The In Death Collection, Books 30-32

by J. D. Robb

  “Yes.” Relaxing a little, Mira leaned back in her chair. “Love for and pride in the parent, a lifetime of exposure to excellence and dedication. The need to feel love and pride reflected from the parent.”

  “Alternately, some might feel compelled to do exactly the opposite. Say the parent was a hugely successful businessman. One who acquired wealth and position through hard, honest work, long hours, skill, and dedication. The kid might decide to sit around on his lazy ass, or join a Free-Agers commune and grow tomatoes.”

  Mira smiled again. “Yes. Pressure to succeed, the child’s urge to rebel against parental expectation and authority, a desire to forge one’s own path.”

  “And another choice might be to go down that same path, but without the same skills, the same purity of purpose, say, the same innate dedication, or whatever it takes, the child might take some shortcuts. Still wants the pride, the glory, the status, but can’t get it Daddy’s way. Or just doesn’t especially want to. Saints can be hard to live up to. Gold standards tough to reach. That’s a pisser. But there are ways to get what you want, ways to build authority, to use that gold standard as an entree, even a shield, while smearing it.”

  Eve leaned forward now, punching her point. “There’s some satisfaction there because the fucker shouldn’t be so hard to live up to. Or shouldn’t have expected, demanded so much from the child. Got a saint for a father? Why not be a sinner, reap the rewards, while using the same path, and staying shiny on the outside.”

  “That’s an excellent thumbnail,” Mira said after a moment. “There would be more, of course, under the surface, rooted in childhood, in dynamics, in disposition. Some, in this hypothetical theory, would both revere and detest the source—the father. Some would crave the authority and position, and the power and privilege—the respect—that comes with it. Even be willing, perhaps eager, to expend the time and effort to achieve it. In their own way.”

  “Okay.” Eve set her hands on her knees. “Let’s get down to it. She’s dirty. Daddy’s the excuse. You can think of a reason if you want,” she said before Mira interrupted. “That’s not how I see it. Maybe she started off sliding on his name, using her brand of manipulation, putting in the time while she figured the angles, searched out the openings. Sucking up to or sucking off whoever was more useful.”

  Mira choked a little on her tea. “To put it bluntly,” she managed.

  “Sexuality as a tool, prefers the company of men. She wears a girly suit that shows off her tits, mile-high heels to show off her legs. To work.”

  Mira brushed lightly at the skirt of her girly suit. “Hmmm.”

  “You’re not a cop,” Eve returned. “It’s highly unlikely you’ll be drawn into a footrace today. And okay, neither will she because she sticks to her desk. She’s above the streets in her big, perfect office closed off from her scarily ordered squad.”

  “Scarily ordered?” Mira repeated.

  “Everybody’s in suits. Nobody’s got their jacket off. Every one of the men is wearing a tie—and none of them loosened. She’s shined, hair combed. Like any minute somebody’s due to come in to take a squad photo.

  “Everybody’s desk or cube or workstation is in perfect order. Nobody has any junk sitting around, or personal clutter. No photos, no toys, no empty coffee cups. No full ones either. And there’s no chatter. Nobody’s yelling across the room, nobody’s ragging anybody. I’ve never seen a squad room that clean, or cops so pressed, so quiet.”

  She pushed to her feet. “You could put it down to the boss’s style, sure. She likes order and expects her cops to be turned out in suits. Illegals cops, for God’s sake, who’re going to be going out at some point and pushing at chemi-heads and dealers. But their shoes are nice and shined. More.”

  Eve glanced at Mira.

  “Yes, go on.”

  “She keeps the blinds down on her office. Big window, big door, with the blinds down and closed. She dresses like a CEO, one who secretly wouldn’t mind getting laid during her lunch break. Her desk’s clear, and there’s a fresh vase of flowers on it. Flowers, for ...”

  She spied the flowers on Mira’s desk.

  “You’re not a cop,” she said again. “And your desk is tidy, but not clear. You have family photos and little bits of stuff sitting around. Your space has a feel to it. It’s welcoming, comfortable. Which it has to be, sure, given you have to put people at ease. But it’s also who you are.

  “And I should probably think about what my office says about me, but that’s not important.”

  “I could tell you,” Mira murmured, but Eve was already moving on.

  “She’s got a painting on the wall, a good one. I have to admit I liked it. All moody, beach and ocean. She’s got a mirror. A cop with a mirror on the wall of her office? Says vanity to me. And a big picture of her father—full dress blues, commander’s rank. Formal shot.”

  “Where’s the picture situated?”

  Eve smiled, nodded. “Good question. On the wall opposite her desk.”

  “I see.” Mira nodded. “Using his status so anyone coming into her office would feel the connection. And she can look up, see him. So he can, symbolically, see her. What’s she’s doing, how she does it.”

  “Look at me. I’m a boss, too—and before much longer I’ll have captain’s bars. How do you like that, Dad? Oh, excuse me a minute, I have to order one of my men to go kill a pathetic junkie who tried a double cross. Stick that one up your perfect ass, Commander.”

  “I don’t disagree with anything you’ve just said.” Mira balled a fist in her lap, stared down at it a moment. “I’m so angry. I’m so damn angry I didn’t see what I should have in her. That I let myself be manipulated and influenced so I brushed aside the little niggles of doubts. So I told myself it was because I was holding her to a higher standard because of her father, and that was unfair and unprofessional.”

  “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 a
s 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 Mira’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 seal
ed 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.”