“No, sir. Yes, sir. I don’t know, exactly.”
“Pull yourself together, Trueheart.” She slapped out the order, watched his head jerk as if he’d felt it physically. “Report.”
“Sir. I had just clocked off shift and was on my way home on foot when a female civilian shouted for assistance from a window. I responded. On the fourth floor of the building in question an individual armed with a bat was assaulting the female. Another individual, male, was unconscious or dead in the hallway, bleeding from the head. I entered the apartment where the assault was taking place, and . . . Lieutenant, I tried to stop him. He was killing her. He turned on me, ignored all warnings and orders to desist. I managed to draw my weapon, to stun. I swear I intended to stun, but he’s dead.”
“Trueheart, look at me. Listen to me. Secure the building, call in the incident through Dispatch and inform them that you’ve reported to me and I’m on my way. I’ll call for medical assistance. You hold the scene, Trueheart. Hold it by the book. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. I should’ve called Dispatch first. I should’ve—”
“You stand, Trueheart. I’m on the way. Peabody,” Eve commanded as she strode out the door.
“Yes, sir. I’m with you.”
There were two black-and-whites, nose-to-nose, and a medi-van humped between them at the curb when Eve pulled up. The neighborhood was the type where people scattered rather than gathered when cops showed up, and as a result there was no more than a smattering of gawkers on the sidewalk who had to be told to stay back.
The two uniforms who flanked the entrance eyed her, then exchanged a look. She was brass, and the one who could well put one of their own rank’s balls in the blender.
She could feel the chill as she approached.
“Cop shouldn’t get hassled
by cops for doing the job,” one of them muttered.
Eve paused in midstride and stared him down.
He saw rank in the form of a long, leanly built woman with eyes of gilded brown that were as flat and expressionless as a snake’s as they met his. Her hair, short and choppy, was nearly the same color and framed a narrow face offset by a wide mouth that was now firmed into one thin line. There was a shallow dent in a chin that looked like it could hold its own against a fist.
Under her stare he felt himself shrink.
“Cop shouldn’t slap at a cop for doing hers,” she said coldly. “You got a problem with me, Officer, wait until I do that job. Then mouth off.”
She moved into the shoe box lobby, punched a finger on the Up button of the single elevator. She was already steaming, but it had little to do with the oppressive heat. “What is it with some uniforms that they want to bite your throat when you’re rank?”
“It’s just nerves, Dallas,” Peabody replied as they stepped onto the elevator. “Most of the uniforms out of Central know Trueheart, and you gotta like him. A uniform terminates on his own like this, Testing’s going to be brutal.”
“Testing’s brutal anyway. The best we can do for him is to keep this clean and ordered. He’s already screwed up by tagging me before he called it in.”
“Is he going to take heat for that? You’re the one who pulled him out of the sidewalk scooper detail and into Central last winter. Internal ought to understand—”
“IAB isn’t big on understanding. So let’s hope it doesn’t go there.” She stepped off the elevator. Studied the scene.
He’d been smart enough, cop enough, she noted with some relief, not to disturb the bodies. Two men lay sprawled in the corridor, one of them facedown in a pool of congealing blood.
The other was faceup, staring with some surprise at the ceiling. Through an open doorway beside the bodies she could hear the sounds of weeping and groaning.
The door across was also open. She noted several fresh holes and dents in the hallway walls, splinters of wallboard, splatters of blood. And what had once been a baseball bat was now a broken club, covered with blood and brain matter.
Straight as a soldier, pale as a ghost, Trueheart stood at the doorway. His eyes still held the glassy edge of shock.
“Lieutenant.”
“Hold it together, Trueheart. Record on, Peabody.” Eve crouched down to examine the two bodies. The bloodied one was big and beefy, the kind of mixed fat and muscle build that could usually plow through walls if annoyed enough. The back of his skull looked like an egg that had been cracked with a brick.
The second body wore only a pair of grayed Jockey shorts. His thin, boney frame showed no wounds, no bruising, no damage. Thin trickles of blood had seeped out of his ears, his nostrils.
“Officer Trueheart, do we have identification on these individuals?”
“Sir. The, um, initial victim has been identified as Ralph Wooster, who resided in apartment 42E. The man I—” He broke off as Eve’s head whipped up, as her eyes drilled into his.