are back. We’ve got conference room three.”
“Round them up.”
She set up a board in the conference room, pinning up crime-scene photos, victim photos, copies of scene reports and the time line for the Jacobs murder she’d worked up.
She waited while Baxter did the same for his case, and considered, as she programmed a cup of lousy station-house coffee, how to handle the meeting.
Tact might not be her middle name, but she didn’t like to step on another cop’s toes. Cobb was Baxter’s case. Outranking him didn’t, in her mind, give her the right to tug it away from him.
She leaned a hip on the conference table as a compromise between standing—taking over—and sitting. “You get anything more out of your vic’s sister?”
Baxter shook his head. “Took some time to talk her out of going down to the morgue. No point in her seeing that. She didn’t have anything to add to what she told you. She’s going to her parents’. Trueheart and I offered to go inform them, or at least go with her. She said she wanted to do it herself. That it would be easier on them if she did. She never met this Bobby character. None of the stoop-sitters or neighbors remember seeing the vic with a guy either. They’ve got a cheap d and c unit. Trueheart checked it for transmissions.”
“She—Tina Cobb,” Trueheart began, “sent and received transmissions from an account registered to a Bobby Smith. A quick check indicates the account was opened five weeks ago and closed two days ago. The address listed is bogus. The unit doesn’t store transmission over twenty-four hours. If there were ’link trans, to and from, we’d need EDD to dig them out.”
“Yippee,” Peabody said under her breath and earned a stony stare from Eve.
“You tagging EDD?” Eve asked Baxter.
“Worth a shot. It’s probable he used public ’links, but if they can dig out a transmission or two, we might be able to get some sort of geographic. Get a voice print. Get a sense of him.”
“Agreed.”
“We’re going to talk to her coworkers. See if she gabbed about the guy. But from what her sister says, she was keeping him pretty close. Like a big secret. She was only twenty-two, and her record’s shiny. Not a smudge.”
“She wanted to get married, be a professional mother.” Trueheart flushed as all eyes turned to him. “I talked to the sister about her. It, um, I think you can learn about the killer if you know the victim.”
“He’s my pride and joy,” Baxter said with a big grin.
Eve remembered that Trueheart was barely older than the victim they were discussing. And that he’d nearly become a victim himself only a short time before.
The quick glance she exchanged with Baxter told her he was thinking the same thing. Both let it go.
“The theory is the killer used a romantic involvement to lure her.” She waited until Baxter nodded. “Your case and ours come together through her. She was Samantha Gannon’s maid, and as such had knowledge of the security codes to her residence and knew, intimately, the contents and setup of that residence. She was aware that the owner would be out of town for a two-week period. But she was unaware that there would be a house sitter. Those arrangements were last minute and, as far as we can know, between Jacobs and Gannon.”
“Lieutenant.” Trueheart raised a hand like a student in the classroom. “It’s hard for me to see someone like Tina Cobb betraying security. She worked hard, her employment record’s as clean as the rest of it. There isn’t a single complaint filed against her on the job. She doesn’t seem the type to give out a security code.”
“I gotta go with the kid on this one,” Baxter confirmed. “I don’t see her giving it out willingly.”
“You’ve never been a girl in love,” Peabody said to Baxter. “It can make you stupid. You look at the time line, you see that the break-in and Jacobs’s murder were prior to Cobb’s murder. And, when you
“Round them up.”
She set up a board in the conference room, pinning up crime-scene photos, victim photos, copies of scene reports and the time line for the Jacobs murder she’d worked up.
She waited while Baxter did the same for his case, and considered, as she programmed a cup of lousy station-house coffee, how to handle the meeting.
Tact might not be her middle name, but she didn’t like to step on another cop’s toes. Cobb was Baxter’s case. Outranking him didn’t, in her mind, give her the right to tug it away from him.
She leaned a hip on the conference table as a compromise between standing—taking over—and sitting. “You get anything more out of your vic’s sister?”
Baxter shook his head. “Took some time to talk her out of going down to the morgue. No point in her seeing that. She didn’t have anything to add to what she told you. She’s going to her parents’. Trueheart and I offered to go inform them, or at least go with her. She said she wanted to do it herself. That it would be easier on them if she did. She never met this Bobby character. None of the stoop-sitters or neighbors remember seeing the vic with a guy either. They’ve got a cheap d and c unit. Trueheart checked it for transmissions.”
“She—Tina Cobb,” Trueheart began, “sent and received transmissions from an account registered to a Bobby Smith. A quick check indicates the account was opened five weeks ago and closed two days ago. The address listed is bogus. The unit doesn’t store transmission over twenty-four hours. If there were ’link trans, to and from, we’d need EDD to dig them out.”
“Yippee,” Peabody said under her breath and earned a stony stare from Eve.
“You tagging EDD?” Eve asked Baxter.
“Worth a shot. It’s probable he used public ’links, but if they can dig out a transmission or two, we might be able to get some sort of geographic. Get a voice print. Get a sense of him.”
“Agreed.”
“We’re going to talk to her coworkers. See if she gabbed about the guy. But from what her sister says, she was keeping him pretty close. Like a big secret. She was only twenty-two, and her record’s shiny. Not a smudge.”
“She wanted to get married, be a professional mother.” Trueheart flushed as all eyes turned to him. “I talked to the sister about her. It, um, I think you can learn about the killer if you know the victim.”
“He’s my pride and joy,” Baxter said with a big grin.
Eve remembered that Trueheart was barely older than the victim they were discussing. And that he’d nearly become a victim himself only a short time before.
The quick glance she exchanged with Baxter told her he was thinking the same thing. Both let it go.
“The theory is the killer used a romantic involvement to lure her.” She waited until Baxter nodded. “Your case and ours come together through her. She was Samantha Gannon’s maid, and as such had knowledge of the security codes to her residence and knew, intimately, the contents and setup of that residence. She was aware that the owner would be out of town for a two-week period. But she was unaware that there would be a house sitter. Those arrangements were last minute and, as far as we can know, between Jacobs and Gannon.”
“Lieutenant.” Trueheart raised a hand like a student in the classroom. “It’s hard for me to see someone like Tina Cobb betraying security. She worked hard, her employment record’s as clean as the rest of it. There isn’t a single complaint filed against her on the job. She doesn’t seem the type to give out a security code.”
“I gotta go with the kid on this one,” Baxter confirmed. “I don’t see her giving it out willingly.”
“You’ve never been a girl in love,” Peabody said to Baxter. “It can make you stupid. You look at the time line, you see that the break-in and Jacobs’s murder were prior to Cobb’s murder. And, when you
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