Purity in Death (3 page)

He'd lost some of that purity today. Some, she knew, he'd never be able to get back. He would suffer for it, more than he should.

And she wasn't being a mommy, she thought, turning her head just enough to scowl at Roarke in the dark.

"Well then." He shifted toward her, sliding his hands unerringly over her breasts. "Since you've all this energy . . ."

"What're you talking about? I'm sleeping here."

"You're not, not with your mind racing around loud enough to wake the dead. Why don't I just give you a hand with all that energy?"

As he pulled her against him, she chuckled. "I've got news for you, ace. That's not your hand."

***

Thirty-six blocks away, Troy Trueheart lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. No one shared his bed to offer comfort or distraction. All he could see, printed on the dark, was the face of the man he'd killed.

He knew he should take a departmentally approved tranq. But he was afraid to sleep. He'd see it all again in his dreams.

Just as he could see it all as he lay awake.

The splatter of blood and bone and worse all over the walls of that dank hallway. Even here in his tidy apartment, he could smell it. The way the heat ripened the stench of blood, of gore. He could hear the screams, the woman's no more than a howl of terror and awful pain. And the man's. Louis K. Cogburn. The man's screams like a wild animal's mad from the hunt. The voices of other tenants shouting out from behind locked doors. Calls booming up into the windows from the street.

And his own heart raging in his chest.

Why hadn't he called for backup? The minute he'd heard the woman calling for help, he should have called for backup.

But he'd rushed inside, thinking only to protect and serve.

He'd shouted back-he had, at least he had shouted as he'd rushed up those stairs for someone to call 911. No one had. He realized that now. No one had or cops would have come long before Lieutenant Dallas.

How could people stand behind locked doors and do nothing while their neighbor was crying for help? He would never understand it.

He'd seen the man in the hallway far beyond anyone's help. He'd seen that, felt his stomach lurch, and the blood roar into his head in a buzzing white noise that was the sound of fear. Yes, he'd been afraid, very afraid. But it was his job to go through the door. The open door, he thought now, go through it and into the screams and the blood and the madness.

What then? What then?

Police! Drop your weapon! Drop the weapon now.

His stunner was in his hand. He'd drawn it on the way up. He was sure of that. The man. Louis K. Cogburn. He had turned, the bloody bat hitched in both hands like a batter at the plate. Tiny eyes, Trueheart thought now. Tiny eyes almost disappearing in a thin face that was red from rage and secondhand blood.

Darker blood, fresher blood leaked from his nose. Just remembered that, he thought. Did it matter?

He'd charged. A madman in Jockey shorts who'd moved like lightning. The bat had come down on his shoulder so fast, so hard. Stumbled back, nearly lost the stunner. Terror, bright as blood.

The man. Louis K. Cogburn. He'd whirled back toward the woman. She was down, dazed, weeping. Helpless. The bat swung up, high. A death blow.

But then he jittered. His eyes-oh God, his eyes-demon red, went wide, jumped inside his skull. His body jolted, jolted like a puppet dancing on string as he ran by. Out in the hall.

He danced, still dancing. Then he fell, sort of folded up and dropped, faceup to stare at the ceiling with those awful red eyes.

Dead. Dead. And I'm standing over him.

I killed a man today.

Trueheart buried his face in his pillow, trying to erase the images that wanted to play in his brain. And he wept for the dead.

***

In the morning, Eve put in a call to Chief Medical Examiner Morris and tried not to sound too snarly when she was forced to leave a message on his voice mail. If necessary, she'd make time to go down to the morgue and speak with him personally.

In fact, that was just what she was going to do-and get another look at Cogburn's body.

As much at it irked, she put a call into Don Webster in Internal Affairs. This time she didn't bother to play down the annoyance when she was transferred to voice mail.

"The Rat Squad's got some cushy hours. Us real cops are already on duty. Give me a call, Webster, when you toddle in for your day of riding the desk and sniffing up dirt on fellow officers."

Probably not smart to annoy him, she thought as she broke transmission. Then again, if she tried to sweet-talk Webster, he'd know she was up to something.

"Lieutenant." Cap in hand, Trueheart stood in her doorway. "You sent for me."

"That's right, Trueheart. Come in. Close the door."

She wasn't crossing any lines by calling him to her office prior to Testing. She was primary on the case.

That was her story, she thought, and she was sticking to it.

"Sit down, Trueheart."

He looked every bit as pale and hollow-eyed as she'd expected. Somehow he managed to stay at attention even seated. She programmed her AutoChef for two coffees, black, whether he wanted one or not.

"Rough night?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're going to have a rougher day. Testing's no walk on the beach."

"No, sir. I've heard."

"You better be up for it. Look at me when I speak to you, Officer." She snapped it out, watched his head come up and his weary eyes focus. "You put on the uniform, you pick up the badge, you holster the weapon and you take on everything that means. Was your termination of Louis K. Cogburn justifiable?"

"I don't-"

"Yes or no. There's no middle here, no qualifications. Your gut, Trueheart. Was the deployment of your weapon necessary?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you walked into the same situation today, would you again deploy your weapon?"

He shuddered, but he nodded. "Yes, sir."

"That's the core of it." She passed him the coffee. "You hold on to the core of it, you'll get through the rest. Don't try to out-think Testing. You haven't got the brass for it yet. Answer correctly, answer truthfully. And however they twist the question of justification, you deployed your weapon justifiably, to preserve the life of a civilian and your own."

"Yes, sir."

"Jesus, Trueheart, you're an agreeable bastard. At what distance were you from the subject when you deployed?"

"I think-"

"Don't think. How far?"

"Six feet, maybe five and a half."

"How many jolts did you give him?"

"Two."

"Did your weapon, at any time during the altercation, come in direct contact with the subject?"

"Contact?" He looked baffled for a moment. "Oh, no, sir. I was down and he was moving away when I deployed. Then he turned, moving toward me when I deployed the second time."

"What did you do with the drop piece?"

"The . . ." Pure shock jolted over his face. She watched it turn pink with what could only be indignation. "Sir, I had no secondary weapon, nor do I own one. I had only the street stunner, which I'm authorized to carry and which you took into evidence at the scene. Sir, I resent-"

"Save it." She leaned back. "If they don't ask you that question in Testing, I'll be surprised. You can bet your ass IAB will ask it. And they'll push. So save the moral outrage for them. Don't you drink coffee, Trueheart?"

"Yes, sir." He looked miserably into the cup, then lifted it, sipped. His breath sucked in. "This isn't coffee."

"Yeah, it is. It's
real
coffee. Got a lot more going for it than that veggie crap, doesn't it? You could use the extra kick today. Listen to me, Troy. You're a good cop and with some seasoning you'll be a better one. Terminations aren't supposed to be easy. We shouldn't be able to shrug off the taking of any life like it was nothing or we skirt too close to being what we're here to put away."

"I wish . . . I wish there'd been another way."

"There wasn't, and don't forget that. It's okay to be sorry, even a little guilty. But it's not okay to feel anything less than absolutely confident that you did what had to be done given the circumstances. You let them see you're not sure, and they'll rip you up like a leopard does a gazelle."

"I had to do it." He held the coffee tight in both hands as if he were afraid it would jump out of his grip. "Lieutenant, I played it in my head a hundred different ways last night. I couldn't have done anything else. He'd have killed that woman. He'd probably have killed me and anyone else who got in the way. But I made mistakes. I should've called for backup before entering the building. I should have called it in to Dispatch instead of tagging you."

"Yeah, those are mistakes." She nodded, pleased he'd thought it through, picked it apart. "Neither of which would have changed the termination. But they were mistakes that may cost you a little shine. Why didn't you call for backup?"

"I reacted. The woman appeared to be in immediate jeopardy. I did shout orders for someone to call nine-eleven once I was inside, but I should have done so personally. If I'd been unsuccessful in stopping the perpetrator, had no backup en route, more lives could have been lost."

"Good. Lesson learned. Why did you call me instead of Dispatch?"

"I was . . . Lieutenant, I wasn't thinking straight. I realized both men were dead, that I had terminated the assailant, and I-"

"You were disoriented from the blows you received," she said briskly. "You had some concerns that you might lose consciousness. Your immediate thought was to report the homicide and the termination, and you did so by contacting the Homicide lieutenant you have worked with in the past. Are you getting this, Trueheart?"

"Yes, sir."

"You were in physical and mental distress. The lieutenant, to whom you relayed your situation, ordered you to secure the scene and stand until her arrival. You did so."

"It wasn't procedure."

"No, but it'll hold. Be sure you do. I didn't bring you in off sidewalk detail to watch you wash out."

"I'll get mandatory thirty-day suspension."

"Possibly. Probably."

"I can take it. I don't want to lose my badge."

"You're not going to lose your badge. Report to Testing, Officer Trueheart." She got to her feet. "And show them what you're made of."

***

She put in another nagging call to Morris, then decided to swing into EDD before she nabbed Peabody and headed to the morgue.

EDD always baffled her. How anybody got anything done when they were all pacing around talking on headsets or burrowed in cubes arguing with computers was beyond her.

And they rarely dressed like cops. McNab, the skinny fashion plate who was currently engaged in activities on and off shift with Peabody that Eve didn't like to think about, might have been the most outrageous of the bunch. But he didn't win by much.

She retreated as quickly as possible into Feeney's dull, workingman's office.

His door was open. He rarely shut it, even when he was, as now, scouring a subordinate over some screw-up.

"You think the units in here are for your amusement and entertainment, Halloway? You figure you can kick back and play a little Space Crusader on the taxpayers' nickel?"

"No, sir, Captain, I wasn't-"

"This department isn't your frigging toy box."

"Captain, it was my lunch break and-"

"You got time for lunch?" Feeney's basset hound face registered shock, amazement, and a secret joy. "Well, that's fascinating, Halloway. I can promise you for the next little while lunch breaks are going to be a fond, fond memory. You may not have noticed, since you've been so busy saving the virtual universe while you tuck into a sandwich, but we're jammed in here. Crime's soaring like the temps out there, and we, being duly sworn servants of the law, have to buckle our asses in and save the city before we move on to space and goddamn alien invaders. I want a report on the Dubreck hacker on my desk in thirty."

Halloway seemed to shrink inside his lime green jumpsuit. "Yes, sir."

"When you're done with that you hook up with Silby on the 'links from the Stewart break-in. And when you're done with that, I'll let you know. Scram."

Halloway scrammed, flicking one mortified glance at Eve as he scrambled out and back toward his cube.

"Does the heart good," Feeney said with a sigh, "to peel the skin off a skinny butt in the morning. What's up with you?"

"What was his score on Crusader?"

"Got up to fifty-six mil on Commando level." Feeney sniffed. "Damn near nipped my record and that's been standing for three years, four months, and twenty-two days. Little putz."

She strolled in, sat on the corner of his desk, and copped a handful of the candied almonds he kept in a bowl. "You hear about Trueheart?"

"No. Been buried." His baggy face creased with concern. "What?"

She told him, leaving out nothing as they both munched on nuts. Feeney dragged a hand through his explosion of ginger hair. "Gonna be tough on him."

"Builds fucking character," she muttered. "He's giving it to me straight, Feeney. Kid would sooner swallow a live rat than lie to me. But it doesn't hold up. I brought Cogburn's data and communication center in. I was hoping you could bump it up to priority. Look, I know you're swamped," she added before he could speak. "But I want all the ammunition I can get for this. And there's something on there. I know there is. This Purity business smells bad."

"Can't give you McNab. Already got him juggling. Halloway," he said and brightened. "I just don't think that boy has enough to do. I'll put him on it. A little overtime should be good for him."

"And help protect your high score."

"Goes without saying." But the humor on his face faded quickly. "IAB's going to take some hard shoves at that kid."

"I know it. I'm going to see if I can deflect a few of them." She pushed off the desk. "I'm going to go harass Morris. If my hunch holds up, Trueheart's off the sharpest hook."

Chapter 3

When Eve swung back into Homicide to snap up Peabody, several of the detectives in the bullpen sent meaningful looks her way.

"Rat in the hole," Baxter commented as he walked past her, and jerked his head toward her office.

"Thanks." She hooked her thumbs in the front pockets of her trousers and headed into her office.

Lieutenant Don Webster sat in her single spare chair, his polished shoes kicked up on her cluttered desk. He was drinking her coffee.

"Hey, Dallas. Been a little while."

"But somehow never long enough." She knocked his feet off her desk. "Is that my coffee in that mug?"

He took a long sip, let out a happy sigh. "It must be nice, being able to call up the real thing whenever you're in the mood. How is Roarke these days?"

"Is this a social call? Because I don't have time to chat. I'm on duty."

"Not social, but it could be friendly." He moved his shoulders when her expression stayed set and stony. "Or not. Gotta say though, you're looking just swell."

She reached behind her, shut the door. "You'd have gotten the report of the incident occurring yesterday between nineteen hundred and nineteen-thirty involving a uniformed officer assigned to Central who, while off-duty, responded to-"

"Dallas." Webster held up a hand. "I got the report. I know the incident. I know Officer Troy Trueheart-hell of a name, huh-is in Testing at this time. Internal Affairs will interview the subject and investigate the termination after the results of said Testing are evaluated."

"He's twenty-two years old. He's still green but he's solid. I'm asking you to go easy on him."

Irritation settled over his face. Toughened it. "You think I get up in the morning thinking about how many cops I can destroy that day?"

"I don't know what you or the rest of your pack think about." She started to order coffee for herself, then spun around. "I thought you were coming back. I thought you'd decided to be a cop again."

"I am a goddamn cop."

"After all that dirt came out from inside IAB-"

"That's why I stayed in." He said it quietly, and cut off her tirade. "I thought about it." He pushed a hand through his wavy brown hair. "I thought about it long and hard. I believe in the Bureau, Dallas."

"How? Why?"

"Checks and balances. We need checks and balances. When there's power there's corruption. They go hand-in-hand. A wrong cop's got no right to a badge. But he deserves having another cop see it's taken from him."

"I've got no use for dirty cops." Annoyed with the world in general, she took the coffee mug from him and drank. "Damn it, Webster, you were good on the street."

It gave him a quick zip to hear her say it. To know she meant it. "I'm good in the Bureau. I think I make a difference."

"By hammering at a rookie like Trueheart because he did what he had to do to protect a civilian and himself?"

"You know, the first thing I did when I went back into IAB was move out all the racks, thumbscrews, and other torture devices. I read the report, Dallas. It's clear there was immediate jeopardy. But there are holes, and there are questions. You know it."

"I'm looking into it. Let me clear it up."

"You know. I'd love to do you a favor, just so you'd owe me one. But he has to be interviewed, he has to make a statement. He can have his rep there. He can have you there. Jesus, Dallas, we're not looking to fuck this kid over. But when a uniform terminates using his weapon it has to be reviewed."

"He's clean, Webster. He's goddamn spanking clean."

"Then he's got nothing to worry about. I'll take it personally if that means anything to you."

"I guess it does."

"You tell Roarke you were tagging me for this? Or is he going to get riled up so I have to kick his ass again?"

"Oh, is that what you were doing when you had to be carried out of the room unconscious?"

"I like to remember it that I was just getting my second wind."

Webster rubbed a hand over his jaw. He could still remember what Roarke's fist had felt like plowing into it. Like a well-aimed brick.

"Whatever works for you. And I don't report to Roarke."

"You go on thinking that." He took the coffee back from her, finished it off. "You're so married I see little lovebirds circling over your head."

It mortified, right down to her toes. "Roarke's not the only one who can knock you unconscious."

"I really like the look of you." He grinned when her eyes narrowed. "Just looking," he assured her. "No touching. Learned my lesson there. You can trust me to keep it clean, personally and professionally. That good enough for you?"

"If it wasn't, I wouldn't have called you."

"Check. I'll be in touch." He opened the door, glanced back. He really did like the look of her-lean and tough and sexy. "Thanks for the coffee."

Alone, she shook her head. She could hear the noise level drop into silence from the bullpen as Webster walked through it. He'd chosen a very hard road, she thought. A badge who policed other badges was regarded with suspicion, derision, and fear.

A slippery line to walk. She supposed, all in all, she liked him well enough to hope he kept his balance.

She checked her wrist unit, judged how much longer Trueheart would be in Testing. More than enough time, she thought, for her to browbeat Morris for results on Cogburn.

***

They were stacked and racked and packed in the morgue. Rarely in eleven years on the job had Eve seen so many corpses in one place at one time.

A trio of the bagged and tagged were laid out on gurneys and shoved against the wall outside of one of the autopsy suites.

Take a number, she thought. Too late to be protected, but you'll be served eventually.

As Eve strode down the bright white corridor of the dead, Peabody hustled beside her.

"Man, this place is always a little spooky, but this is beyond. You know how you half expect one of these bags to sit up and grab at you?"

"No. Wait out here. If one of them makes a run for it, give me a call."

"I don't think that's particularly funny." And watching the still black bags warily, Peabody took her post at the door.

Inside Morris was busy at work, a laser scalpel mid-way through the Y cut on one of the six bodies splayed out on tables.

He wore goggles over his pleasant face, a plastic hood over his long, dark braided hair, and a clear protective coat over a natty navy blue suit.

"What's the point in having voice mail if you don't talk to it?" Eve demanded.

"A lot of unexpected company dropped in this morning, due to an airtram collision. Didn't you catch the report? Bodies dropping out of the sky like flying monkeys."

"If they could fly they wouldn't be bagged and tagged. How many?"

"Twelve dead, six injured. Some jerk in an airmini rammed it. Tram pilot managed to hold the controls most of the way down, but people panicked. Add to that the knife fight at a club that took both participants and one bystander, the Jane Doe female found stuffed in a recycler, and your everyday bashings, bludgeonings, and brutalities and we've got ourselves a full house."

"I've got a police termination with some questions. Rookie uniform stuns crazy guy, crazy guy dies. No sign of stunner contact on vic. Stunner confiscated from officer was set on low."

"Then it didn't kill him."

"He's dead as the rest of your guests."

Morris completed his Y cut. "Only way a noncontact zap with a uniform stunner would take out a man, crazy or not, would be if said potential crazy man had a respiratory or neurological condition of such seriousness that the electronic jolt acerbated it and led to termination."

It was exactly what she'd wanted to hear. "If that's the case, it's not actually a termination by maximum force."

"Technically, no. However-"

"Technically will do. Be a pal, Morris, take a look at him. It's Trueheart."

Morris looked up and shoved the goggles up. "The kid with the peach fuzz on his face that looks like a screen ad for toothpaste?"

"That's the one. He's in Testing. IAB's next. And something doesn't hang about the way this went down. He could use a break."

"Let me look him up."

"He's over there. Number four in line." She jerked a thumb.

"Let me pull the report up."

"I can-"

"Let me read it" Morris cut her off with a wave of the hand and moved over to the data center. "Name of crazy dead guy?"

"Cogburn, Louis K."

Morris called up the field report As he read, he hummed to himself. It was some catchy little tune, vaguely familiar to her. And it started playing around in her head in a way that told her it would be stuck there for hours.

"Illegals dealer," Morris began. "Could've been over-sampling, heart or neurological damage possible. Bleeding from ears, nose, broken blood vessels in the eyes. Hmm."

He moved to the table where Louie K. was laid out, skinny and naked. He refit the goggles, lowered his face so close to Louie's it looked as though he was about to kiss the dead.

"Record on," he said and began to dictate preliminary data, visual findings.

"Well, let's open him up, see what we see. You going to hang for this?"

"Yeah, if it's quick."

"One doesn't rush genius, Dallas." He picked up a skull saw, set it to whirl.

Eve often wondered why anyone chose this particular line of work, or how they could be so cheerful when going about it. At least the air in the room was cool, she thought and wandered over to study the offerings of the little fridgie. She settled for a tube of ginger ale before walking back to Morris.

"What do you-"

"Ssh!"

She scowled, but subsided. Morris was usually chatty when he worked. In this case he went about the job in silence, referring to the inside of Cogburn's skull, to the computer imagery on the screen beside the table.

She studied it herself, but saw nothing but shapes and colors.

"You do a medical search on this guy?"

"Yeah. He hasn't been in for any sort of work or check in a couple of years. Nothing popped."

"Oh yeah, something popped. His brain, and no standard stunner did this damage. No tumor that I can see. No clotting. If it was an embolism there should be . . . What we've got is severe intercranial pressure. His brain's massively swollen."

"Preexisting?"

"I can't tell, not yet. This is going to take time. Fascinating. Pop's just what this brain did. Like an over-inflated balloon. I can tell you that in my opinion this wasn't done by any weapon. It's internal."

"Medical then."

"I'm not going to confirm that. I'm going to run some tests." He shooed her away. "I'll contact you when I have something solid."

"Give me something."

"I can tell you it appears this guy's brain was in serious condition, an ongoing condition prior to any act by your officer last evening. What happened here didn't happen as a result of a stun. It didn't happen if he'd stuck a police issue laser in the guy's ear and blasted away. I can't say if the stun caused some sort of chain reaction that led to early termination. But from the looks of this brain, this guy would've been dead within an hour. I'll let you know when I figure out how and why. Now go and let me work."

***

Eve bypassed the seal on Cogburn's apartment. The stench, the stale, trapped heat punched like a dirty fist when she opened the door.

"God. That's foul."

"Oh yeah." Peabody turned her head, sucked in what she imagined was her last easy breath, then followed Eve inside.

"Go ahead and open the window while we're in here. It's got to be better than working in a closed box."

"What are we looking for?"

"Morris's prelim is leaning toward preexisting condition. We may find something in here to verify that, to indicate he was self-medicating. The place looks like he was off, sick. That's what struck me from the first. He's a creep, but a tidy, organized creep. Keeps his nest neat ordinarily. But the last several days, he's falling down on the domestic front. Keeping up with his business though. You're sick, you're hot, you're irritable. Neighbor hassles you, you crack. Makes better sense."

"But, well, it doesn't really matter why Cogburn had batting practice on his neighbor."

"It always matters why," Eve answered. "Ralph Wooster's dead, and Cogburn's paid for it. But it matters why."

She opened drawers she'd opened and searched the day before. "Maybe he had a hard-on for Wooster all along. Maybe he wanted to shag Ralph's woman, or owed him money. And now he's feeling like shit and old Ralph's hammering on his door and yelling at him."

She crouched down, shined a penlight deep into the recesses of a cupboard. "Point is, something made him snap, go postal. Could be his brain was frying. Morris said he was a dead man."

"Even so, Trueheart's in Testing." Peabody glanced at her wrist unit. "Or just coming out of it. He'll have to face IAB whether or not Cogburn had a preexisting."

"Yeah, but he'll feel better if it comes out he gave the guy the standard and acceptable stuns, and a preexisting was the root or cause of death. We get him that, he won't get the mandatory thirty-day vacation."

She stayed crouched, frowning into space. "Anyway, I don't like how it feels. Just don't like it."

"What's that song you're humming?"

Eve stopped, cursed herself, straightened. "I don't know. Damn Morris. Let's knock on doors."

***

It was amazing how many people lost their sense of hearing or their ability to communicate in coherent sentences when a badge was involved.

More than half the doors Eve knocked on remained firmly shut, and whatever sounds emitting from inside were stifled instantly. The doors that opened revealed people no more helpful, with responses that ranged from
I dunno
to
I didn't hear nothing from nobody.

On the first floor, in apartment 11F, Eve's dwindling patience was rewarded.

The blonde was young and looked half asleep. She wore a tiny pair of white panties and a thin tank. She yawned hugely in Eve's face, then blinked at the badge when it was shoved in front of her.