J. Robb - Purity in Death

"I'll tell you how it plays, Franco. Donald Dukes couldn't or wouldn't accept his son's sexual orientation-"

"Oh my God, oh my God." Franco pressed her fingers to her temples, seemed to try to drill them through. "You start saying that child was gay, you'll be in a lawsuit, and so will the department, probably the city before I can push you out of the nearest twenty-story window."

"Not if I push you first. In any case, evidence indicates he was gay, or certainly confused about his own sexuality. He never got the chance to make up his mind. His father is rigid, domineering. The kind of guy who's just not going to be wrong. He destroys evidence that may have helped make the case against Cogburn, but it's the system's fault. He edits and changes the facts in the Fitzhugh matter so the case falls apart, and again, it's the system's fault. Now he's found an outlet for his aggressions and his viewpoint: Purity."

"You have proof of all this?"

"Of some. I'll get the rest."

"Dallas, if I'm having a hard time believing any of this, no one else will believe it. In addition, you're speaking of facts and suppositions that were in a sealed. An official and public reprimand from your commander may not be enough to stop legal action, or the media storm."

"If and when my commander deems it necessary to reprimand me, that's his right and that's my problem. The media storm's yours and Chang's. Dukes can start all the legal actions he wants. They're not going to go anywhere once I put him in a cage. Are we done here?"

"You'd better be very sure of yourself," Franco warned.

"I'm sure of the job, and that's the same thing."

Eve walked out. As she started back downstairs, she heard the clear, strong voice of a tenor singing the opening bars ofDanny Boy.

Cops were always singingDanny Boy at funerals, she thought. She'd never known just why.

"Lieutenant." Roarke met her at the base of the stairs.

"I need some air," was all she said, and strode out the door.

A double-parked delivery van had tied up traffic for what appeared to be a good six blocks. The resulting noise from blasting horns and hurled obscenities turned the air into one long scream of rage.

A glide-cart operator had overcooked and oversauced his kabobs. The stink of the greasy smoke was amazing.

Eve preferred the noise and stench to the murmurs and flowers inside.

She strode straight through the nauseating odor and dug out credits. "Gimme chocolate," she ordered the operator.

"Got sticks. Many ya want?"

"Six."

"Got yer fruitade, got yer Pepsi, got yer Coke, got yer fizzy water. Whatcha want?"

"Just the chocolate."

She tossed him the money, snagged the skinny sticks out of his hand. She bit fiercely into the first. They were already melting in the vicious fist of the heat.

Roarke bought a large water and grabbed a small mountain of napkins. "Hand one over. You'll be sick if you eat them all."

"I'm already sick." But she proved her depthless love by giving him one. "Peachtree gives me the thirty-second lecture on teamwork, ending in the warm,we're both just public servants arm squeeze. Then Chang and Franco jump on my ass about the statement I gave 75 this morning. Not screened, not approved. Let's not confuse the public with the truth. I'm a cop, not a public relations puppet."

"Which I'm sure you pointed out."

"Yeah." She smiled grimly, ate more chocolate. "There was that. Franco doesn't seem to be an idiot, especially for a politician. But she-and all of them-sure seem to be more interested in perception, in image, in spins than in the investigation."

"They wouldn't understand the investigation the way they would perception, image, and spin."

He drank water to wash down what was laughingly called chocolate by the city vendors, then dampened a napkin to get the smear of it off his fingers.

"And they wouldn't understand you and the fact that you care less about media exposure than you do what shirt you put on in the morning," he added, two-pointing the napkin into a recycler. "Which is not at all."

Eve looked down at her shirt. It was white, she thought. It was clean. What else did you need to worry about?

"We'd all be better off if they did what they did, and left me alone to do what I do. I've got suspects, damn it. Price, Dwier, and now the Dukeses. I crack any one of them, and this breaks open."

She started on the third stick. "Dukes called a lawyer. Jumped right on that. Whining harassment, making lawsuit noises that've put Franco and company into orbit."

"Was that unexpected?"

"No, I expected it. I guess I hoped it would hold line until after the memorial." She glanced back at the bereavement center. A few cops were heading out. Back to duty, she thought. Life didn't always go on, but the job did.

"He's in it, Roarke. Dukes. Slides into the profile like it was a tailor-made suit. You know how you handled Jamie this morning, what I said about knocking him back, grinding him into dust, then building him up again? Dukes wouldn't trouble himself with the last part of that cycle. My impression is he made his kid's life a small, personal hell. I'm going to bring him down, and the rest of them with him."

She looked up, picked out the window of the room where she'd sat with Colleen Halloway. "I'm going to stop them. I need you to get me as much data and background on Donald Dukes as you can-within legal bounds."

"If you want it within legal bounds, why ask me instead of Feeney or McNab?"

"Because I may be ordered to back off the Dukes, and if I am I can't ask them. So I'm asking you in case it plays that way. Seems to me a guy with all your companies would always be on the lookout for a good computer scientist. You'd do a background check, employment check, and so on before you considered hiring anyone on, right?"

"I certainly would. And I might casually mention some of that information to my wife." He stroked a finger down her chin. "That's very clever, Lieutenant."

"I want him in a box, and to get him there, I need all the angles. I'm going to have another talk with Clarissa Price this afternoon. She's not going to be happy to see me. Then I may bounce on to Dwier."

She looked down at her hand. The remaining stick was now a blob, and a dead loss. "Well, yuck."

She dumped it in a recycler, cleaned her fingers with the water and napkins Roarke provided.

"Hey, lady!" A man stuck his head out of his car window and shouted at her over the horns. "Why don't you blast that asshole up there, give the resta us a fricking break?"

"Your weapon's showing," Roarke told her, and she hitched the thin black jacket back over it.

A quick scan and she spotted a couple of uniforms coming out of the center. "Yo!" She held up her badge. "Roust that delivery jerk up there. He doesn't move along in one, slap him a ticket."

"You a fricking cop?" the man shouted.

"No, I just like carrying a fricking badge and a blaster. Lay off the horn." She turned back to Roarke, caught him grinning at her. "What?"

"You've got chocolate on your fricking badge, Lieutenant."

"Damn it." She'd nearly wiped it on her trousers before he snatched it out of her hand, used the last of the napkins. "Lift up your chin," he ordered.

"What? Is it on my face?"

"No." He leaned in-the perfect angle-and kissed her. "I just wanted to do that."

"Smart guy. Give me back my shield."

"It's back in your pocket."

She checked, shook her head. "Go use those fast fingers of yours to get me some data. I'm going to go grab Peabody and head to Child Services."

"I'll just see if McNab's ready to go."

"You brought them in the limo, didn't you?" she asked as they walked back.

"Yes, why?"

"You're spoiling my team." She turned toward the door just as Whitney came out.