Promises in Death

CHAPTER THREE

EVE MOVED QUICKLY THROUGH CENTRAL. SHE took the glides rather than the elevator to avoid getting into a box with other cops. She passed enough of them—uniforms, softclothes, detectives, brass—to know word had spread.

When she turned into her own bullpen, all movement, all chatter ceased. And, she knew, it had to be addressed.

“At twenty-three forty last night, Detective Amaryllis Coltraine was murdered by person or persons unknown. Every member of this division is hereby notified, or will be notified, that any scheduled leave may, and likely will, be cancelled until this case is closed. I will clear overtime for any and all who are tapped to join the investigative team. Any of you who require personal or hardship leave in the interim will have to clear it with me, and will have to make it damn good.

“There will be no statements to the media, offically or unoffically, on this matter unless cleared through me. You can all consider this part of your current caseload. She’s ours now.”

She walked to her office, straight to the AutoChef for coffee. She’d no more than taken the steaming mug out when Detective Baxter came in behind her. “Lieutenant.”

“Make it quick, Baxter.”

“I wanted to say Trueheart and I are cleaning up a few loose ends on a case. We should have it tied up pretty soon. You need grunt work, legwork, shit work, whatever on this, my boy and I,” he continued speaking of his stalwart aide, “we’re up for it. Screw the overtime, Dallas. We’re not putting in for any of that, not for this.”

“Okay.” She’d expected no less, but it was satisfying to have her expectations met. “I’m going to be talking to her boss, her partner, whoever she worked with back in Atlanta. I’m going to require copies of her case files, opened and closed, her notes. And I’m going to want fresh eyes going over them. I’m going to need runs on everyone in her apartment building. Everyone she came into contact with routinely. Her neighbors, the guy she bought her food from, who delivered her pizza. Any previous relationships, any current. Her friends, the bartender where she drank. I want to know her inside and out.”

“Morris—”

“I’ll be going back there, but he needs some time. By the time you tie up those ends, I’ll have plenty for you and Trueheart.”

“Okay. I, ah, made half a play for her a few months back.”

“Baxter, you make half a play for anything female.”

He smiled a little, appreciating her attempt to keep it light. “What can I say? Women are the best thing going. She gave me half a flirt back, you know? But she was all about Morris. There’s nobody out there who wouldn’t jump to work this case, because she was a cop. But every one of them will jump higher, jump faster because of Morris. Just wanted to say.”

“Let me know when you close your case.”

“Yes, sir.”

She took her coffee to her desk, noted she had multiple incoming transmissions. Some would be from the media, she thought, and those she’d dump on the liaison, until ordered otherwise.

Eve picked through, passed, discarded, held. And played the one from her commander. Whitney’s administrative assistant relayed his orders. She was to report the minute she was in her office.

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. Thanks.”

“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 studs 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?”

“She was seeing a couple guys casually back in Atlanta before she transferred. One was another cop, and that was basically a booty buddy she’d been tight with awhile before. The other was a lawyer. She said it just wasn’t a good fit, and both of them got to just drifting along in the relationship. One of the reasons she transferred was because she felt her personal life got stale, and she felt she was losing her edge professionally. She wanted something new.”

“Nobody serious?” Eve pressed, thinking of what Morris had told her. And saw Cleo hesitate.

“She mentioned there’d been somebody, pretty intense for a while. But it hadn’t worked out.”

“Name?”

“No. But it bruised her up some—emotionally. She said they broke it off, and she’d done the casual thing for a couple months with the lawyer. But she wanted a change—a new place, new faces. Like that.”

“And once she’d transferred—on that personal level.”

“The thing with the ME started pretty quick. She hadn’t been here long when they met. Ammy said there was this instant spark. They took their time. I mean, they didn’t jump in the sack right off. When they did . . . like I said, you tell a woman partner things. She was crazy about him, and it came off mutual. I went out with them—like a double date deal—a few times. They gave it off—that spark. She wasn’t seeing anyone else.”

“She never mentioned anyone pushing her, on that personal front.”

“No.”

“Did she take meets on her own? With weasels, other informants, or arrange to deal with suspects solo?”

“Not generally. I mean, she might hook up with one of her weasels solo. But she’d been working this area less than a year. She didn’t have that many.”

“Names?”

Cleo’s back went up, Eve could see it. No cop liked to share weasels. “She mostly used this guy who runs a pawnshop on Spring. Stu Bollimer. He’s originally from Georgia, so she played the connection.”

“Were you using him on anything currently?”

“I know she gave him a bump on the Chinatown robbery we’re working, and he said he’d keep his ear to the ground.”

“Anything you worked on generate trouble, somebody who’d want to hurt her?”

“You bring in bad guys, they’re not going to be happy with you. Nothing stands out. I’ve been going over and over it since I heard. We’re a small squad, and most of what we handle just isn’t that juicy. She liked doing the small jobs. The mom-and-pop whose market gets ripped off, the kid who gets knocked off his airboard so some asshole can steal it. The truth is, she was thinking, maybe down the road, about marriage and having a family, taking the professional mother deal. She liked her job, and she was good at it—don’t get me wrong. But she was thinking, especially since Morris, that down the road . . .”

“All right, Detective. If you’d send Detective O’Brian up, I’d appreciate it. If he’s not available, your lieutenant can send up whoever he can spare.”

“O’Brian’s working his desk. I’ll send him.” Cleo got to her feet. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you come to us if you need more manpower on this. Not every cop works out of Central.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Detective.” After Cleo went out, Eve sat back. “Does she just not get it? Is it just a blind spot?”

“That every cop in that squad is currently a suspect?” Peabody shook her head. “I guess you don’t look at your own family first.”

“Civilians don’t. Cops do—or should.” Eve made a couple of notes, then reviewed her data on O’Brian.

“Next up has twenty-three years in. He made first grade five years back. He’s been with this squad for a dozen years. Second marriage, fifteen years in. No kids from marriage one, two from marriage two. Commendations, and two valorous conduct citations. Worked Major Case until he transferred here. That’s a big shift.”

Eve finally cracked her tube of Pepsi, took a hit. “He’s been here the longest, longer than his current lieutenant.”

“Guys like that can be the touchstone of a squad. The one the others go to when they don’t want to go to the brass.”

“We’re going to be here awhile yet. Check in, will you? See if there’s anything new we can use here.”

O’Brian, beefy, long-jawed, sharp-eyed, stepped in as Peabody moved to the far end of the table. “Lieutenant. Detective.”

“Detective O’Brian. We’re splitting duties here, to try to keep ahead of the curve. We can talk while my partner makes some contacts.”

“Fine.” He sat. “Let me save you some time. Detective Coltraine was a good, steady cop. Dependable. She liked to dig into the pieces for the little details. When she first joined the squad, I had my doubts she’d make the cut. That was my own prejudice, because she looked like someone who should be making beauty vids. After a couple of shifts, I saw what was under her. She knew how to be part of a team, how to handle herself in the field, and with the rest of the squad.

“If she got taken down in the stairwell of her own place, it wasn’t a stranger.”

“How do you know how she was taken down?”

His eyes never shifted from Eve’s. “I’ve got connections. I used them. I haven’t shared what I dug up with the rest of the squad. What gets shared there’s up to the boss. But I’m telling you here, if she left her place last night carrying both her weapons, she was on the job. She went down in the line. And I’m going to be pushing for her to have that honor.”

“Who could have gotten into her building?”

“Fuck if I know. We don’t work that much heat here. She didn’t have anything going for somebody to swing out and kill a cop. We got a break-in, electronics. Inside job, no question. We’d’ve had the guy sewed before noon today. I’ll still have him sewed before end-of-shift. He’s an idiot, a screwup. He’s not a cop killer. I know Delong gave you the case file. You’ll see for yourself.”

“Could she have, when picking at the pieces for the little details, on this, on something else, have scraped up something hot? Something that came back at her?”

“If she did, she didn’t tell me. We had a—I guess I want to say a kind of relationship where she’d talk a case through with me.” The grief showed now. He stared down at the table, but Eve saw it working over his face. “She had dinner at my place a few times. My wife liked her, a lot. We all did. Maybe it was Morris.”

“Excuse me?”

“Something he was working on, or had. Somebody who wanted to pay him back. Where do you hit? She was in love with the guy. It showed. The few times he came in, to hook up with her at end-of-shift? It was all over both of them. I don’t know. I’m reaching. I can’t see anything she was on, anything she was connected to that she’d die for.”

“Would you mind telling me why you transferred out of Major Case?”

He shrugged. “The job’s a good part of the reason my first marriage went south. I got another chance. Got married, and had this kid. A little girl. I figure, I’m not going to risk it again, so I transferred. It’s a good squad. We do good work here, and plenty of it. But I don’t get many calls in the middle of the night, and most nights, I’m home for dinner with my family. So you don’t have to ask, that’s where I was last night. My kid—the oldest—she’s fourteen now. She had a friend over for a study date. Mostly bullshit,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Around midnight, I was giving them both a raft of grief for giggling like a couple of mental patients when they should’ve been asleep.”

“Detective Grady mentioned a weasel, Stu Bollimer.”

“Yeah, Ammy cultivated him. He’s from Macon so she used the old home connect. The guy was born a weasel. I can’t see him setting her up, not for this. He’s small change.”

“All right. I appreciate it, Detective.”

“Are you going to keep the boss in the loop?”

“That’s my intention.”

“He’s a good boss.” He pushed back from the table. “If she’d felt anything coming, anything to worry about, she’d have gone to him, or to me.”

“How were her instincts?”

For the first time, he hesitated. “Maybe not as tuned as they could’ve been. She was still feeling her way here, a little bit. Like I said, she was hell on details, and she was good with people. Put wits and vics at ease. But I guess I wouldn’t say she had the gut. The head, yeah, but maybe not the gut. Doesn’t make her less of a cop.”

“No, it doesn’t. She’s going to get our best, Detective O’Brian.”

“Can’t ask for more.”

“Who should we talk to next?”

“Newman maybe. He’s not going to get dick done today anyway.”

“Would you send him up?”

Peabody waited until the door shut. “Touchstone,” she said again. “He’ll take this the hardest. The boss is the boss, but he’s the team leader.”

“She didn’t have a cop’s gut. He didn’t want to say it because it seems disrespectful. But he knew it might help the investigation. She didn’t have the gut. Got the call, went out. Probably never felt any twinge. She’d been set up—and it doesn’t feel like impulse, but something planned out. But she didn’t feel it. It’s good to know.”

She reviewed her data on Detective Josh Newman.