A Clean Kill

forty-six

Feeling personally humiliated by her boss, Eloise returned to her office to sulk. She didn't know exactly what she'd expected. But after her and Charlie's initiative on the case the day before, she didn't want to be the only member of the team left out today. She and Charlie could well turn out to have been the ones who cracked the case, and there was still a great deal of information-gathering to do on it. Returning to the work of shutting down strip clubs wasn't even a close second in importance, even though the chief of detectives had deemed it a priority on Monday. The clubs would be there tomorrow and the day after that. Time was on their side in nailing any of them. Today, two weeks from now It didn't matter when they made their move. They'd close them. For a while there would be a flap, and then they'd open again under new names. Big deal.

The homicides were different. Alison Perkins had been in their unit the day before she'd died. She'd sat in the very office where the detectives had just met, and she'd revealed a lot. Eloise had heard her voice lamenting the loss of her friend and the difficulties of having strangers in her house, who took care of her children and took advantage of her. Knowing how people exploited each other whenever they could, Eloise felt sad for Alison and wanted to see where she had lived and died. She wanted to continue with the investigation personally and be there for the resolution. Even Barry Queue was in it now. She wondered how that had happened andfelt deeply hurt at what she took as a personal affront, even a punishment, by her boss. It reminded her of Steve, and she was overwhelmed for a moment by a feeling of crushing loss.

Whenever unexpected emotion caught her off guard, this was what happened to her. Ever since 9/11 every stress and personal setback tended to spin her back to the catastrophes. Panicky nightmares came to her even when she was awake. She was lost in a copter inside the black cloud of collapsing buildings. People just out of reach screamed for her to rescue them, and when she couldn't, they jumped from high windows to escape the inferno. She, too, was burning alive, and the man she'd loved more than any other had left her behind for a new life in Florida. That day a dozen people she'd loved were taken from her—some instantly and some later on. Because of it, she'd lost her feeling of security and safety in her job and her city, and now any little thing could put her back there and make her question her reason for living.

Consciously, she was thinking about Jo Ellen Anderson, how much she wanted to be the one to talk to her again, find out everything about her morning habits, instead of backing off and leaving with only half the story as she had yesterday. Charlie had given her the bug. Someone beneath her in rank had taught her that they didn't have to be in a task force to be useful. They didn't have to sit in on endless briefing meetings and listen to idiots trying to connect dots they didn't even have. She could help from the outside. She could get it there on her own and get it. done. It was a dangerous thing to be thinking.

She glanced at her watch. It would take the lieutenant all morning and maybe longer to talk with Jo Ellen Anderson and her employees about all the issues that concerned her about the Anderson Agency and its former owner. After listening to the Alison tapes, she knew that April took her time. It would be a long dance before the music stopped. She wondered how long it would take Queue to get the search warrant. If she had it, she could get there first and be the one to search Anderson's town house. That idea grabbed hold of her and restored her mood.