The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [180]
Summerset put a hand on her arm to stop her from turning away. “Is he in any sort of physical jeopardy?”
“If I thought he was, he wouldn’t get out of the house even if I had to drug him and put him in restraints.”
Forced to be satisfied with that, Summerset watched her go down the steps to where her increasingly dilapidated city-issue vehicle was parked.
Eve imagined the steam gushing out of her ears as she marched through the detective’s bull pen and on to her office. Her ’link light was blinking busily from messages and her computer was beeping from fresh incoming data.
She ignored both and began riffling through her drawers.
“Sir? McNab—”
“I want a riot laser,” Eve snapped at Peabody. “Full body armor.” She yanked a six-inch combat knife from its leather sheath and watched, with glee, as its wicked serrated edge caught the sunlight through her little window.
Peabody’s eyes popped. “Sir?”
“I’m going down to Maintenance, and I’m going locked and loaded. I’m taking those piss-brain sons of bitches out, one by one. Then I’m going to haul what’s left of the bodies into my vehicle and set it on fire.”
“Jesus, Dallas, I thought we had a red flag.”
“I’ve got a red flag. I’ve got one.” Her eyes wheeled to Peabody. “I’ve got under fifty miles on my ride since those lying, cheating, sniveling shitheads said it was road ready. Road ready? Do you want me to tell you about road ready?”
“I would like that very much, Lieutenant. If you’d sheathe that knife first.”
With one last oath of disgust, Eve rammed the blade home. “It starts bucking on me while I’m sitting at a light. Just sitting and it’s kicking like a . . .”
“Mule?”
“Probably. I run the diagnostic, and you know what it does? It brings up the dash map with directions to the morgue. Is that some sick joke?”
Peabody’s lips quivered. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Then it coughs and stalls, and I get it going again. Two blocks and it’s lurching. You know, lurching like . . .”
“Frankenstein’s monster?”
Out of steam now, Eve dropped into her chair. “I’m a lieutenant. A ranked officer. Why can’t I get a decent vehicle?”
“It’s a sad state of affairs. Sir, if I might suggest, rather than going down with a riot laser, you could try a case of beer. Get on the good side of a couple of the crew down there. Make nice.”
“Make . . . nice? I’d rather swallow a live snake. You call down. Tell them I need my vehicle up and running within the hour.”
“Me?” Peabody’s eyes pricked with what might have been tears. “Oh, man. Before I go off to debase myself, I should tell you that we tightened the line on the wire, and the luggage.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Instantly Eve swung to her computer.
“I don’t know what got into me, Lieutenant. Standing here like a chatterbox.” When that didn’t get a rise, Peabody huffed out a sigh and went back to her cubicle to bargain with Maintenance.
“Okay, okay, what have we got.” Eve ordered the data on-screen. There were numerous sources for and purchases of the silver wire that matched the murder weapon. But when you filtered it down to two-foot lengths and two-foot multiples, that number narrowed to eighteen globally and six nationwide. With one single purchase of four lengths of two, cash payment, from a wholesaler right in Manhattan.
“Right here, what do we bet you bought it right here. Twenty blocks from the murder scene.”
As she read the data on the luggage, a grim smile tightened her lips. There were thousands of purchases of the black leather carry-on since January, but focusing on the last four weeks, she found less than a hundred. And of the dozen or so purchased in New York City, there were only two selected on the same day the wire had been bought. And only one paid for with cash.
“There are no coincidences,” she murmured. “You got your supplies right here. Now why would a man buy a transpo carry-on if he’d already done the trip? There was no trip. You were already here.”
Wigs, she thought, and switched to Peabody’s search and scan. “Jesus, why don