by J. D. Robb
“Well, I guess your ass isn’t perfect.”
Mira set her cup aside. “That’s a very comforting thing to hear right now.” On a breath, Mira drew her shoulders back. “Factoring in Peabody’s statement, your impressions, my own belated analysis, I would conclude Renee Oberman is a very organized woman, one skilled in compartmentalization. She runs her squad with a firm hand and insists they meet her personal standards in appearance.”
“Spit and polish. Pressed and shined.”
“Yes,” Mira agreed. “It’s important to impress. Important, too, to be obeyed, even on the smallest detail. She is concurrently running what is purported to be a full-scale and illegal operation that utilizes at least some of her squad, at least some of their street contacts and CIs. She is, absolutely, in charge and in control of both. She accepts no less. When threatened, she doesn’t hesitate to take action, up to and including conspiring to murder.
“Money, like her father’s picture, is a symbol,” Mira continued. “It represents power and success. No doubt she enjoys it to acquire what she likes, but I would speculate she hoards the bulk of what she’s earned illicitly.”
Eve’s brows lifted. “Why?”
“Because the acquisition—with the method she’s chosen—the having, is the success. It’s the purpose.”
“She was pissed about the ten K,” Eve recalled. “As much as anything else. Keener and ten K, that’s small-time. Yeah, the having, the money and the obedience. I get that.”
“She’s very intelligent, understands thoroughly the workings, the politics, the pecking order of the NYPSD. She focused on Illegals, I believe, because it’s an area rife with the potential for corruption, for weaknesses, for backroom deals, all of which she can exploit. She seeks success on the job to please her father, and pursues her criminal business to punish him.”
Daddy issues, Eve thought again. Boo fucking hoo.
“She’s vain,” Mira went on, “she’s confident, she’s highly intelligent, and she’s ruthless. She views her name as her legacy and her right, as a stepping stone she doesn’t hesitate to use when it suits her. And also as a dragging weight around her neck.”
“I can use all of that.”
“She won’t like you. Even outside this situation, she wouldn’t like you. You’re everything she’s not, as well as an attractive—younger—woman in power. That makes you a threat. She’s disposed to eliminate or crush those who threaten her.”
“I’m hoping she’ll try. Focused on me, she’s less likely to get any buzz about the internal investigation. Right now, it’s all about me and the homicide. She’s worried about that. I think she knew we’d found Keener before I told her, and was, I’d say, already discussing it with Garnet. She had to think on her feet when I talked to her because she was sure it would be passed off as an OD. Quick skim, who cares, over and done. Now she’s got to worry because I made it clear I smell murder, and I’m going to push it.”
“She won’t come at you directly, not yet,” Mira said. “She’ll need to weigh the situation, you, see what you do, what buttons you push, what doors you open, if any. But make no mistake, Eve, if she concludes you’re in the way, you’re too big a threat, she’ll try to take you out.”
“Yeah, probably with this big, blond detective. I need to check on him.” She glanced at her wrist unit. The day was moving too damn fast. “But now I’ve got to go to the morgue.”
“Don’t underestimate her, Eve.”
“I don’t intend to. I’ve got a briefing at my home office—sixteen hundred.”
“Do you want me there?”
“I can take the team through Renee’s profile, but you’d be valuable. We’re going to have to work through her squad, so any insights you’ve got on any of them would help.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks.” Eve went to the door, hesitated, turned. “She should be a good cop. She’s got the foundation, the resources, the brains, the training. It’s nobody’s fault but hers how she chose to use them.”
The day’s moving, Eve thought again as she went quickly back to Homicide. Several things checked off, and that was good. But she wanted to squeeze in time to study the murder board Peabody should have set up in her office, time to peek into the data on the members of Renee’s squad.
And maybe let it show, she considered. Yeah, maybe send a flag or two there. Give her something to think about.
She paused at the bullpen, took a good look around.
The noise level hit somewhere between EDD and Renee’s squad—which she judged as normal. Cops worked in shirtsleeves, and there were plenty of hard shoes and boots showing wear and tear. It smelled like really horrible coffee, a hint of sweat, and somebody’s veggie hash. Which meant Reineke was probably on a diet again.
Desks weren’t especially tidy, photos, printouts—some of them likely bad or obscene jokes—papered cubes and workstations.
Jacobson sat kicked back in his chair juggling three colored balls—his thinking mode, she knew. Someone had recently hung a rubber chicken over the new guy’s desk, which meant he—Santiago—was sliding into the team and the rhythm.
To her mind it looked, sounded, smelled, and felt like cop.
She walked into her office, nodded at the murder board, hit the AutoChef for coffee.
Skinny window—she thought the cleaners occasionally wiped it down. Overloaded desk—but she’d clean up the paperwork. Ancient file cabinet because she liked the backup—plus it was an excellent hiding place. Old AutoChef that still did the job, fairly new C&D that wasn’t yet giving her grief. The recycler worked, and as far as she knew was still a successful secret spot for her personal cache of candy.
She had her roster, rotation, case status on a wallboard because she liked being able to glance at it quickly rather than calling it up on the comp every time she had to change or check or adjust.
Deliberately horrible visitor’s chair, because who had time for chatty sessions anyway? Her desk was old, scarred, and serviceable, and like Jacobson she liked to think with her boots up.
The office didn’t open into the bullpen—there was a little jog first. But unless she was catching ten of downtime stretched out on the floor or needed absolute privacy, her door was always open.
She took the time to drink her coffee, to study her murder board, to consider her next steps. Before she took them she texted Roarke rather than tagging him in the middle of his workday.
Briefing HQ, 1600. Promised food. OK?
There, she thought, that covered the marriage rules, plus shifted to Roarke—she hoped—the obligation to inform Summerset he’d be feeding a bunch of cops.
“Peabody,” she said as she crossed through the bullpen again, “with me.”
Peabody scrambled to catch up as Eve hit the glide. “Murder book and board in your office.”
“I saw. I informed Lieutenant Oberman of the death of her weasel.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Always tough to lose a CI. She’ll pass me all data on the vic, after we verify COD. She doesn’t buy homicide.” Eve shrugged carelessly for whatever eyes and ears might catch any part of the conversation. “Then again, she’s a desk jockey who doesn’t work murders.”
“And we’re the kick-ass murder cops.”
“We are. We’ll see what the ME has to say. We could get lucky and find the sweepers report waiting for us when we get back.”
“I admire your optimism.”
They talked shop in general until they were in the garage, in the vehicle, and driving out.
“Did you get wired?” Eve asked her.
“Yeah, I’m set. What about Renee, really?”
“She’s smooth, hard, cold. And she’s quick. She had to decide on the spot whether to admit Keener was her weasel, then how to play me when I said I was looking at murder instead of OD. Her squad room looks like the reception area of a big-shot office, and her office is the big shot. We’ll go over it all at the briefing, including Mir
a’s analysis and eval, but the upshot is she’s a stone bitch with daddy issues and a thirst for power, status, and money.”
“I got the stone bitch part from the locker room.”
“There was a detective Garnet took out with him right after he came out of a meet with Renee—in her big, fancy, shuttered office—which was right after she was told I was there to see her. Blond and blue, early thirties, about six four, maybe two-thirty. Garnet called him Bix. See what you can get.”
“All over it. You think he’s her muscle.”
“Odds are. There was another, female, mixed-race, also early thirties. Detective Strong. My vibe was she isn’t a big fan of her boss.”
May be able to use that, Eve thought, turn that.
“Bix,” Peabody announced, “Detective Carl, age thirty-two—you got the height dead on, two pounds under on the weight. Ten years on the force, out of the Army where he served from age eighteen to age twenty-two. Born in Tokyo where his parents—both also Army—were stationed at the time. Has a sib, a brother, four years older. Assigned to Illegals under Lieutenant Oberman for the last four years. Did a year in Vice after making detective. I’d have to go deeper to get any more,” Peabody told her.
“Hold off on that for now. Army brat, older brother, four years in the military. Used to taking orders from his superiors. Combat training, worked the streets if he had time in Vice and Illegals.”
“Strong, Detective Lilah,” Peabody continued when Eve parked at the morgue. “Age thirty-three, five-six, a hundred and twenty-two. Born Jamaica, Queens, to single mother. No father of record. Two sibs, older brother, younger sister. Brother listed as dead, 2045—age seventeen. Partial scholarship aided with education assistance to NYU. Major law enforcement. Ten years on the job, seven in Illegals. Recently transferred from out of the one-six-three to Central, and Lieutenant Oberman. Like six months ago.”
“New then. Yeah, maybe an asset. How’d the brother die?”
“Ah, wait.” Peabody ran it as they walked down the familiar white tunnel. “Killed during what looks like a drug deal gone wrong. Multiple stab wounds. He’s got a sealed juvie.”
“Dealing or buying the junk,” Eve concluded. “Likely a user, and dead before he can vote. Sister turns this into a career working against what killed her brother. Yeah, if that plays out, she could be an asset.”
She pushed through to Morris’s suite.
He had a laser scalpel in his hand, blood on his protective cloak, and still managed to look stylish in a collarless suit of midnight blue and his hair braided in a looping queue.
“We’re having a two-for-one sale,” he told her. “Yours is right there.” He lifted his chin toward the body with its neatly closed Y cut. “Just let me finish removing this brain, and I’ll be right with you.”
“No problem.” Eve walked to Keener.
They’d washed him, so he actually looked better on the slab than he had in the tub. Old track marks ran lividly down both arms, circled his ankles. Comparatively, the bruising he carried was minor.
Eve put on a pair of goggles and began to search the body for any signs of stunner marks, pressure syringe. But there were other ways, lots of ways, for a man trained in combat to incapacitate a man he outweighed by more than a hundred pounds.
She sealed her hands and probed his head, his scalp, ignoring where Morris or one of his techs had stitched it back together.
“Doing my job now?”
“Sorry.” Eve glanced over. “There’s a knot back here, just behind his left ear.”
“Yes.” Morris weighed the brain, recorded it, then walked to the sink to wash. “He has several bruises, some knots, as you say. He would have seized with that much in him. His system was loaded with what they call Fuck You Up. Have you heard of that one?”
“Horse tranquilizer base, right?”
“Yes, and he had enough to take down a four-hundred-pound stallion. And just for the hell of it the Zeus lacing was barely pushed. The combination was absolutely lethal—as we all can plainly see.”
“This knot. If he took a blow here, by someone who knew how and where, it would take him down, put him out.”
Morris lifted his eyebrows. “It could, done properly. You prefer murder to overdose.”
She wished she could lay it out for him. “I’ve got questions, yeah. Why the tub? You said he had enough in him to kill him a couple of times. Look at his tracks. He’s a junkie, but he’s a junkie with experience. Why take so much of something so risky—and even if you’re an idiot, wouldn’t you want to spread out the high? He’s not in his flop, but locked in this hole instead, and it looks like he made himself a little camp there. And that says he’s hiding. So maybe somebody found him.”
“Perhaps. He’d eaten a decent enough meal, around midnight. Pizza with sardines.”
“You call that decent?”
Morris smiled. “He ate hearty, we’ll say, and washed it down with a couple beers.”
“There weren’t any takeout pizza boxes or brew bottles on scene. Maybe he ate out. We can work that. I wonder why he’d eat hearty, then a couple hours later hole up, crawl in a filthy tub, and jab himself with what he should have known, given his history, was a lethal dose.”
“So noted. I haven’t as yet made my determination, so it stands that COD is the overdose—all other injuries were nonlethal. But I cannot, at this time, with this data, determine accident, suicide, or homicide.”
“Just what I wanted to hear.”
“I believe I’ll need to do a further analysis of the wound below his left ear.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“You’ve something up your sleeve. Quite a nice sleeve today, I might add.”
“Just doing the job. We’ll let you get back to your brain.”
8
“HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO.” EVE PULLED out in front of a Rapid Cab, zoomed through a yellow light—and had Peabody gripping the chicken stick. “Are we doing in a hurry?”
“What? I had plenty of room. We’re going to update the book with Morris’s preliminary findings, copy the commander as usual. You’re going to contact Renee and inform her of those findings and tell her I need the data and files we discussed, asap.”
Hand still gripping the chicken stick, Peabody blanched. “I’m going to talk to her?”
“I’m much too busy and important to trouble myself with this kind of follow-up. That’s how she thinks. I’m going to see if Morris has a spare spine lying around you can borrow if you’re scared to speak to that high-heel-wearing, smug-ass bitch, Peabody.”
“Not scared. Uneasy. I admit to uneasy.” To prove to herself she had that spine already, she loosened her grip on the stick. “So I tell her the chief medical examiner has determined COD, but cannot, at this time, determine self-termination, accidental overdose, or homicide. Therefore, Lieutenant Dallas requests—”
“Requires,” Eve corrected.
“Lieutenant Dallas requires the data and files on the victim, as discussed. What if she balks?”
“You courteously inform her that Commander Whitney has, per procedure, been copied on all notes and files, including your lieutenant’s notification to her, the vic’s handler, and the requirement for data.”
Peabody mulled it. “Courteously adds a dig.”
“You bet it does. If she carps after that, I’ll deal with her. But she won’t,” Eve added. “She wants this to go away, and the potential of me going over her head and bringing this more fully to Whitney’s attention spotlights her.”
“Better to cooperate and keep it low-level.” Peabody’s fingers crawled back to the stick when Eve swerved around a slow-poking maxibus.
“That’s how I’d play it in her place. Next, we get everything we need for the briefing, and spend a little time at it. If she’s got feelers out, and she damn sure does, I want to be seen working this. We’ll do a run by the vic’s flop on the way to HQ.”
“Why aren’t we doing that now?”
&nb
sp; “Want to be seen—and I want to make sure her dogs have had time to go by, go through, look for anything that might tie them in.” She glanced over. “If Garnet and Bix weren’t heading to Keener’s flop when they left the squad room, you can bet your ass she tagged them and sent them there after my conversation with her.”
“But . . . If there was anything, they’d get rid of it.”
“Maybe there was—unlikely, as Bix should have hit the flop already and ditched anything that tied in. But maybe.” Eve shrugged it off. “I’m more interested in following their tracks.” She pulled into the garage at Central. “You should yammer like always in the bullpen about the case.”
Peabody tried on a mildly offended look. “I don’t yammer. I respectfully object to the term yammer.”
“All of you yammer, that’s how it’s done.” Eve turned into her slot. “Yammer and bitch, and with the yammering and bitching you play angles off each other. You handle this with the rest of the men just like usual. If you clam up, evade, they’ll smell something off. Bunch of cops get a scent, they can’t help but start digging for the source. And there’s no harm in mentioning our vic was Renee Oberman’s weasel. Someone might have some dish on her, an opinion, an interesting anecdote.”
“So I’d actually be doing the digging. It’s like spy stuff.”
“It’s like cop work,” Eve corrected, and got out of the car.
“It’s interesting about that welt behind the vic’s ear.” Peabody scanned the garage as they crossed to the elevator, lowered her voice. “Is it okay to talk about that?”
Eve just nodded. “It strikes me, given the location and angle of the wound, it could have come from a blow. Somebody, who knows what they’re doing or gets lucky, clips him at that spot, side of the hand.”
“Like a karate chop,” Peabody said as they loaded on, other cops loaded off.
“And it seems a little too good to be luck. If you didn’t know what you were doing, you’d use a sap, or a bat. Either would do more damage.”