Connections in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Eve figured she deserved some acting props for pretending annoyance and disgust. She’d personally requested Teasdale for this part of the game plan. They’d worked together before, and she knew the woman shot straight.

  Reo cued up the tablet, brought Teasdale’s image on-screen.

  “APA Reo.”

  “Special Agent Teasdale, good afternoon. As previously discussed we have Mr. Cohen in Interview, He’s given a verified example of his inside knowledge of the Banger organization and their alleged activities that break state and federal laws.”

  “As discussed, the FBI currently has agents reviewing and logging Mr. Cohen’s records. These records document his activities, which break state and federal laws.”

  “Understood. However…”

  Reo laid it out; Teasdale pushed back. Cohen whined, promised names, dates, locations. As negotiations crept along, Eve lobbed objections.

  Why not just give him an all-expenses-paid lifetime vacation in fucking Tahiti?

  Peabody tossed in a derisive remark about Club Fed.

  At one point, Eve stormed out. When she hit the bullpen, she started barking orders. “Everybody in the conference room in thirty for a two-pronged op briefing.”

  “What’s up, Loo?” Baxter asked.

  “We’re taking on the Bangers and the Dragons. If you’re on a hot, I need to hear about it. Otherwise, you’re on this until it’s done. Detective Strong, my office.”

  She hit the AC for coffee, gestured Strong to do the same.

  “Put a team together,” Eve told her. “Ho’s your collar, and you’ll head that op.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “You worked it. You’ve got thirty, so move it. I need to update Whitney and get SWAT on board.”

  “Did he give you a name? On Lyle.”

  “That’s coming, but he’s already given us enough on Jones to lock him up for a nice long stretch. We’ll see who else he flips on. Move it, Strong.”

  In fifteen, Eve stalked back into Interview. Cohen, not as pale now, sat with his head bowed while Teasdale and Reo worked out fine details.

  “I need to pick where you relocate me.”

  “No.” Teasdale’s tone was flat and firm. “Unlike Lieutenant Dallas’s trip to Tahiti, WITSEC is not a vacation. If all terms of the deal are met, if your information proves valid and results in arrests, you will be given a new identity and relocated where the federal government deems. You will then adhere to all terms of the program, or your status will be rescinded.”

  “But—”

  “If those terms aren’t agreeable to you, Mr. Cohen, I can promise you’ll spend the next ten to twenty in a federal penitentiary—and it won’t be Detective Peabody’s insulting ‘Club Fed.’”

  “I need it in writing.”

  “You’ll have it. APA Reo, as I’m currently occupied, can I send the completed agreement to Mr. Cohen through you?”

  “Of course. In return I’ll copy you on the information Mr. Cohen offers from our record.”

  “I appreciate the interagency cooperation. I’ll send you the paperwork shortly.”

  When Teasdale signed off, Reo turned to Cohen.

  “Mr. Cohen, do you understand the agreement, its terms, your obligations?”

  “Yes.” He sat up straight again, and the look in his eyes read smug. “I’m a lawyer, Ms. Reo. I understand the deal on the table.”

  “And you understand the statements you make, the information you give upon acceptance of the deal must be valid and truthful? If they prove otherwise, the deal is rescinded.”

  “I get it, okay? My life’s on the line here. I get it. Can I get a sandwich and a Coke?”

  Reo stared at him. “You want a sandwich?”

  “I’ve barely eaten since they pulled me in.”

  “Detective Peabody, would you get Mr. Cohen a sandwich?”

  “And a Coke,” he added.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Eve muttered as Peabody walked out scowling. “Peabody exiting Interview. Maybe you want some cookies, too.”

  He actually smirked at her. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  “Don’t push it, Mr. Cohen,” Reo added.

  Eve swung around to stare at her own reflection in the two-way glass. She wondered if Roarke was still in Observation. Doubted it. The negotiations had taken more than an hour, and despite them running exactly as she’d hoped, she had a small, nagging headache as a result.

  In short order, she reminded herself, she’d be moving again.

  “Agent Teasdale’s efficient.” Reo’s tablet signaled incoming. She scanned the screen. Nodded, nodded, ordered the printout.

  “You’ll initial each page as you read through the agreement, Mr. Cohen. Agent Teasdale has already done so and pre-signed. Lieutenant Dallas, you’ll witness Mr. Cohen’s signature, as will I.”

  Eve said nothing.

  Peabody came back, updated the record, tossed a Vending sandwich and a tube of Coke on the table. She sat, giving a very good impression of a steaming sulk.

  Cohen unwrapped the sandwich, bit in—wrinkled his nose—but kept eating as Reo slid the papers and a pen across the table. With his bottom lip poked out in concentration, he read, initialed, read, drew his eyebrows together, initialed.

  “It seems to be in order.” He signed and gave Eve a quiet, satisfied smile.

  “Very well, Mr. Cohen.” Reo signed in turn, held the pen out to Eve.

  Eve added a bad-tempered scrawl.

  “I’m going to scan this document to Special Agent Teasdale. I will messenger her the original once this interview is concluded. At this point, I’m reopening the interview to Agent Teasdale. You will answer her questions, Mr. Cohen, answer mine, answer those of Lieutenant Dallas and/or Detective Peabody. Any and all questions asked, any and all answers you give or statements you make must, as agreed, be valid and truthful.”

  “Just hold on, goddamn it.” Eve slapped a hand on the table. “I’m not standing around in here while some fed pokes at this asshole over transporting illegals over state lines or financial bullshit. I want a name. One question, one answer. Who ordered Lyle Pickering and Dinnie Duff’s murders?”

  “I don’t know who actually did it. I want to stress I advised against this, strongly advised against it. I wasn’t aware—”

  “One question, one answer,” Eve demanded. “Who ordered the murders?”

  “Jones.” He looked away, pressed his lips together. “Marcus Jones.”

  “Follow-up. Why?”

  “He … he was angry Pickering wouldn’t come back, wouldn’t work for him. He wanted to make an example out of him, and make him look worthless. Then he could have the girl killed, point fingers at the Dragons. Cement his standing, take back some territory, bring the Bangers back to what they had been.”

  He looked back at Eve now, but never quite met her eyes.

  “I told him it was crazy. I thought he listened. After, I was afraid to say anything. Afraid he’d kill me. He needs to be locked away. He’s dangerous. You need to put him away.”

  “You knew two people were going to be murdered.”

  “I advised against it.”

  “You knew a third person, Barry Aimes, was going to be murdered.”

  “No, I swear.” He sent her a look, direct and pleading. “I didn’t know, exactly. Maybe he talked about dumping something right on Fan Ho’s doorstep, but I didn’t know.”

  “Come on, Peabody. I’ve had enough of this asshole. Dallas and Peabody exiting Interview.”

  Peabody trotted out after her.

  “He was lying about Jones,” Peabody said as she hurried toward the conference room Eve had booked.

  “Yeah, he was. Good for you, Peabody.”

  “Well, he wasn’t even very good at it. I just don’t get why. Why lie when that kills the deal?”

  “Because he’s not just a sleazy disbarred lawyer, he’s a lousy one—which is why he doesn’t really understand what he agreed to. It’s all not going in a c
age for him. He thinks with what he gave us on Jones, what he’ll give the feds, we’ll have Jones wrapped up tight. Jones denies the murders, who’s going to believe him? Why would we, in Cohen’s opinion, actually dig down and work the case? He gave us the killer, done and done.

  “Get everything we have on Banger HQ and the players ready for the briefing,” she said when they reached the conference room. “Strong’s heading the Dragon end, so work in what she gets.”

  “All over it and back again in a freaking bow. What about the illegals and fraud equipment Cohen claims to know about outside the HQ?”

  “That’s Teasdale’s.”

  “Yeah.” Peabody huffed out a breath. “Is it okay I feel a little pissy about that?”

  “Yeah, then swallow it down.” Eve already had. “Because we’re going to bag a bunch of bad guys.”

  While Peabody worked, Eve tagged Feeney.

  He said, “Yo. Just caught me, heading out.”

  “You’re going to want to head back. I need a couple of e-teams. Combat ready. We’re hitting Bangers’ and Dragons’ HQs. We’re going to have a party.”

  “I’ll get my party hat.”

  “Conference room two, as soon as you can get here.”

  She broke off with him, texted Roarke.

  It’s going down in about an hour. Going to brief the teams in about ten.

  She contacted the commander, finished up as Roarke’s response came through.

  I’m with you, Lieutenant.

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “I know it.”

  She took the photos Peabody generated to the board. Jones, Ho—primary targets. Then the lieutenants. As she arranged them, Eve studied them again.

  “This one here.” She tapped a photo. “Put a ring around him.”

  “Which one is that?” Peabody shifted to read the name on the ID shot. “Jorgenson.”

  “He’s the one I keep coming back to.”

  “Why him, especially?”

  “Duff. She’s flopping with him—she’s broke, a used-up, burned-out, whiny addict. Plenty of others who aren’t as far gone as she was, but he lets her flop with him. Connections, Peabody. She’s connected to Pickering, and Pickering had a soft spot for her.”

  “And still he cut her off.”

  “Yeah, which made her prime to pay him back.”

  “We’ll never be able to ask her,” Peabody said, “but yeah, that’s how I see it.”

  “The why for Jorgenson? Could be he got wind—through our pal Cohen—about how Jones is skimming, how he’s fattening his own accounts, separate from the gang. Jones started putting some hurt on Cohen’s take, so Cohen looks to someone who’d be grateful for some information, who’d be willing to take Jones out. Not directly. Jones has too much punch and pull. But you set the cops on him, shake some of that pull. Start a war—and if the cops don’t have Jones in a cage, he ends up a casualty of war.”

  “Then Jorgenson steps in—with the advantage of knowing where Jones has his money buried.”

  “And Cohen ends up owning all that property. Big win for him.”

  “It could play like that,” Peabody considered, “because Cohen lies and cheats like other people breathe. It’s like an involuntary reflex. But Lyle Pickering’s murder could track back to being Strong’s CI, and that getting out somehow. And then—”

  Peabody broke off when Strong came in. Both she and Eve let that end of the discussion die off.

  “I pulled five from my squad,” Strong told them, “and have a translator on tap in case any of the ones we pull in claim they don’t speak English. My team’s solid.”

  “Good enough. You’ll have an e-team and Tactical added on. Work with Peabody on the targets. We’ll hit Ho’s headquarters. If we don’t flush him out there, we hit his residence.”

  Baxter strolled in next. “Trueheart’s letting his mom know we’ll be late for dinner. Seriously,” he added when Eve frowned. “His mom invited me over for a home-cooked.”

  He got bad cop coffee from the conference room AutoChef, drank it while he studied the board. “Bad dudes—and one dudette, though wow, she is one big mama. This’ll be fun.”

  As the rest filed in, the room smelled of that bad cop coffee. When Jenkinson sat, she realized she’d managed to avoid looking directly at his madly pink polka dots over nuked green tie, until just that moment.

  Now her eyes vibrated.

  As they started to adjust, McNab bounced in along with Callendar and a couple more e-geeks dressed like circus performers.

  Even when she closed her newly vibrating eyes, colors pulsed behind them.

  Feeney shuffled in, soothing in wrinkled beige and brown. Then Commander Whitney with SWAT commander Lowenbaum. She gave everybody a moment to settle, then stepped up to the board.

  “This will be a two-pronged operation. Detective Strong will head the team targeting this individual. George Ho, aka Fan Ho, is a leader of the Dragons organization. At this time he’s charged with aggravated assault and threats to cause bodily harm. It’s very likely there will be additional charges pending. Detective Strong’s team will be assisted by EDD and Tactical. All team members will wear vests and helmets. This is a dangerous, violent individual. Assume he’s armed, assume any with him are also armed and dangerous.

  “Peabody, Dragon HQ on-screen.”

  She outlined positions, timing, added three experienced uniforms to Strong’s team.

  “Detective Strong, anything to add?”

  “Yes, sir, a couple of things.”

  Roarke slipped in while Strong added some details.

  He leaned against the back wall, watched his cop run the briefing as Strong finished up.

  “My team will take Banger HQ and this primary target. Marcus Jones, aka Slice. He leads the gang. He’s charged with conspiracy to kidnap, enforced imprisonment of a minor, witness intimidation. Also charged with destruction of property, attempted murder in ordering said property—with an individual inside—firebombed. There are numerous federal charges in addition. We’re also looking for a male, indeterminate age and race. He snaps his fingers.”

  “‘He snaps his fingers’?” Reineke repeated.

  Eve demonstrated, holding her arms at her sides. “It’s all we’ve got. He’s a suspect in three murders. These five.” She gestured to the lieutenants—four males, one female. “We bring them in. But this one.” She pinned a finger to Jorgenson. “Kenneth Jorgenson, aka Bolt. He leads my parade on suspicion of ordering those three murders. Jones, Jorgenson, all of them are dangerous, violent. Assume they’re armed. My team will be assisted by EDD and Tactical.”

  She nodded to Peabody, who brought Banger HQ on-screen.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go.”

  It fascinated Roarke how she, like a general with a map, placed her troops, laid out the tactics, the steps, the timing.

  She may not have the focus to run accessories on her own command center, but she knew how to plan and plot an operation.

  He studied those troops as well, the attention paid, the slight nodding of Feeney’s head as if saying: Yeah, that’s how to bring it in.

  Then he turned his attention to her board. She wanted Jones for a multitude of reasons, but not, he thought, for the murders that had brought them all to this point.

  As a businessman, he agreed. Wars could be profitable, true enough, but a war in this case risked exposing the more lucrative business Jones had with Cohen.

  He wouldn’t want that, Roarke concluded. What Jones wanted was the status quo. Murders and swipes at a rival gang shook the status quo.

  But an ambitious lieutenant, perhaps a bloodthirsty one, wanted nothing more than to upend that status quo.

  He placed her pick easily enough as the one giving Duff a bed in exchange for sex, the one who’d said she’d gone to work on the night of her murder.

  Which, in turn, linked him with the woman who’d set Pickering up for murder before her own brutal death.

  And simple equations, he thou
ght, often proved simple truths.

  “Lieutenant Lowenbaum?”

  He rose, took up a laser pointer to indicate on the map where he’d place his special weapons teams at both locations.

  “Captain Feeney,” Eve said, “I’ll need you to split into two teams.”

  “Got that covered. I’ll take Callendar and Stipper into Chinatown. That gives you Roarke, McNab, and Marley in the Bowery. We’ll get you numbers and locations inside both buildings before you move in.”

  “That works. If anybody’s got questions, now’s the time. Then suit up,” she said. “Full riot gear. Teams coordinate in the garage, level five, section one. Let’s go kick some gangster ass.”

  As teams filed out, Peabody moved to her. “The magic coat counts, right, instead of a vest?”

  “Button it, and keep it buttoned. And check out a clutch piece and an ankle holster.”

  “Okay. Prepare for the worst?”

  “We’re going to corner them. All of them are violent. Some of them are stupid. A lot of them are both. They’ve likely got some sort of protocol to handle a raid, and I don’t think it’s putting their hands in the air and saying we give up.”

  “So, worst.”

  “Get a clutch piece and a helmet,” Eve repeated.

  “For you, too.”

  “The helmet.” Man, she hated them. “I’ve got a clutch piece. And a third helmet for the civilian consultant, and a sidearm. We’ll take my ride, meet up with McNab and the van.”

  Eve walked to Roarke. “You’re on e’s, but you still gear up. Peabody’s checking you out a helmet and a sidearm.”

  His lifted brows said it all.

  “Use the department weapon if you’re called to use one. Simplify. Don’t take off your coat.”

  “And yours?”

  “I’m going to get it.”

  “Then I’ll walk with you.”

  “You’ll ride with McNab,” she told him as they started for her office. “Peabody and I will meet you.”

  “I missed the first part of the briefing, but I assume you got what you wanted from Cohen.”

  “I got a lie, and that’s going to sink him. He fingered Jones, and it’s not Jones.” In her office, she put on her coat. “Unless I’m way off, Jones doesn’t want a war or exposure, and the murders flirt with both.”