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Just how she saw it. “Then he wasn’t the first, either. He was just one of the next. We trace back from this vic, this Little Mel. And we’ll find the first. We find the first, we’ll find them.”
Her eyebrows shot up when he reached out, covered her hand with his. He pulled his back quickly. “Sorry – that’s probably not allowed. It’s just… I’ve been waiting a long time to hear somebody say that.”
“Saying it, proving it, finding them, there are a lot of steps between.”
“I’ve been taking some of them, best I can. I’m going to be straight with you. I’ve only worked two murders, and both of them were pretty clear-cut right from the start. First was the Delroy brothers, Zach and Lenny. Not bright lights, either of them, and with a taste for bad booze and homemade Jump. The two of them got revved up on both, fought over a card game, and Zach, he picked up a fireplace poker and caved Lenny’s head right in. Tried to cover it up saying somebody’d busted into their place, but like I said, not a bright light.”
He shifted a bit as if looking for comfort in the hard chair. “And the second was a woman come down from Pittsburgh with her husband for a holiday. Not much of one for her as he had a habit of beating the hell out of her for fun. He’d blackened her eye and busted open her lip before she got outside to the car, locked herself in. Then she proceeded to run him over when he came out after her.”
“Hard to blame her.”
“There’s that. She said right out she wanted to make sure he was dead this time, and that’s why she backed up, ran over him again. Three times. Anyway, like I said, pretty clear-cut. We don’t get a lot of killings – not purposeful – in Silby’s Pond.”
“You’ve gotten this far on this one.”
“Since Little Mel I’ve worked it every day. Sometimes only an hour or so, but every day. I’m hopeful now that I’ve got somebody like you, a real murder cop, it’ll break.”
“Then let’s get going. We’ll move this to the conference room.”
She rose, waited while he grabbed his coat, his duffel.
“It’s a hell of a place, your Cop Central,” he commented as they started out. “Lots doing.”
“If you’re interested, I can have somebody show you around.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Someone let out a war cry, high and wild. Eve pivoted, saw two uniforms giving chase. The man they pursued charged like a bull, head down, teeth bared, his eyes lit like lanterns with whatever substance he’d smoked, swallowed or syringed. He bowled over an unfortunate civilian clerk whose legs flew out from under her, sending her and the file bag she carried flying.
“Excuse me,” Eve said, cut across the corridor as the man, long, red hair streaming bac
k in its skinny braids, fists pumping in the air, ran like the possessed.
Her right cross barely slowed him down, but it shifted his attention enough to have him swing those pumping fists in her direction. One glanced off her shoulder, and she went with it, spinning around and coming back with a side kick to his gut.
He grunted, made a grab. She stomped hard on his instep, followed up with a knee to the balls, then tried the right cross again.
That one had him staggering back, but he grinned at her through the blood that bloomed on his mouth. She braced for the next round, but the stagger gave the uniforms time to catch up.
Eve stepped back while they grappled, considered moving in again as fists and elbows jabbed and bashed and war cries echoed. Then a third uniform leaped in from the side.
“For Christ’s sake,” she said when they finally had him down and in restraints – where he laughed like a loon. “For Christ’s sake.”
“It’s Mad Fergus, Lieutenant.” One of the uniforms, his own lip bloody, managed to pant it out. “We thought we had him, but you never know what’s going to set him off.”
“Somebody see to that woman he knocked down, and get him out of here. If you can’t control a prisoner, keep them away from my division. You embarrass me.”
She turned, noted that Banner was helping the civilian clerk to her feet.
“Sorry about that,” she said when he joined her again.
“You move fast. If you’d kicked me in the gut the way you did that one, I’d’ve been flat out and gasping like a trout on the line.”
“I guess Mad Fergus is made of sterner stuff. What does that mean?” she wondered as she rolled her stinging shoulder. “What does ‘stern’ have to do with it? Never mind.”
“He landed one.”
“He’s not the first.” Rolling her shoulder again, she led the way to the conference room, gestured him in.
