Lisa Scottoline: Devil's corner

"It's the Jesuit in you." "No, it's all your fault, Vick." "Mine?" "I spend too much time with you." "Not possible," Vicki said, then caught herself. It was the wine talking and it had accidentally said something true. She felt like her slip was showing and she didn't even wear slips. Dan looked down for a moment, into his empty glass. Then he looked up, taking her in, but saying nothing. "What?" Vicki asked. "I went to the house tonight, but the FBI wouldn't let me in.

That was one mother crime scene. They didn't honor my ID, the scene was so restricted." Dan had been there? "You were at my CI's house tonight? How'd you know where it was?" "The street name was on the TV, and you mentioned where you were going, remember? You tell me everything."

Not everything, handsome.

"I waited outside at the scene for a while. I figured they were taking your statement, so I came here. I knew you had to come home. I picked up the wine on the way. Anyway, I had a lot of time to think about, well, how it would be if you had been killed tonight. I mean, you could have been murdered."

But Morty was. Morty was the cop.

"It made me think about what my life would be like." Dan paused, his lips pursed and his gaze unfailingly blue and steady. "If you had, you know. It made me think about some things. Like how I feel about you."

Huh? Vicki told herself to stay calm. Dan had never said anything about any feelings for her, and she had certainly never told him about her crush on him. Suddenly the moment was upon them, after a year of getting closer and closer.

"So I wanted to tell you tonight, more than anything, how I feel. Because now I know that all that crap they talk about is true."

Vicki said nothing, but her heartbeat stepped up. Dan had stopped slurring his words, he was concentrating so fiercely.

"You know that crap they say? That you never know when life can be taken or what's going to happen? That everything you have can be gone in one minute, and it will be too late? That crap?"

Vicki was pretty sure she was breathing but she wouldn't swear to it.

"Well, it's true. You can't take anyone for granted. You have to tell people how you feel about them when they're alive, because tomorrow's not guaranteed to anyone." Dan leaned over and placed his hand on hers.

Oh my God.

"Well, what I realized is that I can't imagine my life if you weren't in it."

Vicki officially stopped breathing.

"You're my best friend in the world."

Vicki's mouth went dry. She waited a minute. She wasn't sure what she'd heard, then she wasn't sure whether Dan was finished. But he wasn't saying anything more. Maybe he wasn't finished anyway? He couldn't have been, because he hadn't said what she needed to hear, which was:

I love you.

"You look weird." Dan cocked his head. "You think it's strange to have a best friend who's a girl?"

"Not at all," Vicki answered flatly. She slid her hand out from under his and got up for more wine. She would have to start drinking heavily, if they were going to keep being Friends Without Benefits.

Later, before she eased her aching body into bed, Vicki called her parents and left a message on both of their cell phones, because she knew it was the first thing they checked each morning. In the messages she told them not to worry about anything they heard on TV, online, or on the car radio into work, because she was fine.

Vicki didn't mention that she was hopelessly in love with a very married man or that, first thing in the morning, she was going to investigate a triple homicide.

The William Green Federal Building was a modern redbrick edifice that anchored Sixth and Arch streets, attached to the United States Courthouse and situated at the center of a new court complex that Vicki thought of as a Justice Mall. The Neiman Marcus of the Justice Mall would be the Constitution Center, a glitzy shrine to sell the Bill of Rights, and the Gap would be the Federal Detention Center, a generic column of gray stone, except for its horizontal window slits. The FDC almost didn't get built because nobody wanted a federal prison reminding the shoppers-er, tourists-that the City of Brotherly Love was also the City of Brotherly Robbery and Weapons Offenses. But the FDC was ultimately approved because officials agreed to construct a secret underground tunnel from the prison to the federal building, so the shoppers wouldn't know. It was through this tunnel that defendant Reheema Bristow was being escorted this morning.

Vicki waited in a plastic bucket chair in a proffer room on the secured fourth floor of the federal building. They were called proffer rooms because defendants "proffered" here, i.e., offered to tell the government incriminating information, off the record, in return for immunity or a recommendation to the judge for a downward departure on their sentence. This proffer room was unfortunately identical to the others: white boxes, uniformly windowless and airless, containing brown Formica conference tables and a few mismatched chairs.

Vicki collected her thoughts. The straw purchase case might have collapsed, but she wasn't dropping the charges until after she had questioned Bristow just one time. Nobody would be the wiser; the defense didn't know the identity of the confidential informant because Vicki wasn't required to divulge until right before trial or even before the CI took the stand, if witness intimidation was an issue. She was bending the rules a little, but Morty's death provided more than enough motivation. She'd thought of the plan last night when she couldn't sleep, replaying the awful shootings in her mind.

She crossed her legs and willed herself to stay centered; the record showed that Bristow could be provocative. Straws weren't usually held in custody, but Bristow had turned her temporary detention into an almost year-long stay by mouthing off to the magistrate judge during her hearing. Whatever Bris-tow brought this morning, Vicki could handle it. She brushed an imaginary hair off her black wool suit, her hair swept back into a black barrette and curling loosely at the nape of her neck. She had picked out the outfit on autopilot, then realized she was dressed in mourning. Only determination held raw grief at bay.

Suddenly, the door to the proffer room opened and the defense lawyer bustled in. "I'm Carlos Melendez," he said, and extending a hammy hand. "It's freezing cold, isn't it? They say snow this afternoon." He looked about sixty years old, his still-thick hair coiled in tight steel-gray curls, contrasting with his darkish skin and rich brown eyes. He had a cheery demeanor and a short, chubby build in a herringbone topcoat, like SpongeBob SquarePants with a law degree.

"I'm Vicki Allegretti," she said, liking Melendez immediately, despite the fact that he was technically the enemy.

"Boy, you look too young to be an AUSA." Melendez smiled.

"No, I'm twenty-eight. I'm just short."

"Ha! You're short and young." Melendez laughed. "Though I gotta admit, I don't know many AUSAs, I'm court appointed on this case." He wriggled out of his topcoat, releasing the scent of a strongly spicy aftershave.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice."

"Not at all, glad you called. Trial's just around the corner."

Eek. Not anymore. "Did you get my proffer letter?" This morning, Vicki had re-sent Melendez the proffer letter that the first AUSA had sent, since it had the necessary signature, namely Strauss's. The letter was a formality, setting forth the govern-ment's request for information and the ground rules for the meeting off the record. She'd had it in the Bristow file and faxed it from home.

"My secretary confirmed that we got it, thanks." Melendez opened a scratched-up leather briefcase, extracted an accordion file, and closed it again.