Forums
1
Pursuit In Death - Chapter 4 - Complete
Posted by
miche405
,
03 September 2012
·
575 views
After her thirty-eighth hour without sleep, Eve sent Peabody home.
The Lieutenant stretched herself out on the floor of her office at Cop Central. With Roarke still off-planet Eve had little desire to be at home. She had even less of a desire to consider what that meant.
Eve hoped that while she slept the cyber squad would get lucky.
Due to the established connection between the recently deceased Honey Ann Wells and Eve’s quarry, the PA authorized a warrant to search Stevens’ finances. It was a long shot but if Stevens had been stupid enough to access his accounts remotely, the EDD could tell Eve where to start the manhunt.
Four hours later the Lieutenant was tagged on her communicator. “Dallas,” Feeney said, “the little bastard is broke. Stevens, that POS, spent his money faster than he made it.”
“That proves he is still here somewhere,” Eve said. “If he still wants to get out of town, he’ll need a travel fund.”
“That’s not all I got for ya, Dallas,” Feeney added. “One of my guys checked the e-party pages. Stevens has his next event listed. It’s set to go down in forty-eight.”
“Feeney, you got anybody over there still fresh? I know you guys have been workin’ around the clock.” Eve didn’t want to push too hard but she had Stevens in her sights and she’d be damned if she’d lose him again.
Dallas knew that Feeney was exhausted and likely so was the rest of his squad, but she needed them to run another search. She had to find out where Wells had stashed the Kick. If Stevens already had the drugs he wouldn’t wait forty-eight hours for his party. Clearly, he still needed time to track down his missing product.
Eve told Feeney to start a search for property rented or owned by Wells, in and around the neighbourhood where the woman’s body was found. Since Honey had holed-up near her brother, it was a good bet that she’d kept the Kick close by too.
Far too wired to sleep any more, Eve started to run probabilities on her desk-link. The computer came back with an 87.9% probability that Stevens was still in New York. It claimed there was a 21.5% chance that he had already located the missing drugs. Eve requested the probability that Wells had hidden the drugs near the crime scene. She felt the resulting 76% was a little low.
Computers made sampling data easier but they were machines, they didn’t have instincts and couldn’t “think” like cops. Most of the time the results supported Eve’s case but every now and then the machines and the cop would disagree. Eve highlighted the differences in a detailed report that was filed and copied to the commander.
Then she kicked back in her chair and put her booted feet up on the desk. She faced her murder board and considered all the information that it held. The Lieutenant’s posture made her appear relaxed. But if you were to look deep into those hard, flat cop eyes, you would know that Eve Dallas was anything but relaxed.
Peabody entered Dallas’ office the next morning at 06:00 hours. The Lieutenant, asleep at her desk, was surrounded by a parade of empty coffee cups.
The detective stepped over to the murder board to update herself on all that had happened while she was off-shift. Her sudden movement disturbed the sleeping Lieutenant.
“I’ve got to catch you up,” Eve mumbled as she shook herself awake. “But first I need coffee.” She gestured towards the Auto-Chef. Peabody paused and the bleary-eyed Lieutenant said, “If I have to get my own coffee, I am busting your ass back down to Traffic.” The detective wisely strode over to the Auto-Chef and set about programming the unit.
Eve was puzzled when, moments later, a breakfast burrito joined the fresh cup of coffee on her desk. She knew she needed coffee, she always needed coffee but she wasn’t always aware that she needed food. In fact, she hadn’t realized that she was hungry until her breakfast was almost gone.
Over the years, Peabody had learned to put food within Eve’s reach. It was the easiest way to feed a woman who would get so caught up with a case that she would forget to eat. In their profession, the easier it was to eat on the move, the better.
An urgent message came through from the EDD department. The geek squad had finally located property connected to Honey Wells: a single unit of warehouse space that had recently been rented by “Joann Lourdes.” The rental date coincided with Honey’s last journal entry and the building was only a couple of blocks from where her body had been found. It was a safe bet that Honey had leased the unit in her mother’s name.
What Eve’s coffee infusion hadn’t been able to accomplish, this latest break in the case did: she was now wide awake. She paced her office as she worked things through in her mind.
“Dallas,” Peabody said, already reaching for the desk-link, “should I get that address over to the Drug Squad? I’m sure they’d have a recovery team in place PDQ.”
Eve held the link in place. With her other hand she tagged Feeney on her communicator. When he responded, she laid out her plan.
Dallas instructed the head of EDD to make subtle changes to Wells’ warehouse rental document to ensure that Stevens could find it easily. But she wanted the cyber-geeks to leave trace echoes of the changes they made. She needed the job to be just sloppy enough to be discovered by someone with average computer skills. It was crucial the “trail” lead back to the NYSPD.
Eve then called Roarke. She thought that he was still off-planet, but when the call connected it turned out he was in fact at home.
Since Roarke owned pretty much half of the free world, Eve was fairly confident that he would possess a suitable piece of real estate within a few blocks of the walk-up where Wells had died.
True to form, Roarke did have an empty unit that was perfect for the Lieutenant’s needs.
Eve then asked her husband to create a false rental agreement between one of his subsidiary companies and the deceased Wells. Stevens needed to be able to find this record as well and he needed to be confident of its authenticity. He had to be sure he had found his drug cache.
The last things Eve asked Roarke for were the pass-code and the key-card to the fake rental property. Her eyebrows disappeared up into her hairline at Roarke’s response. She managed to stammer out a bemused “thank you” before disconnecting the call.
“What’s the matter, Dallas?” Peabody said.
Eve shook her head. She wondered if there would ever come a time when Roarke no longer surprised her. “I asked him for the code and the key-card...and...Jesus!” Eve was clearly flustered. “He said that there isn’t a single piece of Roarke Industries property on this planet or any other...that isn’t already configured to recognize me. I can palm my way into any building he owns!”
“That is so iced,” Peabody said, respectfully falling just a little bit more in love with her boss’s husband. The man was rich and too hot for words. But since his possessive wife hit like a turbo-hammer, Peabody wisely kept her adulation to herself.
The final piece of the trap had been set. Lieutenant Eve Dallas had released a statement to the media that said the NYSPD had a lead on the whereabouts of Riel Stevens and that she fully expected to have him in custody before the day’s end.
Stevens was in over his head and Eve knew it. He was an illegals dealer and that had been the extent of his criminal activity. But now he had killed and had become as a result the target of a city-wide manhunt. Stevens had never before been a wanted fugitive. When he learned that the police were closing in on him it would make him panic.
Panicked criminals made mistakes. Panicked novice criminals made bigger ones.
For the second time in as many days, Eve had teams assembled to capture Stevens. This time, however, she was not standing in a filthy alleyway. This time she was waiting in a dusty warehouse, the one on loan to the NYSPD from Roarke Industries. Who said that police work wasn’t sexy?
The rest of Eve’s “A” team was keeping watch outside, out of sight. The plan was for them to come in after Stevens had entered and cut off his escape route so Dallas could make the collar.
A couple of blocks away, Detective Peabody held a similar position inside the unit Honey Wells had actually rented to hide the drug cache. Eve’s “B” team was in place at this location to provide back-up for Peabody.
Eve couldn’t be sure that Stevens had fallen for her plant so she needed to have teams at both sites.
Now, all they could do was wait.
While Eve waited, she tried desperately not to think about what would happen if this operation failed. She had visions of Whitney taking her shield and busting her back down to beat cop. Maybe he’d get her to work amongst the dregs in Alphabet City, rousting sidewalk sleepers and busting unlicensed companions. Or, even worse, she might end up not being a cop anymore at all. She shivered as she imagined herself a glide cart operator, all day long breathing in the smell of maxi-bus exhaust, burnt grease and soy dogs.
Eve’s imagination had her wound up tighter than the strings on a holo-guitar.
Suddenly, the light above the door flashed green. Somebody had unlocked the door. It was show-time!
The door opened and closed. A second later a male voice ordered the lights on and Eve got her first look at Stevens.
Life on the run clearly didn’t agree with him. It appeared as though he had slept in his clothes for days, but the wild look in his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept at all. He was clearly agitated and didn’t seem to know what to do next. Eventually, he hurried over to a stack of boxes and started to rifle through them.
Eve stepped out of the shadows and slowly raised her weapon. “NYSPD!” she shouted. “Freeze!”
Stevens didn’t freeze. He ran.
If the Lieutenant hadn’t been preoccupied with the pursuit, she likely would have wondered why police policy dictated that officers issue the “freeze” command. It never worked. In fact, it invariably had the same result as the starter pistol at a foot race.
But that thought was for another time. Dallas ran down the hallway after the rabbiting Stevens. He was headed for the stairwell but turned back with a muffled curse when he saw a handful of New York’s finest burst through the door.
Stevens was now charging directly at Eve. He clearly intended to run right through her. He was not the first suspect to attempt this and likely he wouldn’t be the last.
Maybe if Stevens had had his head up, he would have seen Eve step out of his path. And perhaps then he would not have been surprised by the boot that caught him under the chin.
Eve’s kick was hard and it was on target. Stevens’ eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the ground like a one-hundred-and-fifty pound bag of wet cement.
The rest of the team raced up as Eve stood over the unconscious man.
“Nobody moves this pile of carp until he wakes up,” Eve said. “I want him read the Revised Miranda before you move him.... Understood?”
As one of the officers handcuffed the suspect, he said, “Ah...Lieutenant? I’m pretty sure that’s a pile of crap.”
“Whatever,” Dallas said, as she fought the urge to yawn.
Regardless of how exhausted she was, the job still wasn’t done. They had Stevens in custody and had the remaining cache of Kick but he still needed to be processed. Eve was practically giddy at the thought of working Stevens over and sweating a confession out of him in Interview. The little shit didn’t stand a chance. She’d have him in tears in four-and-a-half minutes, six tops.
The more she thought about it, the more the idea of leaving Stevens to wait in Holding while she went home and slept appealed to her. Eve knew Stevens was destined to be imprisoned off-planet. He didn’t know it yet but Holding would be his last experience with comfort for the rest of his miserable life.
That’s it, she was going home. The people of New York owed Eve Dallas at least twelve solid hours of sleep and that was a debt she intended to collect.
The Lieutenant stretched herself out on the floor of her office at Cop Central. With Roarke still off-planet Eve had little desire to be at home. She had even less of a desire to consider what that meant.
Eve hoped that while she slept the cyber squad would get lucky.
Due to the established connection between the recently deceased Honey Ann Wells and Eve’s quarry, the PA authorized a warrant to search Stevens’ finances. It was a long shot but if Stevens had been stupid enough to access his accounts remotely, the EDD could tell Eve where to start the manhunt.
Four hours later the Lieutenant was tagged on her communicator. “Dallas,” Feeney said, “the little bastard is broke. Stevens, that POS, spent his money faster than he made it.”
“That proves he is still here somewhere,” Eve said. “If he still wants to get out of town, he’ll need a travel fund.”
“That’s not all I got for ya, Dallas,” Feeney added. “One of my guys checked the e-party pages. Stevens has his next event listed. It’s set to go down in forty-eight.”
“Feeney, you got anybody over there still fresh? I know you guys have been workin’ around the clock.” Eve didn’t want to push too hard but she had Stevens in her sights and she’d be damned if she’d lose him again.
Dallas knew that Feeney was exhausted and likely so was the rest of his squad, but she needed them to run another search. She had to find out where Wells had stashed the Kick. If Stevens already had the drugs he wouldn’t wait forty-eight hours for his party. Clearly, he still needed time to track down his missing product.
Eve told Feeney to start a search for property rented or owned by Wells, in and around the neighbourhood where the woman’s body was found. Since Honey had holed-up near her brother, it was a good bet that she’d kept the Kick close by too.
Far too wired to sleep any more, Eve started to run probabilities on her desk-link. The computer came back with an 87.9% probability that Stevens was still in New York. It claimed there was a 21.5% chance that he had already located the missing drugs. Eve requested the probability that Wells had hidden the drugs near the crime scene. She felt the resulting 76% was a little low.
Computers made sampling data easier but they were machines, they didn’t have instincts and couldn’t “think” like cops. Most of the time the results supported Eve’s case but every now and then the machines and the cop would disagree. Eve highlighted the differences in a detailed report that was filed and copied to the commander.
Then she kicked back in her chair and put her booted feet up on the desk. She faced her murder board and considered all the information that it held. The Lieutenant’s posture made her appear relaxed. But if you were to look deep into those hard, flat cop eyes, you would know that Eve Dallas was anything but relaxed.
*****
Peabody entered Dallas’ office the next morning at 06:00 hours. The Lieutenant, asleep at her desk, was surrounded by a parade of empty coffee cups.
The detective stepped over to the murder board to update herself on all that had happened while she was off-shift. Her sudden movement disturbed the sleeping Lieutenant.
“I’ve got to catch you up,” Eve mumbled as she shook herself awake. “But first I need coffee.” She gestured towards the Auto-Chef. Peabody paused and the bleary-eyed Lieutenant said, “If I have to get my own coffee, I am busting your ass back down to Traffic.” The detective wisely strode over to the Auto-Chef and set about programming the unit.
Eve was puzzled when, moments later, a breakfast burrito joined the fresh cup of coffee on her desk. She knew she needed coffee, she always needed coffee but she wasn’t always aware that she needed food. In fact, she hadn’t realized that she was hungry until her breakfast was almost gone.
Over the years, Peabody had learned to put food within Eve’s reach. It was the easiest way to feed a woman who would get so caught up with a case that she would forget to eat. In their profession, the easier it was to eat on the move, the better.
*****
An urgent message came through from the EDD department. The geek squad had finally located property connected to Honey Wells: a single unit of warehouse space that had recently been rented by “Joann Lourdes.” The rental date coincided with Honey’s last journal entry and the building was only a couple of blocks from where her body had been found. It was a safe bet that Honey had leased the unit in her mother’s name.
What Eve’s coffee infusion hadn’t been able to accomplish, this latest break in the case did: she was now wide awake. She paced her office as she worked things through in her mind.
“Dallas,” Peabody said, already reaching for the desk-link, “should I get that address over to the Drug Squad? I’m sure they’d have a recovery team in place PDQ.”
Eve held the link in place. With her other hand she tagged Feeney on her communicator. When he responded, she laid out her plan.
Dallas instructed the head of EDD to make subtle changes to Wells’ warehouse rental document to ensure that Stevens could find it easily. But she wanted the cyber-geeks to leave trace echoes of the changes they made. She needed the job to be just sloppy enough to be discovered by someone with average computer skills. It was crucial the “trail” lead back to the NYSPD.
Eve then called Roarke. She thought that he was still off-planet, but when the call connected it turned out he was in fact at home.
Since Roarke owned pretty much half of the free world, Eve was fairly confident that he would possess a suitable piece of real estate within a few blocks of the walk-up where Wells had died.
True to form, Roarke did have an empty unit that was perfect for the Lieutenant’s needs.
Eve then asked her husband to create a false rental agreement between one of his subsidiary companies and the deceased Wells. Stevens needed to be able to find this record as well and he needed to be confident of its authenticity. He had to be sure he had found his drug cache.
The last things Eve asked Roarke for were the pass-code and the key-card to the fake rental property. Her eyebrows disappeared up into her hairline at Roarke’s response. She managed to stammer out a bemused “thank you” before disconnecting the call.
“What’s the matter, Dallas?” Peabody said.
Eve shook her head. She wondered if there would ever come a time when Roarke no longer surprised her. “I asked him for the code and the key-card...and...Jesus!” Eve was clearly flustered. “He said that there isn’t a single piece of Roarke Industries property on this planet or any other...that isn’t already configured to recognize me. I can palm my way into any building he owns!”
“That is so iced,” Peabody said, respectfully falling just a little bit more in love with her boss’s husband. The man was rich and too hot for words. But since his possessive wife hit like a turbo-hammer, Peabody wisely kept her adulation to herself.
*****
The final piece of the trap had been set. Lieutenant Eve Dallas had released a statement to the media that said the NYSPD had a lead on the whereabouts of Riel Stevens and that she fully expected to have him in custody before the day’s end.
Stevens was in over his head and Eve knew it. He was an illegals dealer and that had been the extent of his criminal activity. But now he had killed and had become as a result the target of a city-wide manhunt. Stevens had never before been a wanted fugitive. When he learned that the police were closing in on him it would make him panic.
Panicked criminals made mistakes. Panicked novice criminals made bigger ones.
*****
For the second time in as many days, Eve had teams assembled to capture Stevens. This time, however, she was not standing in a filthy alleyway. This time she was waiting in a dusty warehouse, the one on loan to the NYSPD from Roarke Industries. Who said that police work wasn’t sexy?
The rest of Eve’s “A” team was keeping watch outside, out of sight. The plan was for them to come in after Stevens had entered and cut off his escape route so Dallas could make the collar.
A couple of blocks away, Detective Peabody held a similar position inside the unit Honey Wells had actually rented to hide the drug cache. Eve’s “B” team was in place at this location to provide back-up for Peabody.
Eve couldn’t be sure that Stevens had fallen for her plant so she needed to have teams at both sites.
Now, all they could do was wait.
While Eve waited, she tried desperately not to think about what would happen if this operation failed. She had visions of Whitney taking her shield and busting her back down to beat cop. Maybe he’d get her to work amongst the dregs in Alphabet City, rousting sidewalk sleepers and busting unlicensed companions. Or, even worse, she might end up not being a cop anymore at all. She shivered as she imagined herself a glide cart operator, all day long breathing in the smell of maxi-bus exhaust, burnt grease and soy dogs.
Eve’s imagination had her wound up tighter than the strings on a holo-guitar.
Suddenly, the light above the door flashed green. Somebody had unlocked the door. It was show-time!
The door opened and closed. A second later a male voice ordered the lights on and Eve got her first look at Stevens.
Life on the run clearly didn’t agree with him. It appeared as though he had slept in his clothes for days, but the wild look in his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept at all. He was clearly agitated and didn’t seem to know what to do next. Eventually, he hurried over to a stack of boxes and started to rifle through them.
Eve stepped out of the shadows and slowly raised her weapon. “NYSPD!” she shouted. “Freeze!”
Stevens didn’t freeze. He ran.
If the Lieutenant hadn’t been preoccupied with the pursuit, she likely would have wondered why police policy dictated that officers issue the “freeze” command. It never worked. In fact, it invariably had the same result as the starter pistol at a foot race.
But that thought was for another time. Dallas ran down the hallway after the rabbiting Stevens. He was headed for the stairwell but turned back with a muffled curse when he saw a handful of New York’s finest burst through the door.
Stevens was now charging directly at Eve. He clearly intended to run right through her. He was not the first suspect to attempt this and likely he wouldn’t be the last.
Maybe if Stevens had had his head up, he would have seen Eve step out of his path. And perhaps then he would not have been surprised by the boot that caught him under the chin.
Eve’s kick was hard and it was on target. Stevens’ eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the ground like a one-hundred-and-fifty pound bag of wet cement.
The rest of the team raced up as Eve stood over the unconscious man.
“Nobody moves this pile of carp until he wakes up,” Eve said. “I want him read the Revised Miranda before you move him.... Understood?”
As one of the officers handcuffed the suspect, he said, “Ah...Lieutenant? I’m pretty sure that’s a pile of crap.”
“Whatever,” Dallas said, as she fought the urge to yawn.
Regardless of how exhausted she was, the job still wasn’t done. They had Stevens in custody and had the remaining cache of Kick but he still needed to be processed. Eve was practically giddy at the thought of working Stevens over and sweating a confession out of him in Interview. The little shit didn’t stand a chance. She’d have him in tears in four-and-a-half minutes, six tops.
The more she thought about it, the more the idea of leaving Stevens to wait in Holding while she went home and slept appealed to her. Eve knew Stevens was destined to be imprisoned off-planet. He didn’t know it yet but Holding would be his last experience with comfort for the rest of his miserable life.
That’s it, she was going home. The people of New York owed Eve Dallas at least twelve solid hours of sleep and that was a debt she intended to collect.
