Interlude in Death

by J. D. Robb

  It just served to remind her how much she hated being off her own turf.

  “Peabody, update.”

  Peabody had to jerk herself out of the image of the good angel on her shoulder, sitting with her hands properly folded, and the bad angel, who was stuffing another cream bun in her greedy mouth. “Ah, sir. Autopsy was completed last night. They let Morris assist. Cause of death multiple trauma, most specifically the skull fracture. A lot of the injuries were postmortem. He’s booked on a panel this morning, and has some sort of dead doctors’ seminar later today, but Morris will finesse copies of the reports for you. Early word is the tox screen was clear.”

  “Sweepers?” Eve demanded.

  “Sweepers’ reports weren’t complete as of oh-six-hundred. However, what I dug up confirmed your beliefs. Seal-It traces on the bat, no blood or bodily fluid but the victim’s found on scene. No uniform missing an epaulet star has been found to date. Angelo’s team’s doing the run on recylers, valets, outside cleaning companies. My information is the uniforms are coded with the individual’s ID number. When we find the uniform, we’ll be able to trace the owner.”

  “I want that uniform,” Eve stated, and when she turned to Feeney, the bad angel won. Peabody took another pastry.

  “Had to be an inside job on the security cameras,” he said. “Nobody gets access to Control without retina and palm scans and code clearance. The bypass was complicated, and it was done slick. Twelve people were in the control sector during the prime period last night. I’m running them.”

  “All right. We look for any connection to Skinner, any work-related reprimands, any sudden financial increase. Look twice if any of them were on the job before going into private security.” She took a disk off the table, passed it to Feeney. “Run them with the names on here.”

  “No problem, but I work better when I know why I’m working.”

  “Those are the names of cops who went down in the line of duty in Atlanta twenty-three years ago. It was Skinner’s operation.” She took a deep breath. “Roarke’s father was his weasel, and he turned a double cross.”

  When Feeney only nodded, Eve let out a breath. “One of the names on there is Thomas Weeks, father to Reginald Weeks, our victim. My guess is if Skinner had one of his slain officer’s kids on his payroll, he’s got others.”

  “Follows if one was used to build a frame around Roarke, another would be,” Feeney added.

  She checked her wrist unit when the door buzzer sounded. “That’ll be Angelo. I want you running those names, Feeney, so I’m not giving them to her. Yet. But I’m going to tell her, and you, the rest of it.”

  While Eve was opening the door for Darcia, Skinner opened his to Roarke.

  “A moment of your time, Commander.”

  “I have little to spare.”

  “Then we won’t waste it.” Roarke stepped inside, lifted a brow at Hayes. The man stood just behind and to the right of Skinner, and had his hand inside his suit jacket. “If you thought I was a threat, you should’ve had your man answer the door.”

  “You’re no threat to me.”

  “Then why don’t we have that moment in private?”

  “Anything you say to me can be said in front of my personal assistant.”

  “Very well. It would’ve been tidier, and certainly more efficient, if you’d come after me directly instead of using Lieutenant Dallas and sacrificing one of your own men.”

  “So you admit you had him killed.”

  “I don’t order death. We’re alone, Skinner, and I’m sure you’ve had these rooms secured against recording devices and surveillance cameras. You want to take me on, then do it. But have the balls to leave my family out of it.”

  Skinner’s lips peeled back over his teeth. “Your father was a dickless coward and a pathetic drunk.”

  “Duly noted.” Roarke walked to a chair, sat. “There, you see. We already have a point of agreement on that particular matter. First let me clarify that by ‘family,’ I meant my wife. Second, I must tell you you’re being too kind regarding Patrick Roarke. He was a vicious, small-minded bully and a petty criminal with delusions of grandeur. I hated him with every breath I took. So you see, I resent, quite strongly resent, being expected to pay for his many sins. I’ve plenty of my own, so if you want to try to put my head on a platter, just pick one. We’ll work from there.”

  “Do you think because you wear a ten-thousand-dollar suit I can’t smell the gutter on you?” Color began to flood Skinner’s face, but when Hayes stepped forward, Skinner gestured him back with one sharp cut of the hand. “You’re the same as he was. Worse, because he didn’t pretend to be anything other than the useless piece of garbage he was. Blood tells.”

  “It may have once.”

  “You’ve made a joke out of the law, and now you hide behind a woman and a badge she’s shamed.”

  Slowly now, Roarke got to his feet. “You know nothing of her. She’s a miracle that I can’t, and wouldn’t, explain to the likes of you. But I can promise you, I hide behind nothing. You stand there, with fresh blood on your hands, behind your shield of blind righteousness and your memories of old glory. Your mistake, Skinner, was in trusting a man like my father to hold a bargain. And mine, it seems, was thinking you’d deal with me. So here’s a warning for you.”

  He broke off as Hayes shifted. Fast as a rattler, Roarke drew a hand laser out of his pocket. “Take your bloody hand out of your coat while you still have one.”

  “You’ve no right, no authority to carry and draw a weapon.”

  Roarke stared at Skinner’s furious face, then grinned. “What weapon? On your belly, Hayes, hands behind your head. Do it!” he ordered when Hayes shot Skinner a look. “Even on low these things give a nasty little jolt.” He lowered the sight to crotch level. “Especially when they hit certain sensitive areas of the anatomy.”

  Though his breathing was now labored, Skinner gestured toward Hayes.

  “To the warning. You step back from my wife. Step well and cleanly back, or you’ll find the taste of me isn’t to your liking.”

  “Will you have me beat to death in a stairwell?”

  “You’re a tedious man, Skinner,” Roarke said with a sigh as he backed to the door. “Flaming tedious. I’d tell your men to have a care how they strut around and finger their weapons. This is my place.”

  Despite its size, Eve found the living area of the suite as stifling as a closed box. If she were on a case like this in New York, she would be on the streets, cursing at traffic as she fought her way to the lab to harass the techs, letting her mind shuffle possibilities as she warred with Rapid Cabs on the way to the morgue or back into Central.

  The sweepers would tremble when she called demanding a final report. And the asses she would kick on her way through the investigation would be familiar.

  This time around Darcia Angelo got to have all the fun.

  “Peabody, go down and record Skinner’s keynote, since he’s playing the show must go on and giving it on schedule.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The morose tone had Eve asking, “What?”

  “I know why you’re leaning toward him for this, Dallas. I can see the angles, but I just can’t adjust the pattern for them. He’s a legend. Some cops go wrong because the pressure breaks them inside, or because of the temptations or just because they were bent that way to begin with. He never went wrong. It’s an awful big leap to see him tossing aside everything he’s stood for and killing one of his own to frame Roarke for something that happened when Roarke was a kid.”

  “Come up with a different theory, I’ll listen. If you can’t do the job, Peabody, tell me now. You’re on your own time here.”

  “I can do the job.” Her voice was as stiff as her shoulders as she started for the door. “I haven’t been on my own time since I met you.”

  Eve set her teeth as the door slammed, and was already formulating the dressing-down as she marched across the room. Mira stopped her with a word.

&
nbsp; “Eve. Let her go. You have to appreciate her position. It’s difficult being caught between two of her heroes.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Sit, before you wear a rut in this lovely floor. You’re in a difficult position as well. The man you love, the job that defines you, and another man who you believe has crossed an indelible line.”

  “I need you to tell me if he could have crossed that line. I know what my gut tells me, what the pattern of evidence indicates. It’s not enough. I have data on him. Most of it’s public domain, but not all.” She waited a beat while Mira simply continued to study her, calm as a lake. “I’m not going to tell you how I accessed it.”

  “I’m not going to ask you. I already know quite a bit about Douglas Skinner. He is a man devoted to justice—his own vision of it, one who has dedicated his life to what the badge stands for, one who has risked his life to serve and protect. Very much like you.”

  “That doesn’t feel like much of a compliment right now.”

  “There is a parting of the ways between you, a very elemental one. He’s compelled, has always been compelled, to spread his vision of justice like some are compelled to spread their vision of faith. You, Eve, at your core, stand for the victim. He stands for his vision. Over time, that vision has narrowed. Some can become victims of their own image until they become the image.”

  “He’s lost the cop inside the hype.”

  “Cleanly said. Peabody’s view of him is held by a great many people, a great many in law enforcement. It’s not such a leap, psychologically speaking, for me to see him as becoming so obsessed by a mistake—and the mistake was his own—that cost the lives of men in his command that that failure becomes the hungry monkey on his back.”

  “The man who’s dead wasn’t street scum. He was a young employee, one with a clean record, with a wife. The son of one of Skinner’s dead. That’s the leap I’m having trouble with, Dr. Mira. Was the monkey so hungry that Skinner could order the death of an innocent man just to feed it?”

  “If he could justify it in his mind, yes. Ends and means. How worried are you about Roarke?”

  “He doesn’t want me to worry about him,” Eve answered.

  “I imagine he’s much more comfortable when he can worry about you. His father was abusive to him.”

  “Yeah. He’s told me pieces of it. The old man knocked hell out of him, drunk or sober.” Eve dragged a hand through her hair, walked back toward the window. There was barely a hint of sky traffic.

  How, she wondered, did people stand the quiet, the stillness?

  “He had Roarke running cons, picking pockets, then he’d slap him around if he didn’t bring home enough. I take it his father wasn’t much good at the rackets because they lived in a slum.”

  “His mother?”

  “I don’t know. He says he doesn’t know either. It doesn’t seem to matter to him.” She turned back, sat down across from Mira. “Can that be? Can it really not matter to him what his father did to him, or that his mother left him to that?”

  “He knows his father started him on the path of, let’s say circumventing the law. That he has a predisposition for violence. He learned how to channel it, as you did. He had a goal—to get out, to have means and power. He accomplished that. Then he found you. He understands where he came from, and I imagine it’s part of his pride that he became the kind of man a woman like you would love. And, knowing his…profile,” Mira said with a smile. “I imagine he’s determined to protect you and your career in this matter, every bit as much as you’re determined to protect him and his reputation.”

  “I don’t see how…” Realization hit, and Eve was just getting to her feet when Roarke walked in the door.

  “Goddamn it. Goddamn it, Roarke. You went after Skinner.”

  6

  “Good morning, Dr. Mira.” Roarke closed the door behind him, then walked over to take Mira’s hand. The move was as smooth as his voice, and his voice smooth as cream. “Can I get you some more tea?”

  “No.” Her lips twitched as she struggled to control a chuckle. “Thanks, but I really have to be going. I’m leading a seminar right after the keynote session.”

  “Don’t think you can use her as a shield. I told you to stay away from Skinner.”

  “That’s the second time someone’s accused me of hiding behind a woman today.” Though his voice remained mild, Eve knew the edge was there. “It’s getting annoying.”

  “You want annoying?” Eve began.

  “You’ll have to forgive her,” Roarke said to Mira as he walked her to the door. “Eve tends to become overexcited when I disobey.”

  “She’s worried about you,” Mira said under her breath.

  “Well, she’ll have to get over it. Have a good session.” He nudged Mira out the door, closed it. Locked it. Turned. The edge was visible now. “I don’t need a fucking shield.”

  “That was a figure of speech, and don’t change the subject. You went at Skinner after I told you to stay clear of him.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Eve. I’m not a lapdog.”

  “You’re a civilian,” she shot back.

  “And you’re a consultant on someone else’s case, and your authority here, in my bloody world, is a courtesy.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it. Hissed. Then she turned on her heel, strode out through the terrace doors, and kicked the railing several times.

  “Feel better now?”

  “Yes. Because I imagined it was your stupid, rock-hard head.” She didn’t look back, but braced her hands on the railing and looked out over what was indeed one of Roarke’s worlds.

  It was lavish and extravagant. The slick spears of other hotels, the tempting spreads of casinos, theaters, the glitter of restaurants were all perfectly placed. There were fountains, the silver ribbons of people glides, and the lush spread of parks where trees and flowers grew in sumptuous profusion.

  She heard the click of his lighter, caught the scent of his obscenely expensive tobacco. He rarely smoked these days, she thought.

  “If you’d told me it was important for you to have a face-to-face with Skinner, I’d have gone with you.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Oh, Christ. Men. Look, you don’t need to hide behind me or anybody. You’re a tough, badass son of a bitch with a really big penis and balls of titanium steel. Okay?”

  He cocked his head. “One minute. I’m imagining throwing you off the balcony. Yes.” He nodded, took a long drag on the cigarette. “That’s indeed better.”

  “If Skinner took a couple of pops at your ego, it’s because he knew it was a good target. That’s what cops do. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

  “He made it clear, while Hayes stood there with a hand inside his coat and on his weapon, that my father was garbage and by association so am I. And that it was long past time for my comeuppance, so to speak.”

  “Did he say anything that led to him ordering Weeks killed?”

  “On the contrary, he twice pointed the finger at me. Full of barely restrained fury and seething emotion. You could almost believe he meant it. I don’t think he’s well,” Roarke continued and crushed out his cigarette. “Temper put a very unhealthy color in his face, strained his breathing. I’ll have to take a pass through his medical records.”

  “I want to take a pass at his wife. Angelo agreed, after some minor complaints, to set it up so we can double-team her later this afternoon. Meanwhile, Peabody’s on Skinner, between us we’ll track down the uniform, and Feeney’s running names. Somebody on your security staff worked that bypass. We find out who, we link them back to Skinner and get them into interview, we change the complexion of this. Maybe put it away before ILE comes in.”

  She glanced back toward the suite as the ’link beeped. “Are we okay now?”

  “We seem to be.”

  “Good. Maybe that’s Angelo with the setup for Belle Skinner.” She moved past Roarke to the ’link. Rather th
an Darcia’s exotic face, Feeney’s droopy one blipped on screen.

  “Might have something for you here. Zita Vinter, hotel security. She was in Control between twenty-one-thirty and twenty-three hundred last night. Crossed her with your list. Popped to Vinter, Detective Carl, Atlanta cop under Skinner. Line of duty during the botched bust. Vinter’s wife was pregnant with their second kid—a son, Marshall, born two months after his death. Older kid was five. Daughter, Zita.”

  “Bull’s-eye. What sector is she in now?”

  “She didn’t come in today. Didn’t call in either, according to her supervisor. Got her home address. Want me to ride with you?”

  She started to agree, then looked back at Roarke. “No, I got it. See what else you can find on her, okay? Maybe you can tag Peabody when the keynote crap’s over. She’s good at digging background details. Owe you one, Feeney. Let me have the address.”

  After she’d ended transmission, Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and looked at Roarke. “You wouldn’t know where 22 Athena Boulevard might be, would you?”

  “I might be able to find it, yes.”

  “I bet.” She picked up her palm-link from the desk, stuck it in her pocket. “I’m not riding in a limo to go interview a suspect. It’s unprofessional. Bad enough I’m taking some civilian wearing a fancy suit with me.”

  “Then I’ll just have to come up with some alternate transportation.”

  “While you’re at it, dig up your file on Zita Vinter, security sector.”

  He drew out his palm PC as they started out. “Always a pleasure to work with you, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She stepped into the private elevator while he ordered something called a GF2000 brought to a garage slot. “Technically, I should contact Angelo and update her.”

  “No reason you can’t. Once we’re on the way.”

  “No reason. Saves time this way.”

  “That’s your story, darling, and we’ll stick to it. Vinter, Zita,” he began as she scowled at him. “Twenty-eight. Two years with Atlanta PSD, then into private security. She worked for one of my organizations in Atlanta. Clean work record. Promoted to A Level over two years ago. She put in for the position here six months ago. She’s single, lives alone. Lists her mother as next of kin. Her employment jacket’s clean.”