by J. D. Robb
“There you are, you son of a bitch. Blue, John Joseph. Age thirty-one. Damn it.”
Since auto didn’t allow her to exceed speed limits or outrun reds, she switched back, hit the sirens. “I don’t want audio,” she said to Roarke. “I don’t need to hear it all. Just give me the salient.”
“Single, mixed-race male. No spouse, no legal cohabitation partner. No offspring on record. No criminal on record.”
“He’s got something. Juvenile, I’ll bet your ass. And sealed. We’ll worry about that later.”
“Residence listed as Classon Avenue, Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn?” She shook her head as she screamed through traffic. “No, that’s not right. Can’t be.”
“That’s what’s here. Resided that address eight years. Owner, operator, Comptrain, Inc.—same address. Want the details on that?”
“Yeah.” But he didn’t live in Brooklyn. Not now.
“Ah, small data-analysis company. There’s your hacking skills, Lieutenant. He’d do most of the work right out of his home for this. Tech support and the like.”
“Cross with the customer and member lists.”
“Moment. You’ve got him as a member, ten years standing, at Jim’s Gym downtown.”
“And he didn’t pop because of the Brooklyn addy. We’d’ve gotten to him, but he wasn’t in the first layer. He’s not coming to the city from Brooklyn to stalk and kill. I don’t buy it. And they’ve got gyms in Brooklyn, for Christ’s sake.”
She flew into the garage, cut speed seconds before she arrowed into her slot. Roarke, made of sterner stuff than Peabody, never flinched. He was out of the car with her, moving double-time to the elevator.
“A second residence in the city then. One he hasn’t listed, or rents, has bought under another name.”
She jumped off the elevator on the first floor and dashed to a glide, hot-footing it up, elbowing passengers aside on the way.
Ignoring protests, she hopped off, jumped on another. “I’m going to put this op together, fast. Two tactical teams. One to Brooklyn.”
“And the other?”
“I’ve got an idea on that.”
She streamed up the glide at a run, pivoted, and rushed through her bull pen without acknowledging any of the calls or questions.
“Full data up,” she snapped at Feeney.
“Up. What’s with the shades.”
“Hell.” She yanked them off, tossed them on the desk. “Mother. Ineza Blue, age fifty-three. Address listed on Fulton. Bingo, you rat bastard.”
“Ineza Blue,” Roarke said, working rapidly on his PPC. “Retired licensed companion. One child, son.”
“You get me the mother’s image from, say twenty years ago, I bet you get me a white woman with long, light brown hair.” She slapped Feeney on the back.
“Lieutenant?” Roarke held out his palm unit. “She’s a hit on your customer list for Total Crafts.”
“Get me details on her purchases, last six months. Look for the cord.”
She snapped back to Feeney. “Let’s get started,” she said and turned to her ’link to contact the commander.
Fifteen minutes later, she was in a conference room briefing her tactical teams. “Team One takes the target in Brooklyn. Briscoll goes in as delivery to ascertain if the subject is on the premises. Target is to be surrounded at all points. We’re also looking for a black van, now identified as registered to subject’s mother. Last year’s model, Sidewinder. If said van is spotted, lock it down. Baxter, you’re heading this team.
“Team Two will deploy to the Fulton Street residence. The same procedure applies, with Ute taking the delivery position. I head this team. In both locations, we go in fast and we go in hard. Warrants are coming through. If the subject isn’t located, we wait for him. I don’t want this asshole making a cop. He makes any of you, I fry you. We take him down, and we take him today. If there are any screwups on this one, any screwups in procedure, in chain of evidence, if somebody fucking sneezes at the wrong time, I will personally put their neck in a wringer and hit go. Questions?”
“Just one.” This from Baxter. “The subject is a large individual with considerable muscle. It may take some extreme measures to restrain him. Just want to make sure everyone on my team is prepared to take these measures, whatever they may entail.”
Eve angled her head. “I want him conscious for Interview. Other than that . . .” She let it hang. “Don’t let those measures get out of hand. Move out. Feeney, round up Team Two.”
She ordered her team to strap on protective gear. Though she didn’t see it as an issue, she wasn’t taking chances. She didn’t want to visit another cop in the hospital.
“You don’t figure the mother’s in on this,” Feeney said as they waited inside the surveillance van.
“No. We got the cord, twenty-yard length of it, delivered to the Fulton Street address five months ago. I’m saying she had some in stock previous to that, and the new supply was ordered by the son. She didn’t have any deliveries listed before that, or after. She always picked up her supplies. I figure she’s dead or incapacitated.”
She shifted to the balls of her feet, back again. Squatted and straightened to be sure the gear didn’t hamper movement. “If he offed her, maybe that’s what set him off on the rest. Maybe she just kicked, and that set him off, but I’m betting he helped her out.”
She looked over at Roarke. “You and I are going in the front, once we’ve determined he’s inside. Feeney and his man in the back. Communications remain open, at all times. I want everyone with a badge, and the civilian consultant, to know where everyone is. Good-sized house,” she commented, studying it through the screened window of the van. “One floor down below street level, two above. Two men take the below, and we go in on my signal. I want every door, every window covered. He moves fast, and he’s not going to fall down and surrender. He’ll run.”
“Team’s in position,” Feeney told her. “Go to Ute?”
“Go.”
She watched Ute zip down from the east corner on a compact jet-bike. He secured it at the curb, bounced off and up to the door with his misdirected package. He rang the bell, bounced his head around as if bopping to the beat of music through headsets.
And she heard, clear as a bell, the answer from the security-com. “What?”
“Delivery, man. You wanna sign. Shit. Starting to rain.”
The first thin drops splat the streets and sidewalks when the door opened.
“Hold positions.”
“You got the wrong place,” Blue said. “This is 803, not 808.”
“Hell, it looks like a three. Are you—” The door slammed in his face. Ute made a business out of turning his back, pointing at his ass, and making a kissing sound before bouncing back to his bike.
“Subject verified. No visible weapons.”
Eve jerked her head, and slipped out the side door of the van with Roarke. He hefted the small battering ram. She crouched behind a parked car as Feeney drove off.
“Gonna get wet,” she murmured. She rolled her shoulders, rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.
“You know, Lieutenant, I can get through the door nearly as quickly myself as with this ram. And with more finesse, and considerably less noise.”
“Not looking for finesse.” She nodded when Feeney’s voice came through her earpiece. “Move in! Go, go, go!”
Still crouched, she dashed across the street, noting the movements of her team out of the corners of her eyes as she charged up the steps. “Take it down!”
He reared back, slammed it twice, then let it fall as the door crashed open. They were through, weapons drawn.
Every light blared on full, and she could hear the fast and heavy rush of feet. She veered right toward the sound and caught sight of Blue streaking up the stairs.
“Police! Stop where you are.” She was already running up behind him. “You’re surrounded. You’ve got nowhere to go. Stop or I will fire.”
He
swung back, his face red with exertion and what she took as panicked temper. She knew, though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew in that instant from the stiffening of his body, he recognized her.
And he lunged.
She fired a stream midbody that crossed with the stream Roarke fired. The combination knocked Blue back three staggering steps.
To her amazement, he shook it off like a man hyped on Zeus. Lunged again. “Bitch! You hurt me!”
She didn’t question herself, the need, the motive, but rather than firing on him, she got a running start, pumped her legs, and slashed into a flying kick that landed both feet in his face.
Blood erupted from his nose, spilled out of his mouth, but he was still on his feet when she dropped back to hers. “Don’t fire,” she shouted at Roarke, and whoever was pounding up the steps behind them.
“Screw this,” she muttered as he came for her again. “Let’s see how you like it.” And she curled down, locking her hands around her weapon. Brought them up with as much force as she could muster, into his balls.
He screamed, a high-pitched sound that made her heart sing. He dropped to his knees and rolled.
“That seems to have done it. Subject is secured! I need extensions for these restraints,” she called out as she pressed her weapon to his cheek. “You’re a big boy, Blue, big, strong boy, but if I fire this weapon from here, you’re going to lose a chunk of your face. While I might consider that an improvement, you may not.”
“See if these work.” Feeney stepped over Blue, muscled his arms behind his back, and fought extended restraints into place as the man began to cry like a baby. “Barely. Maybe hurts a little, but gee, what can you do?”
“Get him in the tank, read him his rights.”
When she started to get to her feet, she winced, crouched down again.
“Give you a hand, Lieutenant?”
“Thanks.” She took the one Roarke offered, and stretched her left leg. “Might’ve pulled a little something on that kick. It was a little high for me.”
“Well placed, though I did enjoy the second maneuver.”
“First was for Peabody. Second was . . .”
“I know. For all of them.” He knew it embarrassed her, but he couldn’t help himself. He leaned down, kissed her. “You are my hero.”
“Get out.”
“Lieutenant?” One of the team called out from below. “You’re going to need to see this. Basement level.”
“On my way.”
It was a horror she’d never forget. No matter how many she’d already witnessed, how many were yet to come.
The basement had been converted, some years before from the look of it, into a small warren of rooms. His primary living space, Eve concluded, with some recent adjustments.
His office was tidily and efficiently set up. Three complete d and c units, a wall of discs, minifridgie, miniAutoChef. And lights so bright they almost burned the eyes.
He’d set up a personal fitness center, equipment, mirrors, a sparring droid nearly as big as he was. The lights seared.
In the third room, the walls were also mirrored, and the lights burned bright, bouncing their reflections everywhere. She could see the fitness area from that position.
It was his bedroom—a young boy’s room with toys on a shelf, Space Invaders paper on one of the walls. The bed was narrow and neatly made with a cover that boasted interplanetary warriors in full battle.
There was a chair, child-sized, fit with restraints. Wrist and ankle shackles. Tied on one of its arms was a bright red cloth.
She’d cast him into the basement, Eve thought. And despite the toys, the touches of youthful decor, had made it his prison.
He’d kept it as one.
But he’d made an addition.
There was a single long shelf bracketed into the wall. New from the looks of it, and the metal brackets shone clean and silver.
On it were fifteen clear jars filled with a pale blue liquid.
Floating in the pale blue were fifteen pairs of eyes.
“Fifteen,” Eve said and forced herself to look. “Fifteen.”
Eve stood with Roarke in Observation. Inside Interview A, Blue was shackled to the table—hand and foot.
He’d screamed like a madman—mad child—when they’d muscled him down, snapped them on. Had only calmed when, at his terrified demands, they’d boosted the lights in the room to full.
She imagined, if he got riled enough he could lift the whole shebang and do some damage.
“You’re not going in alone.” It wasn’t a question Roarke asked, it was a statement with the subtle edge of warning.
“I’m not stupid. It’s me, Feeney, and two uniforms built like Arena Ball tackles. You sure you want to watch this?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.”
“Patching it through to Peabody’s hospital room, so she and McNab can watch. They’ll put him away in an institution. Mental defectives. It’s not the cage I’d choose for him, but it’ll have to do.”
“You need him to tell you where the bodies are.”
She nodded. “He’ll tell me.”
After one last look, she moved out of Observation. Signaling to Feeney, she unlocked the door, stepped inside ahead of him and the two guards.
“Record on.” She recited the data, smiled. “Hello, John.”
“I don’t have to talk to you. Bitch.”
“No, you don’t have to talk to me.” She sat down, hooked an arm around the back of her chair. “And that’s Lieutenant Bitch to you. You don’t want to have a chat, we can send you back to a cage. You’re booked, John. All those murder charges. Rape, murder, mutilation. Got you cold, and you’re smart enough to known it. Crazy as a shithouse rat, maybe, but you’re not stupid.”
“You shouldn’t call him crazy, Dallas.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” She smirked at Feeney. “Probably got a bunch of sob stories to tell. Traumas and emotional scarring. Shrinks’ll eat that up. Me, I don’t give that shithouse rat’s skinny ass. You’re going down, John. Fact is, you are down. We got evidence flying out our butts on you. You go and leave us the eyes. What’s with that? What’s with the eyes, John?”
“Fuck you.”
“Rape isn’t fucking. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”
He reared back, face contorting. “You shut up about my mother.”
Got your trigger, she thought. “I don’t have to shut up about anything. See, how it works is I’m in charge here. I’m the boss. I’m the woman who busted your balls and locked you up. You messed up my partner, John, so I’m not going to shut up until you squeal like a pig.”
She slapped her hands on the table, shoved her face into his. “Where are they, John? Where are the rest of the bodies that go with the eyes?”
“Fuck you, whore bitch.”
“Sweet-talking me isn’t going to work.”
“Come on, Dallas.” Feeney patted her shoulder. “Ease back a little. Listen, John, you want to help yourself here. You got trauma, I can see that.”
Eve made a rude noise.
“We saw the shackles, John. We saw how it must’ve been for you when you were a kid. I bet you’ve been through a lot, and maybe you didn’t know what you were doing. Not really. You couldn’t help it. But you need to help yourself now. You need to show us some remorse. You need to tell us where the others are, John. You do that, you volunteer that, and it’s going to make a difference with the PA.”
“She says you’re going to lock me away for killing a bunch of whores. How’s telling you where anything is going to help me?”
“Listen, the police officer’s going to be okay.”
“Her name’s Peabody,” Eve interrupted. “Detective Delia. She got one into you, didn’t she, John. Gave you back some pain.”
She arched her eyebrows when he drew one of his arms toward his chest. “Stings like a bitch, doesn’t it, when the stream hits.”
“Doesn’t bother me.” His gaze tracked t
o the mirror, and his shoulders relaxed again. “Look at me. I can take anything.”
“Ran, didn’t you? Ran like a rabbit.”
“Shut up, you bitch! I did what I had to do.”
“Let’s calm down.” Feeney gestured down with his hands, keeping the tone and rhythm of good cop in play. “The important thing for you, John, is Detective Peabody’s all right. That counts a lot. Maybe we couldn’t help you out if she’d taken a downturn, but she’s okay. There are things we can do for you, John. You cooperate, you show remorse, you give us the information we need to bring some closure to the families of those other victims, we’re going to put in some good words for you.”
“I did what I had to do. Why do you lock a man up for doing what he has to do?”
Eve pulled a red cord out of her pocket. “Why did you use this?” When he only stared, she wrapped it around her own throat, watched his eyes go glassy. “You like how it looks on me? Want to get your hands on the ends, John, and pull?”
“Should’ve killed you first.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
His gaze was locked on the cord, and beads of sweat were popping out on his face, on the dome of his head. “Where’s your mother, John?”
“Shut up, I said, about my mother!”
“She liked to do crafts. We got her account from Total Crafts. But you know what, word is nobody’s seen her around in months. Damn near a year now. You kill her first, John? You take some of her ribbon, like all that red ribbon we found in the house, and wrap it around her neck? You rape your own mother, John? Did you rape and strangle your mother, and take her eyes?”
“She was a whore.”
“What did she do to you, John?”
“Deserved what she got.” Breathing shallow, he stared at the mirror again. Nodded slowly. “Deserved it. Every time.”
“What did she do?” There was nothing wrong with his eyes. She could see that, and she’d checked his medicals. And she thought of the bright lights. Sunshades and bright lights. Eyes in jars.
“It’s a little bright in here,” she said conversationally. “Lights, fifty percent.”
“Turn them back up.” The sweat was rolling now. “I’m not talking to you in the dark.”