The Maverick: The Maverick / Magnate’s Make-Believe Mistress

“Ouch.”

“People who go through life making their money primarily through dishonest dealings don’t usually reform,” he said quietly. “It’s a basic character trait that no amount of well-meaning rehabilitation can reverse.”

“We live among some very unsavory people.”

“Yes. That’s why we have law enforcement. I might add, that the law enforcement on the county level here is exceptional.”

She snarled at him. He just grinned.

“What’s your next move?” she asked.

“I’m not making one until I know what’s in that note. Shouldn’t your assistant have something by now, even if it’s only the text of the message?”

“She should.” Alice pulled out her cell phone and called her office. “But I’m probably way off base about Kilraven’s involvement in this. Maybe the victim just ticked off the wrong people and paid for it. Maybe he had unpaid drug bills or something.”

“That’s always a possibility,” Hayes had to agree.

The phone rang and rang. Finally it was answered. “Crime lab, Longfellow speaking.”

“Did you know that you have the surname of a famous poet?” Alice teased.

The other woman was all business, all the time, and she didn’t get jokes. “Yes. I’m a far-removed distant cousin of the poet, in fact. You want to know about your scrap of paper, I suppose? It’s much too early for any analysis of the paper or ink…”

“The writing, Longfellow, the writing,” Alice interrupted.

“As I said, it’s too early in the analysis. We’d need a sample to compare, first, and then we’d need a handwriting expert…”

“But what does the message say?” Alice blurted out impatiently. Honest to God, the other woman was so ponderously slow sometimes!

“Oh, that. Just a minute.” There was a pause, some paper ruffling, a cough. Longfellow came back on the line. “It doesn’t say anything.”

“You can’t make out the letters? Is it waterlogged, or something?”

“It doesn’t have letters.”

“Then what does it have?” Alice said with the last of her patience straining at the leash. She was picturing Longfellow on the floor with herself standing over the lab tech with a large studded bat…

“It has numbers, Jones,” came the droll reply. “Just a few numbers. Nothing else.”

“An address?”

“Not likely.”

“Give me the numbers.”

“Only the last six are visible. The others apparently were obliterated by the man’s sweaty palms when he clenched it so tightly. Here goes.”

She read the series of numbers.

“Which ones were obliterated?” Alice asked.

“Looks like the ones at the beginning. If it’s a telephone number, the area code and the first of the exchange numbers is missing. We’ll probably be able to reconstruct those at the FBI lab, but not immediately. Sorry.”

“No, listen, you’ve been a world of help. If I controlled salaries, you’d get a raise.”

“Why, thank you, Jones,” came the astonished reply. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“You’re very welcome. Let me know if you come up with anything else.”

“Of course I will.”

Alice hung up. She looked at the numbers and frowned.

“What have you got?” Hayes asked.

“I’m not sure. A telephone number, perhaps.”

He moved closer and peered at the paper where she’d written those numbers down. “Could that be the exchange?” he asked, noting some of the numbers.

“I don’t know. If it is, it could be a San Antonio number, but we’d need to have the area code to determine that, and it’s missing.”

“Get that lab busy.”

She glowered at him. “Like we sleep late, take two-hour coffee breaks, and wander into the crime lab about noon daily!”

“Sorry,” he said, and grinned.

She pursed her full lips and gave him a roguish look. “Hey, you law enforcement guys live at doughnut shops and lounge around in the office reading sports magazines and playing games on the computer, right?”

He glowered back.

She held out one hand, palm up. “Welcome to the stereotype club.”

“When will she have some more of those numbers?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Has anybody spoken to the woman whose car was stolen to ask if someone she knew might have taken it? Or to pump her for information and find out if she really loaned it to him?” she added shrewdly.

“No, nobody’s talked to her. The feds in charge of the investigation wanted to wait until they had enough information to coax her into giving them something they needed,” he said.

“As we speak, they’re roping Jon Blackhawk to his desk chair and gagging him,” she pronounced with a grin. “His first reaction would be to drag her downtown and grill her.”

“He’s young and hotheaded. At least to hear his brother tell it.”

“Kilraven loves his brother,” Alice replied. “But he does know his failings.”

“I wouldn’t call rushing in headfirst a failing,” Hayes pointed out.

“That’s why you’ve been shot, Hayes,” she said.