"It seems to me it would be harder if people were allowed to think her son died for nothing."

"Didn't he?" Franco retorted, then shook her head. "Oh, I know how you cops think. On the job. I won't argue with you because I don't understand that either. But the point is that the more often his name is said, the more he's made the story, the harder it is to focus the media and the public on the message we want to send. Whatever you might think," she added as she turned back.

"I know more about this than you and Chang know.The second point is no statement should have been made without clearance."

"You won't box me in that way. I'm no media hound, but if and when I feel using it helps my investigation, I'll use it."

"Yet you toss back the bookings Chang arranged, programming where we'd have some control."

"I'm not sitting in some studio parroting departmental or mayoral approved responses and statements when my time and energies are required in a priority investigation. The fact is, I'm never doing it."

"Yes, so your commander has made clear."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Had to take a shot." Franco spread her hands. "We could use the airtime. The other matter I have to discuss with you is, potentially, a great deal more serious. It's already come to the mayor's ear that you questioned the Dukes this morning in the course of your investigation. A family who also lost their son recently, and who are protected by sealed files."

"He didn't waste any time. The information on the Dukes came into my hands. The connection to two of the victims, as well as Donald Dukes's profession, led me to believe an informal interview was warranted. Are you going to try to tell me how to do my job now?"

"Oh for Christ's sake." Franco threw up her hands. "Why do you insist on behaving as if we're on opposite sides."

"It feels that way."

"Do you know what will happen if Donald Dukes goes to the media? If he talks about being harassed in his own home by the primary in this already hot-button situation? Their son was hooked on illegals by Cogburn-"

"There's no evidence to support Cogburn was his first dealer."

"It doesn'tmatter if there's evidence," Franco fired back. "This is what would be said. Cogburn hooked an innocent, vulnerable twelve-year-old boy, from a good, solid, churchgoing family. The police failed to make a case. Later, this boy-now troubled, now recalcitrant due to his addiction- falls into the hands of a pedophile. Chadwick Fitzhugh beats and rapes young Devin, now a tender fourteen. The family is shattered, the boy is traumatized, andagain the police fail to make a case."

"That's not the way it happened."

"That's the way it'll be presented, reported, discussed should they go public. Truth, pieces of the truth, outright lies, it doesn't matter once it's on the air. A picture will be painted, then you'll walk into it, questioning this damaged, grieving family who tried to do the right thing, who put their faith and their son's welfare into the hands of the system only to be failed in the most horrible way. You attempt to implicate them in a homicide investigation. You accuse them of being members of a group you've publicly called terrorists. And you do this in their home. Don't you see how this will play?"

"I'll tell you how it plays, Franco. Donald Dukes couldn't or wouldn't accept his son's sexual orientation-"

"Oh my God, oh my God." Franco pressed her fingers to her temples, seemed to try to drill them through. "You start saying that child was gay, you'll be in a lawsuit, and so will the department, probably the city before I can push you out of the nearest twenty-story window."

"Not if I push you first. In any case, evidence indicates he was gay, or certainly confused about his own sexuality. He never got the chance to make up his mind. His father is rigid, domineering. The kind of guy who's just not going to be wrong. He destroys evidence that may have helped make the case against Cogburn, but it's the system's fault. He edits and changes the facts in the Fitzhugh matter so the case falls apart, and again, it's the system's fault. Now he's found an outlet for his aggressions and his viewpoint: Purity."

"You have proof of all this?"

"Of some. I'll get the rest."

"Dallas, if I'm having a hard time believing any of this, no one else will believe it. In addition, you're speaking of facts and suppositions that were in a sealed. An official and public reprimand from your commander may not be enough to stop legal action, or the media storm."

"If and when my commander deems it necessary to reprimand me, that's his right and that's my problem. The media storm's yours and Chang's. Dukes can start all the legal actions he wants. They're not going to go anywhere once I put him in a cage. Are we done here?"

"You'd better be very sure of yourself," Franco warned.

"I'm sure of the job, and that's the same thing."

Eve walked out. As she started back downstairs, she heard the clear, strong voice of a tenor singing the opening bars ofDanny Boy.

Cops were always singingDanny Boy at funerals, she thought. She'd never known just why.

"Lieutenant." Roarke met her at the base of the stairs.

"I need some air," was all she said, and strode out the door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A double-parked delivery van had tied up traffic for what appeared to be a good six blocks. The resulting noise from blasting horns and hurled obscenities turned the air into one long scream of rage.

A glide-cart operator had overcooked and oversauced his kabobs. The stink of the greasy smoke was amazing.

Eve preferred the noise and stench to the murmurs and flowers inside.

She strode straight through the nauseating odor and dug out credits. "Gimme chocolate," she ordered the operator.

"Got sticks. Many ya want?"

"Six."

"Got yer fruitade, got yer Pepsi, got yer Coke, got yer fizzy water. Whatcha want?"

"Just the chocolate."

She tossed him the money, snagged the skinny sticks out of his hand. She bit fiercely into the first. They were already melting in the vicious fist of the heat.

Roarke bought a large water and grabbed a small mountain of napkins. "Hand one over. You'll be sick if you eat them all."

"I'm already sick." But she proved her depthless love by giving him one. "Peachtree gives me the thirty-second lecture on teamwork, ending in the warm,we're both just public servants arm squeeze. Then Chang and Franco jump on my ass about the statement I gave 75 this morning. Not screened, not approved. Let's not confuse the public with the truth. I'm a cop, not a public relations puppet."

"Which I'm sure you pointed out."

"Yeah." She smiled grimly, ate more chocolate. "There was that. Franco doesn't seem to be an idiot, especially for a politician. But she-and all of them-sure seem to be more interested in perception, in image, in spins than in the investigation."

"They wouldn't understand the investigation the way they would perception, image, and spin."

He drank water to wash down what was laughingly called chocolate by the city vendors, then dampened a napkin to get the smear of it off his fingers.

"And they wouldn't understand you and the fact that you care less about media exposure than you do what shirt you put on in the morning," he added, two-pointing the napkin into a recycler. "Which is not at all."

Eve looked down at her shirt. It was white, she thought. It was clean. What else did you need to worry about?

"We'd all be better off if they did what they did, and left me alone to do what I do. I've got suspects, damn it. Price, Dwier, and now the Dukeses. I crack any one of them, and this breaks open."

She started on the third stick. "Dukes called a lawyer. Jumped right on that. Whining harassment, making lawsuit noises that've put Franco and company into orbit."