Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(78)

“Three hundred and thirty-three thousand possibles? Shit.” She noted he’d run a secondary search adding a current New York address. That cut it down to slightly more than thirteen thousand.

And he’d run those results against people who’d purchased the security system. The man thought like a cop, she decided, even if the result came up goose egg.

There had to be another angle, another way to whittle down those possibles. Back burner, she decided, until she’d updated her reports and prepped for the briefing.

It took her most of the hour, and restored most of her earlier optimism. Just before seven, she contacted Whitney.

“Commander, I’ve just sent you an updated report.”

“Yes, it’s coming in now. Highlight it.”

She did so, smothering the urge to get to her feet, to stand as she preferred when giving orals.

“I feel,” she continued, “we’re stacking the building blocks of a solid case, and refining our search for the suspect. It’s my belief Captain MacMasters may be able to provide more details, and more insights into the matter of the arrest, interrogation, and sentencing of Irene Schultz, and that will further assist us in apprehending Darrin Pauley.”

“When do you brief your team?”

“They’re arriving now, sir.” She signaled Peabody, McNab, and Jamie to silence as they came in chattering.

“I’ll have the captain in my office at nine. He’s agreed to issue a short statement to the media at noon. We’ll need to do the same, and to stand with him. He will not take questions, but you will. Five-minute duration.”

Crap. Crap. Crap, she thought. “Yes, sir.”

“Brief your team, Lieutenant. I’ll contact Chicago from here, give them a push on the information you need.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

She ended the conversation just as Summerset wheeled in a long buffet table, and Trueheart came through the door pushing the other end.

“God, doesn’t anybody think about anything but food?” she demanded.

“Thinking is often clearer when the body is properly attended.” Summerset stepped ably out of the way of the stampede. Eve saw his gaze track to the murder board, and knew it lingered on the crime scene photos of Deena. He looked back at Eve. “I wish you all the clearest of thoughts.”

When he left the room, she rose, got coffee. “Settle down, people. This is a briefing not a stuff-your-face contest. Screens on,” she ordered. “This is our suspect,” she began. “Born Darrin Pauley, age twenty-three. And this is what we know or believe we know about him.”

She moved from the suspect to the man believed to be his father, and from there to the woman who’d been his mother.

“She’s the key in his lock,” Eve said. “Whitney is reinforcing my overnight request to Chicago for the files on her murder, and the request to speak directly with the primary and other investigators on that case.”

“I can get media reports,” Jamie suggested. “It’s, like, twenty years back, but I could dig up any media coverage of the murder.”

“All right. The data from IRCCA states she was both raped and sodomized repeatedly, possibly by more than one attacker. She was not bound, which explains why this didn’t pop on like crimes. She was beaten, more severely than our vic, and also showed signs of illegals use.”

She gestured to the board where she’d noted the similarities between the murders of Deena MacMasters and Illya Schooner. “Evidence indicates she was partially smothered with a pillow found on scene, and was strangled with the bedsheets. She was found in a mid-level LC flop by maid service, and had been dead according to the report for eight hours. No witnesses came forward, none who were interviewed gave the police any salient information.”

“Shock and amazement,” Baxter muttered.

“She was not a licensed companion,” Eve continued. “However, when interviewed, Victor Patterson stated that they were experiencing some family difficulties as she had begun to prostitute herself to finance a growing drug problem. He was alibied for the time in question.”

“He could’ve had it done,” Baxter speculated. “If she’d gone on the junk, was a liability to the game, he might have wanted to get rid of her.”

“Possible, but unlikely. Look at the background.” She brought his sheet up on screen. “Bust, bust, trouble, trouble, right up until he got out of prison and ran off with her. Then nothing. He’s skimmed under the surface since. And on her? Nothing, not a damn thing before she took the fall for the fraud. Did he get that smart in prison? My money says she was the brains, she was the smarts. But something changed once she did the time. That’s the turn. Peabody, get data from her stretch in Rikers, find somebody who remembers her.”

“Can do. Maybe it was just the time in itself,” Peabody suggested. “It’s like you said, she had nothing prior. Free as a bird, doing things her way. Then bam, she’s in a cage for a year and a half.”

“Soured her,” Eve considered. “Shook her confidence. And if she’d gotten a taste for illegals on the outside, that could be fed inside. Expanded, exploited.”

“She’s not the same person coming out as she was going in.” Peabody studied the mug shot. “She looks pretty rough on the going in.”