“What do you think?” he asked Abe and Corey after their tour.
“That someone beat the ME’s boys here,” said Corey.
“I agree,” said Abe, pointing to a vase that had been dusted twice for prints, only the color of the powder giving it away.
Carmine scowled. “My mistake,” he said. “I figured we’d do better to get the smaller fry out of the way before tackling Mr. Skeps, a real whale. I’m scared he won’t give us latitude for the rest. The question is, was anything removed, and if it was, what, why, and by whom?”
“An arm of the Justice Department,” Abe said.
“FBI—the Commissioner has heard something, he dropped a hint. But he didn’t get it from an official source, nor long before our arrival. Jeez, I hate that!” Carmine cried. “Why not come to us and tell us they’re interested instead of floundering around like cock-roaches on a wedding cake?”
“They’ll be downstairs in the offices,” Corey said, looking aggressive.
“We play it cool, guys,” said Carmine.
The agency, they learned as they ducked under the police rope at the entrance to Desmond Skeps’s offices, was indeed the FBI. He was standing, all six foot five and two-fifty pounds of him, in the middle of the main office supervising two Cornucopia janitors removing a four-drawer filing cabinet precariously perched on a dolly. He was a good-looking man with thick dark hair and dark eyes, but how he got to be an agent in the field was a puzzle to the three Holloman cops; his sheer size made him far too memorable for most investigative purposes.
“At your size, Mister, why don’t you just pick it up and carry it? Or is that beneath your dignity?” Carmine asked affably.
The giant jumped, tried to look commandingly superior, and failed. “I hope you’re not going to be obstructive,” he said, flashing his credentials. “I’m Special Agent Ted Kelly of the FBI, and this is vital evidence.”
“Have you got a warrant?” Carmine asked.
“No, but I can get one faster than your cat can lick her ear,” he said, “so don’t even think of it.”
“My cat’s ear is squeaky-clean, Special Agent Kelly. I have a warrant right here, so I’m taking the vital evidence by the power vested in me by the State of Connecticut, County of Holloman. The name’s Carmine Delmonico. This is Abe Goldberg, and that’s Corey Marshall. Guys, wheel my evidence out. And you, Special Agent Kelly, are contaminating my crime scene. Why don’t you go get your pieces of paper, then come back and make your seizures legal?”
“I would get you, wouldn’t I?” Kelly asked, his face flushed. “I can’t say I wasn’t warned.”
Carmine lifted the rope. “Goodbye, Mr. Kelly. And don’t come back until you’re willing to share everything you’ve got with the Holloman Police Department.”
Shit! he thought as he was left victor on the field. That filing cabinet means I won’t be home early tonight, no matter what tricks Myron is up to; by tomorrow the Feds will have pulled enough strings to get their evidence back. No other filing cabinet has been targeted, so whatever Special Agent Kelly hopes to find lies within this one alone. And why do I think there’s more to this than a routine FBI presence? He went to the nearest phone and dialed.
“Delia? Dig out our security clearances, there’s a good girl. Keep yours with you, and send mine over here right now. I’d rather not get arrested on a federal warrant, it’s too hard to find a Get Out of Jail card.”
He hung up on the squawks, grinning, then dialed again. “Danny? The Feds are here, and I smell something rotten in the state of Cornucopia. Tell Silvestri he might have a harder fight on his hands than we expected. Now put me back to Delia.”
She had stopped squawking. “Your credentials are on their way,” she said briskly, “and mine are in my handbag right next to my Saturday night special. What else, Captain?”
“Corey and Abe should be wheeling a filing cabinet into County Services any minute. It’s a big bone of contention, Delia, and we may not win the fight to keep it. The moment it arrives, I want it put in my office and as many photocopiers as our power supply will stand put in there too. Get all the girls out of the typing pool and put them to photocopying the contents”—he grinned—“faster than your cat can lick her ear. Said contents, I add, are for your and my eyes only.”
“What about the girls?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t think we need to worry about them. They’ll be working too fast to notice what they’re copying.”