Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

She put her PPC away. She’d nail down the rest at home, have Peabody arrange the interviews.

“You’re thinking,” Roarke began when they crossed the small lobby, stepped outside again, “now that you have several names, the odds of identifying the entire group tip in your favor.”

“That’s right. We got lucky with these two, because Fassley, particularly, is sociable, she’s in the group now to reach out, to lend others support. So she gets closer to other members. She and Ruzaki are friends, neighbors, even coworkers. They talk, share. So, between them, we get more names.”

“And you’ll find one who knows another, and so on.”

“That’s the dream.” She glanced up at him as they walked. “Would you really hire her? Fassley?”

“If she passes a background check, proves competent—as I expect she would on both counts. She has quality. I appreciate quality. And will you, Lieutenant, take a closer look at this James Tyler?”

“Unless he ends up in the morgue before I close this, yeah. If he went at her, he’s gone at others. I can reach out to somebody in Special Victims, put him on the radar.”

“You’re worried someone will end up in the morgue.”

Eve scanned the street, the sidewalk, the people strolling or stampeding along.

“It’d be

crazy to risk going after another target tonight, but she could easily do the crazy. And no matter how hard I’m leaning toward Pettigrew right now, I don’t have enough. Hell, I don’t have anything. Not anything to justify a search warrant, not even enough to put a stakeout on her place.”

“Because anyone in the group would have, at the core, the same motivation.”

“So I have to find more.”

“Then you will,” he said when they reached the lot. When they got into the car, he glanced at her briefly. “You know you must, so you are, looking beyond what your gut tells you. You’re working to identify and interview everyone in the group.”

“That’s just basic cop work.”

“That may be.” He wound the spiffy new car up the levels. “But as you do it, you’re eliminating. You crossed two off your list tonight. You know they weren’t covering for each other,” he added.

“Not impossible, but not probable. Neither own vehicles, neither have licenses to drive and never have. Both have young children—and it’d be easy to check if either got somebody to watch the kids while they went out and murdered somebody. And they’re both the wrong build. No place private or secure enough in that building to kill people. If they have access to a place that is, that brings yet somebody else into it.”

“And you think this is a solo act.”

“Feels like it. I don’t think the killer signs the poems Lady Justice as a dodge. That’s how she sees herself.”

“I agree. As someone enforcing justice, and a lady.”

Frowning, Eve shifted. “I hadn’t juggled in the second part. Sees herself as a lady. Not just female. Maybe. Maybe that’s part of it, part of her. Something to think about. Me, it irritates the crap out of me when somebody calls me lady. But she embraces it.”

“Define lady” he invited.

“Delicate female wuss.”

Laughing, he grabbed her hand, tugged it to his lips. “And yet you are, and always will be, my lady.”

“That doesn’t charge my batts. You define lady—outside the marriage rules.”

“In general terms then? A woman well-mannered and well-bred—”

“Leaves me out.”

He simply rolled over her. “It can also mean a woman of rank, of course. Which would include you in the world of cops. And a woman generous and caring of nature.”

“One out of three for me then.”

“Darling Eve, no one would call you well-mannered or well-bred, but it’s clearly two out of three. Regardless, your killer may see herself as any or all of those examples, or simply have enjoyed the ring, we’ll say, of the title.”