Connections in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “It’s not going to help you to threaten police officers, on the record, during Interview.” Eve let out a huge sigh. “Boy, that felt good. Anyway, I repeat, police officers. Investigators. Freaking murder cops, dumb-ass. And if you think your suggestion that we need some rat-fucking gangbanger to help us close murder cases isn’t hilarious, well, you need more humor in your life.”

  “We’ve made those arrests already,” Peabody said helpfully. “But thanks for the offer.”

  “You tried to say I did the murders.”

  “See, we do stuff like that. Plus,” Eve added, “some of the individuals we charged did claim it was on you. So we like to clear all that up, make it tidy.”

  “We know you didn’t kill Pickering, Duff, or Aimes. You’re not on the hook for those.”

  “True,” Eve confirmed. “Three of your soldiers—well, I guess Aimes was a wannabe—and one of your lieutenants, they’re on the hook. And your lawyer—disbarred lawyer—as accessory before and after the fact. They did it right under your nose.”

  “You’re lying, trying to mess us up. It’s Fan Ho and his did them. None of my people do nothing without my say.”

  “Really? So nobody shakes down the locals, does illegals deals, runs the sex operation, and so on without your go?”

  “I run the Bangers, bitch.” All derision, all defiance, Jones leaned forward again. “You get that?”

  “Oh yeah. I get that, but it seems some haven’t been real happy with your brand of leadership.”

  “They wanted to, you know, shake things up. Give you some incentive,” Peabody explained. “So you’d call for war.”

  “You wouldn’t take any action against Pickering, and he’d turned his back on the gang, he was getting his tat removed, living the straight life. Somebody didn’t like how you handled that, and somebody got in a position to use Duff to set Pickering up.”

  “Let him guess who,” Peabody urged, shoulders wiggling. “Let him guess, Dallas. I think I can see a glimmer.”

  “If Bolt went against me, he’s a dead man.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Eve waved that away. “Lots of dead man threats with you guys. Bolt figures Snapper and Ticker are dead men for rolling on him—they did the actual murders, with Fist. Well, Fist didn’t have much choice in his own murder. They turned on you, Jones. Duff, too. Fist and Duff paid a hard price for it already. And Bolt’s hoping to make you a dead man—he’d hoped to take you out in the war he wanted. But now it’s more personal.”

  “We might’ve let slip about you skimming from the gang pool, about hosing the gang for rent on the building.” Peabody looked at Eve, pressed her fingers to her grin. “Oops.”

  “See, being investigators, we didn’t have any trouble finding your lame-ass secret rooms, and being the NYPS-fucking-D, we have a whole division who gets off on going through electronics, records.”

  “That’s my personal shit. You can’t go into my personal shit. That’s against my civil rights.”

  “Is that what your lawyer told you? Shows you what you get with one who’s been disbarred. And one who got a little irked when you cut his take, so he threw in with Bolt. They tried to set you up. We’re just smarter than they are.”

  “Doesn’t take much. We’re not charging him for the skimming, are we?” Peabody wondered.

  “We’ll leave some of that to the feds. We have a whole pile of statements and evidence, Jones, that—with recent exceptions due to dissent in your ranks—corroborates your claim that nothing goes down without your say-so. Like enlisting minors as runners, as recruits, and as bag boys by threatening their families. Beating and raping mothers. Forcing minor girls into the sex trade. Kidnapping the minor child of a previous victim to force her to recant, and lots more.”

  “You can’t prove any of it.”

  “Oh, yes, we can. And already have in many cases.” Eve shifted forward, spoke conversationally. “Do you know what a major raid and the resulting media coverage does? It brings people who’ve been afraid out, so they speak out. I’m going to tell you, you’re not very well liked in your little neighborhood.”

  Peabody picked up the rhythm. “They’re lined up to give statements, and to sweeten it, a lot of your gang, or those threatened into working for it, are rolling and flipping faster than we can log it in.”

  Peabody mimed wiping sweat off her forehead. “Whew! It’s been a day!”

  “And all this before the feds take their bite.” Eve glanced at her wrist unit. “Cohen’s spilling those guts about now. We don’t need anything from you, Slice. You’re done. You’ve got nothing left. No property, no money, no gang. And you can forget about Aruba.”

  “I’ll get it back.”

  She could see him trembling now. Maybe some came from rage, betrayal-lit rage, maybe some was despair at the loss of everything.

  “No, you won’t. You’re not going down for these three murders, but there are others you ordered, others you committed.” Eve tapped her file. “And they’re all right in here. Names, dates, methods, motives. You stole from them, you cheated them, you betrayed them. And once we showed them you had—and how—hell, they rolled on you like a flood.

  “So.” Eve opened the file. “We’re going to talk about all of them. Every last one of them.”

  She had to send Peabody out, not only to take a break as the interview ran on, but to let Kyung know he needed to push the media conference to seventeen hundred.

  By the time she wrapped, Jones had long since stopped trembling. He’d fallen back on pride—and that rage. She saw the murder in his eyes, and thought it would be frustrating he had no place to put it.

  “And that,” Eve said as she sent him to maximum with two guards, “is how it’s done.”

  “I appreciate the break, but I’m really glad I got back for the finish.”

  “Take another. We’ve got about twenty before we have to talk to the media.”

  “He copped to it all,” Peabody said as they walked out. “I didn’t expect him to cop to it all.”

  “Under the skin he’s the same as Bolt. The same as Fan Ho. Gang pride. He did what had to be done as he sees it.”

  “He stole from his own people.”

  “He wasn’t going to end up like his father, brain damaged in a cage. If Bolt had pulled this off, taken over? I bet down the road he’d figure he deserved a little more, and a little more. I need coffee,” she said, then saw Roarke come out of Observation.

  “You made it.”

  “I did, yes, about a half hour ago. It was more than worth it. And how’s my girl?” he asked and kissed Peabody’s bruised cheek.

  “Aw. I’m okay.”

  “She needs to put the knee up, and I need coffee before we deal with the damn PR portion of the day.”

  Roarke gave Peabody a gentle pat before he walked with Eve to her office.

  “That’s already started. I also had some entertainment watching Nadine’s report before I got here. They’re replaying it, or clips of it. It’s the lead story, and I expect will be for a while.”

  “Good.”

  He moved to the AutoChef, so Eve went to her skinny window, stared out at the world.

  “Sit.” As he had with Peabody, Roarke gave her a gentle pat. “Drink your coffee, take your twenty.”

  “I’ve been sitting all damn day in a chair in the box. One after another, and none of them worth a bucket of piss. None of them much smarter than that, either.”

  “Where will these less than buckets of piss spend the rest of their lives?”

  She drank coffee, looking for the jolt to get her through the next phase. “In cages. Reo and I talked some, and will again, but I’m going to push off-planet for Washington, Chesterfield, and Jorgenson. Jones, like Cohen, will do cage time in federal facilities. Separate. No point giving Jones an opportunity to cut Cohen’s sentence short by shanking him.”

  “And yet you still have some of that sad in you.”

  “I’ll shake it out. In the end, the system worked
. And now there are a couple of neighborhoods and the people in them who’ll be safer. My team worked this top to bottom, inside and out. Every interview I’ve reviewed…”

  She drank more coffee. “Well, it’s good work. Mira said she might write a paper on it.” Now she turned to him. “We gutted two gangs. Gutted them. No leadership left now, and when the word spreads—and it damn well will—about the cheating, the betrayals, the lack of what they’d think of as honor and loyalty?” She shook her head. “They’re done. Something else will spring up, that’s the world. But the system will keep working.”

  He leaned down to kiss her because, whether she’d admit it or not, she needed it.

  Strong stepped into the doorway. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Not at all.” Roarke eased back. “Coffee?”

  “I, ah…”

  “Why don’t you get that, Lieutenant? I’m going to check on Peabody.”

  When Roarke stepped out, Strong still hesitated. “I didn’t mean to chase him off.”

  “You didn’t.” Eve handed Strong the coffee.

  “Thanks. I wanted a couple minutes before the media briefing.”

  “You’ve got it. I reviewed your interview with Ho. You worked him well. He’s smarter than most of them, but he’s got that quick trigger. You figured how to play him.”

  “He’s got a little skim of polish, and under it, he’s the most vicious bastard I’ve ever had in the box. Anyway, I got the word you wrapped Bolt, Snapper, and Ticker. Jones, too, but he wasn’t—”

  She broke off to look at the board. “He wasn’t part of killing Lyle.”

  “No. And the ones that did bought concrete cages on Omega. They didn’t kill him because he was your CI, Strong.”

  Strong’s head snapped around, then she lowered into the visitor’s chair. “You’re sure?”

  “I am. They didn’t know, and that tells me you were both good at it. I gave them every opening, and if they’d known, they’d have taken it. It would’ve made more sense, given them some screwed-up prestige if that had been the motive. It wasn’t.”

  “Then why?”

  “Jorgenson ordered it to undermine Jones, to take a personal shot at Jones, and because it just pissed him off that Lyle walked away. The others, just following orders, proving their worth. Review the interviews.”

  “I will. If it had been because of working with me, I’d have to live with it. I’ve been working on how I would.”

  She stared down into her coffee a moment, then looked up. “I really liked him, Dallas, and I respected him. Is it worse that they killed him for nothing? Really for nothing?”

  She’d asked herself the same question, and had no answer.

  “We’re cops. We live with that every day. His family knows now, but you might want to talk to them.”

  “I will. I want to thank you, Lieutenant, for bringing me into this, for giving me a part of it.”

  “He was yours.”

  “Yeah.” Strong rose. “Yeah, he was.” She started out, stopped in the doorway. “We still have his two-year chip in Evidence. Do you think if I had it put in a nice box, like a memorial, his family would like it?”

  “I think they’d appreciate it. I’ll clear you signing it out.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you at the briefing.”

  Eve took her last few minutes alone, looking out her skinny window at the world.

  * * *

  The briefing ran long; then again, any media briefing more than five minutes struck Eve as long. Chief Tibble spoke first after making a point, as was his way, of thanking every officer involved in the arrests. Whitney followed him, speaking briefly, with both of them stating questions would wait until the end of the statements.

  When it came to Eve, she took her place at the podium with her PPC in one hand. “The NYPSD, through the work, skill, and courage of the officers here, and with the cooperation and resources of the FBI, have made multiple arrests, confiscated many thousands of dollars’ worth of illegals, of weapons, of fraudulent IDs and the equipment used for creating them. Our EDD has reviewed data from confiscated electronics documenting crimes including murder, the enforced sex slavery of minors, extortion, illegals distribution, destruction of property, fraud, and other crimes perpetrated by members of the urban gangs known as the Bangers and the Dragons.

  “These investigations launched with the murder of Lyle Pickering. His murder didn’t get much media attention. He was a former member of the Bangers, an ex-con, a recovering addict. He was also a man who rehabilitated himself, who learned a skill and used that skill to gain employment, who went to meetings, removed himself from his former gang ties, and lived a productive life. For these reasons members of his former gang plotted and carried out his murder.

  “The investigation into Lyle Pickering’s murder, and the subsequent murders of two others involved in it, led to the arrest of these individuals.

  “Kenneth Jorgenson, murder in the first, three counts. Assault on a police officer, one charge; possession of a deadly weapon, two charges.

  “Denby Washington, murder in the first, three counts. First degree rape, one charge. Possession of stolen property, two charges; possession of illegal substances, one charge.”

  She read them off, every one.

  When she finished and stepped back, questions exploded. Tibble held up his hands, moved forward, took the first wave. Kyung caught her eye, nodded, murmured, “Well done, Lieutenant.”

  Maybe, she thought, maybe. But she couldn’t yet shake out the sad.

  When it finally ended, she let Roarke drive, and sat back, eyes closed. Roarke gave her silence. He thought she needed the quiet, and a bit of pampering. But he had an idea what might help lift that sadness that crowded her.

  When he stopped the car, she sat up, opened her eyes. And frowned.

  “I wanted a stop before home,” he told her.

  “I was just thinking about a really big glass of wine.”

  “We’ll get to that, but first.”

  He got out, waited for her. She didn’t know how the hell he’d found a parking place, but that was Roarke.

  Then as she joined him on the sidewalk, the fog cleared in her brain, and she realized they stood in Hell’s Kitchen.

  The building still looked old, she noted, but in a classy, dignified way with its bricks cleaned and repointed, with new windows that would undoubtedly let in light.

  He’d replaced the entrance doors with ones of deeply carved wood. Above them, a simple brass plaque.

  “An Didean. ‘Haven,’ right? It works.”

  “Let’s see what you think of the rest.”

  He moved to the doors. Excellent security, of course. She took the two steps up to join him.

  “I know you’ll think of the girls we found,” he said before he opened the door. “The ones you found justice for. I hope what we’ve done here, what we’ll do, might add some peace as well.”

  She remembered what she’d seen before, the crumbling interior, dirty walls, the hole in one of them Roarke’s sledgehammer—ceremoniously—had opened.

  And the remains of those young girls behind it.

  Now, as Roarke called for lights, she saw a clean, fresh space, with walls a warm, sort of toasty color, with open archways leading to other rooms and spaces.

  “You changed the—” She used her hands.

  “Configuration, yes. It’s more open, I think more welcoming. And even so, should be more efficient. Over here we have a common area, a place students can relax, hang. We’ll have a screen in here, easy furniture, games, music, books. We have another common area, no screen, a quiet space for studying, doing assignments, reading, and that sort of thing. Some classrooms on this level, and administration offices.”

  She wandered with him, and what she saw equaled a lot of thought, a lot of care. Warm colors—not dull or institutional—the touches of crown molding, good lighting.

  A room for computer science, a room for art studies, one for group therapy sessions, a s
maller one for individual therapy.

  A decent gym with a locker room and showers. Showers, she noted, with actual partitions between.

  “It seems bigger,” she commented.

  “The configuration. It was considerably chopped up before. With this more open plan, it doesn’t feel confining. The main kitchen,” he said.

  She could only stare. It was sleek and shining, as she would have expected. Yet it felt … homey. The colors? she wondered. The configuration again? Or did he just have some magic?

  Maybe all of that.

  “We have a nutritionist on staff, but she’s not so strict they won’t be allowed, well, happy food. And they can learn how to prepare their own in the classroom kitchen.”

  Smaller, but no less shiny, with a couple of island-type work spaces, a generous storage space—pantry, she remembered.

  “I’ve asked Summerset if he’d come in and instruct now and again.”

  Her jaw actually dropped. “You— Summerset?”

  “The man can cook, you’ll agree. And he enjoys children.”

  “Summerset,” she murmured as he led her back through, then up the new stairs.

  Wide ones with sturdy rails.

  He showed her bedrooms, each one with windows, with closets, with built-in study areas. She toured a game room, a space for music lessons, and one for dance.

  She stopped, more than a little overwhelmed by what he’d done.

  “When I was in school, state school, I marked the days. I swear to Christ, I marked the days from the time I went in until I could get out. I can look back and see it wasn’t all bad. I learned things. It wasn’t all terrible. But I marked the days,” Eve recalled.

  She paused to run her fingers over a wide windowsill.

  “No privacy, no sense of self. You either ate what they put in front of you, when they put it in front of you, or you went hungry. The walls were the color of … They didn’t have a color. One shower area for girls, one for boys. And both open, you know? No privacy. When I could, I’d sneak out in the middle of the night to shower.

  “I marked the days,” she said again. “The kids who come here won’t. Unless they’re serious hard cases, they won’t mark the days until they can escape. It’ll matter what you’ve done here, and what they’re given the chance to do.”