Promises in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “The uniforms know a cop went down, Dallas. It’s going to start spreading. Cop. Female. This address, or just this area. If Morris gets wind—”

  “Shit. You’re right. You’re right. You take over here. The uniforms are sitting on Terrance Burnbaum and his boy in six-oh-two. Talk to them first. Don’t let them take her off scene, Peabody.”

  “I won’t.” Peabody scanned the text on her PPC. “One thing good, Morris is working a noon to eight. He wouldn’t be at the morgue this early.”

  “I’ll go to his place. I’ll do it.”

  “Jesus, Dallas.” The words trembled. “Jesus.”

  “If you finish in six-oh-two before I get back, start on her apartment. Fine-tooth, Peabody.” Steps, Eve reminded herself. Take all the steps. Think about the misery later. “Contact EDD, but give me a head start. All her communications, all her data. Uniforms are finding the super, so confiscate the security discs. Don’t—”

  “Dallas.” Peabody spoke gently. “I know what to do. You taught me what to do. I’ll take care of her. You can trust me.”

  “I know. I know.” Eve struggled to let out a breath that wanted to stick in her throat. “I don’t know what I’m going to say to him. How to say it.”

  “There’s no easy way.”

  Couldn’t be, Eve thought. Shouldn’t be.

  “I’ll tag you when I . . . when it’s done.”

  “Dallas.” Peabody reached out, clasped Eve’s hand. “Tell him—if it seems right—tell him I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  With a nod, Eve started up. The killer had gone this way, she thought. Only way out. Up these same stairs, through this same door. She reopened her kit, unsure if she was stalling or just doing her job. But she took out the minigoggles, studied the lock, the jamb, and found no sign of force.

  Could’ve used Coltraine’s key card, Eve thought. Unless he was in first, jumped her when she came down.

  Damn it, damn it, she couldn’t see it. Couldn’t clear her mind to see. She went up to the next level, repeated the process on the back door of the building with the same results.

  A tenant, someone let in by a tenant—including the victim—someone with a master or superior skills at picking locks.

  She studied the security cam over the rear door. Then shut the door, secured it as one of the uniforms jogged down to her.

  “Apartment’s clear, Lieutenant. Bed’s made, no dishes around. It’s neat and tidy. Lights were on dim. She, ah, had this droid pet—little cat. It was set to sleep mode.”

  “Did you see her weapon, her badge?”

  His jaw tightened. “No, sir. We found a lockbox in her bedroom closet. Space for her sidearm and a clutch piece, holsters for both. None of them were there. Box wasn’t locked. I didn’t see her badge, Lieutenant. We didn’t search, but—”

  “What do you do with your badge when you’re off duty for the night, Officer . . . Jonas?”

  “Put it on my dresser.”

  “Yeah. Lock up the weapon, leave the badge on the dresser. Maybe on top of the lockbox, but easy access. Detective Peabody’s in charge here now. I don’t want her name out, do you hear me? I don’t want a leak on this. You keep it contained here until I clear it. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s one of us down there. She’ll have that respect.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She strode out, then stood on the sidewalk and breathed. Just let herself breathe. She looked up, watched clouds crawl over the sky. Gray over blue. It was only right, she thought. It was only right.

  She walked to her vehicle, keyed it open. Trapped behind it, a driver leaned his head out of his car window, shook his fist at her.

  “Fucking cops!” he shouted. “Think you own the streets, or what?”

  She imagined herself going up to the window, plowing her fist into his face. Because one of the cops he cursed was lying dead on a concrete floor in a windowless basement.

  Some of it may have showed on her face, in the cold hard stare. He pulled his head back in, brought up his window, hit the locks.

  Eve stared another moment, watched him shrink behind the wheel. Then she got in her car, flipped off her light, and pulled away.

  She had to look up Morris’s address, and used the in-dash computer. Strange, she thought. She’d never been to his place. She considered him a friend, a good one—not just a work acquaintance or connection. But they rarely socialized outside the job. Why was that?

  Maybe because she resisted socializing like she would a tooth extraction? Could be it.

  She knew he liked music, and was especially fond of jazz and blues. He played the saxophone, dressed like an uptown rock star, had a mind full of interesting, often incomprehensible trivia.

  He had humor and depth. And great respect for the dead. Great compassion for those left behind by death.

  Now it was a woman he’d . . . had he loved her? Eve wondered. Maybe, maybe. He’d certainly cared deeply for the woman, the cop, who was dead. And now it was he who was left behind.

  The clouds brought a thin spring rain, the kind that spat rather than plopped on the windshield. If it lasted or increased, vendors would poof up with stands of umbrellas. The magic of New York commerce. Vehicle traffic would slow; pedestrian traffic would speed up. And for a while, the streets would gleam, shining like black mirrors. Illegals dealers would pull up their hoods and get on with business or huddle in doorways until the storm passed. More than an hour of rain? You could find a diamond on the sidewalk easier than finding an unoccupied cab.

  God bless New York, she thought, until it ate you alive.

  Morris lived in Soho. She should’ve guessed it. There was something bohemian, exotic, artistic about the man who’d chosen to doctor the dead.

  He had a Grim Reaper tattoo, she remembered, which she’d seen inadvertently when she’d called him in the middle of the night, and he hadn’t bothered to block video. Though he’d been in bed and barely covered by the sheet.

  The man was hot. No wonder Coltraine had . . .

  Oh God. Oh God.

  She stalled, couldn’t help herself, by searching out a parking spot along the street. Artists tented their wares or grabbed them from the little stalls to dash with them out of the rain. Those too iced to settle for trendy shops lived here, among the lofts and varied restaurants, the in-groove clubs and nightspots.

  She found a spot, three blocks from Morris’s place. And she walked through the rain while others dashed and darted around her, seeking shelter from the wet.

  She climbed to the main door, started to push his buzzer. Couldn’t. He’d see her through his screen, and it would give him too much time to think, or he’d ask, and she couldn’t answer. Instead, she violated his privacy and used her master to gain entrance to the tiny lobby shared by the other lofts.

  She took the stairs, gained herself a little more time, and circled around to his door. What would she say?

  It couldn’t be the standard here. It couldn’t be the standby: I regret to inform you . . . I’m sorry for your loss. Not here, not with Morris. Praying it would come to her, it would somehow be the right way, she pressed the bell.

  In the time that passed, her skin chilled. Her heart thudded. She heard the locks give, watched his lock light go from red to green.

  He opened the door and smiled at her.

  His hair was loose. She’d never seen it loose, raining down his back rather than braided. He wore black pants, a black tee. His exotic almond eyes looked a little sleepy. She heard the sleep in his voice when he greeted her.

  “Dallas. The unexpected on my doorstep on a rainy morning.”

  She saw curiosity. No alarm, no worry. She knew her face showed him nothing. Not yet. Another second or two, she thought. Just another few seconds before she broke his heart.

  “Can I come in?”

  2

  ART RADIATED FROM THE WALLS IN AN ECLECtic mix from bold, bright colors and odd shapes to elegant pencil drawings of naked
women in various stages of undress.

  It was an open space with the kitchen in black and silver flowing into a dining area in strong red, which curved into the living area. Open silver stairs ribboned their way up to the second floor, again open and ringed by a shining rail.

  There was a sense of movement in the space, maybe from the energy of all the color, she thought, or all the pieces of him and his interests displayed there.

  Bowls, bottles, stones, photographs jockeyed for position with books—no wonder Morris and Roarke hit it off—and musical instruments, sculptures of dragons, a small brass gong, and what she thought was an actual human skull.

  Watching her face, Morris gestured to the long, armless couch. “Why don’t you sit down? I can offer you passable coffee. Nothing as prime as you’re used to.”

  “No, that’s okay.” But she thought, yes, let’s sit, have coffee. Let’s just not do this thing.

  He took her hand. “Who’s dead? It’s one of us.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Peabody—”

  “No. Peabody’s . . . no.” Only making it worse, she thought. “Morris, it’s Detective Coltraine.”

  She could see by his face he didn’t understand, he didn’t connect his question with her answer. She did the only thing she could do. She plunged the knife in his heart.

  “She was killed last night. She’s dead, Morris. She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

  He released her hand, stepped back from her. As if, she knew, breaking contact would stop it. Just stop it all. “Ammy? You’re talking about Amaryllis?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—” He stopped himself for making the denial. She knew the first questions in his head—was she sure? Could there be a mistake? There must be a mistake. But he knew her, and didn’t waste the words. “How?”

  “We’re going to sit down.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “She was murdered. It’s looking like her own weapon was used on her. Both her weapons are missing. We’re looking. Morris—”

  “No. Not yet.” His face had gone blank and smooth, a mask carved from one of his own polished stones. “Just tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t have much yet. She was found this morning, in the basement of her building, by a neighbor and his son. Her time of death was about twenty-three forty last night. There aren’t any signs of a struggle at the scene, or in her apartment. No visible wounds on her, but for the stunner burns on her throat. She had no ID on her, no jewelry, no bag, no badge, no weapon. She was fully dressed.”

  She saw something flicker over his face at that, a ripple over the stone, and understood. Rape always made murder worse. “I haven’t looked at the security discs yet, because I needed to tell you. Peabody’s on scene.”

  “I have to change. I have to change and go in. Go in and see to her.”

  “No, you won’t. You tell me who you trust the most, who you want, and we’ll arrange for them to do the autopsy. You’re not doing it.”

  “It’s not for you to say. I’m chief medical examiner.”

  “I’m primary. And you and I both know that your relationship with the”—she swallowed the word victim—“with Detective Coltraine means you have to step back from this part. Take a minute, take as many minutes as you need to come down to that. You can’t work on her, Morris, for your own sake and for hers.”

  “You think I’ll do nothing? That I’ll stand by and let someone else touch her?”

  “I’m not asking you to do nothing. But I’m telling you you won’t do this.” When he turned, started for the stairs, she simply took his arm.

  “I’ll stop you.” She spoke quietly, felt the muscles in his arm vibrate. “Take a swing at me, yell, throw something, whatever you need. But I’ll stop you. She’s mine now, too.”

  The rage showed in his eyes, burned them black. She braced for a blow, she’d give him that. But the rage melted into grief. This time when he turned, she let him go.

  He walked to the long, wide window that looked out on the buzz and vibrancy of Soho. He laid his hands on the shelf of the sill, leaned so his arms could hold some of the weight his legs couldn’t.

  “Clipper.” Now his voice was as raw as his eyes had been. “Ty Clipper. I want him to take care of her.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “She wore, always wore a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. A square-cut pink tourmaline, flanked by small green tourmaline baguettes. A silver band. Her parents gave it to her on her twenty-first birthday.”

  “Okay.”

  “You said the basement of her building. She’d have no reason to go down there.”

  “There are storage lockers.”

  “She didn’t keep one. She told me once they charged a ridiculous price for little cages down there. I offered to store anything she needed stored, but she said she hadn’t accumulated so much, yet, that she needed spillover space. Why was she there?”

  “I’ll find out. I promise you. Morris, I promise you I’ll find out who did this, and why.”

  He nodded, but didn’t turn, only stared out at the movement, the color, the life. “There’s a place inside, when you’re connected to cops—as friends, as lovers, even as associates—that knows the risk of that connection, of involvement. I’ve worked on enough dead cops to know those risks. But you have to put it aside, lock it away, because you have to keep that connection. It’s what you do, who you are. But you know, you always know, and still when it happens, it seems impossible.

  “Who knows death better than I? Than we,” he said, turning now. “And yet, it seems impossible. She was so alive. And now she isn’t.”

  “Someone took the life from her. I’ll find them.”

  He nodded again, managed to get to the couch, sink down. “I was falling in love with her. I felt it happening—that long, slow drop. We wanted to take it slow, enjoy it. We were still discovering each other. Still at the stage where when she walked into the room, or I heard her voice, smelled her skin, everything inside me sang.”

  He dropped his head into his hands.

  Comfort wasn’t her finest skill. Peabody, Eve thought, would have the right words, the right tone. All she could do was follow instinct. She moved to the couch, sat beside him.

  “Tell me what to do for you, and I’ll do it. Tell me what you need, and I’ll get it. Li—”

  Maybe it was the use of his first name, something she never used, but he turned to her. When he turned, she held him. He didn’t break, not yet, but kept his cheek pressed to hers.

  “I need to see her.”

  “I know. Give me some time first. We’ll take care of her for you.”

  He eased back. “You need to ask. Turn on your recorder and ask.”

  “Okay.” Routine, she thought. Wasn’t that a kind of comfort? “Tell me where you were last night between twenty-one and twenty-four hundred.”

  “I worked until nearly midnight, clocking some extra hours, clearing up some paperwork. Ammy and I planned to go away for a few days next week. Take a long weekend. Memphis. We booked this old inn. We were going to take a garden tour, see Graceland, listen to music. I spoke to several people on the night shift. I can give you names.”

  “I don’t need them. I’ll check it out, and we’ll move on. Did she tell you anything about her caseload? About anyone she had concerns about?”

  “No. We didn’t talk shop a great deal. She was a good cop. She liked to find answers, and she was organized and precise. But she didn’t live the job. She wasn’t like you. The job was what she did, not what she was. But she was smart and capable. Whenever we had our jobs intersect, that came across.”

  “What about on the personal front? Exes?”

  “We started seeing each other shortly after she transferred here from Atlanta. And while we were taking it slow, letting it all . . . unfold, neither of us was seeing anyone else. She had a serious relationship in college. It lasted over two years. She was involved with another cop for a while, but said she preferred the
casual dating scene as a rule. That I was breaking her rule. I know there was someone else, someone serious, and that ended before she transferred to New York.”

  “Any complaints about any neighbors, anyone in the building hassling her?”

  “No. She loved that little apartment of hers. Dallas, she has family back in Atlanta.”

  “I know. I’ll notify them. Can I contact anyone for you?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t bring a grief counselor because—”