The In Death Collection Books 26-29 - J.D. Robb [272]
“Sometimes the law is transitory, and sometimes, even with it, those ripples spread out too far or in the wrong direction. But without the law, well, eventually, we’d all drown.”
“Some of us are excellent swimmers. I’m more inclined to believe in the face of the law, since I look at it every day, than I ever did before I saw it.” He reached in his pocket, took out the gray button that had fallen off her suit the first time they’d met. When she’d viewed him as a murder suspect. “And I have my talisman to remind me.”
It never failed to baffle her—and on a deeper level delight her—that he carried it with him, always. “What ever happened to that suit anyway?”
Humor flickered in his eyes. “It was hideous, and met the fate it deserved. This”—he held up the button—“was the best part of it.”
He was probably right. “Well. Break’s over,” she announced. “Computer, list fatalities in East 119th Street incident from Detective Stuben’s case file.”
Acknowledged. Working . . .
“There would have been others,” Roarke commented. “Other fatalities, on both sides of the war, while your victim was a captain. And therefore in charge.”
“Yeah, got that covered. Stuben’s going to get me the data by tomorrow. I don’t hit here, I’ll start looking there.”
Task complete.
“Display, screen one. Five fatalities,” Eve said. “There’s another whose injuries were severe enough I’ll need to look at. Guy lost an arm. Three of the fatalities were members of the Skulls. Of the other two, one was the manager and one was a part-time counter guy. All fatalities were minors, except the manager.”
“Four children dead.”
“Yeah. Well, two of the gang members, according to Stuben’s file, had done time in juvie, had been arrested for assault with deadly—and released when the wits failed to identify—and had been suspects in the bludgeoning death of a Soldado.”
“Boys will be boys.”
“And scum will be scum. The manager . . . Computer, display data for adult victim. Kobie Smith, some bumps in his teens and early twenties. No time inside. Employed there for three years, manager for six months. Left a wife of eighteen months and a kid. Kid was two at the time of his father’s death, making him about twenty now. Too young to fit Mira’s profile, or my gut, but we look.” She ordered the data.
“Well, well,” Roarke commented as he read. “It seems he’s attending the Police Academy in Orlando, Florida. In the land of speculation, his father is killed in what is believed to be gang violence, and the son sets a goal to become a cop. To serve and protect.”
Eve frowned thoughtfully at the data on-screen. “No criminal. Two half-sibs. Mother married again. Huh. Married a cop after relocating to Florida, three years after husband’s death. Can’t see Penny tracking her down, getting her hyped enough to come back and poison Lino. But the vic had parents, too, and a brother.”
She ran their data, studying it, considering it. Parents divorced, she noted. Mother residing in Philadelphia, father in the Bronx, as was one brother. The second brother in Trenton. “None of them stayed in the neighborhood. It’s going to be someone in the neighborhood.”
“That’s most likely, I agree, but it’s very possible your bad Penny—”
“Ha-ha.”
“That she went out of the neighborhood to add more distance between her and the murder. I would have.”
“She’s not as smart as you.”
“Well now, billions aren’t, but it’s good strategy, and she had plenty of time to work on that strategy.”
“Yeah. Damn. I see hikes to the Bronx and Trenton in my future. Possibly Philadelphia because it’s poison, and poison skews most often as a female weapon. And look at that, the mother’s never remarried, works as a medical assistant in a rehab facility. Medicals can access poisons easier than the rest of us.”
“She lost not only a son, but a grandson, as the mother took him to Orlando, remarried. Of course, it may be there’s been effort to maintain a relationship