Judgment in Death (In Death #11)(10)

What she saw was an average officer who'd performed steadily, if slightly under his potential. He'd rarely missed a shift and just as rarely put in any overtime.

He'd never used his weapon for maximum force and therefore had never undergone extensive Testing. Still, he'd closed or been in on the closing of a good number of cases, and his reports on those closed and those open were efficient, carefully written, and thorough.

This was a man, Eve thought, who followed the book, did the job, then went home at night and put his day away.

How? she wondered. How the hell did anyone manage that?

His military record was similar. No trouble, no glow. He enlisted at the age of twenty-two, served six steady years, the last two in the military police.

Every t was crossed, every i dotted. It was, to her mind, a perfectly ordinary life. Almost too perfect.

The call to Nester Vine from Purgatory got her as far as his harassed-looking wife, who informed Eve that Vine had come home before the end of his shift the night before, dog-sick. She herself had just gotten in from the hospital where she'd taken her husband at three that morning for what turned out to be appendicitis.

As alibis went, it was a beaut. The only tip she pried out of Mrs. Vine was that she should get in touch with some stripper named Nancie, who'd apparently stuck around after Kohli had urged Vine to go home.

Still, she contacted the hospital and verified one Nester Vine had indeed had his appendix removed, in emergency, early that morning.

Scratch Nester, she thought, and put the stripper on her talk-to list.

Calls to Lieutenant Mills and Detective Martinez went unreturned. In the field and unavailable was the response. She left one last message for each, gathered the files, and prepared to go home.

She'd take a hard look at Kohli's financials that evening.

She caught Peabody in her cubicle in the bullpen dealing with the follow-up paperwork.

"Leave the rest of that until tomorrow. Go home."

"Yeah?" Peabody's face lit up as she glanced at her wrist unit. "Almost on time, too. I've got an eight o'clock dinner with Charles. Now I'll have just enough time to go snazz myself up."

When Eve's response was a grunt, Peabody grinned. "You know the problem with juggling two guys?"

"Do you consider McNab a guy?"

"On a good day, he's a nice contrast to Charles. Anyway, you know the problem with seeing both of them?"

"No, Peabody, what's the problem with seeing both of them?"

"There isn't one."

With a hoot of laughter, Peabody grabbed her bag and shot out of her cubicle. "See you tomorrow."

Eve shook her head. One guy, she decided, was plenty problem enough for her taste. And if she got the hell out of Central, she might even beat him home for a change.

In a kind of test, she tried to click her mind off her case files. Traffic was ugly enough to keep her mind occupied, and the current blast of the billboards were hyping everything from spring fashions to the latest hot sports car.

When she caught a familiar face burst across one of the animated screens, she nearly side-swiped a glide-cart.

Mavis Freestone, her hair a riot of flame-colored spikes, whirled over the street at Thirty-fourth. She jiggled, spun, in a few sassy and amusingly placed scraps of electric blue. With each revolution, her hair changed from red to gold to blinding green.

It was, Eve thought with a foolish grin on her face, just like her.

"Jesus, Mavis. Would you just look at that? What a kick in the ass."

A long way. Her oldest friend had come a long way from the street grifter Eve had once busted, to performance artist in third-rate clubs, and now to bona fide musical star.

Musical, Eve thought, in the broadest sense of the word.

She reached for her car-link, intending to call Mavis and tell her what she was looking at, when her personal palm-link beeped.

"Yeah." She couldn't take her eyes off the billboard, even when several impatient drivers honked rudely. "Dallas."

"Hey, Dallas."

"Webster." Instantly, Eve's shoulders tensed. She might have known Don Webster on a personal level, but no cop liked receiving a transmission from Internal Affairs. "Why are you calling on my personal 'link? IAB's required to use official channels."

"I was hoping to talk to you. Got a few minutes?"

"You are talking to me."

"Face-to-face."

"Why?"

"Come on, Dallas. Ten minutes."

"I'm on my way home. Tag me tomorrow."

"Ten minutes," he repeated. "I'll meet you at the park right across from your place."

"Is this Internal Affairs business?"

"Let's talk." He gave her a winning smile that only increased her level of suspicion. "I'll meet you there. I'm right behind you."

She narrowed her eyes, checked her rearview, and saw he meant it literally. Saying nothing, she broke transmission.

She didn't stop across from the gates of her home but drove another block and a half, on principle -- then made certain she found the only convenient parking spot before she pulled in.

It didn't surprise her when Webster simply double-parked and, ignoring the snooty glares from an elegant couple and their three equally stylish Afghan hounds, flipped on his On Duty light and joined her on the curb.