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“Was it? Wouldn’t you have done the same in his place?”
“Maybe. Probably. I’d have been out of line. You’re here to help, a consultant duly designated by the NYPSD. And Patrick Roarke has dick-all to do with it. One of Ricchio’s consultants is being held by a violent predator. That’s his fucking focus, and he’s got no business messing with your head when lives are on the line.”
“Well then, we can agree in part. But there’s always going to be a smudge, isn’t there? It’s the way of things.”
“Things suck.”
“Often. But now that you’re annoyed along with me, I feel better. I want food.”
Not in the least mollified, she shoved up, paced away. “This fucking place. I hate it. I don’t care if it’s unfair. Probably there’s good things about it, good people in it. I don’t care. They met up here, your father and mine.”
“Eve, Ricchio has no reason, and no accessible data to make a connection between Patrick Roarke, Richard Troy, and Lieutenant Eve Dallas.”
“But it’s there. It’s always going to be there, that smudge.” She swung back toward him, letting out what had been grinding inside her since they’d touched down.
“We’re never going to get out from under it, not all the way. No matter what we do, who we are, what we make, they’re part of it. We can’t change that. It’s always there, and it’s more there here.”
“It is, yes. It is.” He rose, went to her. “So, we’ll have to find Melinda Jones quickly, deal with McQueen, and go home.”
She closed her eyes when he rested his brow against hers. “Sounds like a plan. Simple, straightforward.”
“I have every faith.”
“Then I’d better get back to it. Tell you what, to make up for cop bullshit, I’ll deal with your dinner before I write up my reports. How do you feel about Texas beef, burger style?”
“I could feel very agreeable to that.” But he took her hands. “Think about this. Without the smudge we wouldn’t be just who we are, and wouldn’t be so damn determined to keep scrubbing at it. In our own ways.”
“I guess not. Still . . .” She stopped when her ’link signaled. “Peabody,” she said with a glance at the readout.
“Deal with it. I can handle getting my own dinner.”
“Good. Sorry. Peabody. Did you get him?”
He went in, kept an eye on her as he selected from the AutoChef. She paced, one hand jammed in her pocket. Talking fast, eyes narrowed, cop flat.
Back to scrubbing at the smudge, he thought.
When she came in, fresh energy came with her.
“They picked Civet up, got him cold with his pockets lined with baggies of poppers, Zing, zoner, and what all. Collared him within a block of a youth center, which adds weight. Adding up how many times he’s been in, he’s looking at ten to fifteen without the PA breaking a sweat. He’ll deal. He’ll talk. She just has to play him right.”
She started pacing again, around her case board. “She’s got to let Baxter go in hard and low while she takes the soft, let’s-work-this-out method.”
“Do you trust her to get it done?”
“Yeah, I do. But I’d trust her more if I was there.”
“You just want to sweat a suspect.”
“Oh God, yeah. Peabody gets Stibble, Lovett, now Civet. I get Really Fat Vik, the completely cooperative bartender with the super memory. How is that just?”
She plopped down at the desk. “Still, I want to go roust the UNSUB’s neighbors at her old apartment. Maybe one of them will give me some game.”
“You’re certainly due. I’m going to take my meal in the other office and play Find the Van without cops sneering over my shoulder.”
While he did, she settled into writing her report, read the progress on others. They’d eliminated some of the real estate, some vehicle transactions. Still a long way to go.
Big city, she mused, lots of apartments and condos, lots of vans. What else? What else did he need, did he want?
