Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(55)

“Should’ve figured it.”

“He left about eleven because he had an early series of meetings today. And he’s at a conference in Connecticut right now. He left this morning about seven. I did a run while I talked to him, Dallas. He comes off pretty squeaky clean. One marriage—eight years in. Two kids. He doesn’t have a license to drive, doesn’t own a vehicle.”

As Eve avoided contact with a compact that swerved into her lane, she snarled. “A lot of people shouldn’t have one.”

“Grew up in New York, moved to Hoboken after the first kid from the timing on his data.”

“It’s not going to be him. They’re not going to be involved. Just not enough there for the level of violence. It’s a vendetta.”

She pulled into the garage, thrilled to be finished, for now, with the hordes of people who shouldn’t have a license to drive.

“I’m going to say it again. You don’t have to do this thing with Tibble.”

“I’m going to say it again,” Peabody countered as they got out of the car. “Your ass, my ass.” She made a fist, pumped it. “Pan.”

Eve just shook her head.

They rode the elevator as far as Eve could stand it, squeezed out when a bunch of shiny new uniforms trooped on, herded by the grizzled vet she assumed had drawn the short straw for leading an orientation.

She hit the glides. “Check in with EDD, see if McNab’s made any progress.”

The more she had to present, Eve thought, the better.

“He’s into it.” Peabody read the reply on the ’link screen. “Hack confirmed, but it’s multiple. So far he’s got them going back for sixteen months. He hasn’t been able to pinpoint. Can’t ascertain as yet if it’s one hacker or more.”

“Good enough for now. The killer cyber-stalked him.”

They switched back to an elevator for the rise to The Tower. Tibble’s offices soared high above the streets, and the desks of the cops who worked them. But Eve had reason to know that distance, that height, didn’t remove New York’s Chief of Police and Security from those who served and protected.

But those who rose that high had more than law and order to oversee. They had to deal with politics, with optics, with media perception.

She acknowledged that reality, more or less accepted it, and often thought: Better them than me.

She paused outside Tibble’s office where his admin manned a workstation with two screens, a D and C where several lights blinked insistently, a ’link humming incoming even as he talked on a headset.

“Hold, please.” He turned to Eve and Peabody. “Just one moment, Lieutenant, Detective.” He tapped his headset. “Sir, Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody are here. Yes, sir.” He tapped again. “You can go right in. He’s ready for you.”

Eve opened the right side of the double doors.

The wall of glass showed the world of New York washed in the light drizzle of early spring rain.

The room itself, wide and deep, held a sitting area, a massive wall screen, a solid desk, high-backed visitors’ chairs.

The two men in the room sat at their ease. Commander Whitney filled a visitor’s chair with his wide shoulders. Gray threaded liberally through his dark hair, and the lines of command scored his face with a kind of stoic dignity.

Tibble, long and lean, took the desk with the drenched city at his back. He wore his hair close to the skull of a face as long and lean as his body. His eyes skimmed from Whitney to Eve to Peabody, and showed nothing.

She’d heard he was hell at the poker table.

“Lieutenant, Detective, have a seat.”

Though she preferred giving reports, or receiving a dressing-down, while on her feet, Eve followed orders.

“As you should be aware,” Tibble began, “I rarely summon my officers to The Tower over a complaint. However, since this complainant has opted to reach out to me, personally, as well as the mayor, Commander Whitney and I agreed we should have a conversation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t ask about the complaint or the complainant.”

“No, sir. The complainant would be Geena McEnroy, and her complaint would involve our investigation into her husband’s murder. Or, more specifically, into the motive for his murder.”

“Which is?”

“Nigel McEnroy’s confirmed sexual harassment of employees and clients—and more. His use of illegals to drug the women he targeted. His rape of multiple women, which he recorded and secreted said recordings in his offices here in New York and in London. Recordings I’ve viewed.”

Sober, direct, Tibble showed nothing in expression. “These are very serious allegations made against an individual who can’t dispute them or defend himself.”

“Yes, sir, they are. They are also fact. We have sworn statements from a number of women who were drugged, coerced, raped, and threatened. We have video and audio evidence, as McEnroy recorded his assaults. We have the illegals he used, the notebooks in which he listed his targets, corroborating witnesses from the venues in which he trolled those targets.”

Eyes unreadable, Tibble merely nodded. “I see. Is there a reason why you didn’t speak to Ms. McEnroy about this preponderance of evidence?”

“But—” Peabody broke off, cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir.”