Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(82)

“Well, yeah – if we’re clear. Sure, it’s insanity – I worked crowd control New Year’s Eve my first year on the job, and it’s wild and wicked. But fun, too. And Mavis got us all full-access passes, so we get some VIP treatment and get to hob and nob with celeb and music stars.”

“I’d rather be flayed alive and force-fed my own skin.”

“Eeww!”

“Yeah, that was pretty disgusting, but close to true.” She detoured toward EDD, then stopped outside the bright and jumping world that was the Electronic Detectives Division.

Everybody moved, bouncing in their chairs, dancing on their feet to some inner geek beat. Neon colors gone nuclear adorned every person in the room, save one.

Feeney, Eve thought, a rumpled oasis of sanity in a world gone Day-Glo mad. He stood – and okay, his foot tapped, but that was reasonable – at a board, swiping, sweeping, jabbing while a couple of geeks looked on.

The place smelled like sugary drinks and fruit-flavored gum. Someone dressed in lightning-bolt blue with a poofy tower of green hair did a jump and spin in a cube, and said, “Yee-haw!”

“See this?” Eve said. “Multiply it by a few million, and that’s your ball drop.”

“That’s what makes it mag.”

“And that,” Feeney declared, shooting both index fingers at the screen, “is how it’s done.”

The detective on Feeney’s right pumped her fists in the air, wiggled her pink-and-white-striped covered butt. “Yo fricking ho, Captain.”

“Watch and learn, children, watch and learn.” He dusted his palms together. “Now finish that off and go bag the bastard. Embezzlement, insurance fraud, with a side of blackmail.”

“Fly in the web, boss. Thanks.”

Feeney turned, spotted Eve, nodded to her and Peabody.

“Got a minute?” Eve asked him.

“Now I do.”

“Peabody, check on McNab’s status, and Mavis. In your office? I can’t think out here,” she told Feeney. “I don’t know how you do.”

“Keeps the blood moving to the brain,” he claimed, and led the way. “And some days gives you a mother of a headache.”

He plucked a couple of the candied almonds he kept in a bowl on his desk, then sat, propped his feet on the desk. “I’ve been out there working on that shovel and search damn near an hour. Nice to get the feet up. Spill it.”

“Have you had time to read the updates?”

“Yeah, I’m on the mark there.”

“Up until this attempt on Hastings I’ve been thinking cop – leaning heavy toward it. But what kind of cop runs from an unarmed wit? You’re armed, witness isn’t, and the target’s down. The play is pursue, take out the wit, finish the job.”

“We get some yellow-bellies on the job.”

“Yeah, but even factoring that, what’s the risk? And the adrenaline should be pumping, right?”

“The report says only one stun stream fired.” Feeney nodded. “You’re on the job, you know you don’t stop with one until all targets are down.”

“Damn straight. One more? Crappy shot. Seriously crappy. Maybe she misses on the stream because she was taken by surprise. But we’re only talking about ten, maybe twelve feet. The other two vics were stunned close-range – Hastings even closer than the two DBs. Face-to-face, so it says not only a yellow-belly but a seriously crappy shot to me. That’s the risk, maybe. And still, the wit didn’t have that much of a lead. If she’d gone after the wit, she’d have had her. Odds are. What cop wouldn’t take those odds?”

“Probability is no police training. No street time anyway. Maybe a desk jockey. More probable a wannabe or a civilian.”

“Or both. Somebody in the loop, Feeney, because unless you read my report on Ledo, you wouldn’t know we’d gotten physical.”

She grabbed a couple of almonds herself, paced and circled. “Bastwick, all that was public fodder. Bastwick herself made it clear she had a problem with me, played up a personal feud.”

“And Bastwick came first.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s the easy one. Get your feet wet with that one. Ledo, it’s more personal. It’s saying, isn’t it, I know what went on, and I’m paying him back for you. It’s deeper than Bastwick.”

“Ledo’s the easier kill, but Bastwick’s more general. Yeah, it’s Mira territory, but I get you. Had more to say after Ledo, too, so you got your escalation. Both scenes clean as my aunt Crystal’s front parlor – trace-wise – so I’m with you on law enforcement, especially adding in the data the public didn’t know.”

“Then Hastings. I actually like him, in a twisted way. Plus, sure, we went a round, but I always had the upper hand. Even more, he was cooperative once he simmered down, and I showed him the pictures of the vics. He was actually instrumental in our ID’ing Gerry Stevenson. But… the altercation was all in the report.

“Who the hell reads the reports? Shouldn’t be anyone not directly involved.”

“But.”

“Yeah, but somebody with the right credentials could access them. I did a standard search on that and came up with nothing much. Any way to dig deeper there?”