow, almost slitted eyes, and a small mouth, unsmiling. Next to his mug shot, it read: "Black Male, D/O/B 1/2/72, Height, 6'2", Weight, 210 lbs." Vicki skimmed down the record of offenses: assault with a deadly (knife), aggravated assault, attempted murder for hire.

She felt her heart stop. Knife assaults. A murder for hire. A hired killer, on Mrs. Bethave's street? Could Montgomery be the man who had knifed Reheema's mother to death? The man Mrs. Bethave had been so afraid of? It was too great a coincidence, wasn't it? How many hired killers could there be on Pergola Street?

Vicki suppressed her emotion, so she wasn't jumping to conclusions. She checked the date of the plea agreement. Eight months ago. So Montgomery would be out of prison by now, having served only six months. He'd be free. Living on Pergola Street. Her mouth went dry. She checked Montgomery's house number, 2356. What had Bethave's house number been? Vicki couldn't remember, but it was in the 2000s; she remembered because she had driven across Twentieth Street to get there. So they lived on the same block of Pergola.

Her thoughts raced ahead. Mrs. Bethave had freaked out when Albertus had signed her the killer's name, as if Montgomery could see Vicki and Reheema at the house if they didn't leave fast enough. She could imagine how it would have happened, if Montgomery was the one: Saturday had been the day of the snowstorm, and Albertus could have been playing on the street, as the Holloway kids had been, on Vicki's block. Albertus could have run into Montgomery on the street, and Montgomery could have handed Albertus the cell phone he'd taken from the woman he killed the night before. Arissa Bristow.

Vicki put it together, with a start. David "Kermit" Montgomery. Kermit. The frog. The man who had answered her cell phone that night had spoken in a gravelly voice. Dan had noticed it, too. Was that why Montgomery's nickname was Kermit? Because of his froggy voice? My God.

Abruptly, the door to the file room opened, and Vicki almost jumped out of her skin. She turned, and in the threshold stood Jane, the receptionist. "Vicki, oops, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. That ATF agent has been waiting outside, for your meeting."

"Oh, jeez. Thanks." It was all Vicki could do to slip the file behind her and to collect herself. "Please, tell her I'm sorry, I'll be right there."

"Okay." Jane closed the door.

Vicki's thoughts were a jumble, but she didn't have time to process anything now. She went to the dolly, tore open the top cardboard box, and shoved the Montgomery file inside. Then she wheeled the boxes out of the file room, dumped them in the conference room, and ran to her office with the Montgomery file, which she hid in a drawer. Then she picked up the phone and pressed in the numbers to her cell phone. Snow fell steadily from a gray sky while the phone rang and rang, then her voicemail picked up. She felt herself tense. Reheema had insisted on turning off the phone during her interviews, and Vicki hoped she wasn't answering because she was with one of Jackson's neighbors.

The beep sounded, and Vicki said, "Reheema, I think I have an ID on the man who killed your mother and I'm worried about you. Watch out for a big black guy." She winced when she realized how it sounded. "I'm not kidding or being suburban. He has slitty eyes, age thirty-three, he's about six two, two hundred pounds. His name is David Montgomery, but don't you dare do anything to track him down. I'm going to the cops with this as soon as I can. Call me when you get this message." She hung up, then hit the buttons to forward her calls to the conference room, for when Reheema called back. Then she arranged her face into a professional mask and went to reception to meet Agent Pizer.

Ten minutes later, Vicki was sitting in the shoe box of a conference room with the very able ATF agent, taking notes when it seemed like she should be, asking questions on autopilot, and organizing papers into more piles of papers. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Not only was it weird enough to work with an ATF agent who wasn't Morty, but she sensed she was right about Montgomery. She'd have to talk with Dan and Bale, then get to the Philly detectives so they could pick Montgomery up. Looking in the Bethaves' neighborhood for suspects with a record of murder-for-hire would have been among the first things the detectives would commonly have done, but she wasn't taking the chance that they'd done it yet.

Vicki wondered how it would make Dan feel to learn that someone he'd given a deal to had killed somebody, or even how it would make him look, but she couldn't think about that now. Bale would feel worse for approving it, whether he had reviewed it with any care at all or even if he'd just signed it on Dan's say-so. She didn't know Strauss that well, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt that he'd feel terrible, or at least unhappy that he'd gotten egg on his face. It wouldn't be enough to upset his appointment to the bench or the other promotions, already in the works.

Vicki couldn't begin to answer the harder question of why anybody would hire Montgomery to kill Reheema's mother, or if she weren't the intended victim, Reheema. There were too many missing pieces. She kept looking over at the telephone on the small credenza, expecting Reheema to call, but she didn't. Had she gotten the message? Was she safe? Was Montgomery after her?

Vicki excused herself, saying she had to go to the bathroom, but instead ran to her office and called Reheema again. Still no answer, and she left another message. She hurried back to the conference room, checking her watch on the run. 3:50. At least it was still light out. Montgomery wouldn't attack in broad daylight, would he? He hadn't before. She returned to the conference room, her thoughts going around and around, and allegedly got back to work. She glanced at her watch at 4:01, 4:20, and five more times until 5:01. It had to be getting dark outside, but she couldn't tell without windows. The ATF agent was working away, but Vicki couldn't take it another minute.

She stood up and stretched, theatrically. "Well, we made a lot of progress today," she said, though she had no idea if they'd made progress or not. "I guess it's closing time."

"I thought we were scheduled until six o'clock, and we're in the middle of this-"