Treachery in Death

Twenty-One

SIRENS BLASTING, ROARKE WENT AIRBORNE the instant they shot out of the garage. He touched down, punched it to plow through a field of traffic, two-wheeled it at the corner. He skimmed by a couple coats of paint between a cab and a sedate town car, then tore into a hard-line vertical to rocket over the heads of pedestrians clipping across the crosswalk in spite of the screaming sirens and flashing lights.

“Strong’s down,” Eve told him. “I don’t know how bad.”

He simply nodded and ripped a line through the city canyons. When he swerved onto the ER ramp, he said, “Go.”

She was already slapping the release on her safety harness, shoving open the door. She slammed through the ER doors, caught sight of the medicals whisking a gurney around the corner of Admitting with Baxter and Trueheart flanking them like guard dogs.

“Status! What’s her status?”

Blood from the head wounds, the face lacerations soaked Lilah’s clothes. Eve saw the splint support on her right arm, another caging her leg, the brace collaring her neck.

The MTs were spewing out a string of medical terms to a man in scrubs who barely looked old enough to order a brew. He in turn reeled out orders as they shoved the gurney through another set of doors.

He shot another order at Eve. “You have to stay back.”

“Her doctor’s on the way. Louise Dimatto. She’s in charge.”

“Right now I’m in charge.” He counted off to three, and they lifted Lilah’s bloody, broken body, strapped to a stabilizer, from gurney to table.

At the movement, Lilah moaned. Her eyelids flickered. The doctor peeled an eyelid up to examine her pupil while another medical cut away her pants to reveal a nasty break beneath the splint cage.

Eve managed to slip through, grab and grip Lilah’s hand as the team worked around her. “Report, Detective. Give me a report.”

Lilah’s eyes, blind with shock and pain, rolled open. “What?”

“Detective Strong!” Eve watched the eyes widen, very slightly. “I need your report.”

“Killed me.”

“No, they didn’t. Why did they try?”

“Oberman. Behind Oberman.” The words garbled as Lilah’s fingers moved weakly in Eve’s. “My mother. Tic.”

“I’ll get your mother. I’ll get Tic.”

“Scared.”

Fresh pain jerked her body, shuddered in her eyes. Eve made herself stare straight into them. “I’ve got you covered. I’ve got you, Detective.”

“Oberman.” Eve could feel Lilah fight for the words. “Safe. Bix. Blew it.”

“No, you didn’t. I’ve got it.”

“Mom. Tic.”

“I’ll get them.”

Eve leaned in as Lilah’s eyes rolled closed again, as machines beeped, as the young doctor snapped at her to back off, threatened to call Security.

“You don’t die on me, Detective. That’s a goddamn order.”

Behind her Eve heard Louise’s voice—calm, brisk, full of authority. She stepped back, watched her friend shove her arms into a protective cloak.

“Trueheart, stay with her. Baxter, with me.”

Eve shoved through the doors. “Did she say anything else before I got here?” Eve demanded.

“You were about thirty seconds behind us. She came around for a few seconds when they were off-loading her, but she didn’t say anything I could make out.”

“One or both of you sticks with her, all the way. Nobody gets to her. Nobody touches her unless Louise clears them.”

“Did somebody help her fall down that glide, Dallas?”

“Undetermined, but probable. If there was reason for that, there’s reason to go at her again.”

“They won’t get through us.” His gaze ticked to the door, back to Eve. “She’s one of Oberman’s?”

“Not anymore. She’s one of mine.”

Louise pushed out while Eve paced the hallway.

“We’re taking her up, prepping her for surgery. She needs an orthopedic surgeon, a plastic man, a neuro. They have good ones here,” Louise said before Eve could respond. “I know them. She’s got internal injuries, and I’ll take those. If she makes it through, and her chances are decent with this team, she’ll need more work. And she’ll have a hell of a road back.”

“She’ll make it. One of my men has to be with her, every second. I need you to handpick every doctor, nurse, orderly who comes near her, give their data to Baxter.”

“OR Five,” Louise said. “I’ve got to go scrub in. You can fill me in on this later.”

“Louise . . .” Eve strode to the elevator with her. “How decent?”

“How tough is she?”

“Pretty tough, I think.”

“That helps. Trust us to do the rest.”

With no choice, Eve stood back, watched them roll Lilah toward an elevator, watched Baxter and Trueheart fall, once again, into flank position.

“We’ll watch out for her, Lieutenant.” Trueheart put a hand on the side guard of the gurney, and Eve nodded as the doors closed.

“How is she?” Roarke asked.

She closed her eyes a moment as her mind replayed all the chaos of the exam room.

“Broken arm, including a shattered elbow. Compound fracture of the leg, cracked skull, damaged spleen and kidney, severe facial lacerations. Those are the highlights.”

She needed to bank her anger. Anger could wait.

On the more sedate ride back to Central, Eve contacted Feeney. “Can you run your new toy from a conference room in my division?”

“We can set that up.”

“I need you to do it now, and on the extreme QT. Since her boy’s back in the basket, she’ll have to start wrangling. And I have something else.”

“How impossible this time?”

“You tell me. She’s got to have eyes, maybe ears, too, on her squad room, on her own office. She’s got to be monitoring or spot checking. Possibly she’s got some sort of alert set up in her office to let her know if anyone goes in when she’s not around. Can you tap into that, give us the feed?”

“Well, for Christ’s sake. Without knowing the system, the placement, the keys, or the alert specs?” He gave her a long, sad look. “Hell, why not? What’s another freaking miracle today?”

“Can you do it really fast?”

“Not as fast as I’d boot your ass if you get within range.”

“I’m bringing my geek in to give you a hand.”

“Send him. You stay away.”

Eve scowled when he cut her off, then turned to Roarke. “Can you do it really fast?”

“Tap in and redirect an unknown and at this point theoretical system with potential and unidentified keys and fail-safes? I wouldn’t mind booting your ass myself. Yes,” he said before she could speak. “Because you’re going to get her out of her office and clear her squad room long enough for me to get in, run and scan, locate and identify, and get out again.”

“How am I supposed to clear her squad room?”

“That, Lieutenant, would come under the heading of your problem. I’ll need five minutes.”

“If I can get you fifteen, there’s something else I want you to do while you’re in there.”

“And what would that be?”

“It involves stealing.”

His face brightened. “I like it already.”

“Just let me pull Peabody in, then I’ll lay it out for you.” Before she could order the code, the ’link signaled in her hand.

“Dallas, I got it!” Peabody all but sang it. “I got it! Over three months of notes, times, locations, overheard snips of conversation. Names—she’d been digging in hard and she listed names she believed to be involved in Renee’s network—and she backed it up with a lot of documentation.”

“Bring it in.”

“You’re not coming here?”

“Change of plans there. Copy it, bring it in.”

“I’m on my way. Jeez, Dallas, I almost missed it. She had it shielded with a layer of jock-shock music. The disc analysis barely gave me a blip—and then it looks like a standard override—before I—”

“Explain later. We’re taking this down tonight. I want you in.”

“Tonight? I’m even more on my way.”

“That’s good work,” Roarke commented to Eve. “If the disc was layered and disguised as an override, it was good work on Devin’s part, and on Peabody’s.”

“I’ll pat her on the back later.” She glanced at the time, calculated. “Here’s what I need you to do once I clear it—and clear the squad room.”

“I take it you’ve figured out how to do that.”

“One cop on the slab, another in surgery, and a third being grilled by IAB? That’s a quarter of her squad right there. I’d say Renee and her men have earned a good talking-to.”

She started setting it up while Roarke finished the drive to Central.

“The commander and Mira,” Roarke commented. “What you’d call a command performance. Concern, a bit of stern disapproval, with a touch of group therapy thrown in.”

“She can’t say no. I’ll signal you as soon as I get the word they’re in the conference room. If you need more time or just can’t pull it off, let me know asap.”

“You’ve just earned another boot in the ass for insulting me.”

They rode the elevator out of the garage, then got off to take the glides, as was her habit. Deliberately she crossed over between three and four to the sector where Lilah had fallen.

They’d blocked off the down glide, and would keep it blocked until IAB made its determination. She imagined Webster would draw that out even if the discs showed no culpability by Bix.

“She kept Strong chained to that desk, but today she sends her out in the field? And with Bix. He had orders of execution. If he’d gotten her out of here, she’d be dead instead of in surgery. Strong suspected the squad room was monitored, but she went in anyway.”

“She took a risk. All of you take them every day.”

“I knew it was monitored after my last trip there. I knew Brinker was dirty. But I didn’t get word to her. Not in time. I saw an opportunity to have an inside man, so I took it, pulled her into this.”

“And, it seems, she saw an opportunity and took it. Risk and opportunity, Eve. It’s all part of it.”

“Louise will fix her. Goddamn it, she’ll fix her, because that bitch isn’t taking down another cop.” She strode over, got on the up glide.

Her com signaled, three short. She checked it, scanned the code. “Whitney’s called the meeting.”

“I believe I’ll mosey over, take a closer position while they file out.”

“Your face is pretty familiar around here. Don’t let any of them see you.”

“Insult after insult.” With a shake of his head, he moseyed.

Eve veered off to meet Webster, as she’d arranged.

“I’ve got five,” he told her when she slipped into his office. “We’ve got Bix on simmer. His lieutenant just broke off a heated exchange with my captain. Orders to report from the commander.” Webster tapped his temple in salute. “Slick timing, Dallas.”

“What’s on the discs?”

“He didn’t push her, but was unquestionably in pursuit. They were both shoving, running, knocking people aside. Somebody went down between them, and they fell like dominoes. We’re lucky she’s the only one who took the hard fall. She was off-balance, running flat out, and couldn’t catch herself.”

“How’s he answer it? Why was he pursuing a fellow officer?”

“He says she started shouting and clocked him, then began to run on the glides, endangering others. He pursued out of instinct, and because he feared she would harm herself or others. It’s close enough to what happened, we’d have a hard time pinning it on him without her statement. He doesn’t deviate from the story, not by a single word.”

“I want to see the run.”

“Figured.” He took a disc from his pocket. “If you’re looking to fry him, yeah, you could interpret it as he shoved through the right spot at the right time, calculated the angles, and caused her fall. But it wouldn’t hold up on its own. Renee’s playing the outraged boss, but we get that a lot around here. How can we question her man when it was obviously a terrible accident, and seems to have been precipitated by the injured officer who had been displaying some unstable behavior? As is noted in her evals.”

“Then she has to explain why she was sending an officer she deemed unstable into the field.”

“She’s shorthanded. She lost a man last night. She’s got an answer for everything. They’re shaky if you pick them apart, and you know what we know, but they’re answers.”

“She’s about to run out of answers.” Eve shoved the disc in her pocket. “Don’t let him out of here, Webster. Not for another thirty. I’m going to contact Janburry and Delfino, put them on alert. They may want to take him for a round soon.”

“Oh, we can keep him busy for a while yet. What’s Strong’s status?”

“She’ll hold her own.” Eve checked the time. “I’ve got to move. I’ve got my own dominoes to flick.”

She went straight to the conference room where Feeney and McNab were set up. Feeney sent her a reproachful look. “Do you know how much easier this would be if we could run it from EDD? And nothing about this is easy.”

“EDD’s everywhere, but if I’m hanging around EDD somebody we don’t want wondering might wonder. We’re boxing her, Feeney. I want this side of the box solid. Roarke’s had about five minutes since we emptied out the squad room. If he has any luck, the rest of the job should be easier.”

She plugged the disc into the room comp, watched the sequence. She toughened her mind when she watched Lilah’s fall, then landing.

“She knew she was in trouble,” Eve murmured. “She’s tracking, looking for a way out. He’s keeping her close, even grabs onto her. She played it pretty damn well, up to the end. She nearly made it.”

“He pushed her. He didn’t lay a hand on her,” McNab said when Eve glanced around. “But he pushed her. Look at him. Doesn’t even break a sweat. Mowing through people, dodging, weaving—and he never takes his eyes off her. Like the hound to the rabbit.”

“You’d be right. He had his orders. If he could’ve gotten to her after the fall, he’d have finished her—if he could’ve found the way, he’d have killed her right in Central.”

She turned, wanting coffee, turned back when she heard the door open.

“Couldn’t you get in?” she began.

“Really, it’s a bloody litany of insults.” Roarke tossed a small duffle on the conference table. “I borrowed the bag from one of your supply rooms. I hope I won’t be arrested.”

“You’re in, done, and out and back here in ten?”

“Well, I did have to stop to get the bag. And to scan her security system.” He tossed a disc to McNab. “That should quicken things up.”

“Yeah, baby!”

“Care to see what’s in the bag, Lieutenant?” Roarke asked. “What was safe behind Oberman?”

Eve pulled the bag open. “Her running kit—the ID, credit, cash—about two hundred K?”

“Oh, two-fifty, then there’s another hundred large in euros.”

“Clean ’link, clean weapon, PPC—and discs.”

“Her books,” Roarke supplied. “Her payroll, operating expenses, income—all very tidy. I had a bit of time so I took a quick glance.”

“Say hallelujah,” Eve breathed.

“If you like. I didn’t look through them all—just enough to verify. They’re encoded, of course, but fairly simply. I’d say she was confident no one was going to have a peek. Her security is more complex. If she’d set the alarm before leaving her office, it would have tripped the minute Strong went in. A silent alarm that would engage the cameras. Renee would have seen it when she went in herself and shut the alarm off.”

“But she doesn’t clear out the safe. Not yet anyway. No real time to do it,” Eve concluded. “She has to eliminate Strong. If she can’t get to Strong, she’s going to have to answer a lot of embarrassing questions. She can clear out the safe, put something not incriminating inside.”

“Strong took a severe blow to the head—is and was obviously confused.” Roarke nodded. “Many ways to circle it, but eliminating Strong is sure and it’s tidy.”

“She likes tidy, and she doesn’t know I have two men on Strong. She couldn’t know yet. Crap, I forgot about Whitney and Mira.” She took out her com, signaled Whitney the all-clear.

“Give my boy a hand, will you?” Feeney asked Roarke, then jerked his head so Eve followed him to the other side of the room.

“You’ve got her in that box, Dallas. With everything we’ve put together, with what the boy says Peabody’s bringing in. Top that with the little heist Roarke just pulled off, she’s done.”

“Maybe. Maybe if we look through her discs and find she’s written out chapter and verse on her operation, on her orders to kill cops, Keener, whoever else she might’ve done.”

“She’s going to have to explain the ID, the money.”

“Graft, corruption, falsifying docs aren’t murder.”

“You and I know that while Bix might stand like a rock, others’ll roll. It only takes one to start an avalanche. You make a deal with one of her men, the avalanche is going to crush her to dust.”

“Is that how you’d handle it?”

“I’m saying you could walk right out of here and put her in cuffs.”

She turned, took a couple paces away to try to settle her temper. Turned and stepped back when she decided she didn’t want it settled.

“Make a deal with a dirty cop or two to snap off the head? Fuck that. Fuck that, Feeney. No deals. No deals if I have to sit on the PA until he cries for his mommy. I don’t want to deal to take her down. I’m going to take her down my way. I’m going to play her like a goddamn piano.”

He started to grin at the first fuck that, and then let out a snort. “You can’t play the piano.”

“But I can break one to splinters with a sledgehammer.”

“It’s a good choice. I was just checking.”

She puffed out a breath, felt the temper die. “You’d go sledgehammer?”

“Maybe a chain saw. I’ve got to think of my back.”

She glanced toward Roarke and McNab. “You get me the feed. I’ll get the hammer and saw.”

She paced while they worked. She wondered why things always took longer than you wanted them to take, unless you wanted them to take a lot longer—then they didn’t take nearly long enough.

Time sucked.

Peabody walked in.

“Put the data up,” Eve ordered. “I need to see it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good work, Peabody. You did good work today.”

“I needed to.” Peabody glanced over as she installed the disc. “I want to be able to go back to her mom and tell her Detective Gail Devin helped bring this down. Dallas, can you get her a commendation? From the top? Could you put her in for one from the commander?”

“I can. I will. But I believe the commander will issue one without my request.”

Eve stood, studying the data. “God, she was thorough. Look at this. Times, dates, length of time, participants of closed-door meets in Renee’s office. Coordinating them with busts or ops gone sour—or where the take from the bust came in well below expectations and information. Invoice changes—she logged them down whenever she caught one. Logged once-a-week meets between Renee and Dennis Dyson in Accounting. Here’s another who shows up regularly, every couple weeks, and routinely after a sizable bust. From Records.

“Notations on inconsistencies in files, in reports. Here’s a cop who dug into her research.”

“She was building a pretty good case,” Peabody added. “She’s got records of street contacts she’d started to develop on her own. She went through court docs checking wits, did follow-ups. She went to see dealers in their cages. She was starting to push hard, then . . .”

“Pushed the wrong way, and Renee caught the scent.” Eve ordered the data to share the screen with Renee’s. Cued them up.

“We got names matching here. A lot of her names match what’s looking like Renee’s payroll.”

“You got the payroll?”

“I’ll fill you in. Feeney! I’m getting tired of holding this hammer.”

“Then set it down a damn minute.”

“Look at all this money.” Peabody gaped at the open duffle. “And ... a passport, ID. You found her hole? You found her hole without me?”

“You were busy doing a good job.”

“Now you can say hallelujah.” Roarke turned to her. “You’re tapped in, Lieutenant.”

“She’s not back in her office yet.” Eve watched the screen image of Renee’s office with narrowed eyes. “Went back to IAB to try to squeeze her boy out. Okay.” Eve rolled her shoulders. “Time to play.”