The Bianchi family’s lawyer reminded Erin of a lizard in an expensive suit. His face was expressionless and she wasn’t convinced he needed to blink. He was sitting beside Paulie in the interrogation room. Erin and Webb were on the other side of the table.
“Just so Mr. Bianchi understands how much trouble he’s in,” Webb said. “We’ve got him in possession of twenty-five bags of heroin. At an estimated fifty milligrams apiece, that’s a gram and a quarter. That’s short of an A-1 felony, but given your client’s prior history of drug possession, he could be looking at fourteen years.”
“I will be examining the chain of custody of the alleged narcotic,” the lawyer said. “And I will be scrutinizing Detective O’Reilly’s record to determine the likelihood that she planted the alleged narcotics on my client.”
Erin bristled but knew better than to take the obvious bait.
“I will also be filing an excessive-force complaint against Detective O’Reilly,” he went on. “Given the unsupervised attack of the dangerous animal which assaulted my client, I will be requesting it be destroyed.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Erin snapped. “Are you threatening an NYPD officer?”
Webb raised a calming hand. “Fortunately, the incident was captured on several civilian cameras, as well as security cameras in the subway,” he said. “I’m sure the footage will dispel any such allegations.”
“My office will bring a civil suit,” the lawyer relentlessly continued, as if the detectives hadn’t spoken. “I will also be filing complaints of police harassment. My client and his mother were accosted in a place of worship, immediately after the death of his father, and subjected to a humiliating interrogation.”
“Your client is a suspect in an ongoing homicide investigation,” Erin retorted. “And he’s a drug dealer. I suppose the heroin was for emotional support in this difficult time?”
“My client has no comment,” the lawyer repeated.
Webb stood up. “Thank you for your time,” he said blandly. “We’ll be charging your client shortly. You might want to stick around; it won’t be long.”
“But you can add the wait to your billable hours,” Erin couldn’t resist adding.
Once they were out of the interrogation room, and Bianchi’s lawyer had gone downstairs to wait for them to finish charging the kid, Erin rounded on Webb.
“That asshole!” she exploded.
“Easy, O’Reilly,” Webb said. “He’s just doing his job.”
“He threatened to kill Rolf! He’s a damn Mafia goon, just like the jerks he works for!”
“Nothing’s going to happen to Rolf,” Webb said. “I saw the kid’s arm. The teeth didn’t even break the skin.”
“And if he does try anything,” Vic said, coming out of the observation room, “I’ll help you beat the shit out of him.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Webb said. “You know we can’t beat up the lawyers.”
“Hey, you wanna hear a joke?” Vic said. “What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the East River?”
Erin had heard this one. “A good start,” she said. Then she followed up with one of her own. “I heard sharks don’t eat lawyers. You know why?”
Vic snickered. “Professional courtesy. What’s the difference between a defense attorney and a catfish? One’s a scum-sucking bottom-feeder…”
“Okay, knock it off,” Webb said. “And good work on the bust, O’Reilly.”
“Yeah,” Vic said. “You ever wash out of Major Crimes, you can go work for SNEU.”
“Those guys are crazy,” she said. “My dad always told me they were a bunch of nutjobs.”
“Then you oughta fit right in,” Vic said, grinning. “I always kinda wanted to be one of them.”
“Unfortunately,” Webb said, “this doesn’t close our homicide.”
“Yeah, Erin,” Vic said, still grinning. “You gotta stop solving the wrong cases.”
“But it has to be connected,” she said. “I mean, the candy boxes were absolutely identical.”
“I noticed that,” Webb said. “But one of them had poisoned candy, the other had drugs. It’d have to be a hell of a coincidence for both boxes to be in the same apartment.”
“But both boxes were in the same apartment,” she reminded him.
“In that case, Rocky Nicoletti got the wrong box,” Vic said.
Webb and Erin looked at him.
“I mean, Nicoletti’s a small-time drug dealer,” he said. “He’d have preferred the box of drugs, wouldn’t he? So why did Paulie give him the other box?”
“Maybe he didn’t mean to,” Erin said. “Maybe Paulie gave him the wrong one, just like you said. By accident.”
“What kind of idiot does a drug trade without looking in the box first?” Vic asked.
“The kind we’ve got in Interrogation Room One,” Webb said dryly.
“So let’s suppose Paulie’s trying to get his drugs to Rocky,” Erin said. “And he hides them in an empty candy box. Then he sees the box, assumes it’s his, and gives it to his buddy. But the buddy opens it up later, and surprise! It’s candy.”
“So he gives the candy to his girlfriend,” Vic said. “Not knowing it’s poisoned.”
“And she shares it with her other boyfriend,” Erin said. “Not the classiest thing you could do. Next thing they know, he’s dead.”
Webb nodded. “Okay,” he said. “But what happened to the other box in the meantime?”
“I expect Paulie had it hidden somewhere in the apartment,” Erin said. “But he wouldn’t have even thought to look for it before he knew it was still there.”
“But why would he assume the other box was his?” Vic wondered. “If I was smuggling drugs and found somebody’d moved my shit around, I’d double-check.”
“He’s living with his mom,” Erin said. “She probably cleans his room for him.”
“What a loser,” Vic said.
“But who put the other box in the apartment in the first place?” Webb asked.
“Nina,” Erin said at once. “Vic and I think she killed Lorenzo.”
“And the chocolate was her first try?” Webb asked.
“Yeah.”
“Can you prove it?”
Erin and Vic glanced at one another.
Webb sighed. “That’s a no.”
“Not yet,” Erin corrected him.
“And the drug bust is just a distraction from the homicide,” he said.
“We could use it as leverage,” Erin suggested.
“We could,” Webb agreed, “if Paulie knew anything useful about the poison. But I don’t think he does.”
“I don’t mean leverage on
