I lost my chance at a crack at detective Jericho as she returned to precinct in order to crunch the events and read in the rest of the task force. I expected Don to have showed up earlier but as I returned to the lobby he joined me as we pushed through the revolving door. He was in a green sweater and jeans, and looked like he had all but given up shaving. I said nothing, someone else would and Don had come close enough to going for my neck more than once in the past. "What we got Mac?" He wheezed, clearing his throat as he staged to keep up. I read him in and left him to it and I lost him twenty minutes later while I examining Bridgette more closely while we waited for the coroner to arrive. In the heat of the NYC bumper to bumper traffic he was sure to be another twenty minutes. I snapped on a pair of nitriles and padded around the body with a sense of decency, sticking to the pockets and handbag. Pockets held no shocks, a handheld mirror and a set of keys which I turned over to Danny for him to play with. It was the handbag that held the killer clue, that one detail that turned an impossible series of facts into a sensible motive. It was tucked neatly in a concealed pouch, only visible if you strained yourself to find it. A mobile phone, switched off with a full battery. Sure this wouldn't seem odd had we not already found another mobile in the main pouch of the handbag. I powered it up, ignored the welcome message and investigated the contact list. There were only thirteen contacts, none of which sounded French. I opened the other phone and checked the contacts again, this time comparing them to the thirteen numbers on the first phone. No matches.
"Hey Danny look at this," I said as I held out the phones. Danny pulled on a pair of gloves and took a closer look. "The thirteen numbers on the first phone don't match any of them on the second phone, what did you say the co-workers's names were?" Danny looked across two the still bawling hostesses. "It was Priscilla Blanc and Loraine LeMonte why?" I had a hunch, and a quick check of the phones ruled out that the hidden phone was a work phone as Priscilla and Loraine were listed in the first phone. "This phone," I held it up for him to admire. "Only has thirteen numbers and none of the numbers match the ones in the other and the other one already has work and family contacts, what does that say?" Danny didn't miss a beat. "She had a second life?" I nodded as he was in the ball park but not the right lane of thought. Maybe she didn't have a second life, but she had some sort of agenda that she didn't want anyone to know about.
Back at the precinct, Dakota had just managed to dive inside away from the reporters when she was summoned unceremoniously to a task force meeting. Great, she thought. How much more exciting could a first day have been? In the cramped office of Police Chief Martin Stead the hustle and bustle of the outside world was silenced by the floor to ceiling glass wall. The sudden silence unnerved her even before the dark skinned police chief in the pristine police uniform, adorned by all manners of medals, removed his police hat and rubbed his balding hair as he directed her to take a seat. The heat was staggering, but as she sat down Martin looked incapable of sweating. "I understand this is your first day, detective Jericho." He spoke, his finger providing the punctuation. "Yes sir," was all I meagrely managed. Martin sat back in his leather office seat and folded his hands together on his lap. Behind him on the black granite wall was a plasma screen television that was focused on the evening news, where the story of the murdered French hostess was already streaming along the bottom of the screen.
"Have you met the team?" Martin asked, taking Dakota by surprise. Was she really being dragged off case for an induction update? "Yes, I met them at the scene. They all seem very professional." Martin's middle aged face didn't relax, like leather under a lace vice. "I don't have to remind you of the expectations you're credentials have set. We're in a recession, and I'm in the habit of cutting rather than adding." Oh, Dakota realised with a cold shiver as she worked out why she was there. Martin wanted to set out the principles, the parameters of her job and what he expected from her. "I'm not a stickler for budgets, I realise that with every loss in a department there must an effort to reinvigorate. When Detective Bonasera left we drafted in Detective Danville, but you're stepping into a new position. I want you to remain a part of the CSI department, and submit monthly reports on the progress and work of Mac Taylor." Dakota went cold, so that was it? She was brought in as a liaison for a man she just met. "Is that clear, Detective Jericho? This isn't an official position, but I strongly recommend you agree." Martin broke her train of thought, pushing her for an answer...