The Finishing School by Michele Martinez Page A

Seward and Brianna Meyers. We should subpoena their cell and landline telephone records right away. Who knows, maybe they called Peralta directly.”
    “Okay, I see your point. But don’t lose the forest for the trees. Stay focused on charging the ODs, and don’t worry about pulling every last toll record. Oh, and I assume this is obvious, but skip the records on James Seward’s home phone. Too many political implications to that.”
    “Bern, we need those!” Melanie protested.
    “Nobody gets treated with kid gloves on my watch, Bernadette. Fair’s fair,” Albano said.
    “You’re asking for trouble, Vito. Seward’s extremely well connected. I don’t need to get in hot water over pulling his tolls and finding some phone-sex line or something,” Bernadette said.
    “Who gives a shit? Long as we don’t leak it, how’s he even gonna know?” Albano said.
    “Of course he’ll know. Anybody in his position has spies. If I subpoenaed your phone, you think somebody wouldn’t snitch to you?”
    “Okay, maybe, but
so
? It’s a normal investigative step to take. The dickwad gives you trouble, talk to me, and I’ll take it up with the commissioner,” Albano said.
    “I can call the commissioner myself. That’s not the point. I want to keep you happy on this case, Vito, but I have to think of my other interests, too. Why stir up a hornets’ nest for nothing?”
    “It’s not for nothing, Bern,” Melanie put in. “There’s something screwy about the timing of Seward finding out about the ODs and calling the police. I can’t put my finger on it, but it bothers me. I think we should take a closer look at him.”
    “Please, spare me the far-fetched theories,” Bernadette said, rolling her eyes. “He’s the victim’s stepfather, and he should be treated with respect. Understood?”
    “I follow the trail wherever it leads,” Albano insisted, puffing out his chest. “That’s the way I work. You and me need a private meeting to talk about rules of engagement here, Bernadette. Okay?”
    Bernadette locked eyes with the lieutenant.
Albano’s a dead man
, Melanie thought, and waited for her boss to explode. But instead, after a long moment, Bernadette smiled girlishly.
    “That’s probably a good idea, Vito. Maybe we can do it over lunch later.”
    Albano flushed slightly. “Sure. Sounds good.”
    “Um,” Melanie said after an awkward pause, “so I have the green light to pull Seward’s tolls?”
    “All right,” Bernadette said. “But obviously grand-jury secrecy rules apply. No leaks.”
    “Course not,” Albano agreed, still looking at Bernadette. “Code of silence. By the way, Melanie, we picked up the girls’ cell phones from the scene last night. You might be able to get the numbers right off ’em.” He nodded at Bridget Mulqueen, who sifted through the evidence binders and pulled out two heat-sealed envelopes, which she passed down the table to Melanie. The first contained a small silver Motorola flip phone, the second a shiny pink Nokia with a screen.
    “The silver one was in Brianna Meyers’s backpack,” Albano said. “The pink one was on the bedside table, so we’re assuming it was Whitney’s.”
    “The pink one is a camera phone, right?” Melanie asked, examining it.
    “Yeah, that tiny hole there is the lens,” Albano said. “We haven’t checked the memory for stored photos yet, though. We wanted to ask you—”
    “If you need a search warrant?” Melanie said, finishing his sentence for him. “It depends. If the phones are registered to the victims, no, because their privacy rights died with them. But these girls were minors, so the phones are probably registered to their parents. I’ll write up warrants this afternoon, just to be safe. While I’m at it, I’ll include their computers, too, so we can get their e-mails and the Web sites they visited.”
    “All right,” Bernadette said. “Does anybody have anything else before we break?”
    “One quick question,” Dan