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“So?”
“I’m afraid that I’m not following you either, Matthew.”
Matt shrugged and made a face. “That’s because there’s nothing to follow. Nick Antonov’s name came up at dinner last night. Some SoBe ABC—”
“Now you’re talking in tongues, buddy,” Harris said.
“South Beach American-born Cuban, Tony. A guy named Jorge Perez. He was running Antonov’s boat, the casino’s boat, and entertaining a couple of middle-aged goombahs who looked like they could’ve just fallen off the pasta truck in South Philly or South Orange. Or, considering Perez, maybe closer to Havana on the Hudson. Just didn’t smell right. And apparently it’s still bugging my subconscious.”
“You’ve really lost me, Matt. How does Union, New Jersey . . . ?”
“Like I said, Tony, there’s nothing to follow. That go-phone could have been anywhere. Including the Hops Haus condo high-rise. And I’m not about to implicate Amanda any more than anyone else.”
“All right, then,” Harris said. “That’s all we have for now. We should have more details in by the time you come back this afternoon.”
Payne nodded, then said, “Speaking of this afternoon, Jim Byrth is headed to Philly, too.”
That caused Washington to change his facial expression.
His eyebrows went up as he said: “Jim’s always welcome, as I told him. What’s the purpose of his visit this time?”
Matt repeated the description of the camp by the lake in northeast Texas and all that was found there.
When he had finished, Jason Washington said, “I’ve heard about those sulfuric acid baths. But the cartels aren’t the first to liquefy their enemies. The head of the Sicilian mob, Filippo Marchese, used lye and called it Lupara bianca. White shotgun.”
Matt clicked on a file, and the photograph of him in the right bottom corner was replaced with the Cusick ID.
“This is the ID that the sheriff found in the RV trailer.”
“Pretty girl,” Harris said.
Matt went to click it to close the image but instead managed to open the file next to it. The image of the girl in the blue barrel popped up in its place.
In the upper right window of his screen, Matt watched as Tony Harris’s eyes went wide and coffee sloshed from his cup. He slowly said, “Damn!”
“Sorry. Hope everyone’s had their breakfast,” Payne said, and clicked to make it go away.
“As horrific as that is—and it genuinely is—your priority is the McCain case, Matthew.”
“Understood. Trust me, I have Amanda reminding me of that by the minute.”
And I’m well aware that the sooner Maggie comes home, the sooner I can come back down here.
The three images of Washington, Harris, and Rapier started to become pixelated again. Then that snow of tiny multicolored dots turned completely black.
All that was left on Matt’s screen was his own live image.
“Are you still there, Matthew?” Washington’s deep voice came through Payne’s laptop speaker. “We lost your picture again.”
“And I lost all of yours,” Matt said. “Damn it! Why won’t this work?”
“It’s the ECC’s fault, Marshal,” Kerry’s voice then announced. “It’s why, I think, it took so long for you to get patched in, then that other pixelated burp. I really thought I had the bugs out.”
“Well, we’re finished for now anyway,” Harris’s voice said.
Matt glanced at the corner of his screen, saw it read MON 8:01 AM, and said, “Okay. If there’s nothing else, time for me to go pack up.”
“Kerry, log us out,” Washington said, from the darkness of his box.
