by J. D. Robb
“Maybe. But you like people more than I do.”
“That’s probably true, until you factor in you risk your life for people every day.”
“Not today, especially.”
“Then we should celebrate. God, I want a bloody glass of wine.”
She lifted his head with her hands, took a long look. “You had a bad day.”
“No, a bumpy one, a long one, but in the end not bad at all. Especially the homecoming portion.”
“Well that part goes without saying.”
“It should always be said.” He nudged up to kiss her.
“Then I’ll say it, too. And I want a shower, maybe some wine, and since I paid you in advance I want you to look at the vic’s file.”
“A deal’s a deal. Shower, wine, food—and my end of the bargain.”
“I had food before.”
“Before what?”
She laughed, rolled out of bed with him. “I had a fake Danish this morning, and magic chicken soup this afternoon.”
“More cause to celebrate.”
They walked into the shower, with Roarke already resigned to having his skin boiled off.
“It was really good soup from a deli near the crime scene.” She ordered jets on full, one-hundred-two degrees.
He winced and bore it.
“How about you?”
“Food?” He couldn’t recall she’d ever asked that question of him. “I had an actual breakfast, then lunch in the exec dining room where I talked to entirely too many people for entirely too long. It quite spoiled my appetite.”
“Is there a problem? Should I hock some of the zillion pieces of jewelry you’ve given me?”
“I think we can muddle through. No problem.” But he circled his neck under the spray. “Just a few people who needed to be reminded of their priorities, and who pays them.”
“Were you Scary Roarke?”
He smiled, flipped a finger down the dent in her chin. “I may have been. In any case, it’s done, and shouldn’t have to be repeated anytime soon.”
“You got to kick ass today. I didn’t. That would’ve been good. But I did intimidate a really rich idiot, so that’s something.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Probably. Candida Mobsley.”
“Ah yes. She is an idiot. Is she involved?”
“I don’t think so. She’s too much of a moron to have planned any of this, and if she’d paid to have it done, she’d have bollocksed it up when I was grilling her.”
He smiled at her use of his slang. “I suspect you’re right about that.”
“Anyway, I’ve got a whole list of firms—why do they mostly always have three names—I want to run by you. Just for an opinion if you know them.”
She stepped out, into the drying tube while he cut the water temperature by ten degrees and sighed at the reprieve.
Back in the bedroom, she put on comfortable clothes and frowned at the cat.
“He fucking curled his lip at me.” Thoroughly insulted, she turned to Roarke. “How does a cat curl his lip? Get over it, fatso,” she ordered. “I ditched the pants. I showered. It’s over.”
“He’s annoyed, Summerset tells me, as you were around another cat.”
“It wasn’t a cat. It was a goddamn panther.”
“You were at the zoo?”
“The rich idiot has a white panther cub to go with her white penthouse, which made me snow-blind. Everything’s white, except her assistant wore black. I figure so she can find him in that snowstorm she lives in. And I need to check and make sure she’s got the proper license for that panther. What kind of idiot keeps a jungle cat as a pet?”
“She would, if someone told her it was fashionable or rebellious.”
Eve narrowed her eyes. “Did you do that moron?”
Roarke shook his head. “That’s a very crass term considering our personal welcome home. No, I didn’t do, bang, nail, or bounce on that particular moron.”
“Because?”
“Moron would or certainly should be self-explanatory. Add she’s not, in any way, my type. Booze, illegals, stupidity, reckless behavior, and spoiled right down to the marrow.”
“Good to know. How about Alva Moonie?”
“While not a moron, no, I’ve not done, banged, etc., Alva Moonie. Is she involved as more than a witness?”
“No. No, not that I can see, or feel. I liked her. She said I met her before.”
“It’s likely we exchanged greetings at some fund-raiser or event. Any other women on the list I may have potentially banged?”
She grinned at him. “Not really. I wondered about those two since you’re all filthy rich.”
“You’ve some grime on you, Lieutenant.”
“That’s just transferred grime.” She held out a hand. “You’re going to come in handy on this one because you’re filthy rich and you’re not a moron, and you actually understand portfolios and all that crap.”
“All that crap is what’s paid for the wine we’re both going to have—and the food.”
“I get a paycheck,” she reminded him. “I say I paid for the food tonight.”
“As you like.” He gave her hand a tug, brought her close, kissed her again. “But I’m by God not having pizza after this endless day.”
“Good. I want a steak. A really, big, fat steak.”
“There we are in perfect accord. Let’s eat, drink, and talk murder and money.”
She let out a satisfied breath. “I love you.”
IN YEARS PAST, THE CLOSEST EVE CAME TO real cow-meat steak on a cop’s salary was an anemic soy burger. She’d have matched that with fake fries, burying them in salt and been fine with it. Now a perfectly grilled New York strip sat on her plate, beside actual fried potatoes piled like golden shoestrings, and crispy green beans mixed with slivers of almonds.
Not a bad deal.
But the better one, better than real meat and potatoes, was having someone sitting across from her she could run through the case with. In those years past most of her meals, such as they were, had been eaten alone or on the fly. Maybe she’d catch something with Mavis, and there’d been plenty of crappy food chowed down with another cop.
But sitting in her own home, with a real meal, and a man who not only listened but got it? She’d won life’s trifecta.
“You’ve eliminated a personal motive,” Roarke commented after she’d laid out the basics.
“It was business. I can’t find one whiff of personal for motive or in execution. I’m going to ask Mira for a profile,” she added, referring to the department’s top shrink and profiler. “But this was what I think of as a semi-professional hit.”
“Semi-pro? Not quite good enough for the majors?”
“I’m thinking no, not quite good enough. There was a . . . bullishness about it. Charging in. She didn’t know she was working late until that afternoon, so not much planning ahead. Still, a decent plan. Stun—though the stun feels unnecessary—snatch, grab, transport, and get her inside for privacy. The killing method, that takes training, and again, it’s impersonal.”
“I doubt the victim thought so.”
“She thought they’d let her go, or she sure as hell hoped they’d let her go, right down to the instant. And he took her from behind, again, impersonal. He—they—got whatever information they asked for, plus whatever she had in her briefcase. Then they used the standard cover of a botched mugging.”
“A homicidal classic.”
“It might’ve worked. But what kind of mugger stuns a mark, smacks her around, then snaps her neck from behind?”
“A particularly vicious one, but no,” he continued before Eve could speak. “If you’re a mugger lucky enough to have a stunner, you stun, take the valuables, and run off to stun another day.”
“Agreed.
”
“If you’re particularly vicious, you don’t bother to stun. You’d want to do some damage and you’d inflict it.”
“Also agreed. Plus why? She was a mugger’s dream. A woman walking alone who doesn’t fight back. No defensive wounds. If she’d screamed or shouted for help say, and spooked him, someone would’ve heard it. And in that neighborhood, would likely report it, or at least tell the cops on canvass. And if he was spooked—”
“And had a stunner.” Roarke picked up her train of thought. “Quicker, easier to jam it against her throat and kill her that way.”
“That’s why the stunner doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the marks are on her. And one more plus. She had no business being that far from the office, that far from home. It was too cold and too late for her to walk it, and she’d told her husband she was just walking to the subway—a block and a half from the office.”
“All that, yes. And the blood on the tarp.”
“That’s the big one as it proves she was inside the apartment. To get her inside, they needed the code.”
“Ah, well . . .” He only smiled, wiggled his fingers.
“If they could afford or had a B&E man good enough to get through that security without a trace, they could afford a pro hit.”
“There wasn’t much time to recruit.”
She pointed a finger at him. “Exactly.” Pleased he followed the same line, she lifted her wine to drink. “She gets passed the accounts, the audits, just that afternoon. That’s the most likely motive. Maybe, maybe, it was one of the other, older deals, and she’d just reached some stage on it that sent up the red flag, but the probability’s higher if it was new because it reads like a rush job.”
“New to her.”
This time she toasted him. “Exactly. Word gets back to the client, or the auditee—is that a word?—or the person involved with the business who doesn’t want somebody fresh coming in, can’t afford it. She’s only had a few hours, hell, maybe she didn’t even scratch the surface. But you can’t take the chance. Things are a little confused, a little bogged down at Brewer and company, with the two accountants in a Vegas hospital. It’s a smallish department. Everybody knows everybody. You can bet anybody who needed to know could find out who’s working on what. Nobody’s going to think a thing about a question like, say, who got slammed with Jim’s or Chaz’s work? Or the supervisor told the interested party who’d be handling the audit when they contacted him to express concern.”
“Not to worry, Mr. Very Bad Man,” Roarke began, “Marta’s one of the best. She does excellent work, and in fact, will be burning the midnight oil right here tonight to catch up.”
“As simple as that,” Eve agreed. “Then Mr. Very Bad Man calls in a couple of goons, tells them to find out what Marta knows, get the files, and get rid of her.”
“Which they do, but Lieutenant Very Smart Woman detects the subtle mistakes in their work.”
“They shouldn’t have taken the coat.” She cut a bite of steak before gesturing with her knife. “It’s a little thing, but it was overkill. Or if they took the coat, they should’ve taken the boots. They were good boots, pretty new. Probably worth more than the coat. And if they wanted it to look like a mugging, they should’ve used a sticker. Messy, sure, but putting a couple of holes in her would read more like a mugging. Using that apartment was convenient, but not smart. It gave us the connection.”
“WIN to Brewer to the vic’s new audits.”
“I know at least eight clients at this point who cross, and three who had audits assigned to Marta on the day of her murder. We may find more yet.” She plucked up a fry, frowned at it. “Too fucking convenient.”
“Why not one of the construction crew? One of them could have finessed the codes.”
“Not impossible, and I need to dig into Peabody’s report more thoroughly. So far, nobody’s popping. And it seems to me one of the crew would be more likely to spread that tarp back out. They’d know how the place looks every morning. Leaving it bunched up just brings more attention to it. And when you straighten it out, you’re more likely to spot the blood.”
“As you did.”
“Yeah. Still, panic equals mistakes.”
“He could’ve assumed you wouldn’t go inside.”
“That’s what’s bone-ass stupid. For Christ’s sake, we find a woman outside an empty apartment, it just follows we’ll go in and look around.”
“Then take a closer look at—who’s the W in WIN again?”
“Whitestone, Bradley.”
“Right. Who also happens to be right on the spot to report the crime.”
“Makes him look suspicious, yeah. And it’s obvious, not so subtle here. Moonie gave me the rundown of her evening with him, and she’s the one who brought up the new building. He didn’t push it. We’ll keep looking at him, but I like the other partners more.”
“Why?”
“If you’re arranging for somebody to be murdered, and you’ve arranged for them to use your place, and you’re an ambitious money guy, do you take someone you’re hoping will be an important client—and one you’d like to bang—to the scene so she discovers the DB with you?”
“Well now, that’s a bit of a circular route, and a foolish one. Still, you could call it an alibi.”
“You could call it an alibi,” she agreed, “but a smarter one, and he comes off smart, is to stick with the potential client, stay away from the area, and find out when the cops come to call.”
“Some like to insert themselves.”
She liked him playing devil’s advocate, making her think through the steps and details.
“Some do, not him. Just not.” She shook her head when Roarke lifted the bottle to pour her more wine. “Added, there’s that ambition. He’s proud of the company, and that building. It can’t be good for business when clients find out some woman got killed—even if we bought mugging—right there, dumped right on his doorstep. It puts people off, and especially people with lots and lots of money.”
“There’s a point.” Roarke leaned back, enjoying her, enjoying the moment despite death. “Aren’t the other partners proud and ambitious?”
“I’d say yes. I also say this was spur of the moment, driven by the moment, and a little panic. We’ve got a place, we’ll use it—the cops will never figure it’s us. It’s just random, just her bad luck. Whoever ordered the hit tells the muscle to make it quick and clean, and make it look like a mugging. Take her valuables. And I’ll bet your fine ass a week’s pay whoever killed her has never been mugged and has never mugged anyone. Or he’d know better how to make it look.”
“Whose week’s pay? Mine or yours?”
“Since you make more in a week than most people make in a bunch of decades, we’ll stick with mine. Which circles back to why you’re so useful. If there’s something hinky with the books, the files, you’ll spot it.”
“Fortunately I like being useful,” and added, “I’m looking forward to the opportunity to poke about in someone else’s financials.” He smiled when she frowned at him. “Using the power for good, of course. Why don’t I get started on that? I’ll work in here. Easier, I think, if I have a question for you, or you for me.”
“Okay. I can use the auxiliary. I need to set up my board, but I’ll get you started first.”
“Are the files on your unit here, or at Central?”
“I told McNab to copy and send, yeah.”
“Then I can be a self-starter.”
Just as well, she thought. As he’d put the meal together, she was stuck with the clearing up. But fair was fair, and like the magic soup, the meal and the reprise had her energy back in tune.
A nap, sex, and a hot shower may have played into that. Either way, she calculated she had a few good hours in her.
She noted that Roarke dived right in, and that the cat watched her suspici
ously when she came out of the kitchen to set up her board.
She decided her best tactic there was ignoring Galahad until he pretended nothing was wrong and never had been.
She studied the board as she worked, and went to her auxiliary unit to print out more ID photos. She pinned Candida and Aston to her board, and Alva Moonie’s housekeeper.
Connections, she thought, and began to make them. Candida to Alva—former friends, lovers. Both rolling it in. Candida to the vic through the audit. She added Candida’s money man, and a note to do a run on him.
She aligned the vic’s family on one side, her coworkers on the other. And took a good look at James Arnold and Chaz Parzarri, making another note to contact the hospital and get the rundown on injuries and prognoses.
Roarke, she saw, was in work mode. With his hair tied back, sleeves pushed up, he looked relaxed about it. Who knew why some people found numbers so damn fascinating.
She sat at her auxiliary unit, and dived into what she considered the much more interesting prospect of digging into people’s lives.
Arnold, James, age forty-six. On his second marriage, nine years in. The first gave him two children, one of each variety, and hefty child-support payments. He’d added another kid—female—with the second marriage.
He looked like an accountant, she decided. At least the clichéd image of one. Pale, a slightly worried expression on his thin face, faded blue eyes, thin sandy hair.
The sort who looked both harmless and boring. And, she knew, appearances were often deceiving.
He had an advanced degree, and had been a teacher’s assistant and a dorm monitor in college.
Nerd.
He’d worked for the IRS for six years, then had gone into the private sector with a brief and unsuccessful two years between trying to run his own business out of his home.
He’d been with Brewer for thirteen years.
Decent salary. She figured anyone who crunched numbers all damn day probably deserved one. Good thing, as his oldest kid’s college tuition took a greedy bite.