Kindred In Death

20

THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE MEMORIAL, THE team in place, Eve watched the MacMasterses and a small group of others file off the elevator. She moved aside as Cates led them toward the suite for their private viewing.

But Carol MacMasters shook off her husband’s supporting arm and whirled on her.

“Why are you here?” she demanded. “Why aren’t you out there doing your job? Do you think we want you here, want your condolences? My baby is dead, and the monster who killed her is still out there. What good are you to us? What good are you?”

“Carol, stop. Stop now.”

“I won’t stop. I’ll never stop. It’s just another case to you, isn’t it? Just another file. What good are you? It’s all over the media that you have nothing. Nothing. What good are you?”

As she began to weep, the older man beside her pulled her to him. “Come on now, Carol, come on now. You need to sit down, you need to come with me.”

When he led her away, the others followed while MacMasters looked helplessly after them. “I apologize, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t.”

“She wouldn’t take a soother. She wouldn’t take anything to help her get through. I didn’t know she’d been watching the media reports until it was too late to stop her, and she’s too… too upset to understand. It’s partially my fault. In trying to comfort her I told her you’d have him before today. I know better. I hoped you would, but I…” He shook his head, turned into the room.

A moment later, Cates closed the double doors. Carol’s weeping battered against them like fists.

“She was wrong, Dallas,” Peabody said. “She was unfair.”

“Wrong maybe. Unfair’s a different thing.”

“But-”

“Focus on why we’re here.” She walked away from the door and the sound of weeping. “Feeney? Eyes on?”

“Eyes on,” he said through her earpiece. “Peabody’s right, you’re wrong. That’s all on that. Your man’s coming in. Whitney and his missus, the commissioner, some brass from Illegals. We’re getting deliveries, north side, pretty regular. Flowers, messengers, what I take are blowups of dead people. Couple stiffs carted into the basement.”

“Copy that. Keep me updated.” She waited until the elevator opened. “Commissioner Tibble, Commander, Mrs. Whitney. The MacMasterses are inside the suite for the family viewing.”

“We’ll wait.” Dark eyes hard, Tibble nodded. “Anything to report?”

“Not at this time, sir.”

“I hope your strategy justifies the beating we’re taking in the media.” He looked toward the closed doors. “And results in some closure for the captain and his wife.”

“We’ll take him if he shows, Commissioner, and I believe he will. Alternate plans are being formulated to apprehend him tomorrow if-”

“I don’t want to hear about alternate plans, Lieutenant. Your suspect is in custody this afternoon or the sketch is released.”

He turned and walked to the window at the end of the corridor.

“Your plan to make the investigation appear stalled has worked better than we could have anticipated,” Whitney told her. “We’re under a lot of pressure, Lieutenant.”

“Understood, sir.”

Whitney and his wife stepped away to speak to other arrivals.

“That’s not-”

Eve cut Peabody’s mutter off with a look. “Don’t say it’s unfair. I’m primary. I take the knock if there’s a knock coming. Check in with the rest of the team. We’re going to start filling up out here soon. I didn’t expect you to make it for this,” she said to Roarke.

“I adjusted a few things.” He glanced toward her commander, and the city’s top cop. “I’m glad I did, and might have some part in helping you finish this.”

“He’ll show. The probabilities say it, Mira says it, my gut says it. He’ll show, and we’ll box him in, take him down. Then while the department takes a short round of applause from the media god, I’ll have him in my box. And then…”

She stopped, took a couple of quiet breaths. “Okay. Okay. I’m a little pissed off.”

Roarke trailed a hand down her arm. “It looks good on you.”

“No room for that. No room. One set of prints on the playbill, no match in any database. We get him, we’ll match them, but it doesn’t help us get him.” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her black jacket. “Nadine and her amazing research team haven’t hit on any likelies on the security system clients.”

“I’ve got some ideas there I’m still working,” Roarke told her.

“Time’s running. It needs to be today.” She spotted Cates coming out of the adjoining parlor to speak to Whitney and his wife, then lead them, along with Tibble, inside.

“We’re green,” she announced.

She’d expected a large crowd-a lot of cops stopping to pay respects, and neighbors, Deena’s school friends, their families. But there were more than she’d anticipated.

She saw Jo Jennings and her family, the neighbor she’d spoken to on the morning of Deena’s murder. She saw cops she recognized, and many more she didn’t, but simply made as cops. Young, old, all in between. Dozens of teenagers mingled among the dress blues, the soft clothes.

More than one burst into tears and had to be led away while images of Deena played over the wall screen. Eve exchanged a look with Nadine across the room, but kept her distance.

She circled the room, again and again, studying faces, builds from different angles.

“Got another group approaching the main entrance,” Feeney said in her ear. “Eight-no nine-mixed male, female, age range about sixteen to eighteen. Hold on, hold on, another one’s moving in with them. Male, ball cap, shades, dark hair, right build. It’s… No, it’s not him.”

Whitney moved up beside her. “Students from Deena’s school were given permission to attend.” He answered Eve’s frustrated look with one of his own. “Jonah wasn’t aware Carol had arranged for it.”

“He hasn’t come in any of the entrances. We’d have made him. We’re only into the first hour.”

She watched Mira come in, then make her way through the crowd toward the grieving parents.

Too many cops, she thought, too many kids. She tracked staff as they offered little cups of water, thimble-sized cups of coffee or tea, or brought in yet more flowers.

The air in the room was overripe, a garden of grief.

People spilled onto the terrace, into both parlors, and their voices ebbed and flowed into a sea of sound. Through it she listened to team members report status through her earbud.

She started toward the terrace as much for some air as to do another sweep.

As she reached the doorway a crash had her whirling around. Screams, shouts exploded as the sea of sound became a sea of panic. She pushed, shoved her way through, shouting for status, status, and yanked out her communicator. In front of her, people went down in an avalanche of flailing bodies. A shove from behind pitched her violently forward, slam ming her down to her hands and knees. The communicator shot out of her fingers on impact, crunched under stampeding feet as she swore.

She took a blow to the eye, to the nose as she went down, another to the small of the back as she fought her way back to her feet in a tidal wave of people rushing for the exits.

Through the gaps she saw a couple of uniforms muscling a male to the floor. The ball cap he wore fell off, and his shaggy brown hair flopped forward.

Swiping blood off her face, she pushed forward again.

And she saw him, standing at the edge of the chaos, looking across the tumult of panic to the glossy white coffin blanketed with pink and purple flowers. She saw the man who’d put Deena MacMasters in that cold white coffin smile as he stared at the man who held his weeping wife beside it.

In seconds, the wall of people surged again, blocking both her view and her forward progress.

“Second-floor suite entrance. Main. Confirmed sighting.” A woman fell into her. Eve simply pushed her aside, plowed on. “Suspect is wearing a black suit, white shirt, staff ID. Goddamn it, goddamn it, move in.”

Only static sounded through her earpiece. And ahead of her, the doorway filled with fleeing people, forming a human barricade that cut her off.

She pushed, dragged, bulled while behind her she heard Whitney’s commanding voice demand order. Too late, she thought, too fucking late. When she made the corridor, she searched right, left, spotted Trueheart helping an elderly woman into a chair.

She reached over, grabbed him. “Suspect is wearing a black suit, white shirt, black tie, staff ID. Hair’s short, medium blond. Send it out. Now. Now. I want this building shut down. Nobody out.”

“Yes, sir.”

She rushed for the stairs, all but leaping down them, bursting into the foyer.

“Oh, your nose is bleeding, let me-”

“Did a male, early twenties, short hair, medium blond, staff suit and ID, come through here?”

The woman who’d greeted her on arrival stared at the blood on Eve’s face. “Ah, yes, I believe I just saw one of our assistants just-”

“Where did he go?”

“He just left. He looked as if he was in a hurry.”

Eve charged outside, scanned in every direction. She caught sight of the two cops she’d assigned to the main doors giving chase. Cursing, she leaped down to the sidewalk, kicking into a full-out sprint as she yanked out her ’link, patched through to Dispatch.

“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in foot pursuit of murder suspect heading north on Fifth at Fifty-eighth. White male, twenty-three, slim build, blond hair, wearing black suit, white shirt, black tie.”

She couldn’t see him, not through the wide stream of pedestrians flooding the sidewalk. She dodged, wove, eating up one block, then a second.

Even as she gained ground on the two cops, she knew it was fruitless. When she caught them at the cross street she didn’t need to hear their report. It was clear on their faces.

“We lost him, Lieutenant. He had a solid block on us when we got the alert, and he was moving fast. We barely caught sight of him. He just poofed in the crowd.”

“How’d he get by you?” she demanded. “How the hell did he get by you?”

“Lieutenant, we were on watch for incomings. Wired into the EDD guys keeping us up on any possibles heading in. This guy walked out with a small group of staff. We’d just gotten an alert there was a ruckus upstairs, that we’d taken the suspect down. There was a lag between that and the notification the suspect was posing as staff and on the loose. We pursued as soon as we got it. We were lucky to even catch sight of him before-”

She cut it off with a lift of her hand. “We’ll debrief this clusterfuck at Central. Report back to your unit and await orders.”

She clipped back, furious, her face throbbing, and only shook her head when she saw Roarke moving quickly north toward her.

“We lost him. Goddamn it.”

Roarke took a handkerchief out of his pocket, handed it to her. “Your nose is bleeding.”

“I got clocked twice, maybe more in that riot. Knocked out my com, trampled my communicator. And he walks right out, right under the noses of two cops. He did exactly what he’d come to do, and had the extra benefit of watching us act like morons. What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know.” He took her elbow to steer her through the Fifth Avenue throng. “I saw you go down, but by the time I was able to get through that mass of panic, you were gone. I came after you when Trueheart said you’d gone in pursuit.”

“A lot of good it did me. He was lost before I hit the sidewalk.”

As she approached the building, arrowing through the people congregating on the sidewalk, Peabody came down the main stairs.

“Gone,” Eve said.

“Damn it.” Peabody hissed out a breath, then winced at Eve’s face. “I thought I took a knock,” she said, tapping ginger fingers to the bruise on her cheek. “You took harder.”

“Let’s go clean this mess up. What do you know?” Eve demanded as they went back in.

“The best I can get is some hair-trigger tackled some kid, and another cop helped him wrestle the kid to the ground and restrain him. Panic ensued. We’ve got all parties in one of the private parlors upstairs. Baxter’s riding herd there. Whitney’s with the MacMasterses, and is to be advised when you’re back on site. We had to call in MTs. People got bruised and bloodied. We’ve got a really big mess, Dallas.”

“Clean up what you can on the periphery, and inform Whitney I’m talking to the officers and the civilian involved. My communicator’s toast.”

“Why don’t I speak to whoever manages this place,” Roarke suggested. “Smooth over what I can.”

“Couldn’t hurt. But I’m going to speak to him later. Son of a bitch.” Eve squared her shoulders and went up to the second level.

The scent of lilies and roses was stronger now, probably because so many of them lay trampled. She skirted around broken glass, puddles of water, to where Trueheart stood outside a door.

“We got the word on the suspect, Lieutenant. Sorry. Ah, Baxter has the two officers involved here, and the kid. We brought in an MT to look at the kid. He’s got some bruises.”

“Perfect. Just perfect.”

She stepped inside, closed the door at her back.

A male of about eighteen sat in a blinding-white chair while a grizzled MT checked his pupils.

“I’m okay,” the boy said. “Mostly just got the shit and the wind knocked out of me. I’m okay.”

“I get called to take a look atcha, I take a look atcha.”

The MT ran a wand over the bruise on the boy’s jaw.

Eve spared a glance toward the two cops slumped on a sofa of the same blinding white, flicked one to Baxter who rolled his eyes heavenward.

Yeah, she thought, call on that higher power. We’re going to need it.

“I’m Lieutenant Dallas,” she told the boy.

“Ah, yeah, hi. I’m Zach. Can I just get out of here now? I need to find Kelly. I came with Kelly. She went to school with the dead girl. I just came with Kelly because she was freaked about seeing the dead girl.”

“What’s Kelly’s full name?”

“Kelly Nims. Everything went whacked in there, and I don’t know if she’s okay.”

“Detective Baxter, have someone find Ms. Nims.”

“Yes, sir, right away.”

“Thanks. I’ll feel better once I know she’s frosted. We’re tight, and like I said, she was already freaked.”

He bore a surface resemblance to Pauley, she noted. The basic build, coloring, the shaggy hair. She noted the ball cap in his lap.

“Zach, I’d like to apologize for the unfortunate occurrences, and any inconvenience you’ve experienced. And also to assure you, I’ll look into this thoroughly and personally.”

“I was just standing there, then it’s like I got hit by a maxibus and I’m chewing carpet, and everybody’s yelling and running. I think somebody stepped on me. These guys, they put cuffs on me, and I could hear Kelly screaming. But the air’s knocked out of me, you know? I couldn’t do anything. It was weird, but…” He smiled a little. “Kind of iced, too. They said stuff about my rights and all. Am I supposed to call a lawyer?”

She hoped to hell he didn’t. Any lawyer worth a single billable hour would snatch him for a client and sue the department up the ass and out again.

“You’re not in any trouble, Zach. It was a mistake, a very regrettable one. Again, I hope you’ll accept my personal apology.”

“Sure. No big really.”

Baxter slipped back in. “Kelly’s fine, Zach. She’s waiting for you right outside.”

“Straight. So, can I go?”

“Is he clear?” Eve asked the MT.

“Got a couple knocks, that’s all.” The MT turned his gimlet eye on Eve. “You got worse.”

“If you’d give Detective Baxter your full name and contact information,” Eve told Zach, “the officer on the door will take you down to Kelly. If you have any questions, or any problems, you can reach me at Cop Central.”

“That’s a major.” He put his cap back on, rose. “It’s all been totally Dali.”

“At least. Baxter, lend me your recorder. Mine was damaged.” She took his, pinned it on.

“Want me to take a look at that face?” the MT asked.

“Not now.”

“Well.” He pulled a cold wrap out of his case, tossed it to her. “Get that on there anyway.”

She waited until both Zach and the MT left, then turned to the two cops.

“Engage recorder. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with two hotheaded fuckups who have managed to completely undermine a precisely organized operation and allow a murder suspect to stroll away.”

“Lieutenant-”

“You do not speak until so ordered.” Deliberately, she turned to the one who’d kept silent. “Name, rank, house, division.”

“Officer Glen Harrison, out of the One-Two-Five, assigned to Illegals under Captain MacMasters.”

“You, same data.”

“Officer Kyle Cunningham, out of the One-Two-Five, assigned to Illegals under Captain MacMasters.”

“And you two clowns decided to do my job for me today?”

“We came to pay our respects, offer our support to the captain and his wife. It’s all over how the investigation’s stalled.”

“Is it?” Eve said pleasantly while Harrison shut his eyes at his companion’s comment.

“That’s the word,” Cunningham said.

“And you decided to give the investigation a little momentum by manhandling a civilian, disrupting a memorial service, and causing general panic. During which time the actual suspect was able to elude those of us who are actually working the investigation.”

“The kid looked like him.”

Her eyes went to slits. “And how do you know that, Officer Cunningham? Just how have you come by any descriptive data on the suspect?”

“Word gets around.”

“So, on one hand word gets around that the investigation is stalled, and on the other word gets around that we have a description of a suspect. You decide to join those hands together and fuck up my op. A man who’s killed two people is now in the wind due to your actions. The investigation is compromised, the department is now vulnerable to a civil suit not only from a kid you tossed to the ground, but from this establishment, and any other individuals who may have been injured or just decide to claim emotional hardship. You assholes.”

“Look, I don’t have to take this.” Cunningham surged up. “I got a look at the sketch, and the kid looked like him, even dressed like he did. I acted, which is more than Homicide’s been doing since the captain’s girl got raped and murdered Sunday.”

Eve stepped forward. “Sit your fat ass down or I’ll put it down.”

“Like to see you try.”

“Cunningham, for Christ’s sake, for Christ’s sake.” Still on the sofa, Harrison rubbed a hand over his face.

“Officer Cunningham, you’ve earned yourself a thirty-day rip for insubordination. Further determination of your status will be determined. You will sit when I tell you to sit, or you’ll be looking at sixty days right off the top.”

“The captain’s my boss,” he said, but he sat.

“And I am your superior-in so many ways. But yeah, the captain’s your boss. Your actions today have destroyed an operation that could have-damn well would have-seen to it that the man who raped and murdered Deena MacMasters was in custody right fucking now. Who showed you the sketch?”

Cunningham jutted up his chin. “I don’t say nothing more until I have my rep.”

“Your choice.” She looked at Harrison. “You?”

“I didn’t see the sketch, LT. I heard about it, but I didn’t see it. Cunningham took the kid down, shouted out he had the bastard and needed assistance. I assisted.”

“Write it up, call your reps. Get out of my sight.”

When they filed out, Baxter came over, took the cold wrap, twisted to activate. “Use it. Your eye’s going black.”

She twisted, imagining for one happy moment the cold wrap was Cunningham’s neck. “Jesus Christ, Baxter.”

“We’re in the soup, and goddamn. I’d kick Cunningham’s ass, but it’s a waste of time. For what it’s worth, I got a decent view on how it went-and it went quick. Harrison’s telling it straight. He moved in to assist another officer. I can’t see hanging him for it.”

“That won’t be up to me.”

“I’d just caught sight of the bastard. Pauley. Just made him, then the place went up like somebody yelled ‘bomb.’ I couldn’t get to him, got pushed back, trapped in a corner. Trueheart carried some old woman out of it. She got knocked cold. We had him, Dallas. We’d’ve had him.”

“Means jack now.” She dragged her hand through her hair. “And now I have to go get my ass fried like I just fried Cunningham’s.”

“It’s not right. Not fucking right.”

“My op. My soup.”

Peabody was waiting when Eve stepped out. “The commander’s in the meditation room, this level. We can go over now.”

“I’ll go over. Inform the team we’ll debrief at the conference room in one hour.”

“I’ll inform the team, and we’ll go over. You’re rank, but we’re partners. I’m in this, too.”

“No point in both of us getting our asses kicked over it.”

“There is to me.”

“Fine. It’s your ass.”

“Every square inch. Trueheart! Inform the team we debrief in one hour at Central, conference room. It’s heady to outrank someone,” Peabody said as they continued on. “At least I outrank him for the moment.”

“Whitney’s not going to bust you down to uniform. One of us leaked the sketch, and my money’s on a uniform there. So, after we’re roasted, we do some roasting ourselves. Either way, it comes down to a FUBAR on this op.”

She stopped outside of the meditation room. “Last chance.”

“No. I’m in.” Peabody opened the door herself.

Jonah and Carol MacMasters sat together on a small sofa. From her chair, Anna Whitney leaned forward and poured tea from a delicate pot into delicate cups. Whitney turned from the window.

“We’ll speak elsewhere,” he said, but before he could move away from the window, Carol sprang up.

“How could you let this happen? How could you? At Deena’s memorial?”

“Carol, stop. Stop.” MacMasters got to his feet.

“It’s a disgrace.”

“Yes, it is.” He took his wife by the shoulders. “And it was my men who caused it, not the lieutenant’s. It was my men.”

“Regardless of that, this was my operation,” Eve said, “and my responsibility. I have no excuse, Mrs. MacMasters, and my apologies are hardly adequate.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Her eyes burned with a fury Eve imagined hurt less than grief. “You take responsibility?”

“No, but it’s all I have. I should be standing here telling you I have the man who killed your daughter in custody, and I’m not. Nothing I say can mean anything to you.”

“Carol.” Anna put the teapot down. “You’ve been a cop’s wife too long to do this. You’ve been a cop’s wife long enough to know everything that can be done is being done, and that lashing out at the lieutenant doesn’t help Deena.” She stood. “Now, come with me. We’ll go sit with Deena while this is sorted out.”

She led Carol out, closed the door quietly behind her.

“Lieutenant,” Whitney said coolly, “report.”

She did so just as coolly and in careful detail. When she spoke of Harrison and Cunningham, MacMasters rested his head in his hands.

“Who leaked it?” Whitney demanded.

“I’ll debrief within the hour, sir. I will have that information within an hour and five.”

“I expect you to have better control of your team, Lieutenant. I expect you to have the judgment and control to prevent this sort of leak in an operation under your command.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jack.” MacMasters spoke wearily. “They were my men.”

“And as the lieutenant correctly stated, this was her op, and her responsibility.” Whitney turned his gaze pointedly to Eve. “Lieutenant, I’ll need a full evaluation and written report, tonight.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll refine the team according to that evaluation, and present you with a detailed overview of the alternate operation to apprehend the suspect tomorrow with the Mimotos’s cooperation.”

“If you expect me to sell not releasing Darrin Pauley’s sketch and some salient information to the public via the media to the commissioner, you’d better sell it to me.”

“If we release the sketch, let him know we’re close, he’ll be in the wind.” He could already be in the wind, she thought. And that was a hard, hot ball in her belly.

“He’s young,” she continued, calmly, firmly, “and he’s patient. He can afford to wait, a year, five years before moving on another target if he goes rabbit now. He may select another. He’ll alter his looks-which he was cautious enough to modify today-use his skill in ID fraud to take another identity, or series of them, and settle back until Deena and Karlene Robins are forgotten, until the other known targets are no longer protected.”

“She’s right, Jack.” MacMasters held up a hand, let it fall. “Dallas was right about him coming here today. She’s right about this. If I have any weight here, I want you and the commissioner to know I agree with the lieutenant.”

Eve took MacMasters’s weight and pushed with more of her own. “Commander, if we release the sketch, we’ll have morons like Cunningham flooding the tip line with sightings of teenagers and twenty-somethings in ball caps while Pauley closes shop here and moves on to wait his chance.

“If we release the sketch, he wins. If we let this play out, and frankly, Commander, it burns my ass, but if we allow the media to portray this fiasco today as a monumental screwup, and we control that feed, he’ll be only more confident, and he’ll move on Mrs. Mimoto tomorrow, as planned. Release it, and we lose the chance.”

“We’d have had him today, sir.” When Peabody spoke up, Eve glanced at her with a combination of surprise and annoyance. “That’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. We will need to interview staff members here, and access their security as it’s obvious Darrin Pauley gained access much earlier, and was in the building prior to the memorial. But even with that, we’d have had him.”

Whitney lifted his eyebrows. “You’re confident of that, Detective?” Eve was pretty sure she heard Peabody gulp, but her partner continued in what passed for confidence. “Yes, sir. Detective Baxter made him, just as the lieutenant did. His communication to me was delayed due to the chaos Cunningham and Harrison created, the same chaos that injured Dallas and damaged her coms. Instead of entering the room where we could and would have boxed him, he slipped away rather than engage in the confusion, and risk being interviewed as we are now interviewing a number of participants. That’s his caution, sir, just as profiled. He behaved exactly as anticipated. He will behave as we anticipate tomorrow.”

“And you’re willing to risk lives on that?”

“Commander-”

“No,” Peabody interrupted Eve. “He asked me. I would risk mine on the lieutenant’s judgment. It’s easier to say so since, in this case, mine runs the same path. I wouldn’t risk lives, even my own, to save the department’s face. That’s what we’d be doing to publicize Pauley’s face now. Risking lives to save face. That’s my judgment, sir.”

“Jack, again if it matters, that’s my judgment as well.”

Whitney glanced at MacMasters. “And mine, but it still has to be sold. I’ll be speaking, very shortly, with Officers Harrison and Cunningham. They are your men, Jonah, but the fact remains the operation and the results are Dallas’s responsibility.”

“Yes, sir, they are,” Eve agreed.

“You have thirty hours. I can hold the information for thirty hours. If the suspect isn’t in custody at that time, we go public. Damn the leak, Lieutenant, and get it done.”

“Yes, sir. Captain, my sincere regrets.”

“I want in.” MacMasters pushed to his feet. “The leak will cost you at least one man. I want to take his place.”

There were times, Eve thought, you had to go with the gut. “With the commander’s permission, we could use you.”

“Your call. I’ll have Anna take Carol and your family home.”

I’ll drive,” Roarke said when they prepared to head to Central. With a shrug Eve slid in, and gave herself the luxury of closing her eyes.

She opened them again when something landed in her lap. She lifted her eyes at the candy bar. “First cake, now candy.”

“You look like you could use a lift.”

“It could’ve been worse.” Her head ached, her face throbbed, and her suspect was probably having a cold brew and a good laugh. “I don’t know how at this very minute, but it could’ve been worse. There could have been locusts,” she decided, and tore the wrapping off the chocolate. “That would’ve been worse.”

“On a happier note, I don’t believe the department will be troubled by a lawsuit from the bereavement company.”

She bit in, savored. “What did you do, buy the place?”

“An interesting solution, but no. It was simply pointed out that the company held the lion’s share of liability as it was their security who allowed an intruder, which I assumed was a wiser term than suspect.”

She took another bite, sneered a little. “You got that.”

“That they allowed the intruder access to their facilities, into a memorial for a murdered minor where several people, including police officers were injured. I believe those in charge now understand the ramifications, and the possible consequences-and publicity-of a countersuit.”

“That’s why you wheel the deals.”

“It is, yes. How’s my favorite face?”

She turned to study him. “You look okay.”

“And as fond as I am of what I see in the mirror, I like your face even more.”

“It hurts.” She allowed herself a momentary sulk. “I’m glad it hurts because it reminds me I fucked up.”

“Oh well, it’s pity party time. Go on then, you’re among friends.”

“I should’ve anticipated him infiltrating the staff.”

“Why?” Roarke glanced at her, tried not to smile when he watched her scowl over the next bite of candy. “From where I’m sitting it’s more trouble than it was worth-or should’ve been.”

“Because he’s careful. It gave him better cover. Who looks at all those black suits and sees anything but another black suit? It gave him more access, let him choose his time, which was at peak.”

“And added to the risk of being tapped by the senior staff members and managers who know the people assigned to each suite or memorial. I’ll tell you why he went that way-took an unnecessary risk-if you want my view on it.”

“I’ll take your view on it.”

“He could get a look at his work, close-up, another pat on the back from himself to himself.” Adjusting his speed, Roarke snuck through a light on the yellow. “He delivers some flowers, gives her a study. And I’ll wager hoped to take himself some photos that he’d look back on fondly.”

“Goddamn it. Goddamn it, that’s exactly what he’d do.” She dragged a hand through her hair, pulled. “I missed it.”

“Easy to see it from this side, analyzing the whys after the fact. His youth is part of it-caution and impulse-and it’s most likely she’s his first kill. This is his mission, and he’d be careful not to risk it. Now, he’s got the makings for a nice scrapbook.”

“Let’s keep this between us, for now. I let MacMasters on the team. He doesn’t need to hear this.”

“Is that wise, letting him on?”

“I’m going to find out.”

She took her time getting to the conference room. She wanted everyone assembled when she arrived. She moved in briskly, walking to the front of the room, waiting while Roarke took his seat.

“Captain MacMasters is joining this team, as of now. I’ll be taking individual reports and analyses. Before I do, I want the individual who shared the sketch of the suspect with Detective Cunningham, and possibly others, to identify himself.”

She didn’t need a raised hand, a confession, not when she saw Officer Flang’s eyes cut away.

“Flang, explain yourself.”

“Lieutenant, I was just trying to help. It was getting really crowded in there, and the more eyes we had-”

“Did I or did I not give a direct order regarding this, Officer, when you brought up the issue in the pre-op briefing?”

“Yes, sir, but-”

“I have to assume, Officer, that you considered yourself more capable of leading today’s operation than me, that you believe your judgment superior to mine.”

“No, sir, I just thought-”

“You thought it was acceptable to disobey a direct order from a superior officer. You’re mistaken. You’re on report, Officer Flang, and you are dismissed.”

“Lieutenant-”

“Don’t speak.” Her order chilled the room as Flang visibly withered under her stare. “Further, if one more drop-a single drop-of this leak slides out of the pipe, I will see to it that you’re charged with obstruction of justice. I want a list of every name with whom you shared this information on my desk inside fifteen minutes. Now, I repeat, Officer, you are dismissed.”

The room was silent as a tomb as Flang left.

“If anyone else believes their judgment is better than mine, or that following orders is optional, there’s the door.” She waited two beats, let the silence hum. “Now, we’re going to go over every step of this clusterfuck from every angle, then we’ll outline, streamline, refine and re-refine the op for tomorrow.

“Feeney. Security.”