Archer leaned back. "Is your probable cause solid, Lieutenant-and don't jive with me."
"It's rock solid. The TRO argues that the sealeds must remain to protect the minors and their families from further distress, to ensure their privacy. The P.A. argues that probable cause in a homicide investigation supersedes, and further argues that the contents of the sealeds will be known only to the investigative team."
"If the arguments are as basic as that, you'd have your warrants in my court. Who signed the initial warrants?"
"Judge Matthews?"
"And he's subsequently held the sealeds?"
"No, Your Honor. The arguments are being presented to Judge Lincoln."
"Lincoln. I see. I'll make a few inquiries."
***
Eve left the courthouse with Peabody beside her and took a moment in the air. "If she's not clean, I've lost all sense of direction."
"Do we keep working down the list?"
"Yeah, we keep working it. Meanwhile, do a run on Judge Lincoln."
"Another judge? Jeez."
"He's not on Greene's. But he's on Archer's. She's good," Eve said as she got into her vehicle. "But she's not that good. I saw something on her face when I told her he was hearing the arguments over the sealeds."
Frowning, she pulled out her beeping pocket 'link. "Dallas."
"O'Malley's," Dwier said briskly. "Twenty minutes. Come alone."
"The Blue Squirrel," Eve returned, wanting home field advantage. "Fifteen."
She broke transmission.
***
Eve didn't frequent the Blue Squirrel as often as she once had. It was a joint with no redeeming qualities, including the food and service. During the day, it catered to a handful of surly regulars and the occasional lost soul who was foolish enough to think he might scope out a cheap meal and a little action.
At night it was usually jammed with people who made the action and were tough enough or crazy enough to risk their lives for what passed for alcohol in such places.
The music was loud, the tables small and rarely clean, and the air generally permeated with bad booze and stale Zoner.
Eve had an odd affection for it, and was pleased to find it hadn't changed since her last visit.
For a time Mavis had been one of the featured performers, whirling in costumes that defied description and screeching out her music to a packed dance floor where people actually seemed to understand it.
Thinking of Mavis, Eve wondered if impending motherhood would tone her down.
Not a chance.
"Grab a table opposite side," Eve ordered Peabody. "Eat if you dare."
"Their soy fries are only half-bad. I'll risk it."
Eve chose a table in the far comer, slid in. And decided Peabody was right. The fries were only half-bad, and deserved another chance.
She keyed in an order on the menu, and decided not to dance any closer to the edge by risking the coffee. She opted for bottled water, which she feared was bottled in one of the seamy back rooms by flat-nosed men with hairy knuckles.
Seeing no sign of Dwier, she pulled out her communicator and checked in with Feeney. "What's the status?"
"Nearly there." There was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow and his hair was sticking out in tufts. "Two hours, we'll nail it. What're you working on?"
"In a couple of minutes, lunch. Blue Squirrel."
"You walk on the dark side, Dallas."
"Yeah, that's me. Got a meet with Dwier. He should be coming along shortly. I think he wants to deal."
"I'll give him a damn deal." Feeney blew air out his nose. "You wanna tell me what the brass was doing here this morning?"
"Can't. I have to wait for some information. Bugs me, Feeney, but I can't."
"Hooked a big fish, didn't you, kid? No, don't sweat it," he said. "Just remember, some big fish got teeth."
"I'm careful. Dwier just walked in. Later."
She pocketed the communicator, then waited for him to come to the table.
"I said alone. Ditch the uniform or this ends now."
"The uniform needs to eat. You want to walk, it's your choice." She nipped the bottle of water as it popped out of the serving slot. "Keep away from the coffee," she said conversationally. "If you want to live."
He dropped into the seat across from her. She wasn't surprised when he ordered bottled brew.
"Your girlfriend tell you about our conversation yesterday?"
"You show some respect when you talk about Clarissa. She's a lady. Your type don't recognize a lady."
"My type recognizes wrong cops, conspirators, killers, fanatics." Watching his face, she took a pull of her water. "I don't care how their skin stretches."
"I want you off her back. I'm giving you one warning on it."
She leaned forward. "You threatening me, Dwier? Are you intimating that if I continue to pursue the line of investigation that involves Clarissa Price, you may attempt to cause me physical harm?"
"What, are you wired?"
"No, I'm not wired. I just want to be real clear on the nature of your warning. That way, I won't be kicking your sorry ass across this sticky floor, out the door, and across the street due to a miscommunication."
"You think you're some badass, don't you? You homicide cops all think you're so fucking important. Elite or some shit. You come out on the street and wade through the garbage awhile, you pick up the pieces of some kid who's been raped and beat up, or drag through the puke of some asshole teenager who's OD'd on Jazz he got from some vulture working the school yards. See how long you're such a badass."
She felt some sympathy, a sliver of it scraping over her for a cop who'd seen more than he could handle. But there was the line again, the line that could only be moved so far before it fell off the edge.
"Is that why you're part of this, Dwier? Just couldn't handle taking all the steps, seeing some of those steps bust out from under you? Is that why you decided to be judge, jury, and executioner?"
Her fries slid out, and she ignored them. His bottle popped seconds later. He snatched it up, twisted the top with the violence of a man who wished it was a human neck.
"I want you off Clarissa's back."
"You're repeating yourself. Tell me something new."
He took two deep swallows from the bottle. "I'm not saying I got anything to tell you. But if I did, I'd need a deal."
"Can't deal without the cards."
"Don't try to hose me." He snorted at her, and she lost even that sliver of sympathy.
He wasn't just a cop who'd broken under the pressure. He was one who'd puffed up on it and filled himself to bursting-like the thin skin of a balloon-bulging with arrogance, with righteousness.
"I'm a badge. I know how this works. If I had anything to say pertaining to the recent homicides, I'd need immunity for Clarissa and myself regarding any possible involvement."
"Immunity." She leaned back, carefully selected a french fry, studied it. "You just want me to wipe your slate? Seven dead, one a cop, and you want a free ride for yourself and your lady? Just how do you expect me to pull that off for you, Dwier?"
"You'll pull it off. You've got weight."
"Let's put it this way." She drenched the fries with salt. They needed help desperately. "Why do you think I'd use the weight you think I have to help you skate on this?"
"You want the bust. I know your type. The bust comes first. Keep your cases-cleared percentage high. You figure they'll pin another fucking medal on you."
"You don't know me." Her voice was low and lethal. "You want a picture in your head, Dwier? How about this one? A sixteen-year-old girl, cut into ribbons, her blood all over the walls following the trail where she'd run trying to get away from a man who was driven insane by a group of people who decided he should die. Her name was Hannah Wade. She was a stupid kid with a bad attitude who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Kevin Halloway, a solid young cop just doing his job. How do the people pushing your buttons rate that in their
list of percentages. An acceptable loss?"
"Clarissa's sick over that girl. She's busted to pieces over it. Didn't sleep a wink all night."
Eve felt bile rush into her throat, washed it back with water. "Remorse will weigh in with the prosecutor. Maybe you were misled. Maybe both of you were misled by the people in charge of Purity. You were just looking for a way to protect the kids on your watch."
"Yeah." He drank, keyed in the menu for a second bottle. "If that were the case, it would go toward immunity. The fact, if we did know something relevant, we were willing to give it up-voluntarily."
You puke, she thought, her face blank as a wiped slate. "You know I can't guarantee immunity. That decision doesn't come from me. I can only request it."
"You can push it. You know the buttons."
She looked away from him a moment because knowing she'd try for the deal made her sick. The greater good, she told herself. Sometimes justice couldn't sweep clean.
"I'll push for immunity. But you're off the job, and so's she-"
"You can't-"
"Shut up, Dwier. Just shut up, because what I'm going to lay down here is as good as you're ever going to get. And the offer is one-time only. I put my weight for immunity. Make the case for the P.A. that your information, and Price's, was key to my investigation. If it isn't key, Dwier, this conversation is moot. You and Price walk, no cage time. But you put in for retirement, and she resigns from Child Services. It's up to the P.A. and the brass as to whether you keep your benefits. That's out of my hands. But you walk."
She shoved her plate aside. "You refuse this deal and I give you a vow to hunt you, both of you, until I have enough to put you both over. I'll push for multiple charges, first-degree, conspiracy murder. I'll push for the murder of a police officer. I'll push hard and the two of you will spend the rest of your lives behind bars. The last breath you take will be in a cage. I'll make it my personal mission."
His eyes glittered-temper, terror, alcohol. And, Eve thought with a dull amazement, with insult.
"I got sixteen years in. Sixteen years busting my hump."
"And now you've got five minutes to decide." She pushed up from the table. "Be gone or be ready to talk when I get back."
As she strode across the club, Peabody started to rise. Eve simply shook her head and kept going.
She slammed into what the Squirrel called their rest room. Five narrow stalls and two shallow pits for sinks. She ran the water cold, splashed it on her face again and again until the heat of her anger and disgust chilled.
Face dripping, she lifted her head and stared at herself in the black-flecked mirror. Seven people dead, she thought. Seven. And she was about to help two of the ones responsible ride free so she could stop the others.
Is this what it took to speak for Kevin Halloway, for Hannah Wade? Is this what it took?
Shades of right, Tibble had said. And just now she felt smeared by the shadows.
She scrubbed her face dry, then pulled out her communicator.
"Commander. I need a deal for Thomas Dwier and Clarissa Price."
***
Dwier was still at the table when she returned and starting on his third bottle. She wondered how long ago he'd drowned his conscience.
"Talk," she said.
"I gotta have some assurances."
"I laid it out for you once, I'm not laying it out again. Talk or walk."
"I want you to understand we did what we had to do. You work to get scum off the street and before you write up your fives, they're back out. The system's gone soft. All this shit about civil rights jammed down our throat, lawyers sliding through the grease, you can't do the job,"
"I don't want the lecture, Dwier. I want data. Who's running the show?"
"I'm gonna tell it my way." He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, hunched in over the table. "Me and Clarissa, we got close. She's dedicated her life to helping kids, only to see half of them, maybe more, get screwed over by the system. We started going out, mostly just to blow off some steam, and we got close. After what happened with the Dukes kid, she was thinking about packing it in. That one almost broke her. She took a couple weeks' leave to decide what she wanted to do. And... Don came to see her."
"Don? Would that be Donald Dukes?"
"Yeah. She was in a rough spot. A rough spot. And he told her about this group who was looking for answers, who was working to find a better way. An underground group."
"Purity?"
"The Purity Seekers. He said a lot of people had gotten together, people like him, like her, other concerned citizens. He asked if she'd come to a meeting."
"Where?"
"Church basement. Downtown. Church of The Savior."
"A church basement?" She didn't know why it offended her sensibilities. She wasn't, never had been, religious. But it appalled something deep inside her. "This runs out of a church?"
"That's one of the meeting sites. We move around, churches and schools. She went to the first one with Don, with Dukes. It brought her back up, pulled her out of the depression. It gave her a grip on things again. I went with her the next time. It makes sense," he insisted. "The program makes sense. You want to clean up the city, you gotta take out the trash. Cops and courts are cuffed. Nobody respects the law because the law doesn't work. It doesn't fucking work, and you know it."
She looked at his face, the flush brought out by beer and righteousness. Not always, she thought. It doesn't always work because it's not going to put you in a cage.
"Who runs the meetings?"
"It's a democracy," Dwier told her with some pride. "We all have a say. Dukes is one of the founders. We've got cops, doctors, judges, scientists, preachers. We've got thinkers."
"Names."
He dipped his head. Rubbed the bottle over his brow. "We go by first names, but I recognized some, ran some others. You have to know who you're in bed with. Look, we had some glitches with the program. Maybe we pushed things too fast. The techs figured they could delete the virus after Absolute Purity was achieved, but there was some snafu. They're working day and night to fix it. We took up a collection for Halloway. We're making a contribution to the Police Officers' Survivors' Fund in his name."
"I'm sure that'll give his family a lot of comfort, Dwier. Give me names."
"You think it's easy to weasel?" He slammed the nearly empty bottle on the table. "You think it's easy to flip on people you've worked with?"
"Was it easier to kill? Easier to throw a few bucks in the hat for a dead cop because there was a snafu? I don't want to hear about your pain, Dwier, or your skewed sense of loyalty. I want names. It comes down to you or them. No names, no deal."
"Bitch."
"Yeah. Keep that in mind. Donald Dukes? His wife?"
"No. He kept her out of it. He doesn't much like working with women."
"But he recruited Clarissa."
"I figure there was some pressure on him to pick her up, since they had a history." Dwier jerked a shoulder. "Matthew Sawyer, big-shot doctor out of Kennedy Memorial. Brain guy. Keith Burns, one of those computer geeks. Worked with Dukes on the virus. He was the kid's, Devin's, godfather. Stanford Quillens, another doctor. Judge Lincoln, Angie and Ray Anderson-their kid got raped by Fitzhugh. Angie runs her own media consultant firm midtown."
He continued to reel off names. Eve recorded them. He ordered another beer. He wasn't sloppy yet, she noted. Four beers in less than an hour and he wasn't showing it. It told her his body was used to the steady intake.
There were other doctors, other cops, a city councilwoman, more programmers, two former social workers, and a minister.
"That's all I got confirmed. Clarissa might have a couple more."
"What about funding?"
"Everybody kicks in what they can, donates time." He sucked on the bottle. "Some of the members got deep pockets, and put their money where their mouth is. We've got powerful support-political support-and we could've expanded on that without the accidents."
&
nbsp; "Who's your political support?"
"The mayor. Peachtree, he doesn't come to the meetings. But he sends statements, and contributions. My take is he lined up Sawyer and Lincoln, Dukes, too."
"Are you telling me this organization generated out of the mayor's office?"
J D Robb - Dallas 15 - Purity in Death Page 31