Free The Big Killing by Annette Meyers Page A

softly. “Try the precinct again. One more time.”
    Wetzon dialed. “Twenty ... twen—”
    “Seventeenth Precinct. Rivera.”
    “Oh, yes, Sergeant Silvestri, please,” Wetzon said. Smith looked disappointed. Wetzon felt relieved.
    “Silvestri’s not picking up.” Rivera’s response was mechanical. “I’ll have him paged.”
    “He doesn’t seem to be there,” Wetzon told Smith. “They’re paging him.” Smith smiled.
    “Ma’am, he’s not here right now.”
    “May I leave a message?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Ask him, please, to call Leslie Wetzon at ...” She gave Smith’s number, spelled her name for him twice, and hung up.
    They pounced on the case.
    “What do you suppose is in here?” Wetzon asked, running her hands over the thick, luxurious black leather.
    “It’s locked, dammit,” Smith grumbled. “I suppose it was too much to hope that it wouldn’t be.”
    They were sitting on the floor, the case between them.
    “Maybe a good old-fashioned hairpin,” Wetzon said, reaching up, feeling around, and then taking one out of her bun. A lock of hair slipped and curled around her ear.
    Smith laughed her wicked laugh and took the hairpin. The phone rang. “Damn,” Wetzon said. “Do you suppose that’s Silvestri already?”
    “Let it ring,” Smith said, working with the hairpin. “I’m making progress.”
    “No, we can’t,” Wetzon said, sighing.
    Smith stood up. “Here.” She handed Wetzon the hairpin. “You try.” The phone rang repeatedly. She moved with exaggerated slowness toward it. “Persistent, isn’t he?” After the tenth ring, it stopped. “Aha,” she said, “that’s better.” She came back to the attaché case.
    “Mom,” Mark called loudly, from his room, “it’s for Wetzon. Sergeant Silvestri, NYPD.”
    “Christ,” Smith said. “That kid is so compulsive.”
    Smith and Wetzon looked at each other. Smith took the hairpin and bent over the lock. Wetzon picked up the phone.
    “Hello, Sergeant Silvestri.”
    “What’s the problem?” He was curt.
    She felt put off by his tone. “It’s just that I forgot something that might be important.”
    “Okay, make it fast.”
    “I can’t make it fast.” If he could be curt, so could she. “I have to show you.”
    “I’ve got a lot of work here right now, Ms. Wetzon. Can’t this wait till tomorrow?”
    “No, it can’t wait,” she insisted. She wasn’t going to be left holding the goddam attaché case a minute longer than she had to.
    “Where are you?”
    “My partner’s home. The address is—”
    “I have it.”
    A loud snap came from the floor where Smith was bent over the attaché case.

11
    The two women’s eyes met with the sound of the lock snapping open.
    There was a moment of silence from Silvestri. “How long are you going to be there, Ms. Wetzon?”
    “Another hour, maybe. I’m really tired, and I’d like to get home, Sergeant. Ordinarily I’d let this go, but I think it’s important.”
    “I’ll get up there as soon as I can, and then I’ll take you home.”
    “Okay.” Wetzon slowly replaced the receiver. That was nice. He would take her home. “I think he was still at the Four Seasons,” she said. She wondered if he was calling from the same phone booth. She shuddered. In her mind she saw Barry again, sliding out of the booth toward her. “Poor Barry,” she said.
    “Poor Barry, nothing,” Smith sniffed. “The scumbag probably stuck his avaricious nose in where he shouldn’t have and got caught.” She was no longer interested in Barry, Wetzon could see, but only interested in the case—attaché case—murder case. Smith raised the lid. “And we both know that if there was a profit to be made on this information, Barry was ready to make it, legally or illegally. You have to admit that.”
    “You’re right, of course,” Wetzon said, sighing. “But what could he have done to deserve being murdered?”
    “Let’s just see if we can find out,” Smith said with a raunchy