Apprentice in Death (In Death 43)

When she nodded, he stepped back. “Pack it up, clear it out, wipe it down. We both move tonight.”

“The media conference. We need to watch. We need to know what they’re releasing to the public.”

Pride rose again. “That’s right. Leave the screen on.”

—

Eve might have hated media conferences, but she knew how to use them when it worked to her advantage. If the Mackies weren’t watching live, they’d see the constant replays, the sound bites, the endless talking-head commentary.

So she made certain the killers got an earful.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what investigative steps led us to identify the suspects other than to say the NYPSD has focused its manpower, its experience, and its man hours into doing so since the first strike in Central Park.”

One of the reporters leaped to his feet. “Isn’t it true that additional focus and manpower was put into the investigation after an NYPSD officer was killed?”

Eve said nothing for fully five seconds. “Ellissa Wyman, Brent Michaelson, Alan Markum,” she began, and named every victim, in order of their deaths. “Those are the lives taken, the human beings killed. I wonder if the suspects know their names, looked into their faces, thought of their families. We did. So save your idiot remarks for somebody who hasn’t stood in the blood of the seven dead. Nathaniel Jarvits was only seventeen. He died on his seventeenth birthday. Officer Kevin Russo, age twenty-three, was struck down while going to Nathaniel Jarvits’s aid, trying to shield him from further injury. While doing his job as a police officer. Do you want me to give you a thumbnail on each victim? Because I can if you don’t have the balls to do your job and report on who they were.”

“Do you have a motive?”

“We believe the Mackies are targeting individuals connected in some way with Susann Mackie’s accident. We’re actively pursuing this line of investigation.”

“Willow Mackie is only fifteen. Do you believe she was taken as a hostage by her father?”

“Evidence does not lead us to believe Willow Mackie is being held against her will or is being coerced. And don’t bother because I’m not at liberty to share that evidence with you at this time. Both suspects are expert and experienced marksmen. Reginald Mackie trained his daughter in weaponry, in marksmanship. Seven people have been killed, more than fifty have been injured by what we term long-distance serial killers. The LDSK is, at the core, a coward. Skilled, cold-blooded, but a coward who kills at a distance, who sees the victim as nothing more than a target or a mark.”

“Reginald Mackie used that skill as an NYPSD officer,” someone called out.

“The skill, yes. Tactical officers aren’t killers. Nor do they mark innocents. It’s their job to use that skill to protect the innocent and other officers. And to take down a threat by forceful stun. Terminating that threat is only ordered when the risk to other lives is too great.”

“Why didn’t Mackie’s predilection show on his evaluations?”

Before Eve could answer, Lowenbaum stepped forward. “That’s on me,” he stated. “Lieutenant Lowenbaum. I was Reginald Mackie’s supervising officer.”

Eve stayed back. Lowenbaum was clear, precise, accurate. He fielded follow-ups with more patience than she might have.

But when she’d heard enough, just enough, she moved forward again.

“If you want to angle a story that blames the department for the actions of a retired officer, go do that. But right now there are two suspects at large. You have their names, you have their faces. Maybe you should push forward with your trumpet call of the public

’s right to know and get this information out there. It might save a life. We’re ending this session so we can go to work and make certain we save lives.”

10

Lowenbaum caught up with her—Eve moved fast—took her arm. “They may have a point.”

“The reporters? Most of them only have a point on the top of their heads.”

“I didn’t see a killer, Dallas. He was one of mine, and I didn’t see what he was.”

“Because he wasn’t.” She had to keep moving, but she also needed Lowenbaum, and needed him steady. “If that was in him all along, the Army missed it, the NYPSD missed it, his former LT missed it. Testing missed it. What makes you so damn special?

“And where’s that gum you always have?”

Perplexed, Lowenbaum pulled it out of his pocket as they worked their way through the maze of glides toward Homicide. “You want?”

“No. It smells purple. How do you chew something that smells purple?”

Since it was in his hand, Lowenbaum unwrapped a piece, popped it in. “I used to smoke.”