Promises in Death (In Death #28)(14)

She hit five-five, with a body both solid and curvy. She wore simple brown trousers, a white shirt, and a thin tan jacket over it. Like Eve, she preferred the shoulder harness.

“The boss wants us to cooperate, so we will.” She had a quick, clipped voice, a little raw at the edges. “But this should be our case.”

“If it was my partner or a member of my squad, I’d probably feel the same. But it’s not your case. We’re on record here, Detective.” She paused as Peabody came in, shut the door.

“I picked up some water and Pepsis,” Peabody said, and set bottles on the table.

Cleo shook her head. “The least you can do is tell me what you’ve got.”

“You can talk to your lieutenant about that. We brought him up to date. You can play the hard-ass with us, but that’s not helping Detective Coltraine.”

“If you’re looking to dig up dirt on her—”

“Why would we be? We’re not IAB. We’re homicide. Your squadmate was murdered, Detective. So cut the crap. You and Coltraine were often partnered.”

“Yeah, the boss thought we complemented each other.”

“Did you also interact on a personal level? Socially?”

“Sure we did. Why wouldn’t . . .” She shook her head again, held up a hand. She picked up a bottle of the water she’d initially rejected, twisted it open, drank. “Look, maybe I’m sorry for the attitude, but this is hard. She was part of my team, and we got to be friends. We worked damn well together, you can look at our case files and see that. And we got so we’d hang out sometimes. Have a drink after shift or a meal. Maybe just the two of us, or maybe with some of the other guys. It wasn’t always about the job, either. We’d talk about regular stuff. Hair and weight and men.”

“You were close,” Peabody commented.

“Yeah. We each had our own life, but we hit it off. You’ve got to know how it is. When you’re working with another female, there are things you can get into, things you can say that you wouldn’t with a man.”

“Did she tell you about any old lovers, boyfriends, guys that wanted to be with her?”

“She was seeing a couple guys casually back in Atlanta before she transferred. One was another cop, and that was basically a booty buddy she’d been tight with awhile before. The other was a lawyer. She said it just wasn’t a good fit, and both of them got to just drifting along in the relationship. One of the reasons she transferred was because she felt her personal life got stale, and she felt she was losing her edge professionally. She wanted something new.”

“Nobody serious?” Eve pressed, thinking of what Morris had told her. And saw Cleo hesitate.

“She mentioned there’d been somebody, pretty intense for a while. But it hadn’t worked out.”

“Name?”

“No. But it bruised her up some—emotionally. She said they broke it off, and she’d done the casual thing for a couple months with the lawyer. But she wanted a change—a new place, new faces. Like that.”

“And once she’d transferred—on that personal level.”

“The thing with the ME started pretty quick. She hadn’t been here long when they met. Ammy said there was this instant spark. They took their time. I mean, they didn’t jump in the sack right off. When they did . . . like I said, you tell a woman partner things. She was crazy about him, and it came off mutual. I went out with them—like a double date deal—a few times. They gave it off—that spark. She wasn’t seeing anyone else.”

“She never mentioned anyone pushing her, on that personal front.”

“No.”

“Did she take meets on her own? With weasels, other informants, or arrange to deal with suspects solo?”

“Not generally. I mean, she might hook up with one of her weasels solo. But she’d been working this area less than a year. She didn’t have that many.”

“Names?”

Cleo’s back went up, Eve could see it. No cop liked to share weasels. “She mostly used this guy who runs a pawnshop on Spring. Stu Bollimer. He’s originally from Georgia, so she played the connection.”

“Were you using him on anything currently?”

“I know she gave him a bump on the Chinatown robbery we’re working, and he said he’d keep his ear to the ground.”

“Anything you worked on generate trouble, somebody who’d want to hurt her?”

“You bring in bad guys, they’re not going to be happy with you. Nothing stands out. I’ve been going over and over it since I heard. We’re a small squad, and most of what we handle just isn’t that juicy. She liked doing the small jobs. The mom-and-pop whose market gets ripped off, the kid who gets knocked off his airboard so some ass**le can steal it. The truth is, she was thinking, maybe down the road, about marriage and having a family, taking the professional mother deal. She liked her job, and she was good at it—don’t get me wrong. But she was thinking, especially since Morris, that down the road . . .”

“All right, Detective. If you’d send Detective O’Brian up, I’d appreciate it. If he’s not available, your lieutenant can send up whoever he can spare.”

“O’Brian’s working his desk. I’ll send him.” Cleo got to her feet. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you come to us if you need more manpower on this. Not every cop works out of Central.”