Promises in Death (In Death #28)(15)

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Detective.” After Cleo went out, Eve sat back. “Does she just not get it? Is it just a blind spot?”

“That every cop in that squad is currently a suspect?” Peabody shook her head. “I guess you don’t look at your own family first.”

“Civilians don’t. Cops do—or should.” Eve made a couple of notes, then reviewed her data on O’Brian.

“Next up has twenty-three years in. He made first grade five years back. He’s been with this squad for a dozen years. Second marriage, fifteen years in. No kids from marriage one, two from marriage two. Commendations, and two valorous conduct citations. Worked Major Case until he transferred here. That’s a big shift.”

Eve finally cracked her tube of Pepsi, took a hit. “He’s been here the longest, longer than his current lieutenant.”

“Guys like that can be the touchstone of a squad. The one the others go to when they don’t want to go to the brass.”

“We’re going to be here awhile yet. Check in, will you? See if there’s anything new we can use here.”

O’Brian, beefy, long-jawed, sharp-eyed, stepped in as Peabody moved to the far end of the table. “Lieutenant. Detective.”

“Detective O’Brian. We’re splitting duties here, to try to keep ahead of the curve. We can talk while my partner makes some contacts.”

“Fine.” He sat. “Let me save you some time. Detective Coltraine was a good, steady cop. Dependable. She liked to dig into the pieces for the little details. When she first joined the squad, I had my doubts she’d make the cut. That was my own prejudice, because she looked like someone who should be making beauty vids. After a couple of shifts, I saw what was under her. She knew how to be part of a team, how to handle herself in the field, and with the rest of the squad.

“If she got taken down in the stairwell of her own place, it wasn’t a stranger.”

“How do you know how she was taken down?”

His eyes never shifted from Eve’s. “I’ve got connections. I used them. I haven’t shared what I dug up with the rest of the squad. What gets shared there’s up to the boss. But I’m telling you here, if she left her place last night carrying both her weapons, she was on the job. She went down in the line. And I’m going to be pushing for her to have that honor.”

“Who could have gotten into her building?”

“Fuck if I know. We don’t work that much heat here. She didn’t have anything going for somebody to swing out and kill a cop. We got a break-in, electronics. Inside job, no question. We’d’ve had the guy sewed before noon today. I’ll still have him sewed before end-of-shift. He’s an idiot, a screwup. He’s not a cop killer. I know Delong gave you the case file. You’ll see for yourself.”

“Could she have, when picking at the pieces for the little details, on this, on something else, have scraped up something hot? Something that came back at her?”

“If she did, she didn’t tell me. We had a—I guess I want to say a kind of relationship where she’d talk a case through with me.” The grief showed now. He stared down at the table, but Eve saw it working over his face. “She had dinner at my place a few times. My wife liked her, a lot. We all did. Maybe it was Morris.”

“Excuse me?”

“Something he was working on, or had. Somebody who wanted to pay him back. Where do you hit? She was in love with the guy. It showed. The few times he came in, to hook up with her at end-of-shift? It was all over both of them. I don’t know. I’m reaching. I can’t see anything she was on, anything she was connected to that she’d die for.”

“Would you mind telling me why you transferred out of Major Case?”

He shrugged. “The job’s a good part of the reason my first marriage went south. I got another chance. Got married, and had this kid. A little girl. I figure, I’m not going to risk it again, so I transferred. It’s a good squad. We do good work here, and plenty of it. But I don’t get many calls in the middle of the night, and most nights, I’m home for dinner with my family. So you don’t have to ask, that’s where I was last night. My kid—the oldest—she’s fourteen now. She had a friend over for a study date. Mostly bullshit,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Around midnight, I was giving them both a raft of grief for giggling like a couple of mental patients when they should’ve been asleep.”

“Detective Grady mentioned a weasel, Stu Bollimer.”

“Yeah, Ammy cultivated him. He’s from Macon so she used the old home connect. The guy was born a weasel. I can’t see him setting her up, not for this. He’s small change.”

“All right. I appreciate it, Detective.”

“Are you going to keep the boss in the loop?”

“That’s my intention.”

“He’s a good boss.” He pushed back from the table. “If she’d felt anything coming, anything to worry about, she’d have gone to him, or to me.”

“How were her instincts?”

For the first time, he hesitated. “Maybe not as tuned as they could’ve been. She was still feeling her way here, a little bit. Like I said, she was hell on details, and she was good with people. Put wits and vics at ease. But I guess I wouldn’t say she had the gut. The head, yeah, but maybe not the gut. Doesn’t make her less of a cop.”