The Finishing School

32

MELANIE WAS on her second Starbucks of the morning, but aside from bad caffeine shakes and a couple of trips to the bathroom, it was having zero effect. She was in a complete daze. As exhausted as she’d been last night, she’d barely slept. And she needed her brain to function today. The team would be here any minute to write the wiretap application for Jay Esposito’s cell phone. The team, including Dan. Concentrate, goddamn it. Stop thinking about him. It was Wednesday morning, and between getting Main Justice approval and going before the judge, they were pushing it to be up on the cell phone in time for the Friday shipment as it was. She’d put all her credibility on the line with Bernadette and Lieutenant Albano, convincing them the wiretap was necessary, so she couldn’t afford to fuck it up by obsessing over some guy.

But focusing her bleary eyes on the computer screen was more than Melanie could manage. She’d gotten only so far as typing the cell-phone and ESN numbers into the caption before she’d wandered off into her mental torture chamber, reliving the events of last night. The expression on Steve’s face when he’d seen Dan. Worse, the expression on Dan’s when he’d seen Steve.

UH-HUH,” Steve had said, nodding so knowingly you would’ve thought he caught her like this every night and twice on weekends. “I’m obviously interrupting something. Your mother said you were working, Mel. Did you misinform her, or was she covering for you?”

“Steve, this is my friend Dan O’Reilly from-”

“I know who he is.” And he did. Steve had seen them kissing in a car once, months ago, right when he and Melanie had first separated.

Dan nodded at Steve grimly. “How you doing?”

“I was doing fine. Planning to have a little holiday celebration with my wife, if you don’t mind,” Steve said, gesturing with the two glasses of champagne in his hands.

“Your ex-wife. Almost,” Melanie said hurriedly. “That’s nice of you, Steve. And thanks for stepping in to watch Maya, but I have other plans right now.”

“Apparently. You might want to fix your lipstick.”

“Steve, come on, we’re separated. As a matter of fact, Linda told me she saw you at a club Saturday night with some-”

“Hey,” Dan interrupted, speaking to Melanie but eyes still on Steve, who stood there acting aggrieved in his expensive clothes and perfectly barbered hair. Melanie cringed inside. She knew Dan O’Reilly well enough to be pretty sure what was coming next.

“Dan…” she began, but he wouldn’t look her in the face.

“It’s late. Now that I got you home safe, I really gotta run, okay? Have a good night.”

“Dan-”

“Gotta go.”

“No, please, wait!”

But he’d already turned decisively on his heel and plunged through the fire door to the back stairwell, choosing to walk down eight flights rather than wait for the elevator.

RAY-RAY WONG strode in carrying a bunch of file folders. Melanie had been staring off into space, turning over in her mind what she’d say to Dan if he showed up first, alone. She had to admit she was kind of relieved to see Ray-Ray instead. Maybe Dan would just quit the case. But no, that would be awful. The fact was, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened in the elevator last night. Oh, God, his mouth, his body, the way he was in such a hurry that he was kind of rough with her. Muy erótico. What she really wanted was to get past all the awkwardness about Steve and head straight back to that elevator. Any elevator. Get stuck between floors with Dan, for at least an hour. Mmmm.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Ray-Ray asked.

Stop, Melanie Vargas. Stop this instant.

“I’m sorry. I was worrying about this requirement in the Title III statute, whether we meet the criteria or not,” she said.

“I’ve got something a whole lot more interesting, ma’am. Remember you told me what that guy Hogan said about Whitney Seward’s blog?”

“Oh, right.”

“Well, I located it last night, with some help from a friend of mine on the Tech Squad. It’s pretty unbelievable. I have the Web address. May I?”

“Please.” Melanie got up and came around the desk, and Ray-Ray went to sit in her swivel chair. “Just minimize my document. There’s an icon for Internet access,” she said.

Ray-Ray fiddled around with the computer. Melanie sat in a guest chair, trying not to think about Dan, which was only possible if she made her mind a complete blank.

After a few minutes, Ray-Ray frowned and said, “Huh.”

“What is it?”

“It keeps telling me the page isn’t available. Let me see if I can get my buddy from Tech on the line.”

Ten minutes went by, during which Melanie leafed through the file folders Ray-Ray had brought while he consulted by telephone with the Tech guy. Work always made Melanie feel better. She busied herself marking the various subpoena responses with yellow Post-its. The details of telephone billing records and flight manifests between New York and Puerto Rico soothed her overwrought mind considerably. At the very least, by the time she’d finished, she felt like she could face Dan O’Reilly without either ripping off his clothes or bursting into tears and running away.

Finally Ray-Ray hung up. “You’re not gonna believe this,” he said.

“What?”

“The blog’s gone. Vanished from the Web.”

“You’re kidding. Who did that?”

“Apparently somebody using Whitney’s username and password. Happened at 2317 hours last night.”

“Did you make a record of what was on it?”

“Naturally, ma’am. Copied everything to a disk in that folder there yesterday. That’s not the issue.”

“Yeah, I hear you. First, Whitney’s cell-phone memory was selectively erased, now this. Somebody’s out there impeding our investigation.”

“And based on the content of the blog, I have a pretty good idea who it is.”

Melanie handed the disk across her desk. “Okay, then, let me see what you downloaded.”

She walked around to stand behind Ray-Ray as he pulled up the blog. The main page popped up, boasting a picture of Whitney sitting on her bed in her Holbrooke uniform, leaning back against her pillows with her legs spread, smiling broadly, wearing no panties.

“Whoa!” Melanie exclaimed, startled.

“It gets worse. Or better, depending on your point of view,” Ray-Ray said, with a twinkle in his eye. “This girl was twisted, but you can’t deny she’s wicked hot.”

“Ray-Ray! I’m surprised at you.”

“My interest is purely professional, ma’am.”

“Yeah, right. Hey, is that the Holbrooke crest at the top of the page?”

“You bet. Whitney’s yearbook photo’s in here, too, and even copies of her term papers and exams. It’s partly the Holbrooke image that she was selling.”

“Selling?”

“Yup, that was the whole point. She posted lists of items she wanted visitors to her site to buy for her, and whoever bought her the stuff first would get an e-mail back with their own private smutty picture. Whitney had a personal shopper at Barneys handling the orders for her, and the…uh, customers, I guess you could call ’em, would phone in their credit-card numbers to buy particular items. When the purchases went through, she’d send out a JPEG with the new picture as payment. We were able to track the correspondence, and it’s pretty unbelievable. Men all over the U.S. and in other countries, too.”

“Wow. This raises all sorts of new possibilities for the case.”

“Like what?” Ray-Ray asked, frowning.

“First of all, this could be some weird kind of sex crime dressed up to look like a drug crime. To cover the bases, we should investigate every one of the men who visited the Web site.”

Ray-Ray shook his head. “That’s a shitload of names, ma’am.”

“I realize that. But it needs to be done. And that’s not all. If Whitney was running an Internet porn site trading on the Holbrooke name, I think we need to look more closely at Holbrooke.”

“I’m not following you.”

“This may sound far-fetched, but think how crazed they are at Holbrooke right now over this endowment campaign. Not just the headmistress but the general counsel, too, who-remember-has some fetishes of his own. Think about the devastating impact Whitney’s little business would’ve had on Holbrooke’s fund-raising if it came to light before the campaign closed. The timing is exactly right. Their campaign ends Friday with some big gala.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” Ray-Ray said. “You’re suggesting the headmistress or the general counsel of Holbrooke could’ve whacked Whitney Seward in order to shut down her Web site so it wouldn’t interfere with the Holbrooke fund-raising campaign? And made it look like an OD?”

“Yes. Well put.”

“Due respect, ma’am, that’s one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not crazy. It’s thinking outside the box. It might even be the right answer.”

“Right, and if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley car. Look, ma’am, I think I can tie Whitney’s Web site right back into Jay Esposito and the drug angle. That theory makes sense to me. But yours? Wicked crazy.”

“Fine. But I’m not dropping my Holbrooke idea.” To make her point, and also since she didn’t trust herself to remember anything this morning, Melanie carefully wrote, “Look at Holbrooke/Andover/Siebert involvement in deaths” on a yellow legal pad, circled it twice with black marker, and put a star next to it.

“Now, most of the pictures Whitney sent to her customers were pretty tame,” Ray-Ray continued, glancing at her note with an exasperated smile. “They showed her alone, only partly undressed. A guy buys Whitney a pair of Jimmy Choos, he gets his own private JPEG of her in her Holbrooke uniform flashing some titty. That sort of thing. But bigger-ticket items got you more graphic pictures. One in particular I want you to see. In my humble opinion, ma’am, it explains the blog getting erased, and it figures a helluva lot more heavily in the girls’ deaths than your so-called Holbrooke theory.”

Ray-Ray brought up a copy of an e-mail that Whitney had sent to one “sugardaddy69” and clicked on the attachment.

“This user, we actually traced,” Ray-Ray said. “He’s fifty-four years old, a civil engineer in Kansas City, Mo, with a family and everything. No criminal record, no indication he was in New York at the relevant time. He did, however, buy Whitney a four-thousand-dollar alligator handbag from Barneys in exchange for this picture. The girl was commanding serious money. But it is a lot more graphic. The caption is ‘See Whitney get…uh, expletive, from behind.’”

The digital photo appeared-crystal clear, in vivid color, leaving nothing to the imagination. Whitney was bent over a chair, looking back over her shoulder with a lascivious grin on her face. Her Holbrooke kilt was up around her waist, her panties around her ankles. The naked man doing the honors was muscular and deeply tanned, with a shaved head. His face was turned away from the camera, but the large diamond stud in his ear was clearly visible.

“I see what you mean about who erased the blog,” Melanie said. “That’s definitely Jay Esposito. Not that I’ve ever seen him naked.”

Of course Dan O’Reilly had to pick exactly that moment to walk through her office door. And with Bridget. Melanie fumed with jealousy when she realized they must’ve ridden up in the elevator together. Boy, after last night, she’d never look at elevators the same way again.

“Yo, team,” Bridget said. She carried a brown paper bag, which had split apart on the bottom. She set it down on Melanie’s desk, where it instantly formed a puddle of sour-smelling coffee.

“I brought some joe for everybody, but I think it spilled. Do you have any paper towels?” Bridget asked Melanie.

“In the ladies’ room down the hall.” Melanie momentarily exulted at getting Bridget out of the room. But then she felt guilty, not to mention worried about her own mental health, and resolved yet again to calm down.

“Holy shit. Who’s that doing Whitney, your boyfriend Expo?” Dan asked Melanie. His eyes were fixed on the computer, his handsome face clouded. She couldn’t decide if he looked angry or just tired.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she protested. She’d meant to sound jokey, but it came out defensive.

“Too bad. If you could testify you recognized his naked butt, we could use the picture as evidence for the wiretap,” Dan said.

“I can testify I recognize his naked head,” Melanie offered, still searching Dan’s face. But he wouldn’t look at her. Hmm, he didn’t seem mad, but he didn’t seem not mad either.

“We’re in pretty good shape to go up on Esposito’s phone anyway,” Dan said. “I spent last night at my computer following up on a few things. A woman by the name of Mirta Jimenez was found dead in a restroom at Marín Airport in San Juan ten months ago. Autopsy said cause of death was acute heroin poisoning, caused by leaking balloons in her stomach. She was booked on a flight to New York but never made it onto the plane. I already pulled the passenger manifest. One Jay Esposito was seated three rows behind her.”

IN CERTAIN RESPECTS Melanie’s fortunes had taken a turn for the better. Working swiftly, the team finished the wiretap affidavit and got Justice Department authorization by early afternoon. When they were ready to go to the judge for the final okay, the assignment wheel spit out the name of the Honorable Constance Stanchi, referred to fondly by prosecutors in Melanie’s office as the Smiling Lady of the Bench, the one jurist who could be counted on to sign anything, anytime.

Melanie had had wiretaps before Judge Stanchi in the past, and the approval process was blessedly minimal. She brought Dan rather than Ray-Ray to swear out the affidavit, because Judge Stanchi was known to appreciate a good-looking cop. They were ushered in to the jurist’s delightful chambers, which smelled of perfume and the large display of fresh roses on her desk. Judge Stanchi’s snow white hair was, as always, beautifully arranged. Her impressive pearls, as usual, carefully peeked over the collar of her black robe. And her delicate, blue-veined, manicured hands cradled a copy of the affidavit, which, based on past experience, Melanie was fairly confident she hadn’t read.

“Good afternoon, Miss Vargas,” the judge said in her cultured voice, bestowing one of the beatific smiles that had earned her her nickname. “And who is this fascinating young man you’ve brought to visit me?”

“Judge, this is Special Agent Daniel K. O’Reilly from the FBI, who is prepared to swear to the truth of the allegations contained in the affidavit. We’d be happy to answer any questions Your Honor might have about the investigation.”

“Questions. Hmmm. Yes.”

Judge Stanchi opened the bound affidavit and began leafing through it. Before another judge this was the moment Melanie normally got major butterflies, worrying that he’d throw her some curveball she wouldn’t be able to answer, deny the wiretap, and call up Bernadette screaming about Melanie’s incompetence. Not like it had never happened before either. But with Stanchi you didn’t sweat it. Not only was the Smiling Lady flipping through the affidavit from back to front, making it impossible to absorb its content in any event, but her delphinium blue eyes were busy ogling Dan rather than reading the document.

“Everything seems in order,” Judge Stanchi said when she’d finished pretending to read. She smiled yet again. “Agent, please raise your right hand.”

Minutes later they stood waiting for the elevator with the paperwork authorizing them to intercept Jay Esposito’s telephone calls in hand. And that’s when Melanie discovered that her fortunes hadn’t actually improved, not when it came to lo importante anyway.

“Well, that was easy,” she remarked.

“For you, maybe. I feel like I should take a shower.”

The elevator came, and they got on. Dan pressed the button for the courthouse basement.

“Oh, c’mon,” Melanie said, “Judge Stanchi’s harmless. Better than harmless. In all the years I’ve appeared before her, she’s never denied one application. Besides, she really looks the part, doesn’t she?”

“And that really matters to you, doesn’t it?” he snapped back, bitter and mocking.

Dan had been angry all along. He’d simply bided his time until they were alone so he could ambush her.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you upset about last night?”

He didn’t answer, his face closed and stony. They got out in the basement and headed for the tunnel back to Melanie’s building so they wouldn’t have to go outside, where it was snowing and sixteen degrees. Dan walked so fast she practically had to run to keep up, the three-inch heels of her boots clattering on the cheap linoleum floor.

“Hey, listen,” Melanie said, “I know it was a buzz kill, Steve being there last night and all, but-”

He turned on her furiously. “Buzz kill? It was a fucking deal breaker, is what it was. I’m not your fool, lady! I don’t give a shit if you’re still messing around with your husband, but show a little more respect than using me as a fucking pawn. That was low.” Dan marched ahead, disgust on his face. When he reached the elevator that served Melanie’s office, he pounded the call button furiously, his back turned to her.

Breathing heavily, Melanie caught up with him. For a split second, she’d been speechless with shock, but now she was in such a rage that her entire body shook.

“You know, I’m tempted to just tell you to fuck off and never speak to you again,” she began.

“Suits me fine!”

“In your dreams, pal. You’re not getting off that easy! Normally I wouldn’t even respond to your disgusting accusation. But I’ve been a prosecutor long enough to know that people take silence as an admission of guilt and I refuse to give you the satisfaction. So I’m going to say my piece first. Then we’re through.”

She glared at him fiercely, almost spitting the words, and Dan stared back at her wide-eyed. Melanie knew how to fight. She hadn’t grown up on the block for nothing.

“If you really meant what you just said,” she continued, her voice quivering with outrage, “then you are one vicious, cynical human being, Dan O’Reilly. You’re cold. Something damaged you. Maybe it was your ex-wife, maybe something else. I don’t know, since you never deign to talk about yourself. But don’t go putting your ugly ideas on me. I’m not like that! I had no idea Steve would be there last night. I would never behave in the vile way you just suggested. Maybe your heart is too dead to understand.” She shook her head in resignation. “And to think I thought you were the one. There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The elevator doors opened and Melanie hurried on. Dan made as if to follow.

“No you don’t!” she commanded. “I’m not riding with you. We’ll do this case, and that’s it. I never want to speak to you again.”

As she smacked the button for her floor, tears of fury stood out in Melanie’s eyes. That didn’t surprise her, since sometimes she cried when she was really angry. What surprised her was looking up at the very last moment before the doors closed and seeing Dan watch her disappear-unshed tears glittering in his.