by J. D. Robb
“I’ll go with you.” Like Tandy, Mavis levered herself up. “Dallas? Coming with?”
“I’ll pass.”
“I remember—vaguely—what it’s like not to have something planted on my bladder.” Tandy sent the table a smile, then waddled off with Mavis.
“So…” Eve turned to Leonardo. “You met Tandy in the class?”
“Orientation,” he confirmed. “Tandy’s due about a week before Mavis. It’s nice of you to let her come along. She’s going through all this without a partner.”
“What happened to the father?” Roarke asked him, and Leonardo shrugged.
“She doesn’t talk about it much. Just says that he wasn’t involved, or interested. If that’s the way it is, he doesn’t deserve her or the baby.” Leonardo’s wide face went tight and hard. “Mavis and I have so much, we want to help her as much as we can.”
Eve’s cynic antennae hummed. “Financially?”
“No. I don’t think she’d take money, even if she needed it. She seems okay there. I meant support, friendship.” He seemed to pale a little. “I’m going to be part of her coaching team. It’ll, ah, it’ll be like a dress rehearsal for Mavis.”
“Scared shitless, aren’t you?”
He glanced in the direction of the restrooms, then back at Eve. “I’m terrified. I could pass out. What if I pass out?”
“Make sure you don’t land on me,” Roarke told him.
“Mavis isn’t nervous. Not even a little bit. And the closer we get, the more my insides…” He lifted his big hands, shook them. “I don’t know what I’d do if the two of you weren’t going to be there. Backing me up.”
Oh, hell, Eve thought, and exchanged a glance with Roarke. “Where else would we be?” She signaled the waiter for another glass of wine.
Two hours later, after dropping Leonardo and Mavis home, Roarke drove south and east toward Tandy’s apartment building.
“Really, I can take the tube. Subway. It’s too much trouble, and only a few blocks.”
“If it’s only a few blocks,” Roarke said, “it’s hardly any trouble.”
“How can I argue?” Tandy let out a laugh. “And it’s so nice to sit in a warm car. It’s so bloody cold out there tonight.” She settled back with a sigh. “I feel pampered, and fat as a whale. Mavis and Leonardo, they’re the best. You can’t be around either of them for five minutes and not feel happy. And I see they’re lucky in their friends. Oops.”
Eve’s head spun around so fast it might have flown off her shoulders. “No oops. No oopsing.”
“He’s just bumping around in there a bit. Not to worry. Oh, you know, Mavis is just giddy about the baby shower you’re hosting for her next week. She bubbles over it.”
“Baby shower. Right. Next week.”
“Here we are. Just down the middle of this block. Thank you both so much.” Tandy adjusted her scarf, hauled up a purse the size of a suitcase. “For the lovely food and company, and the luxurious ride. I’ll see you both on Saturday, at the baby shower.”
“Need any help, ah…”
“No, no.” Tandy waved Eve off. “Even a whale must fend for itself. And even if I can’t see my feet these days, I remember where they are. Good night now, and thanks again.”
Roarke waited, engine idling, until Tandy had keyed herself into the building. “Seems a nice woman. Stable and sensible.”
“Not like Mavis. Except for the whale factor. Gotta be tough, being knocked up, on your own, and not even in your own country. She seems to be dealing. You know, Roarke, how come just because you’re pals you have to go to coaching classes, witness births, and give baby showers?”
“I don’t have the answer to that question.”
She heaved out a breath. “Neither do I.”
Eve was dreaming of fang-toothed, many-armed babies bouncing out of Mavis to tear around the room, sending the midwife into screaming retreat while Mavis cooed: Aren’t they mag? Aren’t they the ult?
The signal of the bedside ’link had her popping out of the dream. She shuddered once.
“Block video,” she ordered. “Lights on ten percent. Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. See the officers at 51 Jane Street, apartment 3B. Possible homicide.
“Acknowledged. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia. I’m on my way.”
Acknowledged. Dispatch out.
Eve glanced over, saw Roarke’s laser blue eyes were open and on hers. “Sorry,” she said.
“I’m not the one being pulled out of a warm bed at four in the morning.”
“You’re right about that. People ought to have the courtesy to off each other at reasonable hours.”
She rolled out of bed and into the bathroom for a lightning-quick shower. When she rolled back out, naked and warm from the drying tube, he was sipping a cup of coffee.
“Why are you up?”
“I’m awake,” he said simply. “And look what I’d’ve missed if I’d turned over and gone back to sleep.” He handed her the second cup of coffee he’d programmed.
“Thanks.” She took it with her to the closet where she pulled out clothes. Had to be freaking freezing out there, she mused. And detoured to her dresser to yank out a V neck to go over the shirt, under the jacket.
Twice they’d put off tentative plans to take a couple of days in the tropics. Mavis, plus baby, equalled a pregnant woman wigging out at the thought of part of her coaching team dancing off to sand and surf this close to delivery time.
What could you do?
“Babies don’t come out with teeth, do they?”
“No. I don’t see how…” Roarke lowered his cup, gave her a baffled look. “Why do you put thoughts like that in my head?”
“They’re in mine, pal, they’re in yours.”
“See if I make you coffee again.”
She dressed quickly. “Maybe this murder is the work of a criminal mastermind that will take me off planet. You’re nice to me, I could take you along.”
“Don’t toy with me.”
She laughed, strapped on her weapon. “See you when I see you.” She crossed to him, and because—hell, he was so damn pretty even at four in the morning—gave him a peck on both cheeks, then a long warm one mouth-to-mouth.
“Stay safe, Lieutenant.”
“Plan on it.”
She jogged down the stairs, where her coat was draped over the newel post. She tossed it there habitually because it was handy—and because she knew it irritated Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo and the blight of her world.
She swung it on, discovered a miracle had happened and her gloves were actually in the pocket. Because it was there, she tossed on the cashmere scarf. And still the cold was a shock to the system when she stepped outside.
Hard to complain though, she decided, when you got yourself married to a man who thought to remote your vehicle to the front of the house with the heater already running.
She strode through the cold, climbed into warm.
She glanced in the rearview as she drove toward the gates. The house that Roarke built filled the mirror, stone and glass, juts and turrets—and the light glowing in their bedroom window.
He’d have a second cup of coffee, she thought, while reviewing stock reports, early media bulletins, business news, on the bedroom screen. Probably make some overseas or off-planet transmissions. Starting the day before dawn wasn’t a biggie to Roarke, she knew.
Lucky her again, to have ended up with a man who fell so easily into the crazed cop rhythm she often ran by.
She drove through the gates that closed quietly behind her.
This sector of prime and pricey real estate was quiet—the rich, privileged, or fortunate snuggled under the covers in their atmosphere-regulated homes, condos, apartments. But within a few blocks, the city burst into jittery, jumping life.
Heat gushed up in steam from the grates as the underground world of the city moved and shook under the streets and sidewalks. Overhead ad blimps were already touting their
bargain of the day. Who the hell cared about Valentine’s Day sales at the Sky Mall at this hour? Eve wondered. What sane person would push themselves into the insanity of a mall crowd to save a few bucks on a candy heart?
She passed an animated billboard running a loop of impossibly perfect people frolicking over white-sugar sand into blue surf. That, at least, was more like it.
The yellow streaks of Rapid Cabs were already darting. Runs to transpo centers, mostly, she mused. Early flights to somewhere. A couple of maxibuses belched along, likely carrying the poor suckers on early shifts, or the luckier ones heading home to bed after a graveyard tour.
She detoured around the endless party on Broadway. Day or night, blistering or freezing, tourists and the street thieves who loved them thronged to that mecca of noise, light, movement.
A few of the after-hours joints were still open down Ninth. She spotted a huddle of street toughs in their over-filled rip jackets and jump boots loitering—and most likely ingesting illegal substances. But if they were looking for trouble, they’d have a hard time finding it before five A.M. with the temps hovering around twelve degrees.
She skirted through a working-class section of Chelsea, then into the more arty flavor of the Village.
The black-and-white was nosed to the curb in front of a rehabbed townhouse on Jane. She took a loading zone a half block down, flipped her On Duty light, then stepped back out into the cold. By the time she retrieved her field kit and set her locks, she spotted Peabody hoofing it from the corner.
Her partner looked like an Arctic explorer wrapped in a thick, puffy coat the color of rusted metal with a mile of red scarf wrapped around her neck and a matching cap tugged down over her dark hair. Her breath puffed out like engine steam.
“Why can’t people kill each other after the sun comes up?” Peabody gasped out.
“You look like an ad blimp in that coat.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s wicked warm and it makes me feel thin when I take it off.”
Together they walked to the townhouse, and Eve turned her recorder on. “No security cams,” Eve observed. “No palm plate. Door lock’s been tampered with.”
There were riot bars on the lower windows, she noted. And the paint on the door and window trim was graying, peeling. Whoever owned the building wasn’t big on maintenance and security.
The uniform on the door gave them a nod as she opened it. “Lieutenant, Detective. Bitching cold,” she said. “Nine-one-one came in at oh three forty-two. Vic’s sister made it. My partner’s got her upstairs. We responded, arrived ’bout three forty-six. Observed the entrance door to the building’d been compromised. Vic’s on the third floor, bedroom. Hallway door lock’s compromised, too. Put up a fight from the looks of it. Hands and feet bound with your old reliable duct tape. Worked her over some before doing her. Looks like she was strangled with the tie of her robe, since she’s still wearing it around her neck.”
“Where was the sister while this was going on?” Eve asked.
“Said she just got in. Travels for work. Uses her sister’s place as a flop when she comes into New York. Name’s Palma Copperfield. Shuttle attendant for World Wide Air. She mucked up the scene some—sicked up on the floor in there, touched the body before she ran outside again to place the nine-one-one.”
The officer glanced toward the elevator. “She was sitting on the steps out there, bawling, when we pulled up. Pretty much been bawling since.”
“That’s always fun. Send in Crime Scene when they get here.”
Thinking of the shoddy maintenance, Eve turned to the stairs, unpeeling her cold-weather gear as they climbed.
One unit per level, she noted. Decent space, privacy.
On the third floor she saw that the unit boasted what looked to be a spanking new security peep and cop-lock system. Both were broken in a way that indicated amateur—and effective.
She stepped inside, into a living area where a second female officer stood over a woman who was bundled under a blanket, trembling.
Early twenties, by Eve’s gauge, with a long blond tail of hair sleeked back from a face where tears had washed through the makeup. She held a clear glass of what Eve assumed to be water in a two-handed grip.
She choked out a sob.
“Ms. Copperfield, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. My partner, Detective Peabody.”
“The Homicide police. The Homicide police,” she babbled in a flattened-vowel accent that told Eve Midwest.
“That’s right.”
“Somebody killed Nat. Someone killed my sister. She’s dead. Natalie’s dead.”
“I’m sorry. Can you tell us what happened?”
“I—I came in. She knew I was coming. I called her this morning to remind her. We got in late, and I had a wind-down drink with Mae, the other attendant. The door, downstairs…the door was broken or something. I didn’t need my key. I have a key. And I came up, and the lock—she had a new lock, and she gave me the code for it this morning, when—when I called? But it looked broken. The door wasn’t even locked. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong, something has to be wrong,’ because Nat wouldn’t go to bed without locking up. So I thought I should check, just look in on her before I went to bed. And I saw…Oh, God, oh, God, she was on the floor and everything was broken and she was on the floor, and her face. Her face.”
Palma started to cry again, the tears running fat and steady down her cheeks. “It was all bruised and red and her eyes…I ran over and I called her name. I think I called her name and I tried to wake her up. Pull her up. She wasn’t sleeping. I knew she wasn’t sleeping, but I had to try to wake her up. My sister. Someone hurt my sister.”
“We’re going to take care of her now.” Eve thought of the time it would take for her, then the sweepers, to process the scene. “I’m going to need to talk to you again, in a little while, so I’m going to have you taken down to Central. You can wait there.”
“I don’t think I should leave Nat. I don’t know what to do, but I should stay with Nat.”
“You need to trust us with her now. Peabody.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Eve glanced at the uniform who nodded toward a doorway.
Eve walked away from the weeping. Then, sealing up, walked into death.
2
IT WAS A GOOD-SIZED BEDROOM WITH A COZY little sitting area on the street side. She imagined Natalie had sat there to watch the world go by.
The bed looked female and fussy. Lots of pillows scattered around the room—some of them bloody now—that had likely been piled on the lacy pink-and-white spread, as some women loved to do.
There was a small wall screen angled to be seen from either bed or sitting area, framed pictures of flowers, a long dresser. There were bottles and whatnots on the floor—several broken—that had probably sat in some girlie arrangement on the dresser.
A couple of fluffy rugs graced the floor. Natalie was sprawled over one of them, legs twisted and bound at the ankles, her hands bound in front and clenched together as if in desperate prayer.
She wore pajamas, blue-and-white checked. They were spotted and streaked with blood. A robe, also blue, was tossed in a corner. The matching tie was wrapped around the woman’s throat.
Blood stained both fluffy rugs, and a splotch of vomit pooled near the door. The room reeked of both, and of urine.
Eve moved to the body, crouched to do the standard ID test and gauge for time of death.
“Victim is Caucasian female, age twenty-six, identified as Copperfield, Natalie, residing this location. Facial bruising indicates trauma perimortem. Nose looks broken. Two fingers of the right hand also appear broken. There are burns visible on the shoulder where the pajama top is torn. More burns on the bottoms of both feet. Skin has a blue-gray cast consistent with strangulation. Eyes are bloodshot and bulging. Wit touched the body upon discovery, some scene contamination. TOD, one forty-five A.M., approximately two hours before discovery.”
She shifted as Peabody started in. “
Watch the puke,” she warned.
“Thanks. I’ve got two uniforms and a departmental counselor picking up the sister.”
“Good. Vic’s still wearing her pj’s. Sexual assault isn’t likely. Look here, around the mouth. See, was gagged at one time. Got some of the tape adhesive on her face. See the right pinky and ring fingers?”
“Ouch. Snapped them.”
“Broke her fingers, broke her nose. Burned her. Lot of damage to her things that could have been caused in a fight, or by the killer to make a point.”
Peabody crossed to a doorway. “Bath through here. No ’link in place by the bed, and one on the floor here.”
“What does that tell you?”
“It looks like the vic grabbed the ’link, made a run for the bathroom. Maybe hoping to lock herself in, call for help. She didn’t make it.”
“Looks like. Wakes up, hears somebody in the apartment. Probably figures it’s the sister. Maybe she calls out, or just starts to roll back over. Door opens. Not the sister. Grabs for the ’link, tries to run. Could be. New lock on the door—a good one, with a security peep. Maybe somebody’s been bothering her. Run her, see if she’s made any complaints in the last couple months.”
She rose, walked to the hall door. “Killer comes in this way, she’d see him from the bed. Smart to grab the ’link, sprint off in the opposite direction toward a room with a lock. Pretty smart—quick thinking, too, if you’ve just woken from a sound sleep.”
She moved back to the bed, walked around it, judging the distance toward the bath, and saw something glint just under the bed. She crouched down, then lifted a kitchen knife with her sealed fingers. “Now why would she have a carving knife in the bedroom?”
“Big-ass knife,” Peabody returned. “Killer’s?”
“Then why not use it? I bet it’s from her kitchen. New locks,” Eve continued, “and a knife by the bed. She was worried about someone.”
“No complaints on file. If she was worried, she didn’t report it.”