“One or two people. However, it’s after one in the morning there.”
“Oh, right.” She scowled at the clock. “I hate the whole time difference crap. It’s irritating. Okay, that waits until the morning.”
“I hate to remind you, tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. We’re unlikely to find offices open, particularly in Europe where they believe in taking holidays. I can pull strings, but unless this is urgent, I hate to push this into someone’s holiday.”
“See, see”—she waved her spoon—“Christmas is bogging me down. It can wait, it can wait,” she repeated. “More important to find out if she had a travel companion. It could just be the one little mistake. One little detail that moves this along.”
“Then I’ll help you with that.”
“What I want is to plug in all her flights.”
“All?”
“Yeah, all. Then we’re going to run the manifest through, each one, see if any dupe names pop. Or any name on my case file list.” She licked ice cream off her finger. “And yeah, I’m aware the transpo company offices are closed. Lazy bastards. And that accessing passenger information generally requires authorization.”
He smiled, easily. “I didn’t say a thing.”
“I’m just looking is all I’m doing. And if anything pops, then I’ll backtrack, go through channels. But I’m sick to fucking death of running in place.”
“Still said nothing.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“What I’m thinking is you need to move. I want your chair.”
“Why?”
“If I’m going to get this data, and we both know I can access it faster than you, I want the chair and the desk. Why don’t you deal with those dishes?”
She grumbled, but got up. “You’re lucky I’ve got some holiday spirit and didn’t clock you for the ‘deal with those dishes’ crack.”
“Ho, ho, ho.” He sat in her place and rolled up his sleeves. “Coffee’d be nice.”
“Thin ice, Ace. Cracking under your expensive shoes.”
“And a cookie. You ate most of my gelato.”
“Did not,” she called from the kitchen. Well, yes, she had, but that was beside the point.
Still, she wanted coffee herself, so she could as easily get two mugs. To amuse herself she got out a single minicookie, barely the size of her thumb. She put it and his mug on a plate.
“I guess the least I can do is get you coffee and a cookie when you’re putting the time in for me.” She came up behind him, leaned down to plant a wifely kiss on the top of his head.
Then she set the plate down. He glanced over at it, then up at her. “That’s cold, Eve. Even for you.”
“I know. And fun, too. What’ve you got?”
“I’m accessing her account, to determine what transportation company she used for her trips. When I have that, I’ll do a search on the dates that coordinate for her passport. Then I’ll get your manifests, and run a search there. I think that deserves a bleeding cookie.”
“Like this one.” From behind her back she pulled a decorated sugar cookie. Whatever else she could say about Summerset, and there was plenty, the man could bake.
“That’s more like it. Now why don’t you come and sit on my lap?”
“Just get the data, pal. I know it’s insulting to ask, but are you going to have any trouble with CompuGuard on this?”
“I’m ignoring that as you provided the cookie.”
She left him to it, set up at her auxiliary comp.
What, she wondered, did other married couples do after dinner? Hang and watch screen maybe, or go to their separate areas and fiddle with their hobbies or work. Talk on the ‘link to pals or family. Have people over.
They did some of that. Sometimes. Roarke had gotten her hooked on vids, especially the old black-and-whites from the early and mid-twentieth century. There were nights, here and there, they whiled away a couple hours that way—the way, she imagined, most considered normal.
If it was normal to while away a couple hours in a home theater bigger—certainly lusher—than most of the public ones.
Before Roarke had come into her life, she’d spent most nights alone, going over notes, gnawing at a case. Unless Mavis had pried her out for fun and games. She couldn’t have imagined herself like this, socked in with someone. So in tune with someone despite some of their elemental differences.
Now she couldn’t imagine it any other way.
With marriage on her mind, she moved to Bobby and Zana. They hadn’t been married long, so the assumption would be they’d spend a good deal of their time together. They worked together, lived together. Traveled, as least on this fatal trip, together.
Her search turned up a passport for Bobby. The last stamp four years earlier. Australia. A couple of other, earlier trips, each spaced about a year apart. One to Portugal, one to London.
Vacations, she decided. Annual jaunts. But nothing that required a passport since Australia.
Other travel, maybe. Starting a new business—maybe shorter, cheaper trips.
No passport for Zana, maiden name or married. Well, a lot of people never left the country. She hadn’t herself, before Roarke.
But she sat back, considered. Wouldn’t Bobby want to take his new bride on some big trip? Honeymoon, whatever. Show her some part of the world, especially one he’d traveled to and enjoyed.
That was one of Roarke’s deals, anyway. Let me show you the world.
Of course, maybe they hadn’t had the time, or wanted to spend the money. Not yet. Maybe he’d decided to start with New York once the idea was popped by his mother. It made sense enough.
But it was something to wonder about.
She poked at the other fosters again, looking for some connection, some click. One in a cage, one dead, she thought.
But what if—
“Got your manifests here.”
Distracted, she glanced over. “Already?”
“One day you’ll afford me the awe I so richly deserve.”
“You’re rich enough to afford your own awe. What about matches?”
“If you’re in a hurry, you take half.” He tapped keys. “There. Transferring to you. Handle it from there?”
“I know how to do a search and match,” she muttered, and set it up to run. She swiveled around to look at him. “I’ve got these two long shots. Just plucking out of the air. One of the fosters is in a cage. Assaults, mostly. No family, no known associates in particular. Nothing in her jacket to indicate any real smarts, or connections. But maybe Trudy tried to hit her up along the line. So this career violent tendency decides to get back some of her own. Works a deal with somebody who’s close, or can get close to the mark. Take her out—got your revenge—make some money while you’re at it.”
“How would this person know Trudy was going to New York now, with the idea of shaking us down, and be able to put this kill together so quickly?”
“The kill’s of the moment. I still say that. Could’ve had the shill in place already. And yeah, I know it’s a long one. But I’m going to have another chat with the warden after Christmas. Maybe reach out to her last arresting officer.”
“And the other shot in the dark?”
“One of the fosters worked as a dancer in that club that was bombed a few years ago. Miami. Remember, a couple of bonzos got through the door, protesting sin or something. Things went wrong and the boomers blew. Took out over a hundred and fifty people.”
“I don’t remember, sorry. Before you, I can’t say I paid as much attention to that sort of thing.” But he stopped what he was doing, considered it. “So she survived?”
“No. At least she’s listed among the dead. But it was an underground club, and they run loose. Explosions, body parts flying. Blood, terror, confusion.”
“I get the picture, thanks.” He sat back, walking his mind along the path she was taking. “So, she somehow survives, is misidentified, and lives to plot Trudy’s eventual demise?”
; “It’s an angle,” Eve said stubbornly. “There are others. Somebody close to her comes back on Trudy. Revenge again. A lover or a close friend. I can talk to some of the survivors anyway, some of the people she worked with. Maybe get a clearer picture of her at least.”
She got up to pace. “And there’s this other thing going through my head. Did Trudy ever catch Bobby sneaking food to one of the girls? If so, what did she do about it? To her, to him. Or later, when he was older, did he ever get in contact with one of them? Or did one of them ever approach him? He never said anything about that. Easiest way to get to Trudy, it seems to me, would be through him.”
“You’re back to Zana.”
“Yeah.”
“Try this. What is it about Zana Lombard that keeps you circling back?”
“Well, like I said, she cries a lot.”
“Eve.”
“It’s irritating. But beyond that personal annoyance, she’s on the spot, both incidents. She’s the only one who saw her alleged abductor.”
“Why make up a story like that? It only brings her to the foreground. Wouldn’t she prefer to stay in the back?”
She rose to walk over, study her murder board. “Criminals are always complicating things, saying or doing more than they should. Even the smart ones. Add ego. Look what I pulled off, but nobody knows. Nobody can say, ‘Wow, that was pretty damn clever of you. Let me buy you a drink.’”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You think she did it.”
She drew a line with her finger from the photograph of Trudy, to Bobby, to Zana. A very handy triangle, she decided. Neat and tidy.
“I’ve thought she did it since I opened the door and found Trudy dead.”
He turned in the chair now, studying her face. “Kept that one close to the vest, didn’t you?”
“No need to get pissy.”
“I never get pissy.” He rose, deciding it was time for a brandy. “I do, occasionally, become irked. Such as now. Why didn’t you say earlier?”
“Because every time I circled around her, she’s come up clean. I’ve got no facts, no data, no evidence, no clear motive.”
She stepped closer to Zana’s photo. Big blue eyes, wavy blond hair. The guileless milkmaid, whatever the hell a milkmaid was.
“I’ve run probabilities on her, and they come up low. Even my head tells me it’s not her. It’s my gut saying otherwise.”
“You generally trust your gut.”
“This is different, because my gut’s already involved because of my connection to the victim.” She walked away from the board, back to her auxiliary station. “And the suspect on the top of my gut list hasn’t given me any solid reason to have her there. Her actions and reactions, her statements, her behavior are pretty much what they should be under the circumstances. But I look at her, and I think: It ought to be you.”
“And Bobby?”
“Could be working with her. One or both of them knew what Trudy was up to. One or both of them seduces the other, uses sex, love, money—all of the above.”
She stopped, pulled the fresh scene photos of Bobby’s injuries out of her file, and moved over to tack them to her board.
“But this, the incident that landed him in the hospital, doesn’t fit with that. I made sure I saw him before she did. He gave no sign she’d pulled a double-cross on him. They were wired on their walk around the city, and Baxter’s oral indicated they talked about shopping and lunch. Nothing about Trudy, nothing about any plot or plan. It just doesn’t feel like him, doesn’t feel like teamwork. But—”
“You’re afraid your memory of him colors your instincts.”
“Maybe. I need to push the pieces around some more.”
Task completed. There are no matches in the manifest with files currently on record…
“Well, that was a bust,” Eve complained. “We can try name combinations, look for aliases.”
“I’ll set it up.”
Eve poured more coffee, waiting until his back was turned to avoid a caffeine lecture. “You’re married to someone—and you work with them, live with them, sleep with them—don’t you figure you’d get an inkling if they were stringing you? I mean, day after day, night after night. The stringer’s got to make a slip sometime and put the stringee on guard.”
“You’ve heard the expression ‘love is blind.’”
“I think it’s bullshit. Lust dazzles, sure, at least for the short term. But love clears the vision. You see better, sharper, because you feel more than you did before.”
His lips curved as he stepped to her, touched her hair, her face. “That, I think, is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”
“It’s not romantic, it’s—”
“Hush.” He laid his lips on hers briefly. “Let me enjoy it. You have a point, but love can also cause you to see things as you prefer to see them, as you want them to be. And you haven’t factored in—if we stick with your gut, and she’s responsible—that she may love him. Part of her motive might have been to free him from what she saw as a destructive, even dangerous influence.”
“Now who’s being romantic? If I put her in as the killer, then she pushed her husband in front of a cab a few hours ago. No way—if she did Trudy—that was an accident, a coincidence.”
“You have me on that one.”
“No, what I have is nothing. I’ve got one material witness/suspect in the hospital. Another in a hotel room, under watch. I have no evidence that points to either of them, or anyone else at this time. I need to pick at it, that’s all. Shuffle things up and keep picking at it.”
She thought of the recording, and Roarke’s skill, his fancy computer lab. She could ask him to work it for her, put in the time.
Not right, not fair. Not starting so late.
“Guess we’ll pack it in for now. Check the results of that last run in the morning.”
“That suits me. What about a swim first? Work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” She started for the elevator with him, then narrowed her eyes. “Is this some ploy to get me wet and naked?”
“Love certainly doesn’t blind you, Lieutenant. You see right through me.”
* * *
Chapter 17
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IT WASN T SNOW FOR CHRISTMAS EVE, BUT another bout of nasty, freezing rain that made gleeful skittering sounds against the windows. It would, Eve thought in disgust, coat the streets and sidewalks and give the city employees who were on a shift another excuse to blow the day off.
She was tempted, nearly, to join them. She could drag on a sweatshirt and work from home, avoid the ice rink of the streets. Stay warm and comfortable. It was sheer contrariness that had her preparing to go in.
Knowing that didn’t bother her a bit.
“You have everything you need here,” Roarke reminded her.
“Don’t.” She shouldered on her weapon harness. “Don’t have Feeney, for one. Don’t have Mira. And I’m going to try to snag her long enough to get a profile on Zana and Bobby. Don’t have whoever’s bad luck has them in the lab today. And I want to go by the hotel, the hospital, do follow-ups there.”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard.” He stretched out his legs to enjoy another cup of coffee. “There’s a marvelous invention called the telelink. Some, as we have here, are also equipped for holo-conferences.”
“Not the same.” She pulled a jacket over her weapon. “You sticking home today?”
“If I said I was?”
“You’d be lying. You’re going in, same as me, finishing things up personally. Going to let your staff go early, you softie, but you’re heading in.”
“I’ll stay if you do.”
“I’m going, and so are you.” But she walked over, framed his face, and kissed him. “See you in a few hours.”
“Well, have a care, will you? The roads are bound to be treacherous.”
“So’s a chemi-head with a lead bat, but I’ve handled those.”
“Figuring as much, I had one of the all-terrains brought around.” He lifted a brow when she frowned. “I’ll be using one myself, so you’ve no argument there.”
“Fine, okay.” She glanced at the time. “Well, while you’ve got your worrywart on, maybe you could check with the shuttle, see if Peabody got off okay.”
“Already did, they’re in the air and already out of the weather. Wear your gloves,” he called out as she went through the door.
“Such a nag,” she mumbled under her breath.
But she was grateful for them, and the thin, soft fur lining that had somehow found its way into her coat. How did he manage that stuff?
Whatever was spitting out of the sky felt like nasty little needle pricks as cold as Mars. She climbed into the muscular vehicle, found its efficient heater already running. The man missed nothing. It was almost spooky.
Even warm, and in a vehicle with the traction and power of a jet tank, she had an ugly fight on her hands all the way downtown. Where before she’d cursed people who ditched work for an extended holiday as lazy wimps, now she cursed them for not staying the hell home. Or for driving a vehicle that couldn’t handle the icy roads.
Twice she came upon fender benders, felt obliged to stop and get out, determine if there were injuries before calling it in to Traffic.
When traffic stalled, again, she imagined what it would be like just to roll over the cars in her path. The tank she was in could handle it, she thought.
When she arrived at Central, she calculated that more than twenty percent of the slots on her level were empty.
One of the detectives hailed her when she walked into Homicide.
“Slader, aren’t you on graveyard?”
“Yes, sir. Caught one a couple hours before end of tour. Got the guy in the cooler. Vic’s his brother, who was visiting from out of town for the holidays. Ends up with a broken neck at the bottom of the stairs. Guy in the cooler has some swank place over on Park. Vic’s a loser, no fixed address, no visible means of employment.”
“He get helped down the steps?”
“Oh, yeah.” Slader’s smile was thin and wry. “Guy claims the brother was stoned—and we’ll get the tox on that—but he did have some Juice on him. Suspect said he was in bed, heard the noise of the fall, and found his brother at the bottom of the steps. Thing is, he apparently didn’t think we’d notice the vic’s facial bruises, or hoped we put them off on the fall. But seeing as our guy’s got scraped knuckles, and a split lip, we’re figuring otherwise.”
Robb, J.D. - [Dallas 25] - Memory in Death-v2 Page 26