“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.