Someone to Watch Over Me

“You’re wearing brown loafers, brown pants, and a brown belt. Your face is tanned, which makes you look healthy, but you’ve lost a lot of weight recently—possibly due to an illness that required you to take enough time off in the winter to get that tan.”

“What makes you think I’ve lost weight?”

“Because the jacket you’re wearing is too big for you, especially in the shoulders.”

“Which could mean that I stayed at my sister’s house last night and borrowed this jacket from my brother-in-law when I realized I had to come in here today.”

“You wouldn’t use someone else’s clothes; you don’t even like using someone else’s office.” She paused and asked with convincing meekness, “How am I doing so far?”

He looked down at his tablet, and the crease of his scar deepened enough to give Sam the impression he might actually be smiling. “Not bad. Go on.”

“Instead of facing people at your desk, you sit sideways in your chair. That could mean you’re self-conscious about your scars, which I doubt. It could mean you have a hearing problem that is helped when you turn your good ear to whoever is speaking, which I also doubt. It’s possible you sit that way because you have some sort of back problem, or because it enables you to concentrate better. People with ADD sometimes do that.”

“And do you have an opinion as to which of those theories about the way I sit might be correct?”

“Not one worth giving,” Sam said stubbornly, but with an innocent troubled expression.

“Give it anyway.”

Graciously, she inclined her head, yielding to his rank and his right to command. “I think you sit that way so you can hold your tablet out of sight where no one can see what you’re writing. I also think it may have been a necessity for some reason in the past, but that now you do it more out of habit.”

“What color are my socks?”

“Brown.”

“What color are my eyes?”

“I have no idea,” Sam lied. “I’m sorry.” He had steel blue eyes, but she had already won his tournament, game, set, and match. She was not going to let him score a point for his ego in overtime!

However, her confidence began to fade a little as she waited for him to write something on his damned yellow pad—an evaluation of her observations, an appraisal of her, a grade. She knew instinctively he intended to do exactly that; she knew it as surely as she knew that after he wrote down his evaluation and his decision about keeping her on the team, he would tear the yellow sheet off his pad and put it into the folder near his elbow that had her name on it. What she couldn’t figure out was why he was still sitting there, pencil in hand, taking so long to make up his mind.

She stared at his inscrutable profile, willing him to write something down. She was watching him so closely that she actually saw the muscle at the corner of his mouth move before the movement became a hint of an actual smile, and he finally began to jot notes on his tablet.

She had qualified to stay on the team! She knew that much from his expression. Now she wished more than anything that she knew what he was writing.

“Curious?” he asked without looking up.

“Of course.”

“Do you think you have a chance of seeing what I’m writing about you here?”

“About the same chance I have of winning the lottery.”

His smile deepened. “You’re right.” He flipped the page over and wrote several other notes on the next sheet. Suddenly he tore both sheets off and swiveled his chair to the front. He put the first sheet into the folder with Sam’s name on it; he slid the second sheet into his top desk drawer.

“All right, let’s get started,” he said abruptly. “There are four stacks of folders on my desk. The stack with the blue labels on the folders contains all the information we have right now on Logan Manning. The second stack with the green labels covers everything on Leigh Manning. The stack with the yellow labels pertains to their known friends and associates. The stack with the red labels is the tip of the iceberg on Valente. I’m having all his files copied and sent over here, but it will take a few days. By next week, that table over there will be covered with files on him.

“Each of us will take a stack, and we will read every sheet of paper in every single folder. The documents in the folders are all photocopies, so you can take them home with you. When you’ve finished going through all the files in your stack, start on a new one. By the end of next week, I want all of us to be completely familiar with every document in every folder in these stacks. Oh, and one more thing—these stacks are partials; we’re still searching the archives on everyone except Valente. We already know all there is to know about him. Any questions?” he asked, looking from one to the other.

“I have a question,” Sam said as she stood up and reached for the armload of files on Logan Manning. “There were two words scribbled on the bottom of Valente’s note, written in what I assume is Italian. They don’t make sense to Shrader or me. We wanted to check them out. Could I get a copy of the note?”

“No. Nobody gets a peek at that note or a hint of what it says until we’re ready to show it. The last time the Feds went after Valente, there were so many leaks that his lawyers were filing motions to suppress while the Feds were still trying to figure out what evidence they had and what it could mean. Never underestimate Valente,” McCord warned, “and don’t underestimate his influence and connections. His connections go all the way to the top. And that,” he said meaningfully, “is why we are keeping this case right down here, in the Eighteenth Precinct—right at the bottom of the ladder of justice. Valente won’t be looking for it here, and we’re hoping he won’t be able to get at it so easily.”

When he finished, he looked from Shrader to Sam. “What’s bothering you?”

“Instead of making a copy of the note, could I write the two words down?”

Leaning across his desk, he jotted the two words on his yellow tablet, tore off the sheet, and handed it to her. “We’ve already run them through the system. ‘Falco’ turned up as an alias he’s used before. It’s a common Italian surname. We’re still checking the other one out for associations.” He looked at Shrader. “Any comments or questions, Malcolm?”

“One,” Shrader said, looking absolutely ferocious. “I would appreciate it if you would never call me that again, Lieutenant.”

“I won’t.”

“I hate that name.”

“My mother liked it. It was her maiden name.”

“I hate it anyway,” Shrader announced, picking up his stack of fi

les.

As soon as they were out the door and out of hearing, Shrader looked at her and shook his big head. “You lead a charmed life, Littleton. So help me God, when you told him he was a neurotic control freak with a neatness compulsion, I broke out in a sweat.”

Sam thought it was touching that Shrader had worried that much about her. Her next thought was that she should have thanked McCord for letting her stay on the team. Viewed from any direction, this was a chance of a lifetime and she was a neophyte who really shouldn’t be getting such a chance. On the other hand, she reminded herself, if she hadn’t found Valente’s note, there wouldn’t be a “team.” She dumped the files on her desk, asked Shrader to keep an eye on them for a moment, and walked back to the lieutenant’s office.

McCord was leaning back in his chair, reading a file with a red label, a tablet at his elbow, pencil in hand, ready to make notes. He even looked tough and fascinating when he read. She knocked politely on the doorframe, and when he glanced up, she said, “I just wanted to thank you for having enough faith in me to let me work this case.”

He regarded her steadily, his expression amused. “Don’t thank me, thank the cockroaches.”

Sam hesitated, holding his gaze, trying not to laugh. “Is there any particular cockroach I should thank?”

McCord returned his attention to the file folder and turned a page. “The one I found in my desk drawer that’s big enough to drive a Volvo. His cousins live in the canteen.”

Chapter 22

* * *

I can’t believe you’ve kept your friends away for so long!” Jason chided Leigh as soon as Hilda let him in Sunday afternoon. The energy and animation he exuded made Leigh feel both enlivened and exhausted, but she could barely hide her displeasure when he turned aside to hand Hilda his coat and she realized he wasn’t alone. Behind him stood Jane Sebring.

Ruddy-faced from the cold and boyishly eager to see her, Jason left Jane in the foyer and rushed across the room to plant a kiss on Leigh’s cheek. “I couldn’t stop Jane from coming,” he whispered. “She insisted. She got right into the taxi with me. She won’t stay long, though. She has to be back at the theater for the matinee, but I’m free all afternoon!” Straightening, he stood up and surveyed Leigh’s face, his own face registering unconcealed horror. “How long will it be before you look like yourself?”