Faithless in Death

by Robb, J. D.

  “If you were connected to someone who took off, went missing, whatever, you’d file a report, so we start there. But I can promise you Savannah Grimsley still looks at her brother’s data now and again. Just hoping he’s updated it.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Reach out to Brooklyn anyway, check on missing persons. Do the same in the other boroughs. Let’s be thorough.”

  Maybe they’d find one, Eve thought as Peabody got to work again. Maybe. But she doubted it. They’d wiped her data because nobody would notice or care. Because they could.

  And they’d made her invisible.

  Wasn’t it another kind of murder? You could still breathe, walk, talk, eat, sleep. But you no longer existed because someone killed your identity.

  When she finally reached the city, when she finally reached her own gates, Eve felt a knot of tension loosen in her guts.

  “There’s nothing, Dallas, no MP reports filed on Ella Foxx, Alice Foxx, Ella Alice Foxx. Just nothing. But maybe we should start interviewing—”

  “What if her parents, her family, whoever had control of her are members? True believers who shoved their daughter into that place before she had a choice? What do you think will happen to her if we ask questions, hit on the right people, and word gets back to Wilkey and the order?”

  “For her own parents to do something like that to her, to trap her that way, to let her just not exist and be afraid, not be able to ask for help? It’s so hard to imagine what kind of people would do that to their own kid, their own family. I just can’t—”

  It hit her, quick and hard. “I’m sorry. God, that was stupid. I’m wound up, but that was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t normal for me, it’s not normal for her.”

  Eve pulled up at the house, sat a minute. “She took a risk dropping that note in my lap, so I’m going to say she wasn’t shoved into the group, or joined the group, as a kid, not too young anyway. I’d never have done that, looked to a cop for help, because he’d drummed it into me that the cops would hurt me, throw me into a hole, in the dark. But she knows better.”

  Eve got out of the car, let out a long breath. “We’re not going to let her down.”

  She walked in to a looming Summerset and the waiting Galahad. “Lieutenant, Detective Peabody. I’m informed we’re expecting other members of the NYPSD this evening. I’ll send them to your office as they arrive.”

  She started straight upstairs with the cat trotting beside her. Then paused, looked back. “You were in Dublin at the end of the Urbans, and after. Any rumbles of Natural Order?”

  “They gained no foothold there. I did have my own contacts, however, and there were murmurs about them. I regret to say I and many others considered them no more than a flash in the pan. We were wrong.”

  She nodded, started up again.

  “Detective Peabody, may I say your hair is quite fetching.”

  Peabody grinned back at Summerset. “Yeah? Thanks.”

  She had to quick time it to catch up with Eve and the cat.

  “What the hell flashes in a pan?” Eve demanded.

  “I … don’t actually know.”

  “See? See? That’s why that kind of stupid saying doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Now I have to look it up.” Peabody pulled out her PPC as she followed Eve. “Oh, oh, it’s from flintlocks—you know, muskets—and they had these little pans for the gunpowder. And if it went off without the bullet or the ball thing, the gunpowder just, well, flashed in the pan.”

  “And that makes it make sense?”

  “Well, sort of. Not really,” Peabody decided.

  Eve turned into her office. “Update the board. I’ll do the book. Get coffee or whatever if you want it.”

  “I’m coffee’d out, and hoping you have low-cal fizzies.”

  As Peabody headed into the kitchen and the AutoChef, Eve sat at her command center.

  “Score!” Peabody called from the kitchen. “And there’s Yancy—he’s just finished. He’ll be here within fifteen.”

  Peabody came out with a fizzy for herself, a black coffee for Eve.

  “I’m looking at this board,” Peabody said as they worked, “and the connections between the Huffmans and Wilkeys. It goes back. I’m sort of surprised the families didn’t arrange for one of the Wilkey sons to marry Gwen.”

  “You don’t expand your membership or your treasury that way. They wanted the Caine money, and hoped—more assumed, I think—Gwen would draw Merit into the order.”

  “And all the while, she planned to use him to hit the terms of the trust, then set him up so she could divorce him with their approval and support.”

  Eve glanced up, frowned. She knew all that, had gone over and over that. But something new wanted to click.

  And Yancy came in.

  “Hey, Peabody. Dallas.”

  “Hey, Yancy. How’d the wits do?”

  He paused by Peabody and the board to answer her. “Solid as it gets. I ran facial rec on the sketch while I was there, and pop! They confirmed ID. Pedophile, on parole after doing fourteen years in. He’s out three months and tries to snatch a twelve-year-old girl walking home from band practice after school. Her mom’s looking in a shop window three feet away. Kid yells, kicks his nuts. Mom screams, grabs kid, pervert takes off limping. I got word on the way over, we already picked him up in his flop.”

  “Nice work.”

  “The kid gets the credit. She says her mom taught her the move.”

  He shifted his gaze from the board to Eve.

  Peabody might term him ultra-dreamy, with his mop of curly dark hair and handsome face. But he was, Eve knew, a solid cop. He had a way of easing small details out of a witness, a way of relaxing them into remembering more, then merging those details into a face.

  “So.” He smiled at her. “First time for us. Have you ever worked with a police artist as a wit?”

  A lifetime ago, she thought. At eight, broken and battered and terrified. She’d been gentle, too, as Eve knew Yancy could be. But that traumatized little girl hadn’t remembered a single detail of her father’s face.

  It was simpler to hedge.

  “They brought a couple into the Academy for training, had us witness a mock attack, then set us up to describe the attacker to the artist.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “I did okay.”

  “I bet. I’m ready when you are.” He glanced around. “How about we use the table there, by the doors?”

  “That’ll work. Do you want coffee?” Eve asked as she rose.

  “I’d rather have one of those fizzies.”

  Peabody tipped hers side to side. “This is low-cal.”

  “Skip that part. Make it lemon if you’ve got it.”

  “You guys set up. I’ll get the fizzy.”

  “You want to fill me in?” Yancy asked Eve.

  “Roarke’s coming, and McNab. I’d rather brief everybody at once.”

  “Okay.” He took off his satchel, then set it down to open it.

  Peabody delivered his fizzy while he set out his tools.

  “Grab a chair, Peabody. We both got a good look at her.”

  “Subject’s female.” Yancy nodded.

  “Female, eighteen, Caucasian, ivory skin. Triangular face, on the thin side. She’s lost the fresh of eighteen. It’s strain, it shows. Hollows in the cheeks, not deep, more like somebody who’s lost weight in the last couple months. Oval, double-lidded eyes, blue-green tending toward blue. A little wider than that,” she told Yancy as he sketched. “More oval.”

  She paused for coffee.

  “Nose is thin, but not sharp. She had a stud in it at one time, I could just see the piercing. Right side.”

  “Missed that,” Peabody murmured.

  “You were on her left. Just a little wider on the nose. Yeah, that’s good. Wide mouth, wide with a full top lip, a slight overbite. Eyebrows, forgot the eyebrows.”

  Eve closed her eyes,
brought them back. “Thick, slight arch, medium brown—long lashes, medium brown. Ears close to the head, triple piercings on both. Two in the lobes, one up in the cartilage. Lobes a little longer than that.”

  Roarke came in, silent as a cat. He caught the drift, said nothing, and continued to her command center to get his own coffee.

  “Medium brown hair, length undetermined. She wore it pulled back, and from the thickness of the roll at the back of her neck, I’m going to guess about Peabody’s length, maybe slightly longer.”

  Eve studied the sketch. “Bring the mouth in a hair, and a little fuller on the bottom lip, a little more narrow on the forehead.”

  As Yancy made minute adjustments, Peabody shook her head. “That’s her. That’s excellent.”

  Yancy looked at Eve. “Any changes?”

  “No, that’s solid.”

  “You make my job easy.”

  “Not done yet. Second woman, Peabody. Take it.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Relax.” Yancy gave her his easy smile. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  Eve left them to it, and head-nodded Roarke into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to go over all this when McNab gets here so I only have to say it once.”

  “All right.” He leaned in, kissed her. “You’d object to that once we’re in cop mode.”

  “I’m still in cop mode. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

  “Understood. Just tell me this before we begin. What did you think of Stanton Wilkey?”

  Eve bared her teeth. “I want to bury the bastard.”

  “All right then. Let’s get started on making that happen.”

  15

  When they stepped back out, Eve saw Yancy guiding Peabody through the process. Giving them room, Eve listened, nodded in approval.

  Her partner rolled into it.

  “Mirium Wilkey,” Eve murmured to Roarke. “Wilkey’s daughter. She said she had a place in the city. How about you find that for me?”

  “Happy to. I’ll just use your command center, as you’re itching to add some details to Peabody’s description.”

  Okay, maybe, but … “I want her to do it, and she’s doing better than okay.”

  Roarke took her chair anyway as she began circling the board.

  She heard McNab’s prance approaching, and stepped out of the office. He pranced beside Feeney.

  “Didn’t expect you.”

  “I gave the boy a ride, and I didn’t want to miss all this.”

  “I sure as hell can use you. Peabody’s working with Yancy, so keep it zipped, Detective.”

  “Got it.”

  “Go get coffee, fizzies, whatever the hell. They’re close to finished.”

  While they headed in and straight to the kitchen, Eve wandered to the table to look at the sketch.

  “What have I missed?” Peabody asked her.

  “Not much. It’s solid.”

  “But something? Yancy really takes you back, but I feel like I’m not right there.”

  “Her complexion’s a little more sallow, and she has some sag under the chin.”

  “That! The sag!”

  “The eyes are good, except she had little pockets—not bags, just little pockets—under them. And she got a deep line between her eyebrows when she concentrated on pouring the tea. It’s left a more shallow one from pulling her brows together over the years.”

  “I keep reminding myself not to do that.” Peabody rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows.

  “That’s her. That’s good. She’s about fifty—looks older by a few years. No work, no makeup, but about fifty if you factor that. You can run facial rec on this one, Yancy.”

  “Not the younger one.”

  “You can try it, but they wiped her data, so it’s next to zero you’ll hit anything. I want to see if they did the same with the older woman.”

  “I’ll run it now. Nice working with you, Peabody. You got sharp skills.”

  “I’ll brief everybody while that runs.” Rolling into what felt like real progress, Eve turned. “Everybody grab a seat.”

  “You can brief over pizza,” Roarke said. “Your troops need a meal, Lieutenant.”

  She wanted to object, maybe would have, but he’d said the magic word.

  Pizza.

  “Fine.”

  “McNab, help me set up a table. Peabody, would you order up what suits?”

  “I’m all over it and back.”

  “Hit,” Yancy allowed, and had Eve moving back to him and looking over his shoulder.

  “Let’s get it up on-screen.”

  “I’m not on your system.”

  To solve that, Roarke stepped over. “If you wouldn’t mind?” With Yancy’s assent, Roarke took his portable, synched it, and threw the data to Eve’s wall screen.

  “Okay, here’s Gayle Steenberg,” Eve began. “Age fifty-two, Caucasian, married to Carl Steenberg, age fifty-five, since 2034, two offspring, both male. And the residence listed for the last fifteen years is Natural Order’s Connecticut HQ. Employed by Natural Order as a domestic-slash-domestic trainer at an annual income of a hundred and twenty-five K.”

  She caught the scent of pizza. Okay, fine, she thought, she could eat. And she had to bring everyone up to date before they could really dig in.

  “Go ahead, set up the food. I’m going to start a deeper run. I want to find out when she joined the order, if her husband and offspring are members. Yancy, if you need to take off, you’re clear. If you want to stick, I’ll fix it.”

  “I’d like to help find her—the first one. I’d like to know who she is. And there’s pizza.”

  “You’ll earn it.” She went to her command center, set up the runs.

  When Roarke came over, kissed the top of her head, she was too engrossed to be embarrassed. “Come, grab a slice with your team. You’ll be the better for it.”

  “It’s more of a team than I figured on, and I think we’re going to need to add to it before this is done.”

  While she worked, they set up a long table to hold several pies, the plates, the soft drinks, fizzies, coffee. They’d expanded the table where she and Roarke usually had dinner, brought in chairs.

  He’d told her before they’d remodeled how it would work when she had a team at home. And, as usual, he’d been right.

  Right now everyone talked at once while they stuffed pizza in their faces, guzzled drinks. And somewhere along the line, Roarke had shed his tie, his suit jacket.

  He didn’t look like a cop, but he sure looked at ease with them.

  She grabbed a slice, and, moving back to the board, took a bite before she began.

  “I’m going to start with Ariel Byrd.”

  Roarke watched her while she ate with one hand, gestured to the board when necessary with the other. Facts, evidence, timelines, names, and connections all laid out in brisk cop-speak.

  Commanding, he thought, she managed commanding even with a half-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza in her hand.

  He watched the others as well. Peabody, nibbling slowly on her slice to make it last while she listened. McNab, already on his second slice, tapped his airboots to some inner rhythm.

  Yancy, whom Roarke assumed had come in only tonight, ate with one hand, took notes with the other.

  And Feeney, taking a pull from a cream soda, kept his eyes on the board, ate absently as Eve did, putting things together, Roarke concluded, as Eve had.

  She went back for more pizza as she moved into her interviews, beginning with Tribeca.

  “My sense is that entire block, a good two dozen townhomes and duplexes, is occupied by members. We’ll verify that, and verify if the order itself owns the real estate.”

  “They do.” Roarke glanced up from his PPC. “As I’ve just checked that for you. Those twenty-six residential properties—double that for occupancy, as each is a duplex—are owned by Utopian Estates, a real estate and development arm of Natural Order.”

  “Gotcha another.”
A tiny drop of sauce plopped on Feeney’s shit-brown tie as he ate and worked. “Just a quick scan, but I don’t find a single nine-one-one call, not for cops, medical, fire, on that block in the last twenty-four-month period. I can look back more, but it says something.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Eve agreed. “It says if they have any problems, they handle it internally or tag up somebody from New Order to handle it.”

  “Creepy,” Peabody put in. “The whole block had a seriously creepy vibe.”

  “The Pipers pay three K in rent, which is very low for the location and square footage I see. Lawrence Piper, a vice president of the order’s social media division at their headquarters, has an annual reported salary of six hundred and thirty-two K. There’s more there,” Roarke added. “Unreported bonuses perhaps, considering the vehicle he owns, a vacation property and boat, and what I’m seeing here at—as Feeney said—a quick scan, a taste for the finer things.”

  “Keep the rent low, keep them in line, hold the block. We had a different vibe, different take with Idina Frank in the East Village.”

  She ran them through the interview. Roarke listened even as he did multiple runs and searches on his portable.

  He added the Grimsleys to his list when she got to SoHo, but he’d already satisfied himself on a few points.

  He’d refine them, considerably, he thought, with more time.

  When she outlined the visit to Natural Order and the Wilkeys, the mood changed. McNab’s boots stopped tapping; Feeney’s face went cop blank.

  Yancy paused in his note-taking to study the faces on the board as if to imprint them.

  “I want to take a minute, if that’s chill.” McNab stood when she finished. “Can I open those doors?”

  “Yeah, go ahead. I guess we can all use some air after that.”

  “They start them at age five.” Yancy consulted his notes. “That’s what Idina Frank stated. At age five kids are required to attend an approved school and begin indoctrination.”

  “Correct. It probably starts younger, but that’s official and regimented. We’ve got threads,” Eve continued, “leading from Byrd’s murder to Natural Order. A lot of threads but no strong knots to tie them to it. We’ve also got a federal agent who infiltrated and has gone dark, a missing person who, according to his sister, began gathering data to expose some aspects of the order. And we have Ella Alice Foxx, who, by all appearances, is inside those gates against her will, who had her identity wiped.”