Remember When (In Death #17.5)(131)

Relaxed, amused, he sat on the corner of her desk. When Feeney walked in, he could see the fading flush. Feeney cleared his throat, very deliberately, then set the second mug of coffee he carried on the desk. "Didn't zap you one," he said to Roarke.

"It's all right. I'm fine for now. How was your swim?"

"Fine. Good." He rubbed a hand over the drying sproings of ginger and silver hair. "Good and fine."

He turned away to study the board.

Weren't they a pair? Roarke thought, two veteran cops who've waded through blood and madness. But put a bit of sex on the table between them, and they're fidgety as virgins at an orgy.

"I'm going to bring you both up to date," Eve began. "Then I'll work on my angles while you work on yours. You see the artist's sketch on the board, and on screen."

She picked up a laser pointer, aimed it toward the wall screen. "Detective Yancy did the Ident, but isn't confident enough in this rendering for us to pass it to the media. But I think it gives us some basics. Coloring and basic facial structure, in any case."

"Looks, what," Feeney asked, "range of thirty?"

"Yeah. Even if Crew's son has spent the better part of a fortune on face work and sculpting, I don't think a guy in his sixties is going to look this young. And the witness never put him over forty. We may be looking for a family connection, or a young friend, protege. We have to pursue the connection. It's the most logical, given pattern and profile."

"Yeah, and it opens it up instead of narrowing it down," Feeney commented.

"We caught a break on narrowing it."

Eve told them about the trace evidence, and her fieldwork to date attempting to find the location of the Cobb crime scene.

"It's the first trace he's left. When we nail this down, we'll have another link toward identifying this creep. He chose the place, so he knows the place. He knew he could get in, do what he wanted to do in private and clean it up enough to have the crime undetected."

"Yeah." Feeney nodded agreement. "Had to splash some blood around. He cleaned up, or there'd be a report. A construction crew's not going to strap on tool belts with blood all over the damn place."

"Which means he had to spend time doing so. Again in private. Had to have transpo, had to know there was a handy dump site and access to the flammable."

"Probably didn't seal up for that one," Feeney commented. "Why bother?"

"Not an efficient use of his time," Eve agreed. "He's going to burn the body and destroy any possible trace to him, or so he believed. Why bother to avoid any trace on the scene as long as it's reasonably cleaned? Particularly if he had some legitimate reasons for being there."

"Could own the place, work or live in it."

"Could be a building or construction inspector," Roarke put in. "Though if he is, it wouldn't have been bright of him to forget about the fire sealant."

"You got the data I asked for, the properties being built or rehabbed in that area. Is what you sent me the whole shot?"

"It is, yes. But that doesn't take into account ones that are under the table. Small jobs," he explained. "A private home or apartment where the owner might decide to do some work, or hires a contractor who's willing to forgo the permits and fees and work off the books."

Eve visualized the map of her investigation suddenly crisscrossed with hundreds of dead ends and detours. "I'm not going to worry about side deals until we exhaust the legitimate ones. Sticking with that, don't they sometimes use gas on construction sites?"

"For some of the vehicles and machines." Roarke nodded. "As it's inconvenient to transport it from one of the stations outside the city, you might use a storage compartment on-site or nearby. You've a fee to pay for that as well."

"Then we follow that down, too."

"Bureaucrats in Permits and Licensing are going to make you jump through hoops," Feeney reminded her.

"I'll deal with it."

"You're going to need to put the arm on these guys, get the warrants and assorted paperwork and other bullshit. We get lucky with the matches, you'll cut back on that." Feeney considered, pulled on his nose. "But you got a lot to wade through one way or the other. I can put my leave off a few days, until this is closed."

"Leave?" She frowned at him until she remembered his scheduled vacation. "Crap. I forgot all about it. When are you going?"

"Got two more days on the clock, but I can juggle some things around."

She was tempted to take him up on it. But she paced it off, heaved out a breath. "Yeah, fine, you do that and your wife will eat both our livers for breakfast. Raw."

"She's a cop's wife. She knows how it goes." But there wasn't much conviction behind his words.

"Bet she's already packed."

Feeney offered a hangdog smile. "Been packed damn near a week now."

"Well, I'm not facing her wrath. Besides, you've already juggled enough to give me this much time. We can handle the rest of it."

He looked back at the board, as she did. "I don't like leaving a case hanging."

"I've got McNab and this guy." She jerked a thumb toward Roarke. "If we don't wrap it before you have to go, we'll keep you in the loop. Long distance. Can you give me a couple more hours tonight?"