Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(72)

“I want the names of the medicals sent to pick him up.”

“Got them. Communication’s trying their personal ’links. They have LoJacks on all emergency vehicles. They’re tracking it.”

“Keep an eye on these people,” she ordered, and strode off to Communications. She heard the angry voices before she reached the station.

“And I’m telling you, I got shifted to nine. So did Mormon. Ask him!”

“You’re on log, right here, for the transpo station pickup.”

“I was on the pickup, until I got the schedule change.”

“When did you get the schedule change?” Eve demanded.

“Who the hell are you?”

In answer she pulled out her badge.

“Jesus, now a schedule screwup’s illegal? I got the tag about six this morning. Instead of seven on, and the pickup, I’m nine on and standard rounds. Look.” He yanked out his ’link, pushed incoming, shoved it at Eve.

She read the message. “Where’s this Mormon?”

“We were in the eatery, catching some breakfast. He ran out to get some of that fancy coffee from the van when it showed up. He’ll be back in a minute.”

“Have you located the bus?” Eve asked.

“I’ve just got it. It’s way off route,” the woman said with a frown. “And I don’t know who the hell’s driving it because we’ve clearly got Mormon and Drumbowski on that run, and Drumbowski’s standing right here.”

“It’s not my screwup,” Drumbowski insisted.

“No,” Eve said, “it’s not. Give me the location. Now!”

“What the hell’s going on?” Drumbowski threw his hands in the air.

But Eve just took the location, sprinted away. She already knew Chaz Parzarri wouldn’t be transported to the hospital. But she was damn sure he’d be transported to the morgue.

15

EVE EXPECTED TO FIND CHAZ PARZARRI DEAD. A dirty accountant, she concluded, could be replaced. Still, she had Peabody call in for uniform response to the GPS location as she ran hot across town.

“Two units responding,” Peabody told her, squeezing the chicken stick in a death grip while she prayed the safety and maneuvering features in her partner’s DLE were all they were touted to be.

Her heart did a flip into her throat when they shot vertical, skimmed over the bright yellow snake of Rapid Cabs with a couple of layers of paint to spare. She decided her heart might as well stay where it landed as the car tipped to her side like a banking plane before they boomeranged around a corner.

“It’s stupid to kill him.” Eve slammed back to the street, punched through a hole in traffic. “But they’re stupid. I should’ve factored that in. The goddamn stupidity.”

“He knows a lot,” Peabody began.

“Because he’s dirty. Throw money at him to stonewall me. They don’t know Dickenson made those copies. Stonewall me, doctor the books, then kill him. Or just ship him off. He’s got no real ties here. Ship him off to someplace we can’t extradite him, give him a new identity, and keep him on the payroll. Why bring yet another goddamn number cruncher in? It’s inefficient to kill him. It’s wasteful.”

“Maybe that’s what they’re doing. Trying to get him gone, hide him.”

Eve only shook her head. “They’d have plucked him out in Vegas. No point bringing him here to send him somewhere. And no goddamn point to bring him here to kill him. Why not do it out there where there’s distance between you? Stupid. They’re stupid.”

Murderously stupid.

She fishtailed, righted, then swung beside a black-and-white.

The thunder of traffic roared overhead when she got out of her vehicle. A uniform stood beside the open rear doors of the ambulance, another at the driver’s side. She noted two more talking, or trying to talk to a jittery funky-junkie.

“DB in the back, Lieutenant. He’s still warm.”

She peered in, visually identified Chaz Parzarri. “Peabody, they had to have another vehicle here. See what you can find on any traffic cams in this area. They can’t have more than a fifteen-minute window, probably less. What have we got over there?” she asked the uniform, jerking a head toward the junkie.

“We found him trying to get into the bus. Nothing locked on it, but he’s so strung out he couldn’t work the handle.” The uniform set a hand on his hip under his Sam Browne belt. “Says he was just checking to see if anybody was inside. Just being a good citizen.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, we figure he’s messed up, but a junkie like him can smell drugs a mile off. The guys are working him some, but he claims he didn’t see anything.”

The timing said otherwise, Eve thought as she did a quick scan. She spotted the pile of rubble and trash behind one of the pillars. “Is that his hive over there?”

“That’s what we figure.”

“I’m going to talk to him. Stand by here.”

“Good luck.”

The man wore a filthy army-green coat and torn orange sweatpants over the gaunt frame with the distended belly typical of severe malnutrition. His red-rimmed, watery eyes—sunlight wasn’t the funky-junkie’s friend—skittered over at Eve as she approached, then squinted out of a grimy pair of sunshades with a crack in the left lens.