Page 25 of The Devil She Knows
Roscoe’s partner, Detective Jenkins, an older man with a thick gray handlebar mustache and a startling lack of laugh lines around his blue eyes for his age, flipped open the manila file in front of him. “Melissa Thoms. Felix and Oslo Williams. Javier Chavez. Emma Chen. All pictured here—and, oh, can’t forget Jasper Reynolds and Horace Cohen. Then, of course, there’s you.” He spread out a series of photos and tapped a finger to the first, leaving a fingerprint smudge on the glossy finish. “A picture is worth a thousand words, Miss Cooper, and these photos say it all.”
The images were, admittedly, incriminatory, placing Sam at the scene of what looked like several crimes. Six, seven, eight grainy snapshots from CCTV footage and traffic cameras and in every single one of them she was pictured with varying degrees of clarity, a sliver of her profile here, the back of her head there, slipping out of warehouses and climbing into unmarked vans.
It was her, but it wasn’t. Sam,thisSam, didn’t remember committing any crimes other than the one she’d been peripherally involved in tonight. And really, should that even count, seeing as she’d mostly stood on the fringes, confused and trying not to hyperventilate?
“I can admit,” she said carefully, “the person in these pictures does bear a startling resemblance to me.”
Roscoe pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That’s what you’re going with? Really? You got an evil twin or something?”
Sam pursed her lips. “Or something.”
“Kids, Miss Cooper?” Jenkins asked, fingers drumming against the edge of the metal table. “You have any?”
She shook her head, but she had a feeling, based on the fat file sitting in front of him, that he already knew that.
“I do. The sooner you cut the shit, the sooner I get to go home and tuck them in. Why don’t you do us all a favor and tell us what we already know?”
She wasn’ttryingto inconvenience anybody, but she wasn’t about to incriminate herself or, heaven forbid, confess, when the only true offense she’d committed was trusting the wrong demon. And unless she was shooting for the insanity defense, she couldn’t tell them that.
“So we’re all on the same page here,” she said, and Roscoe and Jenkins shared a look, a glance of mutual exasperation. “What is it that you think you already know?”
Roscoe rested his forearms on the table. “We know we’re looking at the head of the Manger Mafia.”
Sam blinked hard and shook her head. “The head of thewhat?”
“Manger Mafia,” Roscoe repeated, tripping over the French. “You know, manger, as into eat. Mafia, as in—”
“I know what Mafia means,” she cut in. “But I still have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what the Manger Mafia is. I’ve never even heard of it.”
Another of those world-weary looks passed between the two detectives before Jenkins sighed deeply and told her, “The Manger Mafia is a criminal syndicate responsible for the theft of nearly thirteen million dollars in rare and valuable culinary items and ingredients from around the tristate area.”
“Thirteenmillion?” Sam’s voice was shrill. “Holy shit.”
That was more money than she knew what to do with.
“I wanted to name you guys the Caper Capers,” Roscoe said, chuckling under his breath. “Get it? The Caper Capers? I thought it rolled off the tongue nice, but then that reporter on theABC Nightly Newsdubbed you all the Manger Mafia likethatwas clever, and”—he held out his hands in awhat can you dogesture—“it stuck.”
“A crying shame,” Jenkins said, delivery so deadpan she couldn’t tell if he was teasing his partner or not.
“And you both think I’m the head of this … outfit.”
“Like Detective Roscoe said, we know. Two years you’ve been a scourge along the Northeast megalopolis, committing heists and getting away with them. That stops now. You’re done, Miss Cooper.”
“And likeIsaid, the idea alone of committing a crime makes me feel like I’m gonna ralph. And you don’t know me, so you couldn’t possibly know this, but I lack the leadership qualities of a crime lord. Boss. Don? See, I don’t even know what I’d be called, let alone how to be one.”
Jenkins hummed. “You aren’t what we expected. I’ll give you that.”
“Yeah.” Roscoe nodded. “We were expecting someone—”
“Let me guess. Dastardly? Devious? A real unscrupulous type, I bet.” Sam nodded along to her own words. “Clearly, I am none of those things. I mean, when I was working as a server, I even reported all my cash tips on my taxes, and, oh! Sometimes I help my neighbor Mrs. Nelson carry her groceries. Real sweet lady, law-abiding and everything. Can’t you ask her for a, I don’t know, a character reference?”
Jenkins dropped his head into the cradle of his hands with a sigh.
“See, I was gonna say we were expecting someone … smarter,” Roscoe said with a casual shrug, and her face fell.
“Look. I know this looks”—she winced as her eyes caught on one of the photos in front of her—“bad, but—”
“It looksdamningto me,” Jenkins said, and her left eye twitched at the word. “Bet the judge is going to think so, too.”
