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  Mary nodded. “That’s very kind of you, looking after the poor boy. I’m surprised no eligible woman has snapped you up before now.”

  “A lass like Erin’s one in a million,” he said. “And well worth waiting a few years to find.”

  “Careful, Mom,” Erin said. “They say Carlyle can talk his way out of anything.”

  “I can imagine,” she said. “I really don’t understand why you haven’t told me about him before.”

  “What do you think of the food?” Erin asked. It was a shaky, obvious change of subject, but she really didn’t want to talk about their history more than she had to.

  “It’s delicious. The stew is just like my mother used to make. It was a recipe that came from the old country.”

  “As is this,” Carlyle said. “And not to worry, Mary. I’m certain we’ll be seeing more of one another in the future. You don’t know me yet, but you will, I’ve no doubt.”

  They finished the meal. Erin got out a bottle of red wine from Carlyle’s private stock and they sat up talking into the evening. Erin was constantly aware of Mary’s scrutiny, but Carlyle was masterful at deflecting awkward questions. When her mother finally got up to leave, Erin felt the visit had been a success.

  “I’ll be sure to tell Sean all about you,” Mary said. “You seem to be taking good care of my daughter, Mr. Carlyle.”

  “I think it’s rather more a question of her taking care of me at present,” he said with a smile. “But we’ll manage. It’s been a great pleasure meeting you, Mary O’Reilly. You’ve raised a fine lass and you’ve every right to be proud of her.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Sean thinks the world of her too, though he doesn’t always say so. When Junior was born, he thought he’d follow him into the police, but little Sean never took to it. Erin was always the tough one of the four.”

  “Still am,” Erin said.

  “My husband keeps an eye on her,” Mary confided. “Through his old friends in the Department.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Erin said, rolling her eyes. “I can feel them looking over my shoulder.”

  “It’s for your own good, dear.”

  “I know. It’s been great having you here, Mom. Now you can stop worrying about me.”

  “We’ll see about that. Good night, dear.”

  “Sorry for springing that on you,” Erin said. She’d walked her mom to the front door and returned to the apartment, so she and Carlyle were now alone. “I swear, I didn’t know she was coming.”

  “As far as being surprised by alarming people goes, darling, this scarcely registers,” Carlyle said with a smile. “Your mum’s a fine lass.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s called her a lass in years. Except maybe Corky. Oh God, she was talking to Corky. For an hour. Unsupervised.”

  “Not to worry, darling. She’s a mite old for him.”

  “Ugh. That wasn’t what I was worried about. But I am now. Thanks for that. He could’ve told her things.”

  “Haven’t you learned? Corky’s a master of the art of talking while saying nothing at all.”

  Erin laughed. “You’re right about that. I just don’t think we need this extra trouble right now.”

  Carlyle was still smiling, but his eyes grew more serious. “Erin, building the case for your lads is going to take time. It’ll be months before all’s ready, as you well know. Did you really think your family would just sit by and wait? You’re a close-knit clan. I’m certain I’ll be seeing all the rest of them before long. You’re not ashamed of me, are you?”

  “Well… no,” she said. “But it’s complicated. If I could just tell them you were helping me infiltrate the Mob, they’d think you were a hero. But we can’t say that, so I don’t want to talk about what it looks like you’re doing. Because what it looks like…”

  “Is that I’m living a sordid life of crime?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “But you fell in love with me before I started cooperating with the coppers,” he reminded her.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “It just is!” She scowled at him. “You’re yanking me around.”

  “Perhaps a little. If we can’t find the funny side of this, it’s going to be a grim year.”

  “You think it’ll take a whole year?”

  He shrugged. “That’s up to your lads, particularly when it comes to what they’re prepared to accept. If all they’re wanting is to throw a few lads behind bars for a couple of years, we can get that done any time we like. We could do that tomorrow. The only downside is, I’d be dead inside a week, and possibly you along with me. But if we’re truly wanting a clean sweep, your district attorney will be needing financial records, taped conversations, bank accounts, the whole works.”

  “But you’ve got the financial records,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not nearly all of them. The only things I’ve got are the books for the Barley Corner and a few other businesses, all doctored to look legitimate. What you’re needing is Evan’s main ledger.”

  “Which you can get your hands on?”

  He shook his head again. “Nay, I don’t even know where he keeps it. Without that, we’ve no way of knowing how far his reach goes. I can tell your lads most of the businesses Evan’s invested in, but it’ll be bloody hard to prove. And then we’ve got to tie all the major players to as many crimes as possible. It’ll be a bookkeeping nightmare. Not to mention the risks you and I will be taking whenever we wire up for a conversation.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Erin said sourly. “The last O’Malley meeting I went to, I wasn’t wearing a wire and Mickey still almost killed me.”

  “Speaking of which,” he said. “You mentioned you were in a bit of a scrap today?”

  “Oh, that. It was nothing. Just a dumbass perp who tried to shove past me. I took him down and he hadn’t had enough yet, so Rolf finished the job. I wasn’t even scratched.”

  “Is he the lad you’re looking for?”

  “I think so. But there’s still some loose ends to tie up.”

  “I hope it’ll keep until tomorrow. I’d rather looked forward to your company tonight.”

  “Well, here I am.” She spread her hands wide. “You’ve got your girlfriend living with you now. How do you like it?”

  “I’d have liked to carry you over the threshold,” he said. “But doctor’s orders, I fear. The same for properly christening our joint residence. My muscles aren’t quite up for what we’d both be wanting, sad to say.”

  “That’s all right. It gives us something to look forward to.” She slid in close to him on the sofa and kissed him. “At least I can do this. What harm can a kiss do?”

  “I seem to recall it ending poorly for our Lord and savior in Gethsemane,” he said, smiling. “But I’ll take my chances.” He slid his hand around the back of her neck and drew her in close.

  Chapter 7

  Webb was already in the Major Crimes office when Erin arrived the next morning. Fortified by coffee, he was typing away at his computer.

  “Let me guess, sir,” Erin said. “Levine stayed overnight to finish the bloodwork.”

  “It’s like you know her,” Webb said. “The results should be on your computer.”

  “Homicide?” she guessed, sliding into her chair and flipping on her monitor. Rolf, recognizing the signs of impending boredom, settled onto his belly with a sigh. He wriggled around into a comfortable position on his blanket next to Erin’s desk.

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?” she echoed. Those were not typical words for Levine to attach to a report.

  “We can charge it as a homicide,” he said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Cause of death was apparently a drug overdose.”

  “Oh.” Erin had the report up on her screen now. She quickly skimmed it, trying to parse Levine’s dry medical jargon. “What drug?”

  “Rohypnol, probably exacerbated by alcohol.”<
br />
  “Someone roofied her?”

  “Yeah.” Webb sighed. “It used to be, you only had to worry about that in seedy bars. Now we’ve got a charity dinner at an upscale hotel.”

  “Couldn’t have happened at dinner, sir,” she said. “If Devers had enough Rohypnol to kill her, there’s no way she could’ve gone up to Stone’s room and talked afterward. She wouldn’t have been conscious.”

  “Unless Stone is lying,” Webb said. “But we should be able to tell if she was drugged at dinner by looking at the security tape again. If she left the room under her own power, she wasn’t under the influence yet. That stuff hits you within half an hour and it hits hard.”

  “Nobody takes Rohypnol recreationally,” Erin said. “If she had it in her system, somebody drugged her, probably with the intention to rape her.”

  “I agree,” Webb said.

  “That absolutely makes this a homicide, whether they meant to kill her or not.”

  “I agree,” he repeated. “And we’ll treat it as such. But we need to consider the other results of the autopsy.”

  Erin took a moment to look over the report some more. “No signs of sexual assault,” she said. “That doesn’t mean anything, sir. If she went down hard from the drugs, it just means her assailant didn’t like the idea of getting cozy with a corpse.”

  “Understandable,” Webb said. “There’s also the cracked ribs.”

  “Either the person who drugged her tried to keep her alive, or some Good Samaritan did,” Erin said.

  “Not a very good one in my opinion,” Webb said. “Given that the CPR was probably the last thing that happened before she got dumped in the fish tank. A real Samaritan would’ve called 911 instead of tossing her in the water.”

  “So either the person trying to save her was working with the person who drugged her, or they’re the same person,” Erin said.

  “I’m guessing there’s only one subject,” Webb said. “When in doubt, go with the simple option.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I’m thinking about the broken fingernails.”

  “What about them?”

  “Devers put up a struggle. She had to be conscious for that. And there’s another thing.”

  “What?”

  “The power outage.”

  “Right,” Webb said. “Convenient, wasn’t it? The power goes out just when we need it to see the body getting moved? You think there’s any chance that’s a coincidence?”

  “Sir, if I believed in playing those odds, I’d go buy a lottery ticket right now.”

  “I’d go halves with you,” he said. “Forget about my pension. I think we need to look into the hotel custodial staff. You’ve got the list of workers who were on the night shift?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Start checking them for criminal records, especially sex offenses.”

  “The hotel wouldn’t have hired a registered sex offender.”

  “Background checks miss things. We won’t know until we look. To hell with Sherlock Holmes. Fancy logic doesn’t solve as many cases as just putting your nose to the grindstone.”

  “I’ll start grinding, sir. But what about Schilling?”

  “What about him?” Webb smiled grimly. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Vic arrived a few minutes later and was promptly put to work on the same task Erin was doing. Background checks weren’t difficult, but they took time. The detectives had to double-check residency history and neighboring states’ records to make sure nobody had done a crime in, say, New Jersey before moving to New York. They had to check for name changes and juvenile records. And they looked at charges that hadn’t stuck. An employer wouldn’t know about a case that had been thrown out, or that had led to an acquittal, but Erin and Vic were looking for possible patterns of behavior. Just because the law didn’t say a guy was guilty didn’t mean he hadn’t done it. To a police officer’s eye, that could just mean the perp had gotten away with it.

  “I got nothing but misdemeanor crap,” Vic said after a couple of hours. “Some disorderly conduct, a couple drunk and disorderly, one public intoxication, and a few half-ass reefer busts. You?”

  “I looked over Mr. Stone, the guy who invited her up for drinks, as long as I was doing checks. He’s clean. No charges at all, here or in Massachusetts,” Erin said. “I’ve did find one guy that’s interesting, though. An electrician. He’s been arrested a few times, but no charges ever stuck.”

  “What’d we grab him for?” Vic asked, rolling his chair toward her desk.

  “A couple bar fights and an assault.”

  “How come he didn’t do any time?”

  Erin looked over the arrest reports. “The brawls didn’t result in anyone pressing charges. Looks like they were just a bunch of drunken idiots smacking each other around.”

  “Sounds like my typical Friday nights,” Vic said.

  “The only one that was serious, someone went to the hospital. The problem is, it was our guy who got hospitalized. The complainant was a girl who said she saw him slip something in her drink while he was chatting her up.”

  “Ooh, I like that,” Vic said. “That’s solid.”

  “I don’t know.” Erin frowned at her computer screen. “The girl teaches Krav Maga at a martial arts club in Brooklyn. She took the glass he’d spiked and broke it in his face.”

  “Ouch.” Vic winced.

  “Then she kicked him in the crotch and dislocated his shoulder,” Erin continued. “She didn’t even have a bruise, and she’d lost the evidence of the drug when she smashed the glass, so the DA didn’t have a case.”

  “How come he didn’t press assault charges on her?” Vic asked.

  “Take a look,” she said, pointing to her computer. There, side by side, were pictures of the young woman and her alleged assailant. The guy was a hulking brute of a man, matching Vic’s six-foot-three frame and sporting a bushy beard. He was also showing an obviously broken nose, a swollen eye, and numerous facial lacerations. The girl was listed as five-foot-two and a hundred and ten pounds.

  “Jesus,” Vic said. “He’s like three of her.”

  “I guess he didn’t want to shrink what was left of his manhood by publicly declaring he got his ass handed to him by a tiny woman,” Erin said.

  “She looks kinda like our victim,” Vic commented.

  “Yeah,” Erin said. “Same facial shape, a little shorter but a similar build. But I guess Sarah Devers didn’t know kung fu.”

  “Krav Maga,” Vic corrected. “I took a class once from this guy, ex-Israeli special forces. I’m not surprised this girl wrecked him. He’s just lucky she didn’t go for the eyes. So where’s this electrician now? Who is he?”

  “His name’s Lloyd Polk,” she said. “He’s still living in Brooklyn. Rough commute. The InterContinental has him working nights.”

  “What do you bet he’s got access to the fusebox?”

  “A week’s pay says he does.” Erin raised her voice and called across the room. “Sir?”

  “What is it?” Webb replied. He’d been examining the autopsy report and hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation.

  “Got an electrician with a history of violence, access to the hotel power grid, and a charge last year that he tried to slip a woman a mickey.”

  “Go bring him in,” Webb said.

  “We’ve already got a guy in lockup for this,” Erin reminded him.

  “We’ve got space,” he replied. “No one’s been charged yet. Go talk to this guy, find out what he’s got to say. Maybe they’re in it together.”

  “I’ll go with her,” Vic volunteered.

  “You want to ride with O’Reilly?” Webb asked, surprised. Vic and Erin had been on rocky personal ground ever since he’d learned about her and Carlyle. They were working together okay, but it wouldn’t be true to say they were completely happy with each other.

  “No, sir,” Vic said cheerfully. “I’m just hoping this mope wants to resist arrest. I bet he’d love to see
what a guy my size can do with Krav Maga. You can drive, Erin.”

  In Erin’s Charger, on the way down to Brooklyn, Vic sat in the passenger seat. Rolf was in his compartment. Both of them were obviously hoping for action.

  Erin wasn’t sure. She didn’t mind throwing down with a goon, particularly when the mope liked taking advantage of women. But she still thought Schilling was the more likely perp, and they didn’t have a single bit of evidence tying Polk to Devers’s death. All they had was an unproven allegation by someone who’d beaten the crap out of the guy. Still, everyone was judged by their past actions, so they had to at least talk to him. She just hoped Vic wasn’t too eager to beat him down.

  “Hey, Vic?” she asked after a few minutes.

  “Yeah?”

  “I can only say I’m sorry so many times.” She had to be careful what she said here. Her car might very well be bugged by Internal Affairs.

  “I don’t hate you,” he sighed. “I hate that smooth jerk you’re hanging out with, but I don’t hate you. He’s gonna hurt you, Erin. Or the people you love. He’s not worth it.”

  “How would you know if he’s worth it?” she shot back.

  “Hey, look, I’ve had good sex, okay?”

  Erin grimaced. “A little too much information, Vic, but okay, I believe you.”

  “And no sex is good enough to go through that much trouble.”

  “It’s not about the sex, Vic.”

  “So now you’re not screwing him?”

  “Of course not. He just got out of the hospital. I don’t want to kill him.”

  “That’s a good point,” Vic said. He gave her a considering look. “You really think you’d kill him? I mean, I know he’s old and all, but damn, girl. A lot of people talk about having a killer body, but you really take it to the next level.”

  “Are you joking, Vic? I can’t always tell.”

  “I like to keep you guessing.”

  Erin gave it a few moments, just long enough for him to think she’d dropped the subject.

  Then she said, “I bet Piekarski could kill you.”