Judgment in Death

CHAPTER EIGHT

Don Webster was awakened out of a dead sleep by what he initially took to be a particularly violent thunderstorm. When the clouds cleared from his brain, he decided someone was trying to beat through the walls of his apartment with a sledgehammer.

As he reached for his weapon, he realized someone was pounding on his door.

He pulled on jeans, took his weapon with him, and went to look through his security peep.

A dozen thoughts ran through his head, a morass of pleasure, fantasy, and discomfort. He opened the door to Eve.

"Just in the neighborhood?" he said.

"You son of a bitch." She shoved him back, slammed the door behind her. "I want answers, and I want them now."

"You never were much on foreplay." The minute it was out, he regretted it. He covered that with a cocky grin. "What's up?"

"What's down, Webster, is another cop."

The grin vanished. "Who? How?"

"You tell me."

They stared at each other a moment. His gaze shifted first. "I don't know."

"What do you know? What's IAB's angle on this? Because there is one. I can smell it."

"Look, you come barging in here at… Christ, after one in the morning, jump down my throat, and tell me a cop's dead. You don't even tell me who or how it happened and I'm supposed to be some fount of fucking information for you."

"Mills," she snapped. "Detective Alan. Illegals, same squad as Kohli. You want to know how? Somebody sliced him wide open from neck to balls. I know because his guts spilled out on my hands."

"Christ. Christ." He rubbed both hands over his face. "I need a drink."

He walked away.

She stormed after him. She remembered, vaguely, his old place, the one he'd had when he'd worked the streets. This one had a lot more space, and more of a shine on it.

IAB, she thought bitterly, paid well.

He was in the kitchen, at the refrigerator, pulling a beer out. He looked back at her, took out a second. "Want one?" When she simply stared at him, he put it back. "Guess not." He flipped off the top, let it fly, then took one long swallow. "Where'd it happen?"

"I'm not here to answer questions. I'm not your goddamn weasel."

"And I'm not yours," he countered, then leaned back against the refrigerator door. He needed to get his thoughts in order, his emotions under control. Unless he did, she'd spring something out of him he wasn't free to say.

"You came to me," she reminded him. "Either fishing or smelling bait. Or maybe you're just IAB's messenger boy."

His eyes hardened at that, but he lifted the bottle again, sipped. "You got a problem with me, you take it to IAB. See where it gets you."

"I solve my own problems. What do Kohli and Mills and Max Ricker have in common?"

"You're going to stir up a hornet's nest and get stung if you mess with Ricker."

"I've already messed with him. Didn't know that, did you?" she said when his eyes flickered. "That little gem hasn't dropped in your lap quite yet. I've got four of his storm troopers in cages right now."

"You won't keep them."

"Maybe not, but I might get more out of them than I'm getting from one of my own. You used to be a cop."

"I'm still a cop. Goddamn it, Dallas."

"Then act like one."

"You think because I don't get all the press, don't go out closing high-profile cases so the crowds cheer, I don't care about the job?" He slammed the bottle on the counter. "I do what I do because I care about the job. If every cop was as hard-line straight as you, we wouldn't need Internal Affairs."

"Were they dirty, Webster? Mills and Kohli. Were they dirty?"

His face closed in again. "I can't tell you."

"You don't know, or you're not saying."

He looked into her eyes. For an instant, just an instant, she saw regret in his. "I can't tell you."

"Is there an ongoing investigation in IAB involving Kohli, Mills and/or other officers in the One two-eight?"

"If there was," he said carefully, "it would be classified. I wouldn't be at liberty to confirm or deny that, or to discuss any of the details."

"Where did Kohli get the funds he's fu

Webster's mouth tightened. Spring it out of him? She'd pry it out, he thought, with her fingernails. "I have no comment regarding that allegation."

"Am I going to find similar funds in an account under Mills's name?"

"I have no comment."

"You should be a fucking politician, Webster." She turned on her heel.

"Eve." He'd never used her first name before, not out loud. "Watch your step," he said quietly. "Watch your back."

She never stopped, never acknowledged the warning. When she'd slammed the door behind her, he stood for a moment while a war waged inside him.

Then he walked to his 'link and made the first call.

– =O=-***-=O=-

Her next stop was Feeney's. For the second time, she woke a man from a dead sleep. Heavy-eyed, more rumpled than usual, and wearing a ratty blue robe that had his pale legs sticking out like a chicken's, he answered the door.

"Jeez, Dallas, it's going on two o'fucking clock."

"I know; sorry."

"Well, come in, but keep it down before the wife wakes up and thinks she has to come out and make coffee or some damn thing."

The apartment was small, several steps down from Webster's in size and style. A big, ugly chair sat in the center of the living area, facing the entertainment screen. The privacy screens on the windows had been pulled, giving the place the feeling of a tidy, and well-worn box.

She felt more at home immediately.

He went toward the kitchen, a short, ski

"I thought you were going to tag me earlier. Waited around awhile."

"Sorry, I got held up on something else."

"Yeah, I heard. Taking Ricker on. That's a big chunk to chew."

"I'm going to swallow him down before I'm finished."

"Just make sure he doesn't give you permanent indigestion." He set two steaming mugs on the counter, settled onto the other stool. "Mills is dirty."

"Mills is dead."

"Well, shit." Feeney paused, thinking while he drank some coffee. "He died rich. Found two and a half million tucked into different accounts so far, and there may be more. He did a good job of burying them, used names of dead relatives mostly."

"Can you trace where it came from?"

"Haven't had any luck with that yet. With Kohli either. Money's been through the wash so many times, it oughta be sterilized. But I can tell you Mills started pumping up his goddamn pension fund and portfolio big time two weeks before the Ricker bust. There were dribbles before that, but that's when it started rolling."

He rubbed his hand over his face where the nightly complement of chin hair itched.

"Kohli started later. Months after. Don't have anything on Martinez yet. She's either clean or more careful. I took a look at Roth."

"And?"

"She's had some sizable withdrawals over the last six months. Big chunks taken out of her accounts. On the surface, it looks like she's damn near broke."

"Any of the withdrawals co

"I'm still looking." He blew out a breath. "Thought maybe I'd see if I can work into their logs and 'links. Take a little time, since I have to be careful."

"Okay, thanks."

"How'd Mills go down?"

She sat, drank her coffee, and told him. It was still raw inside her, but by the time she'd finished, it was easier.

"He was an asshole," Feeney said. "But that's ugly. Somebody he knew. You're not going to get that close in on a cop, open him up that way, without some solid resistance unless the cop's relaxed."