“Then don’t worry about it. Continue.”
“Okay. They’d go down, and more would come at us. I don’t know how many we stunned before we got some control, because some of them didn’t go down on the first stream. By the time we did, we had a riot brewing out here, with people who’d seen, some who’d started to go inside and got attacked before they managed to get out again.”
He nodded toward the black-and-whites that pulled up. “There’s backup. And the MTs.”
“What time did you stop at this location. Be precise.”
“Logged the stop at thirteen-eleven, sir.”
Fourteen minutes. Odds were they’d be clear.
“All right. Work with Detective Peabody. Get statements, names, contacts.”
She moved toward the arriving uniforms, snapped out orders.
“You—” She pointed at a pair of MTs. “I need you to start moving the wounded out. Seal up first. With me.”
She stepped inside, noted cracks and breaks in the entrance door. Might’ve saved some lives, she thought.
Beside her the MT sucked in his breath. “We’re going to need more transpo.”
“Get it.” She sealed up herself, moved carefully through the cafe, around bodies, crouching now and again to check for vitals.
She began to mark the dead as she had at the bar.
As she worked the moans began, and the weeping. A hard sound, she thought, and still, it meant life.
“Reineke and Jenkinson are on scene,” Peabody said as she came in. “They’re getting statements. I logged Mr. Costanza’s ’link into evidence. Watched it with him first. He sort of changed his tune when he viewed it with me. It clearly shows the officers under attack.”
“I’m not worried about that. Does it show anything we can use?”
“Not much. It’s from outside, on the sidewalk, but you can see people fighting inside, the movements, hear the screaming.”
She had to swallow. “It’s pretty awful.”
Peabody crouched as Eve had when someone reached up to her. “Help’s coming,” she comforted. “You’re going to be okay. We’ve got you now. They’ve got about a dozen wounded out, Dallas.”
“Smaller place, not as many people. Somebody smashed the glass in the front door. It may have helped dilute some of the agent.”
“Might be why so many people out there were ready to rumble.”
“That’s just New York. Forty-one dead. Start getting IDs, TOD, COD.”
She moved outside again. “Baxter, Trueheart, with Peabody.” She spotted McNab—a celery stick in his green cargos—ducking under the tape. “Inside,” she told him. “Start bagging electronics.”
She walked over to the comfortably rumpled Feeney. “Not as bad as the first. Smaller place, and they got outside air from the broken door, more when the cops broke in. I didn’t spot any cams inside. One on the front door, another on the alley exit, but I haven’t checked them.”
“We’ll take it.”
As Feeney glanced around, Eve noticed the dried blood smeared on the cuff of his trench coat. From yesterday, she realized. Only yesterday.
“I didn’t figure he’d hit again so fast,” Feeney said.
“And I figured when he hit again, he’d go bigger. So he goes faster and smaller. But he’s sticking to the same general area. Places he knows. People he knows?” she speculated. “Heavy on the business crowd again. Lots of dead suits in there.”
“Happy hour rush, lunch rush.” His basset hound eyes went grim. “He’s hitting prime times.”
“We haven’t got a line on him, Feeney. He’s scored over a hundred and twenty dead, and we haven’t got a line.”
“Start at the top, work it through again. There’s always something there, kid.”
“Yeah.” She let her gaze skim over the heads of the crowd to the buildings.
Reineke jogged over. “Lieutenant, there’s somebody over here you’re going to want to talk to.”
She walked through the busy medicals to where Jenkinson stood with a plump blonde. Tears and tissues had smeared her eye makeup into black and lavender bruises. She wore New York black—jacket, sweater, pants, with short-heeled boots, and trembled as she bit at her nails.
“Lydia, this is Lieutenant Dallas.” Jenkinson used his trusted uncle tone. “I want you to tell her what you told me. Okay?”
“I’m—I’m looking for Cellie and Brenda. We were having lunch.”
“In Cafe West?”
Fresh tears swam in terrified brown eyes, spilling through the makeup bruises. “Yeah. In there. We were in there.”
Not a mark on her, Eve observed. “What time did you leave the cafe?”
“I’m not exactly sure. A little after one, I guess. We were having lunch.”
“What time did you get there?”
“I—we—Well, we left the office about twelve-thirty, but the elevator was really slow, so that took forever. But it’s only a little walk, maybe five minutes. And we got a table, ’cause they go fast. Then we went up to the counter to order. It’s faster that way. I got a salad, just a plain salad. A little one because I’m on a diet. I was in a bad mood because I was hungry, I guess. I was really bitchy with them, even when Cellie said I could have half her sandwich. I was bitchy, and I left.”
“They stayed to have lunch, and you left, just a little after one. Did you have a headache, Lydia?”
“How did you know? I started to get a headache, and I just wanted to leave. It was crowded and noisy, and I was hungry, and my head started to hurt. I walked out, and walked around. I felt kind of sick, then I felt better. I felt bad, you know, because I’d been so bitchy. I thought I should come back. Tell them I was sorry, walk back to the office with them. But the police were here, and people were yelling. People were hurt and crying, and I can’t find my friends.”
“We’ll look for them. You come here a lot, on your lunch hour?”
“Sure. It’s close, and the food’s good. But you have to get here before one, or you’re not going to get a table.”
“How did everything seem when you left?”
“Like usual, I guess.” Her eyes shifted, lowered, shifted again. “Except …”
“Except?”
“I looked back when I got to the door, and Brenda was looking at me, really mean. She’s not mean. I’ve never seen her look at anybody like that. It just made me so mad. I almost went back to the table. I wanted to punch her. I’ve never punched anybody. Now I can’t find her.”
“Reineke, get the full names of Lydia’s friends so we can find them.”
She signaled to Jenkinson, pulled him over. “I want her examined. Get her to the hospital, have them run a tox, examine her nasal passages, her throat. She won’t want to go. Convince her.”
“I’ll take care of it. How many, LT?”
“Forty-one. It looks like sixteen survivors, at this point. We may find more, like Lydia, who got out before it took a strong hold. Get her examined,” Eve repeated, and moved fast to find Feeney.
“I’ve got a time line,” she told him. “We got a wit who was in there with friends, but left—felt a headache coming on as she walked out. They got there approximately twelve-forty, and she left just after one. First on scene pulled up at thirteen-eleven. The vics inside were still infected.”
“It hit about the time your wit left. We’ll focus on twelve-thirty to one-fifteen, to cover it. Cams were operational. I’ll run the discs back at the house.”
“Run it with face recognition, using the faces we have leaving the bar or connected to vics.” She pushed at her hair. “We’ll bump the briefing until eighteen hundred.”
She scanned the street, the buildings. “He was here, Feeney. But he had to know about the cams. How could he risk popping on the security disc in both places? Can’t. He found another way to get it in this location—or both.
