Connections in Death (In Death 48)

So, Eve thought, he got his pink walking paper and took a hike in a Rapid.

Now she had to wait for the wheels to turn. Roarke to Reo, Reo to a judge, then back to her.

She got coffee, sat with her boots up, studied the board.

The simplest theory: Pickering slipped up somewhere, and his CI status leaked. Not only did he break with the gang, not only was he having his gang tat removed, going to lame meetings, working some shit-ass job, but he was ratting out his own brothers and sisters to the cops.

That’s a pisser.

Instead of a trial, a beatdown, and a slit throat, Jones decides another way. Having so close a connection—friends since childhood—Pickering betraying his family looks bad on leadership. He tells Duff to set him up, enlists three young low-levels or wannabes to stage the OD. The OD for humiliation.

You humiliate me, I humiliate you to death.

She could see that. She’d have given Jones more credit for cunning, but she could see it.

Duff. Maybe she whines, or makes demands. Maybe she makes noises about telling someone. Have to take her out. Same three killers, and give them the go-ahead to have their fun with her while they’re at it.

Harder to see that, harder to see the strategy in the location of the kill, but it could play.

It just didn’t sit easy in her gut.

“If not you, who?” she wondered. And trained her eyes, her thoughts on Kenneth “Bolt” Jorgenson.

That one, she thought, just sat easy.

A violent criminal since childhood, with a father who goes to prison for nonviolent crimes—and erases the family stability.

One minute, Eve thought as she paced, you’re a rich kid with all the perks. Nice digs, nice threads. You hook school when you feel like it, bully whoever you want to bully.

Then bam, your father’s in a cage, your mother’s looking for work. No more rich kid because your family sucks.

Eve circled back to Jorgenson’s photo, and found, yeah, he just sat right in her gut.

He finds a new family, one more to his taste, with the Bangers. Gets into trouble, some real trouble—but he likes it. Likes trouble.

Then he physically attacks his own mother only to get his ass kicked by his sister. That had to sting.

He worked his way to lieutenant under Jones, she mused. But he wants more. Maybe—Mira territory—he was still looking for that status his father lost.

And—a kicker for her—he’d been trading a space in his flop with Duff for sex.

Roarke walked back in. “I sent the data to Reo, so my work is done. Though if you’re going into Central to box Cohen, I’d very much like to watch.”

“I want to, but it’s smarter to let him sweat out the night. By the time the warrant comes through and I have him picked up, taken in, booked, and all that, it’ll be too late for a bail hearing. So instead of watching porn and raiding the hotel AC, feeling sorry for himself, he’ll sit in a holding cage feeling sorry for himself and trying to figure how much I know.”

“He has just under four million in his accounts. That’s not including the equity amassed in the real estate.”

Eve shook her head. “No good to him. Ill-gotten gains. He won’t be able to pull from that for a lawyer or for bail. Or it’ll take time to sort out what’s legit and what isn’t, so he’s stuck.

“I don’t think it’s Jones,” she continued. “He just doesn’t fit. I’m liking Jorgenson more because he does. But if not Jones, how does Cohen play in? Because he damn well knew something about something.”

He could all but see her brain circling. “Let’s have a walk.”

“A what?”

“A walk, one not requiring papers. It’s cooler, but still a lovely evening.”

Frowning, she glanced toward the window. “It’s dark.”