“Peabody.” She tagged her aide on the run. “Pull up data on Roth and dig. Don’t worry about flags, I want them to wave.”
“Yes, sir. Your consult with Dr. Mira is set for your home office at ten-thirty.”
“I’ll try not to keep her waiting. Pull the data now, make it noisy.”
Eve didn’t expect a brass band welcome when she walked into the One twenty-eighth. What she got was a number of cool stares, muttered asides. One particularly inventive officer oinked.
Rather than ignoring it, she strolled over to his desk, smiled. “You’ve got a lot of talent there, Detective. Do you hire out for parties?”
He curled his lip. “I got nothing to say to you.”
“That’s good, because I don’t have anything to say to you, either.” She kept her eyes on his until he shifted, looked away. Satisfied, she made her way back to Captain Roth’s office.
It was a corner room, one Eve imagined had been hard won, with a pair of windows, a good solid desk, and a thriving vining plant on the sill.
The door was glass, and through it Eve saw Roth surge to her feet when their eyes met. Eve didn’t bother to knock.
“How dare you run my personal file without notification?” Roth began. “You’re over the line, Lieutenant.”
“One of us is.” Eve closed the door at her back. “Why are you worried about what I might find in your personal?”
“I’m not worried. I’m furious. There’s a matter of professional courtesy, which you’ve summarily ignored in some vendetta you have to smear my house. I intend to report your conduct to Commander Whitney and all the way up to The Tower.”
“Your privilege, Captain. Just as it’s mine, as primary on two homicides, to ask you why you concealed the fact from me that you had visited Detective Kohli at Purgatory—a number
of times,” she added when she saw Roth flinch.
“Your information is inaccurate.”
“I don’t think so. We talk about it here, Captain, or at Central. Your choice—as a professional courtesy.”
“If you think I’m going to let you ruin me, you’re mistaken.”
“If you think I’m going to let you hide behind your captain’s bars, you’re mistaken. Where were you on the night Detective Kohli was murdered?”
“I don’t have to answer your insulting questions.”
“You will if I pull you into Interview. And I will.”
“I was nowhere near Purgatory the night Kohli was killed.”
“Prove it.”
“Oh, I hope you rot in hell.” Roth marched around her desk, snapped her privacy screens into place to block the view from the bullpen. “My whereabouts on that night are personal.”
“Nothing’s personal in a murder investigation.”
“I’m a cop, Lieutenant, a good one. Better at the desk than on the street, but a goddamn good cop. My having a drink at a club now and then has nothing to do with Kohli’s death or my position as captain of this squad.”
“Then why did you withhold the information?”
“Because I’m not supposed to drink.” Her color came up, a flag of mortification. “I have a problem with alcohol, and have already been through rehab. But you know that,” she muttered and walked back behind the desk. “I’m not going to have a lapse in my recovery endanger my job. I didn’t know Kohli was moonlighting in Purgatory when I went in the first time. I went back because he was a familiar face. I didn’t mention it because it was irrelevant.”
“You know better than that, Captain.”
“All right, goddamn it, I was protecting myself. Why shouldn’t I?”
They were squared off again, with Roth planted behind the desk. Defending her territory. She’d do whatever it took to hold what she’d worked to win.