He imagined Morales on the roof, laughing as he’d listened to Marino struggling down the fire escape, when all he’d had to do was direct him to the roof access. Marino could have climbed down five sturdy ladder steps inside a lighted building instead of thirty narrow rungs outside in the frigid dark.

Marino folded the ladder and returned it to the closet.

He was halfway back to his car when his cell phone rang. The display said Unknown, and he was sure it was Morales, pissed as hell.

“Yo,” he answered cheerfully as he walked.

“Marino?” It was Jaime Berger. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Morales.”

There was a lot of background noise, what sounded like traffic, and he knew when she was irritated.

“I just saw him,” he said. “He’s sort of unreachable this very minute.”

“If you happen to talk to him, you might mention I’ve left three messages. I won’t leave a fourth. Maybe you can take care of my problem. Eighteen passwords so far.”

“For just her?” He meant Terri Bridges.

“All the same e-mail provider, but different usernames. For whatever reason. And her boyfriend’s got one. I’m getting out of a taxi now.”

Marino heard her driver say something, and then Berger did, and then the taxi door shut and he could hear her better.

“One second,” he said. “Let me get to my car.”

His unmarked dark blue Impala was parked just ahead.

“Where are you and what are you doing?” she said.

“Long story. Morales mention anything to you about a case in Baltimore and one in Greenwich, Connecticut?”

“I think I just made the point that I haven’t talked to him.”

He unlocked his driver’s door and climbed in. He started the engine and opened the glove box, looking for a pen and something to write on.

“I’ll e-mail some stuff to you, think I can do it from my BlackBerry,” he said. “And Benton should get it.”

Silence.

“If that’s all right with you, I’ll e-mail what I’ve got to him, too.”

“Of course,” she said.

“You don’t mind me saying it, nobody’s talking to each other. An example of what I mean? You got any idea if the cops looked upstairs in Terri’s building last night? Like maybe checked the roof access and the ladder in the utility closet?”

“I have no idea.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Nothing in the report. No photographs,” Marino said.

“That’s interesting.”

“The roof would have been an easy way to get in and out, and nobody sees you. There’s a fire-escape ladder on the west side of the brownstone—like I said, nobody sees you.”

“Morales should know the answer to that.”