J. Robb - Treachery in Death

“Here.” Roarke pushed a glass of wine in her hand. “Sip a bit.”

“Oh boy, thanks,” she said as he offered McNab the e-man’s favored beer. Peabody sipped, breathed. “Female, seriously pissed. I started to call out so they’d know I was in there, so they’d take the fight elsewhere, then the other one goes off. Male. I’m in the damn stall with nothing but a towel that wouldn’t cover a teacup poodle, so I sort of squeeze back into the corner, and hope they go away. But they didn’t, and I hear them talking about the operation she runs, how he fucked up and cost them ten K. God.”

“Slow down a little, Dee.” McNab murmured it while he rubbed a hand on her thigh.

“Okay. Yeah. So they keep at each other, and I realize they’re not talking about a police op, but a side one. A long-running one, Dallas. I’ve got a couple of dirty cops right outside the shower door, talking about product and profit, about houses in the islands. And murder.

“I’m naked, and trapped, and my weapon’s in the locker. So’s my’link, and they’re slamming the shower doors open—one I’d’ve been in if there’d been any damn soap in there.”

Roarke stood behind her and, reaching down, laid his hands on her shoulders and began to rub. Taking another breath, she leaned back.

“I’ve been scared before. You’ve got to be scared going into some situations or you’re just stupid. But this . . . When the fight burns out, and they’re back in control, she, like, pats my shower door, and, Jesus, it opens a little. I can see her arm, her dress, her shoes. All she has to do is shift an inch, and I’m made—back in the corner of the stall with nothing.”

Beside her, McNab continued to rub her thigh, but his pretty, narrow face hardened like stone.

“I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t risk it because I know if they see me, I’m dead. No way around it. But they leave, they never saw me. I got out, got McNab to get a cab and meet me so I could come here. So I could tell you.”

“Names?” Eve demanded, and Peabody shuddered out another breath.

“Garnet—she called the male Garnet. He called her Renee. Oberman. Renee Oberman. She was in charge.”

“Renee Oberman and Garnet. Description?”

“I didn’t get any sort of look at him, but she’s blond, between five-four and five-five, I think. She was wearing heels, but that’s about right. Caucasian. Strong voice—at least when she’s pissed.”

“Did they ever use their ranks?”

“No, but she said when she made captain, they were going to expand the business. She referred to it as a business several times. And they used to be lovers.”

“Did you run the names?” she asked McNab.

“Not yet. Peabody was pretty shaken.”

“She had somebody named Keener killed—said she had their boy take care of it, and that it would look like an OD. Keener’s a chemi-head, and one of their tools, contacts. He tried to rabbit on them, with this ten K. Garnet was supposed to have him on a leash, but he slipped. That’s what they were fighting about. They got the ten K, too—she let Garnet know that after she’d raked him down. And she was taking ten percent of his cut as a bonus for the boy, the killer. It was a business meeting.”

“Did you get the impression they used that space often for meetings?”

“No. No, the opposite. She was really peeved he’d yanked her in there, let him know there’d be no more meets there. Six years,” Peabody remembered. “She said she’d been running the business for six years. And the way she talked about ‘the boy,’ it was clear this Keener wasn’t the first kill she’d put him on.”

“Did anyone see you enter or leave that facility?”

“No.” Peabody paused, thought it through. “No, I really don’t think so. It’s like a tomb down there.”

“Okay.”

“Crappy report,” Peabody added. “Sorry. I’m jumbled.”

“You got names, a partial description, details of cops running a sideshow—sounds like illegals—and ordering hits. McNab, peel yourself off Peabody and run those names. Try the Illegals Division out of Central first. You’re going to find Oberman, Lieutenant Renee, there—I know who she is, but pin it. And pin this Garnet.”

“You know her?” Peabody demanded.

“I know who she is, and I know her father’s Oberman, Commander Marcus. Retired.”

“Jesus, Jesus, Saint Oberman? He ran Central before Whitney.” Every last remaining ounce of color drained out of Peabody’s cheeks. “Oh God, what did I step in?”

“Whatever it is, it’s a big, messy pile, so we take this slow and easy, and by the numbers.”

“Garnet, Detective William.” McNab glanced up from his PPC. “Second-grade, assigned the last four years to Illegals, out of Central, under Oberman, Lieutenant Renee.”

“Okay, let’s take this upstairs. McNab, you’re going to get me ID shots and any data on these two you can get without sending up a flag. Peabody, you’re going to give me a full, cohesive, and detailed report, on record. This Keener likely started out as a weasel for either Garnet or Oberman. We find him.”

“What do we do with this?” Peabody asked her.

Eve looked her dead in the eye, her own flat and cool. “We put it together in a very tidy package, and we take it to Whitney and to IAB. Other than that, nobody outside of this room hears a whisper of this until we’re otherwise directed.”

“Commander Oberman. He’s like a legend. Like a god.”

“I don’t care if he’s the second coming of Jesus. The daughter’s dirty. She’s a wrong cop, Peabody, and the blue line breaks for wrong cops. Let’s get started.”

“You haven’t eaten,” Roarke interrupted, smoothing a hand over Peabody’s hair.

“No, guess not.”

“She’ll do better with some food in her,” he said to Eve.

“You’re right.” She buried impatience as she’d buried the raging fury during Peabody’s report. “We’ll get some fuel, then we’ll lay it all out.”

“I got the shakes,” Peabody confessed. “After. They keep wanting to come back, but it’s better. I have to tag my mom, thank her.”

“For what?”

“I dropped my sweaty crap on the locker room floor, and I would’ve left it there if I hadn’t heard her voice in my head telling me to respect what belongs to me. If I’d left that ugly sports bra on the floor, they’d have seen it. They’d have found me. And I wouldn’t be here telling you Saint Oberman’s daughter’s a wrong cop.”

“Thank her in the morning,” Eve ordered. “Let’s get to work.”

Now Roarke draped his arm over Peabody’s shoulders when she rose. “How about a steak?”

“Really?”

He kissed the top of her head, made her flush. “Leave the menu to me. You’re a brave soul, Peabody.”

“My soul was scared shitless.”

He kissed her again. “You don’t want to argue with a man who’s about to fix you a steak.”

In her home office Eve set up a case board while Peabody and McNab ate. Roarke had been right about the food, the wine, the shoulder rub—all of it. He was usually on target about those things.

And it was better to give Peabody a little breathing room before opening the door to what would be an ugly and difficult process.

“She’s attractive,” Roarke commented, studying the ID shot of Oberman on the board.

“Yeah, and she has a rep for using it—and using her father’s rep. Just whispers—nothing said too loud. I ...”

Eve shook her head, then stepped out of the room.

“What?” Roarke asked when he followed her.

She kept her voice down. “If they’d found her, they’d have killed her. No way around it. She was right about that.”

“It must have been brutal, being trapped as she was.”