Delusion in Death

9

They were under five blocks away when Dispatch notified Eve. She hit the lights and sirens.

“Run the owner,” she ordered Peabody. “Now.” And soared up to vertical to skim over vehicles with no respect for a cop running hot.

She took a right, hard, blasted the horn as a clutch of pedestrians swarmed the sidewalk. They scattered like ants, and as she bored through, a woman in needle-heeled boots and towering blond hair took the opportunity to flip her the finger.

And thanks for your support, Eve thought.

“Privately owned,” Peabody called out, voice cracking only a little as Eve skinned by a loaded maxibus. “Greenbaum Family LLC.”

“Building, too.”

Eve slammed the brakes, fishtailing as she squealed to a stop. She jumped out, and into pandemonium.

She spotted two uniforms and a beat droid scrambling to secure the scene, tape off the area from the crowd. People shouted, pushed. A couple of guys wrestled and rolled on the ground, trying to land punches. She saw a woman huddled on the sidewalk, weeping hysterically as another woman tried to comfort her. A man lay flat out while another administered CPR.

Several stood or sat, bleeding, eyes dazed.

Through the open door she saw the heaps and tangles of bodies—including the one facedown half in, half out of the café.

“Get that barricade up. Peabody, call for MTs.”

“We got them coming,” one of the uniforms shouted. “We called for more backup, Lieutenant.”

“For Christ’s sake.” She grabbed one wrestling man by the shirt collar, dodged a flailing fist, didn’t quite dodge a jabbing elbow to the ribs. “Peabody, goddamn it!” She managed to get a boot on the chest of the second man, rocked as he bucked. “Stop! Cut it out or I swear to God I’ll knock your empty heads together.”

She ignored the expected versions of “He started it.”

“Make a move, and you’re in restraints and headed for a holding tank. One move. Don’t test me.”

Ribs throbbing, she turned. “Listen up! I said, listen up!” Laying a hand on the butt of her weapon, she raised her voice over the din of the crowd. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. You will not cross the barricade. You will cease and desist any attempt to interfere with these officers or you will be arrested and charged with hampering an investigation, creating a public nuisance, obstruction of justice and anything else I can toss in to screw up the rest of your day.”

“People are hurt!” someone screamed.

“Medicals are on the way.”

“Fucking cops stunned unarmed people. I saw it. I recorded it.” He waved his ’link like a trophy.

“And I’m here to determine what happened. My partner will take your statement.”

“Then cover it up. Fucking cops.”

Enough, Eve decided, and stared hard into the bystander’s eyes. “Pal, I’ve got people bleeding on the ground and officers in harm’s way. Record this.” She held up her badge. “That’s Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Get the badge number? This fucking cop is telling you to clam it until my partner takes your statement. If you continue to attempt to incite a riot you’ll be restrained and charged, and transported to Central.”

When he opened his mouth again, her eyes went to ice. “Go ahead, say something. Once you do, get ready to tag a lawyer.”

She waited until he broke eye contact and stared at the ground.

“Officers will take statements, but anyone who’s a doctor or medical professional please step forward, and this officer will enlist your aid for any wounded. Call in the rest of the team. Start talking to people,” she told Peabody. “Get statements, keep them talking, and make sure you confiscate that asshole’s ’link for evidence.”

“Yes, sir, and won’t that be a joy.”

“Who owns the damn building?”

“Not Roarke.”

“Small blessings. Keep that line secured,” she ordered the droid. “And you”—she gestured toward the second uniform—“report.”

“We were on patrol and observed several individuals running from this location. One ran into our vehicle as we pulled to a stop. He stated people were killing each other inside Café West. We called it in, approached the scene.”

He took a breath.

“Lieutenant, when we opened the door it was crazy. People were lying on the floor getting trampled while other people were fighting. Bare hands, knives—Jesus—forks, broken glasses. People screaming, howling like animals. Some of them laughing like mental defectives.

“We called out warnings. Some of them came at us. That guy didn’t lie, sir. Some of them weren’t armed, but they were coming at us, and still going at each other. We had to deploy stunners.”

“Is there going to be anything on that asshole’s ’link vid you can’t stand up to, Officer?”

“No, sir, Lieutenant. No, sir.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Continue.”

“Okay. They’d go down, and more would come at us. I don’t know how many we stunned before we got some control, because some of them didn’t go down on the first stream. By the time we did, we had a riot brewing out here, with people who’d seen, some who’d started to go inside and got attacked before they managed to get out again.”

He nodded toward the black-and-whites that pulled up. “There’s backup. And the MTs.”

“What time did you stop at this location. Be precise.”

“Logged the stop at thirteen-eleven, sir.”

Fourteen minutes. Odds were they’d be clear.

“All right. Work with Detective Peabody. Get statements, names, contacts.”

She moved toward the arriving uniforms, snapped out orders.

“You—” She pointed at a pair of MTs. “I need you to start moving the wounded out. Seal up first. With me.”

She stepped inside, noted cracks and breaks in the entrance door. Might’ve saved some lives, she thought.

Beside her the MT sucked in his breath. “We’re going to need more transpo.”

“Get it.” She sealed up herself, moved carefully through the café, around bodies, crouching now and again to check for vitals.

She began to mark the dead as she had at the bar.

As she worked the moans began, and the weeping. A hard sound, she thought, and still, it meant life.

“Reineke and Jenkinson are on scene,” Peabody said as she came in. “They’re getting statements. I logged Mr. Costanza’s ’link into evidence. Watched it with him first. He sort of changed his tune when he viewed it with me. It clearly shows the officers under attack.”

“I’m not worried about that. Does it show anything we can use?”

“Not much. It’s from outside, on the sidewalk, but you can see people fighting inside, the movements, hear the screaming.”

She had to swallow. “It’s pretty awful.”

Peabody crouched as Eve had when someone reached up to her. “Help’s coming,” she comforted. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve got you now. They’ve got about a dozen wounded out, Dallas.”

“Smaller place, not as many people. Somebody smashed the glass in the front door. It may have helped dilute some of the agent.”

“Might be why so many people out there were ready to rumble.”

“That’s just New York. Forty-one dead. Start getting IDs, TOD, COD.”

She moved outside again. “Baxter, Trueheart, with Peabody.” She spotted McNab—a celery stick in his green cargos—ducking under the tape. “Inside,” she told him. “Start bagging electronics.”

She walked over to the comfortably rumpled Feeney. “Not as bad as the first. Smaller place, and they got outside air from the broken door, more when the cops broke in. I didn’t spot any cams inside. One on the front door, another on the alley exit, but I haven’t checked them.”

“We’ll take it.”

As Feeney glanced around, Eve noticed the dried blood smeared on the cuff of his trench coat. From yesterday, she realized. Only yesterday.

“I didn’t figure he’d hit again so fast,” Feeney said.

“And I figured when he hit again, he’d go bigger. So he goes faster and smaller. But he’s sticking to the same general area. Places he knows. People he knows?” she speculated. “Heavy on the business crowd again. Lots of dead suits in there.”

“Happy hour rush, lunch rush.” His basset hound eyes went grim. “He’s hitting prime times.”

“We haven’t got a line on him, Feeney. He’s scored over a hundred and twenty dead, and we haven’t got a line.”

“Start at the top, work it through again. There’s always something there, kid.”

“Yeah.” She let her gaze skim over the heads of the crowd to the buildings. Somewhere around here, she thought. You’re somewhere around here, you fuck.

Reineke jogged over. “Lieutenant, there’s somebody over here you’re going to want to talk to.”

She walked through the busy medicals to where Jenkinson stood with a plump blonde. Tears and tissues had smeared her eye makeup into black and lavender bruises. She wore New York black—jacket, sweater, pants, with short-heeled boots, and trembled as she bit at her nails.

“Lydia, this is Lieutenant Dallas.” Jenkinson used his trusted uncle tone. “I want you to tell her what you told me. Okay?”

“I’m—I’m looking for Cellie and Brenda. We were having lunch.”

“In Café West?”

Fresh tears swam in terrified brown eyes, spilling through the makeup bruises. “Yeah. In there. We were in there.”

Not a mark on her, Eve observed. “What time did you leave the café?”

“I’m not exactly sure. A little after one, I guess. We were having lunch.”

“What time did you get there?”

“I—we—Well, we left the office about twelve-thirty, but the elevator was really slow, so that took forever. But it’s only a little walk, maybe five minutes. And we got a table, ’cause they go fast. Then we went up to the counter to order. It’s faster that way. I got a salad, just a plain salad. A little one because I’m on a diet. I was in a bad mood because I was hungry, I guess. I was really bitchy with them, even when Cellie said I could have half her sandwich. I was bitchy, and I left.”

“They stayed to have lunch, and you left, just a little after one. Did you have a headache, Lydia?”

“How did you know? I started to get a headache, and I just wanted to leave. It was crowded and noisy, and I was hungry, and my head started to hurt. I walked out, and walked around. I felt kind of sick, then I felt better. I felt bad, you know, because I’d been so bitchy. I thought I should come back. Tell them I was sorry, walk back to the office with them. But the police were here, and people were yelling. People were hurt and crying, and I can’t find my friends.”

“We’ll look for them. You come here a lot, on your lunch hour?”

“Sure. It’s close, and the food’s good. But you have to get here before one, or you’re not going to get a table.”

“How did everything seem when you left?”

“Like usual, I guess.” Her eyes shifted, lowered, shifted again. “Except …”

“Except?”

“I looked back when I got to the door, and Brenda was looking at me, really mean. She’s not mean. I’ve never seen her look at anybody like that. It just made me so mad. I almost went back to the table. I wanted to punch her. I’ve never punched anybody. Now I can’t find her.”

“Reineke, get the full names of Lydia’s friends so we can find them.”

She signaled to Jenkinson, pulled him over. “I want her examined. Get her to the hospital, have them run a tox, examine her nasal passages, her throat. She won’t want to go. Convince her.”

“I’ll take care of it. How many, LT?”

“Forty-one. It looks like sixteen survivors, at this point. We may find more, like Lydia, who got out before it took a strong hold. Get her examined,” Eve repeated, and moved fast to find Feeney.

“I’ve got a time line,” she told him. “We got a wit who was in there with friends, but left—felt a headache coming on as she walked out. They got there approximately twelve-forty, and she left just after one. First on scene pulled up at thirteen-eleven. The vics inside were still infected.”

“It hit about the time your wit left. We’ll focus on twelve-thirty to one-fifteen, to cover it. Cams were operational. I’ll run the discs back at the house.”

“Run it with face recognition, using the faces we have leaving the bar or connected to vics.” She pushed at her hair. “We’ll bump the briefing until eighteen hundred.”

She scanned the street, the buildings. “He was here, Feeney. But he had to know about the cams. How could he risk popping on the security disc in both places? Can’t. He found another way to get it in this location—or both. Or there’s more than one of them, and they took turns. He had to leave about the same time the wit did. Hefty blonde, black pants and jacket. I want to see everyone coming and going about five minutes before up to five minutes after the wit.”

“I’m heading back now. Do you want to keep McNab?”

“If he’s got the electronics, take him with you. Otherwise I’ll send him in as soon as he has them all bagged.”

Baxter met her on her way back in. “They’re loading up the last of the survivors. We have fourteen from inside.”

“I counted sixteen.”

“Two didn’t make it. I peeled off to talk to a couple of them who were lucid enough. It’s running like the bar, Dallas. Having lunch, serving it or cooking it, headache, hallucinations, most with feelings of anger or fear along with the headache.”

“We’ve got one who got out, left with the headache.”

“Good.” He glanced toward the café, the blood on the sidewalk. “She’s lucky.”

He rooted in the pocket of his snazzy top coat—always the smart dresser, that Baxter. And came up with a PowerBar. “Want half?”

“No. Maybe. What kind is it?”

“Yogurt Crunch.”

“That’s a no.”

With a shrug he unwrapped it, bit in. “I’ve had worse. McNab and two e-geeks have most of the electronics. We’ve got IDs on the survivors, and about half the DBs so far.”

“Take Trueheart and what you’ve got, go back and start running the names. I want lists of anyone with employment at any of the businesses involved in the first incident. There’s going to be some cross. Another crossing the connections.”

It was going to come down to relationships and geography, she concluded. Who he knew and where he knew them.

“This is his comfort zone, his place. People tend to eat and shop in the same area, especially when they’re on a schedule. Look for businesses between the two crime scenes. Use a two-block radius on both ends, list who lives in that sector who’s connected to any survivor, any vic, or who we pin leaving either scene before the hit.”

Baxter took another bite of the bar, chewed thoughtfully. “It won’t be fast.”

“Get started. Briefing rescheduled for eighteen hundred.”

“LT.” Jenkinson hustled up. “Lydia’ll go in for exam, but I had to tell her Reineke and I would take her.”

“Get it done. Start interviewing survivors while you’re there. Briefing’s now at eighteen hundred. Don’t waste time.”

Taking her own advice, she moved fast, walked back into the building, and spotted Morris kneeling beside one of the dead.

“You didn’t have to come in,” she told him.

“You’ll want confirmation as quickly as possible you’re dealing with the same COD. There are tests I can run here.”

“And?”

“The same. I can give you solid confirmation within the hour, but it reads the same.”

She crouched down beside him. “We’re going to try to keep a lid on how and what. We won’t, not for long, but do what you can.”

“Depend on it.”

“I am.” Still crouched, she scanned the room. “Was it already planned? Both hits? Bang-bang. He went smaller. Impulse or planning? He’s not impulsive, so … Why this place?” She tracked the bodies. “Who in this place?”

As he understood she was thinking out loud, Morris remained silent.

“Is he a familiar face, a regular? I bet he is. Pleasant enough guy, knows how to interact, but it’s all surface. Probably speaks to the counter guy or the waitress whenever he comes in. Just a ‘How ya doing?’ kind of thing. He wants attention, to be noticed, remembered. But he’s just one of the many. Really just another customer here, and back at the bar. One of the many where he works? It’s not enough. Not nearly fucking enough, not for him, not with his brains, his potential. He’s not just one of the many. The suits and drones, the people who trudge through the workday. Goddamn it, he’s special. They’re beneath him, all of them. None of them matter, and still …”

She shook her head, continued to study the room. “Someone in here or something that happened in here mattered enough for this. Because it’s not random.

“He’s going to need to brag,” she decided. “You think the NYPSD worries me? Look what I can do, whenever I damn well please.” She pushed to her feet. “He’ll need us to know that.”

By the time she’d finished, rounded up Peabody, and gone back to Central, she had a new batch of photos for her board.

“Post these,” she told Peabody, “then check in with the lab.”

She moved straight into the bullpen, to Baxter’s desk.

“Still working on it,” he said before she could speak. “You were right. We’ve already found some vics who worked at the same places previous vics worked. Crossing survivors, too. There’s a decent percentage, so far, who live in the area you designated.”

“Any connections between the vics in the two locations? Personal connections.”

“Still working on it.”

“Bring in a couple of e-men Feeney picks to help you run it. And tell him I’m heading up to talk to Callendar.”

She went straight up. Easier to go to, she calculated, then to send for.

She pushed into the color and chaos of EDD, scanned the neons and patterns, the busy movements for Callendar. When she didn’t see her, Eve turned toward Feeney’s office.

One of the e-geeks jogged by her. “He’s in the lab.”

She veered out again, turned toward the e-lab. She saw Feeney hunkered at a station on one end of the big, glass-walled area, and Callendar standing, doing some sort of dance, in front of another.

“Yo, Dallas. Got some bits and pieces.” Callendar stopped dancing, gestured toward a screen. “Putting it together.”

“Anything I should know now?”

“Other than the Red Horse cult was full of crazy sickheads? Not so much, but I’m working on it. I dug up a handful of names—abducted kids who got out or were recovered. Moving on it.”

“Keep moving.”

Taking her literally, Callendar went back to dancing.

“What do you see?” she asked Feeney.

“Something that might be interesting.” He, too, gestured to a screen.

“See for yourself.”

She watched him play back the door security disc, noted the time stamp. The busy sidewalk, people moving, moving, moving. Then the woman—brown and brown, early twenties, in a Café West shirt, unzipped navy jacket—came into the frame. She stopped, grinned at someone to the left; her mouth moved as she called out something. And she waved as she walked inside.

“Time’s right,” Eve murmured.

“Yeah. It’s fourteen minutes, thirty-nine seconds after the wit and the two with her went in. Wit leaves …” He ran it forward, and Eve watched Lydia, her teeth clenched, her face rigid with fury, stomp out.

“Five minutes, fifty-eight seconds after the woman in the Café West shirt goes in. Gets bitchy, gets headache, gets out. Yeah, the time’s right.”

“I’m guessing if the wit had stayed inside another ten, twenty seconds, she wouldn’t be a wit.”

“Her lucky day. Go back to the woman going in. What’s she saying? Did you translate?”

“We don’t have her full face, but the program reads her lips at eighty-five percent probability.”

He ordered it up.

No prob. I’ll put it in for you.

“Okay. Do we have an ID on her?”

He toggled over to an ID shot. “Jeni Curve, twenty-one. Part-time delivery girl, part-time student. No priors, no shaky known associates. Shares an apartment with two other females. And she’s one of the vics. I checked.”

“She doesn’t look suicidal,” Eve speculated. “Doesn’t look homicidal. Not nervous, not gathering her courage.”

“I’ve got others. Nothing’s popping. Some in, some out, some alone, most with somebody. But your wit’s the last out before this.”

He ran it forward six minutes. Eve watched the café door shudder, and the spiderweb spread over the glass. Most people on the street just kept going, one or two flicked the door a glance.

And one man bustled up, working his PPC as he pulled open the door. Distracted, he started to step in, stopped, goggled, stumbled back out of camera range.

“He’s the one who called it in,” Feeney told her. “Now you’ve got this guy, paying less attention, pulls the door open, goes on in. See the door there?”

“Yeah. Looks like he tried getting the hell out again. He didn’t make it.”

“Not his lucky day,” Feeney commented.

“Jeni Curve.” Eve stood, studying the ID shot. “I’ll look into it. Did you ID the people who left between Curve going in, Lydia coming out? We may get something from them.”

“Shot the data down to your unit. I ran them—standard—nothing pops there either.”

“I’ll add them all to Baxter’s cross. I’ll put it in for you,” she repeated. “Curve doesn’t look crazy.”

“A lot of people who don’t are.”

“Ain’t that the fucking truth? Maybe. Maybe. I’ll dig down.”

Halfway on the route between EDD and Homicide, her comm signaled. “Dallas.”

“Lieutenant,” Whitney’s admin spoke briskly, “the commander needs you in his office, immediately.”

“On my way.”

She backtracked, grabbed an up-glide. Idly studied a couple of women with battered faces she made as street LCs. To her way of thinking their line of work was nearly as dicey as hers. You just never knew when some asshole would decide to punch you in the face.

In Whitney’s outer office, the admin merely signaled Eve to go straight in. Still she knocked briefly before stepping inside.

Whitney sat at his desk, his hands folded. Chief of Police Tibble, his long frame suited in black with subtle chalk stripes, stood at the window.

She didn’t know the third person, but made her as federal as quickly as she’d made the LCs on the glide.

She thought: Fuck, then settled into resignation.

It had to happen.

“Lieutenant Dallas,” Whitney began, “Agent Teasdale, HSO.”

“Agent.”

“Lieutenant.”

In the three or four beats of silence, they sized each other up.

Teasdale, a slight, delicate woman, wore her long, black hair slicked back in a tail. The forgettable black suit covered a compact body. Low-heeled black boots gleamed like mirrors. Her dark brown eyes tipped up slightly at the corners. The eyes and the porcelain complexion had Eve pegging her as mixed race, leaning Asian.

“The HSO, through Agent Teasdale, requests to be brought up to speed on the two incidents you’re investigating.”

“Requests?” Eve repeated.

“Requests,” Teasdale confirmed in a quiet voice. “Respectfully.” She spread her hands. “May we sit?”

“I like standing.”

“Very well. I understand you have reason to distrust, even resent HSO due to the events that occurred in the fall of last year.”

“Your assistant director was a traitor. Your Agent Bissel a murderer. Yeah, might be some lingering distrust.”

“As I said, this is understood. I have explained to your superiors the operatives and handlers who were involved in that unfortunate incident have been incarcerated. We have conducted a full and complete internal investigation.”

“Good for you.”

Teasdale’s placid expression never changed. “The NYPSD has also had some difficulties. Lieutenant Renee Oberman ran illegal activities, including murder, out of her department for many years before she was discovered, arrested, and incarcerated, along with the officers involved. Their dishonor doesn’t destroy the honor and purpose of the NYPSD.”

“I know who I’m working with here. I don’t know you.”

“A valid point. I’ve worked for the HSO for nine years. I was recruited while in graduate school. I specialize in domestic terrorism, and for the last four years have been based here in New York.”

“That’s great. We don’t believe we’re dealing with any individual or group with a political agenda. I’ll let you know when and if that changes.”

Teasdale smiled softly. “Politics isn’t the only basis for terrorist activities. The indiscriminate murder of multiple people in public settings is a kind of terrorism as well as homicide. I believe I can help you identify the person or persons responsible, and aid in your capture of same.”

“I have a solid team, Agent Teasdale.”

“Do you count among them a terrorist specialist with nine years of training? With nine years of field and laboratory experience? Who also holds advanced degrees in chemistry and who serves Homeland Security as an expert on chemical and biological warfare? You’re welcome to check my bona fides, Lieutenant, as I have yours. I’m useful.”

“Useful to the HSO.”

“Yes, and that doesn’t preclude my usefulness to you, your department, and your investigation. The request at this time is to consult and assist, not to overtake.”

“I can check your bona fides, but who do you work with, report to? And how long does ‘at this time’ run?”

“I’ll be working alone, as far as HSO contacts, and will report to, and only to, the head of the New York branch, Director Hurtz. You may or may not be aware that Director Hurtz, who moved into the position after the events of last fall, has been most directly responsible for the internal investigation that has led to several arrests and reassignments. I believe Chief Tibble and Director Hurtz are acquainted.”

“Yes.” Tibble spoke for the first time, his face as carefully schooled as Teasdale’s. “His personal request to me, and my acquaintance with him is the reason you’re here, Agent Teasdale. And as I related to Director Hurtz, your clearance to consult will be the lieutenant’s call.”

He held up a hand, in that quietly unarguable way he had to cut off her response. “I’m perfectly aware the HSO and the director can, by law and procedure, attach themselves to the investigation, or take it over. As I’m sure you’re aware, as is your director, that doing so will generate considerable difficulties, with relations between the NYPSD and HSO, and in the media.”

“Yes, sir, that’s very clear.”

“HSO has not endeared itself to the NYPSD, or anyone in this room save perhaps yourself. If not for my respect for Director Hurtz, I wouldn’t have taken Lieutenant Dallas’s valuable time for this discussion. It’s your call, Lieutenant. You’re free to take as much time as you need to make that call.”

“Can we have the room, sir?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Agent Teasdale. If you’ll excuse us.”

“Of course.”

She exited as quiet as smoke.

“Permission to speak frankly, sir.”

“Weren’t you?”

He had her there. “If Teasdale’s bona fides are as she states, and it would be monumentally stupid to lie, she’d be useful. I don’t like HSO. Some of that’s personal, some professional, and some because they’re pushy, arrogant, and tangled in so much red tape investigations are often strangled. I don’t trust them for all the same reasons, and more because they’ve shown that at the end of the day, the public results and opinions are more important than the victims and basic morality.”

She paused a moment, weighed it all. “But I trust you, sir. I trust both of you without question or hesitation. If you tell me you believe this Hurtz is clean, that you believe he’ll not only keep his focus on finding justice for those involved but also stay the hell out of my way—I’ll take her on.”

“I’ve known Chad Hurtz for fifteen years, and know him to be a man focused on securing the safety of the country, and I know him to be a man of his word. He’s playing this well, offering us one of his top people—and I’ve already checked her credentials. He’ll keep their involvement low-key, as long as possible.

“If you agree, he and I will remain in contact, and will share information, and consult on a point-by-point basis if this consultation and dual investigation has merit.”

She nodded, glanced at Whitney. “Commander?”

“If you refuse the assistance, I’ll back your decision. If you accept, I’ll make certain the terms remain as agreed upon.”

“Then she’s in. I’ll want to inform my team of the addition and the agreement. I need to get back to it.”

“You’re dismissed.”

Eve went to the door, opened it. “Briefing at eighteen hundred, conference room one, Homicide Division.”

Teasdale inclined her head. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

“Screw it up, you’re gone. No second chances for feds.”

Teasdale smiled again. “I’ve never needed a second chance.”

“Let’s hope you keep your record going,” Eve said briskly, and walked away.