Free Cover-up by Michele Martinez Page B

received?” Melanie asked.
    “Sure.” Throwing her a curious glance, Janice stepped behind Melanie’s desk and leaned over to see the computer. She read the e-mail, then she read it a second time.
    “What do you think?” Melanie asked.
    Janice straightened up. “You’re wondering about the fact that this clown calls her a bitch? Does that mean he’s the Butcher?”
    “Exactly.”
    “No way. Every asshole who hates women loves the B-word, right? All this means is that some jerk saw you on TV and decided to harass you. The same thing happened to a woman I work with in the D.A.’s office. She was doing a high-profile case and her picture was in the paper. She started getting obscene phone calls. One of the cops she worked with paid the guy a visit and it stopped.”
    “That’s what I thought, too. I just wanted a second opinion,” Melanie said.
    “You may have a Web stalker, but I don’t think he’s the Butcher.”
    “Too bad, huh? It would make solving the case a lot easier.”
    As Janice laughed, Melanie’s telephone started ringing.
    “We got the 911 caller,” Dan said when Melanie picked up. She heard static, and a loud siren in the background that was shrieking simultaneously outside her office window.
    “You sound close,” she said.

    “We’re right in front of your building. Julian’s getting the guy out of the car now, and we’re gonna bring him up the secure elevator. You want us to meet you in your office?”
    “Why are you bringing him in the secure elevator? Did you arrest him?” she asked.
    “The guy’s got two nasty-ass scratches on his cheek. You remember the victim had skin under her nails? This could be the Butcher, and he wants to talk.”
    “I’ve got a war room,” she said, pulling out the key Bernadette had given her and checking the tag. “Six-fourteen-B. Meet me there in five minutes.”

12
    M elanie and Janice sat at the conference table, which was oversize for the cramped space. The boxes from Target News had been delivered and were piled on the floor, competing for space with leftover detritus from somebody else’s trial. Charts and blowups leaned precariously against the walls and piles of proposed jury instructions were everywhere. But as the door handle turned, Melanie was glad she’d thought to meet this prisoner on neutral ground instead of in her office, where she kept pictures of Maya and other personal possessions. She’d sat across the table from killers before, but this felt different. The gruesome nature of the crime. The man following her on the subway. The disturbing e-mail. This case was starting to make her nervous.
    The door opened and Dan and Julian walked in, the handcuffed suspect between them. Melanie saw his face and drew a sharp breath. Two angry scratches slashed across his right cheek, undoubtedly the work of human fingernails. Was this man the Central Park Butcher?
    Dan removed a handcuff key from the front pocket of his khaki pants. They were the same pants he’d worn to his birthday dinner last night. It felt like light-years ago.

    “Turn around, Dave,” Dan said. He had an easy way with prisoners—authoritative, firm, but humane.
    “Looks like you get the comfy chair, my friend,” Julian said, his gold teeth flashing as he pulled out an old vinyl-and-metal swivel chair that was the only one in the room with arms. The man sat down and Dan handcuffed his right hand to the chair’s arm. Dan and Julian both shook hands with Janice, whom they hadn’t met before, and took seats on either side of their prisoner.
    “Has he been Mirandized?” Melanie asked.
    “He said he’d waive his rights, but I’m out of forms for him to sign,” Dan replied, holding up his hands.
    Melanie went over to the computer terminal that sat on a small side table and printed out a Miranda rights form, which she handed to the prisoner.
    “I’m Melanie Vargas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” she said, taking a seat across from him, “and this is