by J. D. Robb
“If you’d have suggested a couple hours ago I’d be lying naked in the sunlight I’d’ve called bullshit. But I don’t feel pissed or pissy anymore, so I guess it was healthy.”
She sat up, reached for her tank, then her eyes popped as she tapped a hand on the wire camouflaged between her breasts. “I forgot about the wire.”
“Well, one hopes it’s off or we’ve given Feeney and/or McNab some unscheduled entertainment.”
“It’s off—I cued it in the pub. But, Jesus, I’m not supposed to forget it’s there.”
“You were busy walking,” he said when she dragged the tank over her head.
“It’s a damn good thing I didn’t call out for cinnamon donuts while you were busy walking with me.”
After they’d dressed he took her hand as he had before, gave her arm a little swing with his. “I expect you fancy pizza for dinner.”
“It’d be easy. I’ve got some digging to do, and I need to check Peabody’s progress on hers. Plus you haven’t given me an update on yours—on the finances.”
“We’ll get to that.”
“Problem?”
He wound back through the garden. “There wouldn’t be if you’d bent a bit, given me the go to look into it my way. I’ve got some surface right enough, but I can’t reach under the layers with my hands cuffed, Eve.”
“And if you use the unregistered, I’d have the data, but I couldn’t use it.”
“The unregistered would simplify it.”
“I guess I didn’t realize you could only do simple.”
He stopped, shot her a narrow, frustrated look. “I know damn well you’re aiming at my ego, and well played. I can do it without the unregistered. There are ways, but they’re still my ways. If I do it yours, it could take weeks. I’d think you could trust me to know how far over the line I can go and keep the data clean. Otherwise, you should do it yourself.”
She made a rude face behind his back as he opened the door. Childish, she knew, but it felt good. “If I can get proof Renee has secret accounts, that Garnet does, or Bix, I can clear Webster to open that part of it to IAB. He’s hamstrung, too.”
“Then unstring us, damn it.”
“You don’t have to get mad about it,” she said as they both strode past Summerset and up the steps.
“I’m not a cop,” Roarke reminded her.
“Alert the media.”
“Mind yourself, Lieutenant. I’m not a cop,” he repeated, “and it’s annoying to be asked to perform minor miracles while toeing the line you set.”
It was her turn for frustrated, with a pinch of temper. “I’ve moved it plenty, and you know it.”
“So move it again.”
“Every time I do, I worry I won’t remember where I left it.”
“You couldn’t forget that if you had amnesia. Added to it, I know where. I may not agree, but I know where you put it, and how far you can nudge it and feel you’ve done the right thing. You ought to know the same of me.”
She opened her mouth, prepared to punch back a little, then closed it again. “I do,” she realized. “I guess I do. This is ... a situation. If I had the data, I could pass it officially to Webster for IAB. If IAB could officially open an investigation, they’d find the damn data. I’m trying to find the way between, and what I’m hearing is you can’t get it with the way I’ve set this up. I don’t get why, but—”
“I can bloody do it.”
Insult reared up in his eyes. Not just insult, she decided. Geek insult.
“But it’ll take more time—considerable time.” He lifted his brows, his voice coolly pleasant. “Would you like me to explain all the technical reasons, roadblocks, fail-safes, and so on as to why?”
“Really, no. I don’t get why,” she began again, “but if you tell me you can’t do it this way in good time, it can’t be done this way in good time. My way,” she corrected. “So do it yours. I mean, not all the way yours. Not the unregistered on this, Roarke.”
“I understand that. I’ll work it as close to your line as I possibly can. All right?”
“Yeah.”
He rocked on his heels as he studied her. “That was a quick spat.”
“Probably because there’s still a little sexual haze.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong. Start your digging. I’ll get the pizza.”
She walked to her board first, circled it, studied it. She rearranged a couple of the photos fanning out from Renee, cocked her head and considered.
“I have to go out,” she told him when he came back in with the platter. She walked over, snagged a slice of the pie. “Ow. Hot.”
He shook his head as she shifted the slice from hand to hand. “Try this,” he suggested, handed her a plate. “Where are we going?”
“Not we. I need to talk to a cop—a female cop in Renee’s squad. Probability is minimal she’s involved in this. Renee doesn’t work with women. She intimidates or eliminates.”
“She hasn’t had any luck intimidating you.”
“Yeah, and that’s a pisser for her. She’s going to face a bigger one when she doesn’t have any luck eliminating me. Strong, Detective Lilah,” Eve told him. “I had a feeling about her the first time I walked into that squad room, and I need to follow my gut on her. And it needs to be a one-on-one.”
“You could tag Peabody rather than go this alone.”
“Then it’s ganging up. I don’t want to intimidate her—mostly because it wouldn’t work unless I put a lot behind it. What I need to do is give her an opening. It’ll give you time to play your geek games without me bugging you.”
“There is that. You’ll engage your wire.”
“Yeah. Everything on record. She’s the new guy,” Eve mused, “but in six months, if she’s any kind of cop, she knows, or senses something’s off. I’m going to give her a chance, and a reason, to talk about it.”
“And if she doesn’t take that chance?”
“I’ve wasted some time. But I’ve got a feeling.”
“Best to follow it then.”
And come back, he thought. To me.
“Couple hours, tops,” she said. She gave him a quick kiss, and he could see her mind was already on her approach as she left.
He stood for a moment, studying the best part of a pizza, and toyed with the button he kept, always, in his pocket. Trust, he reminded himself, was a two-way street. So he’d trust her to do her job, her way. And he’d go do the one he’d agreed to take on, in his.
Eve made the tail in under five blocks.
They were a little sloppy, sure, but she had the advantage of the superlative camera system built into the vehicle Roarke had designed for her.
The tail employed a standard two-vehicle leapfrog, which told her two things. First, she’d worried—or had just pissed off—Renee enough for the woman to order two men to sit on her. And second, Renee wasn’t worried or pissed off enough to delegate a more effective shadow.
Eve engaged her recorder. “I’ve got a tail, a two-point switch-off. Both departmental issues—for Christ’s sake, do they think I’m a moron?”
Really, it was a little insulting.
She read off the makes, models, licenses, then ordered her cams to zoom in on each to document before requesting a standard operator run.
The vehicle currently two blocks behind her was assigned to Detective Freeman. The one breezing by her to circle around the block and take the rear again was assigned to a Detective Ivan Manford.
“We’ll add you to the list, Ivan. Now, let’s play.”
She cut over to Fifth, continued downtown, deliberately falling into a nice little knot of traffic. She faked a couple of attempts to thread through, watched Freeman’s vehicle swing by. Timing it, she pried her way between a Rapid Cab and a gleaming limo, bulled by, and nipped through a light as it went red.
Manford would pass her to Freeman, she knew, until he could move back into position. But that would be a problem as Freeman had cut west. Eve hit vertical, skim
med over a lane, and to the music of angrily blaring horns, flashed east to play her own brand of leapfrog, nipping in front of a lumbering delivery truck whose driver stabbed up his middle finger.
She couldn’t really blame him.
She swung downtown on Lex, punched it, enjoying the speed and the occasional vertical lift, until she headed west again, shoving her way crosstown.
“Chasing your own tails now,” she murmured, and though she preferred street parking, decided on an overpriced lot two blocks from Strong’s building.
She tucked her vehicle between a couple of bulky all-terrains, engaged her security.
Renee, she thought as she strolled through the warm summer night, would be very displeased.
Working-class neighborhood, she noted, with plenty of people also out for a stroll, or hanging out at one of the tiny tables squeezed in front of tiny cafés or sandwich bars. Traffic rumbled by on its way somewhere else. Some of the shops remained open, hoping to entice some trade from the residents who were too busy earning a living to spend their pay during the day.
She followed a Chinese delivery guy straight into Strong’s building, catching the door on the backswing. He angled off on the second floor of the walk-up, but the scent of kom pao chicken lingered while Eve climbed to three.
Outside Strong’s apartment door Eve caught what sounded like a high-speed car chase. Watching some screen, she concluded. Tucked in for the night, security light a steady red. She flicked her gaze up, spotted the dark eye of a minicam.
So Strong took security precautions, which to Eve’s mind made the detective smart enough to guard her own.
Now, she supposed she’d see just what kind of cop Lilah Strong turned out to be.
She lifted her fist and knocked.
14
SHE HEARD THE YAP-YAP-YAP OF WHAT SOUNDED like a small canine, then the slide of bolt, the click of opening locks.
The man who opened the door was big—Arena Ball-tackle big—with massive shoulders, tree-trunk legs, and bricklayer biceps.
He gave her a friendly smile as he stood with his bulk barring the entire doorway.
“Hi. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Detective Strong.” She shifted her gaze down to the puffball with teeth dancing at his feet. “Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.”
“She doesn’t bite,” he said. “She just wants you to think she’s fierce.” Bending, he scooped the puffball into his hand and made shushing noises. “Lilah! Cop at the door.”
“Yeah? What cop?”
Strong looked around the man’s mass, and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Detective. Can I come in?”
“Ah, sure ...” Obviously off guard, Strong looked around the room the way people did when unexpected company made them wonder how big a mess they had lying around.
In Strong’s case it was minimal in a simply furnished living area set up for comfort.
“Tic, this is Lieutenant Dallas, Homicide, out of Central. Tic Wendall.”
Tic offered a hand the size of a meat platter, and the careful way he took hers made her think of Mavis’s Leonardo. Big men with gentle ways.
“Nice to meet you.”
“The same. Sorry to interrupt your evening. Detective, I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Why don’t I give you ladies the room,” Tic began, “and take Rapunzel out for her walk?”
At the word walk the dog wiggled in Tic’s hold and did her level best to lap the skin off his face. He set the dog down. “Get your leash, girl.”
At the command the tiny dog scurried off in a storm of delight.
“Thanks, Tic.”
“No problem.” He took a poop bag out of a box near the door, and when the dog came back with a bright pink leash clamped in the tiny teeth, he clipped it on her jeweled collar.
“Back soon,” he told Strong, and kissed her in a way that told Eve they’d been together long enough to be casual.
Eve waited until the door closed behind them. “You have a dog named Rapunzel that’s the size of a well-fed rat?”
“Tic has the dog. She’s all hair, so, she’s Rapunzel. He takes her everywhere—even to work.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a lawyer—tax attorney.”
“I figured him for Arena Ball, plowing the field.”
“Tic lacks the killer instinct. Sweetest man I’ve met in all my life, and I don’t think you came here to talk about my guy.”
“No. Can we sit?”
“Okay.” Strong switched off the screen, pointed to a chair. “Tic does some home-brew,” she said, nodding at the bottles on the coffee table. “Do you want one?”
“Wouldn’t say no,” Eve told her, knowing sharing a couple of short brews indicated the visit wasn’t official.
She took her seat, then the bottle Strong offered. She sipped. “Good. Smooth.”
“He’s got a knack.” Strong dropped down on the couch but didn’t relax. “What are you after, Lieutenant?”
“You know I’m investigating a homicide that crosses with your squad.”
“That’s no secret.”
“Did you ever meet my vic? Keener?”
“Never had the pleasure.”
“Did the squad give him space because he was the boss’s weasel?”
“Maybe.” Strong took a hit of brew. “Myself, I never had any reason to roust him.”
“You’re mostly riding a desk now.”
Her face remained absolutely neutral. “A lot of work gets done at a desk.”
“It can. You’re a street cop, Detective, and your previous record on the street’s solid. It makes me wonder why your lieutenant has you doing follow-ups and writing up reports.”
“You’d have to ask her.”
“I’m asking you.”
Strong shook her head. “If you think I’m going to whine and bitch about my LT, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s no secret either, sir, you and Oberman are butting heads. You want dish? I’m not serving it.”
“You don’t like how she runs the squad. You don’t have to say anything.” Eve gestured casually with the brew bottle. “I’m just stating my personal observations. You don’t like being behind a desk when you know damn well you’d do more good on the street. You think it’s bullshit—the suits and ties, the shiny shoes—and the tone of the squad, that always reflects the boss, precludes any personality, any sense of partnership. You don’t like the closed-door meetings behind the shutters, or her daily fashion parade, or the fact that she acts like a CEO instead of a cop. It’s not a squad, it’s her personal kingdom—and her next stepping stone to captain’s bars.”
When Strong said nothing, Eve nodded, sat back. “I know something else. If another cop slammed me like that to one of my men, there’s not one in my division who’d sit there and say nothing.”
Strong shrugged. “I bet there are a whole bunch of people in the city who don’t especially like their boss.”
“Like doesn’t mean dick. Respect does, and you don’t respect her. Giving her respect,” Eve expanded, “isn’t the same as feeling it. She knows you don’t. It’s only one of the reasons your evals have gone down since you joined the squad.”
The first sign of anger rippled over Lilah’s face. “How do you know about my evals?”
“I know a lot of things. I know Oberman isn’t just a lousy cop. I know she’s dirty.”
Strong shook her head, stared fiercely across the room.
“Your gut’s told you the same,” Eve continued. “You’re too good not to have caught a whiff. Too good not to wonder why so many weigh-ins come in light.”
“If there was a problem with the weigh-ins, there’d be questions up the line.”
“Not when she’s got somebody covering the numbers in Property, in Accounting. You’ve got experience, contacts—valuable ones. But who gets the heavy cases? Bix? Garnet? Marcell? Manford? Manford and Freeman tried to tail
me here tonight.”
Strong’s gaze snapped back to Eve’s.
“I’m better than they are,” Eve told her. “No worries. They tried because earlier today Oberman finally figured out I’m not going to play ball. Shutting me out hasn’t worked. She has to think about shutting me down, has to figure out where I’m going, and why I’m going there.”
Eve took out her PPC, called up a file—then handed it to Strong. “That’s my vic.”
Lilah studied the crime scene shot. “That’s a bad end.”
“Bix ended him, on Oberman’s orders.”
With some force, Lilah shoved the PPC back at Eve, pushed to her feet to pace away. “Goddamn it. Goddamn it.”
“I know this for a fact. I have a witness who overheard Oberman telling Garnet just that, who overheard her discussing business, the dirty money.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Lilah leaned her hands against the narrow kitchen counter that separated the living space from a kitchenette.
“She’s built her organization over years.” Eve rose as well. “Using her father’s name, sex, bribery, threats, guile—whatever it takes. Including killing other cops.”
At the statement, Lilah’s face went blank.
“Not herself—I don’t know if she’s got the stones for it. Bix seems to be her primary weapon. But she has others. Marcell and Freeman am-bushed Marcell’s old partner. Detective Harold Strumb. I’m moving to prove she was also responsible for the death of Detective Gail Devin, who served under her briefly. Devin’s record, her style—a lot like yours. If she can’t weed out cops who aren’t useful to her, or who start looking too close, she eliminates them.”
“You can’t prove any of this.” Lilah’s throat rippled as she swallowed. “If you could she’d be in a cage right now.”
“I will prove it. Count on it. You’re not with her, Detective. I’m not wrong about that. She’s got a twelve-man unit. Garnet, Bix, Freeman, Marcell, Palmer, Manford, Armand. That’s seven out of twelve I know or am damn close to knowing are on the take—and worse—with her. I put you on the other side. What about the other four?”
“You want me to pimp out my squad, my boss?”
“How many more cops have to die before somebody stands up and takes her down?” The fury edged through now, couldn’t be contained. “You know she’s dirty, Lilah. You were hot when I said it, but you weren’t surprised.”