Salvation In Death Part 44

"The trim's original, isn't it? And wow. My brother would pee his pants."

"Gee, Peabody," Eve began, "if you'd like a tour, why-" She broke off, pulled out her communicator. "Dallas."

"She bit," Feeney told her. "McNab's ready to work the lawyer through the response."

"Wait twenty. Let her sweat. Then give it to her. Give it all." She contacted the other members of the team. "Now we wait," she said. "And it won't be long."

The streetlights blinked on. Eve could see their glow against the dim when Baxter beeped her an hour later. "Suspect is approaching from the west, on 95th. On foot. Red s.h.i.+rt, black pants, black handbag. Moving fast. Your location within one minute."

"Copy that. Maintain position. n.o.body moves in until she's inside the building. Come on in," Eve coaxed. "Come on in."

"Dallas, she's at the door. You're a go."

"Hold positions." Come on, b.i.t.c.h, she thought. She saw, from her position, the security light blink from red to green as the locks opened. She waited, holding, as Penny came in, closed the door quickly behind her.

Penny looked toward the stairs as a wild grin spread on her face. And Eve hit the lights.

"Surprise."

"What the f.u.c.k is this?" Penny edged back toward the door."I t's a little party I call You're Under Arrest-for fraud, for falsifying official doc.u.ments, for utilizing forged identification, and practicing said fraud over the Internet. For accessory to murder. Multiple charges on that. And we're just getting started."

"This is bulls.h.i.+t. You're bulls.h.i.+t."

"I f you try to go out that door, you'd be resisting."

"You tried that s.h.i.+t before, didn't you? Got squat." Penny turned, whipped open the door. As Eve moved forward, she whirled back, hacked out with a knife.

I t caught Eve's sleeve, and the tip broke skin. She hacked again, and Eve merely stepped back to evade. "You tried that s.h.i.+t before," Eve reminded Penny.

Behind her, Roarke put a hand on Peabody's shoulder. "No," he told her when Peabody reached for her weapon. "She'll want this one on her own."

"Jesus, you really are that stupid." Eve drew her own weapon. "Knife. Full-power stunner. You be the judge. Drop it, or I drop you. And I 'd love to."

"I don't need a G.o.dd.a.m.n knife to take you down, b.i.t.c.h." Penny tossed it aside where it skidded across the floor. "b.i.t.c.h like you needs a stunner."

"Is that a challenge? I love a challenge. And what the h.e.l.l. Roarke." Barely glancing over, Eve tossed him her weapon. "Try me," she invited.

Hate and excitement merged on her face as Penny charged. Eve felt the blood rush to her heart, her head. The sting of the wound in her arm focused her. She deflected Penny's fist, but gave the woman credit for what had been behind it. She took a kick-a glancing blow on the hip-and felt the quick heat of fingernails as they swiped at her jaw.

Eve maneuvered, evaded, took a blow here, another there. And saw the violent light of pleasure in Penny's eyes.

"You can't fight worth s.h.i.+t," Penny yelled out. "p.u.s.s.y cop."

"Oh. We were fighting? I didn't realize we'd started. Okay then."

And she moved in. A shorthand jab knocked Penny's head back like a ball on a string. A roundhouse kick doubled her over when it plowed into her gut. An uppercut brought her up again. And a right cross took her down.

"That last one?" Eve bent over her as Penny lay unconscious at her feet. "That was for Quinto Turner. Get a wagon," Eve ordered, then gave Roarke the come-ahead sign for her weapon.

"Your nose is bleeding, Lieutenant."

"Yeah. Peabody, do you take note that my nose is bleeding?"

"Yes, sir, and your arm."

"And these injuries were incurred as the suspect attempted to escape arrest and resisted same, thereby a.s.saulting an officer, a.s.saulting said officer with a deadly with intent?"

"All the above."

"Good. Thanks," she added when Roarke handed her a handkerchief.

He reached over, covered her lapel recorder with his hand. "You wanted her to go for you. You played with her, let her get a few in so you'll have the cuts and bruises to prove it. So you could whale in."

"Maybe." She grinned as she stanched her b.l.o.o.d.y nose. "But that's going to be really hard to prove. I 've got to take her in, get her in the box."

"I 'll be coming with you. Might as well see it through. And see that arm's tended to."

Penny called in the same lawyer, screamed police brutality, false imprisonment. Montoya made lawyer noises about suing, even when Eve came in with the wound on her arm raw and fresh, her face bruised, and claw marks at her jaw.

"Let's have a look at this first, just to get it out of the way. Record playback." While the scene inside the duplex ran, with Penny spinning at the door, striking with a knife, Eve spoke. "As we expected to make an arrest, record was on throughout, and record clearly shows the subject attacking me with a knife concealed on her person. Which, in fact, she had done on a previous occasion."

Which, Eve thought, was why I counted on her repeating the performance.

She shut the recording off. "The charges there are a.s.sault with a deadly and with intent to kill a police officer. That's fifty years."

"That's bulls.h.i.+t."

"Oh, tired tune, Penny. Got it on record, got witnesses, got MTS report, got it all. Also, got you cold on the fraud. Our e-trace-duly authorized- nailed your pocket PCC for the receiving of Feinburg's transmission, and the sending to same."

"That's nothing.""Penny," the lawyer began.

"Nothing!" She elbowed Montoya aside. "That was Lino's deal. He set that up. I just followed it through. Why the h.e.l.l not? I just went to the d.a.m.n house to see it. No crime in walking into a house when a freaking lawyer gave me the pa.s.s codes."

"You'd be wrong. You perpetuated fraud. But I might be willing to deal on that, and on the charges stemming from your attack on me, if you can tell me the whereabouts of Miguel Flores, Jose Ortega, and Steven Chavez. We want to close it up."

Eve rose, and made sure Penny saw the irritation cross her face. "My bosses want to close it up, so there's a deal on the big hit for coming at me with a knife, and a deal on the fraud."

"What kind of deal?"

"Let the fraud go down to falsifying doc.u.ments. Deal the intent to kill a police officer down to simple resisting. Couple of years against oh, maybe seventy."

"That's on record."

"Yeah, that's a deal on record. I hope you don't take it. I hope you don't."

"One moment." Montoya leaned in close, whispered in Penny's ear. She jerked that bony shoulder.

"Maybe Lino told me some s.h.i.+t."

Eve dropped back down in the chair as if annoyed, and disappointed. "You've got the G.o.dd.a.m.n deal of a lifetime, thanks to my superiors, Penny.

But some s.h.i.+t has to lead to results, or no deal."

"Okay. I 've got plenty, so eat this." She sneered across the table. "Lino and Steve hooked up with Ortega, figured they'd skin him for some of what the old man left him. Played him awhile, scammed him for a couple hundred thousand. Chavez got him hooked again, so they played him some more. Lino said how he figured they'd just about tapped it, and he's working on getting the deed for our old headquarters out of Ortega. That's the prize-or was-then the idiot ODs. They got a dead guy on their hands, and Lino is p.i.s.sed."

She leaned back in her chair and laughed. "'Til he thinks how to work it. They take him out to the desert, and they bury him. And Lino does his thing with ID. He's got the skills, and he's got a nice, fat pile from the scam, and Ortega's winning in Vegas. He invests, gets a marriage license on record for him and Ortega. Ortega always was a queer anyway, and they've been sharing this big, flashy house out there for close to three months."

Idly, Penny examined her red and black nails. "Backdates the license, pays some guys he knows back in T aos or some s.h.i.+t, back here and all that to say how they knew this Aldo guy, and Ortega. Happily married couple."

She tipped back up, snorted out a laugh. "That Lino, he covered his a.s.s. Mostly. So, he reports Ortega missing. Now he's sitting pretty. Real pretty, 'cause Ortega's got millions back here in property and s.h.i.+t."

"But he has to sit for seven years."

"Got that. He figures he'll sit as this Ken Aldo guy, except he can't come back here with that one-it's just a beard, some hair changes. Anybody who knew him would see it. Then the priest just falls into their lap. Lino said he wasn't going to kill the guy. I t just gave him the idea, you know? He was going to make up another ID, work that, maybe come back here as an indie priest or some s.h.i.+t. But Chavez got mouthy, and the priest started clueing in, and Chavez killed him. Hacked him up bad, Lino said. Lino, he had some religion, you know? Didn't like the idea of killing a priest like that. Bad luck, wrath of G.o.d, or whatever."

"Yeah, I bet he felt bad."

"Bad enough so he killed Chavez. He said he tried to stop Steve from slicing and dicing the priest, and hey, it just happened. Besides, he'd enough of the screwups. He buried them out where he'd buried Ortega."

"Where?"

"You want the where?" Penny's eyes went sly. "I can give you the where but, the charges go away-all the way."

"My client has valuable information," Montoya put in. "She's cooperating. I believe if you want further information, further cooperation, the charges must be dropped. I 'm sure the families of these men want closure."

Eve didn't have to fake the disgusted look. "You tell me where, and the bodies of Miguel Flores, Jose Ortega, and Steven Chavez are recovered, the falsifying docs and resisting go away."

"He said h="3n Ce buried them, all of them about fifty miles south of Vegas, in this place the native guys call Devil's Church because there's this rock formation thing with what looks like a cross on top. He put them in right at the base. He always had that religion thing in him, see? He liked burying them under the cross."

Penny sneered, tipped back in the chair again. "Nice doing business with you, p.u.s.s.y cop."

Eve studied her face. That was the truth, as Penny knew it. "We've got more business. Now we go back, Penny, we come home and go back. Thebombings in 2043."

"That was Lino's deal. And with no charges on record, I 'm free to go. b.i.t.c.h."

"No, b.i.t.c.h, you're not. You had prior knowledge regarding the bombings. You knew he intended to set both those bombs, blaming the first on the Skulls. I t's called accessory."

"I was, like, fifteen, what the h.e.l.l did I know?"

"Enough, according to my witness, to be a part of the planning and execution of the first, and to help plan the second. And push the b.u.t.ton yourself."

"You can't prove that."

"I 've got a witness, willing and able to testify. That wraps you up in six murder charges."

"Bulls.h.i.+t. Bulls.h.i.+t." She slapped at Montoya when he started to speak. "I know how to handle myself here, a.s.shole. I was a minor. So what if I pushed the b.u.t.ton, so the f.u.c.k what? I f there'd been twice as many a.s.sholes blown to h.e.l.l when I did, it doesn't mean d.i.c.k. Clemency Order covers me."

"You'd think, but the PA's just chomping to challenge that, and given the fact you were neither arrested nor charged for that crime before or during the Clemency period, you're fair game."

"What kind of s.h.i.+t is this? I t's bull." She looked to her lawyer. "I t's bull. I was a minor."

"Just don't say anything. Lieutenant," Montoya began, in a tone of outrage, "my client-"

"Not done yet. You'll also find on the menu conspiracy to murder Lino Martinez. She didn't toss the 'link, Penny. And now that she knows your finger was on the b.u.t.ton, she's cooperating fully."

"That b.i.t.c.h Juanita killed Lino." Penny shoved to her feet, stabbing a finger in the air. "I never touched him. I was never in that G.o.dd.a.m.n church.

Juanita Turner did Lino, and she can't pin it on me."

"I never said who she was," Eve commented.

"I don't give a s.h.i.+t what you said. Juanita poisoned Lino, over her kid. You can't pin that on me. I wasn't f.u.c.king there."

"That's why it's called conspiracy to murder."

"I want a deal. I want a deal and I 'll tell you just how she did it. Shut the f.u.c.k up!" she screamed at Montoya when he tried to silence her. "Listen, just listen." She sat back down. "The b.i.t.c.h went psycho when she found out Lino was back, that he'd been back, using the priest cover."

"How'd she find that out?"

"Look, so I let it slip one day, that's all. I let it slip. I t's not a crime. She's the one who did it. She used Old Man Ortiz's funeral for cover, got the keys out of the rectory. She poisoned the wine. She did it because her son got blown to h.e.l.l, and her old man offed himself."

"Thanks for confirming it, on record-which is, again, why it's called conspiracy to murder. There's also accessory after the fact in the matter of the murders of Miguel Flores and Jose Ortega and Steven Chavez."

"What the f.u.c.k! What the f.u.c.k! Why don't you say something?" she demanded of the lawyer.

"I think he's struck dumb."

"We had a deal. On record-"

"For the fraud, for the a.s.sault with intent on a police officer. No deal on the rest." Now it was Eve who tipped back in her chair. "I could afford to let those slide, seeing as you'll be in for, oh, a couple lifetimes. Off-planet, concrete cage, no possibility of parole. And even though those words sing to me, that's not everything you deserve. Detectives."

At her word, Stuben and Kohn came in. "The charges are murder in the first," Stuben began, "in the deaths of ..."

He spoke all the names, all the dead from 2043. When Penny leaped up, Eve simply wrenched her arms behind her back and cuffed her.

"I thought you'd like to take her down, book her," she said to the detectives. "On all the charges."

"I t'd be a nice cap on it. Thanks, Lieutenant. Thanks."

She listened to Penny scream obscenities as they hauled her out. "Record off. This is probably a lot more than you bargained for," she said, casually to the lawyer. "I f I were you? I 'd run."

She turned, walked out. Roarke stepped out of observation.

"Would we be leaving for Nevada tonight?" he asked.

Hardly a wonder she was raving nuts about the man. "Yeah, that'd be best. I 'm going to want to take someone along, if that's okay with you."EPILOGUE THE ROCK CROSS CAST A SHADOW ON SAND STRUCK GOLD BY A vicious sun. That sun bleached the sky white, and forced a breathless heat into the air.

Eve stood under it, under the shadow and the sun.