“Too tired?”
“Too busy,” she said. “I’ve discovered how the home invaders got in and out of the gated communities and what ties the three men together.”
“Holy shit,” Duncan said. “How did you do that?”
She quickly explained what she’d found, right up to the soccer team photographs of Dalander, Colter, and Nagy. She held back the last surprise. She wanted to get him on board with her theory first.
“You think the robbers came in as part of Green’s landscaping crew or hidden inside the fake Amazon van,” he said. “Or divided among the two vehicles and left the same way.”
She wasn’t sure from Duncan’s tone of voice if he was on board yet, so she elaborated.
“It was a clever strategy. Everybody in the gated communities thinks it’s a given that the guard has checked out everybody who comes in. And nobody is going to think twice about seeing an Amazon deliveryman carrying boxes to or from a house or landscapers working on a property. For instance, Green’s crew was working beside the sting house the day we were hit.”
“Yeah, I noticed. So you believe they all met back when Green coached their soccer team and somehow, for some reason, they reunited years later to rob homes.”
She was bothered by his choice of words, by the “somehow” and “for some reason,” interpreting them as signs of his skepticism.
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s amazing what you can accomplish after a good night’s sleep.”
What did that mean?
“I’m asking you about the crime. Do you think we’ve solved it?”
“Not we, you. And yes, I believe you have,” he said. “Now all that’s left to do is arrest Green.”
That was a relief. Now she felt comfortable dropping the bomb.
“Actually, there’s more. And it creates a big problem.”
She took a deep breath and told him. His reaction was succinct and summed up her feelings perfectly.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next morning Eve, Duncan, Rebecca Burnside, and Sheriff Lansing all gathered in Captain Shaw’s office. It was a tight fit. Eve was the only one standing and her laptop was close by on the coffee table.
Burnside was in a tennis outfit but somehow wore it like one of the suits she wore in court. It was every bit as stylish and wrinkle-free, and perfectly highlighted her curves without being in-your-face sexy. Her makeup was also perfect. Eve wondered if she’d applied it for the game or for the meeting or never went out in public without something on her face.
Shaw was clearly pissed off at Eve and his anger radiated like a heater. He’d had no role in calling this meeting and only found out about it when the sheriff and Burnside showed up. He spoke up the instant everybody was in the room and the door had closed.
“If there’s an emergency situation that merits the sheriff and the ADA being called in here, in person, on a Saturday morning, I need to hear about it first and I’ll decide whether it requires all hands on deck,” Shaw said to Eve. “Does chain of command mean nothing to you? Who the hell do you think you are?”
Eve had a direct line to the sheriff and she intended to exploit it, chain of command be damned, when it served her cases.
“You’re right, of course,” Lansing said to Shaw. “Her actions display a blatant disrespect for your authority and, ordinarily, I wouldn’t let it stand. But she’s cashing in a marker, whether she realizes it or not. This isn’t the first time Eve has organized an urgent meeting like this. In that case, I disregarded what she had to say, and it nearly cost a child’s life. So I’m willing to hear her out and then decide if disciplinary action is in order.”
“Thank you, sir,” Eve said. “We’ve solved the spree of home invasion robberies but—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Shaw interrupted. “That’s old news. You closed that case four days ago. You dragged everybody in here for that?”
“This time we’ve really closed it and tied up all the loose ends, some we didn’t even know we had before. We’ve finally identified and nailed down everyone involved.”
Shaw waved off Eve’s clarification. “So you tracked down Dalander’s girlfriend. That’s hardly urgent and it doesn’t change anything.”
“Actually,” Duncan said, “she’s still at large.”
“What else is there?” Shaw asked.