“Yeah?”
“Ever hear of Mary Ellen Mark?” Opal shook no. “We’re going back thirty, thirty-five years here. Mary Ellen Mark was, and still is, a respected photojournalist who managed to gain access to Mother Teresa’s mission in the Calcutta slums. She’s going along, doing her job, snapping pictures of Mother Teresa and her volunteers working their asses off cleaning the lepers, mopping up after the sick, comforting dying kids, physically picking up and carrying the malnourished men and women she’d find collapsed in the gutters or sleeping in sewage. Mary Ellen got some great photos, too. Know what Mother Teresa said to her? She came up to her very calmly and said, ‘You should put down your camera and do some work.’”
While Opal thought that over, Rook tapped her shoulder and added, “And if that’s not good enough, imagine the media buzz and word of mouth Smuggled Souls will get if your film is instrumental in taking down a corrupt power broker and a human trafficking ring.”
Opal Onishi cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
Jeanne Capois was alive. At least on film. And in that digital form, the twenty-something Haitian immigrant had achieved a sort of immortality. She exuded a goodness and quiet grace that filled the screen and the entirety of Detective Raley’s media kingdom back uptown. Her Creole notes flowed musically around her even after she had spoken her words. The warm French flavor stood in sharp contrast to the disturbing testimony she was offering.
The backdrop was a bookcase—very Ken Burns-style—with her eyeline a few degrees off the camera lens as she spoke to her unseen interviewer, Opal Onishi. The young woman did not smile—this was all too intense for that—but Jeanne Capois looked like a person who commonly smiled, and made others join in just for seeing hers.
Nobody in the small room spoke. Not Raley, not Rook, not Detective Heat, who took notes and jotted time codes off the digits scrolling in a corner of the monitor so that Rales could assemble a highlight reel of the most damning allegations.
When the interview ended and the screen went dark, all three sat in silence, hearing only the cooling fans of the equipment and Rook muttering a small “Fuck.”
Nikki swept aside a tear before the lights came up then tore the relevant sheets off her pad for Raley to edit by. Heat smelled that she was inches from the truth. She stood and said, “Let’s go get this guy.”
Detectives Rhymer and Feller had returned to the bull pen when Heat and Rook came back from their screening. They were particularly animated and it took some work for Nikki to adjust to their manic chatter after what she had just experienced. “Did I score something new, or did I not?” asked Feller.
“You did,” said Rhymer. “Actually both. I was there. But it was mostly him.”
“Maybe one of you could do me a favor before they try to pull the plug on this case anytime now, and just give me a report.”
“I’ll take this,” said Feller, flattening a palm on his chest. “My quadrant—the one you assigned me from the Murder Board for drilling down—included the interview we conducted with Fidel “FiFi” Figueroa. Lots to sift through there, but, skeevy as he is, the man gave us some good intel.”
“Is this you getting to the point?” heckled Ochoa from his desk.
“Remember, Detective Heat, how he used a term to describe Fabian Beauvais?”
“Astucia,” said Heat.
“Plus-ten for you. It occurred to me that you can’t go around exhibiting balls like that, bluffing your way into office buildings with a sandwich cooler to steal documents without setting off a few alarms here and there.”