“I’ll flag the tox as priority. She isn’t as damaged as the others.”
“No.”
“Can she be moved yet?”
“I was about to roll her.”
With a nod, he bent to help, and together they rolled the body.
“No injuries on her back,” Morris said.
“Most of them don’t. He likes face-to-face. It has to be personal. It has to be intimate.”
“Some bruising, lacerations, burns, punctures on the back of the shoulders, the calves. Less than the others.” Gently, he brushed the hair aside, examined the back of the neck, the scalp, the ears. “In comparison, I’d say he barely got to stage two in this case. Yes, yes, something went wrong. I’ll take her in now.”
He straightened, met Eve’s eyes. “Will there be family?”
He never asked, or so rarely she’d never registered it. “She has a mother in Queens, a father and stepmother out in Illinois. We’ll be contacting them.”
“Let me know if and when they want to see her. I’ll take them through it personally.”
“All right.”
He looked away, past the lights into the cold dark. “I wish it were spring,” he said.
“Yeah, people still end up dead, but it’s a nicer atmosphere for the rest of us. And, you know, flowers. They’re a nice touch.”
He grinned, and some of the shadows around him seemed to lift. “I like daffodils myself. I always think of the trumpet as a really long mouth, and imagine they chatter away at each other in a language we can’t hear.”
“That’s a little scary,” she decided.
“Then you don’t want to get me started on pansies.”
“Really don’t. I’ll check in with you later. Peabody, get that canvass started.” She left Morris, heard him murmur, All right now, Gia, then stepped up to Roarke.
“I’m nearly done here,” she began. “You should—”
“I won’t be going home,” Roarke told her. “I’ll go in, start working in the war room. I’ll take care of getting myself there.”
“I’ll go on in with you.” McNab looked at Eve. “If that’s all right with you, Lieutenant.”
“Go ahead, and contact the rest of the team. No reason for them to lay around in bed when we’re not. This is a twenty-four/seven op now. I’ll work out subteams, twelve-hour shifts. The clock’s about to start on Ariel Greenfeld. We’re not going to find her like this.”
She looked back. “I’m goddamned if we’re going to find her like this.”
It was still shy of dawn when she got to Central. Before she went to her office, she walked into the war room. As the lights flicked on she looked around. It was quiet now, empty of people. It wouldn’t be so again, she thought. Not until they’d closed this down.
She was adding more men, more eyes, ears, legs, hands. More to work the streets, flash the killer’s picture, talk to neighbors, street people, cabbies, chemi-heads. More to knock on the doors of the far too numerous buildings Roarke had thus far listed in his search.
More people to push, push, push, to track down every thread no matter how thin and knotted.
Until this was done there was only one investigation, only one killer, only one purpose for her and every cop under her.
She walked to the white board and in her own hand wrote out the time it had taken for Gia Rossi to die after Rossi’s name.
Then she looked down at the next name she’d written. Ariel Greenfeld.
“You hold the hell on. It’s not over, and it’s not going to be over, so you hold the hell on.”