by J. D. Robb
“Shit. Fucking shit. Manny Johnson. He just logged it back in, Lieutenant Dallas. That’s all.”
“Let’s go back to the guy who rented the van. See what else you remember?”
“I didn’t pay enough attention. Ah, he had shades on. Dark shades, I’m thinking. And a ball cap. Maybe a ball cap? Me, I’m looking at the cash money and the threads more than anything else. He dressed neat, he had the fee. Maybe if you showed me his picture or something, I’d remember him, but I don’t see how. He had on the shades and the cap, and we’re doing the thing inside the port, where it’s shady. He just looked like an average white guy to me.”
“Average white guy,” Eve repeated after the interview. “One who’s killed two people. Who knew how to access a nearly untraceable vehicle to transport them, knew how to get them into said vehicle with minimal fuss, and when and where to dump the bodies without anyone noticing.”
“But you did trace the vehicle,” Peabody reminded her. “We can start doing a canvass, maybe we’ll find someone who saw it around the universities, or the dumping sites.”
“And maybe the Tooth Fairy’s going to come knocking on your door tonight. We’ll go there, Peabody, but first we take the van back to the garage. Average white guy lets Diego off the hook, at least for the pickup.”
Too skinny, too slicked up, Billy had said when he’d looked at the printout of Diego’s ID shot.
“We still got a maybe out of Billy on Hooper.”
“Maybe. Maybe he was shorter, maybe he was older. Maybe he wasn’t. He’s not done yet, so maybe he’ll come back for it. The van and the garage go under surveillance.”
She checked the time. “And now, we’ve got a memorial to attend.”
She hated memorials, that formal acknowledgment of grief. She hated the flowers and the music, the murmur of voices, the sudden bursts of weeping or laughter.
It was probably worse when the dead were young, and the end was violent. She’d been to too many memorials for violent death.
They’d laid Rachel in a glass-sided coffin—one of the trends of mourning Eve found particularly creepy. They’d put her in a dress, a blue one and probably her best, and fixed a little spray of pink roses in her hands.
She watched people file by. The parents, both looking shell-shocked and too calm. Tranq’d to get through the event. And the younger sister who simply looked ravaged and lost.
She saw students she’d questioned, the merchants from the shops near where she’d worked. Teachers, neighbors, friends.
Leeanne Browning was there, with Angela at her side. They spoke to the family, and whatever Leeanne said had tears breaking through the drugs and trickling slowly down the mother’s face.
She saw faces she’d already filed away; and new ones, as she stood by searching for an average white guy. There were plenty of them that fit into the age span. Rachel, a friendly girl, had met a lot of people in her short life.
There was Hooper, neatly dressed in a suit and tie, his face somber, his shoulders straight as a soldier’s. A group of what Eve assumed was his peers surrounded him the way groups tend to surround the attractive.
But when he looked around, his eyes were empty. Whatever they said didn’t reach him, and he turned and walked away, through those young bodies as if they were ghosts.
He didn’t look at the people, nor, she noted, did he look at the box, the clear box that held the girl he’d said he thought he might have loved.
She lifted her chin, a kind of reverse nod signal to McNab. “See where he goes,” she ordered when McNab moved into place beside her. “See what he does.”
“Got him.”
She went back to studying the crowd, though she wished she could have been the one to step outside after Hooper, into the night. Into the air. Despite the overworked climate control the room was too warm, too close, and the smell of the flowers cloying.
She spotted Hastings across the room. As though he felt her eyes on him, he glanced toward her, then lumbered over.
“Thought I should come, that’s all. Hate this kind of shit. I’m not staying.”
He was embarrassed, she realized. And a little guilty.
“They shouldn’t have dressed her up that way,” he said after a moment. “Looks false. I’d’ve put her in her favorite shirt. Some old shirt she liked, given her a couple of yellow daisies to hold. Face like that, it’s for daisies. Anyway . . .” He downed his glass of sparkling water. “Nobody asked me.”
He shifted from foot to foot. “You’d better catch whoever put that kid in that glass box.”
“Working on it.”
She watched him go. Watched others come and go.
“He went outside,” McNab reported. “Walked down to the corner and back a couple times.” McNab hunched his shoulders, stuck his hands in his pockets. “Crying. Just walking up and down and crying. A group came out, gathered him up, into a car. I got the make and tag if you want me to run and pick them up.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, not tonight. Pack it in. Get Peabody, and tell her she’s off the clock.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice. I want to go somewhere people are talking about something stupid and eating lousy food. Always do after a memorial. You want to come along?”
“I’ll pass. We’ll pick this up again in the morning.”
As the crowd thinned out, she made her way over to Feeney. “Would he come, Feeney? Would he need to see her again, like this? Or are his images enough for him?”
“I don’t know. You look at it from his perspective, he got what he wanted from her, so he’s done.”
“Maybe, but it’s like a circle, and this closes it. Something tells me he’d want to see her like this. Still, if he was here, I couldn’t make him.”
“Fucking average white guy.” He puffed out his cheeks. She looked beat, he thought. Beat and worried and under the gun. He patted her shoulder. “What do you say we go get a beer?”
“I say, that’s a damn fine idea.”
“Been a while since we did this,” Feeney commented.
“Guess it has.” Eve sampled her beer.
By tacit agreement, they’d avoided the known cop bars. Kicking back in one of them meant somebody would stop by to shoot the shit or talk shop. Instead, they’d caught a booth in a place called The Leprechaun, a dim little bar with aspirations of simulating an Irish pub.
There was piped in music with someone singing about drinking and war, and a lot of signs written in Gaelic, and framed pictures of what Eve assumed were famous Irish people. The waitstaff all talked with Irish accents, though their server’s accent had a definite Brooklyn edge to it.
Since she’d had occasion to spend some time in an actual Irish pub, she could tell the owner—who she imagined was somebody named Greenburg—wasn’t even close to being Irish.
And thinking it made her think of the Penny Pig. And Roarke.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, kid?”
“I think he’s going to move within the next forty-eight hours, so—”
“No, not about the case.” There was a bowl of peanuts in the shell between them, but he shoved it aside, got out his bag of candied almonds. “You got trouble at home?”
“Shit, Feeney.” Because it was there, she dug into the bag. “I’ve got Summerset at home. Isn’t that enough?”
“And Roarke off somewhere while his man’s at home with a busted pin. Must’ve been important to pull him away just now.”
“It was. It is. God.” She braced her elbows on the table, then dropped her head into her hands. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know if I should tell you. I don’t know if he’d want me to tell you.”
“He doesn’t have to know you did. It doesn’t go beyond here.”
“I know that.” He’d trained her, Eve thought. Taken her green from the Academy. And she’d trusted him. He’d partnered with her, gone through every door. And she’d trusted him.
“I’ll have
to tell him I told you. I think that’s one of those marriage rules. There are too fricking many of them.”
Feeney didn’t interrupt her, and when he’d finished his beer, ordered another.
“It’s got to mess him up, you know? You go your whole life thinking one thing, dealing with what you believe is truth, then you get slammed in the gut, and it all changes around on you.” She sipped her beer. “He doesn’t get drunk. He’ll dance up to the line, should the occasion call for it. But even when it’s just the two of us off somewhere, he doesn’t go over the line. He’s going to stay aware, in control. That’s core Roarke.”
“You shouldn’t worry because a man ties one on.”
“I wouldn’t, if the man wasn’t Roarke. He did it because he’s hurting and needed to get away from the pain. Feeney, he can take a hell of a lot of pain.”
So can you, Feeney thought. “Where is he now?”
“In Clare. He left me a message—damn time difference. He said I shouldn’t worry, he was fine. He was probably going to stay there, another day at least, and he’d be in touch.”
“Did you tag him back?”
She shook her head. “I started to, then I started second-guessing myself. Is it like nagging? I don’t know. He said he wanted to handle this himself. He’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t want me involved.”
“And you’re letting him get away with that.” He sighed, heavy, and his basset hound eyes seemed to droop lower. “You disappoint me.”
“What am I supposed to do? I’m in the middle of this investigation, and he says he’s going to Ireland. He won’t wait, won’t give me time to figure things out. Okay, he can’t wait—I can get that. He’s got a problem, and he’d want to deal, straight off.”
“One of those marriage rules is if one of you’s in pain or trouble, you’re not in it alone. You suffering here, him there. That doesn’t work for either of you.”
“Well, he left. He was on his way out when he told me, for Christ’s sake. I’m still pissed about that.”
“So you should be out the door behind him.”
She drew her brows together. “I’m supposed to go to Ireland? Now? He said he didn’t want me there.”
“If he did, he’s lying. That’s a man for you, kid. We can’t help it.”
“You think he needs me to be there?”
“I do.”
“But the case. I can’t just—”
“What am I, a rookie?” Feeney had the wit to look insulted. “You don’t think I can manage as temporary primary for a couple days? Or do you just want the collar yourself?”
“No. No! But I’m working all these angles, and the odds of him hitting again in the next couple of days are—”
“If you got word Roarke was hurt, bleeding from the ears, would you worry about the case or get your ass moving?”
“I’d get my ass moving.”
“He’s bleeding from the heart. So you go.”
It was so simple. A no-brainer when put just that way. “I’ll have to clear it, and set up some schedules for tomorrow. Get a report in.”
“Then let’s go do it.” Feeney pocketed his nuts.
“Thanks. Really.”
“No problem. You buy the beer.”
Chapter 18
It took some doing, asking for favors, fighting the urge to triple check every detail she’d already double checked.
It took blocking every natural instinct and putting her travel arrangements into Summerset’s hands.
She went home to pack a light bag, reminding herself she could be reached anywhere, at any time. That she could, if necessary, fly home as quickly as she was flying away. And that she could run an op by remote control. She had a capable team.
She wasn’t the only cop on the NYPSD. But she was Roarke’s only wife.
Still, she paced the plush confines of his fastest jet shuttle as it careened across the Atlantic in the dark. She reviewed her notes, reread the files and witness statements.
Everything that could be done was being done. She’d ordered round-the-clock surveillance on the garage and the van. EDD had installed a homer on the van as backup.
If he came for it, they’d move in and have him in custody before he could finish keying in the ignition code.
All the trace evidence was being matched. Within twenty-four hours, forensics would have eliminated anything from Ernestine and her church group, the garage employees, the victims. What was left would be the killer’s.
They’d have DNA, and a solid case.
She had men in the data club, men at the universities, Louise on the medical front. Something would break, and soon.
She tried to sit, relax. But couldn’t.
That was all cop stuff. She knew what she was doing as a cop.
But where she was headed was wife territory. She’d learned some of the ground, and considered she’d figured how to negotiate it fairly well. But this sector was uncharted.
If he didn’t want her there, was she going to make things worse?
She plugged a disc into her PPC and played back the message he’d left on her home office ’link while she’d still been at Central clearing the way to leave.
“Well, I hope you’re sleeping.” He smiled, but he looked so tired, she thought. Worn out tired. “I should’ve called before. Things got . . . complicated. I’m about to go to bed myself. It’s late here. Early, more like. I can’t seem to remember the time change—imagine that. I’m sorry I haven’t spoken with you today—yesterday. What the hell.”
He gave a half-laugh, pinched the bridge of his nose as if to relieve some pressure. “I’m punchy, need a couple hours down, is all. I’m fine, no need to worry. Things aren’t what I expected here. Can’t say what I expected. I’ll call you after I’ve slept a bit. Don’t work too hard, Lieutenant. I love you.”
He wasn’t supposed to look so tired, she thought on a sudden spurt of anger. He wasn’t supposed to look so befuddled, so damn vulnerable.
Maybe he didn’t want her there, but he was just going to have to deal with it.
Dawn was shimmering over the hills when Roarke stepped outside. He hadn’t slept long, but he’d slept well, tucked up into a pretty, slanted-ceiling bedroom on the top floor, one with old lace curtains on the windows and a lovely handmade quilt on the wide, iron bed.
They’d treated him like family. Almost like a prodigal son returned home, and they’d served roast kid and pandy as the Irish version of fatted calf.
They’d had a ceili, packed with food and music and stories. People, so many people gathering around to talk of his mother, to ask of him, to laugh. To weep.
He hadn’t been quite sure what to make of it all, or them, the uncles and aunts and cousins—grandparents for God’s sake—that had so suddenly come into his life.
The welcome had humbled him.
He was still unsteady. This life they lived, and the world in which they lived it, was more foreign to him than the moon. And yet he’d carried a part of it, unknowing, in his blood throughout his life.
How could he resolve, in a matter of days, something so enormous? How did he understand the truths buried more than thirty years under lies? And death?
With his hands in his pockets, he walked beyond the back gardens with their tidy rows of vegetables, their tangled cheer of flowers, and fingered the little gray button he carried.
Eve’s button. One that had fallen off the jacket of a particularly unattractive suit the first time he’d seen her. One he’d carried like a talisman ever since.
He’d be steadier if she were here, he was sure. Christ, he wished she were here.
He looked across a field where a tractor hummed along. One of his uncles or cousins would be manning it, he supposed. Farmers. He sprang from farmers, and wasn’t that a kick in the ass?
Simple, honest, hard-working, God-fearing—and everything the other half of him wasn’t. Was it that conflict, that contradiction, that went into the making up of what he was?
; It was early enough that the mists snaked up from the green, softening the air, softening the light. A snippet of Yeats ran through his head—where hill is heaped upon hill. And so it was here. He could see those hills rolling back to forever, and smell the damp of dew on grass, the loamy earth beneath it, the wild rambling roses above.
And hear the birds singing as though life was a singular joy.
All of his life—certainly all of it after he’d escaped the bastard who’d sired him—he’d done as he wanted. Pursued the goal of success and wealth and comfort. He didn’t need a session with Mira to tell him he’d done so to compensate, even defeat, the years of misery, poverty, and pain. And so what?
So the fuck what?
A man who didn’t do what he could to live well instead of wallowing was a fool.
He’d taken what he needed, or simply wanted. He’d fought for, or bought, or in some way acquired what made him content. And the fight itself, the hunt, the pursuit were all part of the game that entertained him.
Now he was being given something, freely, something he’d never considered, never allowed himself to want. And he didn’t know what the hell to do with it.
He needed to call Eve.
He looked across the field, across the silvered mists and gentle rise of aching green. Rather than pull out his pocket-link he continued to toy with the button. He didn’t want to call her. He wanted to touch her. To hold her, just hold her and anchor himself again.
“Why did I come without you?” he murmured, “when I need you so bloody much?”
He heard the muscular hum, recognized it for what it was an instant before the jet-copter broke through the mists like a great black bird breaks through a thin net.
And recognized it as one of his own as it skimmed over the field, startling cows, and causing his uncle—cousin—they were all a blur of faces and names to him yet—to stop the tractor and lean out to watch the flight.
His first reaction was a quick clutch in the gut. Eve, something had happened to Eve. His knees went weak at the thought as the copter arrowed down for a landing.
Then he saw her, the shape of her in the cockpit beside the pilot. The choppy cap of hair, the curve of her cheek. Pale, naturally. She hated riding in those machines.