“Word travels.” He sighed, long and deep. “I’m going to be knocking on another door tonight, sitting with another widow. Goddamn it.”
He turned away, walked to where Roth waited.
“She’s got no cause slapping at you that way.” McNab said it, from just behind her.
Eve shifted, stared at the scene Peabody meticulously recorded. “That’s cause,” she said.
He didn’t think so but decided to let it go. “Can I help out here?”
“I’ll let you know.” She took a step away, looked back. “McNab?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You’re not always a complete asshole.”
It made him grin, and he slipped his hands into his pockets and wandered over to Roarke. “Hey. You doing a ride-along, too?”
“Apparently.” Roarke had a low-grade urge for a cigarette, which annoyed him. “What’s the story on Captain Roth?” When McNab started to shrug, Roarke smiled. “Ian, no one knows the gossip like an e-detective.”
“You got that right. Okay, maybe we poked around a little when we heard about Kohli, seeing as he was hers. She’s a hard-ass, eighteen years on, got a shit-pot load of busts under her belt, a slew of commendations, and a couple minor reprimands for insubordination. They came early on, though. Moved up the ranks, and took a lot of crap work to do it. Been captain under a year, and word is she’s holding onto it by her fingernails since the Ricker case blew up under her.”
They both glanced back to where Roth and Eve had squared off. “And that,” Roarke said, “makes her touchy.”
“Looks like. Had a little problem with alcohol a few years back. Did voluntary rehab before it became a big one. On her second marriage, and my source says it looks pretty shaky right now. She lives and breathes the job.”
He paused a minute, watching Roth talk to Clooney. “You want my take, she’s territorial and competitive. Probably have to be to wear captain’s bars. Losing two men stings. Having another cop handle the cases is going to eat at her. Especially when it’s a cop with a rep like Dallas.”
“And what would that rep be?”
“She’s the best there is,” McNab said simply. He smiled a little. “Peabody wants to be her when she grows up. Speaking of Peabody, I just wanted to say how that advice you gave me—you know about the romance angle—it’s working pretty good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“She’s still seeing that slick-handed LC though. Burns my ass.”
Roarke glanced down as McNab held out a jumbo pack of wild grape bubble gum. What the hell, he thought, took a cube.
Chewing thoughtfully, they watched their women work.
Eve ignored the onlookers. She could have ordered the scene cleared except for essential personnel, but it felt wrong to do so. The cops were there, a kind of homage to the badge, and to reassure themselves they were alive.
Both were valid reasons to stand by.
“Victim is identified as Mills, Lieutenant Alan, attached to the One two-eight, Illegals Division. Caucasian, age fifty-four.”
Eve recited the data into the record as she gently lifted the chin. “The victim was found by civilian Stein, James, in the passenger seat of his official vehicle, on the break-down lane on the George Washington Bridge, eastbound. Cause of death not yet determined. He’d been drinking, Peabody.”
“Sir?”
“Gin, from the smell of it.”
“I don’t know how you catch it,” Peabody muttered, breathing between her teeth. “With the rest of the stench here.”
With a sealed hand, Eve turned back Mills’s jacket, saw his weapon still holstered. “Doesn’t look like he even went for it. Why wasn’t he driving? It’s his unit. Most cops have to have their hands pried off the wheel before they let somebody else man their ride.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s more than blood and bowels and gin I’m smelling.”
She released the seat belt, then jerked her hands back, an instinctive move, as his guts slithered out, sliding nastily from under his shirt.