Apprentice in Death (10 page)

“What kind of vehicle is this, and why in hell don't you have better?”

“It's my personal vehicle, and better than it looks.” Quickly, she opened the locks, glancing back as she heard the elevator clump. “Take shotgun, sir.”

As he climbed in, she sent a warning stare toward Peabody. “Take the back. The commander's riding with us.”

Eve slid behind the wheel. “Speed's key. We're going hot.”

As Eve turned on the engine, screamed into reverse, Peabody leaned forward and murmured toward Whitney's ear, “Lock down your safety, sir. Trust me.”

Sirens blaring, Eve burst out of the garage, barely hesitating to make sure traffic had cleared, and zipped around knotted cars, hit vertical to take the turn north.

“What
is
this thing?” Whitney demanded.

“It's a DLE, Commander,” Peabody told him, strapped in, gripping the seat with both hands. “It's not even on the market yet.”

“When it is, I want one.”

So saying, he yanked out his 'link, made his first contact with Chief Tibble.

Eve blocked him out, zigging, zagging, leaping, and shoving her way through knots of traffic.

Multiple strikes on one of the busiest sectors of the city, the eternal party that was Times Square.

And a dead cop.

Mayhem
would be putting it mildly.

She needed the scene secured, needed any potential wits quarantined and interviewed. She needed the dead protected, and the wounded, if any, out of harm's way.

She'd expected another strike, but to have it hit under twenty-four hours from the first . . . A pattern, an agenda. Maybe a fricking mission.

Killers on a mission didn't stop until they'd completed it.

“Peabody, tag Yancy, put a fire under his ass. I need those sketches. Get out of the fucking way! Do you
hear
the sirens?”

She went up, fast, skimmed over a couple of Rapid Cabs that appeared to be playing Chicken on Eighth.

As she'd suspected, when she nipped across Seventh, bulled onto Broadway, mayhem reigned.

A small platoon of uniforms fought to control hundreds. Panicked pedestrians, crazed vehicles, people with cameras and 'links trying to shove in for a better look, shopkeepers, waiters, street thieves—those seeing a bounty of profit in a small window of time.

The noise was amazing.

She stopped the car, flipped up her On Duty light, more to stop some overenthusiastic uniform from having it towed, and pushed clear.

“Commander . . . Sorry.”

She shoved into the melee, leaving Whitney to Peabody, grabbed a megaphone from some hapless uniform. Bellowed into it.

“Get these people
back
. Now! I want the barricades up. Three uniforms to each DB,
now!
You.” She grabbed another uniform by the coat sleeve. “Get this area blocked of any vehicular traffic other than official or emergency vehicles.”

“But, Lieutenant—”

“Screw the buts. Do it. And you—” She grabbed another screen, all but heaved it at another uniform. “Privacy screens for the DBs. Why the hell are they still out in the open? Contain this crowd, do your goddamn job, and do it now. Peabody!”

“Sir!”

“I want fifty uniforms, asap. I need some fucking crowd control. Tag Morris. I want him on scene.”

She snagged a thief by the collar of his oversized overcoat, shook him hard enough to have wallets and bags raining onto the ground. “You motherfucker. Show some respect. Get your ass out of here, or I'll personally see you rotting in a cage for the next twenty.”

Maybe it was panic, or maybe he was pissed his payday got cut short, but he took a swing at her. The move surprised her enough—for God's sake, the place was swarming with cops—he actually glanced his fist off the side of her jaw.

More in fury than pain, she kneed him hard enough in the balls to flatten him, resisted—barely—kicking him for good measure. “Cuff him, haul his ass in. Now, fuck me, now! Are you cops or morons? Get me any and all security feeds on this area.”

She shoved her way toward the body of Officer Kevin Russo, and the clutch of uniforms surrounding it.

“Give me room, move back. Give me his name.”

“Officer Kevin Russo.” Jacobs fought back tears. “I was with him. He's my partner. I—”

“Stay. The rest of you clear this crowd. Secure the goddamn scene. Backup's coming. Officer?”

“Jacobs. Sheridon Jacobs. We'd just come back from lunch break, sir. We were . . .” She took a hard breath, tried to steady herself. “We were moving toward a known street thief, and a woman went down—his mark went down. Hard and fast. I thought she'd fainted or had a medical issue. Then . . . it was a kid next. On an airboard. Kevin rushed
toward him, shouting for people to take cover, to get down. And he went down, sir. I saw the strike take him, in the head. I—I moved to assist, and everything went crazy. I'm sorry, sir, it all went crazy, and I—we—couldn't control it. There weren't enough of us to control it.”

“Which way was he facing?”

“Sir?”

“Pull it together, Jacobs. Which way was your partner facing when he was hit?”

“South, I think, south. It was so fast, Lieutenant, it all happened so fast. People dropping, people running, screaming, knocking each other over, trampling on them, on the bodies. I called for assistance, but it was a stampede.”

“Okay. Stand by.” Eve started to call for her field kit when Peabody pushed it into her hand.

“Dallas,” Peabody said, gesturing.

Looking up, looking out, Eve saw that she was on every jumbo screen, coat flapping in the wind, face grim. The news ticker under her larger-than-life image, along with the dead cop at her feet, on the screen of One Times Square read:

LIEUTENANT EVE DALLAS, ON SCENE AT TIMES SQUARE MASSACRE.

“For fuck's sake, kill that feed. Kill it!”

“I'm dealing with it.” Whitney, his 'link at his ear, stared at the screens. “Do what you need to do. I'm dealing with it.”

“He's ID'd by his partner,” she told Peabody. “COD is pretty damn obvious. Get TOD. Make sure he gets a privacy curtain.”

With her kit in hand, she crouched by the teenager Officer Kevin Russo had tried to shield.

She knew at a glance he was no more than seventeen, and would never see eighteen.

“Victim is mixed-race male, ID'd as Nathaniel Foster Jarvits, age seventeen. Today. Happy goddamn birthday. TOD, thirteen-twenty-one. ME will determine COD, but on-scene observation indicates laser strike, mid-back. Nearly the same hit as Ellissa Wyman.” She paused. “Peabody, call the parents.”

“Dallas, TOD on Officer Russo is thirteen-twenty-one as well.”

Eve looked up, infuriated to see her own face still flashing on all the screens. No more respect than the street thief, she thought, then rose and moved to the next.

She didn't look up at the screens again, didn't rail that she still had to raise her voice to get her findings on record. Quick glances showed her extra uniforms were swarming in, barricades were going up, and arrests were being made—loudly—as some refused to move back or to stop their attempts to record the horror.

She'd worked her way to what Jacobs reported was the first victim when Whitney crouched beside her.

“Feed's killed, but we can't stop the media from playing it on bulletins.”

“I don't care.”

“Your scene is now secured. This victim was with a friend who's been treated for shock, and can be interviewed. The minor was airboarding with five friends. They are all secured for interview. One other victim was unaccompanied at the time of the assault. And we have a survivor.”

Her head whipped up. “A survivor?”

“Female. Office worker, but works downtown, doesn't usually come up around here. The strike hit her mid-body, left side. She'd been transported by medicals, is going into surgery. It's fifty-fifty, best.”

“That's better odds than the other four. He won't like not making five for five. That'll piss him off. Sir, I need her under 24/7 protection—”

“Already done, Lieutenant. I'm a cop, not a moron.”

“Apologies, Commander.”

“No need. You pulled this together as quickly as anyone could.” He
looked back toward the curtained body of their fellow officer. “I don't think his partner's misremembering. Officer Russo gave his life protecting and serving.”

“He may have been the target.” She kept talking even when Whitney's eyes went hard. “Or the fourth vic, the advertising exec on his way to a lunch meeting. Not the kid—at least, it doesn't play right now. The first vic was a tourist. But Officer Russo? He was assigned this beat, he could be expected to be here at this time and place. The exec does work in the area, so maybe. None of the others, Commander. All the others were random hits. It's the cop, that's my lean. The cop who's connected. I'm going to find out why and how. They don't take one of ours and walk away. They don't take some harmless kid on his damn birthday and walk away.”

She pushed to her feet. “Commander Whitney, I need to know everything there is to know about Officer Russo—personally and on the job. Everything. You could help with that. You could push that forward.”

“Consider it pushed.” His face stone, he looked toward the privacy curtain again, toward the uniforms ranged around it like an honor guard. “No, they don't take one of ours, not like this, and walk away.” He, too, got to his feet. “Whatever you need, manpower, OT, it's yours.”

“To start? I don't have time for a media conference.”

“I'll cover you.”

“I need Mira on tap.”

“Done.”

“I could use Nadine Furst—for media spin, for research.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Tread carefully, but do what you feel needs doing. You'd be wise to coordinate with Kyung.”

She nodded, and thought: Not an asshole. “Roarke. If he's available.”

“Without question, and with appreciation from the department.”

“Commander, if I'm on track, and Officer Russo or one of the other
victims is connected to Michaelson—because it damn well has to be Michaelson, someway, somehow—this isn't over. It can't just be two. It's some sort of mission, and their connection will connect with someone else. Someone will know one of the shooters. Someone will recognize them. I need Yancy's sketches four-walled. You can push it out everywhere.”

“Believe me, when we have those faces?” He once again glanced up at the jumbo screens, now unprecedentedly blank. “They'll be everywhere.”

“They might dive into a hole once that happens. But the hole won't be deep enough.” She looked around at the four bodies, curtained now from the gawkers. “I swear it won't be deep enough. Excuse me, sir, Morris is here. I need to speak with him.”

As she walked away, Whitney stepped over to the fallen officer, pulled off the NYPSD lapel pin he wore, and laid it—reverently—on the shielded
body.

Morris's topcoat flapped as he stood over the body of the first victim. He pulled a can of Seal-It out of his own field kit, lifting his gaze to Eve as he coated his ungloved hands.

“I'll take them in order. Do you know if this is how and where she fell?”

“The bodies and the scene have been compromised.” She stopped, shook her head. “Compromised, hell. They're FUBAR. I've called for any and all security feeds so we can reconstruct. The crowd panicked, and some, including at least some of the DBs, were trampled.”

“An attack here?” He pulled gauges out of his kit. “We're lucky it isn't worse.”

At the moment, Eve didn't want to think about worse. “ID'd as Fern Addison, age eighty-six. She was hit first, then the boy—Nathaniel Jarvits, age seventeen; then Officer Russo; then the male, David Chang, age thirty-nine. Another was hit, but survived—so far—she's in surgery.

“Four out of five then,” Morris murmured, kneeling down by the body. “You've done your on-site on her?”

“Yes, all of them. We have TOD on all of them. You can verify.”

“In this case, I will. It's best to be thorough.” He arranged his gauges, engaged his recorder, and began. “Mid-body, deadly force. TOD thirteen-twenty-one. I can tell you more once I have her in my house. From this cursory examination, I'd say she was gone before she hit the ground.”

He signaled to the morgue team. “They can be bagged, tagged, transported as we go.”

Rising, he moved to the second victim. “Seventeen, you said.”

“Yeah, seventeen. Today.”

“Ah, Christ, life can be so cruel. Parents?”

“Yes, and a sibling. He was airboarding with friends, took the strike in the back, and—similar to Ellissa Wyman—the force and his own momentum propelled him forward into a group of pedestrians. Minor injuries, treated or being treated on scene.”

“Mid-back, again from this on-site, similar to Ellissa Wyman.”

Still he verified TOD.

“According to his partner, Officer Russo attempted to shield the boy, shouted for people to take cover. He was struck seconds later—at least according to my TOD results, he died seconds after the boy.”

Once again Morris looked up, looked around. “You've contained this area quickly.”

“Not quickly enough.” She crouched beside him, decided she didn't give a rat's ass about the official record. “They had me and the victims on the goddamn jumbo screens. This kid's mother or father? They may see that replayed before we can notify them. I had to give that to Peabody.”

Understanding, he touched her hand briefly, then rose to go to the fallen officer.

“He's young, too.”

“Twenty-three.”

“Head strike, mid-forehead. Do you suspect the shooter was showing off, as he was with the third victim at the rink?”

“I suspect the shooter knew Officer Russo would be wearing body armor as is procedure. He might have injured Russo with a body shot, but he wouldn't have taken him out. The goal was to take him out. You'll see the fourth victim was another body shot, and my information is the survivor was struck mid-body, but to the left. A few inches right, and she'd be lying here with the other four. She still may come to you.”

“All victims are equal in my house, but . . .” Morris verified TOD.

“You kill a cop, it changes everything,” Eve finished. “This shooter has to know that. There was a choice here, this was deliberate. He targeted a cop—and it may be he targeted this specific cop.”

“Yet didn't stop there, but took another, and sent a fifth to surgery.”

“I think—” She broke off as she heard the shouts, the hysteria. She saw a woman struggling with a pair of uniforms at the barricade, weeping, fighting, screaming a single name over and over.

Nate. Nathaniel Jarvits—the second victim.

“His mother,” Morris said. “Would you like me to—”

“No, I've got it. Finish here, get the victims transported as soon as you can.”

She rose, walked quickly.

Not even wearing a coat, Eve noted. The mother had run out of wherever she'd been in her street clothes.

“Mrs. Jarvits. Mrs. Jarvits! Look at me, look here. I'm Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Nate. Nate. Where's my baby?”

“Mrs. Jarvits, I need you to come with me.” Where the hell was she going to take her in this mess? As she considered her best options, Eve started to take off her coat, but Whitney moved more quickly.

“Mrs. Jarvits.” He wrapped his own coat around her. “I'm Commander Whitney. Come with me now. Coffee shop.” He gestured. “I've had it cleared. I'll take Mrs. Jarvits.”

“Please, where's my son? Is he hurt? I need to see my son. He's Nathaniel Foster Jarvits. He's Nate.”

Whitney wrapped an arm around her, steered her away as Peabody jogged up.

“I couldn't reach her. She must have seen a bulletin. I was able to contact the father, but I couldn't reach her. She works a few blocks away.”

“She just ran,” Eve concluded. “She saw the damn feed and she ran. All right.” She took a breath to settle herself. “We'll take the witnesses in the coffee shop. We'll split them up. Jenkinson, Reineke.”

“On the way. Traffic's insane. ETA ten minutes.”

“Any word on the survivor?”

“Nothing new.”

“Then let's do what we do.” She looked over as Russo's bagged body was lifted onto a gurney for transport. At least a dozen uniforms stopped, stood. Saluted.

Eve did the same. “Whitney's giving a push on Russo. We'll have full data and we'll have it fast. He's priority—and not just because he's one of ours.”

She scanned the faces of cops, then her eyes narrowed as Roarke moved around them, walking toward her. Inside the barricade.

She should've figured he'd beat her own detectives to the scene.

“You didn't need to drop everything and come here.”

“I'm here. Whatever you need from me, you'll have. I'm sorry for your loss.”

Nothing he could have said could have so completely closed her throat. He understood. She hadn't known Russo, but he'd been a cop, doing his best to serve and protect.

He'd died trying to protect.

Roarke shifted, shielding her from the sharpest bite of the wind. He didn't, as he wanted to, put his arms around her.

“The report said four dead, unknown injured.”

“That's accurate. He went for five and one survived—so far. Others were injured in the panic.”

“Whatever you need from me,” he said again.

“If you could . . .” The sleet had turned to a thin, sad snow. As it fell, she took another moment to compose herself. “If you could work that program of yours on this incident. Coordinate with Feeney, or McNab, or both. Any data you can get is going to help. I nailed the first nest this morning using whatever the hell you put together.”

“I'll start right away.”

To her shock, he reached into the pocket of her coat. And he took out the gloves she'd forgotten she'd stuffed in there.

“Put these on. Your hands are cold. Once I have what I need out here,” he continued, “is there a place you want me to work?”

Since he'd pointed it out, she realized her hands
were
cold. Pulling on the gloves, she huffed out a breath that formed a thin cloud, blew away in a snap of wind. “If you can get to my office, you can use that. Or if you need more room, Peabody can get you a conference room.”

“Your office is fine. Otherwise, I'll use the lab in EDD. I know my way around.”

“Yeah, you do. Looks like I owe you again.”

“Not this time.” He took her hand, squeezed it. “You have spare gloves in the dash box if you lose these. Take care of my cop.”

—

I
t took more than two hours to clear the scene, to interview witnesses, to take contact information. She left Jenkinson and Reineke to deal with the dregs. Whitney had already left the scene, to personally notify the fallen officer's next of kin.

For a moment she just sat behind the wheel of her car, ordering her thoughts. Then, with no patience for knotted traffic, maxibuses, or anything else, hit the sirens.

“You'll head up to EDD,” she told Peabody. “See if you can help in any way. The minute we have any target buildings, anything over seventy-five percent probability, I want detectives knocking on doors. Unless they're working hotter than this, they're all out there, working this. Can you coordinate that?”

“Yes, sir. I can take that.”

“I'm going to sit on Yancy. We need those sketches. I need to talk to Nadine, work her into pushing angles we want pushed. I'll work with Morris, but I don't think he or the dead are going to tell us anything we don't know at this point. And with Mira, but same goes.”

She drove fiercely, adding vicious blares of her horn to her sirens when people didn't get the hell out of her way fast enough.

“Here's a puzzle, Peabody. What do a respected OB-GYN and a cop still green under the edges have in common? Besides being dead.”

“Why the cop, Dallas?”

“Because if you're killing for sport, no matter how cocky you are, most will lay off cops. This isn't sport. It's a mission. Because he was the only head shot. We need to find out what connects Michaelson and Russo, and we need to find out fast.”

She pulled into the garage at Central, swung into her slot, braked hard. “Russo had just come back from his lunch break. Five minutes before, five minutes after, he's not in that spot. That's not a coincidence because—”

“Coincidences are bollocks,” Peabody finished. “I got the memo.”

“Fucking A, and according to his partner, they routinely took their break at that time, came back on duty at that time. A routine, Peabody, like Michaelson. None of the other victims had that routine. Only two
out of the eight targeted had a routine, could be counted on to be where they were—that time, that place.”

“Wyman,” Peabody began.

“Was a regular at the rink, but she didn't go on specific days, at specific times, the way Michaelson did. She had a looser routine.”

Eve strode toward the elevator. “They're trying to make it look random, but they can't. Because it's not. We'll find the link, we'll find the goddamn link, and we'll take them down.”

“It's personal now. Don't say it's not,” Peabody insisted. “It's always a little personal, but this is—”

She broke off when the elevator opened. Two uniforms and a couple of detectives stepped out. All four wore black armbands.

The older of the uniforms nodded to them. “Lieutenant, Detective. Anything you need.”

Eve nodded in return, but said nothing as she stepped in, ordered their level.

Because Peabody was right. It was personal now.

—

E
ve split off, headed straight to Yancy's division. More black armbands—it didn't take long for the word to spread. She nearly stopped short when she saw the pretty blond standing with Yancy at his desk. Laurel Esty, she remembered, a key witness in a recent investigation. One who'd worked well with Yancy.

Laurel brushed a hand down Yancy's arm, turned to go. When she saw Eve, she smiled in recognition, then her big eyes sobered.

“Lieutenant Dallas, I'm really sorry about what happened. I just stopped by to . . . Well, I'm just leaving.”

“Okay.”

“Ah, bye, Vince.”

“I'll see you later.” Yancy looked at Eve as Laurel wound her way out. He wasn't a blusher like Trueheart, but if he had been, his handsome face would have reddened all the way to his curly mop of hair.

“Um, she was just . . .”

“Leaving.”

“Right. We were going to try to meet up for drinks, but . . .”

“Drinks?”

“Yeah, we're sort of seeing each other.”

“Not my business.”

“Well, no, but . . . Anyway.”

“I'm a little more interested in the sketches. Your progress there.”

“Right, which is why I canceled the drinks deal. It's taken me longer than I wanted, and Henry was a hell of a good wit—which is partially why. He gets details—and more of them when I asked if Mira would work with us. She does this cognitive memory thing and he struck me as a good candidate.”

After a glance around, he dragged over a second chair from an unoccupied desk. “I wanted to let it sit an hour, go back and refine, but here's what I've got for you.”

She sat, waited while he ordered the sketches on a split screen.

Eve's cop gut did a fast dance. “Jesus, Yancy, these are the next thing to photos.”

“Credit Henry. Seriously.”

She'd credit Henry later, but right now she studied the artist/comp concepts of a white male, early fifties, square-jawed, hard-eyed. Not what she's call a gaunt face, but thin in a way that read illness or loss of appetite to her. Short, not quite military short, medium-brown hair worn in a brushback.

Clean-shaven, tight-lipped, fuller on the top. Eyebrows thick and nearly straight.

She switched to the second sketch.

No more than sixteen, still a little dewy, rounder in the cheeks, softer in the jaw. A mixed-race heritage in the deepness of the eye color, in the soft brown skin tone, in the texture of the hair—black hair in dreads under a ski cap.

But the shape of the eyebrows and jaw—that slightly fuller upper lip . . .

“I lean female,” Yancy said, “but that's just impression. Could be a boy—Henry leaned boy by the end of our session. Boys can have a softness to them at that age. Male, I'd say no more than fourteen. Girl, maybe up to sixteen.”

“They're related.”

“I'm going with you there. Might be father and kid, or he could be an uncle, but there's a familial resemblance. Shape of the jaw, eyebrows, mouth. I've got more—full body on each.”