Seated at a rickety table were Deputy Mayor Robert Wallace and a clean-cut young cop, an Internal Affairs detective. The IAD officer, Toby Henson, greeted Sachs with a firm handshake and a look in his eyes that suggested if she offered any positive response to an invitation to go out with him, he’d give her the evening of her life.

She nodded grimly, focused only on doing the hard job that lay ahead. Her rethinking of the facts, looking within the box, as Rhyme urged, had produced results, which turned out to be extremely unpleasant.

“You said there was a situation?” Wallace asked. “You didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

She briefed the men about Gerald Duncan and Dennis Baker. Wallace had heard the basics but Henson laughed in surprise. “This Duncan, he was just a citizen? And he wanted to bring down a crooked cop? That’s why he did this?”

“Yep.”

“He have names?”

“Only Baker’s. There’re about eight or ten others from the One One Eight but there’s someone else, a main player.”

“Someone else?” Wallace asked.

“Yep. All along we were looking for somebody with a connection to Maryland. . . . Did we get that one wrong.”

“Maryland?” the IAD man asked.

Sachs gave a grim laugh. “You know that game of Telephone?”

“You mean at a kids’ party? You whisper something to the person next to you and by the time it goes around, it’s all different?”

“Yep. My source heard ‘Maryland.’ I think it was ‘Marilyn.’”

“A person’s name?” When she nodded, Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, you don’t mean. . . . ?”

“Inspector Marilyn Flaherty.”

“Impossible.”

Detective Henson shook his head. “No way.”

“I wish I was wrong. But we’ve got some evidence. We found sand and saltwater trace in Baker’s car. She’s got a house in Connecticut, near the beach. And I’ve been followed by somebody in a Mercedes AMG. At first I thought it was a crew from Jersey or Baltimore. But it turns out that that’s what Flaherty owns.”

“A cop owns an AMG?” the Internal Affairs officer asked in disbelief.

“Don’t forget Flaherty’s a cop making a couple hundred thousand a year illegally,” Sachs said stiffly. “And we found a black-and-gray hair about the length of hers in the Explorer that Baker had stolen from the pound. Oh, and remember: She definitely didn’t want IAD to handle the case.”

“Yeah, that was strange,” Wallace agreed.

“Because she was going to bury the whole thing. Give it to one of her people to ‘handle.’ But it would’ve disappeared.”

“Holy shit, an inspector,” whispered the IAD pretty boy.

“She’s in custody?” Wallace asked.

Sachs shook her head. “The problem is we can’t find the money. We don’t have probable cause to subpoena her bank records or get paper to search her house. That’s why I need you.”

Wallace said, “What can I do?”

“I’ve asked her to meet us here. I’m going to brief her on what happened—only a watered-down version. I want you to tell her that we’ve discovered Baker has a partner. The mayor’s called a special commission and he’s going to pull out all the stops to track them down. Tell her that Internal Affairs is totally on board.”