“What does she want?”
“Peace. She wants that inner fucking peace.”
It’s all you want when the nightmares come, Eve thought. And the only thing you can’t find.
“The justice they tag on the bodies? That’s small change. She wants to be able to sleep at night. She wants it to be over. She wants, more than anything, for it to never have happened. But the killings? It’s not going to give her any of that. If she didn’t know it before, she’s starting to know it now. When no matter how much she washes, she can still smell the blood on her hands.”
“But they still have Betz.”
“Yeah. Knowing it won’t make her—any of them—stop. She thinks maybe, just maybe, when they finish it, she’ll find what she needs. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to sleep. But she won’t.”
“I guess she looked resigned on top of the tired.”
“Resigned, resolved—pretty much the same. They’ll finish it. Or they’ll try. There’s no going back now, not for any of them. She’ll go get the van after we shake her in the morning, wherever she has it, pick up the others, and they’ll all gather where they’re holding Betz. They won’t take him back to his house. They have to be smart enough to know we’ll be on the house.”
Suddenly exhausted, Eve sat on the side of the bed. “We’ll pull Baxter and Trueheart off that, but put another team on. Wouldn’t pay to be wrong on that. The keys, Betz’s keys. Maybe they’re an angle. Let’s go harass EDD.”
“I have to say something.”
Eve shoved her hair back, rose. “What?”
“This case, and what we’re looking at as motive. It has to affect you. It has to make you think of what happened to you. But it’s not the same, Dallas. It’s not the same.”
“Yeah, it does. But my kill was justified. Him or me, and I was a child. That’s not the same. He was raping me, and my arm—” She brought her hand up, all but felt the bone snap again. “When the bone broke, when he broke my arm, that shock and that pain, it was alive. Killing him was the only way to make it stop, to make him stop, to survive. So that’s not the same as this.”
She let out a breath, but her stomach still clenched and roiled.
“But the rest? The fear, that pain, the violation, what takes root in you and never really goes away? That’s the same. So I know they’re not going to find peace, or the justice they tell themselves they’re after, through blood. I sure as hell didn’t.”
“How did you? Find peace?”
“I’ll let you know when I do.”
When Peabody nodded, bent to pick up her field kit, Eve jammed her hands in her pockets.
“That’s not fair, and it’s not all the way true, either.”
“You don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t mean to push on that. I just needed to say what I said.”
Fuck the sick stomach, Eve thought, and the dull throb in the back of her skull.
They wouldn’t win.
“I’ve got insight on this investigation—and I think that insight is partly why we got closer faster than they expected. You’re my partner, and . . . You’re my partner,” she repeated, as that said it all.
“There were doctors and shrinks and counselors and cops. Child services. They could address the physical injuries, the rapes, the broken bones, the beating. But the rest? I’d locked that away where even I couldn’t find it. That was survival for me, just like putting that little knife in Richard Troy.”
Standing there, she felt around in her pocket, closed her hand over her badge. That tangible shape.
“I got through. I had flashes, sure, and nightmares, but I locked all that away, too. If I couldn’t get to them, nobody else could. And nobody could hurt me with all that, ever again. Then there was purpose. As far as I can see, clear back from waking up in that hospital in Dallas, I had to be a cop. That got me through, all of it, the good and the bad. And when I got my badge, I felt . . . strong, directed. That was my goal, like wiping these men out of existence is theirs. The badge, the job, protect and serve, stand for the victim. I had to. Survival. Then there was Mavis and Feeney, and with them and the job, it was something like family even if I didn’t know it. And every day, every fucking day, when I picked up the badge?”
She took it out of her pocket, studied it. “Every day, I had purpose. I had beaten back what I’d locked away. I stood for something. The victims mattered, Peabody, whoever they were, whatever they’d done. They were mine to stand for.”
“I know that. You taught me that.”
“Maybe you think I don’t know what you felt the day you got your gold shield, what Trueheart felt the other day. But I do. I remember exactly what I felt. Detective Dallas. Oh yeah, I remember the thrill and the terror of that all mixed up with pride inside me. And when I made Lieutenant, Christ, all that thrill and terror again, and that pride, that purpose. The victims mattered, and the cops under me. I needed to be the best I could, for the victims, for the cops.”
She tested the weight of the badge in her hand, slipped it away again.
“And I set my sight on the bars. Captain Dallas, that’s got a ring. I’d beat back what I’d locked inside me until it was nothing. Until those flashes that made me sick, scared me to the bone, those nightmares that would grip me by the throat in the middle of the night were nothing. I had purpose, goddamn it, and I was never going back to being the victim. But . . .
“Let’s move,” she said abruptly. “We’re wasting time here.”
Saying nothing, Peabody grabbed up her coat, shrugging into it as Eve headed for the door. She kept a respectful, if concerned, silence all the way down to the lobby.
“Let’s get a four-man team at the Betz residence. Uniform Carmichael to head it, so three more. Two from our unit, then see if Officer Shelby’s available.”
“Shelby?”
“She’s with the Five-two. First on scene at the Catiana Dubois homicide.”
“Oh yeah, I got her.”
“I’m looking at her. If she holds up like I think she will, and wants it, I’m bringing her into Homicide. We need a fresh uniform.”
As they walked, Eve took out her own ’link, contacted Baxter, brought him up to date.
“So when your relief gets there, go back to Central. Once EDD nails the key swipes, we’ll move there. And maybe the lab will hit a miracle with the old keys. Meanwhile, we start digging deeper on the three women we know. You and Trueheart take MacKensie. I want to know what her first fucking word was, what her mother eats for breakfast, where she shops, banks, plays. Everywhere she’s lived since before she was freaking born.”
“Got that, LT. We’ll review with the relief and we’re all over it.”
She grunted, clicked off. When they got in the car, it released a new blast of resentment from other drivers. Eve mentally flicked them the bird, turned off her On Duty light, pulled out.
“But,” she continued as if there had been no pause in the conversation, “it wasn’t going to be enough. I had to believe it would be, but it wasn’t going to be enough to keep getting me through. Mira saw that, and, God, I resented the hell out of her back then because she saw what I didn’t want her to see. What I didn’t want to see. Just stay the fuck out of my head, I’m fine.
“There was an incident—asshole flying on Zeus, and a kid—just a baby. And I couldn’t get there in time. Just too late to stop it. I don’t know why that one came so close to breaking me, but it did. Maybe I’d hit some threshold, maybe it was—What do you call it?—cumulative, but it knocked me hard, and this was just as the DeBlass case landed on me. I’m fine, I can handle it. Handle seeing that baby cut to pieces, handle Testing because I’d had to terminate the asshole who cut the baby to pieces, handle the DeBlass case with its Code Five.”
She paused at a light, scrubbed her hands over her face, wishing she could will away the fatigue and the raw
feeling in her gut. “And then there was Roarke. I still remember doing the first run on him, having his face come on my screen. And thinking: Well, look at him. Rich guy—stupidly rich guy. Mr. Mystery with no first name and a face that just took your breath. I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. And I couldn’t stop—it was there right from the first second, and I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t physical.”
Then she laughed, took off at the green. “Hell yeah, it was physical, but I mean it wasn’t just.”
“I know what you mean. I get that.”
“It was like something out there said, ‘Hell, let’s give these two a break. It’s time they found each other.’ And it broke, those first cracks on what I’d locked away. I could start facing it because I could trust him to stand for me. Trust him to let me stand for myself. There was no way to lock away what I felt for him. I couldn’t make it stop or go back, and somewhere along the line I stopped wanting it to. I think, without that, I’d have lost myself. Somewhere down the line the victims would stop mattering so much, the job would just be the job. Maybe I’d have gotten the bars first, who knows, but I’d have stopped being the kind of cop I needed to be.”
And that, she knew absolutely, that would have ended her.
“I’d have stopped surviving without what I let in, with him. Without what letting that in let me let in otherwise. I might have pulled you in, like maybe I’ll pull in Shelby, but we wouldn’t be partners. I wouldn’t have had the chops for it.”
She made the turn into the garage at Central.
“So I found that peace. Cases like this, they can shake it. Sometimes I can lose it, like water dripping through your fingers. But I know where to find it again, and with who. You’re part of that. Part of the where and the who.”
She pulled into her slot, glanced over. “Stop that!” she ordered as tears streamed silently down Peabody’s cheeks. “No blubbering. We’re in a cop-shop garage. There’s no blubbering in a cop shop—when you’re a cop.”
“I’m not blubbering.” But Peabody blubbered a little as she dug in her pockets for a tissue. “And I’m not giving you a really big hug right now, like I really want to do. I just want to say that anytime that peace gets shaken, you can count on me. You can count on me,” she repeated and, blowing her nose, shoved out of the car.
Eve sat in the car another moment. “I know it,” she murmured, and got out to get back to the job.
17
Eve went straight to EDD, hoping the e-geeks would give her something solid.
She found the e-lab packed with them.
McNab stood—hips jiving in his neon pants, hoops sparkling around his ear—at a station peering through some sort of scope. Feeney sat in his wrinkled brown suit, his hair standing up as if he’d been electrocuted while he swiped at two screens simultaneously.
The well-endowed Callendar seemed to dance between two stations, shoulders bouncing, which made the well-endowed portion—where for some unknown reason a monkey rode a unicycle across her spangled red shirt—bounce in turn.
Yet another geek Eve only vaguely recognized sat, bopping in his stool with comp guts spread out over his station. He had hair as red as Callendar’s shirt worn in long dreads with tips as bright and yellow as an exploding sun. The tips matched his bibbed baggies.
Eve vaguely wished she had sunshades as she pushed into the lab.
Spotting them, McNab wiggled his eyebrows at Peabody. “Yo, Captain, Dead Squad’s here.”
“We got some something and some nothing,” Feeney told Eve.
“Start with the something.”
“We could scan out the one swipe, and get the code and the ID. Bank was on it. Liberty National Bank of New York was on it. Did a little dance, and we got the branch for you. Whatever he stashed, he stashed it in the Bronx. I was just about to send you the address.”
“Do that. I’ll check it out, and thanks. What’s the nothing?”
“Other swipe. We got the code, no problem. But there’s no handy ID like with the bank box. We’re still working, but the best we can figure is residence. It doesn’t read like a company swipe, a business swipe. Still could be one, but we’re leaning residential.”
“It’s more than I had. What about vic comps?”
“I’m giving what we got from the Mira Institute another full scan, but what I got is all business and political bullshit. Callendar’s on Wymann. Juju’s got Betz.”
“Juju?”
“Cuz, I got it.” Red Dreads grinned at Eve.
She thought it looked as if someone had splattered his round white face with specks of red paint and called them freckles.
“Getting down on the Betz,” he said, tapping the toes of lightning-blue air boots laced to his knees. “Dude’s flush. Be flusher he didn’t ride slow ponies. Got two digs that show, one’s in the Apple, other’s rum and cigars. Pulls it in, doesn’t put much out. Got megs game for skirts for creaky. Lists ’em, flips ’em. Likes wheels, got three, mucho slap for zipping.”
“Just . . . stop.” Eve held up her hand as her head was starting to throb. “Does this guy speak English?”
“Bilingual,” Juju claimed with another happy grin. “American and geek. Like geek better.”
He turned the grin on Callendar. “Fluid?”
“Def. Fizz me cherry.”
“Check it. Black Death, Cap’n?”
“No, go with the sweet. Double Callendar.”
“Yo. McNab?”
“Triple it.”
He stood, showing himself to be well over six feet. An easy six-four, Eve judged, maybe helped a bit by the platform airboots with silver stars over the blue. “You up?”
“No. Whatever it is.”
“Cube it, thanks,” Peabody told him when he circled a finger at her.
“Covered.” He bopped out.
“My head hurts.”
Callendar offered Eve an easy shrug and smile. “He can go deep into e-jive, but he’s got the juju. He said how this Betz has money, and plenty, but he loses at the track pretty regularly. He bets the horses, and doesn’t win. He has two properties on official records—the one here in New York, and another in Cuba.”
“I want that data. We’ll have Cuba checked out.”
“You’ll get it. He also said this Betz is a—What’s it?—ladies’ man or whatever. Has a lot of women for being a guy his age. And he keeps a record of them handy, so he can have their names and, when he needs to, like shuffle or rotate them.”
“Christ. I want all that data.”
“We’ll make that so. Dude has three vehicles, and a whole buncha speeding violations.”
“Those, too. Let’s see if we can find out where he wants to get in such a hurry. It’s a good start.”
“Juju’s start,” Callendar said. “I’ve got the econ dude’s e’s. What shows on them is he doesn’t—didn’t—gamble, not that shows on his e’s. Unlike Betz—Juju was saying he took a lot in, financially, from the family businesses, and didn’t do much work—econ dude clocked in. He put in time, worked the job. Plenty of fun time for him. Vacays, trips. Got a lot of photos on his comps, and I’m IDing family. Got a grandson he’s bookmarked theater articles and reviews on, and there’s mail between them, friends, family. Some work. He didn’t keep a list of ‘dates,’ but he has a bunch of names and contacts of the female variety. Multiple properties—some straight investment, but also a flat in London and a place in East Hampton.”
“Okay, if they got their hands on keys, they could be using the place in East Hampton, or one of the other vics’ second houses. But . . .”
Too easy, Eve thought. Just too straight.
“They’d have their own. Couldn’t set all this up on the fly. We’ll have the secondary residences, even the income properties checked out. We need to eliminate.”
She checked the time. The day was streaming
by, and Betz’s time was dwindling. “Send me everything, and whatever else you hit. I’m going to check with Yancy on a possible, then I’m in my office for now. I need to think.”
She went out as Juju bopped back with a tray of jumbo fizzies. He sent that mega-happy grin toward Peabody. “Check,” he said, and pulled one out of the tray.
“Thanks.”
When she started to dig out credits, he swiped a finger in the air. “Treat.”
They tapped knuckles before he bopped on.
“He’s good,” Peabody said before she slurped some fizzy. “I’ve hung with him a few times.”
“If Feeney put him on it, that’s good enough for me. Go on down, start digging on Downing. Deep.”
“Give Yancy a yo for me.”
They parted ways.
Eve made her way to Yancy’s division, found him at his desk, frowning at his screen. He glanced up, gave her a distracted look. “Hey.”
“Hey. And a yo from Peabody. Have you been able to connect with Laurel Esty?”
“You just missed her, and her friend Reb. Connect. Yeah, you could say that. I’ve got a date after shift.”
“With Esty?”
“It just happened.” He gave a puzzled laugh to go with the distracted look. “She said how maybe I’d take her out for a drink, and I guess I said sure. Then she said, ‘Mag, how about seven?’ So.”
Eve lifted her eyebrows. Peabody’s description—the hand fanning over the heart—hit the mark. The police artist had a lot of messy dark curls around a face that slipped along an interesting line between pretty and sexy.
“So,” Eve repeated. “I take it she wasn’t nervous about coming in.”
“Didn’t seem to be. Like some, she didn’t think she remembered or saw what she remembered and saw. It’s just a matter of easing them along. Huh. Straight wit, right? And not even because she didn’t witness a crime. Just got a glimpse at some art that pertains.”
“That’s right.” Since it was there, Eve leaned a hip on the corner of his desk. “No ethical lines crossed, if that’s what you’re asking, by buying her that drink. How much did you ease along out of her?”