J. Robb - Judgment in Death

"Sit down and tell me."

"I can't sit."

"All right. Just tell me."

"I was in bed. In my room. I had a room. I don't think I always had one-I know I didn't always. But I think there was some money to spare. I think it was Ricker's money. It was dark, and I was listening because he was drinking in the next room, and I was praying he would keep drinking. He was talking to somebody about a deal. I didn't understand. I didn't care. Because as long as he kept talking, kept drinking, he wouldn't come in. It was Ricker. He called him by name."

It was hard. She hadn't expected it to be so hard to say it all, when the image of it was still so brutally clear in her mind. "Ricker was telling him what would happen if he screwed up the deal. Illegals, I think. It doesn't matter. I recognized his voice. I mean, having the flashback, I remembered. I don't know if I'd ever heard it before that night. I don't remember."

"Did you see him? Did he see you?"

"No, but he knew about me. My father said something about me when he was trying to get more money for the deal. So, he knew, and after he left, my father came in. He was mad. Scared and mad. He knocked me around a little, then he told me to pack. We were going to head south, he said. He had money, and I think the illegals, or some of them. I don't remember any more, except it was in New York. I'm sure we were in New York. And I think, I think we ended up in Dallas. After the money ran out, we were in Dallas. There wasn't any more money because we just had that horrible room, and hardly any food, and he didn't have enough to get drunk enough in Dallas. God."

"Eve." He was beside her now, his hands running up and down her arms. "Stay here. Stay with me."

"I am. I will. It spooked me, that's all."

"I know." He gathered her in for a moment. And realized on the heels of the flashback she'd been called to The Tower.

Ambushed.

"I'm sorry." He turned her lips into her hair.

"It's a circle, a circle. Link to link. Ricker to my father, my father to me. Ricker to you. You to me. I don't believe in stuff like that. But here I am."

"They won't touch you through me." He tipped her head back. "They'll never get through me to hurt you."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know, but it's a fact all the same. We'll break the circle. We'll do that together. I'm more inclined to believe in such things as fate."

"Only when your Irish comes out." She managed a smile but moved away. "Could he know about me? Could he have connected me from all those years ago?"

"I can't tell you."

"If he'd tried to track my father, could he have found out who I am? Is it possible to dig up the data on me from before?"

"Eve, you're asking me to speculate-"

"Could you?" she interrupted, facing him again. "If you wanted the information, could you find it?"

She didn't want comfort, he knew, but facts. "Given the time, yes. But I have considerably more to work with than he would."

"But he could? He has the capabilities? Particularly if he'd begun to track my father when he was double-crossed."

"It's possible. I don't believe he'd have wasted his time keeping track of an eight-year-old girl who was sucked into the system."

"But he knew, when I went to see him, that I had been in the system. He knew where I'd been found, and in what condition."

"Because he researched Lieutenant Eve Dallas. Not because he'd been keeping tabs on a young, abused girl."

"Yes, you're probably right. It hardly matters, anyway." She paused by her desk, lifted a small carved box he'd given her for odds and ends. "You could find the data?"

"Yes, I could find it, if that's what you want."

"No." She set the box down again. "It's not what I want. What I want is here. There's nothing back there I need to know. I shouldn't have let it get to me the way it did. I didn't realize it had."

She sighed, and this time she did smile when she turned. "I was too mad at you to think about it. We've got a hell of a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. You might as well come with me for now."

"I thought you wanted to go over the security."

"I do, but back at Central. I only set up this meet here so I could yell at you in private."

"Isn't that odd? I agreed to the meet here so I could yell at you in private."

"Shows how screwed up we are."

"On the contrary." He held out a hand for hers. "I'd say it shows we're incredibly well suited for each other."

– =O=-***-=O=-

As trying to squeeze more than two people into Eve's cramped office violated several laws of physics, she held the briefing in the conference room.

"Time's short," she began when her team was seated. "As the homicide cases and the matter of Max Ricker have dovetailed, we'll be pursuing them both on parallel lines. Lab results, data searches, and probability scans regarding the homicides are in your reports. I haven't requested a warrant but will do so, with an obligatory DNA test, if the suspect refuses to come in on his own volition. Peabody and I will pick him up, quietly, after the briefing."

"Probability's low," Feeney pointed out, frowning at the printout in his file.

"It'll get higher, and his DNA will match that of the fingernail found on the Bayliss crime scene. Due to Sergeant Clooney's years of service to the department, his exemplary record, his emotional state, and the circumstances that built and were built around him, I prefer to bring him in personally, and hope to persuade him to make a full statement. Dr. Mira is on call to counsel him and offer testing."

"The media's going to rock and roll over this."

Eve gave McNab a nod of acknowledgment. "We can and we will spin the media." She'd already decided to contact Nadine Furst. "A veteran officer with a perfect service record whose son-only son-follows in his footsteps. A father's pride. A son's dedication. Because of that dedication, because of that honor to the badge in a squad where a few cops-and let's keep it at a few for public record-are corrupt, the son is targeted."

"Proving that-" Feeney began.

"We don't have to prove it," she interrupted. "It just has to be said to be believed. Ricker," she continued. "He was behind it. I don't question that. Moreover, Clooney didn't. His son was clean, intended to stay clean. He moved up the ranks to detective. He couldn't be bought. He was assigned in the early stages of the Ricker op, I have that from Martinez's notes. Just a peg in the board, but a good cop. A hereditary cop. Put this together," she suggested and rested a hip on the conference table.

"He's straight, he's young, and he's smart. He's ambitious. The Ricker task force is a good break for him, and he's going to make the most of it. He pushes, he digs. Ricker's sources in the squad relay that information. They're nervous. Ricker decides to make an example. One night, the good cop stops off in his neighborhood 24/7. He habitually swung by there on his way home after his shift. A robbery's in progress. Look at the report: That location hasn't been hit before or since, but it was being hit that night, at just the right time. The good cop goes in and is killed. The proprietor makes a frantic emergency call, but it takes a squad car ten full minutes to arrive on-scene. And the med-techs, due to what's reported to be a technical delay, don't arrive for ten more. The kid bleeds to death on the floor. Sacrificed."

She waited a beat, knowing any cop in the room would see it as clearly as she did. "The squad car was manned by two men, and their names were on the list Vernon gave me this morning. Ricker's men. They let him die, one of their own. And the signal was sent: This is what happens if you cross me."

"Okay, it plays," Feeney agreed. "But if Clooney's following the same dots, why didn't he hit the cops in the squad car?"