“You… are… a… bitch!”

“Took you all these years to figure that out, scumball?”

He eyed the backpack. “What the hell are you going to do with all that stuff?”

“I’m not sitting on the sidelines, Bin.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Two years in hell, and the blue ripped right out of my heart, that’s what that means.”

CHAPTER 30

ROY CLOSED the door softly behind him. Playing snoop while homicide detectives were still on the premises was not the smartest career move he’d ever made. Yet there was something about Mace Perry that just made him not want to disappoint the woman. Maybe it was the fact that she could probably kick his ass anytime she wanted.

Chester Ackerman’s office looked as though the man never did a lick of work, and without billable hours to be counted up, there was no way to tell if he did or not. Still, he brought in more business than any partner in the firm and in the legal world that was the big stick. It was also principally why he was managing partner. As quickly and as efficiently as he could, Roy opened file and desk drawers, checked the pockets of the man’s suit coat that hung on the back of the door, and tried but failed to access his computer records.

He heard footsteps coming and started to panic before those sounds eased away down the hall. He listened at the door and slipped out. He bypassed his office and headed to the mail room. He talked to Dave again, gained no useful information, and next questioned the other mail room guy, who was similarly clueless. He waited until both men headed out with items for delivery before searching through the mail room but finding nothing.

The space had one odd feature, a large dumbwaiter that had been built especially for the mailroom. Shilling & Murdoch also had office space on the fifth floor, and this motorized dumbwaiter ran directly into a storage room set up there for the firm’s archives. It was more convenient to keep the materials on-site for ready access. And it was far more efficient to send heavy boxes down a straight shaft than cart them through the office and then down the elevators.

As he stood there a weird thought occurred to him.

He rode the elevator to the fourth floor. When the doors opened the sounds of nail drivers and power saws hit him right in the eardrums. He stepped off and was immediately met by a wiry guy with Popeye forearms covered in colorful tattoos and wearing a yellow hard hat.

“Can I help you, buddy?”

“I work at the law firm on the sixth floor.”

“Congratulations, but you can’t be here.”

“I’m also on the building’s oversight committee. We’ve been notified that there have been some thefts of property from your work site and I was asked by the committee chairman to come down to get further details. It has to do with our property and casualty insurance reporting requirements and also our D &O rider, you understand?”

It was as though the minute he’d passed the bar Roy’s ability to bullshit on demand had clicked to a whole new level. Or maybe that was why he’d gone to law school in the first place.

It was painfully clear from the expression on Hard Hat’s face that he hadn’t comprehended one syllable Roy had uttered.

“So what does that mean?”

Roy said patiently, “It means I have to look around and report back and maybe your company will get some money from our overlap insurance coverage to help cover some of the losses.”

The man tossed a hard hat to Roy. “Works for me, I’m just the carpenter. Only watch your step, dude. Lawyers fall down and get a boo-boo, I don’t even want to think about what that would cost.”

Roy slipped on the hat and started walking around the space. One of the passenger elevators had been fitted with pads so the construction crew could bring its materials in because the building didn’t have a dedicated freight elevator.

Roy didn’t know how many of the construction crew had been given key cards. He found the carpenter and asked this question. The guy was driving screws into a metal wall stud.

“Crew chief has one. He lets me in if I get here before the building opens. Most guys report at eight-thirty, so they can just walk right in.”

“When does everyone leave?”

“Right at five-thirty. Work rules.”

“No overtime? Weekends?”

“Not for me. I don’t want it. I like my downtime. Have to ask the crew chief if anybody else works off the clock.”

“Where is he?”

“Long lunch.” The man put down his power screwdriver and tipped his hard hat back. “See, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. A crew chief.”

Roy continued to walk around the space. He heard a machine whirring and was surprised to see the building’s day porter. He was standing in front of a microwave set up in a little cubby off the main work area where there was also a fridge.

“Hey, Dan, what are you doing here?”

Dan, a slender man with silver hair and a matching mustache, was dressed in a neat blue work uniform. “Missed lunch. Just warming up some soup, Roy.”

“You come up here often?”

The microwave dinged and Dan took the bowl out and started spooning tomato soup into his mouth. “They’re paying me a little on the side to keep the place tidy.”

“Who? The crew chief?”

“Yep. Worked for him before on a job a couple years ago before I got this gig. He remembered me. Few extra dollars don’t hurt. I mean, I get all my work done for the building first, Roy,” he added quickly.

“I’ve got no problems with that. But I hear they’ve been having some problems?”

Dan nodded. “Stuff missing. Some wrenches and some food. I told the crew chief not to keep food up here, but the guys don’t listen. They cram their munchies all over the place. And stuff in the fridge there.”

“They ever think of hiring a security guard?”

“Too much money for this small a job. I come up here in the evenings to clean up, but I’m always gone by seven. Never seen or heard anything.”

“They work weekends?”

“No, client won’t pay the overtime. Monday to Friday, according to my buddy.”

“Any theories on who might be stealing?”

“Not a clue. But I doubt it’s anybody from your place, unless you got some folks who’ll risk their six-figure careers over a package of Oreos and cans of Pepsi.”

Roy left the fourth floor and went back to his office. He had spent nearly an hour learning absolutely nothing. He hoped Mace was having better luck with the key.

CHAPTER 31

PERFORMING THIS particular test at Beth’s house was out of the question even for a risk-taker like Mace. So here she was in the ladies’ room at a Subway restaurant.

She’d brought in her backpack, locked the door, put on latex gloves, sprinkled the dye on the key, put on her contrasting spectacles, and turned off the light. She powered up her handheld blue-light wand, and her fifty bucks paid to old Binder scored an immediate dividend.

“Friction ridges, come to Momma,” she said softly. There were fingerprints on the key. She hit the surface with a magnification lens she had also pried from Binder’s cold fingers. During her career Mace had looked at enough inked islands, dots, ending ridges, and other fingerprint ID points to be considered an expert. This print was good and clean with minutiae including a hook, a ridge crossing, and even a trifurcation. The other side of the key wasn’t quite as good, but there was still plenty enough for a match.

Thumb and index she assumed, since those were the fingers one normally used to hold a key. She was thinking that the prints probably belonged to Diane Tolliver. How that advanced the investigation she wasn’t sure, but at least it would show whether the dead woman had held it. She was surprised that the prints hadn’t been wiped away by the key being pressed between the pages of the book, but sometimes the good guys got lucky.