Without Warning by David Rosenfelt Page B

“Anybody here you don’t recognize?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Maybe eight or ten. But we passed it around to everybody at the paper, and I think we identified everyone. Except the guy with the shovel.”
    In a few shots was a man holding a shovel, actually leaning on it. I recognized him, from a missing person bulletin Hank had showed me earlier. “Samuel Votto,” I said. “He went missing around the time the capsule was buried.”
    “So that’s him we … found…?”
    “It’s being confirmed with DNA, but I’d certainly bet on it.”
    She nodded, sadly. “I don’t see you anywhere. You weren’t there that day?”
    It’s not the kind of event I would have attended; they could bury a thousand capsules and I’d miss every one. “No, I was probably off fighting crime.”
    “Roger doesn’t seem to have been there either.”
    I just nodded, and kept looking through the contents of the envelope. Also in there was a thick pack of copies of stories that Matt had written, in the two years prior to the capsule being buried. I could look at them later, and I put the stories and the photographs back in the envelope. “Thanks,” I said.
    “Okay. What did we drive forty-five minutes to talk about?”
    “Two things. First one is we’re reopening the case.”
    I didn’t have to spell out which case; she knew very well I was talking about Jenny’s murder.
    “So you’re saying that you think Roger was innocent.”
    “I’m saying, only to you, that what was in the capsule, if it is shown to have been written prior to the murder, leads me in that direction.”
    “But you won’t say it publicly?”
    “If it comes to that, I will,” I said. “But we’re not there yet.”
    “Okay. I understand.”
    “I’m going to be heading up that part of the investigation, personally.”
    “Why this time?”
    I had made no secret of having recused myself from Jenny’s murder investigation the first time. “Distance, partially. I think I can be more objective now than I could have been then. But also because it seems to be tied into so much more now.”
    She didn’t say anything. My guess is she was thinking about how no matter what happened, Roger Hagel was going to stay dead.
    “I may need your help,” I said.
    “How?”
    “You were aware of the events that preceded the murder,” I said, trying to delicately mention the affair without mentioning it. “You were Roger’s wife, I might want to interview you as a person who might have knowledge of the facts of the case.”
    “That won’t be a problem,” she said, and I let it drop there. She continued, “We want to go public with this. This is too big a story to sit on.”
    “Fine.”
    She did a double take. “Excuse me?”
    “I think it’s a good idea. There might be people out there who know something. Which would be an improvement, because at this point we pretty much know nothing.”
    “We want to get information first.”
    “Fine.”
    She couldn’t conceal her surprise, nor stifle a smile. “This is a very pleasant dinner.”
    “There’s one restriction,” I said. “Maybe more later, but one right now.”
    “I sense that it’s about to become less pleasant.”
    “Not really. The only predictions you can reveal are Jenny, George, the Twenty-third Street Fire, and the one threatening Matt.”
    “Why?”
    “Because the others are too vague,” I said. “Half the people who read them will be sure that they are somehow the targets. I don’t want to create a panic, and I don’t want people taking the law into their own hands in the name of self-protection.”
    She seemed to weigh this and consider it reasonable. “Agreed. Now what?”
    “Now we order dessert. If you thought the crab cakes are good, they have a Grande Marnier crème brulee that is unbelievable.”

 
     
    Considering the fact that we both dreaded reopening Jenny’s murder case, the dinner with Katie was surprisingly enjoyable. We talked about old times, meaning high