Delusion in Death (In Death #35)(15)

She paused to study the board again. “He’s making a big statement. A public place, a place for society, for gathering. And he kills at a distance. He doesn’t need to see, to touch, to feel it.”

“He’s better than they are,” Eve suggested. “Removed.”

“Yes. His targets were primarily white-collar. Executives, those striving to be—admins, assistants. He works with them or for them. He knows them. It’s most probable he works or has worked in that area—the area that provides the bar with its after-work clientele, or indeed works or has worked for the bar. He might have been fired, or passed over for promotion.”

“I’ve checked the firings at the bar,” Roarke put in. “There’s been none since I acquired it. I kept the staff when I bought it. The manager runs it well, and has for two years, which is longer than it’s been mine. He wasn’t on today. The barman who was among the victims also stood as assistant manager.”

“We’ll interview all the bar staff,” Eve said. “Any who weren’t on shift, and especially any who requested off, or don’t show up as victims or off schedule. We’ll also interview the three people who EDD tagged as exiting the scene shortly before the event, once we’ve ID’d them. And we’ll interview coworkers, family, friends of every vic. It’s going to be a long process. I’ll assign a group of vics to each of you. You’ll work the case individually and as a team. You’ll do the notification to next of kin on the vics assigned to you. You’ll do the necessary interviews, and work the cases of your vics. Every interview, report, hunch, step, stage, and sneeze is documented and copied to me, the commander, and Doctor Mira. We’ll brief eight hundred hours. I’ll clear any and all OT.

“Baxter, Trueheart,” she began and handed out specific assignments.

When she’d finished, Whitney rose. “Lieutenant, if and when you need additional manpower, it will be assigned. While you correctly initiated a Code Blue, it won’t hold. There are substantial leaks already—too many people, including civilians, to cover. The department, and the mayor, will issue statements. I’ll take point there, at this time.”

“Yes, sir. Considering Doctor Mira’s profile, the media attention is what he wants. That may satisfy him, at least long enough for the investigation to earmark a suspect. Or it may charge him up so he does it again—and bigger.”

“I agree.” Mira nodded. “I’d like to work with you and the media liaison on the statement, Commander. How it’s worded, and how it’s delivered could buy us time before another attack.”

“We’ll get started immediately. Whatever you need,” he told Eve, then turned briefly to the others. “Good hunting,” he said, and left them.

“Let’s get to work. I want all notifications done tonight.” Nobody, she determined, was going to hear they’d lost their spouse, child, father or mother, sister or brother over the damn screen. “Take a booster if you need it, but I want the interviews started. Be prepared to report, in detail, at eight hundred hours. Dismissed.”

She turned to Peabody. “This is our briefing room until we close. It’s secured when we’re not in it. Make that happen. We’re going to split the notifications. Take a uniform with you. One you know has his shit together. We’ve got the top twenty-five in numerical order. You take the last twelve of that. When you’re done with that, I want you to go over the reports—crime scene, ME, whatever we get from the lab, anything further from EDD. Write your own report from that, send it to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get some sleep, and be ready at zero eight hundred.”

“I’ll take Uniform Carmichael if he’s still around. Otherwise—”

“If you want Carmichael, take him. If he’s off shift, tell him he’s back on.”

“I’ll get him.”

She turned to Feeney as he walked up.

“He got hits on the two women going in the bar.” His gaze tracked to the board, and Eve knew.

“Which are they?”

“Numbers sixty and forty-two. Hilly and Cate Simpson. Sisters. Hilly Simpson lives in Virginia, the other’s a buyer for City Girl, some ladies’ shop right down from the bar.”

“Sister came in to visit, maybe. They went in for a drink, maybe to meet the New York sister’s friends. Jesus Christ.”

“Twenty-three and twenty-six. Age,” Feeney explained, and rubbed at his face. “Some of them tire you out before you get started.”

“Hit my office for some real coffee.”

“Might just.” He pulled out his communicator when it signaled. “Here’s something. We got another hit. The couple who walked out at seventeen-twenty-nine. Got a hit on her anyway. Shelby Carstein, works at Strongfield and Klein.”

“Same firm as Brewster, one of the survivors.”

“Got an address on her.”

“Send it to me. I want to talk to her.”

“Already sent. Listen, we can’t give you much more on the ’links until we have more to work with,” he began. “You get us the vics’ electronics, we’ll be all over them. We’ll start on their memo books, scan through, see what we can find. But unless one of them was a specific target, or involved, we’re shooting in the dark.”