“Just doing my part. I know what it’s like to kick a nasty habit.”
Blackburn was about to ask her How nasty? when he realized De Mello was staring at them from the middle of the room, coffee cup in hand, a dazed look on his face. Just the hint of sexual tension had stopped him in his tracks. Blackburn was willing to bet the guy hadn’t been laid in years.
He showed De Mello the bag. “Your mouth’s hanging open, Fred. You want a carrot?”
De Mello snapped out of it and indicated the danish he held in his other hand. “Uh, I’m good.”
“You might want to get that coffee and danish to go,” Pendergast told him. “I was sent to corral you guys. Fourth floor.”
Uh-oh, Blackburn thought. Here it comes.
De Mello looked pained. The coffee didn’t seem to be doing the trick, so maybe he did need that colonic after all. “Both of us?”
“Anyone involved with the Janovic case,” Pendergast said. “You’re working background, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“They want us all. On the double. Got some major shit going down.”
Major shit, indeed, Blackburn thought, then watched Pendergast turn on her heels and head toward the elevators.
Damn, she looked good in that uniform.
16
They were in the elevator, headed to the fourth floor, when Blackburn’s cell phone bleeped. He dug it out and checked the screen.
Tolan.
Christ. Great timing.
He clicked it on. “Hey, Doc, I’m gonna have to get back to you.”
“We need to talk. Now.”
“I’m at the station house, about to go into a meeting.”
“This is a little more important than a meeting.”
That sounded ominous. “What’s going on?”
“Not over the phone,” Tolan said, sounding like Mats. Another drama queen. “Meet me here in forty minutes.”
“Is it Jane? You get her to talk?”
“No. This doesn’t have anything to do with her.”
“Then what’s the urgency?”
“Forty minutes,” Tolan said, and hung up.
Blackburn closed his phone, wondering what the hell that was all about. Had somebody told Tolan about Vincent? Not likely. So what had gotten the guy so keyed up and why was he being so cryptic about it?
It seemed to Blackburn that just about everyone on this godforsaken planet took the most circuitous route possible to get to the point.
Whatever happened to the direct approach?
He was pondering this question when he realized Kat was staring at him. “Bad news?”
“My doctor,” Blackburn said. “Wants me to cut down on my carrot intake.”
She grinned, then the doors opened and the three of them stepped off the elevator, making the short walk to the fourth-floor conference room.
Kat’s partner, Dave Hogan, was waiting outside the door.
Kat nodded to him. “They call you in yet?”
“Just finished up,” Hogan said. “You could cut the tension in that room with a friggin’ bolo knife.”
“Who’s in there?” De Mello asked, a nervous edge to his voice.
“The chief, assistant chief, a bunch of bigwigs, and about a half dozen members of the task force. I don’t think I need to tell you how huge this is.”
“Task force?” De Mello said, looking lost. “What the hell’s going on?”
Hogan and Pendergast eyed him as if he were on crack, not realizing, of course, that Blackburn hadn’t gotten around to telling him about Vincent. Blackburn, being the bastard he was, thought about letting him stew awhile longer, then decided to be charitable.
But before he could get a word out of his mouth, the conference-room door opened. The chief’s executive assistant — an attractive young thing in gray slacks and a white blouse that did little to hide her curves — stuck her head out. “Detective Blackburn? They’re ready for you.”
Blackburn exchanged looks with the others, then followed her inside.
The conference room was filled to capacity, the oblong table jammed with bodies.
As Hogan had said, Chief Escalante was there, sitting at the head of the table.
The rest of the room was occupied by various and sundry departmental brass and high-muckety-mucks, along with the six members of the task force itself, including Homicide stars Ron Worsley, Jerry Rossbach, and—
Shit.
Blackburn almost froze when he saw her. Felt his feet get heavy as he stepped through the conference-room doorway.
Just to his left, at about the middle of the table, sat Sue Carmody, her blond Republican hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her face taut with displeasure at the sight of him.
He could only imagine what his looked like.
Carmody’s presence here meant only one thing: She’d been assigned to the task force. The lead detective had retired, either Worsley or Rossbach had taken his place—
— and Carmody had been bumped into the empty slot.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
So not only was Blackburn about to lose his case, he’d have to turn it over to Goldilocks. Whoever she was sleeping with obviously had major muscle in the department.
Maybe it was the big man himself.
He glanced at Escalante, looking for some hint of silent communication between the two. The guy normally had about two layers of gloss and hairspray coating his perfectly coiffed head, but right now he looked like a man who needed that cup of coffee De Mello was nursing outside. The news of Vincent’s return was not the kind of thing you wanted to wake up to.
If he and Carmody were bumping uglies, there was no indication of it in this room.
Escalante waved Blackburn to an empty chair at the near end of the table. “Have a seat, Detective.”
Blackburn did as he was told.
“As you may have guessed, word of Vincent Van Gogh’s reentry into our lives is not being taken lightly. As soon as I got the call, I ordered the reassembly of the task force, with a few new additions.”
A few? Blackburn thought, glancing around the room. Who else had been tagged?
“I don’t know if this latest victim is merely an anomaly or the start of another spree,” Escalante went on, “but I want this sonofabitch stopped cold. I understand we may have a witness on tap?”
“That’s still to be determined,” Blackburn said. “At this point, all we know is that she was present at the scene.”
He gave them an abbreviated rundown of the morning’s events, leaving out the incident with Tolan, but making it clear that Jane wouldn’t be easy to crack.
“What made you take her to Baycliff? Don’t we usually go to County with this kind of thing?”
“No offense to the doctors at County, but I’ve had some previous experience with Tolan, and they’re minor leaguers compared to him. The woman is clearly disturbed and I needed the best. I doubt many people here would argue there’s anyone better. Not in this half of the country at least.”
“That may be true, but the man’s wife was one of Vincent’s victims, for godsakes. You do realize this is the one-year anniversary of her murder.”
Surprised, Blackburn glanced at his watch. November 15th. Jesus. He hadn’t even thought of that.
Now Rossbach spoke up. “Considering the conflict of interest, we’d better get her transferred out of there as soon as possible.”
“My thinking exactly,” Escalante said.
“Has anyone asked Dr. Tolan how he feels about this?”
All eyes turned to Sue Carmody. Her question was directed at the entire group, but Blackburn knew it was meant for him. Bitch.