It felt normal, having breakfast with Roarke in the sitting area of the bedroom – despite the fact he’d chosen oatmeal. If she’d gotten to the AutoChef first, she’d be eating pancakes, but she’d loitered in the shower and had no one to blame but herself.
As Galahad had less interest in oatmeal than she did, he stretched himself over the back of the sofa, tail twitching, bicolored eyes watchful, obviously hoping bacon would magically appear.
Settled – and really, if you put lots of brown sugar, honey, and fat berries in oatmeal, you could pretend it was something else – she told Roarke about the dream.
“Even your subconscious should know better. You’re not responsible for the actions and choices of someone bent on killing.”
“Yeah, and mostly I get that, know that,” she corrected. “It feels like I was working out something else. Bastwick was just a vehicle. We have to investigate all the angles, follow procedure, and we are. But we’re not going to find some resentful coworker or bitter ex-lover. Worse, the only way we can really shift the focus onto what I think is the meat, will be when there’s another body with another message for me.”
Bastwick had been right, Eve thought, she couldn’t protect the next.
“The killer is my friend,” Eve murmured. “She said that.”
“And it’s bollocks.”
“Not complete bollocks. Clear it all away, and my work is pursuing killers. Nobody kills anybody, no work. That’s cold logic. And maybe it’s the killer’s logic.”
“All right,” he conceded, “that may be cold logic, but it’s also twisted.”
“So’s the killer, so it fits. Justice – you know the statue with the blindfold – got a kick out of it all. I figure that’s because Bastwick and I knew, just like any cop and lawyer know, Justice peeks under the blindfold plenty.”
She scooped up more oatmeal because it was there. “It’s interesting.”
He’d have preferred the dreams take a holiday and let her sleep easy.
“You’ll be speaking with the woman who wrote you, the paralegal.”
“Hilly Decker, yeah. We’ll get that checked off first thing this morning. She lives, and works, near Central, so I’ll hook up with Peabody there, on the way in.”
“It’s not a complete shift, but it’s a few steps down the other path. And Mira will have more… candidates for you today.”
“?‘Candidates.’?” She managed a short laugh. “For Dallas’s new best friend. I’m not really clear on how I ended up with the friends I actually have, but I do know a top requirement is no murdering lunatics need apply.”
She shoveled in more oatmeal – get it over with. “Talk to Summerset, okay? Before you go off to buy your next continent or whatever.”
“I will.” Feeling her nerves, he rubbed his hand along the side of her thigh. “And yes, I’ll meet with my own media and public relations people. Those are the last things you need to worry about.”
“Right.” She rose, crossed over to retrieve her weapon harness, strap it on over a plum-colored turtleneck. “I’m going to review a few things here,” she began, sticking her badge in the pocket of charcoal-gray trousers, hooking her restraints to the back of her belt. “Then I’m heading out. We’re early enough, so Peabody and I should be able to catch Decker before she leaves for work.”
She picked up a jacket, frowned at it. “This isn’t the one I got out of the closet.”
“It’s not, no, but it’s the right jacket.”
Since it was the same gray as the pants and had a pencil-thin stripe that matched the sweater, she had to assume he was right. Anyway, it was there, so she shrugged into it.
Then narrowed her eyes. “Do I look like an accountant?”
“Not in a million years. No offense whatsoever to accountants.” He rose, went to her. “You look like a well-dressed cop.”
“That’s a – what do they call that thing? – oxymoron. Except for Baxter. Shit, I’ve got to talk to him, too, and Reineke and Jenkinson.” She rubbed the slight ache between her eyebrows when Roarke said nothing. “I’ve got to talk to them all. They’ll have bits and pieces by now, that’s how it works. I’ve got to brief them all.”
“You run a well-oiled division with good cops.”
“They are good cops. Okay, I’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of my particular, and well-dressed, cop.” He kissed her lightly.
As she drew away, her communicator sounded. And dread rolled through her.
She pulled it out. “Dallas.”
“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to 524 Avenue B, unit 311. Possible homicide. Victim visually ID’d by responding officers as Ledo – first name unknown at this time. Responding officers report written message left for Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Possible connection to ongoing investigation.”
“Yeah, I got that. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia. I’m on my way.”
“Confirmed. Dispatch out.”
“Ledo.” Eve shoved down the guilt. “For Christ’s sake.”
“I’m going with you so you can tell me who he is on the way.”
“There’s no need for you to —”
“I’d like to go with you.” Roarke took her shoulders, firmly. “Then I’ll get out of your way. If you don’t want to think about your husband’s natural concern, consider me that fresh eye and viewpoint.”
“Okay, fine, you drive. I can see what Ledo was up to since the last time I dealt with him.”
She moved fast, grabbing her coat off the newel post, swinging it on, hesitating only a moment when Roarke held out a scarf she recognized as one Peabody had made her for Christmas.
“It’s cold,” he said.
“Fine, fine.” She wrapped it on as she headed for the door, grateful Peabody had gone with muted colors.
As she strode toward the waiting car, engine and heat running, he pulled a ski cap over her head.
“It’s black. Live with it.”
Rather than argue – or point out he wasn’t wearing a stupid hat – she jumped in the passenger seat, pulled out her PPC to do a quick run on Ledo.
“First name Wendall – who knew? Age thirty-four. You’d peg him as a decade older, but that’s chemical abuse among every other abuse you can think of. He did a quick stint for possession since I saw him last – six-month sentence, four served, with mandatory rehab – got that checked off, and I can promise you it didn’t take. Repped by court-ordered attorney. No connection to Bastwick I can find here, and there’s not going to be. Unless we’re counting me.”
“Tell me about him,” Roarke said as he bulleted through the gates.
“Second-rate – no that’s being kind. Third-rate illegals dealer, chemi-head who was real fond of the funk. He was showing signs of those by-products. Liked to play pool – was good at it, but he’d lose that once the funk blurred his vision. Haunted the underground, and was a regular at Gametown. An asshole, a complete fuckhead. Mostly nonviolent. Run, hide, and lie. Crap.”
She sat back a moment, closed her eyes.
“When did you last deal with him?”
“Winter before last, before I lost my badge. The whole organ-theft, sidewalk-sleeper murders.”
Waverly, she remembered, had been on her dream jury.
“I took Peabody underground – scared the snot out of her.”
“It wouldn’t now.”
“No, it wouldn’t now. I went looking for him because I knew he dealt with one of the vics. Old guy named Snooks, picked up some scratch selling crappy flowers.”
She took herself back, underground, to the dank and the dangerous. To the tunnels, the fetid smells, the lost souls.
“I found him in Gametown, playing pool. One of the other assholes he played with didn’t want the game interrupted, got in my face, got a little physical. I picked up Ledo’s cue, knocked the big asshole back with it. But he was big, and he shook it off, came back at me. I used my knee as a cue on his balls. Ran the table, you could say.”
“If the killer’s punishing people who came at you – one way or the other – it sounds like the big asshole would be the victim.”
“Ledo loved that cue – and I broke it on the big asshole’s rock head. Ledo grabbed for it, and ended up clocking me in the face. Inadvertent, but I saw stars and it left a pretty good mark.”
“Did you arrest him?”
“No. Used the assaulting an officer as leverage, got what I could out of him. He actually gave me some information. He didn’t do anything but piss me off, give me an accidental tap, and be himself. Which meant he was a moron.”
“All that would’ve been in your report.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “All of it would’ve been in my report. Add that Ledo likely tried to up his rep by claiming he’d taken on the bitch cop, left a mark on her. He could’ve told that story while doing his last stint – embellished.”
Roarke drove fast, smooth, slipping and sliding his way around maxibuses, early commuters, Rapid Cabs.
“You’re the juncture, and that helps you.”
“Being a murder juncture doesn’t feel helpful.”
“Stop feeling it. Easier said,” he added, taking his hand from the wheel to touch hers. “But you can, and you will. You’re looking for someone who gained knowledge of these two victims, and their dealings with you. Bastwick was vocal in the media, so that’s simple enough. But this one has to be more internal.”
“Back to a cop or someone involved in law enforcement because the odds of someone focused on me who actually knew Bastwick and Ledo are slim. They couldn’t have run in more opposing directions. Law enforcement, lawyer, court staff. Reporter,” she added, following the theme.
She drummed her fingers on her thigh as he drove downtown.
“Mira’s profile. Organized, intelligent, controlled. We’ve got someone who can implement and execute long-range plans, and one who avoids confrontation. Who seeks approval – or at least mine – and wants appreciation.”
“A person who’s idealized you,” Roarke added. “And one who, we have to consider, can as quickly demonize you.”
“I’d rather,” Eve said. “Come after me? I can handle it.”
A few rusted, dented vehicles hugged the curb in the Square. Most of them stripped of any usable parts, then used as yet another canvas for ugly words, suggestions, and comments or pornographic graffiti.
In back of a wheel-less, door-less, and ancient two-seater with FUCK YOU, ASSWIPE sprayed in black on the faded brown truck, sat a muscular black-and-white.
A couple of early risers – or more likely late players – loitered on the steps leading down to a basement flop, all reddened cheeks and angry eyes.
Two beat droids stood on the sidewalk looking as snarly as droids could, each with a hand on the butt of a riot stick.
“Lieutenant.” The first stepped up as Eve got out of the car. He’d been created to resemble a black man in his early thirties with shoulders wide as the Great Wall of China. “We were called in to deal with crowd control when and if necessary, and keep a watch on any and all official vehicles. We’re programmed specifically to deal with the issues and culture of this area.”
“Good, you do that.” She scanned the building, the darkened windows, the ones currently boarded up. “It’s too early for too much trouble here.” She flicked a glance at the loiterers as one made sucking kisses noises in her direction.