by J. D. Robb
“How big are her tits?”
Abrams grimaced, pressed his fingers to his temple. “Fuck, need a blocker. You want to party or not?”
“I got brew, prime smoke, and I’m tapped till payday. Why don’t you bring them here? I’ll show you a party.”
“Asshole.” The attractive face became a mask of ugly rage. “You fucking prick.”
“Got my fucking prick here, too,” Jake said placidly, “and my good left hand.”
“Fuck up, fuck up, fuck everything up. I’m coming over there and fuck you up.”
“Yeah, yeah, you and what ninja army? Take a snap of the friend, yeah? Let me see if I want to get laid. What’s with the screaming, man? You at some sex club?”
“They’re coming.”
Behind Abrams, blood spattered. Someone ran by, fingers curled like talons, blood running down his face.
“They’re coming,” Abrams repeated in a scream, “for all of us.”
“Who’s that? Hey!” There was a moment of concern in Jake’s voice as the screen tilted, as flashes of people—mostly feet now, or those crawling, came in and out of view. “Hey, man, performance art? Chilly stuff. Where you at, bro, maybe I will come in. Yo, Lance! Nasty!” He laughed as a woman fell into view, clutching at the gash in her throat. Someone tripped over her and was beaten viciously with a broken chair leg.
“Shit man, gotta piss. Get me back.”
Jake clicked off, and the screen went blank.
Feeney cleared his throat. “We have the same transmission from the vic’s ’link, but this gives us the visual. We pieced together some of the others before they were aborted. What we’re going to do is dissect the audio, look for any key words, any patterns. But from what we have now, you’ve just seen the most comprehensive. I can run you the rest if you want it now.”
“It can wait. I want a copy of both. At this point we don’t know the method of dispersal, the motive. We don’t know if the individual or individuals who released this substance survived, or if survival was their intention.”
“You think this might’ve been some whacked-up suicide?” Baxter asked.
“Some people don’t want to die alone, or easy. But it’s low on the list. Think of Schultz’s reaction to it. Chilly, he thought. Yeah, he thought it was a show, a joke, but watching people kill each other, it’s entertaining. Whoever did this? I think they enjoyed it, enjoyed the punch of causing it. Possibly one or more of the victims was a specific target, but taking out a bar full of people in minutes? Had to be a rush. Doctor Mira, would you agree with that, or do you have another take?”
“I agree. To kill so many, so quickly, and more to manipulate them, like puppets. Very likely not getting his own hands dirty.”
Her gaze stayed calmly blue as she studied the death posted on the case board. “Ordinary people,” she added, “doing a routine, ordinary thing after the workday. It’s playing God—a vicious, vengeful God. Intelligent, organized, sociopathic. He, or they, likely have submerged violent tendencies. This was a play. Yes, performance art—the young man wasn’t far off. He observes, can’t connect. He’s unable to connect, except on the surface. He—or possibly she—plans and considers, but enjoys taking risks. He may be envious of the people who come together to enjoy a social hour after the workday. He may, certainly, have a specific target or a particular tie to or grudge against the bar.”
“He would have known the routine, the happy hour business in that location.”
“Yes.” Nodding at Eve, Mira crossed her legs. “He wouldn’t be a stranger there. Unless, and I agree the probability is small, this was an elaborate self-termination, he is also very controlled. He would have walked away. He couldn’t stay and watch what he’d created, what he’d caused. What he’d accomplished, and it would be difficult not to see. He’ll follow the story religiously in the media. If he can insert himself into it, he will. He’ll want that connection—to the power, not to the victims.”
“He’ll do it again.”
“Yes. And he will likely escalate, try for larger groups. He must have a place, a small lab, where he can create his substance. He must have, or have had, test subjects. Animals, I would think. And if he’d done this before we would have heard of it—I suspect this was his big test. The first on a group of human subjects.”
“It could be political,” Whitney suggested.
“Yes,” Mira agreed. “The basic profile remains should this be the work of a group or organization. If it is, they will certainly take credit, and quickly. They would crave the attention and the platform for whatever cause they believe in. The fact that it’s been several hours now without any group claiming credit lowers that probability in my opinion. The longer without that contact, the higher the probability this is the work of an individual, or a small group with no specific agenda to hype.”
She paused to study the board again. “He’s making a big statement. A public place, a place for society, for gathering. And he kills at a distance. He doesn’t need to see, to touch, to feel it.”
“He’s better than they are,” Eve suggested. “Removed.”
“Yes. His targets were primarily white-collar. Executives, those striving to be—admins, assistants. He works with them or for them. He knows them. It’s most probable he works or has worked in that area—the area that provides the bar with its after-work clientele, or indeed works or has worked for the bar. He might have been fired, or passed over for promotion.”
“I’ve checked the firings at the bar,” Roarke put in. “There’s been none since I acquired it. I kept the staff when I bought it. The manager runs it well, and has for two years, which is longer than it’s been mine. He wasn’t on today. The barman who was among the victims also stood as assistant manager.”
“We’ll interview all the bar staff,” Eve said. “Any who weren’t on shift, and especially any who requested off, or don’t show up as victims or off schedule. We’ll also interview the three people who EDD tagged as exiting the scene shortly before the event, once we’ve ID’d them. And we’ll interview coworkers, family, friends of every vic. It’s going to be a long process. I’ll assign a group of vics to each of you. You’ll work the case individually and as a team. You’ll do the notification to next of kin on the vics assigned to you. You’ll do the necessary interviews, and work the cases of your vics. Every interview, report, hunch, step, stage, and sneeze is documented and copied to me, the commander, and Doctor Mira. We’ll brief eight hundred hours. I’ll clear any and all OT.
“Baxter, Trueheart,” she began and handed out specific assignments.
When she’d finished, Whitney rose. “Lieutenant, if and when you need additional manpower, it will be assigned. While you correctly initiated a Code Blue, it won’t hold. There are substantial leaks already—too many people, including civilians, to cover. The department, and the mayor, will issue statements. I’ll take point there, at this time.”
“Yes, sir. Considering Doctor Mira’s profile, the media attention is what he wants. That may satisfy him, at least long enough for the investigation to earmark a suspect. Or it may charge him up so he does it again—and bigger.”
“I agree.” Mira nodded. “I’d like to work with you and the media liaison on the statement, Commander. How it’s worded, and how it’s delivered could buy us time before another attack.”
“We’ll get started immediately. Whatever you need,” he told Eve, then turned briefly to the others. “Good hunting,” he said, and left them.
“Let’s get to work. I want all notifications done tonight.” Nobody, she determined, was going to hear they’d lost their spouse, child, father or mother, sister or brother over the damn screen. “Take a booster if you need it, but I want the interviews started. Be prepared to report, in detail, at eight hundred hours. Dismissed.”
She turned to Peabody. “This is our briefing room until we close. It’s secured when we’re not in it. Make that happen. We’re going to split the notifications. Take a uniform with you. O
ne you know has his shit together. We’ve got the top twenty-five in numerical order. You take the last twelve of that. When you’re done with that, I want you to go over the reports—crime scene, ME, whatever we get from the lab, anything further from EDD. Write your own report from that, send it to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get some sleep, and be ready at zero eight hundred.”
“I’ll take Uniform Carmichael if he’s still around. Otherwise—”
“If you want Carmichael, take him. If he’s off shift, tell him he’s back on.”
“I’ll get him.”
She turned to Feeney as he walked up.
“He got hits on the two women going in the bar.” His gaze tracked to the board, and Eve knew.
“Which are they?”
“Numbers sixty and forty-two. Hilly and Cate Simpson. Sisters. Hilly Simpson lives in Virginia, the other’s a buyer for City Girl, some ladies’ shop right down from the bar.”
“Sister came in to visit, maybe. They went in for a drink, maybe to meet the New York sister’s friends. Jesus Christ.”
“Twenty-three and twenty-six. Age,” Feeney explained, and rubbed at his face. “Some of them tire you out before you get started.”
“Hit my office for some real coffee.”
“Might just.” He pulled out his communicator when it signaled. “Here’s something. We got another hit. The couple who walked out at seventeen-twenty-nine. Got a hit on her anyway. Shelby Carstein, works at Strongfield and Klein.”
“Same firm as Brewster, one of the survivors.”
“Got an address on her.”
“Send it to me. I want to talk to her.”
“Already sent. Listen, we can’t give you much more on the ’links until we have more to work with,” he began. “You get us the vics’ electronics, we’ll be all over them. We’ll start on their memo books, scan through, see what we can find. But unless one of them was a specific target, or involved, we’re shooting in the dark.”
“Understood. I’m going to swing by the lab, see what I can shake loose, then go see Shelby Carstein.”
“If I’m not needed in EDD,” Roarke said, “I’m with you, Lieutenant.”
“Lieutenant. Sorry.” Trueheart jogged back in. “We had some people come in. Two of them stated they’d been in the bar, left a coworker there. Another states he’s the bar manager.”
“Where are they?”
“The sergeant on the desk put the two in the lounge, the manager in Interview A. He didn’t think you’d want them together.”
“He’d be right. I’ll take the two, then the one.”
“I’ll start on the notifications, Dallas,” Peabody offered. “From the bottom up. If this takes you longer, I’ll keep going until you’re loose or they’re done.”
“All right.” With her eyes on the board she spoke to Roarke. “You can come to the lounge, but don’t go in with me. Sit nearby. You’ve got good eyes, good instincts. Get a read on the two I’m going to talk to, then you can do the same from Observation on your manager. How well do you know him?”
“Not well at all, in the big picture,” Roarke admitted. “I spoke to him extensively during the transition. We did the usual background check, security check, and so on. I also spoke, extensively, with key staff to get a read on him as well as them. He cleared, and very well. Since then I haven’t had any personal dealings or contact with him. I haven’t needed to. He’d report directly to the coordinator assigned to that property.”
“I might want to talk to the coordinator, depending.”
“I’ll arrange it if you need it.”
“Go in first. Get some coffee and—”
“Not in there, I won’t.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “But I know how to cover.”
“Right. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She gave Roarke three minutes, then walked to the lounge.
A handful of cops risked the coffee or one of the offerings from Vending. Roarke sat with a cowardly tube of water and his PPC at a table near two civilians.
Both looked tired, fretful. The woman’s springy blond hair cascaded down around her shoulders. Her feet snugged into skids to go with the casual pants, the light sweater. The man wore dark pants, a blue shirt, and old boots.
She judged them in their thirties, the man in the early part, the woman headed toward the forty mark.
They weren’t wearing suits or carrying briefcases, but Eve made them from the security disc. The visit saved the investigation the trouble of digging for two more IDs.
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas.” She sat down with them, watching them both straighten in the hard plastic chairs.
“Nancy Weaver, and my associate Lewis Callaway. I contacted Lew when I heard the reports on deaths at On the Rocks. We were there, after work. We were right there, with Joe—Joseph Cattery—and Stevenson Vann. I was able to reach Lew and Steve—Steve left before I did. He had to catch a shuttle to Baltimore for an early-morning meeting. But I haven’t been able to reach Joe. Lew said Joe was still at the bar when he left.”
Eve let the woman ramble. She did so concisely, like someone used to giving presentations and data, but there were hitches and quavers in her voice.
Deliberately now she shifted her focus to the man. He had a smooth-shaven face and short, straight brown hair. “You work together.”
“Yes. Marketing and Promotion, Stevenson and Reede. We’d just finished a major campaign. We went in to brainstorm a little on the presentation, and to blow off some steam. Steve couldn’t stay long as he was taking point on the meeting in Baltimore.”
“What time did you get there?”
“About quarter to five? I don’t know exactly.” He glanced toward Nancy for confirmation.
“We left the office about twenty to five, and it’s no more than a five-minute walk. More like three. Steve left after about fifteen minutes. I left around twenty after five, I think. I had an eight o’clock date, and I wanted to get home, change, regroup.”
“Joe and I had one more round,” Callaway added. “His wife and kids are out of town, so I kept him company for a bit. He talked about going on, grabbing some dinner, but to tell you the truth, I wanted to get home myself.”
He lifted his hands off the table, let them fall again.
“We’ve been putting a lot of extra hours into this campaign. I was tired. In fact, I was half asleep on the couch when Nance contacted me. I figure Joe probably turned off his ’link, maybe went to a club. You know?”
“Come on, Lew.”
“His wife’s away, and you know how tight a rein she keeps on him.” He said it with a hint of a smile, a kind of understood wink. “He probably just wanted to bust loose a little. But Nance is worried, and by the time she finished, she had me worried.”
“All the reports are so vague, and that makes them more frightening,” Weaver insisted. “We were there. Right there at the bar. One of the reports said there might be seventy people dead.”
“Take it easy.” Callaway put a hand over hers, briefly. “You know how the media exaggerates.”
“People are dead.” Her face, soft around the edges, went hard. “That’s no exaggeration. How could that happen? It’s a good place. It’s not a dive or a joint. Hell, I’ve taken my mother there. Nobody will tell us anything,” she continued. “They’ve all told us we had to wait here, for you. I know who you are. I watch the media reports like a kid eats candy. You’re a homicide lieutenant. Were people murdered?”
“I’ll tell you what I can. There was an incident at On the Rocks this evening that resulted in multiple deaths.”
“Oh God. Joe?”
“I’m sorry to inform you Joseph Cattery has been identified as one of the victims.”
“Well, Jesus.” Callaway simply stared at her. His eyes, so dark they read black, went blank for a moment. “Jesus. Jesus God! Joe’s dead? He’s dead? How? He was just sitting at the bar, having a drink. We were all just having a couple drinks.”
“I’m not able to give you details at this time. Did either of you notice anything out of the ordinary while you were in the bar?”
“Nothing,” Weaver murmured, with tears swimming in her eyes. “There was nothing. It was happy hour, and most of the tables were full, so we just took the bar. I didn’t want anything to eat anyway. We just sat at the bar, talked about the presentation, the campaign. Just shoptalk.”
“Did both of you leave alone?”
“Yes.”
“Yes,” Callaway concurred. “I actually walked out with somebody else from the company. Not our department. Whistler,” he said to Weaver. “I didn’t know he was in there, and we hit the door pretty much together. Said how’s it going, and went our separate ways.”
“How did he die?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Weaver, I can’t tell you at this time.”
“But his wife, his kids. He has a boy and a girl.”
“We’ll be talking to her. I’m going to ask you not to contact her until tomorrow, until we can make the official notification.”
“There must be something you can tell us,” Callaway insisted. “Something we can do. Joe … we were all there with Joe.”
“I can tell you that we’re actively investigating, and we’re pursuing any and all leads. We’ll be issuing a media release as soon as possible. You can tell me if either of you know of anyone who’d want to harm Mr. Cattery.”
“No, absolutely no.” Weaver took a long, steadying breath. “He’s the original Mister Nice Guy. He coaches a soccer team. He’s the first one to give you a hand if you need it. He’s been married—first and only time—for … I don’t know, twelve years, maybe more. He doesn’t forget your birthday.”
“Everybody likes Joe,” Callaway confirmed. “You have to.”
“How long have you worked with him?”
“I’ve been with S&R for nine years next January,” Weaver said. “He came on a few months after me.”
“I’ve been there almost ten years. We don’t always work together,” Callaway qualified. “We have solo projects, team projects.”