A woman on a comp held up a finger. She had brutally short stone-gray hair with a snaking blue streak. Rising, she came around the counter.
“Lieutenant Dallas? You want the status of Natasha Quigley. She’s still in surgery.”
“That much I know.”
“I can tell you there were some complications. Her BP dropped, and at one point her heart stopped. Dr. Campo found a second, smaller bleed. They were able to stabilize the patient while Dr. Campo closed the bleeds. While the patient has been downgraded to critical, the head surgical nurse reports the patient is, as I said, stabilized at this time.”
“How much longer will she be in there?”
“I can’t tell you that, but from what I can gather, the surgery should be done within the hour. From there, the patient will be monitored in Recovery. It could be two hours, or several hours, before she’s able to talk to you.”
“What are her chances? You’re not head nurse on the surgical floor for nothing,” Eve pushed when Vick hesitated. “You have a gauge.”
“I can tell you, the patient’s lucky. Dr. Campo, in my opinion, is the best neurosurgeon we have. With her performing the surgery, I’d give the patient strong odds. If you give me your contact information, I can see you’re notified when she’s in Recovery.”
The best she’d get, Eve determined. They couldn’t wait hours to move on the rest.
“You want to start on Copley,” Peabody said as they rode down to the lobby again. “I can do the notification. I can handle it,” she added when Eve glanced at her. “You can be working on Copley while we—McNab and me—head to Brooklyn, take care of that.”
Eve cracked the soft drink tube, considered it. “It’ll save time. I’ll take the first pass at him while you notify next of kin. If I don’t crack him, first pass, we’ll try for Quigley again, take him on together. You need to get the mother, and have her pull in the sister so you can work her. Get them to tell you anything, I mean anything, the vic might have said about Ziegler, about Copley, Quigley. Get a sense of the connections. Everything plays now.”
“I know.”
“Do you want transpo?”
“Be nice,” Peabody said, then sighed. “But the subway’s probably quicker.”
“Contact me once you have it done,” Eve ordered, and parted ways. “I don’t like dumping the notification on her. She’ll carry it longer than I would.”
“I doubt that,” Roarke said. “You carry them all.”
Claiming otherwise would be a lie, she admitted, and why bother. “I’ll waste my time saying this again, but you could go home.”
“It’s never less than entertaining, watching you interrogate a suspect.”
“Whatever floats.” She pulled out her ’link as he drove, contacted Mira. “Sorry to disturb you at home,” she began, “but you said you were interested in observing when I had Copley in the box.”
After making arrangements with Mira she contacted Central to make certain Copley was where she wanted him.
“Interview B,” she said when Roarke drove into Central’s garage. “Reo’s heading in. He used his one contact for his lawyer. Didn’t use it to check on his wife. The lawyer’s with him, making lawyerly noises.”
“One expects no less.”
Eve eyed the elevator with distrust, but got on. “The last time I was on this, Drunk Santa let loose a nuclear fart while showing me his grimy little dick.”
“You lead such a colorful life.”
“I’m pretty sure he puked right after I got off, because I heard they had to shut down this car for two hours.” She sniffed cautiously. “You can still sort of smell the detox.”
“We can hope this ride proves less eventful.”
As it did, she peeled off straight to her office. “I’m going to put a file together—DB, the first-on-scene’s record of Quigley, the scene itself, the nine-one-one.”
“And Ziegler?”
“Second file. I may hold that back, depending. He doesn’t know his wife’s status, and I can use that. His lawyer can’t access it—Patient Privacy Act—so they don’t know I haven’t interviewed her.”
“You’ll lie.”
“Fortunately, I can lie my ass off.” She checked the time. “He’s had a good long sweat, the lawyer’s told him to keep it zipped, but he won’t.”
“He’s . . . excitable.” Roarke looked over at her. “You’ll use that.”
“Damn straight. He doesn’t know what the hell’s going on regarding Quigley. He’ll have a story though, and he’ll want to tell it.”
“And lawyer or not, you’ll make sure he does.”
“That’s the plan.” She picked up the files. “If you get bored in Observation, I’ll find you. If you