'Works for me,' Angell said.
Sighing, Stella went back downstairs. The evidence all supported the notion that Morgenstern killed Maria, but did nothing to prove it.
At least not yet.
Still, Stella hated this part of it. While it was true that evidence didn't lie, it didn't always tell the truth.
Sometimes it just sat and taunted you, and didn't actually tell you anything.
'Jen,' she called back upstairs, 'I'm gonna head back-get to work on some of this.'
Angell poked her head over the banister. 'Will do. I'll send over everything once it's collected.'
Bracey appeared out of nowhere and said, 'I expect an itemized receipt, Detective.'
Putting her hand to her chest and trying to get her breathing under control, Stella said, 'You scared me.'
'I said I expect-'
'-an itemized receipt, I heard you the first time, Ms. Bracey. Don't worry, you'll get it. Excuse me.'
With that, she left the Morgenstern house. She needed to get back to the lab and find out once and for all if the house's owner really was a killer.
IT SEEMS TO BE a routine crime scene check. You and Mac follow a blood trail that starts at the dead body and leads upstairs into a corporate office hallway.
There's a ladder on the floor where the trail ends and an open panel in the ceiling. Mac holds a latex glove in his hand and straightens the ladder, then he climbs it to see what's up there.
While Mac does that, holding that penlight he always carries like it's a spear or something, your mind starts to wander. You're testifying in the Howard case in a week, and you're supposed to go over your testimony with ADA Maria Cabrera this afternoon. Even though the evidence against Howard's partner in the plastic surgery business is overwhelming, the jackass still pled not guilty and hired an expensive mouthpiece.
Worse, the DA gave it to Cabrera, the snottiest person in the prosecutor's office. She still has a grudge against you for the Balidemaj case, which means this meeting will be as much fun as your last trip to the dentist, only without the cute hygienist, Abby. If the ADAs were less like Cabrera and more like Abby, you'd enjoy testifying more. You should call her, actually…
Suddenly, Mac practically jumps off the ladder. 'We gotta check the building. If there's anyone here, get 'em out.' You wonder what the hell he's talking about, when he says three fateful words:
'There's a bomb.'
All thoughts of Abby's hourglass figure and the Howard case and Cabrera's obnoxiousness flee from your brain at the sound of those words.
Instead, you think that the last thing this city needs is another building blowing up.
'Hit the alarm!' Mac yells, and you reach out with one long arm and yank on the white handle of the fire alarm.
It's craziness after that, the alarm blaring in your ears. 'Call central,' Mac screams over the alarm, 'no radio!' But you already have your cell phone out and flipped open.
'Suspicious package,' you cry as you run upstairs, '621 Greenwich. A bomb.'
Central, as usual, is staffed by morons. 'Did you say a bomb?' the guy says. You're pretty sure it's Soohoo. Probably half asleep like usual.
'Yeah a bomb!'
You and Mac get to the next floor, and sure enough, even though it's Sunday, there are workaholics in the building who just can't wait until Monday to do what they have to do. Of course, you're working on a Sunday, but never mind.
Used to be that evacuating a building was like pulling teeth, only without the sexy hygienist. Since the fall of 2001, though, all you had to do was say the word bomb, and every New Yorker knew exactly what to do.
You're not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Mac calls Monroe-who had gone outside to get more crime lab toys from the SUV-and tells her to evacuate the area.
Finally, you're checking the last of the doors, making sure that the building's been completely emptied. It's just you and Mac left, looks like.
'All right,' Mac says, 'c'mon, let's go.'
You both turn and head to the stairwell.
'Hey, what's goin' on?'
You whirl around, and there's some schmuck wearing noise-canceling headphones who looks confused. You start moving toward him.
'Hey, get the hell outta here!'
And then the world explodes in a fiery conflagration. Your ears pop from the deafening report of the bomb's detonation, and you feel the impact of shrapnel slicing into your chest.
You don't remember anything after that…
Flack sat up quickly, his bare chest drenched in sweat. 'Son of a bitch.'
Though the dream had ended, the pain in his chest hadn't died down.
It took Flack a few seconds to extricate himself from his sheets, which had gotten tangled in his legs.
It had been a while since he'd had the dream.
He wasn't sure what prompted it this time. Usually, there was some kind of trigger, but he'd spent all day today at Richmond Hill interviewing surly convicts and brain-dead COs. That wasn't a hundred percent accurate, of course. Many of the COs were just fine, especially Terry, and a surprisingly large number of the cons were polite, but Flack didn't remember the decent ones with anywhere near the same clarity with which he remembered the jackasses.
Flack liked the look of Melendez as their guy. Mac would say it was because of the fingerprint on the murder weapon, but Flack put more stock in the fight in the Koran class. Guys like Melendez were always searching for a way to get out early, and Washburne had put up a roadblock to that. And the incident in the weight yard had provided him with a golden opportunity: everyone was busy looking at Barker. Melendez could get his revenge without anybody even seeing him. He even pointed out the dead body so people wouldn't suspect him. The classic stupid person's rationale: If I point out the dead body, I can't have done the murder.
He looked over at the clock radio next to his bed. 3:52.
Then he looked down at the network of scars on the left side of his chest.
Knowing he wouldn't get back to sleep, and not relishing the idea of possibly having the dream again anyhow, Flack got up.
That proved to be a mistake, as the twinges of pain in his chest turned into white-hot knives of agony. He fell back down, staring at the ceiling, trying to get his breathing under control.
After a few dozen eternities, the pain started to die down. Slowly, very, very slowly, Flack got up from the bed. He gingerly walked to the closet, where his suit jacket was hanging. Opening the closet door proved to be even more painful than getting up had been, and he almost stumbled to the floor with the pain.
Taking a second to let the pain subside, he stood upright and reached into the inner pocket of the jacket he'd been wearing yesterday.
He heard the clatter of a Percocet against plastic as he pulled out the pill bottle.
He also heard Terry Sullivan's voice: 'Will you please take the pill, for the love of Christ?'
Walking into the kitchen, he pulled open the refrigerator door. His memory hadn't betrayed him: there was an
