“Who planned it, ordered it, and picked the three to carry it out? Because I’m not buying Duff, who ends up beaten to death only hours later. She had no standing in the gang, no pull. Add in she was a serious addict. So it’s hard for me to buy she’d not only have access to the illegals, but would leave them behind to try to cover up the murder. But…”
Eve circled. “She was pissed at him. He’d recently given her the heave. Get lost or I turn you in. You can bet she whined about that. To the other Banger Bitches, to this guy.” Eve tapped Jorgenson’s ID shot. “Since she was trading him sex for flop space.”
“Which would give her motivation to help exact punishment on Pickering,” Mira agreed. “Murder seems extreme if she or the others didn’t know about his CI status.”
Eve tapped again—Slice and Bolt. “These two. Jones is currently top dog, and he and Pickering went back. Similar enough backgrounds, and what might have been a genuine friendship at one time. He offered Pickering second in command if he came back, and that tells me he valued Pickering.”
“Second in command?” Mira eased a hip on Eve’s desk, nodded. “That’s more than friendship, I agree. Yes, I’d say he valued Pickering, trusted and respected him, to make such an offer.”
“Then we come back to the question mark. If he subsequently learned Pickering was a CI, he’d be honor bound to take him out. Would he go to the more elaborate OD cover-up—which was poorly executed—instead of having the traitor hauled in, then taken out and messed up, killed?”
“To carry out the execution this way, because of their history. It’s possible. Kill, humiliate, attempt to set a scene that makes the victim appear to have lied and cheated. This punishes him, and his family.”
Eve pointed, nodded. “That’s right, and there’s some strategy there. Still, smarter to do it somewhere else, leave the body with some illegals on him as well as in him.
“Jones doesn’t strike me as stupid,” Eve added. “He’s a killer. It’s right there in his eyes.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Mira murmured. “You can’t always see it, but just from this? He takes pride in what he is.”
“You’re not wrong. But he’s survived this long because he’s not altogether stupid. Hell, he’s making a decent living in real estate with his partners—and I’m going to have a talk with them later. That says backup plan. When his days as top dog are over, he’s got the cushion.”
Mira angled her head, studied Eve now. “At the base of it, you don’t believe he ordered a hit on Pickering.”
“It’d be easier if I did,” Eve admitted. “He’s a killer who takes pride in it, and I want to slap him in a cage and lock the door. But, I don’t. Every time I put it together, it doesn’t fit.”
“Why?”
“First, right off the top? His reaction when I told him about Pickering was outrage. Some shock tossed in, but outrage. He’s a good liar, no question, but I buy the outrage.”
“Because someone went over his head and took a former Banger out. Someone disrespected the chain of command.”
“That’s it.” Eve banged a fist on the side of her thigh. “Exactly it. One of my detectives goes over my head, I’m going to kick some ass. And that’s what I saw. The idea that maybe someone had. And that would put him out of the hit on Duff, because why? Plus, the timing’s too close. She’s dead because she served her purpose, and had a big, whiny mouth on top of it.”
“The other one? Jorgenson. You’re leaning toward him.”
“He’s in the running, and right now leading the pack. He’s got a hot head, and made a point of pushing at Jones while we were there. And he’s got a long sheet, a lot of violence on it.”
She studied his ID shot again. “Still, I need to do runs and get a feel for other lieutenants or up-and-comers. I need to take a look at the case files, see if I can find a close connection in the gang for the ones Strong put away using her CI. And one more.”
Eve stopped, checked the time. “I’m holding you up.”
“I’ve got a couple more. Finish it out.”
“Okay, I get taking Duff out, and quick. But it was overkill. They beat the shit out of her, raped the shit out of her. Pickering they tranq, then pump full of junk. He probably never felt anything after that first grab and stick.”
“That could come down to basic misogyny,” Mira pointed out. “The former gang member—male—who fought the fight, who did time, wore the colors, is given an easy death. The female who outlived her usefulness, which was primarily sex—and there are others to provide that—is brutalized. Just another whore.”
Mira crossed her very fine legs at the ankles. “So, from my scan of your reports, the look of your board, and this conversation, my initial profile would be a true believer. The gang first, last, always. And one with ambition and some clout. Enough to have three men—or two if he joined them—and Duff do what he told them. Enough to have access to the illegals used and planted. He’s impulsive. More thought, more careful thought, would have plugged the obvious holes. But Pickering had to be punished, humiliated, the reputation and trust he’d fought to earn back shattered.
“If he’s not top dog with every intention of staying there, he intends to be. If not Jones, someone who had the additional motive of killing one of Jones’s old friends.”
“And adding some turmoil.”
“Yes, particularly with the second killing—that brutality, the location. Stir up trouble, help put the trouble out—like an arsonist who joins in the fire line.”
“Gain more cred.”
“Yes. Ambitious, impulsive, br