Wallbrecht waited for some sort of reaction to that, but there was none.

Smiling slightly, he admitted, "You're right about what you said, though-Trumanti did pick the wrong man for this job. You can't send Mack after the wrong target and order him to stay on it for some self-serving reason of your own. If you try to do that, what you'll get is a s.h.i.tload of embarra.s.sing fallout, because Mack will not only go after the right target on his own, he'll bring him down and then he'll go after you. And that," he finished with a chuckle at Buchanan, "is why Mitch.e.l.l McCord isn't next in line for Trumanti's job. He's the best detective the NYPD has ever had, but he won't play politics, and he won't kiss anybody's a.s.s.

"I've been trying to lure Mack over here with an offer of a full partnership and a gigantic salary, but every time he's ready to turn in his resignation, somebody over at the department hands him a case he just can't resist." Wallbrecht tipped his chin and looked at Michael. "This time, the irresistible case was... yours."

Finished with his review of the major players in the case, Wallbrecht said, "Beyond that, all I can tell you right now is that your telephones are tapped and you have a tail, which you already knew. Mrs. Manning has a tail but no wiretaps yet. Now, tell me what you want me to do next."

"I want you to find out who killed Logan Manning. Whoever did it is walking around free, while his widow can't even eat in a restaurant without having people talking about her. Also, she had a stalker. Gordon will give you all the details. Whether he's involved with Manning's murder or not, I want him found and taken off the street so she doesn't have to worry about him anymore."

Wallbrecht leaned back in his chair and gazed at him in amazement. "So that's the way it is?" he said softly. "You're not interested in protecting yourself-it's Mrs. Manning you want to protect? "

"That's exactly the way it is," Michael said flatly. Opening his briefcase, he tossed the dossiers into it; then he snapped it and the locks closed.

Wallbrecht pulled a sheet of paper from a tray on his desk and held his pen poised to make notes. "Okay, what can you give us on Manning that might be helpful?"

"Very little, but you've got a file on him already. He wanted to do business with me, and in the course of normal operations, I not only asked him for a financial statement, I had one of your people check him out. Go over the report you gave me and look for anything irregular in his finances."

Wallbrecht's pen stilled. "I would have started looking for an irate husband or boyfriend of one of his bed partners. Why his finances instead?"

"Several reasons," Michael replied, standing up. "I threw my copies of his financial statements out, but I remember thinking he wasn't as solvent as I'd expected him to be, considering what I knew of his overall lifestyle."

Wallbrecht jotted a note. "What else?"

"The night before he disappeared he gave his wife a two-hundred-and-fifty- thousand-dollar ruby-and-diamond pendant in a Tiffany's box. For obvious reasons, she later decided she didn't want it, but when her secretary tried to return it to Tiffany's, she was informed it hadn't come from there. When the two women looked for a record of who he did buy it from, there was nothing-no record of a check being written for it, no credit card receipt, no bill-nothing."

Wallbrecht's expression turned suspicious. "He paid cash?"

"Evidently. There's one more thing-during one of our few dinner meetings, he bragged about a clever way he knew to spend offsh.o.r.e money in the U.S.

without attracting the notice of the IRS. He didn't actually say he was doing it, but he may have been. If he was laundering dirty money, then whoever killed him may have wanted some of it." He shook his head in disgust as he shrugged into his topcoat. "I knew when Manning didn't turn up after a few days, he was never going to be found alive. Besides what he told me about the offsh.o.r.e money, he also mentioned he'd bought a gun."

Wallbrecht laid his pen down and looked at Michael in bewilderment. "Why would he tell you, a virtual stranger, that he owned a gun and knew of a scam to spend offsh.o.r.e money?"

"Because he thought I'd be interested and impressed," Michael said, picking up his briefcase from his chair. "After all, I'm the tough ex-con who keeps beating the system in court." Ready to leave, he nodded at Buchanan, who was going to take a cab back to his own office; then he looked at Wallbrecht and said, "I don't care how many people you have to put on this or how much it costs; find out who killed that worthless son of a b.i.t.c.h."

He strode to the door; then he stopped and turned, with his hand on the k.n.o.b.

"There's one more thing," he informed Wallbrecht. "I want you to tell McCord that if he ever uses Leigh Manning's name in front of me again in connection with that murder, I will take him down, and there aren't enough cops in the city of New York to stop me."

When he walked out, Wallbrecht and Buchanan looked at each other in stunned, wary silence. "I can't believe this," Wallbrecht finally said. "That's the same man who shrugged when the state of New York filed six counts of fraud against him."

Buchanan didn't smile. "Do us all a favor-find us a lead on the real murderer, and do it fast. Because if your friend McCord tries to implicate Leigh Manning, I guarantee you that Michael Valente will not be controllable."

CHAPTER 58.

Shrader and Womack were walking down the precinct steps when Sam got out of Valente's limousine, his chauffeur holding open her door. Ignoring their derisive grins, she ran past them, her arms clutched around herself for warmth.

"Why didn't you tell Valente you wanted a fur coat instead of a car?" Womack joked, following her inside, with Shrader right beside him.

"Did you get anything from Valente?" Shrader asked.

Sam nodded, but gestured to the elevators. "Let's go upstairs where it's warmer, and I'll tell McCord at the same time I tell you two."

"McCord already left," Shrader told her. "He had appointments."

"With who?" Sam said, too disappointed to hide it.

"I don't know, but his schedule's on his desk, where it always is. He left a note on your phone. What did you get from Valente?"

Sam told them what she'd learned, but the information lost much of its significance in the middle of the noisy, bustling first floor, where the facts and timing couldn't be put into proper context, a.n.a.lyzed, and fully evaluated.

Shrader's reaction was understandably noncommittal. "I don't know what to think. Maybe he paid somebody to do the deed?" Distracted, he looked at his watch. "Womack and I are going to start checking out Solomon and his boyfriend. See you in the morning."

Frustrated at having to wait to talk to McCord, Sam jogged up the stairs to the third floor and went to her desk. He'd been so upset about mishandling Valente's interview himself that she couldn't believe he hadn't waited around to hear what she might have learned. On the other hand, McCord always kept his appointments and he expected everyone else to keep theirs.

Propped against her telephone was a folded note with her name written on it in his now-familiar handwriting. He had a remarkably legible handwriting for a man, Sam thought fondly-and then she remembered the astonishing thing he'd said to her on the way to the interview room this morning. In the uproar, she'd completely forgotten he'd been jealous of Valente and she'd been unable to bear that. She remembered the scene now though, in every poignant detail, right down to the knowing half-smile on his handsome lips as he said, "I think we got through our first lovers' quarrel pretty well, don't you?"

Sam's heart did a swift little quickstep at the memory, so she firmly set the memory aside. She was not going down that path with Mitch.e.l.l McCord-at least no farther down that path.

Calmly, she opened his note.

Sam- In my center desk drawer is the file with notes from my interview with Valente this morning. Since you aren't back yet, I a.s.sume you talked to him. Add your own notes to mine, while they're fresh in your mind. I'll be back by 5:30. We'll talk then if I haven't already reached you by phone.

Mack He'd signed his note with his nickname for the first time, and Sam's entire nervous system suffered a momentary meltdown. As far as she knew, very few people felt ent.i.tled to use that nickname. The mayor had called him "Mack" one day when he stopped by during a strategy meeting; Dr. Niles, the chief medical examiner, called him "Mack"; and so had his sister when she gave Sam a message for him one day. Everyone else called him "Lieutenant," which was respectful and appropriate.

Sam was not a relative of his, or a friend of longstanding, or a political leader.

If she were to use his nickname, she would be a.s.suming a relaxed, easy familiarity with him that she did not have. Sam wasn't certain if he, by signing his nickname, was subtly telling her she could have that familiarity with him.

Or... should have it? Or... already had it?

Sam shook her head, trying to clear it, and headed for his office. The man was driving her crazy. He was a.s.suming a relationship that did not exist, and then he was making her react as if it did. This morning, he'd looked at her with irate, narrowed blue eyes because he was jealous, but he had no right to be jealous, and she had no reason to melt with regret for making him jealous.

The problem, as she saw it, was that McCord was so beguilingly subtle, so brilliantly nonchalant, and so smoothly indomitable, that she never quite realized he was leading her onto very shaky ground until she was already there.

Sam had been having a recurring vision of herself being led docilely along a path through the woods, attached to McCord by a gossamer thread she couldn't see or feel, and while she was looking around, admiring the flowers-and his muscular back and narrow hips-she was going to step off a cliff into thin air.

Inside his office, Sam studied his "desk calendar," which was actually an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven spiral-bound daily planner with a full page allocated for each day. Thinking he might be able to return sooner than he'd written in his note, she looked at the crowded afternoon he'd scheduled.

His mornings were usually blocked out for whatever work he could accomplish in his office, by phone or computer, and for the intensive meetings he held with Sam, Womack, and Shrader.

Afternoons were set aside for appointments, interviews, and whatever legwork he wanted to do. McCord handled departmental and administrative business by telephone, but he did almost everything else face-to-face, which required an astonishing amount of legwork.

He'd mentioned yesterday that he'd made arrangements to meet with every law enforcement official he could find who'd ever dealt with Valente on a personal basis, and as Sam ran her finger down his list of appointments, she could see that he'd started that process. Four consecutive afternoons were covered with them, starting at noon today with Duane Kraits, the arresting officer who'd successfully busted Valente on the manslaughter charge.

McCord was particularly interested in that case for the same reason Sam had been: It involved Valente's only violent crime, and it was the single instance where the charges against him had stuck. As Sam looked at McCord's busy afternoon schedule, she realized there was no way he would finish up and be back before five-thirty.

Disappointed, she sat down on the swivel chair behind his desk, opened his center drawer, and took out Valente's file. She made a few appropriate notes in it, but when she finished and slid the file back into McCord's desk, she felt curiously deflated.

Standing up, she looked around at his clean, neat office while she trailed her fingertips over the desk where he sat and wrote his copious notes. She'd joked about his compulsion for order in the beginning, but the truth was, she really liked his neat office and organized habits.

She'd grown up with six brothers, and until she was a teenager, she hadn't been able to walk through the family room without being hit by a throw pillow -usually a barrage of throw pillows, coming at her from different directions.

Her brothers had contests to see which one of them could be the most disgusting. If Sam's parents weren't there, they had belching contests at dinner.

And-oh, G.o.d-the farting contests!

They kicked off their raunchy sneakers in the utility room when they came home, and no gymnasium on earth could smell as bad as that room did. And their gym socks were not to be believed. When they sat around watching television in their stocking feet, the odor made Sam's eyes sting and water. She complained about it only once, when she was eight years old. The next morning, when she woke up, her pillows were covered in smelly gym socks.

She learned early to pretend she didn't notice things, because if the boys knew something grossed her out, they would find a way to torture her with it.

When she was little, they seemed to regard her as an animated, talking toy with multiple uses. If they played baseball in the vacant lot next door, they stood her in the outfield-holding her doll-and she was their designated "home run line." During backyard football practice, Brian and Tom had her hold up her arms like a goalpost while they kicked field goals at her.

They would have killed anyone who tried to hurt her, but at the same time, they teased her constantly and played endless jokes on her that weren't always funny.

Sam's father thought boys who were jocks should be allowed to be incredibly sloppy and unruly, but then what else would you expect from a man whose children called him "Coach," instead of "Dad"? The family housekeepers, of which there had been an army, never lasted more than a year.

Sam's mother disagreed with her husband about many of the things the boys were allowed to do, but she was outnumbered, and besides-she doted on him and on all her children.

McCord's neatness suited Sam just fine, she realized, walking out of his office and then turning in the doorway for one last, unconsciously tender look around.

The truth was, everything about Mitch.e.l.l McCord suited her. Even his nickname had a pleasing ring to it.

By the time she reached her own desk, she realized she was hungry and restless, and she really needed to get away for a little while.

Regular working hours for detectives on the day tour were from eight A.M. to four P.M. , but Shrader, Womack, and she had been working late nearly every night and coming in on the weekends. Sam already knew she'd be working late tonight again, since McCord wasn't due back until five-thirty. She'd more than earned the right to take a few hours off now as "lost time."

Picking up her purse, she pulled on her jacket, and decided to go to Bergdorf's after-Christmas sale.

She checked her cell phone to be sure it was on and slipped it back in her shoulder bag. McCord was predictable and adhered to his schedule, so she didn't have to worry about being back here until five-thirty.

AT three o'clock, Sam was on her way into a dressing room to try on a fabulous little cranberry knit dress and jacket, when her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her purse and was surprised to see Mack's office phone number flashing on her caller identification screen. She was even more surprised by the terse, ominous sound of his voice. "Where the h.e.l.l are you?"

"I decided to take a few hours of lost time. I'm in midtown-at Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue," she said.

"You just went back on duty. Get over here."

"What's wrong?" Sam said, thrusting the cranberry knit dress into the arms of a startled clerk who happened to walk past her.

"I'll tell you when you get here. Where's the recap you were putting together this morning of all the charges ever filed against Valente?"

"It's in my desk." Sam was already at a near run. "I'll be right there."

CHAPTER 59.

Sam paused at her desk just long enough to dump her purse in a drawer, lock it, and strip off her winter jacket; then she headed swiftly toward McCord's office, stopping uncertainly just inside the doorway.

He was standing behind his desk, facing the wall, with his hands shoved into his hip pockets and his head bent, as if he were looking at the computer on his credenza-except the screen was dark and his torso was so taut that the brown leather strap of his shoulder holster had tightened across his back, wrinkling the broadcloth of his shirt.

The file with her recap of Valente's arrest records was lying open on his desk, and his leather bomber jacket was flung over a chair-another sign that something was alarmingly out of the ordinary.

Sam decided to interrupt him and quietly said, "What's up?"

"Close the door," he said flatly.

Sam closed the door, her unease escalating. McCord never closed the door to his office when they were alone in it. Everyone on the third floor could see into his office because the upper half of the walls facing the squad room were gla.s.s, and Sam had sensed from the beginning that McCord was a good enough administrator to realize that frequent closed-door meetings between Sam and him would be noted and widely misconstrued-to the detriment of her future relationships with coworkers.

With his back still to her, McCord said, "Does the name William Holmes mean anything to you?"

"Of course. He was the victim in Valente's manslaughter conviction."

"What do you remember about that manslaughter case, based on the official information in our file?"

Sam's foreboding began to increase when he didn't turn around while she answered him. "The victim, William Holmes, was an unarmed sixteen-year-old male with a clean record who quarreled with Michael Valente in an alley over an unknown subject," Sam responded. "During the quarrel, Michael Valente-seventeen-year-old male with a long juvenile record-shot Holmes with a forty-five semiautomatic belonging to Valente. A patrol officer, Duane Kraits, heard the shot and was on the scene within moments, but Holmes died before the paramedics arrived. Officer Kraits arrested Valente on the scene."

"Go on," he said sarcastically when she stopped. "I want to be sure you read the same things in that file that I did."

"The M.E.'s report listed cause of death as a forty-five-caliber slug that ruptured the victim's aorta. Ballistics confirmed the slug came from Valente's unregistered forty-five semiautomatic. Valente's prints were on the weapon. The tox reports showed no sign of drugs or alcohol in Holmes or Valente."

Sam paused, trying to imagine what other salient points he wanted her to recount, and she mentioned the only items that came to mind. "Valente was represented by a court-appointed attorney and he pled guilty. The judge in the case took Valente's age into consideration, but nailed him because of his priors and the unprovoked viciousness of Valente's act."

McCord turned around then, and Sam mentally recoiled from the menacing glitter in his steel blue eyes. "Would you like to know what really happened?"

"What do you mean-'what really happened?"

"I spent a half hour with Kraits today. He's retired and he lives alone with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and his memories of 'the good old days on the force.' He was already half-tanked when I got there, and he was especially happy to talk to me about his true part in the Valente manslaughter bust because-in his words-he's 'a real big fan' of mine. It seems the report he filed about Holmes's death was a little skewed because his captain needed it that way, and in 'the good old days' cops stuck together and did favors for each other. Can you guess who his captain was?"

Sam shook her head.

"William Trumanti," he bit out. "Now, guess who the victim was."

"William Holmes," Sam said unhesitatingly.