One Cold Night

the evidence. Evelyn Sanchez had positively identified Peter Adkins as the man who lived on the third floor. She’d taken one look at Donna Klein’s photos of Peter and said, “Oh, yes, sir” — Lupe let that one slide — “that’s David Strauss.”
    Score one for the real Dave Strauss. Score two came moments later when PO Morgan Schnall vouched for Strauss last night between eleven andmidnight. Lupe had felt an uncomfortable kind of personal relief at the news. She tried never to want any particular answer, but still, confirming that Detective First Class Dave Strauss was in the clear was right up there with reconstituting Santa; it was a piece of good news she couldn’t help but wish for.
    So Peter Adkins had taken the apartment and the house in Dave’s name. Okay. Next, Lupe wanted prints off the phone handset found near Strauss’s building; she wanted to know if Santa’s beard was real, too.
    It had been one hour and thirty-seven minutes since the forensics tech had driven away with the café’s handset. Half an hour ago, Forensics had promised her results asap. She had called them back three times since then and had nothing to show for it but more balls to break when she was done with this case.
    She picked up the phone and tried her contact at Federal Express. His voice mail answered; she left her fourth message in the last half hour even though he’d promised some answers within the proverbial five minutes. Five minutes — right. All she needed from him was confirmation of what time the FedEx letter was picked up in the Bronx and the exact location, and the name of the carrier who had delivered it to the Bailey-Strauss loft that morning. She didn’t like that no one had seen him enter the building or that Susan hadn’t been asked to sign for the package. Lupe wouldn’t feel good about linking it to the Rothka letter — which had been trackable from pickup to delivery — until she had the paperwork. What the hell was taking so long?
    She lifted the base of her phone and blew away a puff of dust. Damn incompetent fools. She flippedopen her calendar and checked the dates: nowhere near her period.
    She had sat down with intent to think, but thinking in the busy squad room was just about impossible. Here was where paperwork got done and backlogged phone calls got answered. Here was not where her mind could roam. She would give it five more minutes, she decided, before getting back outside. Anyone could reach her on her cell. She’d have someone else handle the nitty-gritties from here.
    A true five minutes later she was heading out the squad room door when her desk phone began its heavy-bells jangle. She caught it on the second ring: it was Forensics, finally, with analysis on the handset.
    “Listen, Loopy.” They all called her that: Loopy like looped, crazy, off the charts; what the hell, she got results. “What we got maybe ain’t what you’re looking for.”
    “No! What I want is the facts.”
    “Good, ‘cause here they are: There are four sets of fingerprints on this handset. We compared them like you asked to prints from Peter Adkins and Dave Strauss.”
    “And?” She hated dramatic pauses.
    “Nothin’.”
    “So? Who’d you get?”
    “Three prints matched other prints found around the Café Luxembourg, and all those prints matched people who worked there. Except one set that didn’t match nothin’.”
    “One set of fingerprints on the phone from someone who doesn’t work at the café?”
    “Check.”
    “Someone who isn’t Peter Adkins or Dave Strauss? You sure about that?”
    “We checked against every set of fingerprints we found in the apartment on Water Street, Loopy, and nothin’ matched up.”
    “Yo.”
    “You tellin’ me. Seems like you got a party crasher.”
    Lupe put down the phone and thought it through. She’d have to double-check the alibis of those three people who worked at the café — but let’s just say, she told herself, let’s just say they all checked out and who she was really looking for was someone else. Someone who was still in Brooklyn. Someone who either took Lisa upstate and then returned for some reason, or someone who didn’t take Lisa but who had called Marie Rothka just for the fun of it. A prank call? An accomplice? But Marie Rothka had recognized the groom’s voice...
    Lupe felt her radar jump: turned on and active. If Peter Adkins had Lisa upstate, and someone else had called Marie from Dumbo at seven a.m., then maybe what