Apprentice in Death

  “There’s more. The younger suspect, mixed race, medium complexion—Henry claims beautiful skin there—green eyes, black hair in short dreads, about five-five, about a hundred and twenty. Dark green, knee-length coat, green-and-black-striped cap. He said no older than sixteen, but that may be the height, the build, and the assumption this was the adult suspect’s offspring.”

  “And if it is.” Peabody handed the field glasses back to Eve. “Well, Jesus.”

  “We can’t verify that yet. They booked this room, checked in early evening, carried their own bags up, locked the door, engaged the privacy light. They took some drinks and snacks. One of them might have gone out for food—no cams in this place—or they may have brought in what they wanted. Housekeeper says they were neat—cleaned up after themselves.”

  “Wiped the place down, you can bet.”

  “You can bet,” Eve agreed. “But efficient housekeeping took care of that anyway. I have sweepers on the way in case, but I don’t expect to find anything. They left about ten minutes after the strikes, claiming family emergency, as they were booked through last night.”

  “In case they missed the target, and to give them into the afternoon.”

  “They also booked the room over a week ago, so that takes the third vic out of target specific. Add this: They come in, set up. The rink was open, but they waited, spent the night, spent the morning before making the strikes.”

  “Okay, yeah, why not finish it? The rink’s a popular spot at night, and well lit. People panic more at night, right? If that’s the only motive, hit at night. But they spent hours in this room. It leans more toward one of the victims being a target.”

  “Eat some snacks, maybe watch some screen. Sit there, looking through the scope, thinking about all the people you could end from your perch. The ones walking home, going out to dinner, riding in the back of a cab? They owe their lives to you. That makes you feel powerful.”

  Walking back to the window, Eve looked out, hands in her pockets. “They’re alive because you allowed them to live. And they’re all as clueless as ants on a hill. They don’t know all you have to do is step on them. You spent a long time in the night sitting here, thinking about that. Imagining. Anticipating.”

  “Which one?”

  “The younger. Or if not the younger, it will be.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s the point otherwise? Henry? He’s solid, and he’s got a sharp eye. I can buy the second suspect may be into the twenties, but no more than that. Henry wouldn’t be that far off—and we’ll see what Yancy has to say when they work together. So why have the young one along? It’s not for the fucking company. There’s a purpose. Here’s how it’s done, kid, and next time it’s yours to do. Or it’s your time. Take your shot.”

  Hadn’t that been the way between her and Feeney? Here’s how it’s done, kid. Now do it.

  “Henry felt that father/child connection. Maybe that was because that’s what they wanted to project. But that’s often how it plays out with a trainer and a trainee, especially with that sort of age gap.”

  “It could go back to pros,” Peabody suggested. “The older pro training the younger, related or not.”

  “Yeah, it could. Except when you look at the vics. Just not enough to gain. Michaelson was well-set, but not swimming in it. His practice will go to his godson—and the godson was already coming into the practice. So far I’m not finding any patients who’d want him dead. His ex is remarried and they appear to have maintained civility. He had a good relationship with his daughter—who’d benefit financially, but doesn’t have any outstanding debt or anything that shows. It doesn’t feel like money.”

  “Sex is always a good one.”

  “Nothing to indicate he had any serious partners there. All that holds, as far as we know, for Wyman. So, we keep looking.”

  “Yeah, I’m hitting the same, on Wyman. Just no gain to killing her. Nobody disliked her, knew of anyone who did, or hit on her hard enough to have a thing.”

  “Well, somebody had something on her or Michaelson.”

  Once again Eve went to the door to answer the knock, and let in Lowenbaum.

  He walked in, black coat wet with sleet, pulled off his ski cap.

  “I meant it about the horses.” Contemplatively chewing his gum, he scanned the room. He carted in a large, locked case. “The guy at the desk went white as a sheet when he saw this.” Setting the case on one of the beds, Lowenbaum tapped it. “After I badged him, he told me the man who was in this room had one just like it.”

  Fucking bingo, Eve thought again. “I don’t know the horses, but maybe I’ll lay some on tonight’s Knicks game.”

  “Your man bought the Celtics, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Chill.” Still scanning, Lowenbaum unlocked the case. “Decent room, decent place. He could’ve gotten a flop a lot cheaper, done the job. Longer odds us nailing that location.”

  “He wasn’t alone.”

  Now Lowenbaum looked up. “Is that so?”

  “Younger—undetermined gender. Desk guy thought teenager, but we can’t narrow it there yet.”

  “Changes things.”

  Eve stepped closer as Lowenbaum opened the case and began, with quick, practiced efficiency, to assemble the weapon.

  “How much would that weigh? Case included.”

  “A solid fifteen, with the extra batteries.” He took out the bipod, tapped a button, telescoped it out.

  “First window right of the bed,” Eve told him. “The housekeeper saw the depressions left in the carpet from the bipod, and from a chair.”

  “You’re shitting me now.”

  “Truth. They’re observant here at Manhattan East. And the window opens, about five inches from the bottom.”

  “Handy.” After setting the bipod in front of the window, Lowenbaum retrieved the rifle, secured it. “Thanks,” he said when Peabody brought over a chair.

  He sat, looked through the scope, made some adjustments, walked the chair over a half inch. “Pick ’em off like flies,” he murmured.

  “You could make the strikes from here?”

  “Yeah, I could. I’ve got another two on my squad I’d count on to make it, and another three who’d at least wing the targets from here.”

  “Moving targets,” Eve reminded him.

  “I could, the two on my squad could. Moving targets, let’s give the other three a fifty-fifty at this range. Take a look.” He got up from the chair; Eve took his place.

  The scope made her field glasses feel like a toy. She studied the empty rink, the barricades, made her own adjustments to widen the field, and watched gawkers taking photos of the rink.

  She put a woman with a blue pom-pom cap and scarf in the crosshairs.

  Powerful, she thought again.

  “Makes me feel I could make the strike, but that’s not factoring in wind, temps, and all that other crap. Could the younger guy have been here to do those calculations?”

  “You have a weapon like this, and you have the skill, you do your own. It’s almost innate. And it’s . . . you’ve got to say intimate. You and the weapon, I mean. You and the target, that’s not.”

  Nodding, Eve rose. “You’d verify this is the location?”

  “I would, but why not use the toys we’ve got to lock it down.”

  He sat again, took out his PPC. “I can plug in this location—the exact position of the weapon, the exact position of the targets, and do a reverse calculation.”

  “You can?”

  “I can now because on my way in I had a conversation with Roarke about doing that using this new program. I figured, why the hell not ask the guy who came up with the program—more advanced than we’ve been using—and give it a try?”

  “I should’ve thought of that.”

  “Then you wouldn’t
need me. Give me a sec.”

  While she waited, Eve jerked a thumb at the door for Peabody to answer. “If that’s the sweepers, tell them we’ll be ready for them in a minute. Have them hold.”

  “Another sec,” Lowenbaum told her. “It’s a lot of tech for me. Your genius was heading into a meeting—maybe he’ll buy the Mets—or I’d tag him again, see if he could do it by remote. But I think I can . . . Okay, okay, there it goes. And we have a ninety-five-point-six probability on this location.”

  He handed Eve his PPC so she could see the results.

  “That’ll be handy in court when we bag the bastards.” He took the PPC back, put it away. “My work is done here. I’d like to see these assholes. You’re going to shoot me the security feed?”

  “No cams in the place.”

  “And the lucky streak dies.”

  “But I’ve got a solid description, and Yancy’s coming in to do sketches.”

  “And rides again. Give me the basics,” he said as he began to disassemble the weapon as efficiently as he’d assembled it.

  “Caucasian male,” she began, filling him in while he secured the weapon and the stand.

  “I’ll take a good look when you have the sketches. I know some guys who could make these strikes, either by face or rep, and some personally. Maybe it’ll pop—or I can show it to some I trust aren’t asshole bastard lunatics.”

  “You’ll have it when I do. Appreciate it, Lowenbaum.”

  “I’d say all in a day’s, but . . . not this time. I’ll be seeing you. Keep it loose, Peabody.”

  “That’s how I roll.” Peabody let him out, let the sweepers in.

  Once Eve had given them the basics, she and Peabody left them to it.

  “I’ll keep digging on Ellissa Wyman. With it leaning this far target specific, the suspects could be in the wind, well into it.”

  “You think they’re done?” Eve countered.

  “If they hit their target—”

  “Why the partner, Peabody? Why the younger? Partner or, if we’re really talking at least twenty years age difference, maybe apprentice? What’s the training for? Some connection between the suspects and one of the vics, there’s got to be. But people have more than one connection, and people with this kind of grudge? They’ve got more than one of those, too.”

  Eve stepped into the elevator, stabbed the button for lobby.

  “They’re not done.”

  6

  Eve tried Mira from the car, hit her v-mail. “Suspect has a partner, younger, possibly a teen, gender unknown. Full report to follow, but think about it.”

  She clicked off, tried Feeney next. “Peabody, tag the commander’s office. I need ten minutes—fifteen,” she corrected, “asap. Feeney,” she continued when his basset-hound face came on screen. “I’m on my way to Central, I need a meet.”

  “On the LDSK?”

  “Got the nest, got a description. I want to bounce this off you.”

  “Come ahead and bounce. I’ll work you in.”

  “Appreciate it. Later.”

  “The commander’s on a ’link conference, but I stressed the urgency. He can see you in about forty.”

  “That works. You head back to the bullpen, brief Jenkinson and Reineke. I may need to pull them in again. I’ll send you my record on the interviews at the hotel. Start writing the report. If I’m not back, go deeper on the ID the suspect used. There may be a reason he used that name. Dig under the credit card.”

  “I’ve got it. Why Feeney?”

  “He was in the Urbans, and he’s worked LDSKs before.” And, Eve thought, he trained me.

  When she hit a traffic snag—somebody had wiped out on the slippery street, and was now arguing heatedly with the cabdriver he’d slid into—she thought: Fuck it. Slapped on the sirens, and went in hot.

  “Call that mess in before there’s bloodshed.”

  “Already done.”

  As she turned toward Central, Eve glanced over. She’d trained Peabody. Something else to think about.

  She squealed into her parking spot in Central’s garage, quickstepped to the elevator.

  “You think another strike’s coming,” Peabody said. “That’s why the rush.”

  “I think another strike’s coming. And if I’m wrong on that, they’ve had a day to poof. We need to catch up.”

  As the elevator filled with cops, she hopped off when Peabody did, took the glide the rest of the way up to EDD.

  Entering the odd cop world of color and movement, she spotted McNab—hard to miss in a fluorescent red-and-yellow shirt flopping over neon green baggies as he stood, skinny hips tick-tocking to his own strange beat. His screen was exploding with color and weird symbols.

  She dodged around a female practically skipping across the room wearing a fuzzy pink sweater with an animated poodle doing backflips over her chest.

  Eve beelined for the relative sanity of Feeney’s office.

  He stood working a large swipe screen two handed. His hips didn’t bop—thank Christ—and he wore one of his shit-brown suits, already wrinkled, a darker shit-brown tie askew over a saggy beige shirt.

  His silver-threaded ginger hair sproinged up from his comfortably worn face as if he’d scrubbed it with a wire brush. The room smelled of his candied almonds and coffee.

  When he grunted at her, she stepped in.

  “Can I close this door? All that color makes me dizzy.”

  He signaled her to go ahead and, when the door shut, wagged a thumb toward his AutoChef. “Coffee’s under kale-and-carrot smoothie.”

  “Good choice.” Eve programmed two, waited until Feeney nodded at the screen and stepped back.

  “What ya got, kid?”

  “The nest, a description. He made those strikes from Second Avenue, Feeney.”

  Eyebrows lifted. He let out a whistle as he dropped behind his desk. “That’s some juice.”

  “He’s got a partner, except . . . The second suspect is young, undetermined gender. Possibly a teenager. I’ll know more when Yancy finishes with the wit. Adult suspect, probably early fifties.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a partner.”

  “Exactly. Sounds like a trainee. Maybe the wit’s off, but he comes off rock solid. When he says sixteen tops, I lean toward a kid. Who takes a kid into something like this unless he’s molding said kid?”

  As he thought about it, Feeney snagged a few almonds out of a lopsided bowl. “Any chance the kid’s a hostage?”

  “Doesn’t feel like it. This wit? He’d have noticed if the kid came in under duress. They checked into the hotel together, had already requested that particular room. Stayed the night, stayed through the morning. That’s planning and patience. And it’s lying in wait. So I ask myself: Why this kid? You took me.”

  Sipping coffee, Feeney nodded. “You had juice.”

  “I was green.”

  “You never had much green on you. I saw potential, guts, a working brain—cop’s brain. Maybe a little bit of me there, back in the day. And you wanted Homicide. You took Peabody,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, and thinking on that. I can’t say I saw any me in her, but I saw potential, and that working cop brain. I figured, give her a shot at Homicide—because she wanted it—and try her out as my aide. Then it fit, that’s all. We fit.”

  “She’s got you in her. A sunnier outlook, and that Free-Ager base, but she doesn’t quit. And it’s not just the job matters. It’s the victim. You saw some of that, or you might’ve put her into a cube in Homicide. You wouldn’t have set yourself up to train her.”

  “Yeah. I guess. Yeah. So there’s maybe some of the adult in the kid. The potential to kill. You took me, I took Peabody—and I gave Baxter Trueheart—but there’s more than the potential, all three trainees were already cops.”

  With a nod, Feeney gulped some c
offee. “You’re wondering if the kid’s already a killer.”

  “You don’t pick an apprentice out of the air. You don’t take them on because they’re handy. Where’d they find each other? The adult suspect has to have police or military training, almost has to have been in uniform. So, do you pick this kid off the street, out of some war zone?”

  “There’s another choice.”

  “I know it. They’re related. Father and son, uncle, older brother, distant fricking cousins. I get the description I can run it through Missing Persons, see if anyone’s looking for a teenager. Let’s say they’re connected, why train to kill? This doesn’t come off as a pro—none of the three victims had anything worth the hire. And there are a lot less visible ways to do a training exercise if you’re heading up a fricking assassin’s school. This comes off personal.”

  “A lot easier ways to kill for personal reasons.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Unless this is what you do.” Companionably, Feeney nudged the wobbly bowl toward her. “Not an assassin for hire, but a sniper—police or military. That’s where you’re leaning anyway.”

  On a long breath, Eve nodded. It helped to have him lean where she did. “Yeah, that’s where. You take on the trainee because you want him to share what you do, you want to give him something maybe. You want to see something of you in him. The age difference . . .”

  “More like you and me.” Feeney nodded. “I never worked an LDSK with a partner, or with a trainee, but I’d say the trainee has to show a—what’s it—propensity for the work, and some skill, and the same cold blood. You can’t teach the cold blood, Dallas. It’s just got to be there.”

  And again, he helped to hear him say what muttered in her mind.

  “How’d they pick and train snipers during the Urbans?”

  “Same way they do now, I’d say. You’ve got to have the skill, the control. You have to be able to see a human being as a target. You don’t take that target until you get the green, and when you do get the green, you don’t hesitate.”

  “Whoever made those strikes didn’t hesitate,” Eve said. “And they won’t hesitate when they get the green again.”