could've been Maria's own blood, but if it wasn't, she didn't want to alert any possible suspects to what they'd found. So she just said, 'We need to be thorough, that's all. It's best to have as much information as possible.'
Dina Rosengaus didn't want her DNA to be in a national database. 'It means they can find me anywhere.'
'No, really, it doesn't,' Stella told her. 'It means that if you leave DNA someplace, it's possible for someone to know that you were there. But having your DNA profile doesn't mean we can find you by it.'
'Now, maybe. But what about the future? What if they can scan for my-what you call it, DNA profile?'
'If they can do that, they'll already have what they need just from scanning you,' Stella said. She had stock answers for all these questions, as she'd gotten them dozens of times.
'But now people can find out where I've been.'
'Only if they need to look for it. There are millions of people in the database, with more every day. Nobody could possibly keep track of every single person in there. That's why we only access the information in relation to a crime.'
Dina didn't look convinced, but she allowed Stella to take her blood and swab her cheek anyhow.
Annie Wolfowitz backed away from Stella at first. 'Don't you need a warrant for that?'
'Only if you don't provide the samples voluntarily. If I can prove to a judge that we need the samples for evidence in a murder investigation-and I have to tell you that it wouldn't take all that much convincing-then I'll have a warrant that will legally compel you to give me blood and DNA samples. But warrants are only needed when the person in question isn't cooperating, and when you don't cooperate, that tends to make cops suspicious.'
'Yeah.' Annie sighed. 'Okay.'
After taking a quick bathroom break-which required a key, a level of security Stella thought to be pretty pointless-she finished off with Sal Belluso. The bakery owner spent the entire time muttering in Italian. Stella's own Italian wasn't just rusty, it was oxidized, and Belluso spoke in a dialect Stella didn't know, but she caught enough to know that Belluso wanted the killer very badly and that he wasn't thrilled with all the women cops (the exact term he used was
She removed the syringe from his arm, grabbed a small square of gauze, and placed it on the puncture. 'Hold that,' she said.
He obligingly put two fingers down on the gauze. Stella fished out a Band-Aid-the last one she had, luckily; she made a mental note to restock back at the lab-and taped down the gauze.
'By the way,' she said as she packed up her gear, 'you should know that Detective Angell had the best arrest rate of anyone working homicide in the NYPD in 2006. If you want Maria's murder solved, you couldn't be in better hands than that particular
Strictly speaking, that wasn't true. Angell only started doing murder in the spring and had only been working on her own for the final quarter of 2006. Any cases she put down prior to that final quarter were credited to her training officer, Detective Benton. However, she
But somehow, saying she had the best arrest rate of anyone for one particular three-month period was less impressive. Besides, it was worth it for the slack-jawed, wide-eyed look of shock on Belluso's face. Whether it was from the fact that Stella understood bits of his rumblings in his native tongue or that Angell was actually a talented cop, Stella couldn't be sure, and it ultimately didn't matter.
She went downstairs, her shoes clunking on the solid wood of the staircase that went down the center of the bakery. Through the picture window, she got an excellent view of Riverdale Avenue. Cars and buses ran in both directions, with plenty of the former double-parked in front of various stores. Up the street, she could see a traffic cop writing a ticket for one of those double-parked cars. Stella thought that they probably hit their quota of parking tickets on this street alone.
This block on Riverdale, north of 236th, was entirely commercial. Across the street from Belluso's, Stella saw a bagel shop, a dry cleaner, a diner, a veterinarian, an insurance office, a florist, a gym, a hardware store, a bank, a comic book store, a pizza place, and a stationery store-and that was just on one side of the street and only halfway up the block. She knew that Riverdale was a heavily residential neighborhood; probably most of the businesses were concentrated in this area, leaving the rest for the nice houses of people like the Mitchums, the deaf family whose daughter's murder had been the subject of Stella's previous trip hereabouts last winter.
One of the buses that went by was a shuttle to the Metro-North Railroad. Between that and the city buses that would take people down the hill to the 1 train on Broadway, this block probably saw a lot of commuter traffic. Stella was willing to bet that Belluso's was a hit in the early morning.
Except today, anyhow.
As she passed by the display cases, she wondered how the cannoli were. Once morning rush hour passed, this place probably got a lot of people in for pastries and more leisurely cups of coffee than that afforded by the morning dash to work. The place even looked like a cafй in Rome, the way all the places in Little Italy downtown did, and Stella wondered if that was on purpose.
To find out, though, she'd need to talk to Belluso, and she had no great desire to do that just at the moment. If nothing else, it would've spoiled her exit line.
Besides, Angell's departmental sedan was pulling up, which meant she was done with her notification of Maria Campagna's parents.
O'Malley and Wayne were both downstairs as well. 'The ME wagon'll be here soon for the body,' Stella said. 'Even after that, though, we'll have to keep this place sealed up.'
Wayne winced. 'Sal'll have a conniption fit.'
'Sal will have to get over it. It's still a crime scene, and we may need to come back here, depending on what we get from the lab.'
Chuckling, O'Malley said, 'Joe will be thrilled.'
Stella frowned. 'Who's Joe?'
'Guy who owns that bagel place.' O'Malley pointed at the bagel shop on the corner. 'Bagels're great, but their coffee sucks. But any port in a storm, y'know?'
Angell had gotten out of her car. Stella smiled at the two uniforms and said, 'Let us know if anything happens.'
'Sure thing, Detective,' Wayne said.
'Oh,' Stella added with the sweetest smile she could manage, 'and O'Malley? You call the detective 'angel face' again, and I'll find out about it. And I've got excellent range scores.'
With that, Stella departed, pleased with being two-for-two on exit lines this morning. When you waded in dead bodies for a living, you took your victories where you could get them. Besides, Angell was good police, and Stella knew as well as anyone how hard it was for a woman to survive in the NYPD, a degree of difficulty that rose exponentially the higher up the ranks you got. That she was very good at her job helped her cause, but mostly in terms of giving guys like O'Malley less ammunition. If Stella could do her bit to alleviate the razzing Angell got, she'd do it.
Jerking a thumb across the street at 236th, Angell said, 'Morgenstern's one block up and around the corner. We can hoof it.'
Feeling the morning sun's heat seeping into her skin, Stella asked, 'Can't we take your nice air-conditioned car?'
'I haven't been running the AC,' she said. 'Uses up gas too fast. I got reamed on my gas mileage.'
Stella shook her head. 'I love bureaucracy. We got similarly reamed on our E-Z Pass usage.'
They crossed Riverdale Avenue and started walking up the steep hill of 236th, passing a crafts store, a fish store-which was quite pungent in this heat-a real estate office, and another hardware place before the block gave way entirely to apartment buildings.
'How was Maria's family?'
Angell shuddered. 'When I started, Benton said that the worst part of the job was notifying families. Everything else-wading hip-deep in people's blood, talking to scumbags who commit murder for the
