by J. D. Robb
“So am I now. I’ll get back to you.”
Eve took a moment, pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Thought: Coffee.
She started to rise when Peabody’s pink boots clomped toward her office.
“I’ve got data on Jansen – our potential first vic.” Her gaze flicked to the board where Eve had already added his photo.
“Based in Columbus, Ohio. He was an efficiency expert. Businesses hired him to come in, give them advice on, well, efficiency. Where to cut expenses, where to add stuff. Age forty-three, divorced, no kids. Nobody had reported him missing for about a week because he worked independently for the most part, and had just finished a job in Fort Smith. He was on his way to Bentonville, and had a few days off in there. He’d rented a pewter Priority sedan in Fort Smith. 2060 model, Shining Silver exterior. That’s apparently in the wind. A lot of traffic bumps, no criminal. Made a good living, had a good rep, spent about thirty-six weeks a year on the road, and apparently liked it. More colleagues and clients than friends – my take – and boxed a little in college. Kept in shape.”
“Put up a fight, more than expected. You see a guy in a nice car, traveling alone. You want the nice car, and don’t figure to have much trouble. He gives you trouble, ends up dead. More colleagues and clients than friends,” Eve mused. “Less likely to stop for a couple or another man. So the woman still leads my theory there. I’m betting she’s got some looks. He got out of the car. If she’d been hitching, or just flagged him down, no need to get out.”
“A breakdown, or she pretends she’s hurt so he gets out to help her.”
“Breakdown leads. They had to get to where they were, and it’s not easy walking distance to anywhere much that I can see. Did anyone know what he might have had on him, with him?”
“Luggage – an efficient packer, as you’d expect. Two good suits, some shirts, ties, underwear, toiletries, workout gear. Two pair dress shoes, two pair running shoes. A tablet, a PPC, two ’links, some cash – he’d withdrawn eight hundred from the autobank in Fort Smith the afternoon of his departure. His immediate supervisor said they all carry a decent amount of cash for tips. Good tips, apparently, lead to more efficient service. Business credit card and two personal. None have been used since he left Fort Smith. He had a good wrist unit. I’ve got the make and model, and started a search. Same for his electronics.”
“Get sizes.”
“Sorry?”
“On the clothes, the shoes. If they didn’t sell them, and likely within a few days along the projected route, then they used them. If they used them, we’d have a body type, a shoe size.”
“Huh. Who’d have thought of that?”
“I thought of that. Get the sizes, see if one of those colleagues or clients can zero in on descriptions of the clothes he’d have packed. If not, try his hotels. He’d have used laundry service somewhere.”
“On it. Ah, Dallas?”
“What? I need to finish updating Whitney.”
“I got a civilian liaison to show Banner around – and told him about The Eatery, such as it is.”
“Okay, great. Go away.”
“Dallas, he doesn’t have anywhere to stay – in New York.”
“There are a zillion places to stay in New York.”
Peabody’s puppy-dog eyes should’ve warned her, but Eve was distracted.
“Yeah, he asked if I could recommend a hotel, maybe close to Central. He’s been going for about thirty hours straight now, and, well, he’s on his own nickel. I get the impression deputies in Silby’s Pond are more underpaid even than detectives in New York.”
“Christ, Peabody.” Realization and twangs of guilt hit at once. “I see where you’re going, and you’re going to want to do a fast U.”
“Just hear me out first, okay?” Peabody waved her hands in the air as if to ward off any boot aimed at her nose. “If you put him up, he’d be right there. Anything breaks anywhere on this, he’d be right there. And I was thinking, McNab and I could bunk over – same reason,” she said quickly. “And we could keep him occupied so you wouldn’t have to, if necessary. Carmichael and Santiago are already on their way west. Something could break tonight.”
“Fuck me.” Eve resisted just dropping her head to the desk, maybe banging it there a few times, because, like DeWinter, Peabody had a point.
“Set it up. You deal with Summerset.” That torture would be spared her, Eve decided. “I don’t want to hear him griping about running a halfway house for cops.”
“I’ll take care of it. Ah, we’re going to have to go home, get some stuff. We could haul Banner with us, but…”
“Oh, for – I’ll take him. When I’m damn good and ready. He can catch some sleep in the crib if he needs it. Go the hell away before you have me taking in half the damn department for the night.”
Eve put her head in her hands a moment. Coffee first, she decided. Then she’d contact Roarke – text him – that’s the way to let him know she was bringing cops home – one of them a complete stranger. Update Whitney, review the run on missings, then —
Her ’link signaled, and, grinding her teeth, she answered DeWinter again.
“What the fuck?”
“And hello to you, too. Both remains will be exhumed within the hour. I should have them by eighteen hundred.”
All pissiness vanished. “That’s fast. Maybe I owe you a drink for that, too.”
“I’ll take it. I’ve arranged to start the exam this evening with Morris. Dr. Mira will consult via holo, if necessary, and come into my house in the morning.”
“Okay. How about I just buy you a bottle?”
“Drinks,” DeWinter said, “and conversation, Lieutenant. It’s time. I’ll keep you updated.”
“I’ll do the same. It’s appreciated. Hell, I’ve got another incoming. Later.”
She clicked off, took the next. “Commander, I’m about to send you an update.”
“Before you do, Banner is fully cleared by his chief. This is not officially part of the federal investigation, however, I want every inch of all asses covered. Make that update in full detail, Lieutenant, and copy Tibble.”
Eve nodded. Asses covered completely with their own chief in the mix. “Yes, sir. Briefly? We may have caught a break.” She ran through quickly what she’d write in more detail on Jansen.
“To expedite I requested the transpo from Roarke. The detectives are already en route.”
“Include the request for compensation in the report.”
“He won’t take it, Commander.”
“Put it in. Roarke is free to donate said transportation, but through channels. I want all appropriate paperwork.”
“Yes, sir.”
She clicked off, figured she’d have to see to the bulk of said paperwork as, in Roarke’s place, it would bug the shit out of her.
She thought, yet again: Coffee, text Roarke. This time she nearly made it to the AutoChef before footsteps headed her way.
“Sorry, LT.”
She might’ve snarled at Baxter, but he looked pale, heavy-eyed.
“What?”
“Wanted you to know we’re back, can take some of the grunt work.”
“Okay, there’s plenty of it. Sit.” She got two coffees. “What did you catch?”
“Caught and closed, open and shut. Christ.” He took the coffee, stared at it. “You know, you think it can’t get to you anymore. You’ve seen it all, seen as bad as it gets. But you never have. Guy’s supposed to pick his kids up for his week. Divorced deal. Fourteen-year-old girl, eight-year-old boy. Guy’s been out of work for a while, got pushy with the ex a few times. Nothing major, mostly verbal shit. Yelling, arguing. She answers the door today while the kids are getting their stuff. And he smashes her, face-first, with a sledgehammer. Then he goes for the kids. Just goes at them. You could see how they tried to get away, how the girl used her body to cover her brother.”
Baxter stared into his coffee, shook himself, drank it. “He pulverized that l
ittle girl, Dallas. Like she was a thing, and not his own kid. The boy, they said he might make it. Legs are smashed, one of his arms, but his sister took the worst. When the man thought he was done with them, he went back and finished the wife.”
He took a slow drink of coffee. “Neighbors heard some of it, called it in, came running. He just walked out, walked out into the street into traffic. Driver who hit him tried to stop – she had a baby in the car. They’re okay. Just shaken up. The impact knocked him into another oncoming, and that one didn’t have time to try to stop.”
“He’s dead.”
“I wish he wasn’t.” Baxter said it viciously. “I wish to Christ we could’ve peeled him off the pavement and put him in a cage, run a loop of those kids in that cage for the rest of his motherfucking life. His own kids, Dallas. His daughter’s brains splattered all over the wall, the floor. For what?”
“We’re never going to know the answers, Baxter, and we’re never going to have seen the worst. There’s always worse than that waiting to happen. And if it doesn’t get to us, if we don’t feel it, then it’s time to turn in our papers. Where’s Trueheart?”
“I told him to go home, told him to take some personal. But I know he’s going to hang around the hospital awhile longer. The boy – his grandparents are there, and he’s got more family, so that’s something. He’s got the exam tomorrow, so I told him to try to put it away, for now, focus in. Maybe we stop the next one before he kills his kids. Get his shield, and maybe the next time, we get there before the brains are all over the wall.”
“You should go home.”
“Can’t do it.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Give me a job, will you, Loo? Any damn thing.”
“I’m running another missing-person search,” she began, explained the parameters. “Take it down to residences and businesses downtown. Run a parallel to missings over the last two weeks.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
He got to his feet, looked at her board. “You know some of them are never going to get out of your head. We keep doing it, knowing the job’s going to put more of them in there. You have to believe it matters.”
“You can believe it because it does. These two? Time’s running out on them. Let’s find the fuckers.”
“I’m on it.”
When he left, Eve pulled up the call, the family, the IDs of the wife, the kids in Baxter’s head. She’d have them in her head now, but it had to matter.
Considering the stream of interruptions, she managed to get the report, in painful detail, hammered out and sent to Whitney. Then, after a quick debate, decided she’d take the rest home, where interruptions would be minimized. Then realized she’d already gone past her end of tour.
She pulled what she had from her missings search, grabbed the rest of what she needed, snagged her coat.
And remembered she had to take Banner with her.
She found her bull pen still full of cops.
“Pack it in,” she ordered, then moved over to Trueheart.
“How’s the kid?”
“He’s out of surgery. He’s going to need at least two more trips in, the doctor said, and they’re keeping him in an induced coma. But they said he’s going to pull through, that odds are in his favor now. And his family —”
He broke off, took a long breath. “I mean, his grandparents and some others are with him. The doctor said, you know, young and healthy, it adds weight on his side.”
“Okay. Now put it away for tonight. Go home, study up. Don’t even think about it,” she said, anticipating him. “You don’t put off your exam, or your life, for something you can’t change. He’s in good hands, and you did the job.”
“That’s what Baxter said.”
“Then listen.” She looked around at Baxter. “Send me what you have, and go have a beer with Trueheart, then get him home. Make sure he doesn’t embarrass us tomorrow.”
“Will do. Dallas, I’d like to keep on this. While the kid’s taking the exam, I can keep on this tomorrow.”
“I’ll loop you in. Peabody, get what you need and make it snappy. We’ve got work. Where’s Banner?”
He leaned back out of a cube. “I was working on some notes and contacts. Detective Peabody said I could use this space.”
“Bring what you have. We’re moving.”
She swung on her coat as she strode out, leaving him to catch up with her.
“I sure appreciate you giving me a bunk, Lieutenant. I don’t want to put you out.”
“We’ve got plenty of bunks, and you’ll pay for it, starting with a stop on the way. I’m picking a missing at random, checking out a location. They’re somewhere, maybe we’ll hit.”
“Can’t know till you know. Ms. Denning took me on the fifty-dollar tour,” he added as they squeezed into an elevator. “The place just goes on and on. I went through your EDD, and I gotta say, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I say that every time I go in there.”
His face broke into a grin. “Sure is colorful. The captain up there?”
“Feeney.”
“Captain Feeney, he reminds me of my uncle Bill. Smart as a Sunday suit and easy to be around as a good hound dog. He sure sets store by you, Lieutenant.”
“He trained me. Best cop I know, and I know some good cops.”
“He said how if you’re on the trail of these two, you won’t stop till you bag them.”
“Are you asking a question or making a statement, Banner?”
“Maybe both.”
With breathless relief, she pushed off on her level of the garage. “Dorian Kuper,” she said. “He wasn’t the first, but he was my first on this. Played the cello, has a mother who’ll never get over this. Turned out to be a friend of a friend.”
“I saw him on your board.”
“That’s right. And so will I, every day until this is done. This is my ride.”
She saw surprise before he covered it, then hit the codes to unlock the doors. Surprise flickered again when he folded himself in and the seat adjusted for him.
“Sure is comfortable.”
“Gets me where I’m going.” She pulled out, did the arcing turn to the exit. Paused briefly, studying the traffic, the road conditions. “Goddamn winter,” she muttered, and zipped out fast enough to have Banner subtly adjusting his safety harness.
“She moves, too.”
“Why do men think about cars as female?”
“It’s love, I suppose. You’ll excuse me for gawking,” he added as he did just that, craning his neck to get a better angle on the ad blimp currently hawking a blizzard sale as it crept along a slate-gray sky. “I didn’t see much on the way in. Preoccupied,” he explained, clearing his throat softly as Eve nosed between a Rapid Cab and a creeping Mini. “Didn’t know what to expect when I got to Cop Central.”
She cut around a corner, just beating the WALK signals and the pedestrians pushing to flood through.
“I sure didn’t expect to be riding through the city with a big-city badge on the way to check out a lead.”
“I don’t know if it reaches ‘lead’ at this point. Missing’s Wayne Potter, age sixty-three, twice divorced, three offspring with three more between them. Worked as a furniture mover. Last seen August eighteen.”
She cut the next corner, slapped vertical and skimmed over a slow-moving panel van.
“He’d rented a camper,” she went on, “was allegedly going on a two-week vacation. He and the camper were last seen in the vicinity of Louisville, Kentucky. He never came back, and both he and the camper poofed.”
“Sounds like it could fit in pretty smooth.”
“It could. Or Potter, who apparently despised and was despised by both his ex-wives, had little to no relationship with his remaining family – including a brother to whom he owed about seven thousand dollars – decided to just keep going, and is currently camped somewhere thumbing his nose at New York and everyone in it.”
She considered her options, thought fuck it,
and double-parked.
“Basement unit, this building.” She flipped up her On Duty light as blasting horns serenaded.
Ignoring them, Eve eased out, skirted the hood. “You carrying, Banner?”
“My service weapon. I had to check it when I came into Central, but Detective Peabody arranged for me to get it back.”
“Be ready,” she advised as she approached the building. “But don’t get twitchy.”
“I’ve only had to pull it four times since I’ve been on the job, and never once had to fire it.”
It was hard for Eve to imagine, but she nodded. “That’s a good record to hold on to.”
She flipped back her coat, rested one hand on her weapon, took out her badge with the other.
Minimal security on the door, she noted, bars on the windows.
“Hit the buzzer.”
It didn’t take long, and only an instant more for Eve to drop her weapon hand, adjust her coat back over it.
She looked down into the round freckled face of a boy she judged at around ten.
“You’re not Sarri,” he accused.
“I’m not. Got a parent at home?”
“MOM!”
The shout had another kid – a girl, Eve deduced, as it wore a bright pink dress with brighter blue tights. And eyed her as suspiciously as the boy.
“You can’t come in ’cause you’re a stranger.” She shouted, a higher decibel than her brother, for her mother.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. For God’s sake, let me – Nathan Michael Fitzsimmons, what have I told you about opening the door?”
“It’s supposed to be Sarri.”
“It’s not.” The woman, obviously harried, dark hair clipped messily up, fuzzy slippers covering her feet, scooped both kids behind her.
“NYPSD.” Eve held her badge up again. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“What’s the matter? Is Sarri —”
“No problem,” Eve said quickly. “We’re looking into a missing-persons matter. Do you know a Wayne Potter?”
“No, I’m sorry, I— Oh, wait. Sorry, step in for a second. It’s freezing out there, and I’m letting the heat out.”
She shut the door behind them. “I think that’s the person who used to live here. One of the neighbors upstairs mentioned the name. We moved in last October. Mrs. Harbor – upstairs – she told me he’d left one day and never came back. Left his things, his family. I was a little nervous for a while once she told me, wondering if he’d come back and try to get in. But he hasn’t.”