Treachery in Death by J. D. Robb Page B

elbow-to-elbow under swirling lights. Upstairs in the privacy rooms people—many who’d just met—would be humping away at each other like crazed rabbits.
    “I could ask Crack to put on a couple virtual strippers, but I think what we’ve got for you is entertaining enough.”
    “It better be. How’s it going, Peabody?”
    “I guess we’re going to find out.”
    “We’re here with the commander’s full knowledge and authorization, and with his directive that, at this time, the information we’re about to give you isn’t reported to anyone else.”
    “We’re not lone wolves in IAB, Dallas.”
    She figured he had a recorder running. And also figured if he didn’t agree to terms, she’d give him nothing to record.
    “Yeah, I get that Bureau is short for bureaucracy, but that’s the directive.”
    “My captain—”
    “Is not to be apprised at this time.”
    He sat back, a good-looking man with cop’s eyes even, Eve thought, if he’d traded the streets for internal sniffing. He’d thought he’d loved her once, which had been an embarrassing and ... fraught situation.
    But at the moment he studied her with cold impatience.
    “Even the commander can’t dictate IAB procedure.”
    “You don’t want to play, Webster, I’ll find somebody who does. There are reasons,” she added, leaning forward. “And if you’d yank the red tape out of your ass, agree, and listen, you’d understand the directive.”
    “Try this. I’ll agree, and I’ll listen. Then I’ll make the determination as to whether that directive holds.”
    She sat back.
    “Dallas, maybe we should just wait until—”
    Eve cut Peabody off with a shake of the head. Sometimes, she decided, you had to trust.
    Besides, if push met shove, she’d get the recorder off him.
    “I’m going to sum it up for you. I have a copy of the record of my partner’s statement, and will have copies of all data pertinent to the homicide which relates. You’ll get those records, Webster, when and if you give your word to adhere to Whitney’s directive. To begin,” she said, and laid it out.
    She took him through it dispassionately, watching his reactions. He played a decent hand of poker, she remembered, but she recognized his shock, the calculation.
    His gaze tracked to Peabody and back again, but he didn’t interrupt.
    “That’s the nutshell,” Eve concluded. “Your ball, Webster.”
    “Renee Oberman. Saint Oberman’s baby girl.”
    “That’s the one.”
    He took a long pull from the bottle of water. “Rough go for you, Detective,” he said to Peabody.
    “It was a moment.”
    “You’ve gone on record with these assertions?”
    “I’ve gone on record with these facts.”
    “And it was your choice to, after this incident, inform your cohab, then your partner—and her civilian husband, then after considerable time passed, your commander. All of that prior to relating this information to Internal Affairs.”
    Eve opened her mouth, shut it again. Peabody would have to handle more than some deliberate baiting.
    “It was my choice to get the hell out of the situation as quickly as possible without detection. I believed, and continue to believe, if I’d been detected I wouldn’t have been in a position to inform anyone because I’d be dead. My cohab is also a cop, and I strongly believed I was in need of assistance. My partner is also my direct superior who I trust implicitly, and whose instincts and experience I rely on. Her husband is also a frequent expert consultant for the department.”
    She took a breath. “It was our decision to determine if the Keener referred to by Oberman and Garnet existed, and if so, if he was alive or dead. He’s dead, and as Lieutenant Oberman asserted in the conversation I heard, his death was set up to appear as an OD. I went up the chain of command, Lieutenant Webster, and with that chain gathered and confirmed facts that are now reported to a representative of Internal Affairs. You can criticize my