Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  She took one last look at the body. “I hope it was her. He wanted her to suffer. He learned the perks of that with the ex. That’s part of the fun, the power, the payback. He kept her alive the longest. He’d want to keep the next one alive so he can enjoy himself.”

  She started out just as a uniform started up the stairs. “Lieutenant? We’ve got a wit outside says he saw a man fitting the morph description.”

  “I’ll take him.”

  “Yes, sir. And the sweepers just pulled up.”

  “We’re ready for them.”

  She stepped outside where between her vehicle, the black-and-white, and the sweeper’s van they’d screwed traffic to hell and back.

  Eve ignored the blasting horns, the enthusiastic cursing, and homed in on a boy of about sixteen in a fake leather jacket, high-step airboots, and a mop of brown hair shaved high on one side to show off the cluster of silver studs along his ear canal.

  Didn’t it hurt, she wondered, to get holes punched there?

  “Lieutenant Dallas. Your name?”

  “X.”

  “Your name’s X.”

  “It’s like Xavier. Xavier Paque. I’m X.”

  “Okay, X. You saw this man?”

  The kid glanced at the morph again, bopped his shoulders up and down twice. “Yeah, hey. So I live, like, over there.” He gestured across the street. “Just riding my board back up from the mart. Went for a fizz and a pop, and I saw the dude over here, gimping along with a couple of rollies.”

  “He limped?”

  “Yeah, hey, you know.” The boy demonstrated, hobbling some. “Looked peeved, got it? But nice, tight threads.”

  “Describe said threads.”

  “Good jacket, looked like real cow. Mostly that’s what I noticed, and the gimping. Maybe nice boots.” He screwed up his face in thought. “Yeah, nice boots. Cow, too, I bet, so he had some. The one rolly was mag—duffel style, sharp. But the other? Been around. Pretty dumpy, and man, it was red. Bogus for a dude. Wrap shades. Had some, busted them. Bummed.”

  “Limping, tight threads, and pulling a rolling duffel and a red suitcase.”

  “Yeah, big red rolly.”

  “How about his hair? Long, short, color?”

  Now the boy scratched his head. “Short. Not you short, but not me long. Blondie, I think. Maybe he had a patch.” The thoughtful face again. “Maybe a patch,” he said, tapping his chin. “I only took the good look because his jacket was fine, and he’s gimping along with the rollies like he’s hurting bad.”

  “Heading west?”

  “Yeah, that way.” X’s eyes shifted to the Farnsworth house. “Something wrong with Ms. F?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like what?”

  Word would spread, and quickly. No point, she decided, in evading. “She’s dead. We suspect the man you saw is responsible.”

  In a fingersnap he went from frosty teen to stunned boy. His eyes filled, the sheen of tears, the gleam of shock. “Come on, no, man. Fuck that. No way.”

  “I’m sorry. You knew her?”

  “Ms. F? This is sick bad. Ms. F? She’s up, you know? She helps me with my e-shit for school. It’s not my thing, but she helps me out. That gimp bastard did her? I’da stopped him. I’da done something.”

  “You have. Talking to me, telling me what you saw, it’s going to help us find him.”

  “Where’s her dog? Where’s the Snuff-man?”

  “He’s at the vet,” Peabody told him.

  “Is he hurt? Man, more sick bad. She freaking loves that dog.”

  “They’re taking care of him.”

  “I want to go talk to my mom. I want to go home.”

  “Go ahead.” Eve dug out a card. “If you think of anything else, you contact me.”

  “She never hurt anybody. It’s not right. She never hurt anybody.” He stuffed Eve’s card in his pocket before running across the street.

  “Maybe she did,” Eve said. “Maybe she managed to hurt him. Cabs, Peabody.”

  “I’m already there.” Working her ’link, Peabody started back to the car with Eve.

  “Officer!”

  Eve stopped, waiting as the new father rushed up. “Lieutenant,” she corrected.

  “Oh, sorry. They’re keeping Snuffy overnight at least. I thought you might need the name of the vet, so I had them give me a card.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is … is Ms. Farnsworth really …”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”

  “Brad Peters. Was it a burglary?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “She … she was really good to us. We moved in right after Margot got pregnant. Margot’s family lives in St. Paul, so it was nice for her to have a, well, motherly type right next door. I didn’t hear anything, or see … We’re so wrapped up in the baby.”

  “There was nothing you could do.”

  “Can we keep the dog?”

  “Ah …”

  “She really loved that dog.” And like the boy, his eyes filmed with tears. “I don’t want Snuffy to end up in the shelter because there’s nobody to take him. We’ll pay the vet bills. He knows us. He likes us. They were like a unit. He’s going to miss her something fierce.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. She may have relatives or an heir who’d need to sign off on that.”

  “Okay. But we’ll take care of him until … He shouldn’t have to go to a shelter with strangers. He was her family.”

  Eve thought of Galahad. “I’ll clear it so he can go from the vet to you, unless family claims him.”

  “Thanks. I’d better go tell Margot. I don’t know how this could happen. Right next door.”

  It happens everywhere, Eve thought as he walked away. Because there’s always someone like Jerry Reinhold.

  “Cab,” she repeated to Peabody.

  “They’re checking. A lot of pickups, so—”

  “Have them cross-check with a drop-off at a clinic or health center, urgent care, ER—a medical. Closest one going west from here. Limping, hurting. Maybe he dropped something on his foot. Or maybe the vic managed to drop herself and the chair on him. I like that image.”

  “Hard not to.” Peabody retagged the cab company, gave her contact the drop-off element. “Score! Pickup Varick and Laight, drop-off Church Street Urgent Care. Single passenger, two bags.”

  “Let’s move.”

  Maybe he’d still be there, stuck in a waiting room, cooling heels in exam. She resisted the urge to go in hot, but not the one to leapfrog through traffic until Peabody’s color dropped away.

  “I might need this place,” Peabody managed as Eve, once again, double-parked.

  Eve simply strode across the sidewalk, shoved inside the spacious, and unfortunately uncrowded waiting area. A crowd might have kept him hanging until treatment.

  She headed straight to the receptionist on duty, held up her badge, signaled Peabody for the morph. “Is he here?”

  The receptionist frowned at Eve, at the badge, at the morph. “No, but he was.”

  Frustration wanted to choke her. “When did he leave?”

  “Maybe an hour ago. About an hour.”

  “Do you know where he was going, his mode of transportation?”

  “No, he walked out the door. Why?”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  Now she pokered up. “I’m not allowed to share any patient’s information.”

  “Name. What name?”

  The receptionist checked her computer. “He signed in as John. That’s all that’s required if no insurance is involved. He paid cash.”

  “I want to see his doctor. Now.”

  “If you’d have a seat in chairs, I’ll see if—”

  “I said now.” Eve leaned over the counter. “I just left a retired schoolteacher who’s on her way to the morgue. You treated the man who sent her there. I’m about an hour behind him, according to you. I’m not going to waste time arguing. Get the medical who treated him
out here, or I go back there and make a hell of a mess.”

  “Wait. Just wait.” The receptionist all but flew back, vanished around a corner. In under a minute she was back in the wake of a tall, lean Asian man with a flapping white lab coat.

  “What’s all this?”

  “All this is murder. This man has killed four people. I need to know why he came in, what you did, what he said. Everything.”

  Without a word, he gestured her back around the same corner and into a small office with a lush potted palm near a fake window.

  “The patient is a murder suspect?”

  “Multiple. I need to know what name he used, his injuries, his treatment, and if he scheduled any sort of follow-up.”

  “You don’t have a warrant.”

  “I have four dead bodies. But we can play that way. Peabody?”

  The doctor just lifted a hand, waved it. “He elected not to use his full name. Just John, and neglected to check the privacy form. So. The patient had two broken metatarsals on his right foot, along with a hairline fracture of the first cuneiform.”

  He picked up a tablet, tapped, swiped. And showed Eve a diagram of a foot.

  “So … A couple of broken toes, and a hairline deal on this part here, before the arch?”

  “Basically, yes. There’s little you can do, other than wand, wrap, and treat for discomfort, advise the patient to rest the foot. All of which I did. He also had some minor bruising along his diaphragm. There were no internal injuries. He left—perfectly ambulatory, and with the medication in no particular discomfort.”

  “No follow-up, no referral.”

  “Offered and declined. He said he was traveling—and he had a couple of suitcases with him. He claimed someone had dropped a heavy case on his foot at the transpo center, then he’d tripped over it, jamming it into his diaphragm. He’d assumed the foot was just bruised, but soon decided it might be more, so came in for exam and treatment. He paid for the exam, the treatment, the meds, the wrap, and the soft cast in cash.”

  “How long before it heals?”

  “It depends. With daily wand treatments, rest, he could be fine in a matter of days. Without the follow-ups, a couple of weeks. The first treatment is the most intense.”

  “Yeah, been there. If he comes back, decides to do another treatment, contact me. Don’t let him know, just keep him waiting, or draw the treatment out. He’s violent, he’s dangerous, and he won’t hesitate to kill.”

  “Then I’ll hope he doesn’t. We often have children in here.”

  “Just give him a seat, tell him to wait his turn, and tag me. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  The minute she walked outside, Eve strode over, kicked her own tire. “Crap! He just has to luck into a fast, efficient medical. He couldn’t get bogged down with hackers and bleeders and pukers for an hour.”

  She kicked the tire again, then walked around to the driver’s door, sliding behind the wheel to a cacophony of horns.

  “Cab,” she said yet again to Peabody.

  “Already on it.”

  15

  AFTER BOMBING WITH THE CAB ANGLE, EVE swung back into Homicide, arrowed straight to her office. She’d update the board and book while Peabody contacted every potential target on the list.

  Once she had, had reviewed her notes, written an updated report, she sat, coffee in hand, and studied her board.

  Parents to ex to teacher.

  He wasn’t killing chronologically. Not by a measure of intimacy. Not by financial gain as he’d known or had certainly believed Farnsworth had more there than Lori.

  Was it, in his mind, by level of offense? By what or who insulted or angered him most? Ease of access?

  Circle back, she ordered herself.

  First killing, mother. Impulse. Fit of rage, convenience of weapon.

  Second killing, premeditated, lying in wait, choice of weapon.

  Third, planned, lying in wait, purchase of weapons, elements of torture.

  Fourth, planned, possible lying in wait—probable, she decided—uncertain if he found the murder weapon or brought it with him. More extensive torture, additional use of vic for financial gain and very likely for false ID.

  Different weapon for each, but the use of the bat on three out of four, use of tape and cord on the last two.

  And all four killed in their own homes.

  He’d probably stick with that, she decided, but ran a probability to back up her own conclusion. Would he sully his own nest, wherever he built it? And he liked, didn’t he, killing them where they felt safest. Pawing through their things, eating their food.

  Didn’t that add another level of humiliation to murder?

  “The place matters,” she said aloud.

  She heard the thwack of Peabody’s cowboy boots coming fast, pushed away from her desk.

  “What do you have?” she demanded.

  “We might have something on the electronics. There’s a woman out here who came in. She works at Fast Cash Pawnbroker, five blocks from the Farnsworth crime scene. I’ve got her waiting at my desk. She says she checked in three comps that match the numbers on Farnsworth’s equipment. I checked, and they do.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Get McNab or whoever Feeney can spare over there to pick them up.”

  The girl—as she barely hit legal age to Eve’s gauge—fidgeted in her chair. She was bone-thin, black, with hair in ruler-straight corn-row braids. She wore a red jacket over coat-of-paint jeans, and bit her nails.

  “Juana Printz,” Peabody told Eve. “Juana, this is Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Okay. Hi. I have to report it. It’s the law, right?”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you have to report?”

  “I work for Mr. Rinskit at Fast Cash? And this droid, you know how you can tell it’s a droid, even mostly the really good ones?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “He came in hand carrying three comps—full, high-end D&Cs. It was a load, right? Maybe I thought it was a little tilted, but hey, you get all kinds. But then I’m supposed to check them in after the transaction, and I saw the alert. I told Mr. Rinskit, and said how I’d report it, and he said to mind my business. And I said, ‘But, Mr. Rinskit, there’s the alert, and they’re stolen and part of a police investigation thing,’ and he said to just shut up, check them in, and forget it if I wanted to keep my job.”

  She stopped biting her nails long enough to bite her bottom lip. “I did—I mean I shut up and checked them in, but I didn’t forget it. So I took the bus here as soon as I got off work. Because it’s the law.”

  “You did the right thing. Have you seen the droid before?”

  “No, ma’am, no. But I think, maybe, Mr. Rinskit doesn’t report like he’s supposed to. And maybe I shut up about it, but this was three high-end, and I just couldn’t keep shutting up. Does he have to know I told?”

  She started on her nails again, her dark eyes full of worry. “If he knows I reported it after he said not to, he’ll fire me for sure. I’m going to lose my job.”

  “You like your job?”

  “It blows.” Juana smiled a little. “It blows wide, but I gotta work.”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  “McNab and two uniforms are on their way to pick up the evidence,” Peabody reported.

  “Good. Arrange a voucher for Juana. A hundred for the report.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Eve held up a finger, signaling Juana to wait another minute as she pulled out her ’link.

  She’d expected Roarke’s admin to pick up, but got the man himself. “Hey.”

  “And a hey to you. I’m just leaving the office.”

  “Oh. I’m not. I’ve got another DB, three stolen comps coming in that may help me find the route to money transferred from the DB’s account to the killer’s, and a little thing.”

  “E-work, is it? I could use some recreation. Why don’t I come to you?”

  “You could do that, but it would be to Feeney at this
point.”

  “I prefer you, but I’ll settle. What’s the little thing?”

  “It’s actually why I tagged you. I want to give someone a job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know. And actually, I want you to give someone a job.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You want me to give someone a job doing … you don’t know what?”

  “What’s the point of having somebody who employs half the planet anyway if you can’t say, ‘Give this girl a job’?”

  “A girl.”

  “Well, early twenties. Honest, straightforward. She’s going to lose her job in a pawnshop for reporting those comps, but she came in anyway. She’s neat, clean, polite—and honest,” she repeated. “You must have something—Lower West would work best.”

  He said, “Eve,” on a sigh. “Have her contact Kyle Pruett,” he began and rattled off information.

  “Who is that?”

  “One of the assistants in Human Resources, downtown. She’ll have to pass a background check, come in for an interview, but I imagine Kyle can find something. Give me her information, and I’ll pass it on.”

  “Great. I’ll send it to you, and I’ll owe you.”

  “You certainly will.” But he smiled at her. “I’m on my way to you, via Feeney.”

  Satisfied, she turned back to Juana. “Peabody, did you get all Juana’s information?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send it to Roarke.” The look she sent Peabody cut off any questions. “Juana, I need you to note something down.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

  “Lieutenant,” Eve said as Juana pulled out an old, battered ’link.

  “Yes, ma’am, Lieutenant.”

  Close enough. “Kyle Pruett,” Eve said, giving Juana the information to key in. “Contact him. He’ll be expecting it. He’s going to help you find a job.”

  Juana looked up from her ’link, blinked twice. “A job?”

  “We’re going to shut your boss down for seventy-two hours, more if we find other stolen merchandise. He’s going to be fined, and he may face criminal charges. Unless he’s an absolute moron, he’s going to know you reported him. Don’t go back there. Use the contact I gave you. Be honest with him the way you were with me. If there’s anything off in your background, tell him up front. Have you ever been arrested, Juana?”