Chapter Twelve #3
She worked her way around the scene. “Smashed furniture, lamps, shattered glass table. Some damaged in the altercation, some likely destroyed by Redman. Shelves bookending the fireplace, all items but one smashed.”
She picked up the framed photo, turned it around. “Cap-and-gown photo, looks like high school. Young male, likely the son. Fits pattern.
“He let you crawl a little, but you couldn’t have had much left. Then he finished you where you lay. Some of the injuries will be postmortem because you were done, gone before he could stop.
“You’re not going to stop, Steve. You’re not going to stop until we stop you.”
She crossed over to answer the door again, and let in the morgue team.
The lead man, one she figured had seen more ugly death than she had, sucked air between his teeth.
“Teenage Jesus on an airboard, Dallas, how many more of these you giving us?”
She wished she knew. As she watched the sweeper van pull up, she thought it again. She wished she knew.
After she spoke with the sweepers, after the uniforms rounded back to tell her what she’d expected—no one saw anything, no one knew anything—she started up the stairs.
Roarke came to the head of them.
“I’m done here,” she told him.
“You’ll want to come up. A panel in the office,” he said as she continued up the stairs. “A clever and tricky mechanism, but I’m clever and tricky.”
“No argument.”
He gestured her in.
Inside the now-open panel, she saw another black-market stunner, a long-range weapon, two handguns, two over-the-limit knives, and a number of handmade boomers. With them, stacks of cash in what she noted were several types of currency.
She walked closer, noted another stack. Passports. Lifting one, she saw the victim’s photo, but not his legal name. Beside that stack, another with official-looking IDs.
“Looks like he traveled for work.”
“I’ll wager he has another place, off property, where he keeps his tools and supplies for that work.”
“Yeah, the boom squad will take that. I’ll have all this confiscated. I found another stunner on scene, like that one.”
“It didn’t help him, did it now?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I found his books for his more lucrative work. It lists clients and targets as well as payments. The clients and targets are recorded by code, which I’m very confident Feeney and EDD will break in time. I can take it on myself if you want.”
“Feeney will want it. How far does it go?”
“Three years. Likely the older ones are on disc files, stored at one of his other properties. You’ll find them.”
“Damn right we will. I’m going to call this in, tag Feeney so he knows where we are. And don’t say it’s too late to tag him tonight.”
“It’s barely ten, Eve.”
How could it be barely ten? How could it not be three in the fucking morning?
She called for secure transportation into Evidence, then tagged Feeney.
“Yo, where you at, kid?”
“He got another one.”
“Well, shit.” Feeney, in a brown sweatshirt with a frayed neck, shot up to pace. “Shit.”
“Feeney, he killed a man who makes his primary living blowing things up.”
Feeney sat again. “We missed something. We fucking missed it.”
“They had the money, the equipment, the tech, and the expertise to make it look, even to a careful eye, like an accident. Eight million. That’s what he got for it.
Carlos Cruz. I’m sending his e’s into EDD.
Roarke found records on his jobs on his office comp.
Three years only. He owns other properties.
He’ll have previous records stored. Clients and jobs are in code. ”
“We can break his fucking code.”
“I know it. I’m going to hit Reo for warrants to search his other properties, send in a team.”
“Let me handle that.” Feeney rubbed at the back of his neck, a weary gesture, but his face was hard and lit with purpose. “Let me have this one, Dallas. I can still see what we walked through that morning. I can still smell it.”
“It’s yours. Keep me up on it.”
“Count on that.”
She clicked off, shoved her ’link in her pocket.
“I’m done here.”
“Do you need to go into Central?”
“I can write this up at home. I have to let Whitney and Tibble know, Peabody, Mira. I want another consult with Mira.”
They started downstairs. “Just let me tell the sweepers about the weapons, the rest, so they know we’ve got secure transpo coming.”
When she finally walked outside, she drew in the cool air.
“Record off. I’m going to tie those motherfuckers to Cruz, to that goddamn bombing. I’m going to tie Banner and Wyst and every-fucking-body who had part, who knew, who looked away. Tie them up like the garbage they are.”
He resisted gathering her in. She wouldn’t like it, not on a crime scene. Instead, he laid his hands on her vibrating shoulders.
“They’re not going to walk away from this, Roarke. I don’t care who they have in their pocket, how many palms they grease, how they play it in the media, they’re not walking away from this.
“Goddamn it, Feeney’s going to carry this now, too. And he did his best. You can’t do more than your best.”
“No, you can’t. And you’re doing yours. We’ll go home now.”
“Yeah, let’s go home now.”