Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(15)

Nobody got in, she decided, unless Fixer wanted them in.

She made a note to ask Sally at NJPSD for copies of the security discs, exterior and interior.

She crossed to the counter, noted that the computer stationed there was an ugly hybrid of scavenged parts. And in all probability, she mused, ran with more speed, efficiency, and reliability than the one in her office at Cop Central.

“Engage, computer.”

When nothing happened, she frowned and attempted to boot it manually. The screen shimmered.

Warning: This unit protected by fail safe. Code proper password or voice print within thirty seconds of this message or disengage.

Eve disengaged. She’d see if Feeney, top dog in the Electronic Detective Division, had the time and inclination to play with it.

There was nothing else on the counter but some greasy fingerprints, the dull sheen left by the sweepers, and a scatter of parts she couldn’t identify.

She uncoded the door leading to the back area and stepped into Fixer’s workshop.

The guy could’ve used a few elves, she thought. The place was an unholy mess with the bones and sinews of dozens of electronic devices scattered around. Tools were hung on pegs or tossed wherever they landed. Minilasers, delicate tweezers, and screwdrivers with bits hardly wider than a single hair.

If he’d been attacked here, how the hell would you tell? she wondered, nudging the shell of a monitor with her boot. But she didn’t think he had been. She’d only dealt with Fixer a handful of times and hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but she remembered he kept his place and his person in constant disarray.

“And they wouldn’t have gotten into this dungeon unless he’d wanted them to,” she murmured. The man had been seriously paranoid, she mused, checking out yet more monitors overhead. Every inch of his space and several feet outside the shop were all under surveillance twenty-four/seven.

No, they didn’t take him from inside, she decided. If he was panicked, as Ratso had said, he’d have been all the more careful. Still, he hadn’t felt safe enough to simply barricade himself inside and wait it out. So he’d called a friend.

She moved into the tiny room beyond, scanned the mess of Fixer’s living space. A cot with yellowed sheets, a table with a jury-rigged communications center, a pile of unwashed clothes, and a narrow bathroom with hardly enough room for the skinny shower stall and toilet.

The kitchenette was a turnaround space packed with a fully loaded AutoChef and a minifridge stocked to bursting. Canned and dry goods were stacked in a wall as high as her waist.

“Jesus, he could have waited out an alien attack in here. Why go out to go under?”

Shaking her head, she tucked her thumbs in her pockets and turned a slow circle.

No windows, no outside doors, she noted. He’d lived in a f**king box. She studied the monitor across from the bed, watched the traffic move along Ninth. No, she corrected. Those were his windows.

She closed her eyes and tried to picture him there, using the image of him she remembered. Skinny, grizzled, old. Mean.

He’s scared, so he moves fast, she thought. Takes only what he needs. He’s former military. He knows how to decamp fast. Some clothes, some money. Not enough money on him for a man going under, she realized. Not nearly.

Greed, she thought. That was another facet of the man. He’d been greedy, hoarding his money, overcharging his clients who paid because of his magic hands.

He’d have taken cash, credits, bank and brokerage passkeys.

And where was his bag? He’d have packed a bag. Could be in the river, too, she decided, hooking her thumbs in her front pockets. Or whoever killed him took it.

“He’d’ve had money,” she thought aloud. “He sure as hell wasn’t spending it on home decorating or personal hygiene and enhancements.”

She’d check into his finances.

He packs a bag. Going under, she thought again. What does he put into it?

He’d have taken a palm-link, a PPC. He’d have wanted his logs, his connections. And weapons.

She moved back out, poked under the counter. She found an empty rack with a quick-release bar. Hunkering down, she narrowed her eyes as she studied it. Had the old bastard really had an illegal blaster? Was this some kind of weapon holder? She’d check the sweepers’ report, see if they’d confiscated a weapon.

She hissed out a breath, picked up the rack to examine it. She didn’t have a clue what an army-issue blaster circa the Urban Wars looked like.

Then she sighed, pushed the rack into her evidence bag. She knew where to find one.

CHAPTER FOUR

Because she wanted to speak to Feeney in person, Eve swung back to Cop Central. She took the glide up to EDD, hopping off long enough to hit up a vending machine for a nutra-bar.

The Electronic Detective Division was a hive of activity. Cops were working on computers, tearing them apart, rebuilding them. Others sat in privacy booths playing and copying discs from confiscated ‘links and logs. Nevertheless, the beeps and buzzes and whines of electronics crowded the air and made her wonder how anyone could manage to squeeze in a stray thought.

Despite the noise level, the door of Captain Ryan Feeney’s office was open. He sat at his desk, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, his wiry, rust-colored hair standing up on end, his droopy eyes enormous behind the lenses of microgoggles. While Eve watched from the doorway, he plucked a tiny translucent chip from the guts of the computer upended on his desk.