Survivor in Death (36 page)

“How do we manage to live in the same world when you actually exist on a plane where half a million is cheap?”

“True love hobbles us to the same post. Freelancers can get double that for an assassination. Easily.” He looked up from his work. “I was once offered that, at the tender age of twenty--to do away with the business rival of a weapons' runner. A bit difficult to turn it down-- quick money--but murder for pay has always struck me as tacky.”

“Tacky.”

He just smiled at her. “I'm in now, so I'll keep with it, and run through Clinton's and Isenberry's. It won't take long now, as I've already punched through.”

“I'll be in my office. Just for curiosity, what does . . .” She paused, brought the Gaelic phrase back in her mind, and mangled it in the repeating.

Surprise flickered over his face as he angled his head. “Where did you hear that?”

“Out of your mouth a little while ago.”

“I said that?” He looked mildly shocked--and if she wasn't mistaken, a little embarrassed. “Well, what does come back to you. Just a flash from my youth. A very crude one.”

“Oh, then, as a cop who's worked the tidy and genteel streets of New York for eleven years and counting, I'd be shocked by crude language.”

“Very crude,” he repeated. Then shrugged. “Basically, it's fuck yourself in your own ass.”

“Yeah?” She brightened. “How do you say it again--the right way? I could use it on Summerset.”

He laughed, shook his head. “Go to work.”

She walked out, mumbling the phrase.

And walked into her office in time to see Baxter take a big bite of a loaded burger. Since there were no takeout bags in evidence, and the smell was real meat, she deduced it came from her own kitchen.

“Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” He grinned and chewed, and gestured toward Trueheart, who was chewing on an identical meal--with the grace, at least, to look slightly shamefaced. “We didn't stop for fuel. Eats are better here.”

“I'll give your compliments to the chef. Are you going to report, or just push dead cow in your mouth?”

“Both. Reached out to the primary on Moss, and on Duberry. Team working Moss, they crossed all the hatches. Nothing to go on. No specific threats filed. Moss hadn't mentioned anything to his wife, his associates, friends, neighbors, about any threats. He and his kid drove upstate to this cabin he owned one weekend a month. Man-to-man time. Fishing and shit. Vehicle was parked, private garage--full vid surveillance, droid security. Droid on showed no tampering, but had a thirty-minute break on his disc. Same with the security cams.”

“What kind of cabin?”

Baxter nodded, picked up one of the fries he had ordered along with the burger. “We thought the same. Why go through all that when it'd be easier to take him out in a cabin upstate. Troy?”

Trueheart swallowed hastily. “The cabin's in a gated, recreational community, and the security is good. The investigators believed, due to the nature of the explosive device and the ability to jam the lot security, that the possibility was strong on urban terrorism. Several other vehicles were destroyed, and the lot suffered some structural damage.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Smarter. Add the urban terrorism element to murk the waters.”

“There was no evidence to conclude Moss was target specific, but if so, they concluded it was because he was a judge, not because of any particular case. Moss had also been approached as a possible mayoral candidate, so the team factored in politics.”

He cleared his throat, and continued when no one commented. “There was no evidence, no reason for them to look at Kirkendall at that time. He'd made no threat, and his case had been resolved about three years prior to the incident. With, ah, what we have now, we can look at Kirkendall, his pattern and pathology, and conclude that he hit Moss in the city rather than at the cabin because it, um, murked the waters. And it was more of a challenge. More of a statement.”

“Agreed,” Eve said and watched Trueheart take an easing breath. “What about the device?”

“Well, that's pretty interesting.” Baxter gestured with his burger. “And another reason the primary and team concluded urban terrorism. What they were able to sweep up from scene, then sim, indicated a military-style device. This wasn't any homemade boomer some yahoo stuck together in his basement because he was pissed off some judge made him pay child support. Lab guys creamed over it-- primary's words--plaston base, and it don't come cheap, electronic trigger designed to blow when the engine engaged, and .. .” He made a wide gesture, pulling his arms apart. “. . . explode outwards for additional damage.”

Something flickered in her mind. “Okay, how could they be sure Moss would be the one to engage the engine? What about the wife?”

“Didn't drive.”

“Not good enough. Even private lots can make a few extra fees by renting out a vehicle. You got to factor that in. And Kirkendall would want a hundred percent success rate. I want the lab to take another look. I'm betting there was a fail-safe on it. That he had control, and could detonate or abort by remote if necessary. Clinton's their E and B man,” she stated. “That's the specialty that pops out of his data, but Kirkendall would want the control.”

“I'll give the lab a push,” Baxter agreed. “We also spoke with the primary on the Duberry murder. Now there's a guy who's dug in.”

“Meaning?”

“He figured the ex-boyfriend. He still figures the ex-boyfriend. I'm not going to say he missed anything on the investigation, but I'll be going over it again myself. He homed on this guy and that's that.”

“Boyfriend alibied?”

“Right and tight. Get this.” He wiggled a fry at her, bit it in two. “He's home alone, and the building's scan cams are crap. So yeah, you might think, hey, he could slip out, do the deal, slip back, no big. But in the apartment above him, there's this guy with this big-ass water bed. Snuck that in past building regs. Weighs a fricking ton. Top it off, he likes to party. Got himself two economy-sized ladies up there for a three-way. And while they're surfing, they get pretty enthusiastic. Bed pops, and you got yourself a frigging ocean. Water comes gushing through the ceiling, and nearly drowns the guy below. Big altercation between upstairs and down, all witnessed by neighbors--and taking place at the time Duberry was strangled.”

“Huh.” Eve stepped over, stole one of Baxter's fries.

“Primary's sure the guy was behind it. You got a woman with no known enemies, ordinary life. You got no sexual assault, no burglary, so you gotta figure personal.”

“Ex-boyfriend's going to rape her--high probability,” Eve put in. “Do some damage to her face, too. That's personal.”

“Yeah, but the primary figures he hired somebody to do her. But the guy doesn't have the financials for a hit. He's barely making rent. And this was a prime hit. He's got no priors, no known association with the dark side. The guy's not in it, Dallas. We started the interviews again. Nobody comes up with any motive, nobody remembers the vie talking about any worries. Her communication and data equipment is long gone, but EDD did the scans, and came up zip.”

“Okay, clock out for the night. Peabody and McNab are out talking to Kirkendall's former sister-in-law. We'll brief here, oh eight hundred.”

“Good enough. Listen, Trueheart and I thought we could take the night shift on the kid. We can bunk here.” He shrugged a shoulder when Eve frowned at him. “She's a cutie. Gets to you. Rough day for her. We could hang out with her awhile, take her mind off it.”

“Talk to Summerset about where you should bunk. I appreciate the extra duty.”

“No problem.” He lifted the burger to his mouth again, then paused. “Where did Peabody head to interview the sister-in-law?”

“Nebraska.”

“Nebraska.” He bit in, chewed thoughtfully. “Do people really live there? I thought it was one of those myths. You know, like Idaho.”

“People live in Idaho, too, sir,” Trueheart told him.

“Step out.” Baxter laughed, and swept a fry through ketchup. “The stuff you learn.”

The two-passenger shuttle landed in a small cargo station in North Platte. As per Roarke's memo, there was a vehicle waiting for the last leg of the trip.

Peabody and McNab stood in the chilly evening air, staring at the sleek black jewel.

“Oh my God. I thought the shuttle was mag.” Heart skipping, Peabody circled. “You know, the sleep chairs, the comp stations, the menu on the AutoChef.”

“The speed,” McNab added with a dopey grin.

Peabody sent him one back. “Yeah. Way uptown. But this--”

“It's a beast.” McNab trailed his fingers over the hood. “Man, this baby's gotta wing.”

“Bet your ass.”

But when she started to open the driver's-side door, he took her arm. “Wait. Who says you get to pilot?”

“My partner's primary.”

“Not good enough.”

“Her husband provided the transpo.”

“Not even,” he said with a shake of his head. “I've got a grade on you, Detective Baby.”

“I wanna.”

He laughed, and dug into one of the many red pockets on his baggy pants. “I say we flip for it.”

“Let me see that credit first.”

“This level of trust is sad,” he said, but handed it over.

She studied it, turning it over, and back.”Okay, you call, I flip.”

“Tails, due to how much I like yours.”

“Fine, I'll take heads due to the fact yours is so empty.” She tossed the credit, snatched it out of the air, and slapped it on the back of her hand. “Damn it!”

“Woo-wee! Strap it in, She-Body, 'cause we're going to orbit.”

She sulked as she walked around to settle in the passenger's side. Not that it wasn't bodacious, even in that position. The seat molded to the tail McNab admired, like a lover's hands, and the dash was a gleaming curve armed with enough gauges to make his claim of going into orbit not out of the realm.

Still pouting, she engaged the map, programmed the desired location. And was told in the computer's melodious male voice the most direct route, given an ETA of twenty minutes at posted speed limits.

Beside her, McNab put on black-framed sun shades with hot red lenses. “We gonna beat that down cold.”

He was right, she thought. The beast did wing. The thrill of it infected her enough to order the sky roof open.

“You pick the tunes,” McNab shouted over the roar of engine and wind. “And pump it up!”

She went for trash rock--it seemed to fit--and screamed along with the song as they tore south.

The insanity that was McNab cut the travel time nearly in half. She took a portion of the time saved to rake at what was now a bird's nest on her head, and tame it down to her usual ruler-straight bowl cut. McNab pulled a folding brush out of another pocket and whacked at his knotted ponytail.

“Nice place,” he commented, looking around the yard, the field of corn that ran alongside it. “If you go for rural.”

“I do. To visit anyway.” She studied the neatly painted red barn, the smaller, trimmer outbuilding, and the pasture where a few spotted cows grazed. “Somebody takes good care of this.”

She got out, looked at the narrow patch of lawn, the ordered beds of fading fall flowers that led to a two-story white house with a covered porch.

There were festive pumpkins, two with grinning faces carved out, on the steps, reminding her Halloween was only days away.

“Do some dairy,” she observed. “Some row crops. Probably got some chickens out back.”

“How do you know?”

“This stuff I know. My sister's farm's bigger than this, and she does okay. Hard work, you have to love it to do it, I think. Place like this is small, but well-run. Mostly they self-provide, sell some of the harvest and the by-products at a local market for transport. Maybe they got a hydro out back, too, so they can grow through the winter. But that costs.”

He was out of his element. “Okay.”

“She was an exec at one of the top communication companies in New York. Fast track. Husband was a producer--daytime drama. Individually they were pulling down double our combined salaries.”

“Now they're working a farm in Nebraska.” He nodded. “I get you.”

“Somebody already knows we're out here.”

“Yeah.” Behind the shades, his gaze tracked to the dot of yellow blinking above the front door. “They got motion and cams, bet it's a three-sixty scan. More on the fence lines, east and west. A lot of security for a little farm in West Bumfuck, Nebraska.”

They went to the door, knocked. Steel-reinforced, MacNab thought, and noted the shimmer on the windows. Lockdown alarms.

“Yes?” The voice through the intercom was female, and firm.

“Mrs. Turnbill? We're the police. Detectives Peabody and McNab with the New York City Police and Security Department.”

“That's not a police vehicle.”

“No, ma'am, it's private.” Peabody held up her badge. “We'd like to speak with you, and will wait until you verify our IDs.”

“I don't--”

“You spoke with my partner, Lieutenant Dallas, earlier today. I understand your caution under the circumstances, Mrs. Turnbill, but it's important we speak with you. If you refuse, we'll contact the local authorities and arrange for a warrant. I don't want to do that. We've gone to some trouble to keep this visit quiet, to insure your safety.”

“Wait.”

Like Peabody, McNab kept his badge up, and watched the thin red light shimmer out, scan both. Somebody, he thought, isn't just cautious, but scared. Right into the bowels.

The door opened. “I'll speak with you, but I can't tell you any more than I told Lieutenant Dallas.” As she spoke a man came down from the second floor. His face was grim, his eyes cold.

“Why can't you people leave us alone?”

“The kids?” his wife asked him.

“Fine. I told them to stay upstairs.”

He was stocky in the way that told Peabody he did manual labor routinely. His face was tanned, squint lines scoring out from his eyes, his hair bleached by the sun.

Six years, she thought, had made him more farmer than urbanite. And the way he kept one hand in the pocket of his work pants warned her he was carrying.

“Mr. Turnbill, we've come a long way, and not to harass you. Roger Kirkendall is wanted in connection with seven homicides.”