Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(101)

“You can’t get into the bigs, can’t make it out of semi-pro. Screw it, use your build, your moves for bodyguarding and make more money. Fall in with just the right client—pays good, makes you his go-to for head-knocking. It just escalates. See, he’s got some dings on here, all involving violence. Assault, battery, destruction of property. He didn’t do any time, just paid fines, anger management bullshit, community service. No illegals playing in, no alcohol. He stays clean, keeps in shape. And according to his official report makes a damn good living freelancing. There’ll be more tucked away, but he doesn’t mind reporting a hefty sum, and paying the freight on it. He needs the success.”

“The address listed. It’s not far from the first crime scene, is it?”

“No, it’s not. Not far from Alexander and Pope. It’s handy to live close to work.” She rose, grabbed her coat.

“It looks like you’ll have to settle for the sparkle on my shoes tomorrow night,” Reo said. “They’re fabulous. I’ll get your warrant, and if I’m not here when you bring him in, just tag me. Work late tonight, party hard tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” She dragged on her coat as she strode into the bullpen. “Peabody, Uniform Carmichael, Franks, Baxter, Trueheart. Suit up. We got a hit on the UNSUB now ID’d as Clinton Frye. Let’s go get his ass.”

• • •

She set it up simply, pulling Callendar from EDD to run heat imaging, eyes, ears. She covered the exits on the eight-story building, considered the options of taking Frye from his top floor, corner apartment.

“Is he up there or not?” she asked Callendar.

“I’m scanning. I’m not finding any heat sources. No shields either. He’s not home, Dallas.”

“Damn it.”

“I can patch into building security, give you eyes in the hallway outside his apartment, in the elevators and stairwells.”

“Do it.”

“Do we sit on it, Dallas?” Peabody wondered. “Wait for him to come back?”

It could come to that, Eve thought. “Let’s see if we can get some information first. Is anyone in the apartment across the hall?”

“Give me a sec. Yeah,” Callendar confirmed. “I’ve got two. One’s either a kid or a midget.”

“Good enough. Peabody, let’s go talk to the neighbor. Everybody, just hold. If you spot him, don’t spook him. The bastard can run.”

She jogged across the street, scanning as she went. Nice neighborhood. A man could go out for a walk, drop down to the market, have a late lunch at the deli. She didn’t want Frye to wander toward home and spot her.

“He could be at work,” Peabody suggested as Eve bypassed the door locks with her master.

“I don’t think Alexander has him in all that much. He’s the kind of guy who stands out. Why have somebody hanging around who people notice? Maybe he keeps a separate office somewhere. Or he’s just out. Or he’s killing somebody else either on his own or at Alexander’s orders.”

“Who’s left?”

“Alexander would have a bigger slice of the pie, and remove a personal irritant if his half brother met an untimely demise.”

“Have Pope killed while we’re investigating three other murders with connections to him?”

“He may be that arrogant. My gut, and the probability I ran says he’ll wait a few months. But, like Frye, killing’s working for him. Why not use it again?”

They stepped off the elevator on eight, knocked on the door across from Frye’s.

“Good security, but not good and paranoid from the looks,” Eve commented as she studied Frye’s door.

When the neighbor’s door opened a woman in her middle thirties, hair tangled, clothes wrinkled, eyes exhausted stared out at Eve.

“Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.” Eve held up her badge.

“You can’t arrest me for thinking about buying shackles and chaining my son to his bed for a nap, can you?”

“It’s probably not a smart thought to share with a cop.”

“I’m past smart. I have no brain left. This is day three of the kid with the cold from hell. Why, why can’t they fix a damn cold? I’d trade any technology for a cure.”

She gestured behind her to a boy of about six who sat on the floor surrounded by a junkyard of toys. His nose was a bright red beacon in a heavy-eyed face that nonetheless clearly projected the devious.

“He’s feeling better, and that’s my hell.”

“I want ice cream!” The boy shouted it and banged his heels on the floor. “I want ice cream!”

“You get nothing until after you take a nap.”

His answer was an ear-splitting scream.

“Take me in.” The woman held out her hands, wrists close. “Arrest me. Save me. They won’t take him back in school until tomorrow, and that’s only if I swear in my own blood, and I’m willing, that he’s not contagious. His father’s on a business trip, the lucky bastard.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Ice cream!”

On the scream, the boy hurled the toy closest at hand. Eve dodged the toy truck that missed the mother by an inch.

“That’s it!” The woman whirled. “I’m done. Sick or not sick, Bailey Andrew Landon, your butt’s about to be as red as your nose.”