"If you're looking at me, I'd be happy to help you. But my field is a different channel. You want a straight—and smart—medical doctor."
"Mira?"
"She's a medical doctor," Morris agreed, "but her field's also in a different channel. Still, between the two of us—"
"Wait. I think I might have someone." She turned back to him. "I'll try her first. Somebody's screwing with us, Morris. I want you to make disc copies for me of all the data you have on Snooks. Make one for yourself and put it someplace you consider safe."
A smile ghosted around his mouth. "I already have. Yours is on its way to your home via private courier. Call me paranoid."
"No, I don't think so." She pulled off the mask and headed for the door. But some instinct had her looking back one more time. "Morris, watch your ass."
Peabody got up from her seat in the corridor. "I finally accessed some data on McRae from Chicago. It's easier to get the scoop on a psycho than a cop."
"Protect your own," Eve mumbled as she strode to the exit door. That was worrying her.
"Yeah, well, our colleague's barely thirty—only had eight years in. He retires on less than ten percent of his full pension. Another two years, he could've doubled that."
"No disability, no mental fatigue, no admin request to resign?"
"None on record. What I can get." The wind slapped Peabody in the face with glee as she stepped outside. "What I can get," she said again once she had her breath back, "is he was a pretty solid cop, worked his way up the ranks, was in line for a standard promotion in less than a year. He had a good percentage rate on closing cases, no shadows on his record, and worked Homicide the last three years."
"Got any personal data—spousal pressure might've pushed him out of the job, money problems, threat of divorce. Maybe he boozed or drugged or gambled."
"It's tougher to get personal data. I have to do the standard request and have cause."
"I'll get it," Eve said, slipping behind the wheel. She thought of Roarke and his skills. And his private office with the unregistered and illegal equipment. "When I have it, you'd be better off not asking how I came by it."
"Came by what?" Peabody asked with an easy smile.
"Exactly. We're taking a little personal time now, Peabody. Call it in. I don't want our next stop on the log."
"Great. Does that mean we're going to hunt up some men and have disgusting, impersonal sex?"
"Aren't you getting enough with Charles?"
Peabody hummed in her throat. "Well, I can say I'm feeling a little looser in certain areas these days. Dispatch," she said into her communicator. "Peabody, Officer Delia, requesting personal time on behalf of Dallas, Lieutenant Eve."
"Received and acknowledged. You are off log."
"Now, about those men," Peabody said comfortably. "Let's make them buy us lunch first."
"I'll buy you lunch, Peabody, but I'm not having sex with you. Now, get your mind off your stomach and your glands, and I'll update you."
By the time Eve pulled up in front of the Canal Street Clinic, Peabody's eyes were sober. "You think this goes deep, a lot deeper than a handful of dead street sleepers and LCs."
"I think we start making a safe copy of all reports and data, and we keep certain areas of investigation quiet."
She caught sight of a sleepy-eyed brewhead loitering in the doorway and jabbed a finger at him. "You have enough brain cells left to earn a twenty?"
"Yeah." His bloodshot eyes brightened. "For what?"
"My car's in the same shape it is now when I come out, you get twenty."
"Good deal." He hunkered down with his bottle and stared at her car like a cat at a mousehole.
"You could've just threatened to kick his balls into his throat like you did with the guy the other day," Peabody pointed out.
"No point in threatening the harmless." She breezed through the doors of the clinic, noted that the waiting area looked very much as it had on her previous visit, and walked straight to the check-in window.