by Nora Roberts
She set her coffee aside, rose, and walked back to the bullpen. “Peabody, contact Coltraine’s lieutenant and request a meet with him at his earliest convenience. Also request he arrange same with her partner or partners. I’m with Whitney.”
She could wish for more time, Eve thought as she traveled the labyrinth of Cop Central to Commander Whitney’s domain. Time to put her thoughts together, to start her murder book, to refine her notes, to begin her cold and intrusive search through the life of a dead cop. But when Whitney pushed the bell, you answered the door.
He didn’t keep her waiting, either. The minute she walked into the outer office, the admin directed her into the inner sanctum.
He rose from behind his desk and filled the room with his presence. He wore command the way a man wore a suit perfectly tailored for his height, his girth. It belonged to him, Eve had always thought, because he’d earned it-with every step.
Though he rode a desk rather than the streets, that suit of command had been tailored for a cop.
“Lieutenant.”
“Sir.”
He didn’t gesture for her to sit. They would do this standing. He studied her for a moment, his wide, dark face solemn, his eyes cold.
“Report.”
She gave it quickly, straight out, every detail even as she laid disc copies of her on-scene on his desk. “I’m arranging to meet with her lieutenant, her partner, anyone from her house who may be able to provide insight or details.”
“Morris is covered.”
“Yes, sir. He was working, and there are witnesses, as well as security discs and his log to support. There’s no need to spend time ascertaining his whereabouts. He’s clear.”
“Good. That’s good. Play it out for me, Dallas. Your view.”
“She was home. She either received a call on her pocket ’link or had a previous meet-personal or official is not possible to confirm at this time-previously arranged. Her weapon box was unlocked and empty. There are compartments for her standard issue, and a smaller clutch piece, as well as holsters for both. She used a hip holster for her standard.”
For herself, Eve preferred the harness-the feel and the weight of it.
“She went out armed.”
“Yes, sir. I’m more inclined to think she went out on the job than socially. Because of the clutch piece. But I don’t know her yet. I don’t know what kind of a cop she was yet.”
He nodded. “Continue.”
“She left the apartment sometime after twenty-three eighteen. She had a droid pet and switched it to sleep mode at that time. She set her security, and took the stairs. Wits state this was her habit. The ambush came in the stairway, frontal assault. She took the hit, which knocked her back against the wall. The assailant transported her to the basement of the building, administered an as-yet-unknown stimulant to bring her to. At twenty-three forty, a weapon, possibly her own, was held to her throat and fired. I have EDD checking the security. We know that the rear door cam was jammed. He came in that way, and from my examination, the lock looked clean. So he had a key card and code, or he’s very skilled. He knew her habits, and knew she’d be coming down the stairs. He contacted her, and she went out to meet him. That’s how I see it. She knew her killer.”
“For the time being, any media will be funneled through the department liaison. The death of one cop won’t stir up the juices in any case. If that changes, I’ll let you know. You’re free to assign as many men to your investigative team as you feel necessary. Again, if that changes, you’ll be informed. This is now flagged priority, for every department involved. I want copies of all reports as they come in, or as they’re completed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whatever you need on this one, Lieutenant.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll be speaking with her family shortly, as will her lieutenant. I assume they’ll want a funeral or memorial in Atlanta, but we will be holding a memorial here. I’ll let you know when it’s arranged.”
“I’ll see my division is informed of the details.”
“I’ve kept you from it long enough. But before you go, I want to ask you something from a personal level. Does Morris have all he needs?”
“I wish I knew. I don’t know what else can be done for him, at this time. They were, I think, becoming very serious.”
Whitney nodded. “Then we’ll do what we do, and find the answers for him.”
“Yes, sir.”
She went back to it, closed herself in her office to review her notes, to open her murder book, to start her board.
“Dallas?”
“Lab reports are already coming in,” Eve said as Peabody stepped inside. “I didn’t have to threaten or bribe anybody to get them this fast. It’s not just because a cop went down. It’s because the cop was Morris’s lady. They shot her up with a stimulant-enough so she was conscious and aware, but unable to move, to fight. No trace on her. No prints on the outside, rear door. Sealed up, and had to wipe it down for good measure. No prints, at all. Her internal organs showed extreme trauma, from a stun. If she’d lived, she’d have been in bad shape. He didn’t take any chances, but was careful, and knowledgeable enough to know what setting to use so she’d go down hard, stay down, but live. Until he was finished.”
“I spoke with the locals in Atlanta. I arranged for a grief counselor for her parents and her brother.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Her lieutenant can and will speak with us anytime. They worked squad-style, so she partnered or teamed with everyone in her unit.”
“Then we’ll talk to everyone in her unit. Let’s go get started.”
Peabody glanced at the board, and Coltraine’s ID shot. “She was really beautiful.” She turned away, followed Eve. “I started runs on the other tenants, and Jenkinson said he had some time, so he’s helping on that. I checked in with EDD. McNab said they’re on top of it. And they’ve already sent somebody down to pick up her unit at her house. Her cop house.”
“I know what you mean.”
“He told me she’d saved, on her home unit, she kept e-mails from Morris. Funny ones, romantic ones, sexy ones.” She let out a sigh as they went down the glides. “And some from her parents, her brother, some from friends back in Atlanta. She had them all in different files. There was job stuff on there, too. He’s sorting it out. Her last transmission on her home ’link was about eight last night. From Morris. He talked to her while he took a dinner break. Nothing else on her home unit yesterday. She worked an eight-to-four shift.”
“We need to know when she got the Chinese, if it was pickup or delivery.”
“Chinese?”
“Leftovers in her kitchen. She had a take-out bag with her when she came in, security discs. When did she order it, did she stop on the way home, bring it from work? Start checking take-out and delivery places near her building.”
“Okay.”
“ME’s report said she ate about seven-thirty, drank a glass of wine. She ran the recycler, so there’s not much left for the crime lab. Let’s find out if she ate alone. We’re going to put together every step she took, from the time she got up yesterday morning.”
“Did you ask Morris if they were together the night before she died?”
“No. Shit. No. I should have. Damn it.” She stopped in the garage, took out her pocket ’link. “Give me some room, Peabody.” She keyed in Morris’s number. She didn’t expect him to answer, and was dumped straight to voice mail. “Morris, it’s Dallas. I’m very sorry to disturb you. I need to put a time line together for yesterday. When you can, if you can let me know if you and Detective Coltraine were together yesterday morning, it would-”
“Yes.” His face came on-screen. His eyes were dull, dark, and empty. “She stayed here the night before. We had dinner around the corner, a bistro. Jaq’s. About eight, I think. And we came back here. She left yesterday morning, about seven. A little after seven. She had an eight-to-four shift.”
“Okay. Th
anks.”
“I spoke with her twice yesterday. She called me sometime in the afternoon, and I called her, at home, on my dinner break. She was fine. I can’t remember the last thing I said to her, or her to me. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
“It doesn’t matter what the last thing was. Everything else you said to each other over these past months, that’s what adds up. That’s what counts. I’ll come by later if you-”
“No, but thank you. I’m better off alone for a while.”
“That was a good thing you said to him,” Peabody commented when Eve shoved the ’link back in her pocket. “About all the things they said to each other.”
“I don’t know if it was right, or bullshit. I’m winging it.”
Coltraine’s cop shop squatted between a Korean market and a Jewish deli in post-Urban Wars ugliness. The concrete box would probably withstand a bomb, but it wouldn’t win any beauty prizes.
Inside, it smelled of cop. Foul coffee, sweat, starch, and cheap soap. Uniforms milled around in their hard shoes, coming in from details or heading out again while civilians shuffled their way through security. Eve held her badge to a scanner, had it and her prints verified with Peabody’s, and passed through.
She moved straight to the sergeant’s desk, badged him. He was a hard-eyed, craggy-faced vet who looked like he enjoyed a nice bowl of nails for breakfast.
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, out of Central, to see Lieutenant Delong.”
Those hard eyes trained on Eve’s face. “You the ones who caught the case?”
He didn’t have to specify which case-not for Eve, or for the cops within hearing distance. “That’s right.”
“Eighteenth squad’s one floor up. Stairs there, elevator there. You got any juice on it?”
“We’ve just started to squeeze. Has anyone off been in to see her, anyone we might want to talk to, the last few days?”
“Nobody comes to mind. If you need to see my log, I’ll make sure you get it. The rest of the desk shift’s, too.”
“Appreciate that, Sergeant.”
“I don’t know what kinda cop she was, but she never passed this desk without saying good morning. It says something about a person, they take a minute to say good morning.”
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
They took the open, metal stairs, and Eve felt cop eyes follow her to the second floor. The squad room was smaller than her bullpen-and quieter. Six desks jammed into the room, four of them manned. Two detectives worked their comps, two others their ’links. The Public Administrative Assistant sat at a short counter. His eyes were red, Eve noted, his white, white skin blotchy as if from a recent crying jag. He looked, to her, very young.
“Lieutenent Dallas and Detective Peabody to see Lieutenant Delong.”
“Yes, we’re-he’s expecting you.”
Once again, Eve felt cop eyes on her. This time she shifted, met them, one by one as the routine activity in the squad room stopped. She saw anger, resentment, grief, and a measurement. Are you good enough to stand for one of ours?
And through a glass wall she saw the man she assumed was Delong rise from his desk and start out.
He stood a little under average height, looked mid-forties and fit-strong through the shoulders. He wore a suit, dark gray with a white shirt, gray tie. A crop of wavy black hair swept back from a thin face that showed strain around the eyes and mouth.
“Lieutenant, Detective.” He offered a handshake to both. “Please come back.”
Silence followed them into the glass-walled room. Delong shut the door. “First, let me say you’ll have complete cooperation from me and the squad. Anything you need, any time you need it.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve already copied all of Detective Coltraine’s case files, and cleared EDD to take her electronics. I also have copies of her personnel file, and my evaluations.” He picked up a pouch. Peabody took it, slipped it into her file bag. “You can use my office to talk to the squad, or one of our boxes. There’s a small conference room upstairs, if that works better.”
“I don’t want to put you out of your office, Lieutenant, or cause your men to feel they’re being interrogated by another cop. The conference room would be fine. I’m sorry for your loss, Lieutenant. I know it’s hard to lose a cop under your command.”
“Hard enough if she’d gone down in the line. At least then, you know. But this… Is there anything you can tell me?”
“We believe she was ambushed in the stairwell of her building, taken down to the basement. We haven’t found her weapon. It may have been used to kill her. What was she working on?”
“A robbery in Chinatown, a break-in, electronics store-a couple cases of pocket ’links and PPCs were taken, a carjack-armed. It’s all in the files.”
“Did she report any threats against her?”
“No. No, she didn’t. I have an open-door policy. We’re a small squad. If something’s up, I usually hear about it.”
“Who was she partnered with?”
“We work as a squad. She’d have worked with everyone at some time. I usually paired her with Cleo. Detective Grady. They had a good rhythm. But she was on with O’Brian for the break-in.”
“How’d she get along with the rest of the squad?”
“She slid right in. We had some ribbing going on. Southern transplant, and her looks. But she held her own, and earned respect. I’m going to say my squad runs pretty damn smooth. Ammy fit it.”
“What kind of cop was she?”
He sighed a little. “She was solid. A detail cop. Organized, good eye. She’d work a case through, no bitching about OT, no griping over paperwork. She was an asset. She cleared her share of cases. She wasn’t flashy, didn’t need the big collar. She was steady. Did her job.”
“And her personal life?”
“She wasn’t flashy there, either. Everybody knew she was involved with Morris. We got a squad of four here. It’s hard to keep secrets. She was happy. If she had trouble, she didn’t share it, she didn’t show it.”
“Why did she transfer out of Atlanta?”
“I asked her, the way you would. She told me she’d started to feel as if she’d gotten into a rut, that she needed a change of scene, of routine. I wish I had answers. I wish I had something clear-cut to give you. I know your reputation, Lieutenant. Detective,” he added with a nod to Peabody. “While part of me wants my team on this case, I know Ammy’s in good hands.”
“Thank you. If you’d direct us to the conference room, we’ll set up. If her most usual partner, Detective Grady’s available, we can talk to her first.”
“I’ll take you up.”
The room boasted a single long table, a lot of creaky chairs, two wall screens, a wide whiteboard, and an aged AutoChef.
Peabody tried the coffee, blanched. “It’s worse than ours. I didn’t think that was possible. I’m going to hit Vending for a soft drink. You want one?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
While she waited, Eve thought of Delong. She understood. If Coltraine had gone down in the line, under his command, there would be guilt and grief and anger. But he’d know why. The bad guy got the edge that day. He’d know who, and even if that bad guy needed to be chased down, he’d know.
She set her recorder and her notebook on the table. Took out her PPC to refresh herself on Detective Cleo Grady.
Thirty-two, Eve mused. Detective third grade with eight years in. New York transplant from Jersey. No marriages, no cohabs, no children. Several commendations, and a handful of disciplinary slaps. Part of Delong’s squad for three years, transferring at her own request from SVU. Parents retired to Florida. No sibs.
She glanced up when Cleo rapped on the doorjamb. “Detective Grady, Lieutenant.”
“Have a seat.”
It showed in the eyes, Eve thought. The anger and the resentment. And in the tight line of the mouth. Cleo wore her streaked blond hair short, straight, sleek, and showed off a couple of winking blue s
tuds in her earlobes. The eyes, a deep, almost navy blue, stayed level with Eve as she crossed the room.
She hit five-five, with a body both solid and curvy. She wore simple brown trousers, a white shirt, and a thin tan jacket over it. Like Eve, she preferred the shoulder harness.
“The boss wants us to cooperate, so we will.” She had a quick, clipped voice, a little raw at the edges. “But this should be our case.”
“If it was my partner or a member of my squad, I’d probably feel the same. But it’s not your case. We’re on record here, Detective.” She paused as Peabody came in, shut the door.
“I picked up some water and Pepsis,” Peabody said, and set bottles on the table.
Cleo shook her head. “The least you can do is tell me what you’ve got.”
“You can talk to your lieutenant about that. We brought him up to date. You can play the hard-ass with us, but that’s not helping Detective Coltraine.”
“If you’re looking to dig up dirt on her-”
“Why would we be? We’re not IAB. We’re homicide. Your squadmate was murdered, Detective. So cut the crap. You and Coltraine were often partnered.”
“Yeah, the boss thought we complemented each other.”
“Did you also interact on a personal level? Socially?”
“Sure we did. Why wouldn’t…” She shook her head again, held up a hand. She picked up a bottle of the water she’d initially rejected, twisted it open, drank. “Look, maybe I’m sorry for the attitude, but this is hard. She was part of my team, and we got to be friends. We worked damn well together, you can look at our case files and see that. And we got so we’d hang out sometimes. Have a drink after shift or a meal. Maybe just the two of us, or maybe with some of the other guys. It wasn’t always about the job, either. We’d talk about regular stuff. Hair and weight and men.”
“You were close,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. We each had our own life, but we hit it off. You’ve got to know how it is. When you’re working with another female, there are things you can get into, things you can say that you wouldn’t with a man.”
“Did she tell you about any old lovers, boyfriends, guys that wanted to be with her?”
