Connections in Death (In Death, #48)- J. D. Robb Page 0,54
the body. “These were hits, both of them, carried out by thugs. Underlings. And both of them personal. Maybe doing her where they did, leaving her there has a side benefit of stirring up gang tensions, but it’s personal.”
“I doubt this poor, doomed woman would disagree. She would have suffered. I gauge the first blows occurred about an hour before death.” Morris looked back down at Duff’s face. “A very long hour for her.”
“Yeah. She was dead when Lyle opened the door, but a long hour.”
When they walked outside, Peabody took a deep gulp of air. “Still spring, even if that put a damper on it. Bigger damper would be you saying we’re going back to Banger HQ.”
“We’ll let the beat cops keep an eye out there for now. Whoever ordered this wanted her to suffer, wanted her hurting and violated. Personal. She was flopping with the one named Bolt, one of the lieutenants. Let’s find out more about him.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up.”
While Eve drove, Peabody dug.
“Okay, got him. Kenneth Jorgenson’s a very bad boy. Age twenty-five, bad boy son of Oliver Jorgenson and Pauline Grant, who ended their eleven year marriage shortly after Oliver—also a bad boy—went in for fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering. One sibling, Jessica, age twenty-eight. That’s Staff Sergeant Grant—she took her mother’s maiden—U.S. Army, currently based in Nevada, ten years in. She enlisted at eighteen.”
“Where’s the mother?”
“Two residences—Palm Beach, Florida, and Bar Harbor, Maine. Married, seven years, to Humphrey Merkle, no offspring from that relationship. He’s loaded—founder of Bertinili’s Frozen Pizza.”
“That’s assembly-line shit.”
“And sells. They also do pastas and all that. Anyway, loaded.”
“So the Banger comes from money.”
“Well, he started off with it.” Digging, Peabody toggled and scrolled. “Everything went south when the father went down. They had to downsize, big time. Mom went to work for—ha!—Bertinili’s company, worked her way up the chain, and married the big guy. But by then, she’d spent considerable time dealing with the bad boy. Or not dealing—hard to say.”
“What kind of bad?”
“Since his juvie record’s already unsealed, I can tell you he’s got truancy, destruction of property, shoplifting, trespassing, possession of illegals, possession of a knife over the legal limit, and assault.”
Eyebrows lifted, Peabody glanced over at Eve. “That’s all before he hit thirteen.”
“That’s bad enough, and cruising toward worse.”
“Yeah. The mother actually tried a military school. He got kicked out. Then we’ve got more assaults, some B and E, illegals, more destruction of property, and so on. That’s just what stuck before sixteen.”
“Cruised to the worse,” Eve decided.
“And kept going. He’s got a rape charge in here that didn’t stick—victim recanted. Looks like he was already a Banger by that time.”
Peabody continued to scroll as Eve drove into the garage at Central. “Whoa. Dallas, he went after his mother—physical assault—and the sister kicked his ass. You go. Looks like he was about seventeen.”
“Let’s get the report on that. I want the details.”
“Will do. He’s done some stints. Been out now for about four years. Been hauled in a few times, but wiggled out.”
“Could be he wants a higher rank than he has, more power than he’s got. Let’s pull all we can on him.”
“Jesus, Dallas.” The beaming spring had brought on had dimmed by the time Peabody got in the elevator. “He beat on his own mother. What if the sister hadn’t been there to stop him? That’s more than bad boy. I mean if you’d punch your own mom—”
“Why quibble about killing your fuck buddy?”
A woman with a sweep of winter-white hair and a sour expression stepped on. “Language!” she snapped at Eve.
“Yes, ma’am, that was language.”
“Are you a police officer?”
“That’s right.”
She jabbed a long, red-tipped finger into Eve’s chest, repeatedly.
“Ma’am, I’m going to ask you to stop that.”
She jabbed again. “I pay your salary, young lady, and I don’t expect officers of the law to use such language.”
As she spoke, jabbing that finger, the doors opened on the next level and let in a pair of uniforms discussing the dickwad they’d just brought in.
The woman actually said, “Harrumph!” then stalked off the elevator.
“Must be her first trip to a cop shop.” Eve rubbed idly where that finger had tried to poke through flesh, and waited another level before jumping off.
“Get those reports on Jorgenson,” she said as they used the glides. “He’s not a big guy—and the wit’s firm on that. Unlikely, if he’s involved, he’s one of the three who killed Lyle. As an LT, he’d probably have access to the