“Dinner, on me. Pick a nice place. I mean really nice, where you actually have to wear shoes and everything.”

“Did Altman give you an advance on your salary?”

“No, I just cleaned out my bank account.”

“Mace, what about your creditors?”

“I’ll start paying them off with my first paycheck. Let’s just have a nice meal.”

“Mom was that bad?”

“She’s still alive and so am I, so how bad could it be?”

“Okay. How about eight-thirty? I’ll call you with the place.”

Mace clicked off and Beth went back to her notes.

Her office phone rang.

She picked it up and listened for two minutes.

There’d been another murder.

And this one had cut close to home. A U.S. attorney was dead. Mona Danforth wasn’t the one killed. Beth managed to avoid tacking “unfortunately” onto the end of this thought. But they had just discovered Jamie Meldon’s body in a Dumpster in northwest Washington.

CHAPTER 26

ON THE DRIVE over Beth spent the time thinking about the dead man. Jamie Meldon was one of Mona Danforth’s top assistants and was as unlike his boss as it was possible to be. He was a fine, diligent lawyer who’d made enemies in the criminal world as all good prosecutors did. And one of those enemies might have murdered him. She obviously was not going to make dinner with Mace. But if there was one thing her sister would understand it was that in their line of work the job trumped everything else.

When she got to the crime scene she was not surprised to see the FBI there along with her people. Meldon was a U.S. attorney and thus his murder was a federal crime. What did shock her was seeing her police and forensics personnel packing their stuff up to leave.

“What’s going on?” she asked the officer in charge.

“We’ve been told in no uncertain terms that this is a federal investigation and we are persona non grata.”

“Like we’ve never worked a homicide with the Bureau. Where’s the SAIC?” she asked, referring to the special agent in charge.

He pointed to a man in a suit near the Dumpster.

Beth marched over with two of her district homicide detectives in tow. “Can I ask what’s going on?”

The man turned around to look at her. “Hello, Beth.”

Beth recognized him as soon as she saw his face. “Steve? I didn’t think the AD came out to homicides.”

Steve Lanier, the assistant director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and a man Beth worked with closely, said, “Well, I can’t say the same about you because I know you come to every one.”

“Did you know Jamie Meldon?”

“No.”

“So why are you here, then?”

He glanced over at a group of men in suits. “Do you know who they are?”

“No, should I?”

“They will be coming over here shortly and informing you that national security interests are at stake and the police will not be involved in this investigation.”

“What does national security have to do with a prosecutor’s murder?”

“Well, I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out.”

“We? They might be able to pull the rug out from under us, but you’re the FBI.”

“In ordinary circumstances that would be true.”

“So what’s extraordinary about this?”

“All I can tell you is that it came straight from Pennsylvania.”

“The White House?”

“And don’t bother asking who they are. They won’t tell you.”

Beth looked puzzled. “CIA? Langley has no law enforcement jurisdiction. Hell, they can’t even operate domestically.”

“It may not be the CIA.”

“Steve, are you saying you don’t even know which agency they’re from?”

“That’s right.”

“Then how the hell did they get access to a restricted crime scene?”

Lanier smiled glumly. “They showed their driver’s licenses.”

“Are you shitting me! Their driver’s licenses?”

“The FBI director himself told me that they would be here, what their names were, and that they should have unfettered access to the crime scene, because they were taking over the investigation. So they didn’t have to show me their creds.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“Yes it is.”

“Chief Perry?” said one man in his forties and who was the apparent leader of this little group of unknowns.

“Yeah?” Beth said in a stern tone.

“Perhaps the assistant director here has filled you in on… things?”

“That you’re trumping my jurisdiction based solely on your legal right to drive a motor vehicle? Yep, he mentioned it, but maybe you can run me through it with particulars, including your names and the agency you work for.”

“That won’t be happening,” said the man pleasantly. “The mayor should be e-mailing you-”

Beth’s BlackBerry started buzzing.

“Right about now,” said the man, smiling.

Beth checked her device. The mayor was polite and diplomatic but the message was clear. Back off now.

“Can I expect copies of reports?” she asked.

“No.”

“Can I see the body?”

“Same answer,” said the fellow.

“Will you tell me when and if you find the killer?”

“We’ll expect you and your people to be gone in the next two minutes.”

The men turned and left.

Beth looked at Lanier. “Do you hate them as much as I do, Steve?”

Lanier said, “Oh, even more than you do. Trust me.”

“Care to give me their names? I’m assuming you remember them from the driver’s licenses.”

“Sorry, Beth, I got my marching orders too.”

She stalked back to her car. At least she’d be having dinner with her sister tonight after all.

CHAPTER 27

AT THE SOUND of the knock Roy looked up from a contract he was reviewing.

“Yeah?”

The door opened and a young man dressed in corduroy pants, striped shirt, and a cheap paisley tie stood there holding on to the front bar of a mail cart. It was old-fashioned, but even in the digital age sometimes lawyers still needed materials that were actually contained in books or written on real paper.

“Special delivery,” the young man said.

“Just put it on the desk, Dave.”

Dave came forward clutching the book. “Creepy.”

“What’s creepy?’

“Ms. Tolliver.”

Roy shrugged. “I doubt whoever killed her is going to come back.”

“Not what I meant.”

Dave put the book down on the desk.

Roy leaned back in his chair. “Okay, don’t keep me in suspense.”

Dave tapped the book. “This is from Ms. Tolliver.”

Roy snatched up the book. “When did she put it in the mail room?”

“Don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know? I thought there were procedures.”

“Most of the time folks call and we come and pick up the package. They have a delivery sheet filled out and we put it in the pipeline.”

“So why don’t you know when this book came in?”

“It was just in the mail room with the sheet filled out. She must’ve done it herself. I checked with Ms. Tolliver’s secretary and she didn’t know anything about it.”

“But she was killed Monday morning. It’s now Tuesday afternoon and I’m just getting this?”

“We didn’t deliver the mail yesterday because the police were all over the place. Just getting to it now. I’m sorry.”

Roy examined the cover of the book. It was on contract law, an out-of-date edition. Lawyers never sent old textbooks to each other. What would be the point?

“Did you see it in the mail room on Friday?”

“Don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Okay, but did you see it in the mail room on Monday morning?”

“Can’t really say. It was so crazy around here. But it had to be there on Monday morning. I mean, she couldn’t have done it after she was dead.”

“If she was the one who put the book in the mail room, Dave. We have no way of telling if she physically did it or not.”

“Oh, right.” Dave looked at him nervously. “Am I in trouble?” Roy sat back, his sudden flame of anger gone. “Probably not. Thanks, Dave. Sorry I got testy. I guess we’re all a little stressed out.”