She turned, wanting coffee, turned back when she heard the door open.
“Couldn’t you get in?” she began.
“Really, it’s a bloody litany of insults.” Roarke tossed a small duffle on the conference table. “I borrowed the bag from one of your supply rooms. I hope I won’t be arrested.”
“You’re in, done, and out and back here in ten?”
“Well, I did have to stop to get the bag. And to scan her security system.” He tossed a disc to McNab. “That should quicken things up.”
“Yeah, baby!”
“Care to see what’s in the bag, Lieutenant?” Roarke asked. “What was safe behind Oberman?”
Eve pulled the bag open. “Her running kit—the ID, credit, cash—about two hundred K?”
“Oh, two-fifty, then there’s another hundred large in euros.”
“Clean ’link, clean weapon, PPC—and discs.”
“Her books,” Roarke supplied. “Her payroll, operating expenses, income—all very tidy. I had a bit of time so I took a quick glance.”
“Say hallelujah,” Eve breathed.
“If you like. I didn’t look through them all—just enough to verify. They’re encoded, of course, but fairly simply. I’d say she was confident no one was going to have a peek. Her security is more complex. If she’d set the alarm before leaving her office, it would have tripped the minute Strong went in. A silent alarm that would engage the cameras. Renee would have seen it when she went in herself and shut the alarm off.”
“But she doesn’t clear out the safe. Not yet anyway. No real time to do it,” Eve concluded. “She has to eliminate Strong. If she can’t get to Strong, she’s going to have to answer a lot of embarrassing questions. She can clear out the safe, put something not incriminating inside.”
“Strong took a severe blow to the head—is and was obviously confused.” Roarke nodded. “Many ways to circle it, but eliminating Strong is sure and it’s tidy.”
“She likes tidy, and she doesn’t know I have two men on Strong. She couldn’t know yet. Crap, I forgot about Whitney and Mira.” She took out her com, signaled Whitney the all-clear.
“Give my boy a hand, will you?” Feeney asked Roarke, then jerked his head so Eve followed him to the other side of the room.
“You’ve got her in that box, Dallas. With everything we’ve put together, with what the boy says Peabody’s bringing in. Top that with the little heist Roarke just pulled off, she’s done.”
“Maybe. Maybe if we look through her discs and find she’s written out chapter and verse on her operation, on her orders to kill cops, Keener, whoever else she might’ve done.”
“She’s going to have to explain the ID, the money.”
“Graft, corruption, falsifying docs aren’t murder.”
“You and I know that while Bix might stand like a rock, others’ll roll. It only takes one to start an avalanche. You make a deal with one of her men, the avalanche is going to crush her to dust.”
“Is that how you’d handle it?”
“I’m saying you could walk right out of here and put her in cuffs.”
She turned, took a couple paces away to try to settle her temper. Turned and stepped back when she decided she didn’t want it settled.
“Make a deal with a dirty cop or two to snap off the head? Fuck that. Fuck that, Feeney. No deals. No deals if I have to sit on the PA until he cries for his mommy. I don’t want to deal to take her down. I’m going to take her down my way. I’m going to play her like a goddamn piano.”
He started to grin at the first fuck that, and then let out a snort. “You can’t play the piano.”
“But I can break one to splinters with a sledgehammer.”
“It’s a good choice. I was just checking.”
She puffed out a breath, felt the temper die. “You’d go sledgehammer?”
“Maybe a chain saw. I’ve got to think of my back.”
She glanced toward Roarke and McNab. “You get me the feed. I’ll get the hammer and saw.”
She paced while they worked. She wondered why things always took longer than you wanted them to take, unless you wanted them to take a lot longer—then they didn’t take nearly long enough.
Time sucked.
Peabody walked in.
“Put the data up,” Eve ordered. “I need to see it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good work, Peabody. You did good work today.”
“I needed to.” Peabody glanced over as she installed the disc. “I want to be able to go back to her mom and tell her Detective Gail Devin helped bring this down. Dallas, can you get her a commendation? From the top? Could you put her in for one from the commander?”
“I can. I will. But I believe the commander will issue one without my request.”
Eve stood, studying the data. “God, she was thorough. Look at this. Times, dates, length of time, participants of closed-door meets in Renee’s office. Coordinating them with busts or ops gone sour—or where the take from the bust came in well below expectations and information. Invoice changes—she logged them down whenever she caught one. Logged once-a-week meets between Renee and Dennis Dyson in Accounting. Here’s another who shows up regularly, every couple weeks, and routinely after a sizable bust. From Records.
“Notations on inconsistencies in files, in reports. Here’s a cop who dug into her research.”
“She was building a pretty good case,” Peabody added. “She’s got records of street contacts she’d started to develop on her own. She went through court docs checking wits, did follow-ups. She went to see dealers in their cages. She was starting to push hard, then . . .”
“Pushed the wrong way, and Renee caught the scent.” Eve ordered the data to share the screen with Renee’s. Cued them up.
“We got names matching here. A lot of her names match what’s looking like Renee’s payroll.”
“You got the payroll?”
“I’ll fill you in. Feeney! I’m getting tired of holding this hammer.”
“Then set it down a damn minute.”
“Look at all this money.” Peabody gaped at the open duffle. “And ... a passport, ID. You found her hole? You found her hole without me?”
“You were busy doing a good job.”
“Now you can say hallelujah.” Roarke turned to her. “You’re tapped in, Lieutenant.”
“She’s not back in her office yet.” Eve watched the screen image of Renee’s office with narrowed eyes. “Went back to IAB to try to squeeze her boy out. Okay.” Eve rolled her shoulders. “Time to play.”
Twenty-Two
IN HER OFFICE, RENEE GATHERED HER FORCES.
“We’re going to clean up this mess tonight.”
She stood behind her desk, met the eyes of each man under her command—something she’d learned from her father. She spoke in clipped, confident tones.
“There will be no loose ends. There will be no mistakes. Freeman, get to the hospital. If Strong makes it out of surgery, she’ll need to be dealt with. You’re on hold until I contact you. Do what you do—blend.”
“You got it, LT.”
“Go now. And Freeman? If and when? Don’t leave any marks.”
“You know me. I’m a ghost.”
“Marcell,” she continued when the door closed behind Freeman, “you and Palmer are going to deal with Dallas. She’s over.”
“How do you want it done?” Marcell asked.
“I’ve been giving it some thought. We take it back to Keener.” A full circle, she calculated. Closed and locked. “She’s so in love with the little bastard, it seems appropriate. You’ll take her in the garage when she’s leaving. Armand, you’ll need to give us a security glitch.”
“Can do.”
“It’ll have to be fast and clean. Wait until she’s at her vehicle. I don’t want you to give her room to maneuver. Stun her. Then take her and her vehicle to Keener’s hide. Once you’ve got her in and secured, do it however you want, but make damn sure she’s dead. Take anything on her a chemi-head would pawn for scratch. We’ll be planting some of it later to give Homicide our fall guy. When you’re done, contact Manford. He’ll pick you up.”
“What if she’s not alone in the garage?” Palmer asked.