“I know Lucy’s capabilities. Frankly, you’d be foolish not to take advantage of her,” Benton said.

“That’s about the long and short of it. I’ll have to take advantage of her. A city government budget can’t afford someone like her.”

“She’d probably do it for free. She doesn’t need the money.”

“Nothing’s free, Benton.”

“And it’s true. She’s changed. Not the same person you knew last time you saw her, when you could have had her brought up on—”

“Let’s don’t talk about what I could have done. Whatever she confessed to me that night five or so years ago, I don’t remember. The rest of it, she never told me. As far as I’m concerned, she never went to Poland. However, I’m trusting there won’t be a repeat of that sort of thing. And I sure as hell don’t need another FBI, ATF situation.”

Early in her career, Lucy basically had been fired by both.

“You’ll get the laptops to her when?” Benton asked.

“Soon. I have the search warrant to go through the contents, all my ducks in a row.”

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t get on this right away, last night,” he said. “Whatever’s in her laptops may tell us what we need to know.”

“Simple answer. We didn’t have them last night. They weren’t found on the first search. Marino came across them during a second one late this morning.”

“News to me. I didn’t realize Marino was that involved.”

“And I didn’t realize Oscar was the same person Marino talked to last month until Morales had already cleared the scene last night. Once I connected the dots, I called Marino. I said I wanted him involved because he’s already involved.”

“And because you need him to cover your ass,” Benton said. “Perception will be that Oscar called your office for help a month ago and you dropped the ball. Marino dropped the ball. No one will work harder to cover your ass than a person who needs to cover his own. That’s the cynical solution. But you’re lucky. He also doesn’t miss much. In fact, he’s probably the best person you’ve got in your whole damn squad. You just haven’t figured it out yet because he’s easy to underestimate, and now you’re biased. Let me guess. He took it upon himself to take a look at the scene, and he found what might be the most important piece of evidence. Her laptops. Where the hell were they? Under the floorboards?”

“Packed inside a piece of luggage in her closet. Obviously, something she planned to carry on the plane she was to take to Phoenix this morning. That and another packed suitcase,” Berger replied.

“Who found out she was planning on flying to Phoenix this morning?”