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“And as the lieutenant correctly stated, this was her op, and her responsibility.” Whitney turned his gaze pointedly to Eve. “Lieutenant, I’ll need a full evaluation and written report, tonight.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll refine the team according to that evaluation, and present you with a detailed overview of the alternate operation to apprehend the suspect tomorrow with the Mimotos’s cooperation.”
“If you expect
me to sell not releasing Darrin Pauley’s sketch and some salient information to the public via the media to the commissioner, you’d better sell it to me.”
“If we release the sketch, let him know we’re close, he’ll be in the wind.” He could already be in the wind, she thought. And that was a hard, hot ball in her belly.
“He’s young,” she continued, calmly, firmly, “and he’s patient. He can afford to wait, a year, five years before moving on another target if he goes rabbit now. He may select another. He’ll alter his looks—which he was cautious enough to modify today—use his skill in ID fraud to take another identity, or series of them, and settle back until Deena and Karlene Robins are forgotten, until the other known targets are no longer protected.”
“She’s right, Jack.” MacMasters held up a hand, let it fall. “Dallas was right about him coming here today. She’s right about this. If I have any weight here, I want you and the commissioner to know I agree with the lieutenant.”
Eve took MacMasters’s weight and pushed with more of her own. “Commander, if we release the sketch, we’ll have morons like Cunningham flooding the tip line with sightings of teenagers and twenty-somethings in ball caps while Pauley closes shop here and moves on to wait his chance.
“If we release the sketch, he wins. If we let this play out, and frankly, Commander, it burns my ass, but if we allow the media to portray this fiasco today as a monumental screwup, and we control that feed, he’ll be only more confident, and he’ll move on Mrs. Mimoto tomorrow, as planned. Release it, and we lose the chance.”
“We’d have had him today, sir.” When Peabody spoke up, Eve glanced at her with a combination of surprise and annoyance. “That’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. We will need to interview staff members here, and access their security as it’s obvious Darrin Pauley gained access much earlier, and was in the building prior to the memorial. But even with that, we’d have had him.”
Whitney lifted his eyebrows. “You’re confident of that, Detective?” Eve was pretty sure she heard Peabody gulp, but her partner continued in what passed for confidence. “Yes, sir. Detective Baxter made him, just as the lieutenant did. His communication to me was delayed due to the chaos Cunningham and Harrison created, the same chaos that injured Dallas and damaged her coms. Instead of entering the room where we could and would have boxed him, he slipped away rather than engage in the confusion, and risk being interviewed as we are now interviewing a number of participants. That’s his caution, sir, just as profiled. He behaved exactly as anticipated. He will behave as we anticipate tomorrow.”
“And you’re willing to risk lives on that?”
“Commander—”
“No,” Peabody interrupted Eve. “He asked me. I would risk mine on the lieutenant’s judgment. It’s easier to say so since, in this case, mine runs the same path. I wouldn’t risk lives, even my own, to save the department’s face. That’s what we’d be doing to publicize Pauley’s face now. Risking lives to save face. That’s my judgment, sir.”
“Jack, again if it matters, that’s my judgment as well.”
Whitney glanced at MacMasters. “And mine, but it still has to be sold. I’ll be speaking, very shortly, with Officers Harrison and Cunningham. They are your men, Jonah, but the fact remains the operation and the results are Dallas’s responsibility.”
“Yes, sir, they are,” Eve agreed.
“You have thirty hours. I can hold the information for thirty hours. If the suspect isn’t in custody at that time, we go public. Damn the leak, Lieutenant, and get it done.”
“Yes, sir. Captain, my sincere regrets.”
“I want in.” MacMasters pushed to his feet. “The leak will cost you at least one man. I want to take his place.”
There were times, Eve thought, you had to go with the gut. “With the commander’s permission, we could use you.”
“Your call. I’ll have Anna take Carol and your family home.”
I’ll drive,” Roarke said when they prepared to head to Central. With a shrug Eve slid in, and gave herself the luxury of closing her eyes.
She opened them again when something landed in her lap. She lifted her eyes at the candy bar. “First cake, now candy.”
“You look like you could use a lift.”
“It could’ve been worse.” Her head ached, her face throbbed, and her suspect was probably having a cold brew and a good laugh. “I don’t know how at this very minute, but it could’ve been worse. There could have been locusts,” she decided, and tore the wrapping off the chocolate. “That would’ve been worse.”
“On a happier note, I don’t believe the department will be troubled by a lawsuit from the bereavement company.”
She bit in, savored. “What did you do, buy the place?”
“An interesting solution, but no. It was simply pointed out that the company held the lion’s share of liability as it was their security who allowed an intruder, which I assumed was a wiser term than suspect.”
She took another bite, sneered a little. “You got that.”
