Connections in Death (In Death 48)

When it was done, she sent a memo to Harvo at the lab to flag the jackets as priority. Sent one to Dickhead—the lab chief—to turn the DNA sample around fast.

She didn’t bribe him as she often did to save time, but used the silent threat of adding Whitney to the memo.

She sent a quick memo to Reo, giving her the names of the suspects and, given the age of one, asking her to have Chesterfield treated as an adult.

She ordered herself to get up, to update her board, to just take the steps. Put together files for the briefing, reserve the conference room, book Interview rooms—all of them—and assign rotating teams for those interviews.

She thought about contacting Crack, but that was personal. She had to hold on that.

Instead she contacted Nadine.

“Finally! A message returned. If I can get a statement— Whoa, Dallas, somebody got past your guard. A few times.”

Unlike Reo, Nadine was in full makeup—camera ready. Eve imagined she’d been on camera, and would go back in front of it before her night ended.

After all, the NYPSD had just completed major bus

ts on two urban gangs.

“You have to wait on the statement.”

“Come on, Dallas, we’re already running with the story—and congratulations, by the way. It’s big. They pulled me back in to report on air. I just turned it over, but with a statement I can—”

“You have to wait.”

The snap in Eve’s voice had Nadine’s eyes narrowing. “How bad are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. Peabody got worse.”

“Peabody? What happened? Where is she? What—”

Eve cut Nadine off again. But she knew the friend asked, not the reporter.

“She’s okay. Louise took care of her. It’s not that. No statement tonight other than what the liaison’s sending out because it’s still in motion. I’m letting you know to get ready for tomorrow, and what I’m telling you goes nowhere until I give you the green.”

“All right.”

“This was a…” She trailed off, pressed her fingers to her eyes in an attempt to clear her head.

“Do you want me to come to you? Can I help?”

“No. No. This was a coordinated operation between the NYPSD and the FBI.”

“The FBI? How close did you hold that one? Who—”

“Just wait, Nadine. Between the department and the bureau dozens of arrests were made, several thousand dollars—you need to get the hard numbers—of illegals have been confiscated along with weapons and blah-blah. You can get all that.”

“Yes, I’ll get it.”

“In addition, the NYPSD recovered items stolen from Lyle Pickering’s apartment. Items taken when he was murdered. These items were on the persons of Denby Washington, age eighteen, and Burke Chesterfield, age seventeen. We’ll push to have Chesterfield interviewed, tried, and treated as an adult, and I don’t expect we’ll have any trouble there.”

“Have you interviewed them?”

“Tomorrow. And tomorrow I’m going to tell you we’ve charged a third individual, Kenneth Jorgenson, age twenty-three, as well as Washington and Chesterfield, for the murders of Pickering, Dinnie Duff—who was an accessory in Pickering’s murder—and in the murder of Barry Aimes who, along with the others named, murdered Pickering and Duff. A fourth man will be charged as accessory before and after the fact: Samuel Cohen.”

“The raids were to dig these people out? Why? Why did all these people conspire to kill Rochelle’s brother?”

“I’m going to find out. I need you to … I need you to—”