From Potter`s Field

'You are my niece. Gault has probably known that for a while.'

'I am also well known in the computer world.' She looked defiantly at me. 'Other people in the computer world have heard of me. Everything doesn't have to be because of you.'

'Does Benton know how you met Carrie?'

'I told him a long time ago.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I didn't want to. I feel bad enough. It's personal.' She wouldn't look at me. 'It was between Mr. Wesley and me. And more to the point, I didn't do anything wrong.'

'Are you telling me that this large manilla envelope was missing after the break-in?'

'Yes.'

'Why would someone want it?'

'She would,' she said bitterly. 'It had things in it that she'd written to me.'

'Has she tried to contact you since then?'

'No,' she said as if she hated Carrie Grethen.

'Come on,'1 said in the firm tone of a mother. 'Let's go find Marino.'

He was in the Boardroom, where I tried a Zima and he ordered another beer. Lucy was off to find Janet, and this gave Marino and me a few minutes to talk.

'I don't know how you stand that stuff,' he said, disdainfully eyeing my drink.

'I don't know how I'll stand it either since I've never had one before.' I took a sip. It was actually quite good, and I said so.

'Maybe you should try something before you judge it,' I added.

'I don't drink queer beer. And I don't have to try a lot of things to know they ain't for me.'

'I guess one of the major differences between us, Marino, is I am not constantly worried about whether people think I'm gay.'

'Some people think you are,' he said.

I was amused. 'Well, rest assured nobody thinks you are,' I said. 'The only thing most people assume about you is that you are a bigot.'

Marino yawned without covering his mouth. He was smoking and drinking Budweiser from the bottle. He had dark circles under his eyes, and though he had yet to divulge intimate details about his relationship with Molly, I recognized the symptoms of someone in lust. There were times when he looked as if he had been up and athletic for weeks on end.

'Are you all right?' I inquired.

He set down his bottle and looked around. The Boardroom was busy with new agents and cops drinking beer and eating popcorn while a television blared.

'I'm beat,' he said, and he seemed very distracted.

'I appreciate your coming to get me.'

'Just poke me if I start falling asleep at the wheel,' he said. 'Or you can drive. Those things you're drinking probably don't have any booze in them anyway.'

'They have enough. I won't be driving, and if you're that tired, perhaps we should stay here.'

He got up to get another beer. I followed him with my eyes. Marino was going to be difficult tonight. I could sense his storm fronts better than any meteorologist.

'We got a lab report back from New York that you might find interesting,' he said as he sat back down. 'It's got to do with Gault's hair.'

'The hair found in the fountain?' I asked with interest.

'Yeah. And I don't got the sort of scientific detail I know you want, okay? So you'll have to call up there yourself for that. But the bottom line is they found drugs in his hair. They said he had to be drinking and doing coke for this stuff to have shown up in his hair.'

'They found cocaethylene,' I said.

'I think that's the name. It was all through his hair, from the roots to the ends, meaning he's been drinking and drugging for a while.'

'Actually, we can't be certain how long he's been doing it,' I said.

'The guy I talked to said we're looking at five months of growth,' Marino said.

'Testing hair for drugs is controversial,'1 explained. 'It's not certain that some positive results for cocaine in hair aren't due to external contamination. Say, smoke in crack houses that gets absorbed by the hair just like cigarette smoke does. It's not always easy to distinguish between what has been absorbed and what has been ingested.'

'You mean he could be contaminated.' Marino pondered this.

'Yes, he could be. But that doesn't mean he isn't drinking and drugging, too. In fact, he has to be. Cocaethylene is produced in the liver.'

Marino thoughtfully lit another cigarette. 'What about him dyeing his hair all the time?'

'That can affect test results, too,' I said. 'Some oxidizing agents might destroy some of the drug.'

'Oxidizing?'

'As in peroxides, for example.'

'Then it's possible some of this cocaethylene's been destroyed,' Marino reasoned. 'Meaning it's also possible his drug level was really higher than it looks.'

'It could be.'

'He has to be getting drugs somewhere.' Marino stared off.

'In New York that certainly wouldn't be hard,' I said.

'Hell, it's not hard anywhere.' The expression on his face was getting more tense.

'What are you thinking?' I asked.

'I'll tell you what I'm thinking,' he started in. 'This drug connection ain't working out so hot for Jimmy Davila.'

'Why? Do we know his toxicology results?' I asked.

'They're negative.' He paused. 'Benny's started singing. He's saying Davila dealt.'

'I should think people might consider the source on that one,' I said. 'Benny doesn't exactly strike me as a reliable narrator.'

'I agree with you,' Marino said. 'But some people are trying to paint Davila as a bad cop. There's a rumor they want to pin Jane's murder on him.'

'That's crazy,' I said, surprised. That makes absolutely no sense.'

'You remember the stuff on Jane's hand that glowed in the Luma-Lite?'

'Yes.'

'Cocaine,' he said.

'And her toxicology?'

'Negative. And that's weird.' Marino looked frustrated. 'But the other thing Benny's saying now is that it was Davila who gave the knapsack to him.'

'Oh come on,' I said with irritation.

'I'm just telling you.'

'It wasn't Davila's hair found in the fountain.'

'We can't prove how long that had been there. And we don't know it's Gault's,' he said.

'DNA will verify it's Gault's,' I said with conviction. 'And Davila carried a.380 and a.38. Jane was shot with a Clock.'

'Look' - Marino leaned forward, resting his arms on the table - 'I'm not here to argue with you, Doc. I'm just telling you that things aren't looking good. New York politicians want this case cleared, and a good way to do that is to pin the crime on a dead man. So what do you do? You turn Davila into a dirtbag and nobody feels sorry for him. Nobody cares.'

'And what about what happened to Davila?'

'That dumbshit medical examiner who went to the scene still thinks it's possible he committed suicide.'

I looked at Marino as if he'd lost his mind. 'He kicked himself in the head?' I said. 'Then shot himself between the eyes?'

'He was standing up when he shot himself with his own gun, and when he fell he hit concrete or something.'

'His vital reaction to his injuries shows he received the blow to his head first,' I said, getting angrier. 'And please explain how his revolver ended up so neatly on his chest.'

'It's not your case, Doc.' Marino looked me in the eye. 'That's the bottom line. You and me are both guests. We got invited.'

'Davila did not commit suicide,' I said. 'And Dr. Horowitz is not going to allow such a thing to come out of his office.'

'Maybe he won't. Maybe they'll just say that Davila was a dirtbag who got whacked by another drug dealer. Jane ends up in a pine box in Potter's Field. End of story. Central Park and the subway are safe again.'

I thought of Commander Penn and felt uneasy. I asked Marino about her.

'I don't know what she's got to do with any of this,' he said. 'I've just been talking to some of the guys. But she's jammed. On the one hand, she wouldn't want anyone to think she had a bad cop. On the other, she don't want the public to think there's a crazed serial killer running through the subway.'

'I see,' I said as I thought of the enormous pressure she must be under, for it was her department's mandate to take the subway back from the criminals. New York City had allocated the Transit Police tens of millions of dollars to do that.