Laura removed her hand and nodded. "Maybe she heard me. Or Ed said it out loud. I know I could understand the girl perfectly well when I asked Ed to get me her name. She didn't wait for him to repeat my question. She said she was Clarita Munoz. I'd guess she could hear me just as well as I could hear her.

There's a lawyer named Frankie Shea on line one," Laura said about an hour later, after I had gotten Gene Grassley's permission for Mercer to talk to Floyd Warren and met with Judge Lamont to tell him about Antonio Lucido and Clarita Munoz.

I picked up the receiver, not expecting the harangue that he began to unload.

"Slow down, Mr. Shea. I don't know what you're talking about."

"You told the press you were going into Ruffles the other night? That sure as hell changes the complexion of any information you got out of my client."

"What? There was no press involved. Neither Chapman nor I went in there expecting to make an arrest."

"So much for your credibility, Ms. Cooper. You suckered my client right into a photo op just to top off the five o'clock news conference about the serial killer."

"Listen to me, Shea. Nobody called the media. Nobody set Dylan up."

"You know how my client's family is being harassed today? They can't open the door of their apartment, his father can't get into his business, his brothers-"

"Why? What's that got to do with us?"

"The newspapers. He's all over the newspapers."

I covered the mouthpiece and asked Mercer to get the papers off Laura's desk. "I haven't seen them yet. But I swear I haven't even had a chance to tell the public relations team what happened. Battaglia's out of the country and I'm waiting to update them now, for the first time. You have my word that the release couldn't have come from our end."

"You did a perp walk in front of Ruffles. Admit it, okay? Kiernan's photo, his face-it's splattered all over the place."

Mercer opened both tabloids to the pages with the grainy blackand-white photograph of Kiernan Dylan, flanked by Mercer and Mike, frozen under the sign that said Ruffles Bar.

"I don't have much else of value in this business except my word, Mr. Shea," I said. "I'm looking at the picture right now. It was actually taken by a friend of your client's, with a cell phone."

"Right. And it just found its way into the papers."

"The sad truth is that there are a lot of people out to make a buck who sell photos, information, evidence-all of that-to whatever media outlet will buy it. They do it without a second thought of giving it to the police. Every local news broadcast ends with some version of 'If you see news happening, call us.' It's a nightmare for law enforcement that there are people who would rather score the money than make themselves available as witnesses."

Shea didn't speak.

"Last year, two weeks after I finished a murder trial, one of the perp's friends sold a videotape he'd made of my defendant telling jokes about how he'd killed the victim. He was high on coke and entertaining his buddies at a party. We never knew the tape existed, but a reality TV show bought it for twenty-five grand. So don't point your finger at me, Mr. Shea. Ask Kiernan who the schmuck with the camera was."

"Well, your pal Chapman seems to have gone out of his way to make this as unpleasant as he can for the Dylans."

"You want to sit down with us, talk about cooperating?"

"Now that you've driven Kiernan under a rock? Who knows when he'll come out."

"Where is your client, Mr. Shea?" There was no harm in asking.

"He's got a court date, Ms. Cooper. He'll be there. In the meantime, you might as well call off your dogs."

Mike took one of the newspapers from my desk to look at the photograph. It had been blown up to fill a quarter of a page buried pretty far back in the tabloid, opposite one of the gossip columns. But the text made no connection to the serial killer cases. It appeared under the headline RUFFLED FEATHERS, with a two-line description of the police, flanked by the unsmiling bouncers, taking Kiernan Dylan out of the bar-a "popular nightspot for hot chicks in cool plumage"-which was being closed for underage beverage service. It only made news at all because of the history Jimmy Dylan had had over the years at the Brazen Head.

"Surprised my mother didn't call yet," Mike said, examining his own image before closing the paper and dropping it on my desk. "Tell me I need a haircut."

"Will you check with Peterson?" I asked. "Am I still invited to tonight's briefing? I assume we'll be going over some of the stuff the troopers found in the van."

"I spoke to him this morning. You're good to go until some other agency boots you out. Has Battaglia tried driving this train from London yet? How long's he supposed to be away?"

"The family's on vacation until Labor Day. Don't worry, he's left messages for me three times today and I'm to keep Tim Spindlis informed of every detail," I said. "I stopped in to see him on my way down from Lamont. I asked if Marisa, Catherine, and Nan could work with us on the case."

Spindlis was the chief assistant district attorney, in charge of the office during Battaglia's absence, and he would be responsible for oversight of the investigation while the boss was away. My three senior lawyers had proven themselves over and over, and I was certain Spindlis would have no objections to bringing them into the case.

"You're in luck. He left Spineless in charge? That guy couldn't make an important decision to save his life."

"I'd rather deal with a jellyfish than have my usual head butting with Pat McKinney." Spindlis was the yes man to Battaglia's strong personality, which is why I often skirted him and went straight to the district attorney with matters of great importance. To those on the staff below his position, Spindlis procrastinated endlessly and never had the backbone to take a forceful stance in support of the young lawyers in the office.

McKinney, on the other hand, was head of the trial division and looked to cut my legs out from under me every chance he could.

"He's on vacation, too?"

"For the moment. But he's got no life, with his girlfriend back in Texas and his wife not on speaking terms with him at the moment. It's a break for all of us that he's still away. No chance to second-guess my every move or sabotage it. The only person he detests more than me is you, Mike. Everybody wants a piece of this case. That's why I had Laura hold all my calls this morning. The less interference the better."

"Is there a time set for you to conversate with Floyd Warren?" Mike asked Mercer.

"Alex said that Gene Grassley asked for four o'clock, when he finishes the hearing he's got in front of Judge Wetzel."

The three of us discussed the plan for Mercer's interrogation of Warren, and I took notes on the issues they raised.

Laura stuck her head in again and told me Ned Tacchi was on the phone.

I took the call. "What's up? You find Kiernan Dylan?"

"Not happening. Peterson's got me on the tip line in the meantime. You won't believe the crap that comes in on this thing. But I got a lady who just called. I think you better talk to her. She's completely freaked out."

"Is she making sense?"

"Not to me. But you guys know the case. Besides that, she only wants to talk to a lawyer."

I grabbed a pen. "What's her name?"

"She wouldn't give it to me. She just kept saying she knows who the killer is. It's a Jersey number, 201 area code."

I took down the other digits. "So why'd you single this call out? Why do you think it's any more worth pursuing than all the others?"

"Hey, we're getting back to every damn one of these dial-ins, call by call. But this woman's talking about the picture in the newspapers today. The one of the Dylan kid," Ned said. "I saw it this morning, Alex. It doesn't even mention the murders. She put that together herself."