Connections in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “The shoulder?”

  “Better—honest. Louise said it’ll be sore, and I won’t have full range of motion for a couple days. She gave me some exercises to do to help that. I banged my hip pretty good, but that’s better, too, and bright side, I figure I banged it pretty good because I don’t have as much padding as I did. Loose pants.”

  “The rest?”

  “Just some bumps and bruises, I swear. She’ll tell you the same. And if I can just say, boss, you look worse than I do.”

  “Concrete biceps on Zeus to the face. It might not look pretty, but it doesn’t require desk duty.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “You’ve got the interview assignments,” Eve interrupted. “You can do those sitting down. When we nail them, Peabody, and we will nail them, you’re riding the desk for the rest of the week, or until your doctor clears you for active.”

  “I knew you were going to say that,” Peabody muttered.

  “Then you should have already had your pouting time. And I want your word—don’t fuck with me—that if you need a break, you tell me. This is the long haul. You need a break during the haul, you take one.”

  “I’m not sitting in Interview with my leg up on a chair like some invalid.”

  “No, you’re not. So you take breaks as needed.”

  “Okay, deal. No bullshit, and no fucking with you.”

  “Then let’s go. We take Washington first.”

  “Snapper. I reviewed the report, his sheet.”

  “I need you to start out good cop. Once we get a sense of him, get a rhythm, you adjust as you go, as you think, but start out sympathetic.”

  “Lull him, got it.”

  Eve stopped outside of Interview when she saw Mira.

  “I’ll be in and out of Observation,” Mira told her. “I’ll help when and where I can. I’ve cleared as much of my schedule as possible.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “Good luck.”

  With Peabody, Eve stepped into Interview. “Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview with Washington, Denby, on the matter of case files…” She paused, consulting her file, as if she needed to, then ran them through for the record.

  “Y’all cops look beat-up.” He grinned when he said it.

  He had a hulking build, not as big as Aimes, but the sort who spent a lot of his time bulking up because he thought it made him look tough.

  It didn’t.

  Acne scars sprinkled over his dark skin. His short dreads had fading red tips, and his jaw carried an impressive bruise from Roarke’s fist.

  His data set his age at eighteen. He looked younger—until you saw the mean in his eyes. That read old and bitter.

  “You, too, Denby,” Eve said as she sat.

  “This here’s from police brutality. I be suing first chance.”

  “Is that so? Strange, the record very clearly shows you incurred that injury while attempting to jack a police vehicle—while armed. That’s one of the charges pending against you.”

  “Bullshit charge.”

  Below the table, his fingers snapped. Eve could hear the snap, snap, snap.

  “I’m trying to warn the van people shit’s going down, and dude sucker punched me, that’s what.”

  “So when you were shouting—on the record—” Once again she consulted her file. “‘Get the fuck out the van or I kill you motherfuckers,’ you were warning them? Because it sounds, clearly, like a threat to do bodily harm.”

  “That weren’t me. Somebody else.”

  “It was confusing out there,” Peabody began.

  “Damn right. Shit’s going down, and I’m just trying to get clear and warn people. I’m just walking down the street, and shit’s going down.”

  “You were inside the building,” Eve said flatly. “That’s also on record. Inside, Washington, you lying sack, and when the shit went down, you ran outside like a coward.”

  “I ain’t no coward, bitch.” Now his hands jumped to the table in fists, and those old, bitter eyes flamed hot. “You take these cuffs off me, and we’ll see who’s the coward.”

  “Mr. Washington.” In that reasonable tone, Peabody soothed. “We’re trying to straighten out what did happen. It’s best if you try to stay calm.”

  Shifting, Washington tried making his case directly to Peabody. “I run in to see what shit’s going down, then I ran on out to warn people. That’s it.”

  “You were attempting to keep bystanders out of danger.”

  “Yeah, like that.” He shifted back to Eve. “Nobody calls the Snapper a coward. I don’t run from nothing and nobody.”

  “Are you a member of the urban gang known as the Bangers?” Eve asked.

  “Shit, yeah, and Bangers don’t take no shit from anybody, don’t take no shit from cops, sure don’t take it from beat-up girl cops.”

  “As a member of said urban gang, have you engaged in any criminal activity?”

  “We just living, that’s all.”

  “Does ‘just living’ include possessing, distributing, selling illegal substances?”

  “Don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Several thousand dollars’ worth of illegal substances were confiscated from the building that serves as Banger headquarters.”

  “Cops plant it there.”

  “Did they also plant the equipment and supplies used to generate false identification and to commit identity theft?”

  “Don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Did you, as a member of the aforesaid urban gang, participate in coercing residents and shopkeepers in your area to make payments to you or other members under the threat of property damage or personal injury?”

  “Nuh-uh, people, they pay us to protect them. We keep people safe ’cause cops is wheeze.”

  Eve sat back. “You’re off the streets, you’re going in a cage. We have officers out right now in your neighborhood taking statements from people you threatened, coerced, intimidated, and physically harmed for profit.”

  “They liars.”

  “If you were protecting them,” Peabody said helpfully, “they’ll be grateful and say so.”

  “They know what’s good for them they will.”

  Now Eve pushed forward. “What’re you going to do, asshole, when they say how it really was?”

  “People make trouble for me, I make trouble for them, got that? And I ain’t afraid of going inside. I get out again.”

  “You think?” Eve took Rochelle’s earrings out of the file, then Lyle’s earbuds, set the evidence bags on the table. “Where’d you get these?”

  “Bought those buds.”

  “Where?”

  “Off the street. Some guy.”

  “Funny, some guy didn’t leave his prints on them. You did, and Lyle Pickering—to whom these are registered—did.”

  “Don’t know no Pickering. I bought those buds.”

  “When?”

  “Like, last week.”

  “Are you that stupid? I just told you these were registered to Pickering, have his prints on them. And I can pull in a half dozen witnesses to attest he had these buds on his person the day he was murdered.”

  “They lie. I bought those buds last week from some guy.”

  “How about the earrings? Did you buy them from the same guy?”

  She watched those old, bitter eyes try to calculate the best answer. “Never seen ’em before.”

  “They were in your pocket when you were processed. Keep lying, just keep lying.”

  “What’s it to you?” Snap, snap, snap went his fingers. “I found them. No law against finding some stupid earrings.”

  “There is when you find them inside a drawer in an apartment you entered for the purpose of killing Lyle Pickering. There’s a really big law against premeditated murder. The sort that sends you to a concrete cage off-planet for the rest of your ugly life. Coward.”

  “Fuck you. I don’t kill nobody. I don’t know no Pickering.
I bought them buds off some guy. I found them earrings on the street. You can’t prove no otherwise.”

  “Then how did your prints get inside Lyle Pickering’s apartment?”

  “Didn’t leave no prints. We sealed up.”

  Idiots, Eve thought, a bunch of idiots, and this one might win top prize for falling for that line so easily.

  “You sealed up before going in the apartment to kill Pickering. Who used the syringe on him?”

  His fingers snapped faster, faster.

  “It matters, Denby,” Peabody said, earnest, almost kind. “If you didn’t actually use the syringe, it could matter in the charges.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have to talk to you no more.”

  “Lying coward.” Eve shoved up, looked into those bitter eyes, saw the flare of hate and pride. “You used Dinnie Duff to get inside, and inside you attacked Pickering, stuck him with a tranq because you’re a coward and wouldn’t take him on man-to-man. Then you pumped him full of Go, overdosed him because you hated he was better than you.”

  He tried a lunge, but the restraints held him. “Motherfucker wasn’t better than me. He got no loyalty, he turn his back on his family. Got no reason to live, got no right. Bolt says take him down ’cause Slice is too weak to do it, we take his ass down.”

  “Bolt, aka Kenneth Jorgenson, ordered you to kill Lyle Pickering?”

  “Bitch cop trying to mess me up, but I did what had to be. Ain’t no coward. I take on anybody comes at me,” he spat out. “I take you on and we see who gets messed up.”

  “And did Bolt tell you how to do it? How to do what had to be? You, Barry Aimes, Burke Chesterfield.”

  “Fist and Ticker,” Peabody said helpfully.

  “Fist gotta prove himself, don’t he, he wants to be a Banger. Ticker, too. Gotta prove worthy.”

  “By killing Pickering.”

  “Turned his back on his family. We took him out. I ain’t afraid to say so.”

  “Dinnie Duff let you, Aimes, and Chesterfield into the apartment.”

  “She Bolt’s bitch, so does what she told.”

  “And did she help you kill Pickering?”

  “Don’t need no bitch to help. Gonna mess you up.” He snapped and rocked. “Mess you up good. Show you what bitches is for.”

  In the zone, Eve thought, she had him in that hate-filled pride zone. “So you sent her out. Only you, Chesterfield, and Aimes murdered Lyle Pickering.”

  “Executed, bitch. You feel? What had to be.”

  “Where was Pickering when you went inside to execute him?”

  “In the kitchen. Fist, he gets a good hold, and Ticker jabs him with the takedown juice. I say that part’s bullshit, and we should mess a fucker up, but Bolt, he says we gonna make it look like he OD’d. Like he was a liar.”

  “Who gave you the illegals to plant in the apartment?”

  “Bolt can get what he wants. Man ought to be leading the Bangers. We put the junk in the fucker’s room like Bolt say to do.”

  “What did you take from Lyle’s bedroom?”

  “Just some coin, man. Not like he could spend it.” He snickered.

  “Where were the buds?”

  “In his pocket. He don’t need ’em no more.”

  “And from the other bedroom?”

  “Just some glitters, who cares? Fist, he liked this red purse. Thought he might trade it for getting laid. Boy’s a dumb shit.”

  “Why did you kill Dinnie Duff?”

  He sat for a moment, snapping.

  “She helped you out,” Eve reminded him. “Helped you do what had to be.”

  “Bolt say she whining. How she didn’t know we gonna kill him or nothing. How she maybe tell Slice, maybe the cops. She Bolt’s bitch, but she whining about cops? That ain’t loyalty, man.”

  “You had to stop her,” Peabody said. “She wasn’t being loyal to Bolt of the Bangers.”

  “Bitch high all the time, run her mouth everywhere. So Bolt say we got to take her out.”

  “To beat and rape her in the neutral zone,” Eve prompted.

  “Ain’t no rape. Bitch puts out for anybody anytime. We just take what she gives anyway.”

  “And beat her to death.”

  He shrugged. “Slice don’t have the balls to take on the Dragons, to take back our turf. We take her out, we get the war. But even then, he’s got no balls! He’s the coward.”

  “So you need to push harder,” Eve continued. “Why Fist? Why kill him?”

  “His bad luck is all. Bolt don’t think he’s got what it takes, and how he’s stupid with it, right? And lazy. Stupid and lazy don’t make Bangers. We do him and do him good, me and Ticker and Bolt, and me and Ticker dump his lazy ass right on that fucker Fan Ho’s door. That’s what we did.”

  He bared his teeth at Eve. “Ain’t no one take on Fan Ho like that before. No one but us.”

  She worked the details out of him, the murder itself, the transportation of the body. When he’d finished, he sat back, sneered at her.

  “Who’s a coward now, bitch?”

  “I think you’ll answer that for yourself after a couple years in a cage on Omega. Denby Washington, you are hereby charged with murder in the first, three counts, and other charges related to those crimes. You will be reprocessed and transported to Riker’s to await your day in court. Dallas and Peabody exiting Interview. Record off.”

  “You think I’m afraid?” he shouted after them. “I ain’t afraid of nothing.”

  After Eve signaled uniforms to take Washington, Peabody hissed out a breath.

  “He gave us everything. Everything. We didn’t even have to push that hard.”

  “Because he’s not just stupid, he’s proud of what he did. He flipped on the others, but doesn’t see it that way. He sees them being proud of it all, too. Take a break.”

  “I’m good, really.”

  “Take one anyway. I need to check in with the other teams, see if the lab’s come through on the DNA before we have Chesterfield brought up.”

  One down, Eve thought, and walked into Observation to check the status.

  20

  Dealing with Burke Chesterfield took under an hour. Another big guy with his straw-colored hair worn in a stiff, high crown, a tat of a tear at the inside corner of his right eye, he started off Interview with a smirk.

  Eve deduced that the cartoon bomb, fuse lit and sparking, on the side of his throat explained his street name.

  He didn’t have his murder partner’s old, bitter eyes, but instead a flat emptiness she’d seen in stone-cold killers far too often.

  “Our information indicates you’re not yet a member of the Bangers.”

  Smirk turned to sneer. “Shows what you know.”

  “All right. When were you initiated?”

  “It’s coming, soon as I get out of this shithole.”

  Eve nodded as she continued to skim through the file. “So that’s never—because you’re going from this shithole to another shithole for the rest of your life.”

  “You got nothing on me. I walk today.”

  Eve plucked the crime scene still of Aimes out of the file. “How well did you know Barry Aimes, also known as Fist?”

  “Don’t know who that is.”

  “So you weren’t well acquainted before you both, along with Denby Washington, also known as Snapper, entered Lyle Pickering’s apartment with the aid of Dinnie Duff and killed him?”

  For an instant shock cut through the empty eyes. Shock, Eve thought, that she’d connected him to the murder.

  “Don’t know nothing about no murder. Me and Snapper was playing round ball down the lot when that dude got down.”

  “Oh, you were with Mr. Washington,” Peabody said helpfully.

  “That’s what I said. Ask, he’ll tell you.”

  “We did.” Peabody smiled now. “We’ve already interviewed Mr. Washington. You didn’t mention…” Peabody frowned, leaned over to look at the file. “Right. A Kenneth J
orgenson.”

  “That’s right.” A hint of the smirk came back. “Bolt’s there, too. We played some Horse.”

  “That’s interesting. Detective Peabody, why don’t we play back the portion of the interview with Washington that relates to Mr. Chesterfield’s whereabouts and activities at the time in question.”

  “Sure. Just let me cue that up.”

  Peabody engaged the miniscreen.

  Eve watched Chesterfield watch Washington give details, brag, and boast. Angry color flooded his face, then ebbed to ghastly white.

  “He’s lying.”

  “Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he tell us he was playing basketball with you and Jorgenson?”

  “’Cause he’s a liar.”

  “So he’s lying about killing Pickering because … he wants to spend his life in prison?”

  “I don’t know what he did. He says do me a solid and say how I’m playing round ball with you, so I said how he was.”

  “Now you’re saying he wasn’t—that you lied.”

  “I did him a solid.”

  “Why would he implicate you after you did him a solid?”

  “Fucker’s crazy.” Obviously warming to the theme, Chesterfield jabbed a finger at the miniscreen. “Hates me. Always looking to get me in the shit.”

  Arranging her face in a considering frown, Eve nodded. “So, he hates you, gets you in the shit, but you do him a solid over a murder? You’re a very compassionate soul, I take it. So compassionate you pumped Lyle Pickering full of a killing dose of illegals to prove yourself worthy to be a Banger. Then stole his shoes. His Lightning high-tops.”

  “Those are my high-tops you assholes took from me. I bought them last week.”

  “A lot of buying going on last week,” Eve remarked to Peabody. “A lot of buying—earbuds and high-tops—with Lyle Pickering’s prints.”

  Something like inspiration lit on his face. “I bought them off Snapper.”

  “Right, the one who likes getting you in the shit, but you do solids for.”