“I turned it down. My gut said no,” she continued before he could respond. “It said I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing now, and how I’m supposed to be doing it. I think I’d be a good captain. I’m a better investigator, so I said no. Am I stupid?”
He had to blow out a long breath, take a moment to evaluate.
“I gotta get over you said no. Okay, hell. From my seat, stupid’s not listening to your gut. You’ll take it when you’re ready, but the point is, you earned it, and you earned it long before this.”
“That’s how I feel,” she told him. “I didn’t expect the offer, and I sure as hell didn’t expect to say no when it came. But that’s how I feel, it’s what I know.”
“The bars matter, kid, but they’re not the day in and out for cops like you and me. It’s the job that matters. I didn’t have to teach you that. You came in knowing it.”
“I think about somebody like Reinhold, and me reading reports on the investigation instead of investigating. Supervising or approving ops instead of running them. I don’t want to give it up, Feeney.”
“Like Reinhold.”
“Yeah, and like you and me—in a twisted way—he found what he really wants. He found it the minute he stuck the knife in his mother’s belly. He didn’t work for it, train for it, he wouldn’t risk his life for it, but he’ll learn, Feeney. With every one he kills, he’ll learn something new.”
“Go back to the beginning.”
“Yeah, I’m heading there. Thanks.” Feeling more settled, she popped another nut. “All around.”
She went, circling around the movement and mayhem to McNab’s cube.
“If you don’t have anything hot, you belong to me today.”
“I’ve got some warm, no hot. I can multitask.”
“Coordinate with Peabody. Find the electronics. When you do, take them apart. I want anything and everything. He had to use the ones in his parents’ place to do some of his research, his financial maneuvers. He’d have wiped them.”
McNab smiled. “He’d think he wiped them. Nothing’s ever all the way clean.”
“Find them,” she repeated.
She went back down to Homicide, and Peabody got up to follow her into her office.
“Suit store? On The Rack. He went in on Sunday, bought the suit, a couple shirts, some ties, socks. He had the suit altered, arranged to pick it up on Monday morning. Said he had other shopping to do. The clerk described him, once I loosened him up, as a snotty little jerk.”
“Sounds like a good judge of character.”
“I’ve got a list of what Reinhold bought there, and at Running Man—they were ready with it.”
“It’s Roarke’s,” Eve said simply.
“Yeah, I got that. Report’s already sent to your unit.”
“Good. McNab’s going to coordinate with you on the electronics. Keep at it.”
“We’re open all day,” Peabody said and headed back to her desk.
Eve closed herself in her office. She worked with the maps, expanded her board. Then sat, drinking coffee, studying the route he’d taken, his timing.
Scanning Peabody’s reports on his purchases, she cemented her image of him.
Suits, ties, shirts—but beyond that primarily the trendy. Airskids and boots, jeans, a leather jacket, the cargo pockets McNab was so fond of, prime athletic wear, silk boxers.
Clothes, she thought, that reflected his own image of himself. Important, stylish, edgy, and successful.
Rich. He saw himself as a rich man now.
She called up the locations of the stores he’d visited, added them in, calculated the most probable route and timing, added that.