by J. D. Robb
Eve jerked her shoulders and drank.
“He’s rich, I mean mag rich, gorgeous as a god, and that body—”
“What d’you know about his body?”
“I got eyes. I use ’em. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what he looks like naked.” Amused by the glint in Eve’s eyes, Mavis licked her lips. “Of course, any time you want to fill in the missing details, I’m here for you.”
“What a pal.”
“That’s me. Anyway, he’s all that stuff. Then there’s that power trip. He’s got all that power, sort of shoots out from him.” She highlighted the statement by splashing up water. “And he looks at you like he could eat you alive. In big . . . greedy . . . bites. Shit, I’m getting hot.”
“Keep your hands off me.”
Mavis snorted. “Maybe I’ll go seduce Summerset.”
“I don’t think he has a dick.”
“Bet I could find out.” But she was just too lazy at the moment. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Summerset? I’ve had a hell of a time controlling myself around him.”
“Look me dead in the eye. Come on.” To ensure obedience, Mavis snagged Eve’s chin, swiveled until they were face to face, glassy eye to glassy eye. “You’re in love with Roarke.”
“It looks that way. I don’t want to think about it.”
“Good. Don’t. Always said you thought too damn much.” Holding the glass over her head, Mavis pushed off into the lagoon. “Can we use the jets?”
“Sure.” Impaired with wine, Eve fumbled a bit for the correct control. Once the water started to bubble and spew, Mavis let out a laughing moan.
“Christ Jesus, who needs a man when you’ve got one of these? Come on, Eve, bump up the music. Let’s party.”
Obliging, Eve doubled the volume on the controls so that the music screamed off the walls and water. The Rolling Stones, Mavis’s favorite classic artists, wailed. Lounged back, Eve laughed as Mavis improvised dance steps and started to send the server droid after another bottle.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Huh?” Bleary-eyed, Eve studied the glossy black shoes at the lip of the lagoon. Slowly, and with mild curiosity, she let her gaze travel up the smoke-colored, pipe-stemmed pants, the short, stiff jacket, and into Summerset’s stony face. “Hey, you wanna take a little dip?”
“Come on in, Summerset.” Water lapped around Mavis’s waist and dripped cheerfully from her classy breasts as she waved. “The more the merrier.”
He sniffed, his lips curled. Sheer habit had the words dropping out of his mouth like knife-edged ice cubes, but his gaze kept wandering back to Mavis’s swirling body.
“There’s a transmission for you, Lieutenant. Apparently you were unable to hear my attempts to inform you.”
“What? Okay, okay.” She sniggered, paddled toward the ’link set in the side of the lagoon. “Is it Roarke?”
“It is not.” It affronted his dignity to shout, but it would have offended his pride to order the music lower. “It is Dispatch from Cop Central.”
Even as Eve reached for the ’link, she stopped, swore. Then slicked the hair back from her face. “Music off,” she snapped, and had Mick and his pals echoing into silence. “Mavis, stay out of video range, please.” Eve sucked in a deep breath, then opened the ’link. “Dallas.”
“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Voice print verified. Report immediately to Broadcast Avenue, Channel 75. Confirmed Homicide. Code Yellow.”
Eve’s blood ran cold. Her fingers gripped on the edge of the pool. “Victim’s name?”
“That information is not cleared for transmission at this time. Confirm receipt of orders, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”
“Confirmed. ETA twenty minutes. Request Feeney, Captain, EDD on scene.”
“Request verified. Dispatch out.”
“Oh God. Oh God.” Weak with guilt and liquor, Eve laid her head on the edge of the pool. “I fucking killed her.”
“Stop it.” Mavis swam over, laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “Cut it out, Eve,” she said briskly.
“He took the wrong bait, the wrong bait, Mavis, and she’s dead. It was supposed to be me.”
“I said stop it.” Confused by the words, but not by the sentiment, Mavis pulled her back and gave Eve a quick shake. “Snap out of it, Dallas.”
Helpless, Eve pressed a hand to her spinning head. “Oh my Christ, I’m drunk. That’s perfect.”
“I can fix that. I’ve got some Sober Up in my bag.” At Eve’s moan, Mavis gave her another shake. “I know you hate pills, but they’ll clean the alcohol out of your bloodstream in ten minutes flat. Come on, we’ll get some into you.”
“Fine. Dandy. I’ll be sober when I have to look at her.”
She started up the steps, slipped, was surprised to find her arm taken firmly. “Lieutenant.” Summerset’s voice was still cool, but he held out a towel and helped her up onto the stone skirt of the pool. “I’ll see that your car’s ready.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
chapter twelve
Mavis’s handy antidote worked like a charm. Eve had a foul taste in the back of her throat, but she was stone-cold sober when she reached Channel 75’s sleek silver building.
It had been constructed in the mid-twenties when the media boom had hit such astronomical proportions as to generate more profits than a small country. One of the loftier buildings on Broadcast Avenue, it towered up from a wide, flat hilt, housed several thousand employees, five elaborate studios, including the most lavish new set on the East Coast, and enough power to beam transmissions to every pocket of the planet and its orbiting stations.
The east wing, where Eve was directed, faced Third with its tony mutiplexes and apartment buildings designed for the convenience of the broadcast industry.
Due to the thick air traffic, Eve realized word had already hit. Control was going to be a problem. Even as she rounded the building, she called Dispatch and requested air barricades as well as ground security. A homicide right in the lap of the media was going to be hard enough to deal with, without the vultures flying.
Steady now, she locked away guilt and stepped from her car to approach the scene. The uniforms had been busy, she saw with some relief. They’d cleared the area and had the outside door sealed off. Reporters and their teams were there, naturally. There would be no keeping them away. But she’d have room to breathe.
She’d already attached her badge to her jacket and moved through the rain to the porta-tarp some wise soul had tossed over the crime scene. Raindrops pinged musically against the strong, clear plastic.
She recognized the raincoat, dealt viciously with the quick, instinctive lurch of her stomach. She asked if the immediate scene had been scanned and recorded, and receiving the affirmative, crouched down.
Her hands were rock steady as they reached for the hood that had fallen forward over the victim’s face. She ignored the blood that pooled in a sticky puddle at the toes of her boots and managed to smother the gasp and the shudder as she tossed the hood away from a stranger’s face.
“Who the hell is this?” she demanded.
“Victim’s been preliminarily identified as Louise Kirski, editorial tech for Channel 75.” The uniform pulled a log out of the pocket of her slick black raincoat. “She was found at approximately eleven fifteen by C. J. Morse. He tossed his cookies just over there,” she went on with light disdain for civilian delicacy. “Went inside through this door, screaming his head off. Building security verified his story, such as it was, called it in. Dispatch logged the call at eleven twenty-two. I arrived on scene at eleven twenty-seven.”
“You made good time, Officer . . . ?”
“Peabody, Lieutenant. I was on a swing of First Avenue. I verified homicide, secured the outer door, called for additional uniforms and a primary.”
Eve nodded toward the building. “They get any of this on camera?”
“Sir.” Peabody’s mouth thinned. “I ordered a news team off scene w
hen I arrived. I’d say they got plenty before we secured.”
“Okay.” With fingertips encased in clear seal, Eve did a search of the body. A few credits, a little jingling change, a pricey mini ’link attached to the belt. No defense wounds, no signs of struggle or assault.
She recorded it all dutifully, her mind working fast. Yes, she recognized the raincoat, she thought, and her initial exam complete, she straightened.
“I’m going in. I’m expecting Captain Feeney. Pass him through. She can go with the ME.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You stand, Peabody,” Eve decided. The cop had a good, firm style. “Keep those reporters in line.” Eve glanced over her shoulder, ignoring the shouted questions, the glint of lenses. “Give no comment, no statement.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to them.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Eve unsealed the door, passed through, resealed it. The lobby was nearly empty. Peabody, or someone like her, had cleared it of all but essential personnel. Eve shot a look at the security behind the main console. “C. J. Morse. Where?”
“His station’s on level six, section eight. Some of your people took him up that way.”
“I’m expecting another cop. Send him after me.” Eve turned and stepped onto the ascent.
There were people here and there, some huddled together, others standing against video backdrops talking furiously to cameras. She caught the scent of coffee, the stale just-burned fragrance so similar to a cop’s bull pen. Another time, it might have made her smile.
The noise level was climbing, even as she did. She stepped off on level six into the frantic buzz of the newsroom.
Consoles were set back to back, with traffic areas snaking through. Like police work, broadcasting was a twenty-four-hour business. Even at this hour, there were more than a dozen stations manned.
The difference, Eve noted, was that cops looked overworked, rumpled, even sweaty. This crew was video perfect. Clothes were streamlined, jewelry camera friendly, faces carefully polished.
Everyone seemed to have a job to do. Some were talking quickly to their ’link screens—feeding their satellites updates, Eve imagined. Others barked at their computers or were barked at by them as data was requested, accessed, and transmitted to the desired source.
It all looked perfectly normal, except mixed with the stale scent of bad coffee was the sticky odor of fear.
One or two noticed her, started to rise, questions in their eyes. Her brutally cold stare was as effective as a steel shield.
She turned to the wall where screens hugged against each other. Roarke had a similar setup, and she knew each screen could be used for a separate image, or in any combination. Now the wall was filled with a huge picture of Nadine Furst on the news set. The familiar three-dimensional view of New York’s skyline rose behind her.
She, too, looked polished, perfect. Her eyes seemed to meet and hold on Eve’s as Eve stepped closer to listen to the audio.
“And again tonight, a senseless killing. Louise Kirski, an employee of this station, was murdered only a few steps away from the building where I am now broadcasting this report.”
Eve didn’t bother to curse as Nadine added a few more details and segued to Morse. She’d expected this.
“An ordinary evening,” Morse said in a clear reporter’s voice. “A rainy night in the city. But once again, despite the best offered by our police force, murder happens. This reporter is now able to give you a first-hand view of the horror, the shock, and the waste.”
He paused, timing perfect, as the camera zoomed in on his face. “I found Louise Kirski’s body, crumpled, bleeding, at the bottom of the steps of this building where both she and I have worked many nights. Her throat had been slashed, her blood pouring out on the wet pavement. I’m not ashamed to say that I froze, that I was revolted, that the smell of death clogged in my lungs. I stood, looking down at her, unable to believe what I saw with my own eyes. How could this be? A woman I knew, a woman who I had often shared a friendly word with, a woman I had occasionally had the privilege of working with. How could she be lying there, lifeless?”
The screen dissolved from his pale, serious face, to a gruesomely graphic shot of the body.
They hadn’t missed a beat, Eve thought in disgust, and whirled on the closest manned console. “Where’s the studio?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, where’s the goddamn studio?” She jerked a thumb toward the screen.
“Well, ah . . .”
Furious, she leaned over, caged him between her stiffened arms. “You want to see how fast I can shut this place down?”
“Level twelve, Studio A.”
She whirled away just as Feeney stepped off the ascent. “Took your sweet time.”
“Hey, I was in New Jersey visiting my folks.” He didn’t bother to ask, but fell into step with her.
“I need a gag on the broadcast.”
“Well.” He scratched his head as they headed up. “We can probably finagle an order to confiscate the pictures of the scene.” He moved his shoulders at Eve’s glance. “I caught some of it on the screen in the car on the way here. They’ll get it back, but we can hang them up for a few hours, anyway.”
“Get to work on it. I need all the data available on the victim. They should have records here.”
“That’s simple enough.”
“Feed them to my office, will you, Feeney? I’ll be on my way there shortly.”
“No problem. Anything else?”
Eve stepped off, scowled at the thick white doors of Studio A. “I might need some backup in here.”
“That’d be my pleasure.”
The doors were locked, the On Air sign glowing. Eve struggled with a desperate urge to draw her weapon and blow the security panel apart. Instead, she jabbed the emergency button and waited for response.
“Channel 75 News now in progress, live,” came the soothing electronic voice. “What is the nature of your problem?”
“Police emergency.” She held her ID up to the small scanner.
“One moment, Lieutenant Dallas, while your request is accessed.”
“It’s not a request,” Eve said evenly. “I want these doors open now, or I’ll be forced to break in under Code 83B, subsection J.”
There was a quiet hum, an electronic hiss, as if the computer were considering, then expressing annoyance. “Clearing doors. Please remain quiet and do not pass the white line. Thank you.”
Inside the studio, the temperature dropped ten degrees. Eve stalked directly toward a glass partition facing the set and rapped hard enough to have the news director go white with worry. He held a desperate finger to his lips. Eve held up her badge.
With obvious reluctance, he clicked open the door and gestured them in. “We’re live,” he snapped and turned back to his view of the set. “Camera Three on Nadine. Back image of Louise. Mark.”
The robotics on set obeyed smoothly. Eve watched the small suspended camera shift. On the control monitor, Louise Kirski smiled cheerily.
“Slow down, Nadine. Don’t rush it. C. J., ready in ten.”
“Go to commercial,” Eve told him.
“We’re running without ads on this broadcast.”
“Go to commercial,” she repeated, “or you’re going to go to black.”
He screwed up his forehead, puffed out his chest. “Now listen here—”
“You listen.” She poked him none too gently in that expanded chest. “You’ve got my eyewitness out there. You do what you’re told, or your competitors are going to have ratings through the roof with the story I’m going to give them on how Channel 75 interfered with a police investigation on the murder of one of its own people.” She lifted a brow while he considered. “And maybe I’m going to start to think you look like a suspect. He strike you as the cold-blooded killer type, Feeney?”
“I was just thinking that. Maybe we need to take him in, have a nice long chat. After a strip search
.”
“Just hold on. Hold on.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. What could a quick ninety-second commercial break hurt? “Go to Zippy spot in ten. C. J., wind it up. Cue music. Camera One pan back. Mark.”
He let out a long breath. “I’m calling legal on this.”
“You do that.” Eve stepped out of the booth and stalked to the long black console Morse and Nadine shared.
“We’ve got a right to—”
“I’m going to tell you all about your rights,” Eve interrupted Morse. “You’ve got a right to call your lawyer and have him meet you at Cop Central.”
He went dead white. “You’re arresting me. Jesus Christ, are you nuts?”
“You’re a witness, asshole. And you’re not going to make any further statements until you’ve made one to me. Officially.” She flicked a scathing gaze in Nadine’s direction. “You’ll just have to muddle through the rest on your own.”
“I want to go with you.” On shaky legs, Nadine rose. To dispense with the frantic shouts from the control booth, she tugged her earpiece free and tossed it down. “I was probably the last person to speak to her.”
“Fine. We’ll talk about that.” Eve led them out, pausing only to grin nastily toward control. “You could fill in with some old reruns of NYPD Blue. It’s a classic.”
“Well, well, C. J.” However miserable she was, Eve could appreciate the moment. “I’ve finally got you where I want you. Comfy?”
He looked a little green around the gills, but managed to sneer as he took a long scan of the interview room. “You guys could use a decorator.”
“We’re trying to work that into the budget.” She settled back at the single table in the room. “Record,” she requested. “June 1—Jeez, where did May go?—Subject C. J. Morse, position Interview Room C, Interview conducted by Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, re Homicide, victim Louise Kirsky. Time oh oh forty-five. Mr. Morse, you’ve been advised of your rights. Do you want your attorney present during this interview?”
He reached for his glass of water and took a sip. “Am I being charged with anything?”
“Not at this time.”