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“My mother needs protection and comfort and support, I don’t. Actually, I think I’d like to have the media find me.”

Ben said, “Nobody but an idiot wants to deal with the media.”

Callie drew a deep breath, fanned her hands in front of her. “I thought you would have known. The thing is, I’m one of them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Detective Raven, that you know I was Justice Califano’s stepdaughter, but you haven’t bothered to check out what I do for a living. I’m an investigative reporter for The Washington Post. I’m one of the vultures.”

“Well, sh—” He wanted to curse big time, but didn’t.

“So some would say,” she agreed, “what almost came out of your mouth. Nice save.”

“So you caught a reporter jerk in bed with another reporter jerk and you’re the third reporter in this triad?”

“Hey, another good save. You didn’t call me a jerk.”

“The boot doesn’t fit just yet. Damn, what are we going to do with you? Why don’t we go sit down in one our primo interview rooms?”

Callie looked him up and down. “As long as it’s warm. My feet are wet. Yes, all right, let’s go talk. But I want some tea before you sweat me.”

Savich laughed. Officer Nancy Kreider said, “Personally, I’d kill for some coffee.”

“That would be okay, too,” Callie said, then felt a rush of misery. She cleared her throat, aware that they were all looking at her. “The thing is my stepfather believed coffee is the first cousin to evil tobacco and wouldn’t let it through the front door. I once brought a thermos of coffee to their house, had to swig it on the sly.”

Officer Kreider patted her arm. “I’ll send someone to get us coffee and bring it to the interview room.”

Sherlock pulled two teabags out of her purse. “Dillon wouldn’t exactly call coffee a first cousin to evil tobacco, but close enough. Could we have some hot water?”

Callie walked down a corridor of dirty linoleum, the color of lettuce, streaks of muddy water making puddles here and there where the linoleum had caved in, thinking that a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America had been strangled, and they were talking about coffee. There weren’t a whole lot of people around, cops or otherwise. She thought this was odd until she realized it was Saturday morning.

The small interview room was warm, if nothing else. There were half a dozen chairs and a single scarred table. The walls were painted the same lettuce color as the linoleum in the corridor. Callie thought if she were a criminal, she’d confess, just to get out of this room.

She shrugged out of her coat, sat down, and slipped her boots off so her socks could dry out.

No one said anything until the coffee and hot water for the tea arrived.

Callie looked from Detective Raven, who’d taken off his leather jacket, to the special agents. Officer Kreider sat against the wall, saying nothing. “I was on the debate team in high school. I had quite an edge because my stepfather taught me. My mother wasn’t married to him then, but they’d been seeing each other for at least six months as I remember. He was brilliant, I recognized that even as a self-absorbed teenager. I told him once when he demolished me in an argument that he could probably convince a fencepost to tango.” The instant the words were out of her mouth, Callie burst into tears. Sherlock handed her a Kleenex. She hiccuped, then managed to get herself under control.

Ben Raven rolled up his shirtsleeves as he said, “How long was it before your mother married Judge Califano?”

She took a slow sip of the strong black coffee until she was sure she wouldn’t lose it again. “She didn’t marry him until I went to Bryn Mawr. She took a long time deciding, I guess, for the simple reason that she was and is very rich. Even a Justice of the Supreme Court could have been interested in her money.”

“And the other reason?”

“You’re fast, Agent Sherlock. My aunt Marie, her sister, married a second time only to have her new husband sexually abuse her twelve-year-old daughter, my cousin, Moira. I’ve never