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too long.”
    She removed an earpiece from the side of her head and got to her feet. They shook hands. “Violet,” Corso said, “this is Leanne Samples.”
    “I know…I know. It’s not often we have such a celebrity up here.”
    Leanne blushed and began to stammer, “Oh…I’m not a celebrity…no, please…”
    Corso inclined his head toward Mrs. V.’s office and raised his eyebrow. Violet instantly picked up on his drift. She took Leanne by the hand.
    “What can I get you, honey?” she asked. “Coffee? Tea?”
    Leanne swiveled her head around the room. “Is there a…a facilities on this floor?”
    Violet emitted a deep, booming laugh. “Honey, this is the executive floor. We’ve got a facilities you won’t believe. You just come along with me.”
    Corso watched the women wade through the ankle-deep carpet and disappear around the corner. Without knocking, he pulled open the door and stepped into Natalie Van Der Hoven’s office. Bennett Hawes was pacing the center of the room with his hands jammed in his pants. Mrs. V. was seated behind her ornate mahogany desk opening mail with a silver letter opener.
    “Thank you for coming, Mr. Corso,” she said.
    Corso crossed the room and shook the woman’s hand. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. V.,” he said. “You’re the only thing about this business I miss.”
    “You flatter me, Mr. Corso.”
    “It’s true,” Corso insisted.
    “I’m enchanted that you think so.”
    “You wanna tell us what she said, or what?” Hawes huffed.
    Corso gave them the short version of what Leanne had told him. As always, Hawes refused to tilt his head back far enough to maintain eye contact with Corso and listened while staring at Corso’s shirtfront.
    From a newspaperman’s point of view, one question now begged an answer. Mrs. V. was all over it. “Who else has she told?”
    Corso handed her the ADA’s business card.
    “And how was her information received?” she asked.
    “Just as you’d imagine. They threatened her and threw her out.”
    “You think they’ll go public?” Hawes asked.
    “No way. They’ll stonewall for as long as they can.”
    “And she told nobody else?” Hawes pressed.
    “She says the Beal guy called in a couple of suits. I’m guessing cops.”
    “So we print what? ‘Himes Innocent’?” Hawes asked sarcastically.
    “We print ‘State’s Witness Says She Lied’” Mrs. V. said.
    Before Hawes could open his mouth, Corso said, “She’s all the case they had.”
    Natalie Van Der Hoven sighed and rocked back in her chair. She knew where this was going. May as well let them work it out of their systems, she thought.
    “He confessed,” Hawes insisted.
    According to the arresting officer, as he and Himes stood together in the corridor outside central booking, Himes had admitted to killing the girls.
    “Himes always claimed the cop was lying.”
    “The killings stopped, goddamn it,” Hawes spat out. “Let’s not waste our time arguing about all this crap again. From the day they picked that slimeball up, there’s never been another Trashman killing, period.” He dotted the air with his index finger.
    “No period,” Corso said. “As I recall, they found the eighth victim several days after Himes was arrested.”
    “She was killed beforehand,” Hawes said. “Took that long to find her.”
    “That’s not how I remember it,” Corso said quickly. “I seem to recall there was some reason or other why the time of death couldn’t be established for the last girl.”
    “They had other forensic material,” Hawes insisted.
    “If they had a match, they’d have used it.”
    The official word on the forensics had been that although they had collected a great deal of forensic material, the fact that the victims had been found in Dumpsters raised the unfortunate specter of outside contamination to such a level that any competent defense attorney could easily get the forensics excluded. As far as Corso was concerned, in the end,