Most Wanted

33

FOR THE SECOND TIME IN TWO DAYS, MELANIE turned around to find Rommie Ramirez standing behind her. If he’d been listening in on their conversation, he gave no sign of it. He just smiled vaguely, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

“Had a few without me, Bern? I better catch up.” He pulled out an empty chair and sat down beside Bernadette, signaling the waiter for a drink.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone or your pager?” Bernadette demanded. “Where have you been?”

“Working. Following up on that cocaine seizure we made last night.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding, but then looked at him again. “Hey! What’s that mark on your neck?”

There was a large red abrasion on Rommie’s neck; it looked like a classic high-school hickey. He continued to smile placidly, but a glimmer of nervousness crept into his eyes. Melanie looked down at her plate, feeling embarrassed for her boss. Bernadette would never stoop to showing jealousy publicly if she were sober.

“Oh, shaving burn,” Rommie replied after a moment, fingering the red mark.

“You were shaving the side of your neck? Do I look like an idiot to you?” There was an edge of hysteria in Bernadette’s voice. Mutt and Jeff from across the table turned to look.

Rommie laughed uneasily. “Come on, Bern. Chill out. Why so suspicious?”

“Why? I can never reach you. You never call when you say you will. And whenever I bother to check, you’re never where you’re supposed to be.”

“Maybe I should go,” Melanie interjected, half rising from the table. But Rommie leaned across the back of Bernadette’s chair and clutched at her arm.

“No, no, stay, Melanie. What’s this you were just telling Bernadette about evidence of structuring in Jed Benson’s bank records? I want to hear about that.”

So he had overheard their conversation. She sat back down, frowning.

“I’m afraid I can’t go into it, Rommie. The bank records are privileged grand-jury materials. I can’t share them with you if you’re not officially assigned to the case.”

The waiter set down a double Jack Daniel’s before Rommie. He picked it up with a harassed air and took a gulp.

“You always such a stickler for the rules?” he asked irritably.

“Grand jury secrecy, yes, I am,” Melanie said with an astonished laugh. “I don’t want to get cited for contempt.”

“Look, we’re all on the same side here, kid, but maybe I feel a little extra responsibility to look out for Jed’s reputation. He was my friend. His wife is my friend. And I see how it is. You’re out to make a name for yourself. Nothing wrong with that. But let’s say you get a little overeager and, in all the excitement, you misinterpret the evidence. I’m not blaming you, but Jed’s not around to defend himself. You could do real damage. That’s why I want to take a look at the records on his behalf. Where are they, in your office?”

“I’m not misinterpreting anything,” Melanie replied, flushing with resentment. She didn’t need Rommie questioning her judgment in front of her boss. She had enough problems already, with Bernadette thinking she concocted conspiracy theories out of whole cloth. Besides, she was right about Benson’s bank records. Those hundreds of cash deposits didn’t lie. They all fell between $9,000 and $9,999, just slightly under federal reporting requirements, and they added up to millions being funneled through the accounts. She couldn’t imagine clearer evidence of money laundering. Rommie was way off base. But after reading that fingerprint report, she probably shouldn’t be surprised. The sharpest knife in the drawer this guy was not. Just look how he’d bungled the Benson crime scene.

Melanie needn’t have worried. Bernadette was so absorbed in her own problems that she barely registered Rommie’s comment. She kept looking at his neck, her face crumpled and sad.

“You were with someone, weren’t you?” she said.

“Quit it already. You’re drunk, and you’re making a scene. People are starting to look.”

“You’re not even denying it. Who was it, Romulado? Tell me. I deserve that much.”

Across the table the thin detective elbowed his jowly companion and made a comment under his breath, eliciting a loud guffaw. That did it! Melanie couldn’t stand to watch her boss humiliated for another second. She knew it all: That sick feeling the moment you found out. Constantly picturing what he’d done with the other woman. Asking yourself why he strayed, why you weren’t enough. Seeing Bernadette go through what she’d just lived through herself was too painful.

“I should really be going,” she said, standing up.

“You’re right. We all should,” Rommie said. “Melanie, you help me get Bernadette home, and then we’ll go take a look at those bank records you’re so hot for. Somebody’s gotta look out for Jed’s memory. Come on, my car’s outside.” He scraped back his chair and stood up.

“Rommie, didn’t you hear what I said? I can’t show you the bank records. It would violate the grand jury secrecy law. Besides, I don’t have time to go back to my office right now. I have some other leads to pursue, and then I need to get home and relieve my baby-sitter.”

“What kind of friend are you, Melanie? Can’t you see Bernadette’s in bad shape? Help me get her home, at least. Then we’ll figure out about the records.”

“This is between you guys. I honestly don’t think I should be meddling in Bernadette’s personal life,” Melanie said.

But just then Bernadette, who’d been sitting morosely with her chin in her hand, piped up plaintively. “Please come, Melanie,” she said, in a smaller voice than Melanie had ever heard her use before. “I don’t want to be alone with him.”

Bernadette’s face was slack and tired-looking. Melanie knew exactly how she felt, and as much as she might have liked to make her escape, she couldn’t refuse.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “If it would make you feel better.”

“Thanks, girlfriend. You’re a pal.”

Having committed herself, Melanie had no choice but to follow when Bernadette and Rommie headed for the exit. She stepped out into the muggy night, kicking herself for agreeing to this.

“I’m parked over there in the tunnel,” Rommie said, gesturing toward a stone underpass lined with parking spaces on either side, running directly under the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Darkness had fallen while they were inside. Traffic roared overhead, but the underpass was deserted, unlit but for the dim ambient light from a lamppost across the street. Their footsteps echoed against its dank, tomblike walls as they marched, tightly packed on the narrow sidewalk, toward Rommie’s car.

Melanie glanced at Rommie, thinking about the fin gerprint report sitting on her desk. When she read it, she’d worked out in her mind exactly how he might’ve left his prints on that kerosene can, and she’d come to the conclusion it was an innocent mistake. Arriving at the scene, devastated by his longtime friend’s murder, Rommie forgot all protocol. He walked around in shock and touched things with his bare hands, things he shouldn’t. He contaminated evidence. She recalled him vomiting in the corner of Jed’s basement office, and it made sense. An awful screwup, likely to lead to disciplinary action, possibly even to the loss of his job, but surely unintentional. Surely caused by emotional shock. Right?

Maybe it was the damp creepiness of the deserted underpass, or the feeling that Rommie was pushing too hard to see those bank records, but for the first time she asked herself whether it was plausible that someone of his experience would make such a stupid mistake. That thought, once she admitted it, unleashed a whole flood of other questions. Why did a narcotics lieutenant respond to the scene of a murder in the first place? Did Rommie know about Jed’s money laundering? Did he go there purposely to cover something up? Tampering with evidence was a crime, but he was so close to the family, maybe he’d do something like that to spare them embarrassment. Or worse, maybe he was complicit in the money laundering and had destroyed records at the scene?

Really, she should just calm down. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Rommie Ramirez was a good guy. A dope, maybe, but not a criminal.

They got to the car, and Rommie took Melanie’s arm with one hand and drew her toward the driver’s-side door, extracting his keys from his pocket with the other.

“ Bern, go around. Melanie can sit in the back,” Rommie said. Bernadette walked unsteadily around to the passenger side of the car.

Reassure herself as she might, when Rommie flipped the seat forward and gestured for her to get in, she felt unbearably trapped. This was ridiculous, she told herself. She wasn’t a prisoner. She could leave if she wanted to. Yet with each passing moment, it got more difficult to find the words to justify her departure. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“Look,” she said, “maybe I could put Bernadette in a cab or something. I don’t have time for this right now. Slice is on the loose, my little girl is home with a baby-sitter. There’s just too much going on.” Her words rang out louder than she intended and bounced off the tunnel walls, fear audible in her voice.

“Come on, now, Melanie, you said you’d help.”

Rommie’s tone, though scolding, was pleasant and paternal, so why did she feel threatened? She looked around desperately. Through the window she saw Bernadette slumped against the passenger door, looking ready to pass out. The entrance to the overpass was twenty feet away. Blood pounding in her ears, she took a step toward it but then looked back at Rommie again.

He smiled reassuringly. “Come on, honey. Be a good kid and help me out here. Get in. Okay?”

It was only Rommie, she told herself, getting ready to climb into the backseat. She was overreacting. He was her boss’s boyfriend, a decent enough guy, kind of a Keystone Kop. Not a threat. She truly believed that. She must be working too hard. Her fight-or-flight response was set on hyperdrive, and it was messing with her head, because somehow all her instincts screamed that she was walking into a trap.