Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“Don’t mention it. I’m fucking serious.”

“Okay, but see she gets a little hyped on the boost, but more before I caught her, she’d dipped into our emergency stash of espresso. It’s like gold, you know—we bought it for each other at Christmas. Anyway, she took a shot of that, so she’s pretty buzzed out.”

“Keep her under control,” Eve warned.

“Trying.”

Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes. When Baxter and Trueheart walked in, she hoped they’d balance things out.

Then Peabody came in. She’d ditched the scarf and the pink coat. Eve almost preferred them to the screaming red sweater with fussy pink flounces at the cuffs, the shiny, electric-blue jacket and Jesus neon-green pants with frigging pink flowers down the sides.

“Peabody.” Baxter let out a half laugh. “You look like a garden.”

“It’s almost spring! Coffee!”

“None for you,” Eve snapped.

“Aw!”

“Water,” she ordered McNab. “Only water.”

“On it.”

“Sit.” She pulled the pot from Peabody, who she noted with resignation, also smelled like a garden. “I’m going to summarize where we are, then we’ll move on to where we’re going. Before I do: Feeney, anything?”

“Entry to the Rogan and Denby houses by the same methods. We’ve found nothing on either man’s communications or data systems, their house systems, office systems, the devices of family members, that connect them to the bombings. EDD concurs with Homicide these individuals were coerced and not complicit.

“Banks,” he continued. “The more we look, the shadier he comes off. We got nothing linking him directly with the bombings at this point. If he wasn’t dead, he’d do a nice long stretch for fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, and more petty shit, but he’s dead. He had some gambling debts—nothing big enough for spine-crackers—but there might be a connection there. You got that in the last report.”

“We’ll follow it up,” Eve confirmed.

“McNab’s got some he dug out last night.”

“We’ve got a tag coming in on Banks’s house ’link,” McNab began. “He had one in the pantry deal in the kitchen they missed when they turned the place.”

“A house ’link in the pantry?”

“Yeah,” he told Eve. “A mini I guess he had in there for the droids to use. On the night of his murder, just before midnight he got a tag on it. No message when the ’link went to the answering system. Another tag to Denby’s house ’link two hours earlier. A hang-up when answered from the residence. Another to the Richie apartment minutes before the bombing at The Salon, and one more to Rogan’s house ’link on the night of the home invasion at twenty-two-ten. A hang-up when answered.”

Subtly, he pressed a hand to Peabody’s bouncing knee, kept talking. “All of these tags were made from a cloner. We can’t trace the device, but we’ve been working on tracing the locations of the transmissions. We nailed Richie’s first—he only had the one house ’link, and apparently didn’t really use it. The transmission came from right outside the building.”

“Making sure nobody was in the unit,” Eve concluded. “Maybe Richie had a friend over, a woman in there, whatever. Just making sure the space was clear.”

“We figure, yeah, as we’ve nailed down Banks. Lived alone, too, rarely used the house system. Transmission in this case? From inside the building.”

“Inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eve looked back at the board. “One of them lives there, was on a guest list or vendor employ. But lives there works best. Banks contacted them that day. It’s a big stretch to believe his killers just happened to be going to a party in his building, or to a job there. Security’s tight there, as good as it gets. We bump down the guests and the vendors. We’re going to interview the ones that fit profile, but they’re not priority.

“How about the others?”

“I nailed down Rogan’s early this morning. Transmission from a block south of the residence. Denby’s I worked some on the subway. I’m close. Give me another twenty, and I’ll have it.”

“Take the twenty, confirm, but it’ll fit pattern. The important one at this time? The one made from inside the building.

“Okay, let me wrap up where we are,” Eve began, pausing as Whitney rose.