“Can you tell me, did you get a sense she was worried about him, about how they’d ended it?”
“No. I only remember thinking what kind of fool had let her get away. She didn’t bring it up again, and neither did I. It was the past. We were both focused on now, on where we were going. On what could be, I suppose. Did he do this?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lead, and I’ll follow it. But I don’t know, Morris. I’ll tell you what I know, if you trust me to handle it.”
“There’s no one I trust more. That’s the truth.”
“Alex Ricker is in New York.”
The color that came into his face was rage, barely controlled. “Hear me out,” she demanded. “He contacted her, and she went to see him the day before she died. He volunteered this information to me this morning when I went to see him.”
Morris set his coffee aside and, rising, walked to Eve’s skinny window. “They weren’t still involved. I would have known.”
“He said they weren’t, and that they broke off their relationship amicably. They met as friends. They had a drink and a catch-up conversation during which she told him she’d met someone, was involved. He stated that she looked happy.”
“Did you believe him?”
Hell, she thought, how did she dance around her suspicions and keep her word? “I believe he might have been telling the truth, or part of the truth. If she’d felt threatened or worried, would she have told you?”
“I want to think so. I want to think even if she hadn’t I would have seen it, felt it. She didn’t tell me she was meeting him, and now I can’t ask her why she didn’t. What it means that she didn’t.”
She didn’t have to see his face to know there was pain. “It could be it meant so little to her she didn’t feel it was worth mentioning.”
He turned back. “But you don’t think so.”
“Morris, I know people in relationships do strange things. They say too much, don’t say enough.” Take me, she thought. Had she told Roarke she intended to contact Webster?
“Or it could be, especially since our relationship had become very serious, I might have asked questions. Ones she didn’t want to answer. It’s not that she’d been involved with someone before, neither of us were children. But she’d been involved with Alex Ricker.”
“Yes.”
“The son of a known criminal, a known killer. One who, when they were involved, was still at large. Still in power. How likely is it that Alex Ricker is uninvolved, unconnected to his father’s activities? But she, a police official, became involved with him.”
“He’s never been arrested or charged with any crime.”
“Dallas.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s dicey, it’s tricky. It’s sticky. I’m a police official, Morris, and I not only got involved with a man cops all over the planet—and off it—gave the hard eye to, I married him.”
“One forgets,” he murmured. He came back to sit, to pick up his coffee again. “It would’ve caused some friction for her on the job. As it did for you.” When she said nothing, Morris lowered the mug. “Was she investigated?”
“I’m going to find that out. But . . .” Truth, she reminded herself. That was the deal here. “She kept it to herself. From Ricker’s statement, from what I’ve gotten out of Atlanta, and out of her squad here, nobody knew she’d had a personal relationship with him.”
“I see.”
Worse, Eve realized, worse for him that the relationship with Alex had been important enough for her to have kept it a secret.
“It could’ve been for a lot of reasons. The simplest is she wanted to keep her personal life off the job.”
“No, you’re trying to comfort me again, to spare me. I know how the grapevine works. Everyone in my house, in hers, I’d wager nearly every cop, clerk, drone, and tech in Central knows Ammy and I were involved. Keeping it quiet had to be deliberate, and because of who he was. And to keep it quiet for that long? That’s serious.”
He paused a moment, and his brows drew together. “You’re going to find out. You mean you’re going to talk to IAB?”
“It’s necessary.”
“If they didn’t know, they will now. After you talk to them.”
“I can’t go around it. I’ll be as careful as I can, but—”
“Give me a minute.” He stared down into his coffee. “Max Ricker carried cops in his pockets like other men carry loose credits. You’re wondering now if his son had Ammy in his.”
“I have to ask. I have to look at it. If I factor it out, push it off to spare her rep, maybe her killer slips through the gap. That’s not going to happen. Not even for you.”
“I knew her. I know how she thought, how she felt, how she slept and ate and lived. I’d have known if she was dirty. I know how she defined her work and how she felt about doing it.”
“You didn’t know about Alex Ricker.”
He stared. She watched the shutter come down, the one that shut her out as a friend, as a cop, as a colleague. “No, I didn’t.” He got back up onto his feet, spoke stiffly. “Thank you for keeping me informed.”
She got to hers before he could get to the door of her office. “Morris, I can’t and won’t apologize for doing my job, but I can be sorry that the way I need to do it causes you pain. Just like I’m sorry to have to say this. Stay away from Alex Ricker. If I don’t have your word you’ll keep clear, make no contact with him, I’ll put a tail on you. I won’t let you impede the investigation.”
“You have my word.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
Alone, Eve sat at her desk, dropped her head into her hands. Friendships, she thought, were so damn complicated, so bound with sharp edges that could jab a hole through you at any given point.
Why did people always get tangled up with other people? Why put ourselves through this shit ?
She had to consider the possibility Coltraine had been dirty. Wasn’t that hard enough? Did she have to carry the guilt for hurting Morris along with it?
Crap. Yeah, she did. No way out of it.
She wanted to ignore the knock on her door, really wanted just to wallow for a while in a little stew of self-pity. But duty won.
“What? What the fuck do you want?”
The door eased open a few inches, and Peabody peered in. “Ah. Are you okay?”
There it was, Eve supposed. There was the answer to why people got tangled with people. Because when you were down, when you were wallowing, someone you mattered to would ask if you were okay.
“No. Really not. Come in. Shut the door.” When she had, Eve blew out a breath and shook it off. “EDD?”
“There’s nothing off on her home or work units. Nothing off on her house or office ’links. Nothing referencing an appointment or meet for the night she died. Her date books check out. The only one we haven’t been able to pin down, so far, is a notation for AR, the day before her murder. It’s listed under personal. No address, no number, with the additional notation of a-slash-s, which corresponds with ‘after shift’ in her other notes.”
“I’ve got that one. Sit down. AR is Alex Ricker.”
“Alex . . . as in Max Ricker?”
“As in his only son. Here’s the deal.”
Though she kept silent during Eve’s recap, various expressions raced over Peabody’s face, and Eve could read them perfectly. They ranged from Holy Shit to Poor Morris to What Now.
“You told him?”
“Yeah.”
Peabody nodded. “Well, you had to.”
“I didn’t tell him about Ricker’s lame alibi, because he didn’t ask. I didn’t tell him it was pretty damn clear to me Ricker still has feelings for Coltraine. Even without that, it was bad enough. I need you to get a warrant to search Alex Ricker’s penthouse, and to confiscate and search his electronics. He’ll be expecting it. He’ll have covered himself, if need be. But we’re pretty damn smart around here. We can see what’s under the covers if we look hard enough. We’ve got to check his idiot alibi. See who’s clear to sweep around Times Square with a picture. Sports bars are the focus. We’ll take over there once I’m finished up and able to get back out in the field.”