Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(47)

“Doesn’t matter why as long as it’s done. My commander will be speaking with your chief.” She gave him a measured study. “If Whitney gets the impression you’re a rogue lunatic, Banner, we’re not going to get very far.”

“I might be fixated on this, and there’s a girl who decided I was a lunatic when I joined the police, but I’ll hold up.”

She sat, studied him again. She didn’t see rogue or lunatic. “The cabin where his blood was found, where items were taken and not recovered, who lives there?”

“It’s a rental type. Lots of them around. This one was shut up for a few weeks. Septic issues the owner hadn’t gotten around to dealing with.”

“So, empty.”

“That’s right.”

“Security.”

“A lock on the door.”

“Easy target for somebody looking to score a few easy-to-transport items. The unsubs break in, start taking what they want. Little comes along. Altercation, he’s killed or incapacitated. How far from the cabin did you find him?”

“Not counting the drop? It’d be maybe a half a mile on the back road, another quarter mile to the trail where they say he fell off. Some say jumped, but that’s bullshit.”

He drew in a breath, shoved at his hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to use hard language.”

“The day ‘bullshit’ is hard language in a cop shop, that’s the day I turn in my badge. Which is never. Did your people look for blood in the cabin? Signs somebody cleaned it up.”

“We can handle that kind of thing. It was just a little blood. They missed it when they cleaned up, in my opinion. Used a tarp, like they’ve used on others. Keep the blood off the scene.”

Just how she saw it. “Then he wasn’t the first, either. He was just one of the next. We trace back from this vic, this Little Mel. And we’ll find the first. We find the first, we’ll find them.”

Her eyebrows shot up when he reached out, covered her hand with his. He pulled his back quickly. “Sorry – that’s probably not allowed. It’s just… I’ve been waiting a long time to hear somebody say that.”

“Saying it, proving it, finding them, there are a lot of steps between.”

“I’ve been taking some of them, best I can. I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve only worked two murders, and both of them were pretty clear-cut right from the start. First was the Delroy brothers, Zach and Lenny. Not bright lights, either of them, and with a taste for bad booze and homemade Jump. The two of them got revved up on both, fought over a card game, and Zach, he picked up a fireplace poker and caved Lenny’s head right in. Tried to cover it up saying somebody’d busted into their place, but like I said, not a bright light.”

He shifted a bit as if looking for comfort in the hard chair. “And the second was a woman come down from Pittsburgh with her husband for a holiday. Not much of one for her as he had a habit of beating the hell out of her for fun. He’d blackened her eye and busted open her lip before she got outside to the car, locked herself in. Then she proceeded to run him over when he came out after her.”

“Hard to blame her.”

“There’s that. She said right out she wanted to make sure he was dead this time, and that’s why she backed up, ran over him again. Three times. Anyway, like I said, pretty clear-cut. We don’t get a lot of killings – not purposeful – in Silby’s Pond.”

“You’ve gotten this far on this one.”

“Since Little Mel I’ve worked it every day. Sometimes only an hour or so, but every day. I’m hopeful now that I’ve got somebody like you, a real murder cop, it’ll break.”

“Then let’s get going. We’ll move this to the conference room.”

She rose, waited while he grabbed his coat, his duffel.

“It’s a hell of a place, your Cop Central,” he commented as they started out. “Lots doing.”

“If you’re interested, I can have somebody show you around.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that.”

Someone let out a war cry, high and wild. Eve pivoted, saw two uniforms giving chase. The man they pursued charged like a bull, head down, teeth bared, his eyes lit like lanterns with whatever substance he’d smoked, swallowed or syringed. He bowled over an unfortunate civilian clerk whose legs flew out from under her, sending her and the file bag she carried flying.

“Excuse me,” Eve said, cut across the corridor as the man, long, red hair streaming back in its skinny braids, fists pumping in the air, ran like the possessed.

Her right cross barely slowed him down, but it shifted his attention enough to have him swing those pumping fists in her direction. One glanced off her shoulder, and she went with it, spinning around and coming back with a side kick to his gut.

He grunted, made a grab. She stomped hard on his instep, followed up with a knee to the balls, then tried the right cross again.

That one had him staggering back, but he grinned at her through the blood that bloomed on his mouth. She braced for the next round, but the stagger gave the uniforms time to catch up.

Eve stepped back while they grappled, considered moving in again as fists and elbows jabbed and bashed and war cries echoed. Then a third uniform leaped in from the side.