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"What?"
"I think your agency wants Julie's ass in a sling. I think these murders have secondary status."
"That's what you think, is it?"
"That's the way it looks from here."
She rose from her chair, closed the office door, then stood by my desk. She wore a white silk blouse with a necklace of black wooden beads. Her fingers were hooked in front of her stomach like an opera singer's.
"Julie's been a longtime embarrassment to the feds," I continued. "He's connected to half the crime in New Orleans and so far he's never spent one day in the bag."
"When I was sixteen something happened to me that I thought I'd never get over." There was a flush of color in her throat. "Not just because of what two drunken crew leaders did to me in the back of a migrant farmworkers' bus, either. It was the way the cops treated it. In some ways that was even worse. Have I got your attention, sir?"
"You don't need to do this, Rosie."
"Like hell I don't. The next day I was sitting with my father in the waiting room outside the sheriff's office. I heard two deputies laughing about it. They not only thought it was funny, one of them said something about pepper-belly poontang. I'll never forget that moment. Not as long as I live."
I folded up my pocket knife and stared at the tops of my fingers. I brushed the pencil shavings off my fingers into the wastebasket.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"When I went to work for the Bureau, I swore I'd never see a woman treated the way I was. So I take severe exception to your remarks, Dave. I'd like to bust Julie Balboni, but that has nothing to do with the way I feel about the man who raped and murdered these women."
"Where'd this happen?"
"In a migrant camp outside of Bakersfield. It's not an unusual story. Ask any woman who's ever been on a crew bus."
"I think you're a solid cop, Rosie. I think you'll nail any perp you put in your sights."
"Then change your goddamn attitude."
"All right."
She was waiting for me to say so
mething else, but I didn't.
Her shoulders sagged and she started back toward her desk. Then she turned around. Her eyes were wet.
"That's all you've got to say?" she asked.
"No, it's not."
"What, then?"
"I'm proud to be working with you. I think you're a standup lady."
She started to take a Kleenex out of her purse, then she snapped the purse shut again and took a breath.
"I'm going down the hall a minute," she said.
"All right."
"Are we both clear about the priority in this investigation, Dave?"
"Yeah, I think we are."
"Good. Because I don't want to have this kind of discussion again."
