Visions in Death

by J. D. Robb

She paused at the intersection and ignored the steam from a nearby glide-cart that carried too much rehydrated onion, the pedestrian beside her who muttered under his breath about hell-demons, and the chatter, ladened with the Bronx, from the two women behind her that appeared to center on the purchase of an outfit that was going to make one of them look like a freaking goddess.

  “He’s a New York guy,” she told Feeney, and strode into the street along with the horde an instant before the signal changed. “And I’m banking he does his buying in the city. We have to go outside—’burb, out of state, Net—it’s going to take days, if not weeks. And he’s stepped up the pace.”

  “Yeah, so I hear. We’ll keep to the grindstone here. You need more feet in the field, let me know.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  They hit two more retail outlets before Eve took pity on her partner and grabbed soy dogs at a glide-cart. It seemed like a good day to eat outdoors, to take advantage of the balmy weather.

  So she sat on the grass of Central Park and studied the castle.

  It hadn’t begun there, but it was her jumping point.

  A king-sized man. King of the castle. Or was that just stretching things?

  He’d placed the second victim on a bench, near a memorial that honored heroes. Men, particularly men, who’d done what needed to be done. Manly men. Men who were remembered for their actions in the face of great trauma and adversity.

  He liked symbols. King of the castle. Strength in adversity.

  The third laid out near a garden, under a statue of farmers.

  Salt of the earth? Salt purified, or it flavored. And that was bullshit.

  Making something grow. Using your own hands, your sweat, and muscle to bring life? To bring death.

  She blew out a breath. It could play in with the crafts. It could. Self-reliance, then. Do it yourself.

  Parks meant something to him. The parks themselves. Something had happened to him in a park, something he paid back every time he killed.

  “We could go back,” she muttered. “Look back, see if there were any sexual assaults on a male in one of the city parks. No, a kid, that’s the key. He’s big now, nobody’s going to mess with me now. But when he was a kid, helpless, like a woman. How do you fight back when you’re a kid? So you’ve got to get strong, so it can’t happen again. You’d rather be dead than have it happen again.”

  For a moment, Peabody said nothing. She wasn’t entirely sure Eve was speaking to her. “Could be he got beat up, or humiliated rather than assaulted sexually. Humiliated or hurt in some way by the female authority figure.”

  “Yeah.” Eve rubbed absently at a headache at the base of her skull. “Most likely the female he’s killing symbolically now. And if it was his mother or sister, something along those lines, it probably wasn’t reported. We’ll check anyway.”

  “If a woman who had charge of him, control of him, abused him—physically, sexually—it would have twisted him from a young age, and later, the trigger gets pressed and he pays her back.”

  “You think getting knocked around as a kid is an excuse?”

  The snap in Eve’s voice had Peabody speaking carefully. “No, sir. I think it’s a reason, and it goes to motive.”

  “There is no reason for killing innocent people, for bathing yourself in their blood because someone messed you up. No matter how, no matter when, no matter who. That’s a line for the lawyers and the shrinks, but it’s not truth. Truth is you stand up, and if you can’t, you’re no better than the one who beat and broke you. You’re no better than the worst. You can take your cycle of abuse and your victim as victimizer traumatized bullshit and—”

  She stopped herself, tasted the acrid flavor of her own rage in the back of her throat. So she pressed her forehead to her updrawn knees. “Fuck it. That was over the top.”

  “If you think I sympathize with him, or find any excuse for what he’s done, you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t think that. That rant came to you courtesy of personal neuroses.” It was hard, it would be bitter. And it was time. Eve lifted her head.

  “I expect you to go through the door with me, without hesitation. And I know you will, without hesitation. I expect you to stand with me, to walk through the blood, to handle the shit, and to put your personal safety and comfort second to the job. I know you will, not only because it’s who you are but because, by God, I trained you.”

  Peabody said nothing.

  “It was different when you were my aide. A little bit different. But a partner’s got a right to know things.”

  “You were raped.”

  Eve simply stared. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “Conclusion drawn from observations, association, logical speculation. I don’t think I’m wrong, but you don’t have to talk about it.”

  “You’re not wrong. I don’t know when it started. I can’t remember everything.”

  “You were abused habitually?”

  “Abuse is a clean word, Peabody. Really, it’s a soft word, and you—people—tend to use it so easy, to cover a lot of territory. My father beat me, with his fists or whatever was handy. He raped me, countless times. Once is plenty, so why count?”

  “Your mother?”

  “Gone by then. Junkie whore. I don’t really remember her, and what I do remember isn’t any better than him.”

  “I want . . . I want to say I’m sorry, but people say that easy, too, to cover a lot of territory. Dallas, I don’t know what to say.”

  “I’m not telling you for sympathy.”

  “No. You wouldn’t.”

  “One night, I was eight. They said I was eight. I was locked in this dump he’d brought us to. Alone for a while, and I was trying to squirrel some food. Some cheese. I was starving. So cold, so hungry, and I thought I could get away with it before he came back. But he came back, and he wasn’t drunk enough. Sometimes, if he was drunk enough he’d leave me alone. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.”

  She had to stop, gather herself for the rest. “He hit me, knocked me down. All I could do was pray that was going to be all. Just a beating. But I could see it wasn’t going to be all. Don’t cry. I can’t take it if you cry.”

  “I can’t take it without crying.” But she used one of the stingy napkins to mop at her face.

  “He got on top of me. Had to teach me a lesson. It hurt. You forget after each time how much it hurts. Until it’s happening again, and it’s more than you can imagine. More than you can stand. I tried to stop him. It was worse if I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stand it, and I fought. He broke my arm.”

  “Oh, God; oh, Jesus.” Now it was Peabody who pressed her face to her knees. And wept, struggling to do so soundlessly.

  “Snap!” She focused on the lake, on the calm water, and the pretty boats that glided over it. “It makes a snap, a thin, young bone. And I went crazy from the pain. And the knife was in my hand. The knife I’d been using on the cheese. Fallen on the floor, and my fingers closed over it.”

  Slowly, face drenched, Peabody lifted her head. “You used it on him.” She swiped at her face with the backs of her hands. “I hope to holy God you ripped him to pieces.”

  “I did. I pretty much did.” There were ripples on the surface of the lake, Eve saw. It wasn’t as calm as it looked with those little ripples spreading. Spreading.

  “I just kept stabbing until . . . well, bathed in blood. There you go.” She drew a shaky breath. “I didn’t remember that part, or most of the rest until right before Roarke and I got married.”

  “The cops—”

  Eve shook her head. “He had me scared of cops, social workers, anybody who might’ve stepped in. I left him there, in that room. I don’t know how, except I was in shock. I washed up, and I walked out, walked for miles before I crawled into an alley and passed out. They found me. I woke up in the hospital. Doctors and cops asking questions. I didn’t remember anything, or if I did, I was too scared to say. I’m not sure whic
h. I’d never had the ID process, so there was no record of me. I didn’t exist until they found me in the alley. In Dallas. So they gave me a name.”

  “You made the name.”

  “You see it affecting the job, you tell me.”

  “It does affect the job. It’s made you a better cop. That’s the way I see it. It’s made you able to face anything. This guy we’re after, whatever happened to him, whether it was as bad as what happened to you, or somehow worse, he’s used it as an excuse to kill, to destroy, and cause pain. You use what happened to you as a reason to find justice for people who’ve had it taken away from them.”

  “Doing the job isn’t heroism, Peabody. It’s just the job.”

  “So you always say. I’m glad you told me. It says you trust me, as your partner and as your friend. You can.”

  “I know I can. Now let’s both put it away, and get back to work.”

  Eve rose, held her hand down. Peabody gripped it, held it a moment, then let Eve pull her to her feet.

  As much to see Annalisa Sommers again as to grill Morris, Eve made another trip to the morgue.

  She found him, removing the brains of a male cadaver. It was enough to put you off, she thought, even without the soy dog in her system. But Morris cheerfully gestured her in.

  “Unattended death. Fair means or foul, Lieutenant?”

  Morris loved his guessing games, so she obliged by moving toward the body for a closer look. It had already started to decompose, so she put time of death at twenty-four to thirty-six hours before he’d been brought in and chilled. As a result, he wasn’t pretty. She judged his age in the upper reaches of seventy, which meant he’d been robbed out of forty or fifty years on the average life expectancy table.

  There was some bruising on his left cheek, and his eyes were red from broken blood vessels. Curious now, she walked around the body, looking for other signs.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Bottom half of pajamas, and one slipper.”

  “Where was the top half?”

  Morris smiled. “On the bed.”

  “Where was he?”

  “In the Conservatory, with Professor Plum.”

  “What?”

  Morris chuckled, waved a hand in front of his face. “Joke. He was beside the bed, on the floor.”

  “Signs of disturbance, forced entry?”

  “None.”

  “He live alone?”

  “He did, indeed.”

  “Looks like he stroked out, had a big-ass brain pop.” Since Morris was sealed up, she gestured. “Open his mouth for me, peel the lips.”

  Morris obliged, shifted aside so she could lean in. “But I’d talk to the domestic and find out if he or she’s the one who gave dead guy the laced nightcap that popped his brain. Reddish splotches on the gums and under the lips indicate he downed, and probably OD’d on, an illegal. Booster, or a derivative, would be my guess before tox eval. Guy was going to self-terminate for any reason, he’d have finished putting his pajamas on and gotten into bed nice and comfy first. So means are foul. Where’s Sommers?”

  “I don’t know why they bother to keep me around here.” But he was grinning as he slid the brain into a tray for scan and analysis. “I expect the tox eval will verify both our suspicions shortly. Sommers is done, and in a cold box. Her family and boyfriend came in together this morning. I was able to block them from seeing her, though it wasn’t easy. I had to use official grounds.”

  “The eyes aren’t public yet, and I don’t want them to be, not even to next of kin. Even family and lovers can leak to the media. More so if they’re grieving or pissed. No access outside of need-to-know to any of the vics in this investigation.”

  “You want to see her again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me clean up a bit. Our gentleman friend will hold.”

  He went to the sink to scrub blood, matter, and sealant from his hands. “Her body was more traumatized than the others.”

  “Violence is escalating. I know.”

  “So is his pace.” Morris dried his hands, then removed his protective gear, dumping it in a hamper.

  “We’re closer. Every minute, we’re closer.”

  “I have no doubt. Well.” He stepped over in his pristine blue shirt and red necktie, offered his arm. “Shall we?”

  She laughed, as only he could make her in the company of the dead. “Jesus, Morris, you’re some number.”

  “I am, indeed, I am.” He led her to storage, checked the logs, then opened the seal on one of the drawers. The puff of cold vapor steamed out as he drew out the body tray.

  Ignoring the marks of Morris’s work, Eve studied the body. “Face took more of a beating this time. Face and upper body. Maybe he’s straddling her.” She put it into her head. “Straddling her while he pounds on her.”

  “Her jaw wasn’t broken, as with Napier, but her nose was, and several teeth. The blow to the back of the head wasn’t fatal. She may or may not have come around for the rest of it. My guess is not, mercifully.”

  “The rape. More brutal this time.”

  “If there can be degrees of brutality in rape, yes. More abrasions, more trauma. She was a bit small, vaginally. Smaller, that is, than the other two victims in this particular area. And our killer sports one hell of a woody.”

  “The eyes. Surer cuts than the first, not quite as clean as the second.”

  “You’re very good at what you do, and again cause me some concern about my own paycheck. Yes. They’re all three within a range of skill, but this one falls between the others.”

  “Okay.” She stepped back so he could replace the tray, seal the door.

  “How close, Dallas? It’s beginning to depress me, hosting all these pretty young women in my house.”

  “It’s not close enough,” Eve said flatly, “until he’s in a cage.”

  Chapter 17

  Dickie, less affectionately known as Dickhead, Berenski was sitting at a long white counter in the lab, apparently compiling or assessing data on a screen.

  When Eve came up behind him she saw the data consisted of a role-playing game involving a bevy of scantily clad, stupendously endowed women battling each other with swords.

  “Hard at work, I see.”

  In response, he waved a hand in front of the screen. The battling beauties laid down weapons, bowed low enough to show considerable cleavage before calling out: “At your pleasure, my lord.”

  “Jesus, Berenski, are you twelve?”

  “Hey, maybe the program’s evidence from a crime scene.”

  “Yeah, one where several adolescent boys masturbated to death. You may not be on the clock, but I am.”

  “Ten minutes recreational. Got you the shoe, didn’t I?”

  He had, and she told herself to remember that and not crush his egg-shaped head between her hands. “Annalisa Sommers. Hair anal.”

  “Work, work, work.” He swiveled around on his stool. “Gave that to Harvo, my best hair guy. She’s a fricking genius, even if she won’t put out.”

  “I like her already. Where is she?”

  He pointed one long, skinny finger toward the right. “That way, then left. Redhead. Hasn’t sent me a report yet, so she’s not done.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Peabody let Eve get a few strides away, and kept her voice low. “That program come with male characters?”

  Dickhead grinned. “Oh yeah.”

  “Ice.”

  Eve made her way into one of the glass-walled analysis rooms and saw the redhead. “Harvo?”

  “That’d be me.” She looked up from her work, studied Eve with eyes the color of spring grass.

  Eve figured Harvo was the whitest white woman she’d ever seen still breathing. Her skin was the color of milk powder against those bright green eyes and the thin slash of mouth dyed the same screaming red as her hair.

  She wore the hair in a tuft, maybe three inches high and straight up from the crown of her head. She wore a
baggy black tunic in lieu of a lab coat.

  “Dallas, right?” Her nails were short, and painted in thin, diagonal stripes of black and red.

  “That’d be me.”

  “Peabody, Detective.”

  Harvo nodded at both of them, gestured them in. “Harvo, Ursa, Queen of Hair.”

  “What have you got for me, Your Majesty?”

  Harvo snickered, scooted a bit to the left on her stool. “Hairlike trace recovered from vic and surrounding scene,” she began. Strands of it were secured in a clear, disc seal on the work counter. Harvo popped it in the comp slot, brought its magnified image on screen.

  “Hairlike?”

  “Yeah, see, it’s not human hair or animal hair. Dickhead bounced it to me because when he eyeballed it, he made it as man-made fiber. Guy’s freaking brilliant. Too bad he’s a complete ass-wipe.”

  “Hear me loudly not disagreeing.”

  Harvo chuckled again. “I also serve as Fiber Princess. What you got here . . .” She revolved the image, increased magnification. “Is manufactured.”

  “As in rug?” Eve tugged her own hair.

  “Not so much. Not likely to find this in hair enhancements or replacements. This is more fur than hair. Something you’d find on a toy—stuffed animal, droid pet. It’s coated, meeting federal flame retardant standards and child safety laws.”

  “A toy?”

  “Yep. Now, we analyze the makeup, the dye, the . . .” She glanced up at Eve as text and shapes began to flash on her screen. “You want the process and deets?”

  “No, though I’m sure they’re endlessly fascinating. Bottom-line it.”

  “Gotcha. Through my amazing, almost mystical powers, I’ve made the manufacturer of the fiber, and its various uses for it with this particular gray dye. Droid pet, feline, common tabby. They do kittens, young cats, full-grown, even your aged family mouser. Manufacturer is Petco. I can hunt up retail outlets if you want.”

  “We’ll take it from here. Fast work, Harvo.”

  “I am also Goddess of Speed and Efficiency. Oh, and Dallas, fibers were clean. No skin oils, no detergents, no soil. I’d say this little kitty was new.”

  “Thoughts, Detective?”

  “How do you think Harvo gets her hair to stand up like that? It’s really jazzed. But that’s not what you meant.”