Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(44)

She moved into her office. She arranged two boards, one for the murder, one for the investigation on Renee Oberman’s operation, adding data on every cop in Renee’s squad she’d acquired through low-level runs.

She grabbed the sweepers report the instant it came through, studied it and the lab analysis on the illegals taken from the crime scene.

Little pieces, she thought. Tiny little pieces—mundane, you could say.

Once she’d input everything in her computer, she sat back with coffee and considered her approach.

When Roarke came in he went to her boards. “You’ve made considerable progress.”

“I know what she’s doing. I have some ideas on why. I even know how to some extent. I know some of the other players, but not all. I know who killed Keener, why and how and when. But it’s not enough. Yet. I had some face time with her today, got to f**k with her a little.”

“I imagine you enjoyed it.”

“I’d have enjoyed smashing my fist into her face more, but yeah, it wasn’t bad.”

He walked to her desk, took her coffee, drank a little. “Sometimes we just have to make do.”

“I had Peabody contact her, f**k with her a little more. Not only because it’s good strategy, but . . .”

“You can’t beat the monster in the closet unless you open the door. Our Peabody won’t be as unnerved by the woman now.”

“Plus Renee lost that round, so even better. Renee’s overplayed her hand, but doesn’t know it.”

Eve looked at the board again, and again thought, little pieces.

“I’m going to say this first, get it out of the way while it’s just you and me.”

“All right.”

“I’ve got this terrible hate on for her—so many levels of it. It’s Peabody, it’s Whitney, even Mira after I saw her today. It’s the department, and it’s the badge and everything it means.”

“I know. And it’s more.”

He would know, she thought. He would see. “Cop’s daughter. Can be rough, I guess. But screw that. She had two parents, a decent home. No hint of anything under that, and you don’t get to be commander of the NYPSD without making enemies. If there’d been anything, somebody would’ve found it.”

“I’d agree with that. And I imagine you spent some time today looking for any hint of that.”

“Yeah, I did,” she admitted. “No traumas, not one that shows—and I think by now, especially with Mira taking a hard, close look—it would. Normal is what she had. Well, a cop’s house probably has its own brand of normal, but—”

“She was housed and fed, educated, very likely loved, certainly tended to,” Roarke continued. “Her father set an example, held to a code. He didn’t lock her in dark rooms.”

Roarke touched Eve’s cheek, just a brush of fingertips. “He didn’t beat her, didn’t rape her, didn’t terrorize a helpless child night after night, year after year. Rather than value what she was given, she chose to dishonor it. She made a choice, and that choice betrays everything you believe in, everything you’ve made yourself.”

“It sticks in me. I need to get over it.”

“No. You’re wrong. You need to use it. And when you end this, you’ll know that what you made yourself from a nightmare beat what she made herself from normal. More, Eve, you’ll know that’s why you beat her.”

“Maybe.” She laid a hand on his. “Maybe. But right now I feel better, just getting that said. So.”

This time when she took a breath, it worked. “She’s not really worried about me, but more pissed off. More annoyed at the inconvenience, at having me bump up against her authority. She handed me this homicide because she got sloppy, because she surrounds herself with people without ethics, without any respect for the job.”

“That would be key.” Roarke took another sip of her coffee. “To run a successful business, it’s an advantage to hire people with a similar vision, or at least the ability to adapt to your vision.”

“Yeah, I think she’s got that down. But when your business is living a lie, you have to take what you get. Hotheads like Garnet, brutes like Bix. Plus, her ego’s a problem. She doesn’t look for the smartest, but the most malleable, the most easily corrupted. It’s most important for her to stay on top, to be in charge. To her way of thinking, as I see her, if she recruits the best and the brightest, somebody might outsmart her, out think her, maybe figure Why should I listen to her?”

“If she can’t grasp or accept it’s not essential to be the smartest person in the room, but to be sure the smartest person in the room is working for you, she was destined to fail.”

“She’s had a good run up till now.” Eve took the coffee back. “She runs her squad precisely—dominating by forbidding any sort of personality. No personal items, no genuine partnerships. Every man for himself,” Eve murmured. “That’s what I felt in there.”

She rose to walk to the board, to tap her finger on Bix’s photo. “She recruited him, and I’m going to bet she helped work his transfer to her unit—because of his skill set. Military, combat trained. Both parents also military. He takes orders, he’ll kill on command. He’s her dog.”