Chapter 74

"AH, THAT'S MUCH BETTER," the girl on the screen said, twirling around to show off her attributes, which were impressive, I had to admit.

She finally stopped and kissed the man hard on the mouth. She grabbed his outstretched hand and ran it down her body. "Abracadabra! I've made my dress disappear."

The man laughed.

"You're crazy," he said. "And shameless. I like that in a woman."

"Now it's your turn," the woman said. "Let's see what you have to offer."

"I don't know," the man said skeptically. I couldn't see his face because his back was to the camera. "All these windows. Somebody might see."

"How? You can't even see your hand in front of your face," the young female exhibitionist said. "C'mon, John. Have some balls for once in your life. Have some fun!"

"I'll think about it," the man said. "I just have a little business to attend to first."

Turning around, the man lowered his large head, and then there was a loud, snorting sound.

"Hey, save some for me, will ya?" the woman said, coming over. "You sound like a Piggy Wiggy."

There was another snort.

"This shit is sweet," the man named John said. "Not like that other crap you brought last time. My nose was bleeding for a week. I had to tell my wife it was dry sinuses."

"Another word about your wife," the girl said, "and I'll go downstairs to your room right now and wake her sorry ass up. Now, I snort and you strip."

"What the beautiful lady wants," the man said as he pulled off his jacket, "the beautiful lady gets."

I cringed, hovering the cursor over the "fast forward" button as the man unbuckled his belt. He fell over as he was trying to pull his pants and underwear over his shoes. His pale flanks would have probably shone without the infrared as he unsuccessfully tried to right himself.

Then he turned, and the camera did a quick close-up on his face.

And I clicked on the media player's "pause" button so hard I nearly cracked the mouse.

It was Bronx district attorney John Meade.

I sat there, trying not to hyperventilate, as the significance of everything dawned on me. I already knew Scott was a bad cop. Had he been stealing money from raids? Robbing drug dealers? Whatever. It didn't matter. He was definitely not doing what he was supposed to.

And here, on this particular surveillance, he'd stumbled upon a real, unexpected bonus.

I looked at the important lawyer, his bare sack-of-meal belly, the red eyes above his doped-up half smile.

By accident, or maybe not, Scott had captured the one man most capable of hurting him – the district attorney for the borough where he worked and stole. In the most compromising position imaginable. Having an affair and doing coke.

You couldn't get this kind of backup insurance from Aflac, I thought.

I listened to the rumble of traffic on the highway behind me.

I couldn't believe it. Lies. Dirty money. Now blackmail. Scott hadn't been Batman after all. He'd been Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant.

The dirt just kept on coming.

I closed the lid of my laptop as I started my car.

I was in this up to my neck.

Chapter 75

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up with the surprising and somewhat bizarre idea that it was a good time to take a week of saved-up vacation.

And starting Monday, that is exactly what I did. In spite of everything, I actually had a fairly good time. Instead of sex, lies, and videotape, it was sex, food, and jogging, mostly in the reverse order.

I divided my mornings and afternoons between spending quality time with the crane at Tibbetts Brook Park and learning how to cook like Julia Child again. Every night, I made sure Paul came home to a new, knock-his-socks-off homemade meal: red wine pot roast with porcini, roasted duck breast with black truffles, and his personal favorite, grilled dry-aged porterhouse with twice-baked potatoes.

And it wasn't just his socks that were knocked off usually. Our life in the bedroom was back on track, and maybe even better than ever. Honestly, we couldn't get enough of each other.

While we hugged in the dark afterward, a kind of fugue would settle over me, and everything – the dark past, the uncertain future – would suddenly go away.

Then the ax finally fell on Thursday of my vacation week.

It came in the form of a phone call out of the blue. It was ten o'clock and I was unlacing my Reeboks when I noticed the blinking message light.

No news had meant good news for so long.

So, who was calling me at home on my vacation? I pressed the message button to find out.

"Detective Stillwell, this is assistant district attorney Jeffrey Fisher from the Bronx County Office. I know you're on vacation, but we're going to need you to come in and tie up a few loose ends on the Thayer case. Tomorrow at ten will be good for us. Bronx County Courthouse, second floor."

I played the message over and over again.

What disturbed me the most was that I had a lot of friends in the Bronx DA's Homicide office, but I knew Fisher the least. It seemed like maybe he had drawn the short straw on a distasteful task. And what about the semicasual tone of the message? Tie up a few loose ends sounded like it wasn't a big deal. Which didn't really make sense when I considered the officious-sounding ordering of the where and when at the end. I'd used the same textbook-law-enforcement implication that something mandatory was voluntary in trying to get witnesses to talk to me.

Witnesses, I thought, closing my eyes.

Not to mention suspects.

For a moment I panicked, beginning to think about what might have happened, where I might have screwed up, what the DA might try to lay on me. But then I stopped myself.

I knew how this game was played, and I knew even in the worst-case scenario, I had the advantage. Because the fact was, even if the DA came out and accused me and Paul of murdering Scott, they still had to prove it. Which was going to be hard, since there were no fingerprints, and Paul had never mentioned to anyone what he had done. Not even to me.

You could know somebody did something and they could still walk. I knew that full well. You had to prove your case in a court of law, and you needed evidence just to get there.

Sitting by my phone, I tried to turn my fear into something useful. If the DA's office wanted to play hardball, I decided, then I would be ready for them.

My hand started trembling before I could reach the "delete" button, though.

Yeah, right. Who was I kidding?

How the hell would I pull this one off?

Chapter 76

AFTER A RESTLESS AND UNNERVING NIGHT with almost zero sleep, I decided to strap my gun and badge under my favorite Armani Exchange black suit. The skirt had a side slit in it that ordinarily would disqualify it as work clothes, but this wasn't going to be a typical day at the office, was it?

I peeled off my bandage and teased my freshly razor-cut and colored hair before sliding into a pair of Steve Madden open-toed sling backs.

My meeting at the DA's office was going to be combat, right?

I'd need every weapon I could come up with for this encounter with the law.

I gave myself plenty of time to swing by the Bronxville Starbucks for a venti. I finished it by the time I found a parking spot in Lou Gehrig Plaza across the street from the courthouse. I stared out at Yankee Stadium at the bottom of 161st Street, hoping maybe some of the Bomber mystique would rub off on me.

Unfortunately, from where I was sitting, it was looking like two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

It was nine thirty, a full half hour before my scheduled meeting, when I located Fisher at his desk on the second floor. He was sitting with three other male assistant district attorneys.