Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(113)

She studied them in turn, reading the accompanying data.

She liked the look of Marti Fester, who worked right in Central, in Maintenance. Single, thirty-five, five years on the crew. Skinny face, sallow complexion, a hank of medium-brown hair, bored brown eyes.

Maintenance could get into her office, her vehicle, maybe her files. Hell, Maintenance swarmed all over the building, and if anyone had a mind to, could find out a hell of a lot.

No criminal, and she lived three blocks from Mavis. No cohab.

“Okay, Marti, you make the top five.”

She went through the others, carefully, rejecting the next. Zoey Trimbal looked too damn cheerful, and while the spiky red hair could be dyed any color known to man, it said pay attention to me.

Not you, Zoey, Eve thought.

“Settled for civilian consultant, e-division, after washing out of the Academy, but you just don’t blend, do you? Let’s look at… Wait a minute.”

She leaned closer to the screen, looked into the eyes of Lottie Roebuck.

“I’ve seen you,” Eve murmured.

Crime scene unit, under Dawson, Eve read. Four years as lab tech, over two years now as field tech. Single, age thirty-three, resided… on the same block as Mavis.

She felt the punch of it.

Long mousy hair – what did they call that? Dishwater-blond, which made no sense. Didn’t matter. Lottie wore the dishwater hair pulled back from a narrow face. Thin mouth, thin nose, good skin – café au lait said it, high forehead, and those good bones DeWinter had talked about. Pale hazel eyes that looked… empty.

Mother deceased, one sibling – sister, deceased, same day.

Eve dug down. Vehicular accident, two minor boys charged, vehicular manslaughter. Joyriding, drunk, both fifteen. One of them ended up in the hospital, multiple surgeries. Juvie time, community service, mandatory rehab, and so on.

Both free and clear by the eighteenth birthday.

The sister had been twelve.

Eve shifted her gaze from the data, back to the image.

“Hello, Lottie.”

Dawson slogged through paperwork. He wanted to get it done, get out, get home. He’d all but sworn to his wife in blood he wouldn’t miss her sister’s bash tonight.

But people just kept killing each other, regardless of party plans. And he was two field techs short. Still, with some luck, maybe nobody else would get murdered on his shift. Or at least, nobody would find the DB until tomorrow – after the hangover he was bound to have had passed.

“Yo! Got the vic’s shirt processed and sent up to Harvo.”

Dawson grunted at Mickey, one of the rookie techs. He didn’t need chapter and verse. He needed to finish the paperwork.

“How come you got this drawing of Lottie hanging out here?”

Irritated, Dawson barely glanced up. “The what?”

“The picture of Lottie. Different ’do, but it looks like her. Sort of.”

“Lottie? Lottie Roebuck?”

“Well, yeah. Or her cousin maybe.”

Something ugly sank into his gut as Dawson shoved away from his desk, stepped out to where he’d stuck up the sketch. “It doesn’t look like… Get my microgoggles,” he snapped, and leaned in, squinted, leaned out, squinted.

“Goddamn eyes. Who has time to…” He snatched the goggles, pulled them on.

His vision blurred so he reached up, began to adjust them until he got clarity.

Lottie? It didn’t exactly look like her unless… Change the hair, he thought, rounder at the chin. Put her in a sweeper’s suit.

“Oh f*ck me.” He grabbed for his pocket ’link, and it beeped in his hand. He started to hit ignore, saw the readout.

“Dallas. Listen. It’s Lottie, Lottie Roebuck, one of my field techs. This is her.”

“I know. Where is she?”

“She took a personal day. First time in… I don’t know. She’s not here. Jesus, Dallas, she’s one of mine. She’s one of my people.”

“Check your log-in, make sure she’s not there. Contact Berenski, DeWinter. All department heads. Lock it down, Dawson, until you hear different.”

In her office, Eve broke transmission, grabbed her coat.

“We’ve got her,” she said to Peabody as she rushed out.

“What?”

“Lottie Roebuck. She’s a sweeper. She worked the scenes, Bastwick, Ledo, Hastings. Baxter, Trueheart, you’re with me. Grab vests. Uniform Carmichael, Hannigan, same goes. Peabody, tag McNab. I want eyes and ears on her building. We don’t go in until we’re sure she’s there. Then we take her, quick and quiet.”

She turned, ready with more orders. The woman, a strange, blurred mirror image of herself, stepped in.

Eve drew her weapon. “Stop right there, hands up,” she snapped, as every cop in the room surged up, weapons drawn.

“I wouldn’t.” With her left hand, Lottie opened her coat, revealed the suicide vest. “This is a dead man’s switch in my right hand. If you stun me, I release it and we all go. We all go now.”

“Nobody has to die here.”

Solemnly, Lottie nodded. “I need all of you to put down your weapons, and I need you to secure the doors to this division. All of them. If you don’t, I’ll release the switch. I’d like some privacy, I have things to say. But if not, I’ll just let it go.”