by J. D. Robb
“So you were alone, here, alone, all evening. All night.”
“I just said so. I worked until about midnight, I’d think. I don’t watch the freaking clock. I probably had a drink, then took a long, hot bath to relax the body and mind. Was in bed around one.”
“Do you own a vehicle, Hastings?”
“I don’t understand these questions. Yes, I own a vehicle. Of course I own a vehicle. I have to get around, don’t I? Do you think I’d depend on public transportation? I have a car, and a four-person van used primarily for consignments when more equipment and assistants are required.”
“When did you first meet Rachel Howard?”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
She rose, walked over to Peabody. “Receipts?”
Hastily, Peabody stopped sucking in her cheeks. “Two. She used a debit card on two occasions for small purchases. June and July.”
“Okay. Go check on the other two. Just peek in, look intimidating.”
“One of my favorites.”
Eve went back to the stool. “Rachel Howard is on record as a customer of your business.”
After a long stare, Hastings let out a snort. “I don’t know the idiot customers. I hire people to deal with idiot customers.”
“Maybe this will refresh your memory.” She pulled out the candid shot from the 24/7, and offered it.
There was a flicker, very brief, but she caught it. “A good face,” he said casually. “Open, naive, young. I don’t know her.”
“Yes, you do. You recognize her.”
“I don’t know her,” he repeated.
“Try this one.” With her eyes on his, Eve drew out the posed photo.
“Almost brilliant,” he murmured. “Very nearly brilliant.” He rose with the print, moved to the window to study it. “The composition, the arrangement, the tones. Youth, sweetness, and that openness still there, even though she’s dead.”
“Why do you say she’s dead?”
“I photograph the dead. The funerals people want preserved. And I go to the morgue now and then, pay a tech to let me photograph a body. I recognize death.”
He lowered the print, glared at Eve. “You think I killed this girl? You actually think I killed her? For what?”
“You tell me. You know her.”
“Her face is familiar.” Now, he wet his lips as he looked back at the print. “But there are so many faces. She looks . . . I’ve seen her before. Somewhere. Somewhere.”
He came back, sat heavily. “I’ve seen her face somewhere, but I don’t know her. Why would I kill someone I don’t know, when I know so many people who irritate me, and haven’t killed any of them?”
It was a damn good question, to Eve’s mind. She pressed and probed another fifteen minutes, then stashed him in a room while she pulled out the young male assistant.
“Okay, Dingo, what do you do for Hastings?”
“I-I-I-I-I-”
“Stop. Breathe. In and out, come on.”
Once he’d gulped in air, he tried again. “I’m working as studio and on-site assistant. I-I-” He sucked in air when Eve pointed her finger at him. “I have the camera ready, set the lights, change the set, whatever he wants.”
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Two weeks.” Dingo looked cautiously at the door of the room where Hastings waited. Then leaning closer to Eve, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Mostly his assistants don’t last long. I heard the one before me was in and out in three hours. That’s kind of a record. The longest was six weeks.”
“And why is this?”
“He freaks, man. Complete meltdown. Nuclear. You screw up, you don’t screw up, whatever, if something doesn’t fly right for him, he’s orbital.”
“Violent?”
“He breaks shit, throws shit. I saw him beat his own head against the wall last week.”
“Seen him beat anybody else’s?”
“Not so far, but I heard he threatened to throw this guy in front of a maxibus during a field shoot. I don’t think he actually did it, or anything.”
“Have you seen this girl around here? In person, in portraits?”
Dingo took the print. “No. Not my type.”
“Oh?”
“She doesn’t look like she’d party.”
“Would you say she’s Hastings’s type?”
“For party-time?”
“For any time.”
“Not for partying. Don’t think the dude parties much. But he’d go for the face.”
“You own a vehicle, Dingo?”
He glanced up at her again. “I got an airboard.”
“A vehicle, with doors?”
“Nah.” He actually grinned at the idea of it. “But I can drive. That’s one of the reasons I got the job, because I can drive Hastings to consignments and shit.” He paused a minute, frowned down at the print. “He didn’t really throw somebody in front of a maxi, did he?”
“Not that I know of. What were you doing night before last?”
“Just hanging, I guess.”
“And where would this hanging have taken place?”
“Um . . . I dunno. I was just . . .” The light dawned, turning his eyes into wide, glassy saucers in a face gone dead pale. “Oh man, oh Jesus, I’m like a suspect?”
“Why don’t you tell me where you were, what you were doing, who you were with?”
“I-I-I, jeez! Loose and Brick and Jazz and me, we hung at Brick’s place for a while, then we cruised The Spot, this club we go to mostly, and Loose, he got pretty messed up, so we dumped him home about, jeez, about one, maybe? Then we hung a little more, and I went home and crashed.”
“Do these hanging buddies have actual names?”
“Oh, oh, yeah.”
“Give them to the officer, along with your address. Then you’re free to go.”
“I can go? Just go?” His face underwent rapid changes, from shock to suspicion, from relief to disappointment. “I don’t have to, like, get a lawyer or something?”
“Just stay available, Dingo.”
She had to pick her way through the same minefield of nerves with Liza Blue, who turned out to be hair and enhancement consultant. When her teeth started chattering, Eve heaved a long, long breath.
“Look, Liza, do you have anything to feel guilty about?”
“Well, I cheated on my boyfriend last week.”
“I’m not going to arrest you for that. How long have you worked for Hastings?”
“Um, I freelance, you know. I work for lots of photographers, and do hair and enhancements for weddings and special occasions, like that. He likes my work, so I’ve been doing shoots for about a year.” She looked plaintively at Eve. “Is that right?”
“Who supplies the enhancements?”
“I have my own kit, but Hastings keeps a supply. He’s real fussy. Lots of them are.”
“Does he have any Barrymore products?”
“Sure. That’s good stuff.”
“Have you ever worked on this girl?” Eve asked, handing over the print of Rachel Howard.
Liza pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. I’d use a good strong pink lipdye. If I used Barrymore, like you were asking about, I’d maybe use First Blush or Spring Rose. Bring out the shape of her mouth. She’s got a nice one, but it could pop a little more. And she ought to bring out her eyes some. She looks kind of familiar though. I don’t know where—”
She broke off, and dropped the print as if it had burst into flames. “That’s the one who’s dead. I saw on the news. That’s the girl they found downtown in a recycle bin.”
“Where were you night before last?”
“With my boyfriend.” Her voice quivered. “With Ivan. I felt real bad about cheating on him. I don’t know why I did. I almost told him last night, but I clucked. We went to a vid, then back to his place.”
“Peabody, get her data. You can go on home, Liza.”
“You think maybe Hastings killed her? I do
n’t want to come back here if you think he killed her.”
“He’s not charged with anything. I just need to ask questions.”
Eve went to the room where Hastings waited. He was sitting, his arms folded over his chest, staring at himself in the dressing room mirror.
“We can do this a couple of ways,” Eve began. “I can take you in, hold you, while I get warrants to search this building, including your private residence upstairs, and your vehicles. Or, you can agree now to allow this search.”
“You’re not going to find a fucking thing.”
“Well then, it shouldn’t worry you to have us look.”
His eyes met hers in the mirror. “So look.”
Chapter 9
She called in a team, and looked.
She found no illegals, which surprised her. She’d have pegged Hastings as the type for a taste of a little recreational Zoner, but his place was clean. None of the tranq used in subduing Rachel Howard turned up in the toss of his apartment, studio, or vehicles.
There were a number of Barrymore enhancements in the studio kit, and she matched the shades and products to those used on Rachel.
Tried to imagine Hastings carefully painting the girls lips, brushing color on her eyelids with those big hands.
There was no chair on the premises that matched the one used in Rachel’s death portrait, but she did find a large spool of wire. The wire and enhancements went into evidence bags, without a peep of protest from Hastings when she gave him a receipt.
She’d leave it to the sweepers and lab techs to take samples of carpet for a comparison to the fibers in evidence while she concentrated on the massive imaging files.
Part of that concentration was to breathe down McNab’s neck while he ran a disc search.
“Lieutenant.” In defense, McNab hunched his bony shoulders. “This guy’s got tens of thousands of images on file. It’s going to take some time for me to run through them and match the victim’s face, if she’s here.”
“She’s here. He recognized her.”
“Okay, but . . .” He turned his head, and all but bumped noses with Eve. “I could use a little space here.”
Eve scowled at the computer screen. Half of it was filled with Rachel’s smiling face, the other with a rapid blur as filed images whizzed by. Sooner or later it would stop. She knew it would stop. And a second image of Rachel would appear.
“The machine’s doing all the work.”
“I respectfully disagree,” he replied. “The machine’s only as good as its operator.”
“EDD propaganda.” But she backed off. She was crowding him, and knew it. “I want to know the minute you get a hit.”
“You’ll be the first.”
She glanced over to where Hastings sat, arms folded, mouth set in a perpetual frown as he watched the small army of cops buzz through his studio. With her attention on him, she motioned to her aide. “Peabody.”
“Sir.”
“Pick a uniform and go interview the second name on your list.”
“Sir?”
“Was there some foreign language in that order?”
“You want me to handle the interview?” Peabody’s face had gone sheet pale. “Without you?”
“Is there any reason, after more than a year in Homicide, you feel unable to question a suspect without the primary holding your hand?”
“No, sir.” Now her face went bright pink. “It’s just that you always—I haven’t—” She swallowed hard under Eve’s bland stare, then squared her shoulders. “I’ll take Catstevens, Lieutenant.”
“Fine. When you’ve finished, contact me for further orders.”
“Yes, sir. I appreciate you trusting me with this.”
“Good. Don’t screw up.” She turned her back on Peabody, mentally crossing her fingers to wish her aide luck, then sauntered over to Hastings.
Her gut told her the lead was here, and Peabody would get nothing more out of the assignment than some solid field experience.
She leaned back against the windowsill, crossed her feet at the ankles. “It’s a pisser, isn’t it, having strangers put their fingers all over your stuff.” She waited a beat while he simply stared through her. “We can cut a lot of the crap if you tell me how you know Rachel Howard.”
“I never said I knew her. Seen her face somewhere. That’s not a freaking crime.”
“You take pictures of her?”
“Might have.”
“Here, in the studio.”
His brows drew together. Eve saw him struggle to think back. “No.”
“She’s never been up here?”
“How the hell do I know?” His voice boomed out again, ripe with frustration. “People bring people up here. Christ knows why. I hire a model or a group, and they just have to bring somebody along. Mostly I kick their asses back out, but every once in a while I’m in a good mood.” He smiled thinly. “I try not to let that happen often.”
“You make decent money with the imaging?”
Now he sneered. “You make decent money as a cop?”
“Hell, no. So you do it because you do it.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, finding herself intrigued by him. “And you take images of people, even when you don’t particularly like the breed.” Now, she nodded. “I can relate to that. But what we have here’s a pretty young girl. Men usually find a use for pretty young girls.”
His color came up. “I don’t muck around with the college set. For Christ’s sake, I’m forty years old, what do I want with some skinny coed? I use LCs for sex. It’s clean, professional, and there’s no baggage. I don’t like personal connections.”
He’s playing me, Eve thought with some amusement. “Yeah, they sure complicate things.”
“I like faces.” He muttered it. “I can sit here right now thinking you’re a pain in the ass cop who’s royally screwed up my day, but I like your face. I can hate your guts and still like your face.”
“I don’t know what the hell to think about yours.”
Now he snorted. “Don’t come much uglier. But there’s a beauty in that.” He looked down at his hands a moment, then blew out a windy sigh. “I never killed that girl. Never killed anyone. I like to think of ways to kill people who irritate me. Throwing them off high buildings, boiling them in oil, locking them in a dark room with live snakes, that kind of thing. It gets me through the day.”
“You’re a piece of work, Hastings.”
“We all are. That face. That girl’s face. Harmless. You know what makes people such pricks, Lieutenant Dallas?”
“They destroy the harmless.”
“Yeah, they do.”
“Lieutenant!” McNab waved a hand with his eyes still on-screen. “Found her.”
She crossed over, studied the screen. She spotted Rachel instantly, though she was in a group of other young people. Dressed up, fussy dresses, with flowers in the background. Some sort of formal party, she imagined. Probably a wedding.
Rachel had her arm around another girl, her own head thrown back as the photo caught her in a bright, delighted laugh.
“Hastings.” Eve motioned him over. “Who, what, where, and when?” she demanded.
“That’s it!” His shoulder bumped McNab as he maneuvered to study the full screen, and nearly knocked the lightweight EDD man out of his chair. “I knew I’d seen that face. What is this, what is this? Yeah, the Morelli-Desoto wedding, in January. See it’s labeled. There are more—”
“Don’t touch the keyboard,” Eve snapped. “McNab, enlarge and print the image. You’ve got more of her, Hastings?”
“I got the whole fricking wedding. Part of the package is I keep them for a year so people can take their time selecting. And Aunt Jane or Grandma Whoosits can come around six months later and order some. There’re more of the girl there, and some I took of just her because of that face.”
“McNab, run through, select any images of the victim. Enlarge and print.”
He scrolled through, giving the
commands. Eve saw portions of the wedding unfold—the bride and groom, the family portraits, the candids. Young people, old people, friends and relatives.
“That’s the lot, Dallas.”
“No. No, it’s not,” Hastings interrupted before Eve could speak. “I took more. I told you I took more of her, and some other faces that interested me. Subfile on this disc. Faces. They’re under Faces.”
McNab called it up. Eve noted Hastings hadn’t bothered with the bride or groom here. There was a portrait of an old, old woman, a dreamy smile almost lost in the wrinkled map of her face. A child with icing ringing his mouth. Another, surprisingly tender, of a little girl in her party dress, fast asleep across a chair.
Faces streamed by.
“This isn’t right,” Hastings muttered. “She’s not in here. I took them, goddamn it. Four or five candids, two posed. I took more of her than anyone else outside the freaking wedding party. I took those shots.”
“I believe you.” Considering, Eve tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Couple of things here, Hastings. Are you willing to take a Truth Test?”
“Fuck. Fuck. Yeah, what the hell.”
“I’ll set it up.” She glanced at her wrist unit. Too late in the day to schedule one. “For tomorrow. Now, who worked with you on this job?”
“How the hell do I know? It was freaking January.”
“You got files, records?”
“Sure, on the jobs, on the images, on the shoots. Not on assistants. I go through assistants like toilet paper, and toilet paper’s a lot more useful.”
“You pay them, don’t you?”
“More than they’re worth,” he began, then blinked. “Right. Right. Lucia takes care of it. She’ll know.”
For the first time since he’d laid eyes on Eve, Roarke was relieved she wasn’t there when he got home. Ignoring a quick tug of guilt, he went directly upstairs rather than heading back to Summerset’s quarters to check on him.
He needed time. He needed privacy. He needed, for Christ’s sweet sake, to think.
It could all be a hoax. It probably was, he told himself as he coded into the secured room that held his unregistered equipment. It likely was a hoax, some complicated, convoluted scheme to bilk him out of some ready cash, or to distract him from some upcoming negotiations.