Born in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Moving to the adjoining bath, she recorded while she studied. Clean, she noted, with a few men’s toiletries on the counter along with a big leafy plant in a glossy black pot. Separate steam shower, drying tube, glossy jet tub with a marble surround. An oversized black towel was draped over a chrome warmer.

  She opened the cabinet, scanned the contents.

  Lotions, potions—anti-age skin and hair products for the most part. Male birth control tabs, pain blockers, sleep aids. In the counter drawer were more grooming aids, dental hygiene products.

  She looked back up at the body.

  “You practice tying that noose, Randall?” she wondered. “It sure is perfect. Takes a steady hand and some skill to create a textbook hanging noose.”

  She stepped out of the room when she heard the buzzer and went down to meet the sweepers and give them the lay of the land.

  She found Roarke sitting with Jake and Rochelle in the living area. Jake sat hunched over, his arms dangling between his legs. His eyes were red and swollen as were Rochelle’s, who sat beside him in silence.

  “I need to see my father,” Jake said without looking up. “I need to see him. I need to talk to my grandparents.”

  “I’m going to arrange for that soon.” Since it was handy, Eve sat on the low table in front of him. “Jake, when’s the last time you saw or spoke to your father?”

  “Friday. We had a memorial service for Nat and Bick at the offices. Their families aren’t having one in the city. We wanted to do something. We were all there.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Toward the end of the day. About four. The partners let everyone who wanted to go home leave immediately after. We left together, my father and I, about five. He asked if I wanted to go have a drink, but I just went on home. I should’ve gone with him. I should’ve talked to him.”

  “Did he seem upset, depressed?”

  Jake’s head snapped up, and his eyes went hot. “It was a memorial service, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Jake,” Rochelle murmured, and rubbed a hand over his thigh. “She’s trying to help.”

  “He’s dead. How can she help? Why would he kill himself?” Jake demanded. “Why would he do that? He was young and healthy and successful. He—Oh, God, was he healthy? Did he have something wrong with him, and we didn’t know?”

  “I’m going to ask you again. Did he seem upset or depressed recently?”

  “I don’t know. Sad. We were all sad, and shocked. I guess he seemed edgy on Friday. Jumpy. He asked me if I wanted to go have a drink, but it was knee-jerk. He didn’t want to hang any more than I did.”

  “Do you know where he did his gambling?”

  “That was before. Jesus, that was years ago. He doesn’t do that anymore. He stopped.”

  “All right. Did he mention where he was going when you left him on Friday?”

  “No. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I was upset. God, I have to tell my mother. They’ve been divorced forever, but she has to know. My grandparents.” He put his head in his hands again. “I don’t know how much more they can take.”

  “Would you say your father was a religious man?”

  “Dad. No, not at all. He says you have to get all you can out of life, because once it’s done, it’s done.” His voice cracked. “It’s done.”

  “He do any sailing, Jake?”

  “Sailing?” His head came up again, his eyes clouded with grief and confusion. “No, he didn’t like the water. Why?”

  “Just curious. Was he in a relationship?”

  “No. He liked women, but he just cruised.”

  “He takes care of his house? Cooking, cleaning.”

  “He’s got a droid.”

  “Okay. I’m going to have a uniform take you and Rochelle to your grandparents.”

  “I want to see my father. I need to see him.”

  “I’ll make arrangements for you and your family to see him as soon as I can. But not now, not here. Go, be with your family now.”

  Once she’d seen them off, she began to work her way through the first level of the house. “He left a note on the computer,” she said to Roarke.

  “Handy.”

  “Yeah. Actually, only a small percentage of self-terminations leave a note. Confessed to hiring the hit on Copperfield and Byson.”

  “Also handy.”

  “Yeah, you’re following me.” She moved through a small media room, a dining room. “They weren’t professional hits, number one. So sure, he could’ve hired some mope. But who’s he going to trust with the info that was tortured out of Copperfield?”

  “Only someone else directly involved.”

  “Bingo. He wrote about losing his soul and going to Hell. Upper case H on Hell. That says a religious bent to me, or some sort of belief in the big fire down there. Also, the noose looked like it was tied by a professional executioner. Or a very skilled sailor or Youth Scout. Someone very calm and precise.”

  She moved to the kitchen, opened the doors on the pantry—well stocked—the utility closet. “Where’s the droid?”

  “Not down here. Upstairs?”

  “I’m going to check. Why don’t you play e-man and check his security, the discs and so on?”

  “Is this a homicide, Lieutenant?”

  “Smells like one to me. We’ll see what the ME says. But fingers point. Why is the door open, the security off?”

  “Someone wanted the body found easily, and expeditiously.”

  “There you go. Why does a man contemplating offing himself ask his son out for a drink a couple hours before the act? He just doesn’t. Or if he does, he insists. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. I have to get something off my chest.’ But he doesn’t.

  “What you’ve got here is a man who liked to live well, by whatever means available. No steady relationships, no real vestige of interest in the family business. Hard-line father, up-and-coming son, and you’re the black sheep. But you know how to see to your own comfort. You’ve got a gambling problem.”

  “Had or have?”

  “Well, he’s dead as a doornail, whatever a doornail is, so it’s ‘had.’ But I’m betting he had one right up until the last hour. Great way to wash unexplained income is playing with it. I’m not seeing a man with a heavy conscious here. I’m seeing an opportunist, and one who’d have run like the freaking wind if he thought we were sniffing at him. And I’m seeing somebody’s patsy.”

  There was no droid on the premises, and according to her e-man the discs for Friday had been removed and replaced with blanks.

  “There’s going to be a tranq in his system,” Eve said. “Something that can be put down to calming himself before he put the noose over his head. We might find, since we’ll be looking, a stunner mark on him.”

  “Why kill him?”

  “Maybe he got greedy, wanted a bigger cut. Maybe he didn’t like having his son’s friends murdered, or got nervous. One way or the other, he was a liability—and a handy goat. I buy the note, the scene, I pack up my toys and walk away. Putting the finger on this guy also smears the accounting firm. Apologies, sorry about that, but the Bullock Foundation will require a new firm. Too much scandal, bad for the image. Their lawyers demand their files, and there’s no record at the firm of any fraud or whisper thereof. All parties involved in Sloan, etc.—as far as we know—are now dead.”

  “Clean and tidy.”

  “The killer likes it that way. Two strangulations, one hanging. Same basic method. He takes the droid in case there’s any record in the banks of his visiting this residence. Because he’s been here before. He knew his way around.”

  “And came prepared,” Roarke prompted.

  “Oh, yeah. Comes to the door. Let’s have a chat. How about a drink with that? Slips a tranq into the vic’s wine. Let me help you upstairs. Gets him up there, lays him on the floor. Stuns him if he has to. Writes the note on the computer. Mistake there, I figure, because he puts too much of himself into it. Lost my soul, going to the
big H. Fixes the rope, hauls the woozy or stunned vic onto the chair, gives it a kick, and watches the show.

  “He’d watch,” she mused. “Like he watched Natalie and Bick. Watch the face, the eyes. Randall kicked, kicked off the slippers, grabbed at the rope. I’ve got what looks like rope fibers and tissue under the vic’s nails. Takes awhile. It’s not a quick death unless the neck breaks on the drop. He suffered, but I guess he earned it.”

  She frowned at the now empty bedroom. “Might’ve had his own transpo, but that’s not an absolute. He could’ve come on public—subway’d work best, and taken the droid away by the same method if he deactivated all but its mobility.”

  “So you’re looking for a man with a droid.”

  She smiled a little. “Maybe.” She pulled out her ’link when it beeped. “Dallas.”

  “It’s halftime, so I’m making this quick.”

  She frowned at Feeney. “If you were making it quick, you’d have gotten back to me two hours ago.”

  “Can’t do a locate if the ’link’s not in use, can I? I got the number.” And he read it off to her. “Put a tracer on that, but it wasn’t engaged until a few minutes ago, and then only for fifteen seconds.”

  “You got a location?”

  “Best I can give you is Upper East.”

  “New York? The ’link’s in New York?”

  “Yeah, where’d you expect it to be? Listen, Dallas, they got cheerleaders.”

  “Who has cheerleaders?”

  “The Liberties. I’m missing halftime.”

  “For God’s sake, they’re young enough to be your kids. Your kids’ kids.”

  “A man don’t watch a bunch of half-naked girls doing jumps and high kicks, he might as well be dead. You got what you need?”

  “Yeah, yeah, and thanks. Keep the trace on, will you? Cheerleaders,” she grumbled when Feeney clicked hurriedly off. “Men have simple minds.”

  “It’s not our minds that are simple,” Roarke corrected.

  She had to laugh. “New York. Son of a bitch. They probably never left the city. Upper East. Hotel maybe, or a private residence. I need to run a check, see if the foundation or either Bullock or her son own or have interest in any properties in that area.”

  “I can run that for you from home. Home’s where we’re going. You can write up your report on this just as easily from there,” he said, and took her arm before she could argue. “You need food, and so do I. You’re running on empty, Eve. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “However I’m running, I need to move. I’d moved faster on this, Randall Sloan would still be alive and I’d be closing this.”

  She started for the door with him, then stopped. “Wait. Wait. A guy like Randall. He’d have insurance.” She turned a circle. Three-story house, she mused. Twelve rooms, and the solarium. Lots of places to hide insurance.

  “He wasn’t stupid. The way he got Kraus to keep his name as account exec, but did the work himself. Something goes wrong, he just palms off the trouble on Kraus. Insurance.”

  “The goat kept a backup goat in Kraus.”

  “You bet. Randall had trouble, needs to needle his client, he’s got a copy of those books somewhere. If he didn’t before, he sure as hell copied them when he doctored Natalie’s files.”

  “I imagine they thought of that as well, and got the location out of him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. He wasn’t tortured, and the place wasn’t tossed. Could be they figure they have all the copies, or already got his. But suppose he was smarter than that, more careful than that. This place needs to be gone over, top to bottom.”

  “Which will take hours,” Roarke pointed out. “If you think you have hours left in you, you’re mistaken. Compromise,” he said, anticipating an argument. “Send Peabody and McNab back to do that. An e-man and a detective. If there’s something here, they’ll find it.”

  “I’ll let them take first swing at it.”

  She went out, sealed the door.

  “It’s possible, if you’re right about the copy, he kept it off-site. A bank box.”

  “Possible, but it seems to me he’d want it easily accessible, especially now. Shit’s flying, he needs his shield. What if he wants it after banking hours, or on Sunday? Traveled a lot,” she continued as she got into the car. “If he used a vault, it could be anywhere. Guy who travels that much would know how to run, know how to move fast and light if he had to.”

  And thinking that, she dropped into sleep.

  She woke, stretched nearly horizontal as Roarke stopped in front of the house. Rather than refreshing her, the mobile nap left her groggy and disoriented, and fumbling for the controls to bring her seat back up.

  Roarke lifted it, as he’d lowered it, from his side of the controls. “You need actual sleep.”

  “I need actual coffee.”

  She’d have food to go with it, Roarke determined as he walked with her into the house.

  “Red meat,” he said to Summerset. “Her office AC. If the others haven’t eaten, send up a bloody cow.”

  “Right away.” As they headed up, Summerset lifted the cat that ribboned between his legs. “We’ll just put some nice green beans along with that steak. She won’t like it, but he’ll make her eat them, won’t he?”

  Mavis didn’t exactly pop up when Eve entered the office, but she managed to shove herself out of the chair. “You’re back.”

  “Yeah, sorry, things got complicated. You’ve got to give me a few minutes to deal with another thing.”

  “You get the list?” Peabody asked her. “There are a couple that look good to me.”

  “List of what?”

  “The agencies, counselors. You said I should send it to your PPC.”

  “Right, right.” Her brain felt like mush. “I didn’t get the chance to review. Something came up. I would give you the world drenched in chocolate for a cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” Leonardo eased Mavis back in a chair.

  “Chocolate thief,” Peabody said, hoping to make Mavis smile. “Anyway, a couple stand out for me. So—”

  “I’ll look it over in a few minutes. I need to pull you and McNab off this, put you on another assignment. Randall Sloan is dead.”

  “Well, shit, you’ve had a busy day.”

  “Staged suicide, that’s my take. I worked the scene, sweepers will be processing.”

  Peabody opened her mouth, glanced at Mavis, then nodded. “Okay.”

  “I’ll fill you in, then I need you and McNab back at the scene.”

  “You’ll fill them in over a meal,” Roarke added.

  “As soon as I look over the list.”

  “It’ll wait.” It was Leonardo who spoke as he carried in a mug of coffee. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said to Mavis, “but she needs to eat, to rest for a little while.”

  “Jeez.” Eve took the coffee as if it contained the staff of life. “What is it with men?”

  “He’s right.” Mavis pushed her hands though her hair. “He’s right. You look whipped and kicked. We’ll eat. We’ll all sit down and eat.”

  They brought in a table, dragged up chairs. While the coffee helped cut through the fog in her brain, Eve had to admit the protein got her blood moving again.

  “A hell of an operation,” McNab commented when she’d run through the bulk of it. “What’s funding it?”

  “That’s another question. Illegals, weapons, mob money?” Eve lifted a shoulder. “We’ll dig it out. Or Global will. Bullock, Chase, or someone on their payroll murdered three people—that we know of—to protect that operation.”

  “And they’re still in New York.” Peabody tried not to hum out loud in pleasure as she swallowed steak. “Why? I mean, after killing Randall Sloan, why not make tracks? It seems they’d want to be long gone before his body was discovered.”

  “Another question. They still have business here. They feel safe where they are. From their point of view, they’re removed from the investigation. They were an a
libi for a man who was not involved—and he, in turn, covers them. Another man has confessed to the murders, and being dead, can’t recant that confession. But you’re right, they’d need a reason to stay here, when they could be anywhere else.”

  She contemplated as she ate. “They wanted the body discovered, and in good time. No reason to leave the security off and the door unlatched otherwise. The sooner it’s found, the sooner they can put this whole untidy business behind them. Must be irritating,” she decided, “to be so rich and powerful and have little people picking at your foundation. Like ants.”

  “I don’t think ants pick,” Peabody said. “They more dig, probably.”

  “Whatever. You are what you are, and they’re nothing. Tried to buy the nosy accountant off, but she’s annoyingly honest. You’re not going to see your whole lifestyle, your rep, your wealth put in jeopardy by some number cruncher. That’s why the murder was personal. She got in your face, so you got in hers. I can come right into your home, you stupid bitch. What are you going to do about it? And I’m going to hurt you because you had the nerve to threaten me and mine. Then, when I’m satisfied you’ve told me everything I need to know, I’m going to kill you with my own hands, and watch you die. But not before I tell you that I’m going to do the same thing to your lover. So you die in pain, in fear, and in grief.”

  She forked up a tiny new potato. “What?” she demanded as the table sat in silence, staring at her. “What?”

  “Creepshow.” Mavis picked up her water glass, drank deep. “Squared.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “How do you know he thought those things, felt those things?” Leonardo stroked Mavis’s arm as he goggled at Eve.

  “Well, he sure as hell wasn’t thinking about the weather.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “Randall Sloan kept a car garaged. He didn’t use it that night. Both he and his alibis stated they used cabs. Let’s see if there’s any sort of log in and out of the garage. The killer may have borrowed it for the job. If not, we start checking rental companies. Or car services. The Bullock Foundation may keep a car in the city, or use a specific service when they’re here.”

  When Peabody dug out her memo book to note it down, Eve shook her head. “No, you’ve already got enough going. I’m going to tag Baxter. He wanted in on this. He can take that assignment.” She pushed back from the table. “I’ll contact him now, then I want to look at the lists of those agencies you got on Tandy.”