The Finishing School by Michele Martinez

boss said.
    Hell, maybe he should just go for it. He’d been numb since the last time he saw her anyway. Felt nothing. Might as well be dead.
    “Yeah. Nine o’clock, you said?” he asked.
    “Yup. So you’ll do it?”
    “I’ll be there,” Dan said, and hung up.
    Moth to the flame. How fucking stupid could you be?
     
10
     
    DAN HAD ACKNOWLEDGED MELANIE with a curt nod right when he first walked in, and now he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He sat at the far end of the table, with a few empty chairs between him and everybody else, flipping absentmindedly through one of the evidence binders Bridget had brought. Melanie made herself pretend he wasn’t there.
    “Vito, were you aware these two made an arrest this morning?” Bernadette was saying.
    “Yeah. Ray-Ray beeped me an hour ago.”
    “Oh, so I’m the only idiot in the dark here? Thanks a lot. Good communicating, Melanie.”
    “Take it easy, Bernadette,” Albano said. “Give the kids a break. This pinch looks real promising. Salvadoran kid. Grabbed ’im with twelve decks in his sock, right, Ray-Ray?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Bernadette raised her eyebrows, seeming appeased. “Really? Well, that
is
good. It’s fabulous, in fact. We’ll have something to report at the press conference.”
    “I don’t think you should announce this to the press yet,” Melanie said. She could imagine the headlines—the tabloids screaming that Carmen Reyes had scored heroin from her gangster boyfriend, given it to the other girls, watched them OD, and then fled. She kicked herself for not warning Carmen’s father of the possibility.
    “Press relationships are my domain, Melanie, but I’ll hear you out. Why don’t you think it should be announced?” Bernadette asked.
    Everyone turned to look at Melanie. She felt Dan’s eyes on her, but if she met his gaze, she wouldn’t be able to think straight.
    “It’s premature, and it could burn the investigation,” she replied, looking only at Bernadette. “This Salvadoran kid, Juan Carlos Peralta, may have been dating the daughter of the superintendent in Seward’s building, whose name is Carmen Reyes. Carmen was a classmate of the two girls who died. She’s missing. We need to establish the link between the two of them and confirm that he gave Carmen the heroin.
Then
we’ll have a case.”
    “But there’s a major countervailing consideration. With an arrest this quick, we look golden, don’t you see? Wait even one day and we lose that impact. Believe me, I understand how the media works.”
    “Bern,” Melanie said, “there’s a strong possibility Carmen ran away last night. That she’s out there right now, cold and hungry, thinking about coming home. If she finds out her boyfriend is in custody, she may decide to keep running and not look back. Then we lose a critical link in the chain between Peralta and the dead girls.”
    “We arrested him with twelve glassines. How is that not a case already?” Bernadette demanded.
    “Right now all we can charge him with is those glassines, and they don’t even add up to federal weight. Plus, they aren’t the same stamp the girls ingested last night. Let’s do the legwork to tie him to the heroin that killed the girls. Then we can charge distribution resulting in death.
That
has teeth.”
    “How long do you need to establish the connection?” Bernadette asked, crossing her arms and looking doubtful.
    “Hard to say. If Peralta talks, or if we find Carmen this morning and she gives him up as the supplier, not long at all. If we have to pound the pavement, then a bit longer,” Melanie said. She paused for a moment, then added, “We should probably pound the pavement anyway.”
    “No substitute for shoe leather,” Albano said, nodding.
    “Whatever we come up with will be useful down the road if we take Peralta to trial,” Melanie noted.
    “What steps are you thinking about, specifically?” Bernadette asked.
    “We start with the victims,” Melanie said. “Whitney