Treachery in Death (25 page)

“Really, it’s a bloody litany of insults.” Roarke tossed a small duffle on the conference table. “I borrowed the bag from one of your supply rooms. I hope I won’t be arrested.”

“You’re in, done, and out and back here in ten?”

“Well, I did have to stop to get the bag. And to scan her security system.” He tossed a disc to McNab. “That should quicken things up.”

“Yeah, baby!”

“Care to see what’s in the bag, Lieutenant?” Roarke asked. “What was safe behind Oberman?”

Eve pulled the bag open. “Her running kit—the ID, credit, cash—about two hundred K?”

“Oh, two-fifty, then there’s another hundred large in euros.”

“Clean ’link, clean weapon, PPC—and discs.”

“Her books,” Roarke supplied. “Her payroll, operating expenses, income—all very tidy. I had a bit of time so I took a quick glance.”

“Say hallelujah,” Eve breathed.

“If you like. I didn’t look through them all—just enough to verify. They’re encoded, of course, but fairly simply. I’d say she was confident no one was going to have a peek. Her security is more complex. If she’d set the alarm before leaving her office, it would have tripped the minute Strong went in. A silent alarm that would engage the cameras. Renee would have seen it when she went in herself and shut the alarm off.”

“But she doesn’t clear out the safe. Not yet anyway. No real time to do it,” Eve concluded. “She has to eliminate Strong. If she can’t get to Strong, she’s going to have to answer a lot of embarrassing questions. She can clear out the safe, put something not incriminating inside.”

“Strong took a severe blow to the head—is and was obviously confused.” Roarke nodded. “Many ways to circle it, but eliminating Strong is sure and it’s tidy.”

“She likes tidy, and she doesn’t know I have two men on Strong. She couldn’t know yet. Crap, I forgot about Whitney and Mira.” She took out her com, signaled Whitney the all-clear.

“Give my boy a hand, will you?” Feeney asked Roarke, then jerked his head so Eve followed him to the other side of the room.

“You’ve got her in that box, Dallas. With everything we’ve put together, with what the boy says Peabody’s bringing in. Top that with the little heist Roarke just pulled off, she’s done.”

“Maybe. Maybe if we look through her discs and find she’s written out chapter and verse on her operation, on her orders to kill cops, Keener, whoever else she might’ve done.”

“She’s going to have to explain the ID, the money.”

“Graft, corruption, falsifying docs aren’t murder.”

“You and I know that while Bix might stand like a rock, others’ll roll. It only takes one to start an avalanche. You make a deal with one of her men, the avalanche is going to crush her to dust.”

“Is that how you’d handle it?”

“I’m saying you could walk right out of here and put her in cuffs.”

She turned, took a couple paces away to try to settle her temper. Turned and stepped back when she decided she didn’t want it settled.

“Make a deal with a dirty cop or two to snap off the head? Fuck that. Fuck that, Feeney. No deals. No deals if I have to sit on the PA until he cries for his mommy. I don’t want to deal to take her down. I’m going to take her down my way. I’m going to play her like a goddamn piano.”

He started to grin at the first
fuck that
, and then let out a snort. “You can’t play the piano.”

“But I can break one to splinters with a sledgehammer.”

“It’s a good choice. I was just checking.”

She puffed out a breath, felt the temper die. “You’d go sledgehammer?”

“Maybe a chain saw. I’ve got to think of my back.”

She glanced toward Roarke and McNab. “You get me the feed. I’ll get the hammer and saw.”

She paced while they worked. She wondered why things always took longer than you wanted them to take, unless you wanted them to take a lot longer—then they didn’t take nearly long enough.

Time sucked.

Peabody walked in.

“Put the data up,” Eve ordered. “I need to see it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good work, Peabody. You did good work today.”

“I needed to.” Peabody glanced over as she installed the disc. “I want to be able to go back to her mom and tell her Detective Gail Devin helped bring this down. Dallas, can you get her a commendation? From the top? Could you put her in for one from the commander?”

“I can. I will. But I believe the commander will issue one without my request.”

Eve stood, studying the data. “God, she was thorough. Look at this. Times, dates, length of time, participants of closed-door meets in Renee’s office. Coordinating them with busts or ops gone sour—or where the take from the bust came in well below expectations and information. Invoice changes—she logged them down whenever she caught one. Logged once-a-week meets between Renee and Dennis Dyson in Accounting. Here’s another who shows up regularly, every couple weeks, and routinely after a sizable bust. From Records.

“Notations on inconsistencies in files, in reports. Here’s a cop who dug into her research.”

“She was building a pretty good case,” Peabody added. “She’s got records of street contacts she’d started to develop on her own. She went through court docs checking wits, did follow-ups. She went to see dealers in their cages. She was starting to push hard, then . . .”

“Pushed the wrong way, and Renee caught the scent.” Eve ordered the data to share the screen with Renee’s. Cued them up.

“We got names matching here. A lot of her names match what’s looking like Renee’s payroll.”

“You got the payroll?”

“I’ll fill you in. Feeney! I’m getting tired of holding this hammer.”

“Then set it down a damn minute.”

“Look at all this money.” Peabody gaped at the open duffle. “And ... a passport, ID. You found her hole? You found her hole without me?”

“You were busy doing a good job.”

“Now you can say hallelujah.” Roarke turned to her. “You’re tapped in, Lieutenant.”

“She’s not back in her office yet.” Eve watched the screen image of Renee’s office with narrowed eyes. “Went back to IAB to try to squeeze her boy out. Okay.” Eve rolled her shoulders. “Time to play.”

22

IN HER OFFICE, RENEE GATHERED HER FORCES.

“We’re going to clean up this mess tonight.”

She stood behind her desk, met the eyes of each man under her command—something she’d learned from her father. She spoke in clipped, confident tones.

“There will be no loose ends. There will be no mistakes. Freeman, get to the hospital. If Strong makes it out of surgery, she’ll need to be dealt with. You’re on hold until I contact you. Do what you do—blend.”

“You got it, LT.”

“Go now. And Freeman? If and when? Don’t leave any marks.”

“You know me. I’m a ghost.”

“Marcell,” she continued when the door closed behind Freeman, “you and Palmer are going to deal with Dallas. She’s over.”

“How do you want it done?” Marcell asked.

“I’ve been giving it some thought. We take it back to Keener.” A full circle, she calculated. Closed and locked. “She’s so in love with the little bastard, it seems appropriate. You’ll take her in the garage when she’s leaving. Armand, you’ll need to give us a security glitch.”

“Can do.”

“It’ll have to be fast and clean. Wait until she’s at her vehicle. I don’t want you to give her room to maneuver. Stun her. Then take her and her vehicle to Keener’s hide. Once you’ve got her in and secured, do it however you want, but make damn sure she’s dead. Take anything on her a chemi-head would pawn for scratch. We’ll be planting some of it later to give Homicide our fall guy. When you’re done, contact Manford. He’ll pick you up.”

“What if she’s not alone in the garage?” Palmer asked.

“If she’s with her partner or one of her men, you take them both. Tulis will keep an eye on her, contact Armand when she heads down.”

She looked at Tulis, got his nod.

“Armand will handle the cams and elevators. He’ll give you the window, you’d better damn sight go through it. Until then stay clear of her. No contact, no connection.”

“Consider it done.”

“When it is, go to Samuels at Five-O. He’ll cover you. He’s closed the place so you could hold vigil for Strong, wake Garnet.” She checked her wrist unit. “My sources say Dallas rarely if ever leaves end of shift, which makes it easier to grab her alone. You’ve got some time, and I’ll toss her something to hang her up here to make sure of that.”

“What about Bix?” Marcell asked her.

“Armand’s going to hack her comp, plug in some data that takes the heat off Bix, makes it clear the bitch was on some sort of vendetta against me and mine.”

Destroying her sterling rep as well as her life would almost, Renee thought, make up for the trouble she’d caused.

“Meanwhile, IAB’s got Bix so he’ll be in the clear when Strong and Dallas go down. With her and Strong out of the way, everything goes back to normal. We have a moment of silence for our fallen comrades. In a week, we clear the Giraldi case and have a nice payday.

“Now.” She paused, smiled. “I’ll get Dallas busy being supercop, then pay another visit to IAB to express outrage over this business with Bix before heading out to check on Strong and express my deep concern there. Everybody does their job, this ends tonight, and we move on.”

They worked on refining details, coordinating timing. After, alone at her desk, Renee sat, stared at her father’s portrait, blinked until her eyes watered. Then used her ’link.

“Dad.” She pressed her lips together as if struggling to control herself. “I know you’re disappointed in me.”

“Renee—”

“No, I know I’ve let you down. Let myself down. I should never have let things with Garnet get out of hand. I should’ve been stronger. And I’m going to be. I need to talk to you, Dad, to ask your advice. I have to go by the hospital and check on one of my people. She had an accident today. After that, can I come by and see you?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks, Dad. I know I let my personal feelings get in the way of my job, of my responsibilities. My feelings about Garnet, and about Dallas, too. I see that now. She’s so much more the kind of daughter you wanted. I resented her for that.”

“She’s not my daughter, Renee. You are.”

“I know. I know, Dad. I’ll see you soon.”

She clicked off, stared with icy eyes at the portrait. “I’m your daughter? Too bad for us both you wanted a son, isn’t it? Too damn bad I could never measure up to your lofty standards. Would you be proud of me, you fucker, if you knew just how much I command?”

“Daddy issues,” Eve commented as she watched the monitor. “Definite daddy issues.”

“That’s one cold, fucked-up woman.” Feeney shook his head. “A cop briefing other cops on how to kill cops.”

“I was starting to worry she wouldn’t go for me. I’d have hated to miss that opportunity.”

“She plans to eliminate you because you’re a threat.” Mira had come in to observe, and now looked at Eve. “But only partly. What she said to her father was truth, as she sees it. You’re more what he would’ve wanted in a daughter than she. And that’s just as much a motivation to eliminate you.”

“We’ll worry about her motivations later. I’ll need the e-team to handle the glitch she plans. They’ll need to think it worked. Peabody, check on Strong. I need to talk to Louise the minute she’s clear. I don’t want Louise or any of the docs to talk to anyone else, even Strong’s mother, the boyfriend. Nobody.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“What are you doing?” Roarke asked as Eve took out her own ’link.

“Setting up my counter op. I’m texting Jacobson, then I’ve got to go be seen by her man. We want her plan to move right along.”

“You’re building a bigger box,” Feeney said with some pride.

“Jumbo size. And when we’re done, it’s still going to be crowded in there. Oh look. I believe I’m getting an anonymous tip from an unregistered’link.
Check records and reports for Garnet, initialed by Strong, incl all expenses. Proof Garnet & Strong did Keener.

“Set them up for Keener.” Feeney pursed his lips. “Being dead they can’t argue about it.”

“She’ll take a hit on Garnet, but she’s got her notes and evals on Strong. It’s not bad for seat-of-the-pants,” Eve decided. “And it’s enough to keep me busy here through end of shift. Can you redirect this hack they’re going to pull on my comp?”

“Redirect,” Roarke told her, “track to the source and deal with this busywork of records and report searches so the source confirms you took the bait.”

“All that?” Eve smiled at him. “Handy. Gives me time to tag Janburry and Delfino, put them on Bix so they can wrap him up. They’ll need to time it.”

“He won’t betray her,” Mira put in.

“He won’t have to. She’ll betray him. They’ll get their collar, and Garnet will get more justice than he deserves. I’ve got to go be visible. I’ll keep in contact via ’link. Peabody, give me two minutes, then head to the bullpen. I want you at your desk until end of shift.”

“We’re moving close to that now.”

“Two minutes,” Eve repeated, but when she got to the door, Roarke put a hand on her arm. “I’ve really got to get going on this. Timing’s crucial.”

“They don’t need me here. I’d prefer to be in the garage.”

“I need you here because whatever they can do you can do faster.” Now she put a hand on his. “I’m going to be covered in the garage. I trust my men, every one of them.”

“Yours against hers.” Oh yes, he understood his wife, his cop. “Another form of you against her.”

“Maybe. It makes a point. It makes the kind of point that will resonate in the department, in the media. That’s a matter of politics and morale, and those things matter. But it matters, too, that we show, without a shadow, not only that she gave the orders, but the ones under her had no compunction following them.”

“You’re very cool for someone who just heard her own death warrant.”

“Because my men are better than hers. In every possible way. If you trust me, you trust them.”

He touched her cheek. “The drinks are on me, for the house, when this is over and done.”

“Free drinks? That guarantees no-fail. I’ll keep in touch.”

She walked out, picked up her pace. Cop in a hurry, she thought. Records to check. When she stepped into the bullpen, Jacobson hailed her.

“Lieutenant, can I have a minute?”

“Do I look like I’ve got a minute?” Then she cursed, shrugged. “My office.” She strode in, waited for him to follow, then shut the door.

“Okay, I interrupted you. Why am I interrupting you?”

“Long story, full details to follow,” Eve told him. “For now ...” She turned to her computer, called up pictures and data on Marcell, Palmer. “These two men are planning to ambush me in the garage in a couple hours. Their orders are to stun me, toss me in my own vehicle, take me to my crime scene and kill me very dead.”

As Jacobson studied the images, his eyes went hard as stone. “Is that fucking so?”

“It is.”

“They’re soon going to be having a really bad day.”

“Yes, they are. Lieutenant Renee Oberman gave them that order, and has ordered this man—Tulis—to keep an eye on me, and this one, Armand,” she added as she brought the next image up, “to hack my comp, to provide their cover re garage security.”

He looked at her then. She could still see that stone, but with it a kind of grief. “How many are in it, Dallas?”

“One’s too many, and there are a lot more than one. Your focus will be on Palmer and Marcell, and not to alert Tulis. The e-boys will take care of Armand. Others are being or will be dealt with.”

“How do you want it done?”

His words to her echoed Marcell’s to Renee, she realized. And what a world of difference in meaning.

She told him how she wanted it done.

When he went out, she texted Peabody, updated the e-team. When her ’link signaled, she saw Louise on the readout.

“Is she alive?”

“She is,” Louise told her, and those pretty hazel eyes drooped with fatigue. “And her chances of staying that way are good. They’re finishing up the ortho work—that was the most extensive damage—then we’ll move her to recovery and onto ICU. Her recovery will depend, to a large extent on—well—how strong is Strong. The PT is going to be extensive, long, and painful.

“Now tell me why Peabody’s asked nobody tell her family.”

“I’ll get to that, but I need you to inform someone else, but with a few variations. You kept her alive through this part, Louise. Help me keep her alive through the next.”

Over the next hour, Eve learned she didn’t much care for running an op via ’link. She preferred looking into the eyes of the men she coordinated, seeing in their faces their determination, their humor, their willingness to put it all on the line.

When the end of shift came and went, she started counting down the clock.

Step One, she thought. Louise.

Renee, her face covered with weariness and worry, hurried toward the surgical desk. “I’m Lieutenant Oberman,” she told the nurse in charge. “I’m here to check on one of my people, Lilah Strong.”

“Lieutenant?” Louise, still in her scrubs, stepped over. “I’m Doctor Dimatto, one of the surgical team. Why don’t you come with me?”

“Is she out of surgery?”

“Yes.” Louise kept walking. “Why don’t we go in here and sit down?”

“Oh God. She didn’t make it? I was told she was very badly injured, but I’d hoped.”

“She came through very well.” Louise gestured Renee into a small office, shut the door. “Her age and physical condition were on her side. There’s no reason she shouldn’t make a full recovery.”

“Thank God.” Renee closed her eyes, sat. “We’ve all been so concerned. I’d hoped to get here sooner, but . . . doesn’t matter. Can I see her?”

“I’m sorry. She can’t have any visitors at this time. Not even family. There’s a serious risk of infection, so we’ve had to quarantine her. In any case, she’s in an induced coma. She did suffer very severe trauma, and we want to give her body time to heal. We have her in the East Wing, on the eighth floor. It’s quiet and closed off from the rest of the wing. Infection is her enemy at this point.”

“I understand. But is someone with her? If she wakes up—”

“We hope to try to bring her out of the coma in about twenty-four hours. Meanwhile an ICU nurse will check her vitals and progress every thirty minutes. Rest, quiet are what she needs most now. She should be able to have visitors by this time tomorrow, or the following morning.”

“Her room number? I want to tell her squad mates. And send flowers when she can have them.”

“Of course. She’s in Eight-C. I’d be happy to contact you when she’s cleared for visitors.”

“I’d appreciate that very much.” Renee rose. “Thank you for all you’ve done. Believe me, Detective Strong’s recovery is of deep concern to me.”

“I understand. I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

Louise walked her out, waited until the elevator door closed, then took out her ’link. “All right,” she told Eve, “I’ve finished my mix of lies and truth to this Lieutenant Oberman. If you’re done with me, I’d like to go check on my patient.”

“Thanks, Louise.” Eve clicked off, updated her team. And thought: Step Two. Renee to Freeman.

With a cat-smile of satisfaction, Renee slid into her car. When she was a block away from the hospital, she engaged her unregistered’link. “She’s in Eight-C, East Wing. Quarantined, checked every thirty by an ICU nurse. Critical condition, induced coma, outlook optimistic.”

“Not for long.”

“Finish what Bix started, and take her out quick and quiet, Freeman. I want it to look like complications from her injuries.”

“I’ve got something with me. I’ve already scoped out the locker room. I can get in as a medical, add this juice to her IV. She’ll just go under. Like putting a sick dog to sleep.”

“Get it done, then get over to Five-O. I want everybody alibied, just in case.”

“Just need to set up a distraction so I can ghost in there. If I can work it fast enough, I could come back, help out with Dallas.”

“No, do what I’m telling you to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Marcell and Palmer have Dallas. They should move on her soon. Contact me when it’s done. Text only. I don’t want to take a ’link call when I’m with my father.”