Free Bum Rap by Paul Levine Page A

limited edition. The photo showed a very attractive, very pouty brunette. Lots of hair and lots of lips. No smile, but for a mug shot, it was striking. The date of the arrest was five weeks before the shooting.
    “Another charge you can immunize her for,” I said. “So where’s the rest of the file?”
    “That’s the thing.”
    “Oh, boy. Let’s hear it.”
    “There’s no file. It’s missing.”
    “On the computer, then?”
    “Nada.”
    “George, this stinks, and you know it. You talk to the arresting officer?”
    Barrios motioned for another espresso, which he took straight. The only Cuban-American in Miami not to pour a cup of sugar into his morning brew.
    “Scott Kornspan. One year out of the Academy. Clean record. Took a complaint from a middle-aged guy staying at the Delano. The Russian girl picked him up at the bar in the lobby, took him to Club Anastasia, got him drunk, and had him sign for a few thousand in champagne on his AmEx card. Then when he passed out, she took his Rolex. Kornspan arrested the girl, who claimed the guy gave her the watch as a gift. She bailed herself out with a cash bond. Four thousand dollars.”
    “And Kornspan’s written report?”
    “Says he filed it. No explanation for what happened.”
    “It’s gotta be on the computer. Everything’s on the computer.”
    “Not there. Apparently deleted in a slick way that can’t be undone.”
    “I’m guessing you have an idea what happened to it, George.”
    He shrugged his old cop shoulders. “I start with the proposition that Solomon claims Gorev accused Nadia Delova of wearing a wire.”
    “And you know for sure she wasn’t an informant for the City of Miami Beach?”
    Barrios nodded. “I checked. No investigations she’s involved in.”
    “And I’m guessing Pincher says the state wasn’t handling her.”
    “So he says.”
    “And the language Nadia used that spooked Gorev. ‘Wire fraud.’ ‘Money laundering.’ ‘Racketeering.’ ”
    “Fed talk. FBI US Attorney. Justice Department.”
    “But the feds can’t just walk into your building and expunge a file. You have a liaison with the US Attorney?”
    “I have a chief of police.”
    “So? What’s he say?”
    “Says he was advised by the powers that be that he can’t talk about it.”
    “The ‘powers that be?’ That’s all he said?”
    “That. And, ‘the Patriot Act is a bitch.’ ”
    “You ever read the so-called Patriot Act, George?”
    “No. Why would I?”
    “I tried. It’s nearly four hundred pages. Basically, it gives the feds the right to come into my house and perform a rectal exam if they don’t like the cut of my jib.”
    “You haven’t become one of those antigovernment nut jobs, have you Jake?”
    “No way. I love the military. I love the government inspecting slaughterhouses so I don’t get poisoned by my rib eye. I don’t even mind paying taxes for your salary. I just wonder what’s left of the Bill of Rights.”
    “Everyone’s got their pet peeves,” Barrios said. “With me, it’s murder.”
    That shut me up a second.
    “So what do you glean from the chief’s comment, Jake?”
    “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist. The feds were handling Nadia Delova. Someone in the US Attorney’s office was running an investigation of Gorev’s operation.” I tapped a finger on Nadia Delova’s mug shot. “And that someone sends this naive waif of a B-girl into harm’s way, wearing a wire.”
    “The feds would never have given her a gun,” Barrios said. “Meaning Solomon brought it and used it.”
    “Not so fast. It’s equally likely that Nadia brought it without either her handler’s knowledge or Solomon’s. And it was the fed’s responsibility. They’re the ones who apparently wired her and sent her on her mission. Meaning that someone in the employ of the United States government screwed the pooch. If Nadia testifies for the state or the defense, that screwup will be on the front page of the Herald .” I took the