Creation In Death

4

AS EVE WRAPPED UP, TIBBLE WALKED TO THE front of the room. Automatically, she stopped, stepped to the side to give him the floor.

“This team will have the full resources of the NYPSD at its disposal. Any necessary overtime will be cleared. If the primary determines more manpower is needed, and the commander agrees, that manpower will be assigned. All leave, other than hardship and medical, is canceled for this team until this case is closed.”

He paused, gauging the reactions, and obviously satisfied with them, continued. “I have every confidence that each and every member of this team will work his or her respective ass off until this son of a bitch is identified, apprehended, and locked in a cage for the rest of his u

Since he looked directly at her as he made the statement, Eve simply nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“The media will pounce like wolves. A Code Blue status has been considered, and rejected. The public requires protection and should be made aware that a specific type of female is being targeted. However, they will be made aware by one voice, and one voice only, which represents this task force, and, in fact, this department. Lieutenant Dallas will be that voice. Understood?” he said, looking directly at her again.

“Yes, sir,” she said, with considerably less enthusiasm.

“The rest of you will not comment, will not engage reporters, will not so much as give them the current time and temperature should they ask. You will refer them to the lieutenant. There will be no leaks unless they are departmentally sanctioned leaks. If there are, and the source of that leak is discovered-and it damn well will be-that individual can expect to be transferred to Records in the Bowery.

“Shut him down. Shut him down hard, clean, and fast. Lieutenant.”

“Sir. All right, you all know your primary assignments. Let’s get to work.”

Tibble signaled to Eve as feet and chairs shuffled. “Media conference, noon.” He held up a finger as if anticipating her reaction. “You’ll make a statement-short, to the point. You’ll answer questions for five minutes. No longer. These things are necessary, Lieutenant.”

“Understood, sir. Chief, we held back the numbers carved into the victims in the previous investigations.”

“Continue to do so. Copy me on all reports, requests, and requisitions.” He looked over at the boards, at the faces. “What does he see when he looks at them?” Tibble asked.

“Potential.” Eve spoke without thinking.

“Potential?” Tibble repeated, shifting his gaze to hers.

“Yes, sir, that’s what I think he sees. Respectfully, sir, I need to get started.”

“Yes. Yes. Dismissed.”

She walked over to Feeney. “This space work okay for the e-end of things?”

“It’ll do. We’re bringing down the equipment we need. It’ll be set up inside of thirty. He comes back, he comes back here, you gotta wonder does he use the same place he did before? Does he have a place? Maybe even lives here when he’s not working.”

“Private home, untenanted warehouse. Lots of that in the city, the outlying boroughs,” Eve speculated. “Bastard could be working across the river in Jersey, then using New York as a dump site. But if it is the same place-and he strikes me as a creature of habit, right?-then it narrows it some. We check ownership of buildings that fit the bill for ones in the same name for the last nine years. Ten,” she corrected. “Give him some prep time.”

“Narrows it some.” Feeney pulled on his nose. “Like looking for an ant hill in the desert. We’ll work it.”

“You okay with taking the Missing Persons search?”

He blew out a breath, dipped his hands into his saggy pockets. “Are you going to ask me if I’m okay with every assignment or step in this?”

Eve moved her shoulders, and her hands found her own pockets. “It feels weird.”

“I’ve run the e-end of your cases and ops before this.”

“It’s not like that, Feeney.” She waited until their eyes locked, until she was certain they understood each other. “We both know this one’s different. So if it bugs you, I want to know.”

He glanced around the room as uniforms and team members carried in equipment and tables. Then cocked his head, gesturing Eve to a corner of the room with him.

“It bugs me, but not like you mean. It burns my ass that we didn’t get this guy, that he slipped out and on my watch.”

“I worked it with you, and we had a team on it. It’s on all of us.”

His eyes, baggy as a hound’s, met hers. “You know better. You know how it is.”

She did, of course she did. He’d taught her the responsibility and weight of command. “Yeah.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I know.”

“This time it’s on you. You’re going to take some hits because we both know there’s going to be another name, another face on the board before we get him. You’ll live with that; can’t do anything else but live with it. It bugs me,” he repeated. “It would bug me a hell of a lot more if anyone else was standing as primary on this. We clear?”

“Yeah, we’re clear.”

“I’ll start the Missing Person’s run.” He cocked his head toward Roarke. “Our civilian would be a good one to handle the real estate search.”

“He would. Why don’t you get him on that? I’m going to swing over to the lab, bribe and/or threaten Dickhead to push on reports.” She glanced over, saw that Roarke was already working with McNab to set up data and communication centers. “I’m just going to have a word with the civilian first.”

She crossed to Roarke, tapped his shoulder. He’d tied his hair back as he often did before getting down to serious e-business, and still wore the sweater and jeans he’d put on-had it only been that morning?-when they’d left the house for the crime scene.

She realized he looked more like a member of the team than the emperor of the business world.

“Need a minute,” she told him, then stepped a few feet away.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

“Feeney’s got work for you. He’ll fill you in. I’m heading out with Peabody. I just want…look, don’t go buying stuff.”

He lifted his eyebrows, and the amusement showed clearly on his face. “Such as?”

“E-toys, new furniture, catered lunches, dancing girls. Whatever,” she said with a distracted wave of her hand. “You’re not here to supply the NYPSD.”

“What if I get hungry, then feel the urge to dance?”

“Suppress it.” She gave him a little poke in the chest that he interpreted-correctly-as both affection and warning. “And don’t expect me to kiss you good-bye, hello, and like that when we’re on the clock. It makes us look-”

“Married?” At her stony stare he gri

Fat chance of that, she thought, but had to be satisfied. “Peabody,” she called out, “with me.”

On the way out, Peabody hit Vending for a Diet Pepsi for herself, a regular tube for Eve. “Gotta keep the caffeine pumping. I’ve never been on something like this, not when you catch a case and a few hours later you’ve got a task force, a war room, and a pep talk from the chief.”

“We work the case.”

“Well, it’s this case, and the ones from nine years ago, and even the ones between that went down elsewhere. That’s a lot of balls in the air.”

“It’s all one,” Eve said as they got into the car. “One case with a lot of pieces.”

“Arms,” Peabody said after a minute. “It’s more like arms. It’s like an octopus.”

“The case is an octopus.”

“It’s got all these tentacles, all these arms, but there’s only one head. You get the head, you get it all.”

“Okay,” Eve decided, “that’s not bad. The case is an octopus.”