New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(11)

“I’ve got a lot of research to get to,” she began.

“Undoubtedly, and we’ll take all the time you need once I understand the situation, and you’ve got some food in you. Red meat.” He lifted the cover off a plate.

Eve eyed the steak. “Playing dirty.”

“Is there another way? We’ve a barrel of salt for your fries.”

She had to laugh. “Really dirty.” She took the wine he offered. “You know my weaknesses.”

“Every one.” And he hoped the pretty table, the pretty evening would help her through what she had to tell him. “I’ll wager you missed lunch.”

She sipped, sat. “I had to hack away at paperwork all morning, and kept thinking if I just had a body, I could skate out of it. It’s that careful what you wish for bit. Sucks that it’s usually true.”

She told him about Tray and Julie, then of the prison administration dragging their feet on notification of McQueen’s escape. Bookending the worst of it, she supposed. Building up to going back.

“He wants your attention.”

“And he’s got it. He’ll keep it until he’s back in a cage. He should’ve been transferred to an off-planet facility six years ago when Omega was complete. But . . .”

She shrugged, continued to eat.

“They never charged him with the murders. His mother, the girls never recovered, the other women?”

“No. Not enough evidence, especially if you’re a PA more concerned with your conviction rate than actual justice.”

“You were disappointed,” Roarke commented.

“I was green.” She shrugged again, but with more of a jerk. “I figured we had enough solid circumstantial on the four missing girls, on the dead mother, partners. We had enough to try him on those charges, too. But that wasn’t my decision. That’s not my job.”

“You’re still disappointed.”

“Maybe, but I’m not green now, so I’m realistic. And McQueen wouldn’t break. Feeney worked him for hours, days. He let me observe. He even brought me into the box briefly, hoping seeing me would shake, or just piss off McQueen enough for him to say something, make some mistake. And I’m getting ahead of myself,” she realized. “I guess I’d better start at the beginning.”

“Twelve years,” he prompted her, wanting her to talk it out, for both of them. “You’d barely begun.”

“I’m trying to remember me, to see myself. To feel. I wanted to be a cop so bad. A good cop, solid. To work my way up to detective. I wanted Homicide, that was always the goal. Homicide detective. I didn’t really know anybody in the department, in the city for that matter. Most of the rookies who graduated with me were scattered around the boroughs. I got Manhattan, and that was big. I needed to be here.”

He topped off her wine, gave her a small opening. “I think of the photo you gave me for Christmas, of you at your desk at the Academy. Hardly more than a child, and your hair long.”

“I’d hacked it off by the time I graduated.”

“You had cop’s eyes even then.”

“I missed things. I had a lot to learn. I was working out of the Four-Six, Lower West. A little house. Central absorbed it, I guess, about eight years ago. It’s a club now. The Blue Line. Weird.”

She paused when a thought struck her. “You don’t own it, do you?”

“No.” But he filed it away, thinking she might enjoy owning her first cop shop.

She drew a breath. “Okay. So. I was only a few weeks on the job, on patrol or doing the grunt work they stick rooks with. It was hot, like this, late summer when you’re wondering if it’ll ever cool off again. There was a mugging that went way, way south. A couple in visiting their daughter. She’d just had a baby. They’re walking back to her place, did some shopping for the kid.

“Junkie, crashing, and he’s got a six-inch sticker. They don’t hand everything over fast enough, and he gives the woman a jab to hurry them up. One thing leads to another, and the man ends up dead with a dozen holes in him; the woman’s critical, but conscious. Manages to call out until somebody stops. It’s a decent enough neighborhood, and it’s freaking broad daylight. But there just wasn’t anybody around. Bad luck. Feeney caught the case.”

“That would be good luck,” Roarke prompted.

“Yeah. Jesus, Roarke, he was good. I know the e-work is his thing, and he’s the best. But he was a hell of a murder cop. He didn’t look that much different—less gray, not as many lines. But even back then he looked like he’d slept in his clothes for a couple nights running. Just watching him was an education. How he worked the scene, read it, read the wits.”

Looking back, seeing Feeney in her head, she settled a bit more. “I stood there, watching him, and I thought, ‘That’s what I want.’ Not just Homicide, but to be that good. He stood on the sidewalk with the blood and the body, and he saw it. He felt it. He didn’t show it, hard to explain.”

“You don’t need to.” Because he’d stood and watched her with blood and body, and knew she saw. Knew she felt.

“Well. The junkie went rabbit, and the wits gave conflicting descriptions. The surviving vic was mostly out of it, but we had a general to go on. They called in some uniforms to canvass because one of the wits said they thought maybe he lived right there on Murray, or knew somebody who did. I was partnered up with Boyd Fergus, a good beat cop. We ended up at two-fifty-eight Murray. We weren’t getting anywhere. Nobody’d seen anything, and most of the people who lived in that neighborhood were at work anyway. So when we got to that building, Fergus said we’d split up, and since I was younger and had better legs, I should start up on three. He’d take the first floor, and we’d meet up again on two. It was just . . .”