“I picked up some water and Pepsis,” Peabody said, and set bottles on the table.
Cleo shook her head. “The least you can do is tell me what you’ve got.”
“You can talk to your lieutenant about that. We brought him up to date. You can play the hard-ass with us, but that’s not helping Detective Coltraine.”
“If you’re looking to dig up dirt on her—”
“Why would we be? We’re not IAB. We’re homicide. Your squadmate was murdered, Detective. So cut the crap. You and Coltraine were often partnered.”
“Yeah, the boss thought we complemented each other.”
“Did you also interact on a personal level? Socially?”
“Sure we did. Why wouldn’t . . .” She shook her head again, held up a hand. She picked up a bottle of the water she’d initially rejected, twisted it open, drank. “Look, maybe I’m sorry for the attitude, but this is hard. She was part of my team, and we got to be friends. We worked damn well together, you can look at our case files and see that. And we got so we’d hang out sometimes. Have a drink after shift or a meal. Maybe just the two of us, or maybe with some of the other guys. It wasn’t always about the job, either. We’d talk about regular stuff. Hair and weight and men.”
“You were close,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. We each had our own life, but we hit it off. You’ve got to know how it is. When you’re working with another female, there are things you can get into, things you can say that you wouldn’t with a man.”
“Did she tell you about any old lovers, boyfriends, guys that wanted to be with her?”
“She was seeing a couple guys casually back in Atlanta before she transferred. One was another cop, and that was basically a booty buddy she’d been tight with awhile before. The other was a lawyer. She said it just wasn’t a good fit, and both of them got to just drifting along in the relationship. One of the reasons she transferred was because she felt her personal life got stale, and she felt she was losing her edge professionally. She wanted something new.”
“Nobody serious?” Eve pressed, thinking of what Morris had told her. And saw Cleo hesitate.
“She mentioned there’d been somebody, pretty intense for a while. But it hadn’t worked out.”
“Name?”
“No. But it bruised her up some—emotionally. She said they broke it off, and she’d done the casual thing for a couple months with the lawyer. But she wanted a change—a new place, new faces. Like that.”
“And once she’d transferred—on that personal level.”
“The thing with the ME started pretty quick. She hadn’t been here long when they met. Ammy said there was this instant spark. They took their time. I mean, they didn’t jump in the sack right off. When they did . . . like I said, you tell a woman partner things. She was crazy about him, and it came off mutual. I went out with them—like a double date deal—a few times. They gave it off—that spark. She wasn’t seeing anyone else.”
“She never mentioned anyone pushing her, on that personal front.”
“No.”
“Did she take meets on her own? With weasels, other informants, or arrange to deal with suspects solo?”
“Not generally. I mean, she might hook up with one of her weasels solo. But she’d been working this area less than a year. She didn’t have that many.”
“Names?”
Cleo’s back went up, Eve could see it. No cop liked to share weasels. “She mostly used this guy who runs a pawnshop on Spring. Stu Bollimer. He’s originally from Georgia, so she played the connection.”
“Were you using him on anything currently?”
“I know she gave him a bump on the Chinatown robbery we’re working, and he said he’d keep his ear to the ground.”
“Anything you worked on generate trouble, somebody who’d want to hurt her?”
“You bring in bad guys, they’re not going to be happy with you. Nothing stands out. I’ve been going over and over it since I heard. We’re a small squad, and most of what we handle just isn’t that juicy. She liked doing the small jobs. The mom-and-pop whose market gets ripped off, the kid who gets knocked off his airboard so some asshole can steal it. The truth is, she was thinking, maybe down the road, about marriage and having a family, taking the professional mother deal. She liked her job, and she was good at it—don’t get me wrong. But she was thinking, especially since Morris, that down the road . . .”
“All right, Detective. If you’d send Detective O’Brian up, I’d appreciate it. If he’s not available, your lieutenant can send up whoever he can spare.”
“O’Brian’s working his desk. I’ll send him.” Cleo got to her feet. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you come to us if you need more manpower on this. Not every cop works out of Central.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Detective.” After Cleo went out, Eve sat back. “Does she just not get it? Is it just a blind spot?”
“That every cop in that squad is currently a suspect?” Peabody shook her head. “I guess you don’t look at your own family first.”
“Civilians don’t. Cops do—or should.” Eve made a couple of notes, then reviewed her data on O’Brian.
“Next up has twenty-three years in. He made first grade five years back. He’s been with this squad for a dozen years. Second marriage, fifteen years in. No kids from marriage one, two from marriage two. Commendations, and two valorous conduct citations. Worked Major Case until he transferred here. That’s a big shift.”
Eve finally cracked her tube of Pepsi, took a hit. “He’s been here the longest, longer than his current lieutenant.”
“Guys like that can be the touchstone of a squad. The one the others go to when they don’t want to go to the brass.”
“We’re going to be here awhile yet. Check in, will you? See if there’s anything new we can use here.”
O’Brian, beefy, long-jawed, sharp-eyed, stepped in as Peabody moved to the far end of the table. “Lieutenant. Detective.”
“Detective O’Brian. We’re splitting duties here, to try to keep ahead of the curve. We can talk while my partner makes some contacts.”
“Fine.” He sat. “Let me save you some time. Detective Coltraine was a good, steady cop. Dependable. She liked to dig into the pieces for the little details. When she first joined the squad, I had my doubts she’d make the cut. That was my own prejudice, because she looked like someone who should be making beauty vids. After a couple of shifts, I saw what was under her. She knew how to be part of a team, how to handle herself in the field, and with the rest of the squad.
“If she got taken down in the stairwell of her own place, it wasn’t a stranger.”
“How do you know how she was taken down?”
His eyes never shifted from Eve’s. “I’ve got connections. I used them. I haven’t shared what I dug up with the rest of the squad. What gets shared there’s up to the boss. But I’m telling you here, if she left her place last night carrying both her weapons, she was on the job. She went down in the line. And I’m going to be pushing for her to have that honor.”
“Who could have gotten into her building?”
“Fuck if I know. We don’t work that much heat here. She didn’t have anything going for somebody to swing out and kill a cop. We got a break-in, electronics. Inside job, no question. We’d’ve had the guy sewed before noon today. I’ll still have him sewed before end-of-shift. He’s an idiot, a screwup. He’s not a cop killer. I know Delong gave you the case file. You’ll see for yourself.”
“Could she have, when picking at the pieces for the little details, on this, on something else, have scraped up something hot? Something that came back at her?”