Page 125 of Devoted in Death

“North.” She whirled back to the map. “If we can cut off anything south of the hardware store... Not conclusive, but I can run two maps. How far could you track him?”

“Only half a block. The cams in that sector tend to be dicey. We could see him bopping along. I’ll put it on screen. Just a half block north, head swiveling back and forth, craning up, like tourists do.”

Eve watched James bop—not a bad description for it—nearly beaning a couple of pedestrians with the roll of plastic as he did the tourist head-swivel-and-crane.

Then he zigged closer to the street, out of range of the limited cams.

“Hell. He could’ve gotten lucky with parking. He could’ve been heading toward the van. Or he could’ve caught a cab.”

“Maybe the van,” McNab agreed. “Probably no on the cab. We worked that angle. He’d have more luck on corners, but we put in an official on pickups, all four corners, or anywhere within a two-block radius to start. It was a lot of checking, and we got the ‘it’ll take time to run a search,’ so...”

He glanced at Roarke.

“I looked into it.” He shrugged off Eve’s narrowed look, turned to Banner. “Do you have any issues with me... circumventing the official protocol here, Deputy?”

“Not a one.”

“Well, then, we did find several pickups in that area, in that time frame. Two were single passenger fares. One was dropped off in Midtown, corner of Fifty-first and Madison.”

“I did the badge thing,” McNab said, “contacted the cabbie directly. He doesn’t remember the fare, exactly, but he says he didn’t pick up anybody downtown hefting a roll of plastic.”

“The second single fare was driven to Franklin and Hudson.”

“Tribeca. I’ve pretty much eliminated that sector.”

“The cabbie also says she—in this case—didn’t pick up any guy hauling plastic. It’s not absolute, Dallas, but we lean no on flagging a cab.”

“We’ll focus north. It’s worth the leap. Another shot at any vacant buildings, apartments or flops in the narrowed sector. We’ll do a door-to-door sweep if it comes to it, hit every street slot, parking lot, vacant lot and underground. That van’s somewhere.”

“Private garage perhaps,” Roarke suggested.

“I can’t see them paying that freight, but maybe. Maybe if they hit a vic with one, if they did take out somebody to make their nest who had one. We’ll pull in private.”

“I can do a search for you. Residents of this sector who also rent or own garage space.”

“Good. Do that. He’s got an aptitude for electronics—according to his background.” Factor that in, she thought. “There must be hotels, office buildings in that general area with parking. Some apartment units with parking. How hard would it be to bypass the permit, the payment, take a vehicle in and out?”

“If he’s got any feel for it, and a decent jammer?” McNab nodded. “Oh yeah, icy cake on that. We’ve got a couple of drones in EDD dealing with that all the time.”

“They can’t help but steal, so why pay for parking? Permit parking,” she considered, “they’d have reasonably decent cams. We’ll start on that, too. Public parking lots have cams, but a lot of them are just for show. We’re going to check those. After dark, after, say, nine,” she continued, pacing now. “Anything before that’s too early. Nine’s too early, but it’s as far as I’ll cut it. We’ll go by Banner’s take—no need to drive in the city. Except when they’re hunting. So we’ll start running feeds from permit and public parking, after twenty-one hundred.”

She turned to McNab. “Can you pull in those drones, the ones who handle this routinely?”

“I’ll ask the captain, but I think yeah.”

“I’ll contact Feeney. Do what you can tonight, and if we don’t nail it down, we’ll put the drones on it in the morning. Peabody, use the map. Start another search for any missings reported in that sector. Any DBs who worked or resided in that sector.

“Banner, use the map. Vacant buildings or units. And spread that out to recently rented. Maybe they invested some of the money they stole along the way. Focus in on basement apartments and self-contained houses. Anything you can find with a rear or side entrance. I’ve already started there, so you’ve got a jump.”

Now she turned to Roarke. “Are you up for a drive?”

“I could be.”

“I need to cruise that sector. I want to roll through it, at night. They hunt at night. Maybe it’s not the best use of my time or yours, but I can’t let it go. I need to see it, feel it.”

“You’ll need your boots,” he told her. “It’s still sleeting.”

“Immediate contact if anything—anything pops,” she said, and headed out for her boots.