Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(111)

She held up the order she’d meticulously forged, nudged it into the scanner. Then swiped the ID.

“Order’s verified. You got the wrong ID swipe – it’s Lottie, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I don’t know what you…” She turned the ID over, stared at it as if in shock.

She’d practiced.

“Oh no! I have Charis’s. She must have mine. We were in the locker room just before I left. She must have picked mine up by mistake.”

She lifted her face, looked into his eyes. “This is terrible. She’s gone for the day. She took personal time to get this party put together. What should I do? I’m supposed to take the Dobey boxes in for reprocessing.”

“No problem. Order’s verified, and I know you, so we’ll pass it through. Make sure you get in touch with Charis, and asap, get it straightened out.”

“Oh, thank you! I will.”

The locks buzzed, the glass door slid open. She let herself be Lottie – if she had mixed up IDs she’d have been flustered, upset. Mistakes were so awful. Mistakes were so upsetting. So she fumbled with the box, dropped the ID.

He was a nice man, as men went. She was sorry to hurt him.

When he bent to pick up the ID, she lowered as well. And drawing the stunner, dropped him.

“I won’t kill you,” she told him. “I could. It would be easy. I want to. It feels good to know I could. But I won’t. You’ll tell them how smart I was, how smooth. How I got in so easy. I want people to know. It’s time I got some credit.”

She restrained him, gagged him, set her wrist unit to alert her in thirty minutes. She’d give him another jolt, keep him out until she was finished and gone.

For now, she secured the doors, shut down the lights on the desk.

Evidence might come in, but it would be put in Holding until the lockers opened up again.

She knew how it worked.

She took the box, used the ID to access the next set of doors.

More cameras, of course, but the person monitoring them was currently unconscious.

So many things, she thought, scanning the long, high shelves. So much evidence of crime. And too many would go cold and dusty, with justice never served.

Wrongs never righted.

She knew what she needed here, systematically climbed the ladder to the boxes she needed, rifled through them for components.

Taking off the vest, she began to work. With the right tools, the right skills, it really wasn’t that hard to create explosives. With some rudimentary calculations, she could – would – build a bomb vest that would take out all of Homicide.

Lolo took one hard look at the ID shot, shook her head. “Never seen her before. Somebody comes in here more’n once, I know the face. You come in three times, I know where you wanna sit, what you wanna drink. You eat that soup?”

“Yeah, thanks, it was good. So was the pie. Maybe she’s been in when you’re off shift.”

Lolo snorted. “Not likely. I’m here damn near round the clock. Go ahead, show it around, but she ain’t been in here, not more’n once anyway.”

Once they’d gotten the same reaction from the rest of the staff, Eve walked back out.

“You got pie?” Peabody demanded.

“Save it. Maybe she just got lucky, jumped into the place on instinct. I’m gaining, she’s looking for cover.”

But it went against the grain.

“Or she just looks different enough, made herself look different enough,” Peabody suggested. “What kind of pie?”

“Apple,” Eve said absently. “Let’s show her around in a few other places. If we can put her in this area, we’ve got more weight.”

But waiters, shopkeepers, the guy on the cart, all gave them thumbs-down.

Going with what they had, they tracked Messner down at the courthouse, had to cool their heels until the lunch recess.

“Flank her,” Eve ordered Peabody as they approached. “In case she tries to rabbit. Loreen Messner.”

“That’s right. Oh, hey, Lieutenant Dallas. Didn’t see you on the docket.”

It took only that, the casual acknowledgment, the relaxed shoulders, to tell Eve they were on the wrong path. But they had to follow it through.

“We’re here on another matter. You knew Bastwick.”

“Anybody works this courtroom knew Bastwick. Slick one. Sorry about what happened to her.” Messner snuck a glance at her wrist unit, reminding Eve she was on lunch break. “What can I help you with?”

“You popped up on a search in the course of our investigation.”

“Me? On Bastwick?” Messner started to laugh, then sobered quickly. “No shit?”

“None. Make it easy all around, give me your whereabouts for December twenty-seventh, between seventeen hundred and nineteen hundred hours.”

“Easy. I was in Disney World with a couple friends. None of us have much in the way of family, so we took a few days, picked a spot, and went. Road trip. We headed out early Christmas Eve, came back on the twenty-seventh – didn’t get back to New York until about seven that night, took turns at the wheel, then caught dinner. I’ll give you the names and contacts, the hotel we booked, whatever.”

“I’d appreciate it. Cover it all, will you? The morning of December twenty-ninth around six hundred hours.”