by J. D. Robb
“Did you see what they looked like?”
“Not so much. Except they were white guys, both of them. I could see their hands, and a little bit of their faces, and they were white. I didn’t really see faces, couldn’t from the angle up there. But I remembered how I thought, ‘Look at the beef,’ and how they walked, side-by-side, almost like they were marching. Not talking or anything, like you do if you’re out walking with a pal late at night. Just one, two, three, four, all the way to the corner.”
“Which corner?”
“Um, west, toward Riverside.”
“What were they wearing?”
“Okay, I’ve thought about this, really hard. Black, top to toe, with—what do they call those wooly hats you pull down on your head?”
“Watch cap?”
“Yeah, yeah! Like that. And they each had a bag, long strap, cross-body. I like to watch people, especially if they don’t know. And they really were built.”
“How old were they?”
“I don’t know. Honest. I didn’t see their faces. They had those caps pulled down, and hell, I was checking the bods. But the other thing I thought later? I never heard them. I mean, they didn’t just not talk, I didn’t hear their footsteps. If I hadn’t gone over to the rail just as they were passing below, I’d never have known they were down there.”
“Let’s go up to the roof, Hildy.” Eve got to her feet. “Take us through it again.”
It’s a break,” Peabody said when they were out on the sidewalk again. Eve was staring up at the roof. “Not much of one, but a break.”
“It’s details. And details count.” She walked back down to the Swisher house, looked up toward the roof where they’d recently stood with Hildy. “Probably would have seen her, if they’d looked. Seen her standing up there, or the silhouette of her, when they got closer. But they were done, confident. Maybe scanned the street, yet careful to keep out of the brightest beams of the security lights. Walked—marched. No hurry, but disciplined—to the corner of Riverside. Had a ride somewhere, you bet they did. Legally parked, street or lot. Street’s better, no paperwork of any kind if you snag a street spot, but you can’t count on finding a space, so maybe a lot.”
“Stolen ride?” Peabody suggested.
“Be stupid. Stupid because it leaves a trail. You steal something, the owner gets pissy and reports it. Maybe take a vehicle out of long-term somewhere, put it back. But why? You’ve got all this equipment, expensive equipment. You’ve got money or backing. You’ve got a ride of your own. It won’t be anything flashy.” She rocked back and forth on her heels. “Nothing that catches the eye, and the driver obeys all traffic regs.”
She walked west as she visualized it. “Do the job, walk out, walk away. No hurry, no noise. Eyes tracking left and right—that’s training. Don’t think to look up, though, and that’s sloppy. Just a little sloppy, or cocky. Or under it, they were revved from the kill. Pro or not, you’ve got to get a little revved. Walk straight down, no conversation. Go straight to the ride, no detours. Stow the bags for later cleaning or destruction. Back to HQ.”
“Headquarters?”
“Bet that’s how they referred to it. Someplace to be debriefed, or to exchange their war stories, to practice, to clean up. And I’ll bet you it’s squared away.”
She had their scent. She knew it wasn’t a logical term, but it was the right term. She had their scent, and she would track it until she had them.
She stood on the corner of Eighty-first and Riverside, looking north, and south, and further west. How far had they walked? she wondered. How many people had seen them walking away from that death house, fresh blood in their bags?
Just a couple of guys heading home after a quick night’s work.
“Tag Baxter,” Eve ordered. “I want some names.”
Her name was Meredith Newman, and she was overworked and underpaid. She’d be happy to tell you so, given the opportunity. Though she liked to think of herself as a contemporary martyr, long suffering and sweating blood for the cause.
Once, in her younger days, she’d visualized herself as a crusader, and had worked and studied with the fervor of the converted. But then a year on the job had become two, and two had become five, and the caseloads, the misery and uselessness of them, took their toll.
In her private fantasies, she’d meet a handsome, sexy man, swimming in money. She’d quit. Never have to drag herself through the endless paperwork, the disheartening home checks. Never have to see another battered woman or child.
But until that fine day, it was business as usual.
Now she was heading toward a routine home check, where she fully expected to find the two kids filthy, the mother stoned or on her way toward oblivion. She’d lost hope that it would ever be any different. She’d lost the will to care. The number of people who eventually turned themselves around and became decent, contributing members of society was about one in fifty, in her estimation.
And she always seemed to pull the other forty-nine.
Her feet hurt because she’d been stupid enough to buy a pair of new shoes, which she couldn’t afford. Not on her salary. She was depressed because the man she’d been seeing on and off for five weeks had told her she depressed him, and had broken things off.
She was thirty-three years old, single, no boyfriend, a joke of a social life, and so sick and tired of her job she wanted to kill herself.
She walked with her head down, as was her habit, because she didn’t want to see the dirt, the grime, the people.
She hated Alphabet City, hated the men who loitered in doorways and rubbed their crotches when she passed by. She hated the smell of garbage—urban perfume—and the noise. Engines, horns, voices, machinery all pulsing against her ear drums.
Her vacation wasn’t scheduled for eight weeks, three days, twelve hours. She didn’t know if she could make it. Hell, her next day off was three days away, and she didn’t know if she could make that.
She wouldn’t.
She didn’t pay any attention to the squeal of brakes, just more of the cacophony of the city she’d come to loathe like a wasting disease.
The little shoulder bump was just another annoyance, just more of the innate rudeness that infected everyone who lived in this shit hole.
Then her head spun, and her vision went gray. She felt, as if in a dream, the sensation of being lifted off her feet and thrown. Even when she landed in the back of the van, with the tape slapped over her face and her eyes, it didn’t seem real. Her body had barely registered the need to scream when the faint nudge of a pressure syringe had her going under.
By midafternoon, Eve and Peabody had spoken with three of Keelie Swisher’s clients and two of her husband’s. They were working geographically and took another of Keelie’s next.
Jan Uger was a hefty woman who smoked three herbals during their twenty-minute interview. When she wasn’t puffing, she was sucking on one of the brightly colored candy drops in a dish beside her chair.
Her hair was done up in a huge glossy ball, as if someone had slicked it up, around, then sprayed it with silicone. She had long jowls, a trio of chins, sallow skin. And a pisser of an attitude.
“A quack.” She puffed, jabbed with her smoking herbal. “That’s what she was. Said she couldn’t help me if I didn’t keep up the regimen. What am I, in Christing boot camp?”
“You were, at one time,” Eve prompted.
“Did three years, regular Army. Where I met my Stu. He put in fifteen, serving our country. I spent those years being a good Army wife and raising two kids. Was the kids put the weight on me,” she claimed and chose another candy. “I tried diets, but I’ve got a condition.”
Which was, Eve decided, the inability to stop putting things in her mouth.
“Our insurance doesn’t cover body sculpting.” She worked the candy around in her mouth, gave it a couple of good crunches. “Cheapskates. Except on the provision you see a licensed nutritionist for six months, and they sign off for you. So,
that’s what I did, went to that quack, listened to her bullshit. And what happened?”
She sucked so hard on the candy in her fury, Eve wondered it didn’t lodge in her throat and choke her to death.
“I’ll tell you what happened. I gained four pounds in two months. Not that Stu minds. More to love, is what he says. But I did the drill, and would she sign off? No, she would not!”
“You had a problem with that.”
“Damn right. She said I didn’t qualify. Who was she to say? What skin off her nose is it to sign the damn paper so my insurance will foot the bill? People like that make me sick.”
She lit another cigarette, scowled through smoke that smelled like burning mint.
“You argued with Mrs. Swisher?”
“Told her just what I thought of her and her Christing regimen, and said I was going to sue. Would have, but her husband’s a damn lawyer, so what’s the point? Everybody knows they stick together like a pile of shit. Sorry they’re dead, though,” she added as an afterthought.
“Your husband’s retired military now, and employed with . . .” Eve pretended to check her notes.
“He’s security at the Sky Mall. Hard to live on retirement, plus my Stu, he likes to get out and do a job. Better insurance there, too. He works there another eighteen months, and I can get the sculpting, on them.”
Keep eating, sister, and it’s going to take more than sculpting. It’s going to take an airjack to whittle you down. “Meanwhile, you were both very dissatisfied with Mrs. Swisher.”
“Of course we were. She took our hard-earned money and did nothing for it.”
“That’s upsetting, and feeling unable to sue successfully, you must have wanted to be recompensed in some other way.”
“Told everybody I knew she was a Christing quack.” Her triple chins wagged with satisfaction. “I got plenty of friends, and so does Stu.”
“If it’d been me, I’d have wanted something more personal, more tangible. Maybe you and your husband went to Mr. or Mrs. Swisher to complain, to demand your money back.”
“No point.”
“Was your husband home last night? Between one and three a.m.?”
“Where else would he be at one o’clock in the morning?” she asked hotly. “What is this?”
“A homicide investigation. Your husband’s military records indicate he was an MP.”
“Eight years. So what?”
“I wonder, when he complained to his buddies about Mrs. Swisher’s treatment of you, they must have gotten heated up—on your account.”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you? You’d think. But people don’t have much sympathy for a woman with my condition.”
“That’s a shame. You don’t have any friends, or relatives, who could front you the money for the body work?”
“Shit.” She blew out smoke, reached for another candy. “Who are we going to know with that kind of money? I was an Army brat, and my father died serving his country when I was sixteen. Stu’s family’s mostly factory workers out in Ohio. You know what sculpting costs?” she demanded. Then she swept her gaze over Eve, curled her lip. “How much did it cost you?”
Eve paused outside the building. “Do you think I should’ve been insulted?” she wondered. “The ‘how much did it cost you’ crack?”
“She probably meant it as a kind of compliment. But still, I’ve got a great-aunt who’s half French and I was sort of insulted with Mrs. Grentz’s French cracks.” She slid into the vehicle. “This one gets checked off.”
“Yeah. No way she’s smart enough, no way they have the resources. Husband’s military record’s clean, and even the MP stint wouldn’t give him the kind of training we’re after. And he’s too old, too weighty himself according to his ID data.”
“Could just be pulling the strings, but—”
“Right. Hard to believe anyone married to her, living in a place full of smoke and candy, is disciplined and clever enough to outline an operation like this one.”
“Or working as a security drone at the mall, chasing off kids, mostly. Bad-mouthing and complaining, that’s what these people do.”
“And they don’t kill off an entire family because they’re pissed off at somebody. No,” Eve agreed. “She was irritating, and he’s likely the same, but they’re not masterminds or cold-blooded kid killers.”
“You know what else? I don’t think whoever did this, or is behind it, made any noise. I mean, none of this, I’ll-sue-your-quack-ass business. I know we have to check those out, but that’s not going to be the hit.”
Eve kept her attention on the road as she drove. “Why?”
“Because he has to think ahead, right? Has to be controlled and organized. Whenever this happened—I mean whatever it was that made him target these people—he had to pull it out. Because he’d have been thinking payback. Someday, somehow. But you don’t leave a trail.”
Now Eve turned her head. “My pride in you bubbles in my heart. Unless it’s that soy dog you talked me into earlier.”
“Gosh, Dallas, a blush rises to my cheeks. Unless that, too, is the soy dog.” She thumped a fist on her chest, gave a small, somehow ladylike belch. “Guess it was the dog.”
“Now that we’ve established that, let’s have the next on the list.”
Peabody called up the list, the next name, the location, and the directions from the dash menu. Then leaned forward, stroking the dash and crooning. “Nice vehicle, pretty vehicle. Smart vehicle.” She slid her gaze toward Eve. “And who got the nice, pretty, smart vehicle for us?”
“You’ve already milked that one, Peabody.”
“Yeah but—Aww, and see, look at its little ’link beeping.”
Shaking her head, Eve answered the beep. “Dallas.”
“A little tit for tat coming your way,” Nadine said, “so don’t forget it. Scanner picked up a snatch-and-grab report. Female on Avenue B, tossed in the back of a van quick as a wink.”
“Unless she’s dead, she’s not my table. Sorry.”
“Cold, cruel, true. Thing is, one of the witnesses recognized her, and actually bothered to say so to the uniforms responding. Said she was a social worker named Meredith Newman. I get wind of that and I think, hey, isn’t that the name of—”
“The CPS drone on the Swisher case.”
“I’m heading down there, to do some interviews. Thought you’d want to know.”
“We’re on our way. Don’t talk to anybody on scene, Nadine. I need a shot first. You’re going to give me tit,” she added when Nadine’s mouth opened. “Don’t be stingy with it.”
She broke off, whipped around a corner, and headed south.
8
EVE SPOTTED THE CHANNEL 75 VAN PARKED IN a loading zone on Avenue B. She whipped by it, then double-parked beside the black-and-white already at the curb.
She spotted Nadine as well—it was hard not to when the perfectly streaked hair and the vivid royal blue of the reporter’s on-air suit sprang out like an exotic bloom against the faded forest of dingy shirts and smudgy concrete.
She was cozied up with a trio of the daily doorway lurkers but peeled off toward Eve.
“I never said I wouldn’t ask questions,” Nadine said immediately. “But I’ve kept it off record. For now. Your uniform’s inside with the woman who claims to have seen the grab and recognized the grabee. Hi, Peabody. How are you feeling?”
“Better and better, thanks.”
Eve sent a hard stare at the van. “Keep the cameras off.”
“Public street,” Nadine began. “Public—”
“Nadine, do you know why I often give you an inside track? Because it’s not just the story with you. You actually give more than a passing thought to the people in the story. And you wouldn’t, not even for ratings, sacrifice those people to get your pretty face on air.”
Nadine blew out a long breath. “Shit.”
“Keep the cameras off,” Eve repeated and strode toward the lingering lurkers. “What did you see?” she bega
n. “What do you know?”
The skinniest of the lot, a mixed-race stick with a pitted complexion, grinned—illustrating that his dental care was slightly below the standard of his skin care—and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“Detective Peabody.” Eve spoke in mild tones, her eyes cold as a shark’s. “In your professional opinion, did this individual, who has possibly witnessed a crime, just solicit a member of the NYPSD for a bribe in exchange for information regarding that crime?”
“That does appear to be the case, Lieutenant.”
“Me and my ’sociates need some jack. You give, you gets.”
“And, Detective, what would be my most usual response to such a solicitation?”
“Your response, Lieutenant, would be to haul said individual, and possibly his associates, into Central, possibly charged with obstruction of justice and impeding a police investigation. You would also determine if subject and/or his associates had sheets. If so, you would then spend considerable time ruining their day and potentially making their lives, for the short-term at least, a stinking hell.”
“That’s exactly correct, Detective. Thank you. You catch any of that, asshole?”
He actually looked hurt. “No jack?”
“That is also exactly correct. Now I’ll repeat: What did you see, what do you know?”
“You gonna take me in I don’t say?”
“Two correct answers in a row. Want to try for three?”
“Well, shit. I seen the big nose sluffling along, coming along looking like she smell something she don’t like. Ain’t worth two looks, but we just hanging, so I start to give her a blow. Then the van thing, it flies up. Fast! And the two dudes, they pop out the back. Got one on each sida her. Lifts her up, toss her in, slam, bam, gone. We and my ’sociates, we’da taken them on but they was rat fast, man. You gets?”