by J. D. Robb
“What is this?” Marvinia put her hand on Eve’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Okay, I’ll come to you.” Eve started up the staircase. “James Bolton Singer, as you already know, this is the police. I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Johara Murr and the viable, healthy fetus she carried.”
“What? What? That’s crazy. Who is she talking about?”
“Marvinia.” Roarke spoke softly. “Stay here.”
As Eve reached the top of the stairs, turned Singer around to restrain him, Elinor strode down the corridor to the right.
“Take your hands off my son. Get out of my house.”
She lifted the gun in her hand and fired.
The bullet pinged off Eve’s topper. The impact—a solid punch with a sledgehammer—jerked her back, spun her to the left. As she reached for her own weapon, Roarke flew up the stairs.
The second bullet struck closer to her hip.
The pain stole her breath, had the edges of her vision blurring. Eve set her teeth, held her weapon steady.
“Fire again, you crazy bitch, and I’ll drop you. I’ve got it on low, but at your age, it’ll put you in ICU, I swear to fucking God.”
“You broke into my house. I will defend myself.”
“I’m a police officer. I have a warrant. Drop that weapon, or I drop you. Last chance.”
Eve held out her free hand to stop Roarke from shoving in front of her, and for five humming seconds they faced off.
Elinor let the gun fall to the thick rug. “I should have aimed for your head.”
“Yeah, your mistake.”
She walked over, put a boot on the weapon as she cuffed Elinor’s hands behind her back.
She muttered a curse as, restraints aside, Singer ran.
“I’ve got him,” Roarke told her and had him in hand, face against the wall, in under four feet.
“Elinor Bolton Singer, you’re under arrest for the murder of Johara Murr and the viable, healthy fetus she carried. You are further charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. Additional charges will include possession and use of an unlicensed firearm.”
Marvinia sat on the floor at the base of the stairs, arms wrapped tight around herself, eyes moons of shock as she rocked back and forth.
“What have they done? What have they done?”
“Shut up, you foolish twit. Contact my lawyer immediately.”
“Go to hell, you evil witch. Who was she? One of J.B.’s dalliances? Did he get some poor girl pregnant?”
“Johara and your son were in love, met in college,” Eve said as she walked Elinor down the stairs. “They lived together, hoped to get married.”
“He— But he never told me.”
“It was your grandchild they killed.”
“Oh, please don’t say that. Please no. Oh, J.B., no. No.”
“It’s insane, of course this is all insane,” J.B. babbled as Roarke walked him down. “A terrible mistake. Call the lawyer now, Marvinia.”
She got slowly to her feet. “Oh my God, you’re lying. You’re lying.”
“I need you to come with us, Ms. Singer.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped at Eve. “Use Kincade. Am I under arrest?”
“No, ma’am, but I need you to come with us.”
“Marvinia, darling—”
“I will never speak to you again.” She turned away from him to Elinor. “If there is one positive note to this horror, I never have to speak to you again.”
“Let’s move them out. I’ll start with Mother. Elinor Singer, you have the right to remain silent.”
Eve read them their rights, one at a time, as they loaded them into the all-terrain.
“I need to take the weapon into evidence. I need something to put it in.”
“Field kit in the cargo area,” Roarke told her.
“You never miss.”
As Eve pulled out the kit, Elinor spoke coldly. “You will pay for this.”
“Sister, I get paid for this. But for this one, I’d do it for free.”
As she walked back in, she pulled out her communicator. “Suspects in custody. Female suspect fired an illegal weapon during the arrest—two shots at the arresting officer. I’m bringing the weapon, a handgun, which I believe is a thirty-two caliber, into evidence.”
“Whoa!” Peabody shouted out. “You got shot?”
“Magic topper. I’m five-by-five. On our way to the heliport.”
“Safe travels. It’s cleared up here.”
“Thank Christ.”
She went out to where Roarke waited.
“You’re going to have a couple of bruises blooming like flowers under that topper.”
“Yeah, I feel them.”
He gripped her chin, gave it a little shake. “Mild resistance, my ass.”
“Yeah, bad call on that.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t stun her.”
“At her age, even on low, she could stroke out. I want her alive for the ten, maybe fifteen or so years she’s got left.”
* * *
Those bruises sang an ugly song by the time she turned the Singers over for booking and escorted Marvinia up to an interview room.
“If you’d give me a couple minutes? I’m going to leave the door open, and Roarke will stay with you. You’re not under arrest. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water, please. Just water.”
“I’ll bring it back.”
She stepped out as Peabody walked down with an ice pack. “Even with the coat, it had to hurt.”
“She caught me twice. Bitch.”
“I’ll get another.”
“No, I’d pretty much have to sit on the other. Are you caught up enough?” She slid the pack under her topper, pressed it to her chest.
“Yeah. Reo’s talking to the PA. She’s using your office.”
“I figure we’ll take the Singers—him first—in the morning. They’re lawyering, as expected, and given the time, her age, blah blah, they’re going to want to wait.”
“Copy that.”
“But I want to talk to Marvinia, get anything we can. Then release her. She’s not in this.”
“Yeah, I got that, too.”
“Here.” She started to take off the topper, winced. “Fuck, shit, bitch! Okay. Take this back, will you, and ask Reo to join us. Damn, and bring in some water.”
“No, don’t toss the pack. Keep it on. It’s not like she’s a suspect you have to intimidate. She saw what happened, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Okay.”
She kept the pack, walked back to the interview room. “My partner’s bringing you water. She and the APA will join us. Roarke, if you’d like to wait in my office.”
“Can he stay? He’s someone I know, at least a little. Is it all right? Would you stay?”
“Sure, he can stay.” She buzzed Peabody. “We need another chair.”
“She—she shot you. With a gun. I saw…”
“I’m wearing protective gear.”
“I’ve never seen anyone shot. It was horrible. They, they shot that poor girl. You said she was … was Bolt’s girl.”
“I think he should tell you the details there.”
“Does he know what happened now?”
“Yes.”
Tears began to slide. “He may never want to see me again. How could I blame him?”
“That’s not at all true.” Roarke spoke up, soothing, kind. “Your daughter-in-law, nearly the first thing she said when they learned what happened is you’d never be a part of it.”
“I wouldn’t. I swear to you, I didn’t know. She was pregnant. My grandchild.” She took a breath. “She didn’t meet Elinor Singer’s standards, did she?”
“I don’t believe so. Ms.… Kincade,” Eve remembered. “You met Detective Peabody. This is Cher Reo with the prosecutor’s office.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Peabody said, and Marvinia burst into tears.
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This isn’t helping. Tell me how I can help. I need to help.”
“If you could think back, probably late August, early September of 2024.”
“That’s when it happened? Yes, I remember that time very well because J.B. and I had separated, had been separated several months. I was seriously considering divorce. We’d been fighting all the time, over Bolt, mostly, and what he was doing with his life. I wanted him to be happy, to do what he loved. They—or Elinor—wanted him back in New York, in the company. His duty, his legacy, all of that. We argued about Bolt, we argued about his mother. Even when we traveled, he spoke to her every single day. And when we came back, it was to that house.”
She cracked the seal on the water, drank.
“I hate that house. Hated it from the first moment I saw it. We fought about how J.B. lived his life. He wasn’t responsible back then. Or ever,” she added after a moment. “Charming, sweet, romantic, but never responsible. Even when he took over Singer, Elinor ran it, or covered his irresponsibility, his mistakes.”
With a murmured thanks, she took tissues Peabody offered, then mopped at her face.
“It’s not love with her. It’s the Bolton-Singer name, it’s how it’s perceived. And it’s bloodline.
“I was going to ask for a divorce, try to mend fences with Bolt, and J.B. came to me, he asked me for another chance. He seemed so contrite, so eager to try to make our marriage work again. We’d take a long trip—no partying, just the two of us. We’d reconnect. I loved him, so after some time, I gave in.”
She closed her eyes. “And now I see he came to me after they’d done this. He wanted me back, that cushion, wanted to get away from what he’d done. Just bury it. I let him.”
“You didn’t know,” Eve said.
“No, but I wanted everything he said to me then to be true, so I made it true. He even promised we’d leave Bolt alone, let him try to make a go of it with his music. At least another year.”
“Can J.B. lay brick?” Reo asked.
Marvinia pressed a hand to her mouth and nodded. “Certainly not very well, but his father would have insisted he learn the basics. But they spoiled him, you see. Her especially, and his father died so young really, so it was all her. That doesn’t excuse him, and I won’t excuse him, but she dominates him. In the last ten years or so, I’ve let her dominate me far too much and too often. She’s a hundred and five years old. I could justify living in that house for duty. My husband’s mother, my son’s grandmother.”
Eve took out Johara’s photo. “Did you ever see her?”
“Oh, oh, is this her? Oh, she’s lovely. Lovely. Bolt never told me about her.”
“He will now. He told Lilith everything before they got married.”
“Good, that’s good.” Gently, very gently, Marvinia brushed her fingertips over the face in the photo. “They have a strong marriage, they have a strong family. Wonderful children. I would have had another grandchild.
“I’ll never forgive them. No punishment the law allows is enough for what they destroyed. Did she have family?”
“We’re going to look into that.”
She nodded. “He’s weak.” She cleared her throat, drank more water. “You know how to do your job, obviously, but I want to tell you because it might help you. He’s a weak and selfish man. It’s not love with him, either, for his mother. It’s dependence, and some fear. He’ll tell you everything if he’s afraid, or if he thinks you’ll give him something he needs. He lies. I can tell, almost always, when he lies.”
“He taps his right foot,” Eve commented.
“Does he?” She laughed a little. “I’ve never noticed. It’s his eyes. I can see the lie. We’ve known each other almost sixty years. I can almost always see a lie in his eyes. Will I have to testify?”
“It’s possible,” Reo told her.
“I don’t want to speak to them. Ever. I’ll testify if it helps. But I won’t speak to them. And God, I don’t want to go back to that house.”
“You should go to your son’s. Stay there for now. They’ll want you,” Eve added when she saw the hesitation. “I’m going to have Peabody contact them, tell them you’re coming. We’ll have you taken there.”
“They need you now, Marvinia,” Roarke told her. “As much as you need them.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I know it.” Roarke took her hand. “I saw it.”
“Peabody, go ahead and fix this up. Reo, any more questions?”
“Not right now. We’ll contact you when we need to talk again. I know this is hard for you,” Reo added. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
“I’ll wait here with you,” Roarke said.
When they stepped out, Reo looked at her ’link. “Give me a minute,” she told Eve. “Elinor Singer’s lawyer’s demanding to speak with me.”
“You want my office?”
“No, I’ll take it in the lounge. It’s Michael C. Breathed.”
“Breathed? Why would she have a criminal attorney on tap?”
“I’ll find out.”
They peeled off, Reo to the lounge, Eve to her office.
Eve hit the coffee and sat to start the paperwork.
When Roarke came in, he went straight to her AutoChef, programmed more coffee. “It’s difficult to watch a woman’s world fall apart.”
“She’ll get through it.” She shook her head at him when she saw the gleam of annoyance in his eyes. “I’m not being cynical, especially. I know death when I see it. It may be the first time I’ve watched love die, just stop breathing, but I saw it. I saw just that on her face when she understood what he’d done. She stopped loving him and she has her son, her son’s family.
“She’ll get through it.”
“You’re right about that, but it won’t be easy for her.”
“No, nothing’s going to be easy for any of them for a while. If the Singers push this to trial, it’s going to be a lot harder.”
“You think they will?”
“She hired Breathed, and he’s damn good at this. Not good enough,” she added. “Nobody is. She shot me, twice. That gun and the bullets—from me, from Johara—are in the lab right now. They’re going to match. And in the morning, I’ll break J.B. So Breathed’s going to want a deal. We’ll see how she feels about that.”
She looked over as she heard rapid heel clicks. “Here’s Reo now.”
Reo pointed at the coffee. “I want that.” She waved Roarke away before he could go back to the AC. “I’ll get it. Elinor Singer’s on some committee with Breathed’s wife, and Breathed and J. B. Singer golf together.”
“Explains the quick turnaround,” Eve said.
“In any case, Breathed’s trying the we’re-all-in-a-huff routine. Centenarian client dragged from her home in a storm, in the middle of the night.”
“The storm was done, and it wasn’t twenty-two hundred.”
“I said ‘trying.’” Reo gulped coffee. “She should be immediately released on her own recognizance, would even suffer the humiliation of wearing a tracker.”
“No and no.”
“And when he got no and no, he insisted we go tonight.”
“They want to do this tonight?”
One more unexpected turn, Eve thought.
“Mira’s on her way in. I was going to dump all this on her, apologize, and send her back home.”
“Are you up to go tonight?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely. But she waits while I have a round with her son first.”
Reo toasted with her coffee. “We’re drinking out of the same pot. He’s got Indina Cross—junior partner in Breathed’s firm. She’s good.”
“Junior partner. Mother took the top cream for herself. Let’s get it lined up. This is going to go long,” she told Roarke.
“And should be quite a show. One I wouldn’t miss. There should be popcorn in Observation.”
Now Reo tapped her mug to his. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve
said that.”
23
They took a conference room, and Roarke sat back and watched the four women discuss evidence, strategy, psychology.
Singer didn’t have the slightest clue what he was in for.
They would, Roarke had no doubt, simply dismantle him.
Eve pushed back, came to attention when Commander Whitney strode into the room.
“Sir.”
“Sit, sit.” Rather than his usual suit, he wore a casual shirt in thin blue-and-white stripes and, a little to Eve’s shock, jeans and high-top kicks.
And still looked every bit in command.
“Doctor, Lieutenant, Detective, Assistant Prosecutor, Roarke.” He moved straight to the AutoChef. “I don’t suppose this is your coffee in here, Dallas.”
“No, sir. We can get that for you.”
“This’ll do. I’m here to observe. I haven’t asked for face-to-face reports on these cases, as you not only had them well in hand, but they moved rapidly. Yet this?”
He took a hit of coffee. “When I’m informed we’ve made arrests within days of an investigation of remains more than three decades old, and those arrests are individuals of some status and repute, I like to study more details. Which, considering the time, I would have done from home.”
He sat, drank more coffee. His wide, dark face went to stone. “However, when those details include one of those individuals firing a handgun on one of my officers, striking her twice, I’m damn well coming in. Have you had medical attention, Lieutenant?”
“I was wearing protective gear, Commander.”
“A considerable number of years ago, I was wearing protective gear when I took two hits.” He tapped a fist just below his breastbone. “Knocked me flat. Dr. Mira?”
“After considerable nagging, browbeating, and guilt-tripping, I convinced the lieutenant to allow me to examine the areas involved. She has severe bruising, but the portable scanner detected no fractures or internal injuries.”
“All right then. Is my information correct that you intend to start the interview process on both suspects tonight?”
“At their insistence, sir,” Eve told him.