Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(60)

“That’s a lot of doors to knock on,” Carmichael calculated.

“Which is why the e-geeks will eliminate the unlikelies while the rest of you find the nest.

“We have potential targets in protective custody. You should all familiarize yourselves with the interview recordings conducted today. To summarize, it became clear during the interview with Zoe Younger, Willow Mackie displays psychopathic tendencies, which include offing her brother’s puppy, threatening her stepfather with a knife.”

“The brother, too, sir.” Trueheart flushed as she stopped, turned to him. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Forget that. Go.”

“The kid broke down during Interview.”

“I call it opening up,” Baxter corrected. “He felt safe, and he hasn’t. He felt like he could talk to Trueheart, and Trueheart would believe him.”

“That, and I think he felt like she—his half sister—couldn’t get to him.” Trueheart glanced at the board. “The kid’s been terrorized, Lieutenant. He said sometimes he’d wake up in the middle of the night and she’d be in his room, just sitting there, staring at him. Once she held a knife to his throat, dared him to call for help.”

“He never told his parents?”

“He was afraid to.” After a moment, Trueheart hissed out a breath. “I could see how scared he was, Lieutenant. She said maybe he’d end up going out the window, going splat on the sidewalk like his puppy. Or maybe his father would end up with his throat slit some night if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. Or how his mother might fall down the stairs one day, and when the cops came, one of his toy trucks would be there. They’d put him in jail for that. She’d make sure of it. He’s just a kid, sir. He believed her.”

“He was right to. She planned to kill all of them once she completed the assignment for her father. Anybody here thinking of her as a child, stop. Until she’s in a cage, she’s deadly. Anyone thinking of Mackie as a fellow cop, stop. He and his daughter are cold-blooded killers. Find the nest, compile all data and evidence when you do. Anyone assigned to the field, dismissed.

“Feeney, do whatever you can to lower the number of locations for the hole.”

“You got that. You wanna play?” he asked Roarke.

“I do, yes.”

“Come up when you’re ready.” Rising, Feeney stuck his hands in his baggy pockets. “Any sense there’s anything weird going on with these two?”

“I think being LDSKs— Oh.” Eve’s hands slithered into her own pockets. “No, nothing like that.”

“Okay then, he’s going to want a place with two bedrooms. She’s nearly sixteen, so they maybe share a nest, short term, but for longer term, probably two bedrooms. Guy wants to go to Alaska, he’s probably trying to save money where he can, so like you said, nothing upscale. Yeah, we can knock the number down some. McNab, let’s get started.”

“I was just thinking.”

“He does that.”

With a half grin, McNab rubbed his earlobe and part of the forest of silver hoops riding on it. “You gotta eat, right? Single dad right off, and you add they’re huddled in to work out how to kill a whole bunch of people. Probably not a lot of cooking, even stocking an AutoChef with much more than your basic grab-and-gos.”

“Takeouts, deliveries,” Eve said with a nod. “Pizza, Chinese, subs, those would rank high. And 24/7s, carts.”

“Even thinking with his stomach, that’s not bad.” Feeney gave McNab a light punch. “We’ll add it in.”

“Lowenbaum, do you have Officer Patroni on tap?”

“I brought him back with me. Do me a solid, Dallas, don’t talk to him in Interview.”

In his place, Eve thought, she’d have asked for the same for any of her men. “We’ll talk in the lounge. The three of us. Why don’t you go get us a table?”

“I appreciate it.”

“Peabody, I want you to check that all the civilians we brought in are now secure. And it’s that needle-in-the-hay-pile thing—”

“Stack.”

“Whatever. Run the initials of the yet to be identified against every fricking lawyer in the city. Start with ones who advertise, who specialize in personal injury and wrongful-death suits.”

“That’s a teeny little needle in a lot of haystacks, but I’m on it.”

With only Eve and Roarke left in the room, Whitney rose. “Lieutenant, HSO is inquiring about your investigation.”

She actually felt her spine turn to a rod of steel at the mention of the Homeland Security Organization. “Inquiring, sir, or looking to take it over?”

“Inquiring with the concept, we’ll say, of taking it over.”

“It’s a murder investigation, Commander.”

“That could be considered domestic terrorism. And, in fact, is being labeled that by much of the media.”

Part of her brain might have been raging Politics, fucking politics, but her tone held cool and even. “That may be, sir, but the evidence clearly indicates the motive here is murder, and targeted murder. The rest is, or was, nothing but an attempt to cover the specific target.”

“It may be possible to tap some HSO resources without them taking the lead.”