Free Reversible Errors by Scott Turow

pat-down search to which Luisa had succumbed only over furious objection. The search came up dry and, on second submission, her dirty result proved to be a false-positive. Yet once Larry saw her cash, he'd begun thinking there might have been something to it after all. An airport employee was in a unique position to help import drugs.
    Genevieve had a different theory.
    "It was a setup," she said. "I heard all about it. Lu was outraged. She didn't have a bad drop in ten years with the airline. Then they search her? How fishy is that?"
    "Well, who set her up, then?"
    "Luisa had a mouth. You know how that goes. She probably irritated somebody."
    "Any guess who?"
    Genevieve looked to Larry as if she might have had a name or two in mind, but she wasn't about to make Luisa's mistake of speaking out of turn. He tried several ways to get her to spill, but she maintained that pleasant little smile and kept rolling her eyes. It was getting late. He didn't want to miss Erno, so he let Genevieve go, saying he might contact her again. She did not appear especially excited by the prospect. It was an unfortunate aspect of his job that he often antagonized people like Genevieve who he actually thought were all right. Did Genevieve know where Luisa's cash came from? Seventy-three percent of Americans in our poll said, Yes. But she was clearly convinced it had nothing to do with Luisa's murder. One way or the other, Genevieve was probably guarding her friend's memory, and Larry actually respected her for that. Maybe a mobbed-up uncle was helping out. Maybe Luisa's mom, an Old World type, was running numbers in her former neighborhood in Kewahnee, or, more likely, bailing out her daughter with cash Momma had long kept in her mattress.
    He spent a few minutes circling a potted plant outside Erno's door before the secretary showed him in. TN's Head of Security was stationed out at the big airport, making Erno the honcho here, and he had one of those offices too big for the furniture they gave him. The light from the large windows glazed his desk on which nothing rested, not even dust.
    "Can I ask?" Erno said, when they were settled. "The suits in Center City always like to hear it first, if they're gonna read about anybody around here being naughty."
    Erno had been smuggled out of Hungary in 1956, after the Russkies hanged his father from the lamppost in front of the family house, and a trace accent still played through his speech like incongruous background music, elongating certain vowels and sticking other sounds far back in his throat. It was essential to Erno's character to act as if nobody would notice. He was one of those guys who alway s w anted to sound like he was on the inside, and given that, it figured he'd be scratching around to find out what Larry had come up with. But his curiosity gave Larry leverage. Instead of answering, Larry flipped open a small spiral-topped notepad and said he wasn't getting the skinny on the narcotics search referenced in Luisa's personnel file. Considering the price of admission, Erno wiggled his mouth around and finally scooted forward so he could place both elbows on his desktop.
    "I wouldn't want you to write this down," he said, "but I think my boys got a little rambunctious. This young lady, Luisa, from what I hear, she was Excedrin headache number 265. You've seen her evaluations in the file. You know, insubordinate.' It's misspelled several times. I think she got pretty ornery when she come up dirty, enough to make a suspicious guy more suspicious."
    Erno offered the last with a wry look. He was suggesting his guys had made up the 'tip' as an excuse for the search. It happened on the street all the time. Genevieve had this one right: Luisa had talked her way into trouble.
    "So that's a zero?"
    "Dry hole," said Erno authoritatively. He reached into a desk drawer and placed a toothpick in the side of his mouth. Erno was nervous and slender. He had a narrow face, a long thin nose, and eyebrows so