had to have them with her with the analysis factor. So when they got them, they figured they were covered. You have to be anal to deal with analysis.”
That she got. “So, it’s reading to you like someone got an assignment, did exactly what that entailed. Nothing more. No ‘let’s just be thorough.’”
“That’s the zip. Most hackers are going to play around some, scoot around. Hey, you’re in there anyway. This one didn’t. Straight through, no detours.” McNab zoomed his arm through the air. “At least nothing I’ve found yet.”
“Good, it fits.”
She left him to his bouncing and rocking, wove her way through the prancing and dancing traffic of other e-geeks to poke her head in the door of Feeney’s mercifully calm, dull-colored, and motionless office.
He sat at his desk in a beige shirt. As he still wore a shit-brown jacket over it she assumed he’d come in from the field. He’d loosened his shit-brown tie but hadn’t pulled it off, so he might have planned to go back out again. His hair, a combination of ginger and salt sprang untidily around his sleepy basset hound face.
He worked a touch screen and keyboard simultaneously.
He might’ve dressed like a cop, thought like a cop, walked like a cop, but he could outgeek McNab and the rest of his department combined.
She gave the doorjamb a quick rap. “Got five?”
Feeney held up a finger, continued to do whatever the hell he was doing, then gave a satisfied grunt.
“Now I got five. Son of a bitching cyberstalker. Thinks he can terrorize women, slide in through their security, rape and rob them, then stroll away whistling a tune? He’s going to be whistling in a cage before much longer.”
“You got him?”
“Got his signature, got his location, and now the primary has them. If he can’t bust the asshole now, he should be whistling in a cage.”
“Who’s on it?”
“Schumer.”
“He’s good. He’ll close it.”
“Yeah.” Feeney scrubbed his hands over his face. “Long couple days. You, too.”
“Yeah. Looks like yours is wrapping up. I can’t say the same.”
“The boy’s working on it.”
“Yeah, he’s pushing through. I appreciate you letting me have him on this, especially when you’ve been in a stranglehold.”
“No problem.” He reached into his bowl of candied nuts when Eve eased a hip on his desk.
“I got bad guys who get the job done, but don’t go an inch further to do it right. They kill a woman because that’s the job, but the woman doesn’t have to be killed to reach the objective. They come in after the fact to clean up, and don’t check all the corners. They use a location for the kill that rings bells. Vic’s an auditor—big money. Crime scene’s the property of financial advisers—big money. And the two firms have some overlaps.”
“Sloppy.”
“Yeah, but like half sloppy. Like if I were doing an eval report, I’d put down ‘Does the job, but doesn’t think outside the box, isn’t able to access the situation as it evolves and adjust accordingly.’ Trueheart’s going for the detective’s exam after the first of the year.”
Feeney swiveled back and smiled. “He’s come along.”
“He has. See, he’s not green anymore, but he’s still fresh. He’s always going to be fresh because that’s who he is. But I know if I sent him out on assignment, he wouldn’t just get the job done. He’d tie up the details, he’d adjust as the situation called for it. He might make a mistake, he doesn’t have much time on him, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”
“No argument.”
“Trueheart gets credit for that, because, yeah, it’s who he is. Baxter gets credit for that because he’s trained him and trained him well. I get credit because I saw there was something to be trained and brought him over. And I get credit because I’m the boss of both of them.”
“And you get the blame when they fuck up or do something half-assed.”
“Exactly. So you’ve got a couple goons, that’s how I see it. The killing wasn’t slick, it wasn’t messy. It was down, dirty, done—with little screwups.”
“Broke her neck, right?”
“Yeah, which Mira says was showing off, and that rings true. You’ve got the brute for that. Then you’ve got a hacker who knows his business and gets through decent but not stellar security, through more security into the vic’s comp, into her supervisor’s safe. He got the job done, but he doesn’t run it through and see that the vic made copies of the goddamn files he’s gone to all