Page 78 of Lion & Lamb

LION: Thought as much. See you soon, Detective.

BERNSTEIN: What do you mean, soon?

Transcript of interview with James Papaleo, doorman at the Villas at Elfreth’s Alley, conducted by Veena Lion and Janie Hall

VEENA LION: Excuse me, are you the employee who found the body?

JAMES PAPALEO: God, I wish I hadn’t. You have no idea. There are some things you can never erase from your brain.

JANIE HALL: I’m so sorry, Mr. Papaleo. I know how hard this is. But we’re just trying to figure out what happened here.

PAPALEO: Like I told the other cops, I just heard it. I didn’t know what I was hearing, but it sounded like a ton of produce fell off the back of a truck, you know? A loud, wet…crackingsound.

LION: Did you know Roz Cline pretty well?

PAPALEO: Yeah, I did. Everybody did. She was the life of this place. Really nice girl, very popular. I don’t understand this, I really don’t.

HALL: When you saypopular,what do you mean exactly? Did she entertain a lot of friends?

PAPALEO: Nah, not a lot. She wasn’t a partyer like that. Really classy lady, real discreet. And the people she—what did you say,entertained? Well, they were classy people too.

LION: People like Archie Hughes?

PAPALEO: No offense, Detectives, but I think I should be discreet too. I mean, Archie obviously had nothing to do with what happened to poor Roz here.

LION: But Archiedidvisit often, right? Never mind, you don’t have to answer that. I have all the sign-in logs from the management company.

PAPALEO: Don’t know what good that’ll do you.

HALL: What do you mean?

PAPALEO: People like Archie Hughes pay a visit, their names don’t go into the sign-in logs. Too many crazy Eagles fans out there. Somebody sees his name on the log one day, and before you know it, you’ve got a crowd camped outside. The poor guy didn’t want to be bothered.

LION: Or caught.

PAPALEO: What was that?

LION: Never mind. I’m guessing their friend Maya Rain wouldn’t be on the visitor logs either.

PAPALEO: I don’t know any Maya Rain. Who’s that?

HALL: What about Roz’s other friend…ah, sorry, I’m blanking here. What’s her name…(Snaps fingers) Super-pretty, in her twenties…

PAPALEO: You probably mean Vanessa. Yeah, she and Roz were really close. Really sweet ladies…oh no. You’re asking because you have to break the bad news to Vanessa, right?

LION: I have a feeling she already knows.

Chapter82

Transcript of encrypted message exchange between Cooper Lamb and Veena Lion

VEENA LION: What’s the latest?

COOPER LAMB: Oh, nothing, just a leisurely day avoiding the police, sparring with a nanny, and trying to wrestle information out of an obese multimillionaire. Right now I’m waiting for the young ones to finish their pricey Quaker education for the day so I can feed them sugar and regale them with tales of violence before dropping them off at their mother’s place.

LION: Roz Cline is dead.

LAMB: You’ve gotta be s-------me! Okay, you have me beat. What happened…oh, wait. Was Roz the Old City jumper? It’s all over KYW.

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