Connections in Death (In Death 48)

Then, calculating, tagged Nadine.

“Am I go? I need to head down to Central in a couple hours and join the rest of the media.”

“Here’s what you’re go on now. Jorgenson, Washington, Chesterfield, Cohen, all charged.”

She ran through the specific charges while she ate. “You can check with the PA’s office on when, but they’re all scheduled to be indicted today. You can add the federal charges on Cohen, but you should get confirmation from Special Agent Teasdale. If you wait about a half hour to break this, you can follow up with Pickering’s CI status. I want Jones in the box before that hits. I don’t want it to leak to him and maybe skew the interview.”

“I can do that.”

“Do me a solid—let Kyung know it’s coming. He may be a little annoyed, but he’ll get it.”

“Don’t sandbag him, got it.” Nadine looked up from her notes. “We’re going to do right by Rochelle’s brother, Dallas.”

“Counting on it. I’ll let her know it’s coming.”

She clicked off, tagged Crack. “Are you with Rochelle?”

“Yeah. I’m helping her family with plans for Lyle’s memorial. We’re at her brother’s.”

“Good. Tell her she can share with her family what I told her this morning. And you should have Channel Seventy-Five on. There’s going to be a major report in about thirty.”

“Are they bagged, Dallas?”

“The five responsible won’t see the outside again. Crack, I want to talk to Lyle’s cop because I know she’s carrying weight on this, but tell the family he wasn’t killed because he was helping the cops. They didn’t know he was helping us. They did it to punish him for leaving the gang, and to hit back at Jones for letting him. I’m sure of that.

“I’ve got to go finish this. Turn on the screen.”

“I’ll tell them. Thanks, skinn

y white girl.”

“See you around, big black man.”

She finished the slice, the coffee, sat for a minute studying her board.

So many lives ruined, wasted, ended, shattered. Because two men’s greed pushed them to do ugly things for money. And another man’s ego and rage demanded blood and war.

She walked into the bullpen and into applause over empty pizza boxes.

“Yeah, yeah. Now that you’ve stuffed your faces, get back to it. Peabody.”

“Jones next, right? I’ll have him brought up.”

“In a minute.” She moved to Peabody’s desk. “I spoke with Agent Teasdale. She’s giving Cohen the bad news.”

“Aw. Even with all this, I sort of wish we could be there.”

“We’ll take our shot at him tomorrow. Teasdale and I worked it out. We’re going to tie him to all three murders. And since his knowledge and connection to them were motivated by continuing the fraud, tax dodges, illegals dealing, he can do federal time for them, too. We tie him up, Teasdale locks him up.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Meanwhile, one left for today, here’s how we’re going to play Jones.”

As she laid out the strategy, Mira came in.

“I’m sorry I missed you earlier,” Mira began. “I wanted to tell you this marathon has been an education. Studying so many approaches, rhythms, reactions—one community, as it were, engaged with another within a confined space and confined time period.”

“Engaged with?”