Visions in Death

by J. D. Robb

  But it also gave her the benefit of several opinions on whatever play they’d seen. She used them, as well as her own, for her weekly column in Stage Right Magazine.

  She loved the theater, and had since she’d played a yam in her first-grade Thanksgiving Day pageant. Since she couldn’t act—though she’d pulled the yam off well enough to have her mother cry a little—had no skill for design or direction, she’d turned hobby into career by writing observations, rather than straight reviews, on plays on and off—and way, way off—Broadway.

  The pay was lousy, but the benefits included free seats and regular backstage passes as well as the buzz of being able to make a semblance of a living doing something she enjoyed.

  And she had a good feeling that the pay was going to improve, very soon. Her column was growing in popularity for the very reasons she’d hyped when talking herself into a job with Stage Right. Regular people wanted to know what other regular people thought about a play. Critics weren’t regular people. They were critics.

  After ten months on the job, she was beginning to get recognized on the street and enjoyed having people stop her to discuss, to agree or disagree, it didn’t matter.

  She was having the time of her life.

  Everything was going so well. With work, with Lucas. New York was her personal playground, and there was no place else on earth she’d rather be. When she and Lucas got married—and her friends agreed things were definitely heading in that direction—they’d find a mag apartment on the West Side, throw fun and quirky little parties, and be ridiculously happy.

  Hell, she was ridiculously happy now.

  She tossed back her hair, and hesitated at the northwest corner of Greenpeace Park. She always cut through the park, knew the route through like she knew the route from her own kitchen to her own bedroom.

  A very short walk, she admitted, until that pay raise.

  But two women had been killed in city parks in the last week, so a shortcut at one in the morning might not be a smart move.

  That was ridiculous. Greenpeace was practically her backyard. She’d be through it in five minutes, and home safe, tucked into her own little bed and counting sheep before two.

  She was a native New Yorker, for God’s sake, she reminded herself as she veered off the sidewalk and into the leafy shadows. She knew how to handle herself, how to stay aware. She’d taken self-defense courses, stayed in shape. And she had Anti-Mugger spray with panic alarm in her pocket.

  She loved this park, day or night. The trees, the little play areas for kids, the co-op gardens for vegetables or flowers. It showed, to Annalisa, just how diverse the city was. Concrete and cucumbers, spreading within feet of each other.

  The image made her laugh as she walked quickly along the path toward home.

  She heard the kitten mewing before she saw it. It wasn’t unusual to find a stray cat, even a feral one in the park. But this one, she saw as she walked closer, wasn’t a cat. It was just a kitten, a little ball of gray fur, curled on the path and crying pitifully.

  “Poor little thing. Where’s your mama, you poor little thing?”

  She crouched down, picked it up. It was only when she held it she realized it was a droid. She thought: Weird.

  The shadow fell over her. Her hand dived into her pocket for the spray even as she started to spring back to her feet.

  But the blow to the back of her head sent her sprawling.

  The droid continued to mew and cry as blows rained down on her.

  At seven hundred and twenty hours the next morning, Eve stood over Annalisa Sommers. The park smelled green. Verdant—she thought that was the word. Sort of alive and burgeoning.

  You could hear the morning traffic, on the street and overhead, but here, there was a small slice of countrified with a vegetable patch spread out in tidy rows behind a screen of pest and vandal fence. She didn’t know what the hell was growing in it. Leafy stuff and viney stuff and things that sprawled over small, neat hills.

  Part of that verdant smell was probably fertilizer or manure or whatever the hell these people mixed in the dirt to grow things they’d eventually put in their mouths and call natural.

  Well, come to think of it, there wasn’t anything much more natural than shit.

  Except blood and death.

  At the end of the patch, behind the odd little vertical triangles where vines grew, behind the screen to keep dogs and street people out, was a statue of a man and a woman. Each wore a hat. He carried some sort of hoe or rake, and she a basket loaded with what was meant to be the fruits of their labor. A harvest.

  Harvest was the name of the statue, she knew, but everyone called it Ma and Pa Farmer. Or just Ma and Pa.

  Annalisa lay at their feet, like an offering to the gods with her hands clasped between her naked breasts. Her face was bloody and ruined, her body covered with bruises.

  “Crappy way to start the day,” Peabody commented.

  “Yeah. A lot crappier for her.”

  Eve fixed on her goggles, got out her gauges. “Get her ID.”

  She began to recite what the recorder could already see.

  “Victim is Caucasian female. Evidence of violence on face, torso, limbs. Broken clavicle. No defensive wounds evident. Red corded ribbon at the throat apparent murder weapon. Strangulation. There is evidence of sexual assault. Bruising and lacerations on the thighs and genitals.”

  “ID’d as Annalisa Sommers, age thirty-two. Resides Fifteen West Thirty-first.”

  “Identification now on record. Victim’s eyes have been removed in a manner similar to previous victims Maplewood and Napier. Manner of assault, death, mutilation, location type, and position of body all in accordance with previous victims.”

  “He doesn’t vary much from pattern,” Peabody said.

  “Not much. Why mess with success? Got some hair fibers. On her right hand, adhering to the dried blood.”

  She tweezed them off, bagged them. And sat back on her haunches.

  “What was she doing in here, Dallas? Walking through here in the middle of the damn night. They four-walled the media conference. She had to know this guy trolls the parks.”

  “Not going to happen to her. People always think it can’t happen to them, instead of thinking it’s going to happen to somebody, why not me.”

  She studied the body. “She lives close. That fits with the others, too. Odds are she had a pattern, coming through here, on her way home, or away from home. She cuts through, knows her way around. Hair’s not right,” Eve muttered.

  “A little shorter than the others, a little darker. But still in the ballpark.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’d have to be a little flexible, wouldn’t he?”

  “Apparently.”

  With the scene on record, the body’s position logged, she turned the victim’s head, lifted it. “Took a blow to the back of the head. Hard blow. Maybe he comes up behind her, comes up, hits her, takes her down. She’s got some scrapes at the knees, grass and dirt in the cuts. She goes down, hands and knees.”

  She lifted one of the hands, showed the abrasions on the heels. “Then he lays into her. Beating, kicking. Violence is escalating each time. More premortem violence. Losing it. Rapes her, carts her over, finishes the job.”

  “We didn’t hear from Celina on this one.”

  “Noticed that?” Eve pushed to her feet. “We’ll tag her in a few minutes. Let’s look at the kill site.”

  It wasn’t far this time, just on the other end of the vegetable patch, along the path. Traces of blood were in splotches or sprinkles or smears, over grass and dirt.

  Made it easier for him, Eve thought. He only had to carry this one about eight feet.

  “Lieutenant?” One of the sweepers held out an evidence bag. “Found this at point three there. Standard pocket-sized Anti-Mugger. Might be hers. Didn’t do her a lot of good.”

  “We’ll check for prints.”

  “Got some hair, too. Few strays on the path, point one. Gray, so
they aren’t hers. Eyeballing, they don’t look human.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Probably squirrel again,” Peabody said.

  “Maybe. What was her employment, Peabody?”

  “Columnist, Stage Right Mag.”

  Eve nodded. “Coming home then. Walking home. Oh-one hundred’s late for theater. A drink after, maybe, or dinner. A date. Shortcut it through the park. It’s her neighborhood. She’s got her spray in her pocket just in case, so no worries. Quick breeze through and you’re back on the street and almost at your own doorstep. He’s waiting for her. Got the spot picked out, knows she’ll walk right by. Takes her down from behind.”

  She frowned at the slight impression on the grass one of the sweepers had already marked. “Carts her over to lay her under Ma and Pa. Finishes the job.” She shook her head again.

  “Get what else you can on her. Next of kin, spouse, cohabit partner. I’m going to try Celina before we look at the vic’s residence.”

  She moved away from the crime scene areas, put in the call.

  Impatient, she jammed her hand into her pocket. The ’link had just switched to voice mail when Celina answered. “Cancel answering system.” Celina pushed at her hair. “Sorry, I was asleep. I barely heard the signal. Dallas? Shit, shit! Am I late for my appointment?”

  “You got time. Get a good night’s sleep, Celina?”

  “I did. Tranq’d the hell out of myself.” Her eyes were a little dopey, a little vague. “Still groggy. Look, can this wait until I get some coffee?”

  “We had another one.”

  “Another what?”

  Eve saw the realization seep in, widen Celina’s heavy eyes. “Oh God. No.”

  “I want some time with you. I’ll meet you at Mira’s office.”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “Just keep the nine o’clock. I can’t get there sooner.”

  “I’ll meet you there. I’m sorry. Dallas, I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Got a mother and a sister in the city,” Peabody told Eve. “Father’s remarried and lives in Chicago. No spouse. Never married. No kids.”

  “Let’s take the apartment, then the mother.”

  It was a small place—dramatic and messy, as Eve thought was often the case with single women. Playbills and theater posters were her decorator’s choice. A playback of her ’link transmissions turned up several in just the last twenty-four hours of her life.

  “Chatty girl,” Eve commented. “We’ve got the mother, the sister, coworkers, gal pals, and a guy called Lucas who’s apparently her romantic interest. All this chatter tells us she went to see a play at the Trinity last night, then out for supper and drinks with friends. Let’s run the friends, and see if we can ID this Lucas.”

  “I’ll see what I can get from the neighbors.”

  When Peabody went out, Eve continued to look around. Lived alone, she decided, but entertained men—or a man—from time to time. Date underwear in the drawers, along with a few standard sex toys. There were a few photos and holos, and two of them showed the victim with the same man.

  Coffee-light skin, dark hair, neat goatee with soul patch, big smile with lots of teeth. Nice-looking guy, she thought, and she’d bet the bank his name was Lucas.

  She took the photo into evidence. If they didn’t get a last name, she’d run the picture for an ID match.

  A gregarious, sociable woman who liked the theater, Eve mused. Kept up a friendly relationship with her mother and sister, had several pals, and from the conversations on the ’link had a monogamous romantic relationship with a man named Lucas.

  And was dead because she cut through the park to save herself three blocks.

  No, Eve corrected. She was dead because someone selected her, stalked her, and killed her. If she hadn’t cut through the park last night, there’d have been another time or another way.

  She’d been a target. Mission accomplished.

  “Lucas Grande.” Peabody came back in. “Songwriter and session musician. They’ve been seeing each other for a while. Neighbor said six months, or a little more. She saw the vic on her way out last night, about seven. Just waved at each other, but the neighbor thinks she was wearing jeans and a blue sweater, short black jacket.”

  “Get an address for Grande. We’ll take him after we see her mother.”

  Eve wasn’t sure which was worse, telling a mother her daughter was dead and watching her shatter, or telling a man his woman was dead and watching him dissolve.

  They’d woken him. He’d come to the door sleepy-eyed, rumpled, and mildly annoyed.

  “Look, I turned the music down. I don’t play it loud after ten o’clock. Nobody complains on this floor. I don’t know what bug’s up the ass of that guy upstairs. He’s so freaking hyped, he can spring for soundproofing.”

  “This isn’t about a disturbance or complaint, Mr. Grande. We’re going to need to come in.”

  “Well, shit.” He backed up, gestured impatiently. “If Bird got busted for Zoner again, it’s got nothing to do with me. We do sessions together. We’re not joined at the damn hip.”

  “We’re here about Annalisa Sommers.”

  “Annalisa?” His mouth quirked. “Did she and her girlfriends get polluted and do something stupid last night? I gotta bail her out or something?”

  “Mr. Grande, I’m sorry to tell you, Ms. Sommers was killed last night.”

  The tickled smile dropped off his face. “That’s not funny. What the hell’s wrong with you to say something like that?”

  “Mr. Grande, her body was found this morning, in Greenpeace Park.”

  “Come on. Come on.” He retreated as he said it, his hands coming up as if begging her to stop.

  “Let’s sit down.”

  “Annalisa?” Tears flooded his eyes. “Are you sure it’s Annalisa? It could be somebody else.”

  Anybody else, he’d be thinking, Eve knew. Anybody but mine.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Grande. There’s no mistake. We need to ask you some questions now.”

  “I just saw her yesterday. Grabbed lunch with her yesterday. We’ve got a date Saturday. How can she be dead?”

  “We’re going to sit down now.” Peabody took his arm, led him to a chair.

  The room was crowded with instruments. Some sort of keyboard, a music comp, a couple of guitars, sound boxes. Eve snaked between them to sit across from him. “You and Annalisa were seeing each other.”

  “We’re going to get married. As soon as I ask her. I was going to ask her at Christmas. Wait until Christmas, make it special. What happened to her?”

  “Mr. Grande, tell us where you were last night.”

  He had his hands to his face, and the tears were trickling through his fingers. “You think I could hurt her? I couldn’t ever hurt her. I love her.”

  “No, I don’t think that, but I need to ask.”

  “I had a session, ran until midnight, maybe later. After we hung around the studio, had some brews, some pizza, jammed. Got home, I don’t know, around three. Jesus, did somebody hurt her?”

  “Yes, somebody hurt her.”

  His face was already splotchy from weeping, but now it went white under the stain. “You said the park. Oh, my Jesus Christ. You said the park. Those other women. It was like those other women? Annalisa?”

  “Tell me where you had your session, and who was there, and we’ll get that out of the way.”

  “Tunes, on Prince. Um. Bird. God, God.” His hands were all over his face, into his hair, fingers trembling. “John Bird, and Katelee Poder and I can’t think straight. Her mother, have you told her mother?”

  “We’ve just come from there.”

  “They’re tight. Really tight. Gave me the once-over about five times. But she’s okay. We get along good. I gotta go over there.”

  “Mr. Grande, do you know if anyone was bothering Annalisa? Someone you noticed, someone she mentioned.”

  “No. She’ll mention
if her nose itches, so she’d say if there was. I’ve gotta go see her mom. I’ve gotta go be with her family. We need to go see Annalisa together. We need to do that together.”

  She’d had a solid seven hours’ sleep, Eve thought, and had ended the previous day with a nice dinner with friends, and very satisfying sex. Despite all that, she carried a vicious headache with her into Mira’s section.

  Mira’s admin informed her, with more amiability than usual, that the doctor was in session with Ms. Sanchez, but she would let them know Lieutenant Dallas had arrived.

  “Let them finish,” Eve told her. “It’s better I’m not in there anyway. I’ve got some things I can take care of while I wait.”

  She checked her messages first, and found one from Berenski in the lab, gleefully relating that he’d nailed her shoe from the imprint.

  “My genius knows no borders or boundaries. Took your pathetic imprint on grass, worked my magic, and reconstructed the tread. Matched the tread. Big foot was in a size fifteen Mikon, style called Avalanche. It’s a modified hiking boot, and there’s not a lot of wear on this one. Retails at about three-seven-five. Eleven outlets in the city deal with that brand and carry it in that size. Got your list attached. You can come in and plant a big, wet one on me later.”

  “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

  But she appreciated the magic, and scanned the attachment. After highlighting the outlets inside or bordering her downtown parameter, she spent the rest of her wait time writing her preliminary report.

  She glanced up when the door opened.

  “Dallas.” Celina hurried out. Her eyes were swollen from a recent crying jag.

  “Eve, why don’t you come in.” Mira gestured. “Celina, why don’t you both come back in for a moment.”

  “I let you down.” Celina closed a hand over Eve’s arm as they walked toward Mira’s office. “I let myself down.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Eve sat, prepared to accept flowery tea, then sniffed like a hound when she smelled coffee.