At 9:10 a.m. Monday morning, Officer Victor Chavez pounded on the door. He was already ten minutes late. "Counselor? Maura Isles?"

Maura had been sitting at her desk since 7 a.m. She lifted her head and saw the young cop standing in the doorway, a subpoena in hand. Behind him in the hallway, she spotted two other cops in BPD uniforms. One was a sergeant.

"We're here for the interview," the sergeant said, pushing past Chavez, who still hadn't set foot in her office. "Lou Ribero," he said, extending his arm across the desk toward her. He pointed behind him. "This is Sonny Lindeman and Victor Chavez. Sorry we're late. Rush hour."

"I thought I put your interviews on separate dates, Sergeant Ribero. At least that's what I asked my secretary to do." Maura shook his hand and frowned, then looked at her appointment book. She pictured getting Cara's thick neck between her fingers the next time they met in the restroom.

"Yes, that's true, but, well, we were all at the scene on Tuesday, and we came here together, so we thought, let's go into the interview together, too. We always do it that way. It saves a lot of time."

In her mind, Maura released Cara's neck. "Thank you, Sergeant, but I prefer to interview my witnesses separately. I believe you're on at 10. 30 a.m. and Officer Lindeman is on at 11.45 a.m. Why don't you two go to the Pickle Barrel, and I'll call you as soon as Officer Chavez and I are done? If I can, I'll finish the interview early." The young man in the doorway finally came into the office. "Good morning, ma'am," he said, nodding. „Victor Chavez."

With a little imagination, Maura could be this boy's mother, he seemed so young. He was nineteen at the most. And as little as she'd slept in the last week, she probably looked like his mother, too. "Have a seat, Officer Chavez," she said, gesturing with her hand to the vacant chair in front of her desk. Then she looked at Ribero. "And, Sergeant, please close the door behind you."

"All right," Ribero said, casting one last wary glance at Chavez. "Have a good time, Victor. See you in a bit."

"Thanks, Sarge." Chavez dropped into the faux-leather chair and made himself comfortable. He was undoubtedly a handsome fellow, with a dark complexion and finely tailored features. From his forearms, Maura could see that he did too much bodybuilding. His black hair was cropped short like a rookie at the police academy. He couldn't have graduated for long. He popped his gum and looked around her office. Maura thought he was perhaps a little too casual. "Raise your right hand, please," she prompted him. "Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"I do," he said, dropping his hand again. He had a notepad in his lap, the arrest report, and the police report. Loosely, he crossed his legs, put his ankle on his knee, and Maura spotted his calf holster. That was probably intentional. His department only issued shoulder holsters. Oh, wonderful. A cowboy. She pulled out her notepad. "Officer Chavez. Have you ever been to a pretrial interview? Are you familiar with it?"

"Yes, ma'am. I've been to a few."

"Good, then let's put the technicalities aside. And please don't call me ma'am, it makes me feel so old." She smiled. "How long have you been a cop?"

"Since February."

"February of what year?"

"This year."

"Okay. Are you still on probation?

„Yes. Four months to go."

Maura nodded slowly and looked closely at the young man. "Are you working with an FTO?" FTO stood for Field Training Officer, who accompanied the freshmen at the beginning.

Chavez shook his head. "No. I haven't since August. I have my own patrol car now."

"When did you graduate from the police academy, January?"

"Yes, ma'am." Not a rookie, a baby.

"Officer Chavez," Maura smiled again, but this time not quite so friendly, "we're going to get along wonderfully, as long as you don't call me ma'am."

He smiled back, showing white teeth. "Okay. Got it."

"Good, let's move on to Tuesday, the nineteenth of September. You were the one who pulled over William Bantling's car. Can you tell me what happened that night?"

"Yes. I was sitting in my car and I saw a black Jaguar go by at excessive speed"

Well, this was going to be fun. "Thank you. That was very informative, but I'm afraid I need more details." She looked at him for a moment.

He was jittery, playing with the laces on his shiny black uniform shoes, and although he tried to appear calm and collected, the prosecutor could tell he was tense beneath the cool surface. This was undoubtedly the biggest case in his seven-month career. He had every right to be nervous. What bothered Maura was the hint of arrogance, the smirk behind the polite smile. She knew from painful experience that first-year academy rookies usually drifted in one of two directions. Either they were totally dependent, never taking the initiative, always waiting for instructions, checking with their superiors for every trifle. Or they were totally independent: Rambos, trigger-happy types who never inquired. Maura had come to fear the second category, the inflated egos on a power trip. A rookie did things wrong, that was inevitable. But the Rambo types, who logically produced the most mistakes, were never willing to at least admit to them. "Were you alone on patrol that night?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"City exit toward the highway."

"In your patrol car?"

"Yes."

"Is that where you noticed the Jaguar?"

"Yes."

"Where exactly?"

"It was speeding down the main road toward the highway."

"Southbound?"

"Yes."

"Did you use a radar gun?"

"No."

"Then how did you know he was speeding?"

"He kept changing lanes and tailgating, endangering other road users, and based on my training and experience, I could tell that his speed was the twenty-five mph speed limit."

Like he was reading it out of the manual. Maura would have loved to stand up and give Chavez a real taste of what was in store for him on the witness stand.

"How fast was he going?"

Chavez licked his lips. "I'm guessing thirty-five, maybe forty-three miles an hour."

"All right, then what did you do?"

"I followed the car onto the westbound off-ramp, where I finally pulled it over."

Maura gave the young man a long, penetrating look. "Officer Chavez, Bantling was pulled over just before the end of the highway, wasn't he? Right across from the Boston Globe?"

"Yes."

"That's a good distance from the on-ramp. Were you racing, officer?"

"No. Not exactly a race."

Of course not. Cops were strictly forbidden to race unless they were pursuing a violent felon. And even then, only with the consent of a sergeant. Still, of course, they did it all the time. "All right, at what speed do you estimate you were following him?"

"On the highway at an estimated fifty-five."

Maura leaned back dramatically in her chair. "So you're telling me you followed this guy with a siren and blue lights on the highway for so long without going over the speed limit that he finally pulled over on his own?"

"Yes. But I don't think I had the siren on, just the blue lights."

"Did you call for backup at that point?"

"No."

"Why not? You've been on this guy since he left town, now he's just outside the city limits, and you don't radio anyone?"

"No, no." Officer Chavez put his leg down and shifted his weight. Slowly, he became nervous.

"How did you finally manage to get him to stop?"

"He just pulled over, onto the shoulder."

Slowly, it was starting to get interesting. Too interesting for Maura's taste. "Again, would you call this a chase?"

"No. Maybe he didn't see me in the rear-view mirror at first. Maybe that's why he didn't react right away. All I know is that he stopped at some point."

"Okay. What happened next? What did you do?"

"I got out of the car and asked him for his license and vehicle registration. I asked him why he was in such a hurry to get where he was going, and he told me he was on his way to the airport and that he couldn't miss his flight. Then I wanted to know where he was going, but he didn't answer that. I saw the bag in the back seat and asked him if he still had luggage in the trunk, but he still didn't answer me. Then I asked to look into his trunk and he refused. So I went back to my car to write him a speeding ticket. And for the broken taillight he had."

"Just so I understand you correctly. The guy you chased for miles ... okay, followed for miles, refuses to give you permission to look in his trunk, and you put up with it and go back to your car to write him a ticket?"

"Yes."

That couldn't be right. No cop from all over Boston would put up with anything. No matter if there was any reason at all to look in the trunk or not. "Fine. Then what happened?"

"Then, as I'm walking past the back of his trunk to my car, something gets up my nose. It smells decomposed, like a dead body or something. So I ask the guy again for his permission, and he says again, no, he had to go. I forbid him to do that, of course. Now I call the K-9. The Highway Patrol comes, along with Beauchamp from the K-9 and his dog Butch. At the rear of the car, Butch is acting up, so we break down the hatch. You know the rest. There's a body in there, the chest is open, and I know right away we just nailed Boogeyman. I tell this Bantling to get out now, and then it takes about six minutes for God and the world to arrive on the highway."

Maura skimmed the arrest report again with a frown. Then she thought back to what Korsak had told her after they'd rung her out Tuesday night about the court orders, and she realized there wasn't just one little problem.

"Where did you say you were when you first saw Bantling's car, Officer Chavez?"

"I was at the city exit heading toward the highway," he said.

"Was your car facing in or out of town?"

"Townbound, that's where I saw it go by."

"But downtown is a one-way street, Officer Chavez. It only goes east. If you were watching the exit to the highway, you must have been looking west."

Chavez slid around in his chair. He was starting to get uncomfortable, but he wasn't going to be cornered that easily. "Yes, I was facing the opposite direction of the one-way street when I saw the car. I do that a lot. That's how I get the speeders. They don't count on there being one there."

"And when you saw him heading south toward the highway, you went right after him?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't lose sight of him for a second?"

"No."

"All right," Maura said with a little emphasis, looking at the young man urgently with a frown and licking her lips briefly. "Now that we both know you're lying, Officer Chavez, why don't you tell me what really happened that night?"

The street in question was not only one-way, it was also not a through street. Even if Chavez had been facing west, concrete bollards would have prevented him from turning left, southbound. He could only turn right and then make a U-turn a block or two north. And in doing so, he couldn't possibly have kept the Jaguar in sight, even if it was believed he had seen it at all while speeding along.

Chavez was visibly intimidated. He was blushing. Maura had gotten to him, and he knew it. "All right. I see the Jaguar, so I back up the main road where I could turn. I turn right and come right onto the highway. I didn't lose sight of the Jag for more than a minute if that's what you're getting at."

"Wait a minute, my friend. You went back down the main road?"

"Yes."

"So you weren't facing the wrong way down the one-way at all? You weren't watching Main Street at all?" Maura just couldn't believe it. She stood up, leaning over the desk. Her voice trembled with anger. "Now slow down, officer, because I'm about to take your badge. You're under oath, and I want the truth, you got that? Because if you don't, I'm going to have to talk to your cheap union lawyer while you say goodbye to your youth in a crowded cell!"

There was a long pause. His arrogance was blown away. Chavez's brow furrowed, his gaze darkened. He was afraid. "Gosh, I couldn't have known that I was dealing with this, with this ... with this ... big case I was dealing with. How the hell was I supposed to know the guy I was waving out was Boogeyman?" He ran his hand through his hair, and Maura had the awful feeling that the case was slipping between her fingers. "Okay. So I was on Main Street, I'd left my car and I was standing on the corner, talking to some tourists who were bickering. Then I get this radio call. An anonymous tip had come in, supposedly there was a guy with a trunk full of drugs. The caller had said it was a new Jaguar XJ8 heading south down Main Street."

"An anonymous tip?" Maura was taken aback. There had never been any talk of that before.

"Yeah. He said there were twenty-two pounds of cocaine in the trunk, and the driver was on his way to the airport. So I watch the Jaguar pass me, say adiós to the bickering dudes, and jump in my car, down the main street. I turn onto the highway, but I don't see him anymore.

I know he's headed for the airport, and then after a mile or two, I see him, calm as a cucumber right in front of me. I figure this guy will slip away from me across the city limits without even breaking the speed limit, cool as he is. So I pull him over before he gets out of Boston and takes off."

Maura sat back in her chair. Her mouth was dry, her heart racing. This didn't sound good. "So you didn't see him speeding at all? You just pulled him over because of that anonymous tip?"

Chavez was silent, staring at the papers on his lap.

"What exactly did the caller say?"

"I already told you. A new black XJ8 would be heading south on Main Street with twenty-two pounds of coke in the trunk."

"Heading for the airport?"

"Exactly."

"Did you have a description of the driver? Or at least the license plate number? Did the caller explain where he got the information? Did he say anything at all that would lead a reasonable cop to suspect the driver was involved in drug transactions?" Maura was getting too loud, she realized. But the courts didn't look kindly on anonymous tips; anyone could call at any time, so the informant's credibility was always in question. Without detailed information, there was no reason for probable cause. And a black Jaguar allegedly driving down Main Street with twenty-two pounds of cocaine in the trunk wasn't very convincing.

"No. That was all. There was no time at all, Ms. Isles. He was leaving the city limits behind, and I didn't want to lose him, so I pulled him over."

"You didn't. You had already lost him on Main Street. Besides, how did you even know that the black Jaguar you 'caught up' with on the highway was the same one you saw on Main Street? What made you think the car you stopped was the one the anonymous caller was referring to, assuming the tip was any good?"

Again, Chavez was silent.

"Right. You don't know that, because the tip wasn't good enough for what you were pulling, and you knew it. That's why you didn't tell me about it in the first place. All right, you stopped him. Tell me exactly what happened next."

"I asked him to get out of the car, asked him for his driver's license and vehicle registration. I asked him where he was going, and he said to the airport. Then I asked him what he had in the trunk. You know, luggage? He only had this one bag in the back seat, and according to the tip, the drugs were in the trunk. So he tells me to go fuck myself. That's when I realize something's wrong. I tell him he can forget about his flight, and I call the K-9."

"What was in the bag in the back seat?"

"Clothes, his passport, an appointment book. Some papers and stuff."

"And when did you search the bag?"

"When I was waiting for the K-9."

"And there was no smell either, was there? Coming from the trunk?"

"Yes, yes, I smelled something!" he stammered. "It smelled funny, like a dead body or something."

"You're a fucking liar, officer. You didn't smell anything at all, and we both know it for a fact. First, you tell Vince Korsak that you thought he had coke on him. And now that no drugs have been found, you make up something else. Besides, you couldn't have smelled Anna Prado's body because she'd only been dead a day. Now finally admit that you wanted to look in the trunk because you were angry that he refused consent and you knew you had no right to open it yourself. Not ten minutes on the job and you're already a super cop. Nobody says no to you. You didn't even have probable cause to stop him, do you realize that? And all because you were too lazy to check the tip. Do you even know what kind of case you just botched?"

He stood up and began pacing in the office. "Man, I didn't know it was Boogeyman! I thought maybe the guy was dealing. Maybe I'd get a drug dealer, all by myself. My FTO used to say this kind of thing happens all the time in Boston. If someone won't let you look in the trunk, it's because they have something to hide. And at least he had a fucking body in there! A dead body! And you want to tell me that doesn't matter?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you because the vehicle stop and search was unlawful, then there's no dead body in the trunk, got it? The case is off! The case can never go to trial. Didn't you learn anything about the law at the police academy? Or were you so busy strapping guns to your calf that you couldn't pay attention?" Maura was silent, and only the ticking of the cheap wall clock could be heard. Then she asked, "Who knows about this?"

"My sergeant, Ribero, he came after we broke into the trunk. I told him the whole story. He freaked out, just like you, he said the whole case was blown. But then he said we can't just let this guy go, no way. So he said we needed another better reason why I pulled him over, the tip didn't work."

"Who smashed the taillight?"

Chavez didn't answer. He stared out the window.

"So, you and Ribero?"

"Lindeman knew about the call, too. How bad is it, Ms. Isles? Am I going to be fired?"

"Your welfare is the last thing I'm worried about right now, Officer Chavez. I have to figure out how to keep a man who slaughtered ten women behind bars, and right now I have no idea how to do that."