“It ain’t the credit I’m worried about. More peoples is gonna die if this shit don’t stop.”

Terrible images flooded her mind- Rosario ’s severed head, Jasmine’s bent body.

“More people already have, Delvis,” she said, furious. “So if you know something that can help me stop it, you better damn well spill it.”

“Benson was dirty.”

Melanie laid the Redweld and her handbag aside. “Dirty how?”

“That’s what I can’t be saying over the phone.”

“You mentioned something during the interview about Slice setting you up. Did Benson know about that?”

“Yeah, you real warm, but it even bigger than that. Look, I say this shit over the phone, I’ma end up dead. Maybe you, too.”

“Come on, Delvis, don’t get all dramatic on me.”

“Naw, I’m serious. That’s why I’m risking it to call and warn you. You treat me like a human being, so I’m returning the favor. Peoples around you is dirty, Miss Vargas.”

“Yeah, like who?”

“Like the ones you brang to see me.”

Dan and Randall?

“Delvis, I-”

“Shit. Gotta go.”

“What?”

“I’ll call you back.”

“No! Wait!”

He hung up.

HOW LONG COULD SHE SIT AROUND WAITING FOR a phone call? Twenty minutes had passed, and Delvis hadn’t called back. She couldn’t work, couldn’t think. Was it possible that Dan and Randall were mixed up in something dirty? Every fiber of her being screamed no. They were rock solid, people you could trust with your life. Then again, she trusted her husband, and look what he did. People could fool you. She needed to hear the rest of Delvis’s information to evaluate it properly. But you couldn’t call an inmate on the telephone. Either he called back or she’d have to drive all the way to Otisville to interview him.

Maurice Dawson, the custodian, knocked on her door, interrupting her chaotic thoughts.

“Hey, Melanie, you ask for a VCR? Guys in Audiovisual sent this up.”

He wheeled a videocassette player on a metal cart through her door.

“Yeah, thanks,” she replied. “Just put it there by the bookshelf.”

She made a deal with herself. She’d review the videotape. If Delvis hadn’t called back by the time she finished, she’d go to the hospital and find Dan. Maybe if she looked him in the eye, she’d know the truth. Feeling calmer, she took the tape from her bag and slid it into the VCR.

A black-and-white picture of Sarah’s bed appeared, neatly made this time and piled with cushions. A date-and-time stamp flashed on, then disappeared. The video had been shot in the middle of the afternoon on the day of Jed Benson’s murder. Interesting timing anyway. No people on screen yet, but Melanie heard voices in the background. She knelt down and adjusted the volume.

“…so much stress,” Sarah was saying.

“It’ll all work out, but that’s why I need a little fun. Did you get the ecstasy?”

The man’s voice sounded unfamiliar. Not Jed Benson. But they were still off-screen, so Melanie couldn’t be sure.

“Not so fast, dodo. You wanna fuck, I need some reassurance first, or I can’t relax.”

“I told you, I have a friend at the SEC. I slipped him some stuff I dug up on Jed. He’s looking into it.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“You don’t need to know. Shit, didn’t I say white panties under the skirt?”

Sarah walked into camera range and sat down on the bed. She had on a complete schoolgirl getup-short plaid kilt, white cotton blouse, buckle shoes over white ankle socks, hair up in pigtails. She leaned back against the pillows, letting her legs fall open provocatively.

“Give it a whirl with these slutty ones. Pretend I’m, like, the corrupt little vixen,” Sarah said.

A man came into view and walked over to the bed, his back to the camera. He was wearing a dress shirt and suit pants. He sat down and thrust his hand up Sarah’s skirt, his face visible in profile. It was not Jed Benson. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties, large, hulking, nearly bald, with heavy-rimmed eyeglasses. Sarah writhed under his touch, then pulled away, closing her legs.

“Come on, I can tell you want it,” the man said, lifting his fingers to his nose. “You’re all wet.”

“Would you just explain to me how your friend is gonna keep the spotlight off what we did on Securilex?”

“He already opened a file on Jed, okay? So if and when the shit hits the fan, which hopefully it won’t, Jed looks good for it. Satisfied?”

“I guess.”

“Jesus, now you got me all upset. Where the fuck are the pills? I need one, or I won’t be able to get it up.”

Sarah sighed, stood up, and walked out of camera range. The man turned, looking directly into the camera. Melanie punched the “pause” button, freezing his face on the screen. She studied it. Hmm, vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t say from where. Had she seen him at the Reed firm? He must work there, right? She pushed “play.”

Sarah returned with a glass of water in one hand. She extended the other hand, palm up. The man plucked a pill from it and tossed it into his mouth, washing it down with a swig of water.

“You, too,” he ordered.

Sarah swallowed the other pill. They sat there for a few minutes. He began to fondle her breasts through her shirt.

“Suck me first,” he said, and Sarah got down on her knees and unzipped his fly. He moaned.

Not likely to be much meaningful dialogue for a while, Melanie thought. She hit “fast forward” and watched them have speeded-up sex, wrinkling her nose. Jesus, whoever this guy was, he was kinky. And ugly! Certainly gave one a different perspective on Miss Sarah van der Vere. Any woman who spent her spare time gratifying this ape must be deeply twisted. Melanie fast-forwarded, looking for some postcoital conversation. She hit “stop” and then “play” again at what looked to be the end of the festivities. The man lay on his back, spent as a beached whale, saying nothing. Sarah got up, naked, and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Time passed. Out of camera range, a cell phone rang, and the man hauled himself out of bed to answer it. Melanie shielded her eyes as his large, hairy body filled the screen.

“Yeah?” she heard him answer, off-camera now. “Oh, hey, Mary…right, right…Is the general counsel gonna be on the call? Because if not, you can handle it yourself…Okay, then set it up for four o’clock, and we’ll do it in my office. And make sure you have Word Processing redline the last draft so we can work from it…Appreciate it. Bye.”

Mary. Hale? Had to be. So who would speak to the eminent Mary that way, like he was her boss? Only Dolan Reed, the managing partner himself, right? Sarah had called the man “dodo” at one point. Dodo? Short for Dolan? Could be-these WASPs had the queerest nicknames. And if the man looked slightly familiar, come to think of it, he resembled the portrait in the reception area, except fatter and balder.

Something occurred to her. She pulled her notebook from her bag and found where she’d jotted down that cell-phone number she’d gotten from Sarah’s caller ID. She dialed it.

“Yeah, hello?” The voice was the same as that of the man on the videotape.

“Dolan Reed?”

“Speaking. Who’s this?”

“I’m calling from Verizon with regard to your cell plan, sir.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes. I’m in the middle of a meeting. Never call this number again!” He hung up.

Well, well. So that was Dolan Reed petting the kitty with Sarah on the tape. And it sounded as if something suspicious was going on at the Reed firm, having to do with a company called Securilex. Melanie remembered that name’s being mentioned in the elevator yesterday. Another lawyer had gotten on and asked Sarah if she was still buried in the Securilex transaction. So Securilex must be a client of the Reed firm. Something was crooked on the Securilex deal, and Sarah van der Vere was nervous about getting caught. Dolan Reed was involved, too, and was trying to frame Jed Benson as the fall guy. Dolan Reed and Sarah were having an affair, which Sarah was secretly taping. Sarah and Jed Benson were also having an affair. Wow, the girl got around. And all in all, sinister enough circumstances to have gotten Jed Benson killed.