up in rows for the occasion.
“Hi, Chief.” She sat and wiggled her fingers at Ben Stone. “I said I’d do this on my own time. I didn’t say you ought to start without me.”
Stone’s head moved as though his gaze had turned her way, but that was the only acknowledgment she got. He stood in one corner of the room, near the coffee table, taking up space between that and the American flag. She couldn’t see his eyes because of the cowboy hat he wore.
Spence Harrison, the district attorney, stood beside him at the end of the table. Molly’s glance flicked that way and she caught a quick smile touch the man’s mouth. His brown eyes were clear and direct on her for a moment before they cut to Chief Stone. “I wasn’t aware that Officer French had joined our ranks.”
Stone shrugged without actually responding. One of the task-force cops made a disparaging sound in his throat. Harrison lifted a brow at him, then he focused back on Molly. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you.”
“To sum up, I’m still liking the Mercados for this, predominantly because nothing points away from them,” he said, obviously picking up from where he’d been when she’d entered the room.
Translation, Molly thought, he likes them because we don’t have anything else.
“But I’m very concerned with our lack of progress,” Harrison continued. “If we don’t catch a break soon, I’m thinking we’re going to have to go outside our area for expert help. The lack of evidence so far indicates a professional job. It tells me that we’re dealing with someone who is used to committing crimes and covering his or her tracks afterward.”
“Like the mob,” one of the detectives suggested.
“That’s one scenario,” Harrison agreed enigmatically.
Now what did that mean? It was an interesting comment, Molly thought. It seemed to indicate that he had another scenario in mind. But whatever it was, he obviously wasn’t going to share it with the task force.
Everyone was standing to leave. Molly stood, as well, but she stayed behind as the others dispersed. She noticed that more paperwork had been added to the crime book table and that no one had done a thing about organizing it since she’d left yesterday. No wonder they weren’t getting anywhere. How could Chief Stone even monitor this investigation if nothing was in place?
She started to move a chair back to that table, then she realized that Spence Harrison hadn’t left. She gave him a crooked smile. “Joe Gannon seems to think it’s my Laredo connection, but maybe it’s because I’m a woman. What you think?”
“You mean why they cut you out?” He was replacing papers to his briefcase and didn’t look up at her.
“Actually, I sort of cut myself in.”
Again, he gave that fleeting grin. “It’s an old-boy network. I’ll make sure you’re notified of the next meeting.”
“Thanks.” Molly wondered how much she could trust him. Her gut instincts told her that neither Harrison nor Joe Gannon minded her being involved here. She decided to find out. She was a pretty good judge of people and their reactions to things she said. “You know, something’s been bothering me.”
The district attorney finally glanced up. “What’s that?”
“It’s Ed Bancroft. Why didn’t they take away his belt and shoelaces when they put him into that holding cell? Who booked him?”
“Joe Gannon.”
She noticed that Harrison didn’t have to consult anything in his briefcase for the answer. Molly nodded. She’d already known it, too, but she was going somewhere with this.
“And he relieved him of all his potentially deadly possessions at the time,” Harrison continued.
Molly took a deep breath. “Okay. So Bancroft had a friend who brought him the belt. And by association, Malloy probably had some friends, too.”
“It’s a safe guess.”
“I wonder if these friends have any more associates…within the department.”
“You’re a good cop, Molly. You’ve got to know there are also bad ones.”
There, it was out on the table, she thought. It was what she had been fishing for—support for her only theory. Malloy and Bancroft had friends in bad places—and if they did, then it was entirely possible that other cops did as well.
There had just been too many at that bombing scene, she thought again.
“For what it’s worth,” she said finally, “I like the Mercado angle for this, too. Who else could they have been hooked up with?” She refused to think of Danny when she said it.
“The Mercados are our resident bad guys,” Harrison agreed. He snapped the locks on his briefcase.
He left and Molly sat down at the crime book desk, rubbing her forehead. It was nice to know that someone as powerful as Spence Harrison didn’t think she was nuts for her theory. But she still had questions. Who had supplied Bancroft with the belt he’d looped around his neck? Had Bancroft requested it? Or had someone convinced him that he wanted it?
Molly rose from the table suddenly. She left the war room and went to the records department.
Ten minutes later she had a copy of the official visitors log from the cell area for the day Bancroft had been brought in. She ran down the list of the man’s visitors as she stood in the corridor. Some list. She was the only one on it.
No attorney? Why hadn’t Bancroft called for legal counsel? Those sharks could be counted on to show up before the key turned in the lock.
She hadn’t supplied Bancroft with the belt. Therefore, Molly thought, someone else had visited Bancroft without being signed in. Which meant that whoever had been on desk duty that day hadn’t made an issue of the belt-carrying visitor. Whoever had been on the desk had just waved the visitor in. Because it was another cop?
Her stomach shifted. She’d have to check with personnel to find out who had worked the holding cell area during that shift.
She already knew from the autopsy report that Bancroft hadn’t been dead long when she’d found him. She’d gotten him down and had started CPR herself, to no avail. Bancroft had still been warm. His mysterious visitor could have been there within half an hour of her own sign-in.
Molly started to head back to the war room, then she hesitated. Don’t do it, don’t do it, an inner voice warned her. She stepped back into the records room. “I also need the file on a six-year-old convenience store hold-up.”
“Got a number? An exact date?” the clerk asked. She was a pretty, lithe, young blonde named Gale Howard. Most of the guys loved her.
“No, just a name. Daniel Gates.”
“I should be able to find it. Hold on,” Gale said. “Sign another request for me and I’ll go look.”
And stop running my name through the system. Danny’s voice shot back into Molly’s
