Delusion in Death by J. D. Robb
“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
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.
10
Eve strode into her bullpen and the wall of noise from voices, comps, ’links. A quick scan showed her Detectives Sanchez and Carmichael were among the missing. They’d be out in the field, she assumed, scrambling to handle the cases dumped on them as she’d formed her team.
Before long, she calculated, they’d have more than they could handle. She’d need to consider pulling in from other divisions, other precincts.
“Listen up! We’re taking on a consultant from HSO.”
She let the objections, bitching, disgust roll over her. She didn’t blame her men as she’d had the same reaction herself.
“It remains our case, our investigation. Agent Teasdale is a domestic terrorist specialist, and she has qualifications I believe we can use. This is my call, so suck it up.”
She waited a beat. “If, at any time, any of you have a problem—a legitimate problem with Teasdale, come to me. If it’s a problem, I’ll kick her ass. If it’s bullshit, I’ll kick yours.”
“You know how the feds work, LT.” Jenkinson brooded at his desk. “Let us do all the legwork, put in the hours, bust down the doors, then come in and take it over when we’ve got it plated up like dinner.”
“If they get greedy, they have to get through me, then Whitney, then Tibble. As for this team? Over a hundred and twenty people are dead, so there will be no petty power plays, no whining and griping. Have your reports ready for the briefing.”
She walked out again, paused briefly when she was out of sight. She listened to the whining and griping. Let them get it out of their system, she decided, and headed to the conference room.
She expected to find Peabody, and came up short when she found Roarke working with her partner. She hadn’t expected to deal with this, with him, quite so soon.
Marriage, she thought. Every bit as complicated and slippery as cop work.
“Another difficult day.” He looked at her as he spoke, carefully.
The man, she knew, saw damn near everything.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t be of much use just now in EDD, so when you weren’t in your office, I offered Peabody a hand. A lot of faces to go up, again.”
“Too many. Peabody, take a break.”
“We’re almost—oh,” she said when she caught the look. “I’ll go check, see if we’ve got anything new in from the lab.”
Roarke waited until Peabody went out and discreetly shut the door.
“What is it?”
“You’re not going to like what I have to tell you. It wasn’t an easy call to make, but it was my call. And it’s the right one—for them.” She nodded toward the boards.
“What call would that be?”
“We’re taking on an agent for HSO as a consultant.”
His eyes went cool, very cool before he turned and walked to the AutoChef. Though he performed the everyday task of programming coffee, Eve knew when he walked away his anger was fierce.
“If we’re going to fight about it, we have to fight later. There’s no time now. But I need to tell you … Roarke, I need to tell you I know what you did for me last year when you stepped back from taking retribution against the people in HSO who listened and did nothing while my—while Richard Troy beat and raped me. I know what it cost you
“And yet,” he said softly.
“I can’t put me, or us, ahead of them, all those faces. I can’t, I just won’t, let what happened to me years ago determine how I do my job, for them. It’s already caused us both too much grief and pain. It has to stop. Maybe you’d have made a different call, but—”
“Yes, because I think more of you than you do.”
She couldn’t fight it, couldn’t find the fight, only the heart he filled with those simple words. “No one’s ever thought of me the way you do. I don’t forget that either. And I knew when I made the decision it would upset you. You have every right and reason to be upset. I’m sorry.”
He set aside the coffee he didn’t want. “And yet,” he repeated.
“Her name is Teasdale. Miyu Teasdale. She’s a domestic terrorist specialist, nine years in. She has advanced degrees in chemistry and biology. She’ll be reporting only to Director Hurtz. Tibble knows him, personally, vouches for him. You look at them. Dig into them, use any means you want. I don’t need to know. After you do, if you find they aren’t as clean as Tibble and Whitney say, if you find anything that causes you to doubt I did the right thing, I’ll break it off. I’ll find a way.”
“Oh, I’ll look. Believe me.”
“I didn’t agree easily, and I wouldn’t have agreed except … a hundred and twenty-six dead.”
“A hundred and twenty-seven. Another died in hospital shortly ago.” And because he saw that instant of sorrow on her face, he picked up the coffee, handed it to her.
“I need help. Maybe she’ll just be deadweight, or worse an annoyance or distraction. But maybe she’ll make a difference. Or there’ll be more dead, Roarke, and we won’t have enough boards for their faces.”
“If I look and find something, you’ll end the consultation?”
“Yes. My word on it.”
He nodded, then took time to think, to settle, by getting coffee for himself. “It doesn’t sit well, does it?”
“No. But I’m afraid he’s just getting started, and she’ll have a fresh eye, a supposedly expert eye. And additional resources. Before you say it, I know I could ask you for anything and anyone. Someone equally qualified.”