by J. D. Robb
“For my birthday last month. She asked what I wanted, and I said I wanted a picture of her, in a gold frame. Not just one of those snap-it-yourself jobs, but a real portrait where she was all dressed up fine, and the photographer knew what he was up to.”
She kept her voice cool as she noted it down. “Do you know where she had the portrait done?”
“Someplace called Portography, uptown. Classy. I—” He broke off as his brain started to work through the grief. “I’ve been hearing this on the news. This is that son of a bitch who’s killing college kids. Taking their picture and killing them. He killed my baby.”
“Yes, he did. I’m going to find him, Crack. I’m going to stop him and see he’s put in a cage. If I think you’re going to get in my way on this, I’ll have you put in one until I do.”
“You can try.”
“I won’t just try,” she said evenly. “You know me, and you know I’ll stand for her now, no matter what it takes. Even if it means locking you away until I do what’s right for her. She’s mine now, too. Mine as much as yours.”
He tried to hold back the tears. “Any other cop said that to me, I wouldn’t believe it. Any other cop said that to me, I’d say whatever I needed to say to shake him loose so I could do what I wanted to do. But you’re not any other cop, white girl. You take care of my baby sister. You’re the only one I’d give her to.”
“What can I do?” Roarke asked her when they stood at her car outside the morgue.
“You got any pull at the East Side Health Center?”
“Money, Lieutenant, always has pull.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe he tagged her from the files at Portography. That’s a link. Maybe he tagged her from the data club. It pops every time. But, if he’s sick, and I think he’s sick, she might have recognized him from the health center. If he uses it, or has used it, the staff might not notice him hanging around. If he took her out there, it was because people are used to seeing him, or recognized his face and didn’t think anything of it. I’ve got Louise asking around, but she’s going at it from the doctor angle—no names, patient privacy, and blah blah.”
“And you’d like someone who isn’t so particular about privacy.”
“Three dead kids. Yeah. I don’t give a flying fuck about privacy. Grease whatever palms you need to grease and see if you can find me somebody—male, twenty-five to sixty—no, forty. He’s younger. That age span, with a serious, perhaps fatal neurological condition. Get me a name.”
“Done. What else?”
“Isn’t that enough for you?”
“No, I’d like to keep busy right now.”
“Summerset—”
“I’ve spoken to him via ’link. What else?”
“You could use that twisty brain and those clever fingers to dig me up all you can on Javert. Any combination with Henri or Luis. Anything that pops around the dump sites, the data club, the colleges, Portography and the suspect names I’m going to give you that I shouldn’t be giving you.”
“Smells like drone work.”
She smiled. “So?”
“Happy to be of assistance, Lieutenant.”
“Question. You own parking ports, garages, lots, undergrounds.”
“I believe I have a few in my vast empire, why?”
“Get me the ones that do sidelines?”
His brow lifted. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re insinuating.”
He was back, she thought. Slick as ever. “Save it, pal. I especially want ones within a ten-block radius of Eighteenth and Seventh. He saw us roust Billy. He knew we were there, watching the van, so he found alternate transpo. He plans, so he had a backup already earmarked, and I’m betting he had it close. I’m looking for a backdoor rental, nondescript vehicle in good condition, probably another van. You pop me something good, and you’ll get a reward.”
“You, naked, and a large quantity of chocolate sauce?”
“Pervert. Round up your own transpo, pal. I’ve got to scoop up Peabody and get into the field.”
He grabbed her for one hot kiss first. Oh yeah, she thought as the top of her head flew off, he was definitely back.
“Nice being in tandem with you again, Lieutenant.”
“Is that what we are?” She paused, studying him as he stood on the sidewalk. “You get Summerset on his feet and out of the country, and I’ll bring the chocolate sauce.”
“There’s a date,” he murmured as she slid into her vehicle and drove away.
“I’m sorry about Crack, Dallas.”
“So am I.”
Seated in the passenger seat, Peabody lifted her hands. “I didn’t even know he had a sister. It feels like I should’ve.”
“She’d still be dead,” Eve said flatly.
“Yeah, she’d still be dead. Do you think we should, I don’t know, send flowers? Something.”
“No, not flowers.” She thought of Siobhan’s cherry tree. “Put it away, Peabody. We do the job.”
“Yes, sir.” Peabody struggled against the resentment. Crack was a friend. You did something for a friend. “I just want him to know we’re thinking about him, that’s all.”
“The best thing to do for him is to close the case, see that the person who did his sister is locked away. Flowers aren’t going to comfort him, Peabody. Justice might, at least a little.”
“You’re right, it’s just hard when it hits this close.”
“It’s supposed to be hard. When you start thinking it’s easy, turn in your badge.”
Peabody opened her mouth, insulted by the tone, then saw the fatigue, and the anger just under the shield. “Where are we going? I should know, I should be able to figure it out.” The detective’s exam loomed over her head like an ax. “But I can’t.”
“How did he transport her?”
“We don’t know. Yet,” she added.
“Why don’t we know?”
“Because he didn’t use the van we had under surveillance.”
“Why didn’t he use the van we had under surveillance?”
“Because . . . because he knew we were watching it.” At the last minute she managed to change the tone from a question to a statement. “Do you think Billy tipped him?”
“Do you?”
She struggled with it for a moment, worked it through. “No, sir. At least not deliberately. Billy’s small-time. He’s not holding hands with a serial killer. He copped to the sideline, he cooperated. He’s got a kid and the kid matters. He doesn’t want this kind of trouble.”
“So, how did our guy know to steer clear of Billy’s garage?”
“Somebody else could have tipped him.” But that didn’t gel for her. “He might’ve gotten nervous, using the same van. But no,” she continued, working it out, “he sticks to pattern. He likes his routine. So he had to know we’d made the van and were waiting. He had to see us there. He saw you. Recognized you from the screen, knew you were primary on this case, spotted my uniform. Jig’s up on the gray van.”
“And how did he see us?”
“Because . . . shit. Because he lives or works in the area! You already said you figured he did, and this adds weight. He spotted us from the street, or a window.”
“Gold star for you.”
“I’d settle for a gold shield.”
Eve pulled up a half-block from the parking port. She’d wanted to see the area firsthand rather than on a computer screen. She wanted the feel of it, the rhythm of the sector, the viewpoints.
Not too close, she mused. He’d be careful about picking his transpo from a port right next door. But close enough so he could watch it, see the deals being made, the operation. Scope it out, choose his mark.
Yeah, the nice gray van driven by the old lady. Runs like a top, no special features. Blends. Plenty of space if things start going south and he has to muscle his mark into the back.
“He lives here,” Eve said. “Not his work space. He sees the van go out on Sundays. He watches the port at nigh
t to see how the deals go through. He lives around here, keeps to himself, doesn’t bother his neighbors. Low profile. Blends, just like his vehicle of choice.”
She climbed back in her unit and prayed the climate control would hold back the heat while she worked. “Start running the buildings for residents. I want single males first.”
“Which buildings?”
“All of them. The whole block.”
“Going to take some time.”
“Then you’d better get started.” Eve scanned the buildings a block west, and zeroed in on the upper floors. Guy with image equipment probably had some nice long-range lenses, she speculated.
Using her ’link, she began a run of her own.
Chapter 20
Nothing popped for her, and when the climate control began to waffle, she ignored it and kept working. Ugly clouds rolled in, shooting the street into a sludgy gloom. Fat, mean splats of rain began to pound the windshield, heralded by a long growl of thunder.
“Storm looks nasty.” Peabody mopped at the back of her neck and shot a glance at her lieutenant’s profile. There was a light dew of sweat on Eve’s face, but it could have been the result of that vicious concentration as much as the heat. “Maybe it’ll cool things off.”
“We’ll just have wet heat. Fucking August.” But she said it absently, almost affectionately. “He’s here, Peabody, but where’s his bolt-hole? Someplace nice and safe, where everything’s tidy, everything’s in its place.
“Pictures,” she muttered, staring through the rain-washed window into the gloom. “Images tacked up all over the walls. He needs to see his work. Judge it, admire it, critique it. His work is his life. His work is life.”
“Matted and framed.”
“What?”
“Not tacked up,” Peabody said. “Matted and framed. He’d want the best of it well presented, right?”
With a considering frown, Eve turned her head. “Good. That’s damn good. Matted and framed. Where does he get the material? Local? Online? He’d want good stuff, wouldn’t he? The best he could afford. Lots of frames. Probably unified. He’s got a specific style, so he’d want them framed in a specific style. Get me the top ten outlets in the city to start.”
“Yes, sir. Where are we going?” she asked as Eve pulled away from the curb.
“Home office. Better equipment.”
“Woo-hoo. Sorry.” But Peabody didn’t bother to suppress the grin. “Better food, too. Jesus.” She jumped when lightning lashed through the sky. “Serious stuff. Did you ever hide under the covers during a storm when you were a kid and count the seconds between the flash and boom?”
She’d been lucky if she’d had covers as a kid, Eve thought. And storms weren’t the scary part of her life. “No.”
“We did. I still do sometimes—habit. Like . . .” She watched the next flash and began to count out loud. “One, two, three. Pow.” She gave a quick shudder at the boom. “Pretty close.”
“If you hear it, it’s not close enough to worry about. Outlets, Peabody.”
“Sorry, coming up. I got three uptown, one midtown, two in Soho, one Tribeca—”
“Cull it to ones near the parking port or the universities. Five-block radius.” While Peabody worked, Eve followed the next hunch and called Portography. “Give me Hastings.”
“He’s in session,” Lucia said primly, and with a dislike not quite veiled. “I’d be happy to take a message.”
“He gets out of session, or I come in and pull him out of session. Choose.”
Lucia scowled, but switched the ’link to Hold where Eve was treated to shifting images of Hastings’s work and a musical accompaniment. He came on looking sweaty and red-faced.
“What? What? Do I have to murder you in your sleep?”
“Dumbass thing to say to a cop, pal. Where do you get your frames?”
“What? What?”
“Stop saying that. Frames? Where do you get the frames for your photographs. Your personal work?”
“How the hell do I know? Freaking hell. Don’t we carry them downstairs? Lucia! Don’t we carry fricking frames downstairs?”
“You know, Hastings, I’m starting to like you. Do you use the fricking frames you carry downstairs for your work in the gallery?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” If he’d had hair, Eve was sure he’d have been pulling it out. “If I find out, will you leave me the hell alone?”
“I might.”
“I’ll get back to you,” he snapped, and rudely shut off.
“Yeah, I like him.”
She was driving through the gates when he buzzed her back.
“We got all kinds of fricking frames. We’re lousy with them. We don’t carry what I use because, Lucia tells me, then everybody’d use them and they’d no longer be unique or some happy horseshit. I get them from goddamn Helsinki.”
“Helsinki,” Eve repeated, amazed.
“Clean, simple, Scandinavian.” His mouth twisted in a rare smile. “Asinine, but there you go. Special order from some place called Kehys. Means Framework. Har de har. That it?”
“Yeah, for now.”
“Good.” He cut her off again.
“Man after my own heart. Peabody?”
“Already on it. Data on Kehys coming through.”
“Follow it up.”
“Me, sir?”
“It’s your line. Tug it.” With this, Eve rolled out of the car and made a beeline for the house.
She shook herself like a wet dog when she hit the foyer, started to strip off the jacket that had gotten soaked on the short run. And the voice, like God’s coldest wrath, rolled down the pristine hall.
“Stop that immediately! This is a home, not a bathhouse.”
With her jacket dripping in her hand, she watched Summerset come forward. He used a cane, and limped rather heavily, but his face was set in its usual pruney and disapproving lines. He carried towels over his arm.
“If you’re able to walk on those ugly sticks you call legs, why are you still in my universe?”
He handed her a towel, then adroitly snatched the jacket from her. “I will be leaving on my postponed holiday in the morning. Meanwhile, you’re making a puddle on the floor.”
“Meanwhile you’re making a buzzing in my ears.” She turned toward the stairs just as Peabody rushed in.
“Summerset!” The delight in her voice had Eve rolling her eyes heavenward. “Hey, it’s great to see you up and around. How’re you feeling?”
“Quite well all in all, thank you.” He offered her a towel. “Your uniform’s damp, Officer. I’d be happy to get you something dry to wear and have your uniform laundered.”
“I’d really appreciate that.” She broke off at the sound Eve made—a kind of guttural snarl. “I’ll be in her office,” Peabody whispered, then jogged up the stairs behind Eve. “It is damp,” she began. “I could catch a chill or something. Don’t want to get sick during an investigation, especially when I’m studying like mad during my off time.”
“Did I say anything?”
“Oh yeah. You said plenty.”
Eve merely sent Peabody a long, bland stare that made the hair on the back of her aide’s neck stand at attention. “I’m going to change into something nice and comfy and dry.”
She veered off and strode into the bedroom.
Just for spite, she let her wet clothes fall into a soggy pile. That would burn his bony ass, she thought. She dragged on a T-shirt, jeans, strapped her weapon back into place, and considered herself done.
To give Peabody extra time, she headed into Roarke’s office rather than her own.
When he glanced up, when he smiled, she felt a number of the rocky areas of her life go smooth again.
“Hello, Lieutenant.”
“Hello, civilian.” Maybe she could take just a minute of extra time herself. She walked around his console, leaned down, and caught his face in her hands, pressed her mouth to his.
“Well then,” he remarked, and
started to yank her onto his lap.
“Uh-uh, that’s all you get.”
“So, you just came in to torture and torment me?”
“There you go. What have you got for me?”
“A very crude answer to that question springs to mind, but I take it you’re referring to my little homework assignment rather than my—”
“Affirmative.” But relieved, she sat on the edge of his console to face him. It was good to see the tension gone from his face, from the set of his shoulders. “I’ve got Peabody working an angle, one she came up with. I’ve just spent a good hour stewing over one of my own without getting a bump.”
“I don’t know how much I can add to that. Though spreading the grease around, per your request, has netted me a few names, none fit your profile.”
“Maybe I’m off.” She pushed away from the console, paced over to the window to stare out at the storm. “I’ve been off since the get-go on this.”
“If you have, I’ll take the blame for it.”
“You don’t live inside my brain.”
Don’t I? he wondered. “I haven’t been any help to you.”
“Funny,” she said without turning. “I managed to be a pretty good cop for a full decade before you came waltzing along.”
“I don’t believe I waltzed along. And I’ve no doubt you’d continue to be a great deal more than a pretty good cop without me. But the fact is I’ve distracted you. Worrying about me has split both your concentration and your priorities. I’m sorry for it.”
“I guess you’ve never had them split because you were worried about me.”
“I’d like to say something to you. Look at me, will you?” He waited until she’d turned. “I’m caught between pride and terror every time you put on that weapon and walk out the door. Every time. But I wouldn’t have it any other way, Eve. Wouldn’t have you any other way, as that’s who you are and who we are together.”
“It’s not easy being married to a cop. You do a good job of it.”
“Thanks for that.” He smiled again. “You do a good one being married to a former criminal.”
“Hooray for us.”