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“It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible. We want to find the body, we want to catch this case because Keener’s our weasel now.”
“A con, Peabo
dy,” Roarke told her. “You have the case, you have the controls. And what they’re banking on being an OD becomes a homicide investigation.”
“If I can work it,” Eve agreed. “Either way, she’ll have to come out and ID him as her CI—that’s procedure. If she doesn’t, we can give her a nice slap for it. And we can be bitchy, just by-the-book sticklers and insist on details of their association, information, times, dates—which should all be in her files. Gosh, we’re trying to find out who killed this asshole. A DB’s a DB in my Homicide Division.”
“You want to piss her off.”
“I’m counting on it, and I’m going to enjoy it. Get me the probabilities, McNab, then we’re going on a weasel hunt.”
“You want the body before you go to Whitney and Webster.”
Eve nodded at Peabody. “Now you’re getting it. Keener’s tangible, and dead he’ll be corroborating your statement. With the connection of the arrest to Renee, we’ve got more. She’s a decorated officer. She’s a boss, and a respected, hell, revered, former commander’s daughter. She’s got eighteen years on the force without a blemish.”
“And if I just blow the whistle on her, IAB may end up investigating me.”
“You don’t worry about that,” Eve told her.
“I won’t. I’ve leveled off now, and now I really want to pay her back for every second I was in that freaking shower. I mean, over and above bringing a dirty cop to justice.”
“Naked in the shower,” Eve reminded her.
“With nothing to do but give them an angry towel snap if they slapped open the door.”
“We’ll pay them back,” Eve promised, and looked over to where Roarke and McNab worked together. Roarke in his tailored dress shirt and pants, McNab in pink, multi-pocketed knee shorts and a buttercupyellow tank that sported E-DICK in screaming red letters across his skinny chest.
Geeks were geeks, Eve thought, whatever the wardrobe.
“Your map,” Roarke announced, nodding to the wall screen. “And your most-likelies.”
“Not bad. His type tend to stick to a certain area, to do their business within a handful of blocks where they know the score, the routes, the dodge points.”
“If he was going to rabbit, wouldn’t he move outside his usual turf?”
She shook her head, glanced at McNab. “Look at the time line from the conversation Peabody overheard. The heat’s up, and that says this screwup was fresh. The kill recently ordered and executed. Garnet didn’t even know about it. Add to that, ten thousand on the line. This had to move fast. From Keener’s sheet, he’s not a bright light. Smart enough not to go home, but not, most likely, smart enough to relocate outside his comfort zone. He hadn’t rabbited yet, so he wasn’t finished getting his shit together. We’re going to find him within this area, just like his killer did.”
She studied the map a little longer. “Eliminate anything he’d have to pay for. No tenanted apartments.”
The map adjusted to Roarke’s command.
She knew the area well enough, with its sidewalk sleepers, low-rent street LCs, funky-junkies, ghosts, used-up chemi-heads. Even the gang-bangers had given it up as not worth the trouble.
“I like these five locations. Two-man teams. We’ll get you a vehicle. A nondescript one,” she added when she saw McNab’s face light up.
He shrugged. “I guess it has to be.”
“It does. Roarke and I will take these two, Peabody and McNab these two. If we zero, we’ll converge on location five. We get nothing, we’ll widen the map again. Do either of you have a clutch piece on you?”
At the negative, Eve rolled her eyes. “We’ll get you that, too. There are some people in this sector who just aren’t very nice.
“We’ll seal up. I don’t want to leave any trace we’ve been there. Keep any disturbances to the locations to a minimum, and don’t talk to anybody. Don’t ask questions. Go in, go through, get out.”
“If we find the body?” Peabody asked.
“Get out, signal me, and get gone. We’ll meet back here where I’ll be getting an annoying anonymous tip about a dead guy. Records on, boys and girls, the whole time, so keep the chatter down, too. Records will be turned over to command and IAB.”
She blew out her breath as she studied McNab. “You’re not going on a covert op in that getup. Roarke, have we got anything we can put on this geek?”
