“How about the others?”
“I nailed down Rogan’s early this morning. Transmission from a block south of the residence. Denby’s I worked some on the subway. I’m close. Give me another twenty, and I’ll have it.”
“Take the twenty, confirm, but it’ll fit pattern. The important one at this time? The one made from inside the building.
“Okay, let me wrap up where we are,” Eve began, pausing as Whitney rose.
“That’s all the time I have this morning. Detective McNab, good work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Lieutenant, hunt them down.”
“Yes, sir.”
He stopped by Peabody’s chair, glanced at McNab as Peabody beamed, drumming her hands on the seat of her chair in a quick rhythm. “Departmentally authorized?”
“Yes, sir,” McNab said. “Absolutely, sir. We put in a long night.”
“Make sure she takes a half dose next time.”
“It was the espresso chaser, Commander.”
Whitney shook his head. “That would do it,” he said and strode out.
Peabody let out a giggle, slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled behind her fingers. “Not funny.”
Eve said nothing, decided to handle the screen herself. She ran through each crime scene, the evidence, conclusions, progress.
“We’ve found no evidence linking any of the eighteen victims to any of the crimes under investigation. Our links remain Karson to Banks, Banks to the suspects. Banks to Richie. Richie to Denby. Our focus now will be the names on this board who live in Banks’s building.
“You have the profiles, and I’ve assigned interviewees to each team. We have to consider they’re not done. They have another target, one they’ve already researched and may move on at any time. Look for connections to real estate deals.”
“‘Real estate’?” Baxter repeated.
“It’s an angle. Or we might look for anything connected to some innovation about to launch. New tech, for instance. Something or someone who, if taken out, means profit for the suspects. A deal brewing. Something coming out or up soon. They’re on a hot streak. It’s possible—I think low probability, but possible—this moves out of New York. Don’t discount it. Focus on what’s going on here, but don’t discount that.”
She flicked images on the screen. “Karson leaked to Banks, so look at familial, romantic, spousal connections. Information that could be passed, however casually, to someone with a connection to the suspects. Somebody cheating on a spouse or lover can be pressured into giving out information. Look for that.”
She turned off the screen. “Let’s get to it. McNab, you nail that location, I want it.”
“Kiss bye!” Peabody puckered up. McNab gave her a sappy smile—before remembering himself and sending a pleading look toward Eve.
“Detective Peabody! I will personally dump you in the tank and sweat that booster out of you if you don’t maintain.”
The pucker dropped to a pout.
“With me. Now. No ‘kiss bye,’ goddamn it.”
Peabody trotted behind Eve. “I just feel so good! I can’t stop! My brain’s all full of colors!”
“Your body’s covered in them. It makes my eyes throb. Get your coat and cover up the worst of it, then sit down and be quiet. I need to talk to the rest of the squad because people just keep killing people.”
“That makes me sad.”
“Go be sad and quiet at your desk.”
Since her eyes already throbbed, Eve ran through the current caseload with Jenkinson and his psychotic rainbow tie, Reineke and his kittens on Zeus socks.
She shifted to Carmichael and Santiago, caught them up on the Denby arm of the investigation, segued to their current hot—the bludgeoning of a funky-junkie in Battery Park.
By the time she wrapped it up, she assumed Peabody had lost her sad as her partner chair-danced to some internal beat. Sometime in the last fifteen minutes, she had applied a shiny coat of bright pink lip dye.
“Stop jerking off and get your ass up.”
“You bet!”
Eve strode to the door, through it. Then, teeth gritted, went back to see Peabody standing at her desk, all smiles. “Jesus Christ, Peabody. With me.”
“Okeedoke!” She trotted along. “Say, Dallas, have you ever noticed—”
“No. Don’t talk.”
She hummed instead. Eve opted to stick with the miserably crowded elevator all the way down as the noise level drowned out the chemically induced joy.
In the car Eve drew a deep breath. Tried one more. “If you don’t pull it together, I’m going to leave you locked in the car while I conduct interviews.”
“Uh-uh, partners. Ass to work off. I can’t stop!” she added with just a little hint of panic as Eve pulled out. “Part of my brain’s going, Oops, crap, why! But the rest of it’s all happy and everything’s so bright! See look! That woman’s walking a puppy. She has red boots! I like red boots. Aw, I wish we could get a puppy! I’d name her Cuddles, and—Ow!”
Shoulders hunched, Peabody rubbed the arm Eve punched. “I can’t help it.”
“Try harder.”
“See, what happened is we worked really, really late because murders and going to the Oscars. Oh, I want Nadine to win so bad! I can’t wait to see—Ouch!”
“Keep it up and you’ll need body paint to cover the bruises.”
“I’m just saying it’s like we only got two hours down, and then I couldn’t turn my brain off because murders and the Academy freaking Awards! Okay, ouch. But I’m saying everything was just fuzzy this morning, and I needed to give you one hundred percent. A hundred absolute percent. So booster. But then it didn’t feel like it worked. All fuzzy. So I thought about the espresso, and maybe it did work some because it’s crazy stupid to chase the boost with espresso. It’s the real. McNab and I splurged. I love McNab! Ian McNab is my BFF—boyfriend forever! And we—Ow, ow, ow.”
“Stop talking. Stop. I get what happened. I get why it happened, which is why I’m not searching for a blunt instrument to beat you bloody with before I dump your broken body out on the street to be run over by a maxibus.”
“Maybe I should take some Sober Up. It’s not like being drunk, but maybe—”
“No. Nothing else goes in. Except water.” Eve programmed just that from the in-dash. “Drink.”
“I already sort of have to pee.”
“Good, the sooner you flush it out, the better.”
“Where are we going? Can I pee where we’re going?”
“Yes. Drink. Mikhail Kinski, resident of Banks’s building. Age forty-six, former Army, rank captain. Divorced. One hit on domestic violence. Works security for Dobb-Pinkerton Financial.”
Peabody nodded, tapped her temple. “Got it.”
“Good, because we’re there.”
“Really good! Because now I sort of more than sort of have to pee.”
Eve found a second-level street slot. “You put on your cop face, and you zip it. You observe on this one, and that’s it. Unless somebody jabs a spike up your ass, I don’t want to hear anything coming out of your mouth with an exclamation point at the end.”
“That would really hurt.”
“And I can find a spike. Believe it.”
She hoped the short walk, the fresh air and the flushing would bring her partner back.
The lobby looked rich with its towering green marble columns and acres of gold leaf. While Peabody goggled like a damn tourist, Eve ignored the ornate decor, the scores of people—most in black—clipping and striding to and from elevators with their ear-links and micro PPCs.
“There.” Eve pointed toward a sign for restrooms. “Make it fast.”
“Yay.”
As Peabody bounded off to pee, Eve headed straight to the security podium. Held up her badge.
“Where would I find Mikhail Kinski?”
The woman, black-clad, muscular, aimed a suspicious eye at the badge before pulling out a scanner. She seemed a little disappointed when it read green.
“Mr. Kinski is in Security Hub A. You’ll need to be escorted to that level.”
“All right.” Eve stepped back, keeping one eye on the restroom and hoping she didn’t have to go in there and yank Peabody away from primping in the mirror while she sang a happy tune.
Fortunately for her partner’s life expectancy, Peabody came trotting out. She had a big grin plastered on her face, but maybe, just maybe, her eyes were a little less manic.
“The bathroom is swank.”
“Great. Lose the smile.”
Peabody shifted to an exaggerated glower. It might’ve been effective, Eve thought, without the pink lip dye. Still, better than the smile.
Eve watched the man stride off a single, secured elevator. She recognized Kinski from his ID shot. A well-built man with close-cropped silver-blond hair, icy blue eyes, and the edgy cheekbones of a Nordic god, he walked with that purposeful stride straight to Eve.
“Badges, please.”
Eve offered hers, elbowed Peabody until she remembered hers. He drew out a mini scanner, verified.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant, Detective?”
“We can talk about that here in the lobby of your workplace, or we can go somewhere more private.”
“Give me a broad stroke.”
“The murder of Jordan Banks.”
He nodded, one decisive movement, then turned to lead them to the secured elevator.
“We can speak in my office. This will have to be brief. We have a full system test in twenty minutes.”
He used a card swipe and a thumbprint to engage the elevator. The ride down was short and smooth.
They emerged into a short hallway with double doors, fully secured and monitored by cams, at the end. Kinski turned to the left, used the swipe and his print again to open a door into a small, spartan office dominated by double wall screens.