Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

“You’d have opened the rest. Take care of my cop,” he added, then called out a goodbye to Peabody as he left.

Yeah, she’d have opened the rest. But, she admitted, she’d probably still be at it.

4

As Roarke walked out, Peabody walked in.

“A quick look,” she began, “nothing to see. The kind of business stuff, scheduling, contacts, and all that you expect to see on an admin’s e’s. He keeps his personal schedule, contacts, separate. It’s all flagged for EDD.”

“Good enough. The vic kept his personal separated, you could say. His personal schedule includes regular visits to a group of clubs, and his memos include first names of women, dates, what drugs were used, where he took them after he dosed them.”

Peabody’s puppy-dog eyes hardened like marbles. “Jesus, what a slime sack.”

“Yeah, but he’s our slime sack now. We’ll talk to the staff here, see if we get more buzz. And let’s arrange to have conversations with the two targets from here we know of. Let’s see if Quirk had any travel to New York in the last few days. We’ll also check the partners’ travel.”

By the time they’d finished at the offices, Eve believed Brant had it right. The threats had pushed McEnroy out of the company pool.

As they rode down to the garage, Eve calculated. “We get another woman who admitted—or claimed—McEnroy acted inappropriately toward her around about a year ago. To her recollection. But then backed off completely.”

“Sylvia Brant’s ultimatum.”

“It fits. And she didn’t report it, as he stopped. Or she says he stopped. Let’s run her, Peabody, and keep her on the list for now. Then we need to take a good look at another pool. Clients.”

“Yeah. Oh, you want this position? I’m going to personally review your qualifications. Slime sack,” Peabody repeated as they stepped out of the elevator, started toward the car.

Eve checked her wrist unit as she slid behind the wheel. “We’ll split up interviews with the partners, but first, we’ll have that conversation with Leah Lester. Plug in her work address.”

Peabody programmed the in-dash. “I did a quick run on Allie Parker already—the no reporting since he stopped. No criminal, no change in finances that shows on the speedy first-level. She came on at PP right out of college, is midway through her second year as an administrative associate. The timing works, doesn’t it? She’s new, McEnroy rolls into the office, sees the fresh meat, gives it a little squeeze. Before he can do more, or before the meat really decides how to react, Brant comes down on him, and he decides to shop elsewhere.”

“Agreed, and there wasn’t an Allie in McEnroy’s book. But she stays on the list. Next run, for everybody on the list, any payments to the clubs McEnroy favored. That’s where his killer picked him up, so she—or he if that’s a blind—likely stalked him first.”

Peabody made notes as they went. “I get, sort of, why the ones he went after in his own firm settled for the money and walked away, but …What would you do if a boss or superior tried the grab-ass on you?”

“First year on the job a detective—second grade—tried to corner me in the locker room—shoved me back against the lockers, grabbed my tit with one hand, my crotch with the other. I’d just started in Homicide under Feeney, and we’d been out on a long one. It’s about two hundred hours, and he comes in while I’m changing. Big guy, asshole, figured he’d initiate the rook his way.”

“Jesus, Dallas! Did you report him to Feeney?”

“Didn’t have to. While I was busting the asshole’s nose, bruising his balls, Feeney heard the commotion and came in. Detective Fuckface starts going off on how I came at him, lost my shit, and he was filing charges. While he’s spouting off, I’m thinking how I’ve been in Homicide a handful of weeks, I’m the rook, and this guy has a gold shield, so I’m screwed. Why would anybody believe me—he’s bleeding, I’m not. And while I’m thinking that, while the asshole is spouting off, Feeney gives him a shot in the gut that drops him.”

“Holy shit.”

Odd, Eve realized, it wasn’t an incident she thought about, but now she could see it all again, clear as glass. “I’m about half-dressed, my support tank’s ripped at the strap, so Feeney turns to me—puts his boot on the asshole’s chest, and turns to me. He looks right in my face, just my face, and asks me to say what happened, so I did. Then he tells me to put on my shirt, wait in his office. So I did, and almost lost my shit then.”

Yeah, she thought, clear as glass.

“I wanted Homicide like I never wanted anything, and I didn’t know if I was going to get written up, dismissed, or if my lieutenant was going to shrug it all off as a done deal, tell me to do the same, just let it go.”

She glanced over at Peabody. “And I’d have to swallow it, because I needed the badge more than my pride.”

“I get that,” Peabody murmured. “I really get that.”

“Then Feeney comes in, and he digs this really crap bottle of whiskey out of his file cabinet, pours some in a couple of coffee mugs, tells me to sit. And how he needs me to file a formal repor

t, and how I have to speak about the incident to Mira. Man, last thing I wanted, but he’s not hearing that. He’ll keep it quiet, he tells me, because he knows otherwise some can blow back on me, but I have to follow through, and he’ll have my back. And he tells me Detective Fuckface will be taking early retirement. Nobody, he says, nobody puts hands on one of his. Then he tells me to drink up, to suck it up, because it won’t be the last time I have to bust some fucker’s balls.”

“I love Feeney.” Peabody blinked damp eyes. “I totally do.”

“Yeah.” She spotted the shining downtown tower that housed Leah Lester’s employer, Universal Financial. “The fact is,” she said as she started hunting for parking, “if he hadn’t stood up for me, I’d have swallowed down what I had to swallow to stay on the job, to stay in Homicide. I could kick the fucker’s balls, but without Feeney’s backing, I couldn’t have done much else. He showed me what made a real cop, and what made a real boss, that night. I guess, come down to it, what made a real man.”