Devoted in Death

20

She tagged Reo first, interrupting the APA’s beauty sleep. Cher Reo would order the search warrant, save time.

The chain of command meant she should contact Whitney next, but her team had earned it. And briefing them first would add to the movement.

“Hey,” Peabody said when she came on screen. She blinked blurry, sleep-deprived eyes.

“I’ve got the van.”

“You – what? Holy crap, Dallas, are you kidding me?”

“They changed the plates. Do a quick run on Lappans, Anthony Charles, on East Broadway just to tie it up. Reo’s getting us a warrant to search it.”

“Where are you?”

“Second level of a permit garage.” She rattled off the address. “Get that to McNab. I want the security feed for the past five days. Have Banner start a search on the three buildings that use this garage. Vacants, missings, DBs. I’m ordering a dozen uniforms to knock on doors in these buildings.”

“Do you want us down there?”

“I want you where you are. Get the data, all of it. I’ll pull you in, if we locate them, for the bust.”

“It’s not about the bust – I mean being there. Me being there.”

“I know it, but I’ll pull you in if and when. Work fast.”

She cut Peabody off, and woke up her commander.

She considered Mira, but she’d need the shrink after the bust. She’d want Mira once she had James and Parsens in the box.

Pacing, she ordered the uniforms, giving her own Uniform Carmichael the lead, with specific instructions. Two uniforms per door, with a story about a lead on a missing child reported seen in the building.

“They can’t and won’t open the door,” Roarke commented. “Or it’s highly unlikely.”

“I know it. So we can cross off any doors that open. Hostages are a possibility – other than Campbell and Mulligan – but I think that’s low. They’d be compelled to hurt and use anyone they have.”

“Another possibility,” he began.

“The van’s here – they’re not.” If that turned out to be the case, she’d deal with the frustration of it later. “We still have to do the door-to-doors.”

She used her comm again, ordered up sweepers for the van.

“Can you find a slot for that machine of yours, leave me the field kit? If Reo comes through before the sweepers get here, I can start processing the van. But I want that thing out of the way. Maybe they’ll decide it’s a good night to pick up fresh meat, and I don’t want to warn them off.”

He took a slow study of their ground, assessed it.

“Why don’t I take out the elevators while I’m at it? That would limit them, if they’re in the building, to the stairs. If they do come in, and from the outside, you’d hear them before they made it up on foot.”

“Good thinking.”

She’d put a couple of uniforms on the garage entrance while she and the sweepers worked. She checked the time, saw it was after midnight.

“Still time for them to hunt, but it’s getting past the time frame they hit the three New York vics. The later it gets, the less chance they’ll be on the move tonight. I want to get the van processed, then put under surveillance. We leave it just where it is.”

She took the field kit, circled the van again, her fingers itching to try for prints. Hearing the echo of an engine, she slipped two vehicles over, used one for cover.

From there she watched a sleet-covered sedan, an exhausted-looking woman behind the wheel, circle up as Roarke had done.

She hoped he hadn’t copped the sedan’s slot, but if he had, he’d handle it.

She yanked out her ’link when it signaled.

Reo, blond hair springing in all directions, baby blues shadowed, gave Eve a smirk.

“I caught Judge Hayden watching Any-Time Sports on screen. He was awake and amenable. Warrant’s coming through.”

“Good, quick work. Go back to bed.”

“I never got out.”

Even as the screen went blank, Eve heard the new incoming. She read the warrant – best to cross every T on this one. Satisfied, she opened her kit as Roarke strolled down to her.

“Elevator’s blocked.”

“There was a four-door sedan.”

“I waited for her. The warrant?”

“We’ve got it.”

After switching on her recorder, she went to work on the driver’s-side door first, pulled two clear prints. When she ran them for a match, got James, her lips spread in that feral smile again.

“Gotcha. Open her up, will you?”

“My pleasure.”

When she tapped her recorder, handed him her master, he waited until she’d skirted around, started on the passenger side before he took out his tools.

“Got her, too,” she told him. “Handprint.”

She came around back, sealed up, climbed in the doors he’d opened.

“Bag’s got cord, rope, duct tape, crowbar, wrenches, a hammer.”

She took out more of her own tools, tested the wrench. “Blood on the big wrench. And the crowbar, and for the triple, the hammer.”

She tested the interior floor. “And the carpet. We’ll have the sweepers get samples, take them into the lab. They’re going to match the vics. At least some of them are going to match.”

She opened the glove box. “Flashlight, owner’s manual disc, first aid kit, and this.”

With her sealed hands she held up a large knife.

“That would be a bowie knife. I’m acquainted from my own weapon collection.”

“James’s former employer. The mother’s boyfriend’s knife.”

Processing it, she found blood, and a partial print from James, another from Parsens.

“They didn’t even try to clean it. Why bother?” she supposed, “When they’re only going to use it again. Once we get them, they’re never getting out.”

She put the knife back where she’d found it, took a tag from Uniform Carmichael.

“Quick, quiet, thorough,” she told him. “Anything, anyone feels off, I get a signal. Record any door that doesn’t open.”

By the time the sweepers arrived, she’d done all she could do on the van. She crossed over to Dawson, the head sweeper and, with what had gone down on New Year’s Eve in mind, took a good look at his team of two.

“How’s it going?” she asked him.

“Oh, well, hit some rough spots now and then, but what can you do? How about you?”

“Tonight? Good, because when we bag these bastards, we’ve got enough evidence to lock them in a cage for several lifetimes. I need everything processed, and everything left exactly where you found it. If we miss them tonight, they may come back for the van. We’ll have it watched, but we’ll want them to lead us to the vics. I don’t want them spooked.”

“Full record before we touch anything.”

“I got prints, I got blood. I’ll leave you to take blood samples, get them in, wrangle expedited. I didn’t go as far as hair and fiber. You’ll be faster there. I’d want Harvo on that end.”

He smiled a little. “Everybody wants Harvo, but I’ll make it happen.”

“Did you bring the tracker?”

He patted his own kit. “As requested.”

“The guy’s a mechanic. A good one. Make sure it doesn’t show if he does a look-see. And he knows something about electronics, so —”

“We’ve got it, Dallas.”

“In and out, fast as you can. We’re doing the door-to-doors, and I’ve got a couple of cops coming in in an unmarked to keep an eye on it from the first level. It’s probably too late for them to come in and take a ride tonight, but there are uniforms scattered around. You’re covered.”

“How many vics?”

“Twenty-four and counting – that we know of. Two more still alive, that we know of.”

“We’ll sew this end up.”

Nodding, she moved off again, joined Roarke. “I want to do some knock-on-doors. It’ll go faster.”

“Then I’m with you.” But he caught her chin in his hand, his thumb brushing lightly over the shallow dent as he studied her face. “You get so bloody pale when you push past your limit. We’ll cover as many doors as you like, but if you don’t have them by the end of it, or a Herculean lead, we’re home after, and you’ll get some sleep.”

And after that he was determined she’d take a booster – however much she disliked them – whatever it took to see her through it.

Together they covered four floors of the second building. Hit one no-answer.

But the across-the-hall stepped back out. “I should’ve told you, that’s the Delwickies. Nice young couple. They’re away for a few days.”

Eve turned back, studied the door as if she could see through it if she concentrated enough.

“Took a winter break with some friends, down to the Florida Keys. I’m watering her plants while they’re away.”

Eve let her concentration throttle back. “You’ve been in their apartment in the last few days?”

“Every morning. Alice set store by her plants. Got a green thumb, too. She’s got a little orange tree in there with real fruit growing on it. It’s something.”

She yawned, pushed at her mop of steel-gray hair. “You don’t want to think they’d have anything to do with taking that little girl who’s missing. They’re nice people. Quiet, but not, you know, creepy quiet like you hear about when the neighbor turns out to be a serial killer. He’s what you call a sous chef, and at least once a week, he brings me and my husband back something from the fancy French place where he works.”

Knowing the woman had been inside the apartment every morning had been enough, but Eve let her wind out.

“Okay, thanks very much. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

“I’ve got kids, and grandkids, of my own. I’m going to keep my eye out for the little girl. Bless her heart.”

Out of all the units, the canvass netted six doors that didn’t open – not counting the Delwickies as Eve considered them crossed off.

She ran them all, found two worked night shifts, and when contacted were indeed at work, on shift. Two more reportedly out of town, and on the twelfth and fifteenth floors respectively.

Low probability.

But for them, and the last two, she dragged in very unhappy supers to authorize entrance. And cleared them all.

“That’s it now.” Determined, Roarke took her arm, and pulled her toward the elevators he’d released once the unmarked was in place.

“They’re not in these buildings, which means you’ve made serious progress. You have the van, you have evidence which will put them away. You can’t knock on every bloody door left in this sector, at least not tonight.”

“Could do some. The missing-girl gambit’s holding.”

“Eve, if you were any paler I swear I’d be able to pass a hand through you. You need sleep, then you’ll do what comes next. It’s near three in the morning now. Whatever they’ve done to your victims tonight is done.”

She thought the same, so didn’t argue, but got into the all-terrain.

“It’s narrowed down more, a lot more. Compared to where we started it’s like a handful of blocks. I gotta see what Banner’s come up with, and Peabody. Vacants, missings, DBs.”

He let her talk it out, though her words had started to slur. He edged the heat up a bit, knowing how warm relaxed her. And when she started to droop, eased her seat back.

She was out before they reached Midtown.

She stirred when he lifted her out of the seat, muttered when he carried her to the door, then surfaced as he maneuvered to get the door open.

“What? Jesus, I went out.”

“Stay that way,” he advised and started up.

“No, put me down. God, I can’t have you carrying me around in front of cops.”

“I doubt there’s a single cop in our bedroom – until I get you in there.”

“I need to check in my office.”

“It’s half-three, Eve. Everyone’s in bed but us.”

“I need to check.”

He detoured, but didn’t set her down.

“I can walk.”

“No point in it when I’ve got you.”

He noted the lights remained on in her office, paused in the doorway.

Peabody and McNab flopped together like puppies in the sleep chair. Banner had stretched facedown on the floor, with Galahad’s limp body sprawled over his waist like a fat, furry belt.

“Christ, cops,” Roarke muttered, and gave in, set Eve on her feet.

“Take Banner,” she told Roarke, then walked over to poke Peabody’s shoulder.

“Not now.” Peabody rolled over. “We can do it in the morning.”

“Ick,” was Eve’s opinion, and gave her partner a firmer poke.

“Uh-uh, in the morning.” But her eyes blinked open, stared blindly at Eve. Then cleared. “What? You? Where?”

“Get McNab up, go to bed, and I don’t want to hear about the morning.”

“Huh? Wait.” She started to sit up. McNab shifted, pulled her closer. And laid a hand directly over her left breast. “Um.” Peabody removed his hand. “We needed to take five.”

“Now you can have three and a half.”

“Eve, have some pity here,” Roarke insisted.

“Four. Back here, oh-seven-thirty.”

“We didn’t get ’em?”

“We will. Full briefing, oh-seven-thirty, but we eliminated three buildings, and the van’s being watched. Hit the rack.”

She strode out, past Banner who, awake now, sat on the floor like a man coming out of a dream.

The cat gave him a friendly head bump, then deserted him to trot after Eve.

Eve dreamed, harsh and bloody dreams, dreams where Jayla Campbell opened dead eyes to accuse her.

Where were you? I needed help. I wanted to live.

Dreams where her mother snuck in to taunt her.

I might as well have tossed you out the window like I wanted to half the time for all the good you do.

Dreams where all the known dead lay on slabs crowded into her office.

How can you sleep? they demanded. How can you sleep?

So, scarcely three hours after she’d closed her eyes in her own bed, she opened them again.

Roarke wrapped her closer when she started to rise. “You’ve time yet.”

“They won’t let me sleep. The dead won’t let me sleep. How can I? They keep asking me that. How can I sleep?”

“It’s you who asks it, darling Eve. Not the dead.” He hoped to soothe her under again, stroked her back. “Death brings knowledge, to my thinking. Of all that couldn’t be known in life. So the dead know what you do, what you give.”

“I don’t know. But if they know so much maybe that’s why they always seem so pissed off.”

He laughed a little. “Rest a bit more.”

“I can’t. I need to get going on it again. It’s today, Roarke. If we don’t find them today, Campbell’s dead, and probably Mulligan. I know it, like your dead know. Only hours now, or I lose both of them.”

“All right, then, we’ll start.”

He gave her the shower first as he wanted to light the fire and program coffee. And something else. When she came out, he held out a glass.

She scowled at it. “Uh-uh.”

“Have this, or no coffee for you.”

“Bollocks. And bite me.”

“It won’t give that nervous edge the departmental approved does, but it will give you a slow and reasonable energy lift. I’ve diluted it as you’ll chase it with coffee all day. You should trust me on this by now.”

The last booster he’d bargained her into taking had been okay, she remembered. “It doesn’t look like the last one.”

“It’s newer. We’ve been selling it for a few weeks now overseas, and in Asia. Your FDA is slower to move on such things – as your FBI and all your other acronyms and initials.”

“Not the NYPSD.”

He smiled. “That would depend on your perspective. A favor to me,” he added, held it out.

She took it, downed it, frowned. “It tastes like… green grapes.”

“Which you’re fond of.” Now he handed her the coffee. “I’ll grab a shower. Dress warm, will you? I checked the forecast, and we’re done with the sleet, with temperatures in the single digits. A balmy eight, they’re saying, for a high.”

“That’s nobody’s high.”

She layered a tank under a cashmere sweater in slate-gray, went with black for the jacket, the pants, the boots.

He’d probably roll his eyes, she thought, say something about trying a bit of color in that way he had, but…

He stepped out, a towel around his waist, tilted his head as he studied her.

“You mean business. You look strong, tough and right on into fierce. A good choice for the day.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll never get it. Never. I’m going to get started. I guess we’ll put on the whole breakfast bonanza when the others get up.”

“Works perfectly. I won’t be long.”

“Don’t you have, like, holo-meetings with Kathmandu? Is that a real place?”

He laughed again as he moved to the closet. “It is, and I don’t. I shuffled a bit. I’ll give you some time if you need it, work from here this morning.”

She started out, stopped, walked back, wrapped her arms around him, squeezed. “I forget to do that.”

He tipped her head back, kissed her. “I see it as you remember.”

“Working on it.”

She headed straight to her office, thinking more coffee first, then diving straight in before the others crowded it. She’d have close to an hour to review, rethink and research.

But when she walked into her office, Peabody already sat at an auxiliary station, gulping coffee.

“You’re early.”

Eve nodded, kept going toward the kitchen and coffee. “You too.”

“I figured I could give the other case an hour before we started back on James and Parsens.”

The other case, Eve thought as, considering the morning, the others, went for a pot instead of a single mug.

She’d dumped that one on Peabody, and said she’d be there to help. So far, she hadn’t been.

“Fill me in.”

Peabody glanced over as Eve came back in. “You’re sure?”

“Fill me in.”

“Okay. DB’s a floater, surfaced at Pier 40. ME says six days in the water.”

“Who’s the ME on it?”

“It’s Porter. DB’s, male, between twenty-five and thirty, mixed race. He’s a John Doe as his face was bashed in, then the fish – you know. And his fingers were severed.”

“By the killer, or the fish?”

“The killer. So it looks like maybe a mob hit, maybe. It sure looks like the killer didn’t want the DB ID’d if and when he surfaced.”

“DNA?”

“Yeah, I’ve got an order in, but they’re – surprise – backed up, and say at least another thirty-six. Maybe you can push them some on that.”

“I can, and will. COD?”

“Vic was stabbed, multiples, and Porter says the gut wound was COD. The finger-severing? Some ante-, some postmortem, like maybe they were trying to get information out of him, but he died – or they were trying for a ransom deal – sending his fingers as incentive.”

“What started out, potentially, as persuasion, and finished in an attempt to blur identification.”

“Yeah, that’s how it seems,” Peabody agreed. “The time in the water – the body was weighed down with old bricks, and forensic’s working on IDing those, stuffed in a jumbo recycler bag. The time in the water,” she said again, “and the fish did the usual number on the body. The bag came unsealed, so the fish got in.”

“Tox?”

“Hasn’t come in. I was leaning toward organized crime or gang, but the face-bashing – at least one blow was antemortem and broke several teeth – seems more personal. And the torture.”

“The fingers.”

“Those, yeah, that’s the big one, but there were other signs of torture.”

Eve lowered her mug. “What kind, what signs?”

“Some of the cuts and punctures were shallow, and Porter reports the vic’s left foot and ankle were smashed – heavy object. Antemortem. Both knees were broken.”

“Any burns?”

“Not in his report, but the fish…”

Eve turned on her heel, strode to her desk and tagged Morris at home.

He didn’t bother to block video – she’d never known him to. He answered, casually propped in bed, his hair loosely braided, his eyes still blurry with sleep.

“Campbell?”

“No, but possibly related. You’ve got a John Doe – Porter did the autopsy. Male, twenty-five to thirty, mixed race. Floater, surfaced Pier 40, been under six days. Signs of torture, Morris. Face beaten in beyond IDing, fingers severed. COD stabbing, abdomen. I need you on it, now, and I need you to push for immediate DNA. I want him ID’d yesterday.”

“I’ll order the DNA now.” He tossed aside the covers. Eve caught the Grim Reaper tat on his thigh, then a solid glimpse of his very well-toned ass before he moved out of screen range. “You’ll have it within the hour. I’m on my way in.”

“Thanks.”

“I never put it together.” Peabody was on her feet. “I never considered…”

“Peabody, it dropped on you less than twelve hours ago, in the middle of another prioritized investigation.”

“But I never – you thought of it in under five minutes, with just the basics I gave you.”

“And if I’d given you five minutes last night, we’d have moved on it sooner. We don’t know if it’s connected, but we’ll know once the John Doe is ID’d.”

“They’ve never done anything like this – it’s not the pattern. But I should’ve —”

“Should’ves are crap,” Eve shot back, “and who’s the LT here?”

“You are,” Peabody mumbled.

“If you want to beat yourself up,” Eve continued as Roarke came in, “do it later. But you’ve got nothing to take a hit over. It’s something we’re going to check out. Maybe they did something like this before and nobody’s found a body – or put it together, maybe it was the first time. Maybe it’s not connected at all. And maybes are like should’ves. Crap. The point is, there’s some correlation, and they needed a place in New York.”

“So, maybe they’re using the John Doe’s. Sorry about the maybe. We pursue the possibility they killed and disposed of John Doe to get his place.”

Sensing Peabody’s distress, Roarke crossed over, kissed her cheek.

“I screwed up,” she said.

“Did I say you screwed up?” Eve snapped it out this time. “You’ll know when you’ve screwed up because my boot will be up your ass. This DB hasn’t been reported missing. I’ve combed the missings, and nobody in his age range and race has been reported in the last week. You didn’t have Morris. Porter’s decent, but he’s no Morris, who’d have considered this possible connection and pushed on it. We have no previous instances of disfiguration or mutilation of this sort. You’re working the case, and briefed your partner and LT at the first opportunity.

“Is my boot up your ass?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then you didn’t screw up. Get breakfast. For everybody. We don’t have time for moping around. Move.”

“What do you want me to get – for breakfast?”

“Do I look like I give a skinny rat’s ass?”

“You really don’t.”

Moving fast now, Peabody went to the kitchen.

Eve narrowed her eyes at Roarke. “And don’t even think about giving me grief over that.”

“On the contrary.” He moved to her, tapped the dent in her chin. “I was about to say well done. You gave her just what she needed. Now, why don’t you tell me what this John Doe has to do with these murders?”

“Could be nothing, could be everything.” She reeled it off while she went to her desk, checked missing persons again for anyone in the range of John Doe.

“Pier 40 – it would coordinate with your map, or close enough.”

“That’s right. So, possible scenario: John Doe meets Parsens and/or James, or they scope him out while they’re hunting for a nest. John Doe likely lives alone, or he’d have been reported. That’s playing the odds, but they’re good ones. They take him down, in or near his residence. I vote for in. They have some fun with him, then do what they can to make IDing him difficult, they stuff him in a bag, add bricks. Steal those from an abandoned or a construction site, haul in the van, add bricks to the bag. Dump the body in the river, then make a nest in John Doe’s place.”

“Once you ID John Doe —”

“We check out his place. What Morris finds helps determine how we check it out. Could be no more than Doe’s serious bad luck, or it could be the piece we need to take these fuckers down.”

“You think the latter.”

She had the buzz, right down to her fingertips.

“Feels right.” She paced around her board, then strode to Peabody’s station, began a full review. “Feels really right. Do me a favor?”

“Of what sort?”

“Of that sort that gets McNab and Banner out of bed. When Morris gets back to me, we’re going to be ready.”