Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(32)

“Caucasian male,” she began, filling him in while he secured the weapon and the stand.

“I’ll take a good look when you have the sketches. I know some guys who could make these strikes, either by face or rep, and some personally. Maybe it’ll pop—or I can show it to some I trust aren’t asshole bastard lunatics.”

“You’ll have it when I do. Appreciate it, Lowenbaum.”

“I’d say all in a day’s, but . . . not this time. I’ll be seeing you. Keep it loose, Peabody.”

“That’s how I roll.” Peabody let him out, let the sweepers in.

Once Eve had given them the basics, she and Peabody left them to it.

“I’ll keep digging on Ellissa Wyman. With it leaning this far target specific, the suspects could be in the wind, well into it.”

“You think they’re done?” Eve countered.

“If they hit their target—”

“Why the partner, Peabody? Why the younger? Partner or, if we’re really talking at least twenty years age difference, maybe apprentice? What’s the training for? Some connection between the suspects and one of the vics, there’s got to be. But people have more than one connection, and people with this kind of grudge? They’ve got more than one of those, too.”

Eve stepped into the elevator, stabbed the button for lobby.

“They’re not done.”





6


Eve tried Mira from the car, hit her v-mail. “Suspect has a partner, younger, possibly a teen, gender unknown. Full report to follow, but think about it.”

She clicked off, tried Feeney next. “Peabody, tag the commander’s office. I need ten minutes—fifteen,” she corrected, “asap. Feeney,” she continued when his basset-hound face came on screen. “I’m on my way to Central, I need a meet.”

“On the LDSK?”

“Got the nest, got a description. I want to bounce this off you.”

“Come ahead and bounce. I’ll work you in.”

“Appreciate it. Later.”

“The commander’s on a ’link conference, but I stressed the urgency. He can see you in about forty.”

“That works. You head back to the bullpen, brief Jenkinson and Reineke. I may need to pull them in again. I’ll send you my record on the interviews at the hotel. Start writing the report. If I’m not back, go deeper on the ID the suspect used. There may be a reason he used that name. Dig under the credit card.”

“I’ve got it. Why Feeney?”

“He was in the Urbans, and he’s worked LDSKs before.” And, Eve thought, he trained me.

When she hit a traffic snag—somebody had wiped out on the slippery street, and was now arguing heatedly with the cabdriver he’d slid into—she thought: Fuck it. Slapped on the sirens, and went in hot.

“Call that mess in before there’s bloodshed.”

“Already done.”

As she turned toward Central, Eve glanced over. She’d trained Peabody. Something else to think about.

She squealed into her parking spot in Central’s garage, quickstepped to the elevator.

“You think another strike’s coming,” Peabody said. “That’s why the rush.”

“I think another strike’s coming. And if I’m wrong on that, they’ve had a day to poof. We need to catch up.”

As the elevator filled with cops, she hopped off when Peabody did, took the glide the rest of the way up to EDD.

Entering the odd cop world of color and movement, she spotted McNab—hard to miss in a fluorescent red-and-yellow shirt flopping over neon green baggies as he stood, skinny hips tick-tocking to his own strange beat. His screen was exploding with color and weird symbols.

She dodged around a female practically skipping across the room wearing a fuzzy pink sweater with an animated poodle doing backflips over her chest.

Eve beelined for the relative sanity of Feeney’s office.

He stood working a large swipe screen two handed. His hips didn’t bop—thank Christ—and he wore one of his shit-brown suits, already wrinkled, a darker shit-brown tie askew over a saggy beige shirt.

His silver-threaded ginger hair sproinged up from his comfortably worn face as if he’d scrubbed it with a wire brush. The room smelled of his candied almonds and coffee.

When he grunted at her, she stepped in.

“Can I close this door? All that color makes me dizzy.”

He signaled her to go ahead and, when the door shut, wagged a thumb toward his AutoChef. “Coffee’s under kale-and-carrot smoothie.”

“Good choice.” Eve programmed two, waited until Feeney nodded at the screen and stepped back.

“What ya got, kid?”

“The nest, a description. He made those strikes from Second Avenue, Feeney.”

Eyebrows lifted. He let out a whistle as he dropped behind his desk. “That’s some juice.”

“He’s got a partner, except . . . The second suspect is young, undetermined gender. Possibly a teenager. I’ll know more when Yancy finishes with the wit. Adult suspect, probably early fifties.”

“Doesn’t sound like a partner.”

“Exactly. Sounds like a trainee. Maybe the wit’s off, but he comes off rock solid. When he says sixteen tops, I lean toward a kid. Who takes a kid into something like this unless he’s molding said kid?”