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Vanity, Eve thought. Maybe another area to exploit.
The only child of Marcus and Violet Oberman, who’d been married forty-nine years. Father, police commander (retired) with fifty years on the job. Mother, a waitress, had taken six years as a professional mother after the daughter was born, then found employment as a sales manager in a women’s upscale boutique until retirement.
Renee Oberman, one marriage that had lasted two years, one divorce. No offspring. Cross-reference had shown her that Noel Wright had remarried, and the second, six-year union had produced two offspring, a boy age five and a girl age three. The ex owned and operated a bar in the West Village.
She filed it all away. You never knew what might be useful, she thought.
“Lieutenant,” Summerset announced through the house ’link. “Commander Whitney has just been cleared through the gates.”
She’d already decided against going down to meet him, to escort him upstairs made it more like home, less like a work space. “Send him right up. McNab! Program a pot of coffee. The commander’s on site.”
But she stood, deliberately flanking Peabody with McNab when Whitney strode in.
He wore command, she thought, on his wide shoulders, on his tough face, in the cold beam of his eyes.
He stopped at her board. She’d positioned it so he would see it immediately, so Renee Oberman’s face, Garnet’s, Keener’s, the crime scene ranged together, connected.
And she saw a quick flare of heat flash through the cold.
Without asking, Eve poured him coffee, crossed over to offer it. “I appreciate your quick attention to this matter, Commander.”
“Save it.” He moved past her, zeroed in on Peabody. “Detective, I will review your statement on record, but at this time, I want to hear it from you.”
“Yes, sir.” Instinctively Peabody shifted to attention. “Commander, at approximately twenty hundred hours I entered the workout facilities in sector two.”
Whitney went at her hard, hard enough to put Eve’s back up, hard enough she had to shoot McNab a warning glare when she saw the temper light up his face.
Whitney questioned her ruthlessly, interrupting, demanding, forcing her to backtrack, repeat, overlap.
Though she paled, and Eve clearly heard the nerves skittering under the words, she never faltered, never changed a single detail.
“You were not able to make a visual identification of either individual?”
“I was not, sir. While I clearly heard the male subject refer to the female as Renee, and as Oberman, and heard her call him Garnet, I was unable to see either clearly. The female subject referred to as Renee Oberman was clear in her conversation that the male subject was her subordinate. I was able at one point to see a portion of her profile, hair color, skin color. I was able to determine her approximate height. With this information we have identified the individuals as Oberman, Lieutenant Renee, and Garnet, Detective William, of the Illegals Department out of Central.”
“You are aware that Lieutenant Oberman is a decorated and ranked officer with a service of nearly eighteen years in the department.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are further aware that she is the daughter of former Commander Marcus Oberman.”
“I am, sir.”
“And you are willing to swear to these statements in an internal investigation of these officers, possibly in a criminal trial?”
“Yes, sir. I am willing and eager to do so.”
“Eager, Detective?”
“Eager to do my duty as a member of the NYPSD, as an officer who has sworn to protect and serve. I believe—correction, sir—I know these individuals have used their position and authority, have used their badges unethically, immorally, and illegally, and I am eager, Commander, to do whatever I can to stop them from continuing to do so.”
He said nothing more for a moment, then—very quietly—sighed. “Sit down, Detective. Leave her be,” he ordered McNab when the e-man started to go to her. “She doesn’t need you hovering and clucking like a mother hen. She’s a cop, and she’s sure as hell proved it.
“Lieutenant.”
Now Eve stood at attention. “Sir.”
“You waited nearly eight hours to report this matter to command.”
