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“He created it for her,” Eve murmured.
“The umbrella account could have other screen names,” McNab went on. “I haven’t been able to break through the blocks. Yet. Whoever created the account knows his cyber-shit. I mean, he’s good, and he’s careful.”
“Her best friend didn’t recognize him. So far none of the door-to-doors on the building have turned up any neighbors who recognized him.” Eve paced. “If Bankhead didn’t know him, if he wasn’t seen in or around her building before the night of the murder, then we have to assume he targeted her from the chat room.”
“He knew where she worked,” Peabody put in.
“But she didn’t make him, and neither did her friend who works the same department. So he’s maybe a casual customer. If he was a regular or an employee who spent any time in their department, they’d have noticed. You still notice guys who hang out where they sell women’s underwear. But we’ll run his picture through their human resources division.
“So he uses public venues. He either likes to socialize or he’s hiding in plain sight. Maybe both. We circulate his picture at the cyber-spots.”
“Lieutenant?” McNab wagged his fingers. “Do you know how many cyber-venues there are in New York?”
“No, and I don’t want to know. But you can start counting them off as you visit them.” She looked at Feeney. “You in if Whitney authorizes?”
“I’d say we’re already in.”
“Generate a list,” she told McNab. “We’ll split it up, work in pairs for now.” She gave a soft sigh. “McNab and Feeney are the experts in this area. I’m only going to ask this once, in this room. Does anyone here have a problem working with anyone else on this team?”
McNab stared at the ceiling as if fascinated by the dull white tone of the paint. Peabody simply frowned at her shoes.
“I take that as a no. Peabody, you’re with McNab; Feeney, you’re with me. Start on the West Side; we’ll take the East. We’ll do as many venues as possible until. . .” She checked her wrist unit, calculated. “Twenty-one hundred. We’ll meet at my home office tomorrow, oh eight hundred for a full briefing. Feeney, let’s pitch this to Whitney.”
Feeney strolled out after her, whistling. “You could’ve split us up another way.”
“Yeah.” She glanced back down the corridor and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. “But I’m thinking this way maybe the two of them will duke it out and we can all get back to normal.”
He considered that as they hopped on a glide. “I got twenty on Peabody.”
“Shit.” She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Okay, but if I’ve got to lay down on McNab’s bony ass, I want odds. Three to five.”
“Done.”
Back in the conference room, Peabody and McNab sat just as they were.
“I’ve got no problem working with you,” McNab said.
“Why should you? I haven’t got one working with you either.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
They stared, ceiling and shoes, for another twenty seconds. McNab broke first. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding me anyway.”
“I have not. Why should I? We are so over.”
“Who said anything different?” And it burned him that she could say it, just that coolly, when he thought about her all the time.
“And you wouldn’t think I’d been avoiding you
if you hadn’t been trying to get my attention.”
“Shit. For what? I’m a busy boy, She-Body. Too busy to worry about some stiff-necked uniform who spends her off-time playing with LCs.”
“You leave Charles out of this.” She leaped to her feet, rage boiling in her blood. And a new little tear in her heart.
“Me, I don’t have to hunt up pros. I got all the amateurs I can handle.” He kicked out his legs, worked up a sneer. “But that’s neither here nor there, right? We got the job, and that’s it. If you can handle it.”
