“Just because he makes a good vid doesn’t mean he’s not a stone killer. And I’m about to end his streak and his celebrated status.”
“This is going to be huge. The media will explode over this, and the NYPSD—and you, Lieutenant, will be at ground zero.”
“You sound happy about that.”
He only smiled, took a neat bite of his doughnut. “We all do what we do.”
“You got that right.”
Eve went straight to her office from the conference room to contact Nadine. “Boat lady,” she said to Peabody.
“Lives in Tribeca with her cohab.”
“Contact her. I want her to meet us at the boat.”
“At the boat?”
“Asap, Peabody. Nadine,” she said the minute the reporter came on. “We have to talk.”
“I have a window this afternoon, about—”
“Now.”
“Dallas, I’m right in the middle of—”
“Believe me, whatever you’re in the middle of isn’t as juicy.”
“Really? What’s juicier than finalizing arrangements for an exclusive with Isaac McQueen as he awaits transport to his new facilities—an off-planet, maximum-security penitentiary? To tie in with interviews with the Jones twins, with the young girl McQueen and his accomplice snatched from the Dallas mall, and interviews with every survivor a certain rookie cop freed when she took McQueen down in New York over twelve years ago? We’re getting a six-hour special, in three parts, on this. It’s going to be mega.”
“Good for you. Want something else mega? The kind of mega that could mean another book, and sure as it’s sweaty in hell, would have Hollywood beating down your door.”
“When and where?”
“The Land Edge Marina, Battery Park. Hold on.” She glanced over as Peabody came back, held up a finger, mouthed: In an hour. “In two hours. Don’t be late.”
She clicked off.
“It is mega,” Peabody said. “I don’t mean books and vids. I mean cop mega. When I became a cop it wasn’t for cases like this. I mean, it’s hard to even imagine anybody could do what he’s done, for forty years. It makes me feel …”
“Depressed,” Eve finished. “Like he should’ve been stopped long before this. If one cop had looked right instead of left, up instead of down, had asked one more question, maybe he would have been stopped.”
“Yeah. I know some people never get caught, or they slip through because you just can’t nail the case shut. But this is … It’s been decades, Dallas. And I look at the board, and I see that college guy, a guy younger than me. He’ll never get older, never graduate or fall in love. He’d be old enough to have grandkids now, but he’s always going to be twenty.”
“He’s a good one for you to keep in your head. A good one for you to stand for in this. You remember his face and his name, Peabody, and remember he never had a chance to be older than twenty because Joel Steinburger cut off that chance. He cut it off, and he got away with it. So he cut off other chances.
“We’re going to make sure he never does it again.”
She answered her beeping ’link. “Dallas.”
“McHone. I got lucky. Found the evidence box, case book, the tagged electronics. The works. Couldn’t get it off my head after I talked to you, so I went in, started digging.”
“I owe you. Look, we’re hot here. If I could have what you found, I can get our top dog in EDD and a civilian consultant with mad skills to dig into the e-stuff. I’d appreciate getting my hands on that case book, and the rest.”
“If you find something that lets me tell Pearlman’s widow he wasn’t a coward and a thief, we’ll be square. I’ve got to push through some paperwork to clear sending this out to you, then make arrangements for secure transport.”
“I can expedite some of that. I’ll have my commander deal with the red tape, and I’ll get the transport. If you ever need anything from me, D-S McHone, just reach out.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Get Whitney to get this rolling,” she told Peabody. “I’ll get the transport moving.”
She started to contact Roarke, winced, hissed, paced to the window and back. It was wrong, she knew it, to interrupt him every time she needed something he could supply.
Maybe it was like swallowing sand, but she contacted Summerset instead.
“Lieutenant?”
“I need a fast, secure shuttle to transport two NYPSD officers to California, and bring them and sensitive evidence back to New York.”
“I see. I’ll need the exact destination, and your preferred departure center.”
“That’s it?”
“I assume you wish this transportation expedited, so yes, destination and departure centers will suffice.”
“Okay.” Still suspicious, she told him.
“Very well. Have your men at departure, with valid identification and signed authorization, of course, in thirty minutes.”
“Signed authorization from who?”
“From you, Lieutenant. As the shuttles are, always, at your disposal, the officers only require your authorization. Unless you intend to accompany them, then it won’t be necessary.”
“No, I’m not going. They’ll be there in thirty.” She swallowed more sand. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
She frowned at the blank screen on the ’link. How was she supposed to know it was that easy? If she’d known it was that easy, she could’ve contacted the transpo station herself. Still, Summerset could likely cut through it all faster anyway.
“Dallas.”
“What?” Distracted, she glanced over, saw Reo at the door. “Yeah.”
“You got your warrant. I let Feeney know.”
“Good. We’ll start rolling the ball.”
“You don’t want to hear it, I know, but you’re going to have to be really lucky for him to say anything you can take to court on these murders.”
“He may say something that leads to something else, that can be. It’s a process, Reo.”
“And one that may take years—if ever—to build a case against him for the old murders. Shouldn’t you focus on the two already in your hands?”
“I can focus on more than one goal at a time. A college kid, a pregnant woman, a husband and father, an old man, a woman smart enough to divorce him, some guy just doing his job. Who do you want me to forget?”
“None of them. But if you can close it down on Harris and Asner, he’s never going to see daylight again. He’s only got one life, Dallas, and if we do this right he’ll spend what’s left of his in a cage.”
“That’d be fine, if it was only about him. It’s also about seven people and the lives they’ll never get to live. Did you look at them?” Eve demanded.
“Yes. I know. I know, Dallas. I want him for all of them. I want to prosecute him for every one, and win. Which is a fantasy because if we ever got enough to take him down for all of them, my boss would be all over it, and I’ll settle for first chair. But I’d settle, now, for a solid case on one count—put him away, and hope we can gather the others over time.”
“I’m not ready to settle. When we get enough to box him on Harris and Asner—or either—I’m going to break him to pieces on the rest. On the whole. Then I’m going to hand you those pieces on a platter.”
“And I’d take them. Mira’s worried. You got that, too? She’s worried he’ll find a way to block the light on him and beam it on someone else. Or worse. We don’t want to add another to his scoreboard.”
“I know how he thinks now. I’m going to stay ahead of him.”
“Keep me in the loop. And if you get me a couple more slivers, I’ll do a hard push for the search warrants.”
“You could try it now.”
Reo only shook her head. “I try it now, I’m going to get a no. I get a no, it’s harder to get a yes later.”
Eve saw the logic, even if she didn’t like it. “You know when we—me and Peabody—went to the set before Harris got dead and things got sticky, they were shooting this scene where a feisty young APA accompanies two homicide cops into the Icove residence, and when they find a DB, the APA passes out cold.”
“Crap. Crap. They put that in there?” Her face a study in mortification and annoyance, Reo did a quick circle. “Crap. It was my first body. It could’ve happened to anyone.”