Chapter Fourteen
For reasons that both baffled and pleased her, Eve cruised downtown as if on a highway. She decided she’d hit some rare pocket where traffic didn’t exist. Or barely.
Dog walkers, suits, pedestrian commuters glided along the sidewalks as she slid, time and again, through green lights.
Like magic.
The lucky pocket dumped her at the morgue early, so she programmed three coffees in go-cups. Might as well spread the joy.
She stuck one in her jacket pocket, carried the other two down the preternaturally quiet tunnel.
And found Morris already with his sealed hands inside Cruz’s open chest cavity.
“I didn’t think you’d be this far along.”
“Saw the flag, came in early.”
“Appreciated, but you didn’t have to—”
“Not just for you,” he said. “Three in this condition in barely twenty-four hours? I’m invested.” He nodded at the coffees she held. “Is one of those for me?”
“Yeah.” She set it aside, took Peabody’s out of her pocket, put it next to the first.
“Also appreciated. Dent’s in the drawer. We’ll release the body to his family later today if you’ve no objections. Our latest guest has a son according to your on-scene report.”
“Yes. I notified him last night. He’s coming in today.”
“I’ll do what I can to persuade him against viewing the body. He escalated with this one. I would have thought it next to impossible. You see here? The ribs, not just broken, shattered. Pieces of them pierced internal organs. Massive internal bleeding.”
Eve stepped closer, watched Morris work. Today’s music leaned into guitars and a pumping piano. Today’s suit was deep, dark green, echoed in the thin stripes on a snow-white shirt. The tie added a deep, dark gold. And both colors wound through the braid down his back.
“I’ve seen you open bodies that’ve taken a dive out a twenty-story window with less damage.”
“This was unrelenting. I can tell you Mr. Cruz enjoyed his alcohol a bit too much, and his diet leaned away from balanced nutrition. He’d enjoyed a couple of tequila shots about an hour before death.”
“There’s a bar right down the block from his place. Uniforms report he stopped in there on the way home, and often did.”
“I’d say they served the salsa and tortilla chips he had with the shots.”
“He was a husky guy. A couple of shots shouldn’t have impaired him. Defensive wounds?”
“Here, right forearm? Possibly an attempt to block a blow. In my opinion, the first strike, the assailant’s fist to the face, broke the nose, knocked out these two teeth, splitting the top lip.
Frontal assault, powerful blow. The victim may have remained conscious, but he would surely have been dazed. ”
Morris paused, shook his head. “What had he done to incite so much rage?”
“He blew up the apartment building with his killer’s pregnant wife and two-year-old son in it, among others.”
Morris’s eyes held on Eve’s. “There’s no end of cruelty in the world, is there? So you know the killer, but don’t yet have him.”
“Steven Redman. Went out for ice cream thirteen years ago, so the people who hired Cruz to take him out missed him. No, we don’t have him yet. I’ll send you a copy of the file if you’re interested.”
“I am. And I believe I’ll have that coffee now.”
As he walked over to wash away the blood, Peabody came in.
“I’m two minutes early! I timed it.”
“I was earlier, and so was Morris. You got coffee.”
Peabody, in black due to the memorial, though she’d paired the jacket and pants with a pale blue shirt, all but bounded to the coffee.
“You could’ve called me in last night,” she told Eve. “I appreciate you didn’t because my family came in, but the job comes first.”
“I went to arrest Cruz, found him dead. I had the consultant, so no need to call you in. He’s moving fast.”
Morris sipped his coffee. “Given that, he’s killed three, with increased brutality, weaponless, continues the attack when his target’s already dead—and all essentially within twenty-four hours—increases the probability of your belief he’s taking something.
Something that inhibits pain, increases adrenaline, endurance, aids in recovery from the effort. And this took considerable effort.”
“Redman’s a scientist.”
“Ah. Well, there you have it.”
“But we don’t have him. He won’t stop, I don’t think he can stop.”
“How many more will he target?”
“He’ll want the top two, but there could be more leading up to them. I didn’t know about Cruz until it was too late. He moves fast.” Eve looked at Peabody. “We have to move faster.”
“I’ve got my running shoes on.”
Pink, Eve noted. Memorial or not, Peabody embraced the pink.
“Then let’s move. Thanks, Morris.”
“I’d say all in a day’s, but this one doesn’t quite fit. Thanks for the coffee.”
As they left, Peabody put her running shoes to work keeping pace with Eve’s longer strides.
“I really do appreciate you giving me last night.”
“You were pissed at first when you got my report.”
“Maybe. A little,” she admitted. “But my sister pointed out that it made you a considerate partner, and boss, and if I’d really been needed, you’d have pulled me in.”
“The ‘really been needed’ pissed you off.”
Peabody laughed. “Okay, maybe. A little. But I got it. And it was really just mag, showing everyone the house. My dad was so . . . when I showed him the dining room table, the one he’d made all those years ago and we found here in New York? Things got emotional, in a really good way.
“And Bella really latched on to my granny. Granny said they’ve been friends before.”
“Before what?”
“This. Past lives.”
“Okay.”
“Well, you know, if you really think about it—”
“Which I don’t.”
“Right. Anyway.” Peabody got in the car, strapped in. “We had a really mag time. And McNab’s family’s coming in tonight, so man, it’s all just abso iced.”
“Great. Good. And now, I’m pulling you in.”
“Got it. McNab should already be with Feeney in the lab. Right before I left, Feeney tagged him to come in. Search team found Cruz’s other records.”
“I didn’t have that data yet. Good.”
“Good to the ex. They’re pulling out all the stops to break Cruz’s client code. That’s one seriously bad dead guy.”
“I’d rather him in a cage than a slab, but the world won’t miss him.
I’ve got a consult with Mira straight off.
I want more insight on Redman. While I’m with her, go through that list of friends.
I crossed a couple off on the way home, but he had to go to someone.
A night’s shelter, some running money, something. ”
“He could’ve found a hole, stolen enough money to get him started.”
“Can’t discount it. Doesn’t fit—the stealing anyway—but we can’t discount how much those first seven years twisted him. Either way, we interview all of them. So contact and round them up. Start with his sister.”
“His sister?”
“Press her on who she thinks on that list could and would keep this secret, who could and would hold it this long.”
Eve pulled into the garage.
“If she’s got an opinion, round them up first. If there’s a delay getting any on the list into Central, we go to them. We break long enough on that for the memorial.”
“Do you think Redman would show?”
“No, he’d respect the family too much. That’s how I see it. But we don’t risk missing him if I’m wrong. I’m going straight to Mira,” Eve added as they got on the elevator.
“How about Banner-Wyst?”
Eve’s eyes went hard. “Next time we go there, it’s with warrants and a whole bunch of cops. Fuckers,” she said as the doors opened.
A woman of about fifty in a spotless navy suit got on with a “Tsk! Language!”
“That’s what I was using. Language. I’m taking the glides,” she said, and jumped off before three more cops and a sleepy-eyed LC pushed on.
Moving fast, Eve thought, and it had to be fast enough.
She considered offering Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst police protection. They’d know why, and they no doubt had already increased their personal security.
She decided to throw that ball in Whitney’s court.
Was there another rung on the ladder to the top? How many had known about the plot to kill Redman?
Secrets, she thought, they rarely held. Here, as she saw it, some kept quiet for money, and one—maybe—for loyalty.
She turned into Mira’s area. The dragon sat at her desk, and Mira stood in her open doorway.
“Eve, come right in. Only emergencies, please,” Mira said to her admin.
“Of course.”
“You’ll want coffee this time of day, and so do I.”
Mira went straight to her AC, and as Eve had thought earlier, in perfectly coordinated wardrobe.
A dress that fell somewhere between blue and gray with a deeper blue jacket that stopped at the waist. The shoes matched the jacket, with the heels and toes matching the dress. She’d chosen twin studs for her ears in the blue that matched the stone of a pendant on a braided chain.
“How do you do that?”
Mira turned with the coffee. “Sorry?”
“It has nothing to do with anything, but how do you get all the outfits together like this? I mean, everything.”
“Oh, first, thank you. And to answer, ruthless organization and a great deal of vanity. I deal with so much chaos in the work, feeling put together helps keep me grounded. Still, I’ll never have your style.”
Baffled, Eve simply stared. “I have a style?”
“What I think of as an in-charge, no-bullshit style. It suits you.”
“Huh.”
“You’ll stop in at a memorial today, so black. Respectful, authoritative. No bullshit. Have a seat.”
Eve took the coffee, sat.
“I read your report, of course. Fascinating and horrible. And I spoke with Steven Redman’s doctor of record during his time at the health center. I know Dr. Harman a little, and his reputation. He’s very good.”
Mira sipped some coffee. “Do you want me to go over the diagnosis, the treatments, medical history?”
“No, I read through what I had access to.”
“As you know, Dr. Harman and the medical team believed Redman had come out of his catatonic state, and confused, wandered out.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Given the new information, they agree he left purposefully. Given his condition, it’s not possible to say whether or not he remembered all that happened.”
“But he did.”