"The file on Valente's manslaughter conviction," Sam told him.

"Haven't got it," Womack told her.

Sam got up and headed for McCord's office. He wasn't in there, so she started toward the table where the rest of Valente's files were all neatly stacked, but as she pa.s.sed McCord's desk, she noticed a red-labeled file folder on it that was glaringly out of geometric order. Instead of being neatly placed on a corner or in the center of McCord's desktop, it looked as if it had been thrown down. In fact, it was not only off center, it had papers spilling out of it. On a hunch, Sam checked the label on the folder and saw that it was the file on Valente's manslaughter conviction. She wrote a note on McCord's yellow pad to tell him she'd borrowed the file and returned to her desk.

Inside the file, she found the arresting officer's report, but all it said was that Valente had quarreled with Holmes and shot him with an unregistered forty-five semiautomatic belonging to Valente. There were no witnesses to the actual shooting, but the arresting officer had been driving by, heard the shot, and had reached the scene before Valente could flee. McCord had drawn a broad circle around the arresting officer's name and then written an address inside it.

Based on the information in the file, William Holmes had been a good kid with a clean record. Valente, however, had previously committed some other juvenile offenses, prior bad acts that the judge had taken into account, along with Valente's age, when handing down his sentence.

Sam closed the file, thinking... At the age of seventeen, Valente had taken a life, which meant he was capable of the act, but based on the details in that file, he'd done it in the heat of anger. Premeditated murder was a different kind of crime.

Lost in thought, she doodled on the tablet, trying to get a fix on who Valente really was, what made him tick, what made him turn violent-and why Leigh Manning would prefer him to a cheating, but otherwise respectable, husband.

She was still pondering all that when Shrader stood up. "It's nine-forty," he said, and then half seriously added, "Let's not be tardy and give the lieutenant a reason to start the day p.i.s.sed-off again."

"G.o.d forbid," Sam said flippantly, but she lost no time grabbing the borrowed file on Valente, a pad and pencil, and then getting up. McCord's grim mood yesterday had coincided with a trip he'd made to Captain Holland's office. When he walked in, he'd reportedly closed the door behind him in a clerk's face. When he walked out, he'd supposedly slammed it.

"Usually this place is an icebox. Today it's hot," Shrader complained, stripping off his jacket and tossing it next to a crumb-covered napkin. Sam, wearing a light-rust-colored shirt, suede belt, and matching wool pants, left her blazer on the back of her chair and headed for McCord's office.

She thought McCord's tense mood yesterday might have been the result of having caught h.e.l.l from someone because the investigation wasn't moving fast enough, but five weeks wasn't a long time for a homicide investigation-particularly an investigation meeting McCord's incredibly meticulous demands for doc.u.mentation and research. To McCord, everyone they interviewed was either an important potential witness who could help them or a very damaging potential witness who could help the defense-and he wanted to know everything there was to know, either way.

A few weeks ago when Womack had shown Valente's doorman a picture of Leigh Manning and asked him if he'd ever seen the woman at his building, the doorman had firmly denied it. When Womack reported that in a meeting several days later, McCord had reamed him out for not asking the doorman how much Valente tipped him.

Womack went back to the doorman, got that information, and reported the figure to McCord. McCord then ordered Womack to run a background and financial check of the doorman to ascertain his living style-just in case several thousand dollars, instead of several hundred dollars, had changed hands between Valente and the seventy-two-year-old man.

CHAPTER 53.

Several minutes later, Sam triumphantly placed Leigh Manning's open file in front of McCord and pointed to an old New York City address. For Shrader and Womack's benefit, she said aloud, "Leigh Manning moved to Great Jones Street while she was still attending NYU."

McCord glanced at the address in the file as he reached into his desk drawer and yanked out a phone book.

"I already checked," Sam said, returning to her chair. "There's an Angelina's Restaurant and an Angelini's Market listed, and I called there a moment ago. The market has been at that same address for forty-five years, and it's just down the block from Leigh Manning's old address. I also checked the early employment records in Valente's file-he worked there on and off during the same period Leigh Manning lived down the street."

Shrader sent Sam an approving, paternal nod for her discovery; then he turned businesslike. "Exactly how long ago did she live near the market?"

When Sam told him, he tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, his eyes narrowed in thought. "So by the time she met Valente, he'd already done time for manslaughter..." In the pause that followed, no one attempted to confirm his statement, because they were all so familiar with Valente's life history by then that any one of them could have written his biography.

"Let's consider a different scenario for Valente and Leigh Manning and see if this one plays," Shrader said. "Valente meets Leigh Kendall when she lives down the street from the market where he works, and they have a fling.

Naturally, he tells her the story of his life, and since Valente's a tough b.a.s.t.a.r.d and proud of it, he includes his stint in prison for manslaughter. After the fling is over, she goes her way and marries Manning, and Valente goes his way. Valente and Leigh Manning don't see each other after that. I mean, they never really had anything in common in the first place, right?"

"Right," Womack said. "Go on, I'm with you."

"Fourteen years go by," Shrader continued; "then one day, Leigh Manning finds out her husband is cheating on her, or laundering illegal money-or whatever-and she decides she wants to get rid of him, permanently. Now, who would she call to advise her about doing something like that? Who does she know who has firsthand experience with murder?"

"She'd call her old friend from Great Jones Street," Womack agreed aloud.

"Exactly. She calls him from a pay phone, and he picks her up in his car, and they talk there. They meet the same way another time or two to make their plans, but that's all they do. That would explain why we can't dig up any evidence they were having an affair-because they weren't having one."

He paused, his brow furrowing again. "When I think about it, it's just as likely that she didn't call Valente out of the blue with her problem. Manning's secretary said Manning had been making some business overtures to Valente in the weeks before he died. Maybe Manning brought up Valente to his wife, and that's when she realized how helpful her old pal could be in disposing of her husband.

Doesn't matter," he said, giving his big head a shake. "Anyway, on the night before they plan to off old Logan, he suddenly decides he could make some points with his potential business investor by inviting him to Leigh's fancy party.

Mrs. Manning's secretary-Brenna something-specifically told me Manning added Valente to the guest list himself, at the last minute."

Womack looked impressed. "So Valente goes to the party, but for obvious reasons, he and Mrs. Manning carefully pretend not to know each other." He looked at Sam, who was frowning in thought. "You got problems with this theory?"

"I was thinking about the pears he sent her in the hospital," Sam replied. "I've always a.s.sumed he knew she liked pears for breakfast because they'd had a lot of cozy breakfasts together, but it's perfectly possible that Valente simply remembered her shopping habits at his aunt's market, and in a nostalgic moment, he sent her the pears in the hospital."

Satisfied, Shrader turned to McCord. "How does this sound to you, Lieutenant?"

The phone on McCord's desk had started ringing before Shrader finished the question. McCord answered it, listened for a moment, and then said curtly. "Put them in an interview room and tell them to wait there."

When he hung up, he said, "Valente and Buchanan are here"; then he unhurriedly considered Shrader's question. "I have one major problem with your theory, and it's this: The Feds call Valente the Ice Man because he's the most calculating, cold-blooded son of a b.i.t.c.h they've ever encountered. Based on what I've heard, he wouldn't help out an old girlfriend-or anyone else-unless there's something in it for him. In order for him to agree to pop Logan Manning, and risk getting a lethal injection for his trouble, Leigh Manning had to have something to offer him that he wanted very badly."

Womack immediately came up with a viable possibility: "Maybe she offered him her husband's dirty money. She doesn't strike me as the type to try to launder it herself."

"That's an inducement that would appeal to Valente, as long as there's a truckload of money involved," McCord agreed. "Evidently Mrs. Manning also sweetened the deal by offering him herself, because there is definitely something s.e.xual going on between them now."

In the silence that followed, Sam reluctantly shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I can't buy any of this."

"What do you mean you can't buy any of it?" McCord said sharply, frowning at her. "It explains things that have bothered me for weeks about their relationship. It makes perfect sense."

"But only up to a point. It explains why and how two guilty conspirators kept their acquaintance a complete secret while they planned to murder Manning. But what it doesn't explain is why they abandoned all caution, even before his body was discovered. Why would Valente be stupid enough to fly her in his helicopter to a place he knew would be crawling with cops? Why are they flaunting their relationship now, when they need to look innocent?"

Sam had been speaking to all three men, but she directed her last question specifically to McCord. "You said Valente was 'calculating,' yet he's been visiting her openly at her apartment. Last night, he took her out to dinner-very publicly-and then he spent the night with her, even though he obviously knows he's under surveillance." She lifted her hands, palms up. "Why would a cold, calculating man do such reckless things?"

"Based on my firsthand knowledge of man's basest nature," McCord said with a mocking smile, "I would have to a.s.sume that Leigh Manning offered herself to Valente as part of the bargain, and he's extremely eager to start collecting payment."

"You mean," Sam paraphrased with a smile, "he has the hots for her?"

"Obviously."

"I see," Sam said wryly. "So-apparently the 'Ice Man' is actually so 'hot' that he's willing to risk a death sentence to be with her?"

McCord sighed, but he didn't argue. He couldn't.

"I'm not saying Valente didn't murder Logan Manning," Sam added, "but I've met him, and I don't think he's as inhumanly cold and emotionless as you've been told. I was watching him when he got his first look at Mrs. Manning's Mercedes as it was being winched up to the road. He looked completely shaken and almost ill when he saw it. I also saw him carry her in his arms-up a steep hill, through deep snow-from the cabin to the main road. I'll be interested in hearing what you think of him," Sam finished.

McCord glanced at his watch. "Then let's go have a talk with him, so I can decide for myself." He phoned Holland's clerk and told him the interview was about to begin; then he pushed back his chair.

"If you ask me," Womack said as they all stood up to head toward the interview rooms, "Detective Littleton thinks the Ice Man is hot stuff."

Sam made a joke of it as she picked up her pad and pencil, though what she said was what she thought. "I think he's very attractive-in a dangerous, unfriendly sort of way."

As she finished speaking, she happened to glance at McCord, who was walking around his desk toward her, and she found herself momentarily impaled by a pair of blue eyes as sharp as daggers. "Is that right?" he inquired in a deliberately offhand tone that completely belied the expression in his eyes.

"Nope, not really," Sam said unhesitatingly... untruthfully... and completely unintentionally. Stunned by her involuntary reply, she started across the squad room toward the interview rooms, with Shrader and Womack in the lead, while she tried to understand what had just happened. That look on McCord's face had been there either because he thought she was biased in favor of a suspect-and a criminal, to boot. Or because he had been jealous. No, it couldn't have been jealousy, Sam decided. No way. Not McCord. Not possible.

After momentarily examining the reasons for her own reaction, Sam concluded that she'd denied her stated opinion of Valente either because she didn't want McCord to think her professional opinions could be influenced by any man, no matter how attractive he might be. Or-and she didn't like this possibility-because jealousy was an uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling and she didn't want to do anything, ever, to make that amazing man feel an unnecessary moment of unpleasantness. If so, that would indicate her feelings for him were very tender, and that he already meant a great deal more to her than she realized.

But he didn't. She would never be foolish enough to let that happen.

Beside her, McCord sent her a slanted little smile and lowered his voice. "I think we got through our first lovers' quarrel pretty well, don't you?"

Sam turned the corner too sharply, and nearly hit the wall.

He spared her the need to reply by abruptly switching to the matter ahead as they neared the interview rooms at the end of the next hallway. "Shrader, do you want to sit in, or do you want to watch it from the other side of the mirror?"

"Since I'm not going to partic.i.p.ate, I'd rather watch from outside. The view's broader from further away."

When Womack said virtually the same thing, McCord looked at Sam.

"I'd like to sit in on it," she said instantly. "I wish you'd ask him about his relationship with Mrs. Manning while he's here."

"If he's come here to hand me a solid alibi, there's no point in asking him about her, or anything else, because he'll tell me to f.u.c.k off. Mr. Valente,"

McCord continued snidely, "doesn't like us to 'pry' into his affairs. He once made the State's prosecutors spend months trying to force him to hand over some records they wanted to see in connection with their fraud case against him. First his lawyers stalled, then they argued, then they fought against it all the way to the New York Supreme Court. Do you know what happened when the Supreme Court finally made him turn over the files the prosecutors wanted?"

"No, what?"

"The records completely exonerated him. Valente knew they would. If he's actually got an ironclad alibi today, he's not going to give me one molecule of additional information. In fact, I still can't believe he's planning to volunteer anything. It's a real first for him."

CHAPTER 55.

Formerly called "interrogation rooms," the interview rooms were located on the far side of the third floor, diagonally opposite McCord's office, between two short, busy hallways at the rear of the building. The front hallway had entrance doors into the rooms and large gla.s.s windows where pa.s.sersby could see, and be seen. The rear hallway had one-way mirrors where detectives and police officers could gather to observe and hear what was taking place in each room without being observed themselves.

Instead of waiting inside the interview room as they'd been instructed to do, Michael Valente and his attorney were standing outside it in the hall, drinking coffee. It was, Sam decided, a small but deliberate defiance designed to subtly wrest control from McCord.

McCord took it as such and retaliated by stalking past both men without a glance. He opened the door to the interview room, and with a rude jerk of his head, he snapped an order at them. "Inside!"

Shrader and Womack were already making the turn to the back hall as Captain Holland strode past Sam with four other men, all headed in the same direction. Valente's voluntary appearance at the precinct was evidently drawing a crowd, Sam realized, wondering how many people were already gathered back there to watch the proceedings through the one-way mirror.

She waited for Buchanan and Valente to precede her into the room; then she followed them inside and closed the door.

McCord went to the right side of the oblong table in the center of the room.

"Sit down," he ordered his adversaries, nodding toward the chairs on the left of the table.

Valente unhurriedly sat down; then he opened his topcoat, leaned back in his chair, and casually propped his right ankle atop his opposite knee-a deliberately indolent posture that conveyed his utter lack of respect for the occasion, and for the detectives present.

McCord angled his chair sideways, put his yellow tablet in his lap, and looked over his right shoulder at Valente, impatiently tapping the end of his pencil on the table. Waiting.

Sam made a mental snapshot of the two silent men and subt.i.tled it: " If I can't win, I won't play."

Buchanan sat down, opened his briefcase, and broke the electrified silence by saying, "It's our belief that Mr. Valente is a suspect in the murder of Logan Manning."

McCord's gaze shifted to Buchanan, and he shrugged. "No one has accused him of that."

"That's true. In fact, no one's even questioned him. Why is that, Lieutenant?"

"I'm the one who asks the questions," McCord explained as if he were reprimanding a rude fourth grader on a field trip at the precinct, "and you're the one who gives the answers. Now, you asked for this meeting. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise," McCord added acidly, "there's the door.

Use it."

Gordon Buchanan's aristocratic face remained perfectly composed, but Sam saw a muscle begin to tick in the side of Valente's clamped jaw. "For the record,"

Buchanan said smoothly and unemotionally, "Mr. Valente could not possibly be your murderer. Here is a schedule of his whereabouts on that Sunday, along with names and phone numbers of witnesses who can verify his presence. As you will discover when you read this, my client was at lunch and then a Knicks game with three business a.s.sociates. After the game, the men went to the Century Club, where they discussed business until six. At nine P.M. , he had dinner in a public restaurant where he is known and recognized, with a woman whose name is on that list. At one A.M. , he returned home, where he made several lengthy telephone calls to business a.s.sociates in Asia. His chauffeur, his doorman, and his telephone records will all verify the last part of that."

McCord reached for the paper and then deliberately ignored it once it was in his hand. "I'm told Mr. Valente doesn't like to volunteer information. One might even say that he always goes out of his way to be uncooperative. I'm curious about his motives for coming here today and offering information to a.s.sist us in this particular case."

Buchanan closed his briefcase. "My client's motives are none of your business. Your business is-presumably-to find Logan Manning's real murderer."

"Suppose I were to tell you that Mrs. Manning is our primary suspect,"

McCord drawled. "What would you say to that?"

Valente's savage voice was like the crack of a whiplash. "I would say you're out of your f.u.c.king mind."

McCord's head snapped toward Valente, and Sam watched the two foes finally confront each other eye to eye-a cunning hunter, a dangerous predator.

They were silent for a moment, mentally circling each other; then the hunter smiled. "I was under the impression you and Mrs. Manning were complete strangers until the night you met at her party. Do you have more than a casual interest in her?"

"Cut the bulls.h.i.t!" Valente snapped, rolling to his feet with the sudden, deadly grace of the panther he reminded Sam of at that moment. "You've had us both under surveillance for weeks. You know d.a.m.ned well she spent the night with me last night."

Buchanan hurriedly stood up, too, giving Sam the impression the attorney was worried about what his client might do next, but McCord was moving in for another attack. "You knew her a long time ago, didn't you? Fourteen years ago, to be exact."

"You just figured that out?" Valente shook his head as if he couldn't believe the stupidity he had to deal with: then he walked out with Buchanan on his heels.

For several moments, McCord stared after them, his jaw clenched with inexplicable anger; then he said softly, as if to himself, ' 'Son of a b.i.t.c.h! He was ready to talk..."

He glanced over at Sam and said in furious self-disgust, "I should have gauged him myself, but I thought I knew everything there was to know about him from his files, so I shoved him into a wall right from the start. I showed him how tough I was, so he had to show me he didn't give a s.h.i.t. You were right, Sam. The Ice Man has a hot spot-no, he's got a soft spot for Leigh Manning. If I hadn't strong-armed him, if I'd have played straighter with him, I think he'd have told me something I needed to know. He'll never give us another shot-"