The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  “What’s unique about it?”

  “Unrecycled, very pricey, manufactured in England, sold exclusively in Europe. Do you manufacture unrecycled paper products?”

  “Roarke Industries is green. Just our little contribution to environmental responsibility, which also earns a healthy tax break in most markets.” He ignored the server droid who came to clear the plates and bring out small dessert parfaits and coffee.

  “Where’s the paper taking you?”

  “I’m focusing on London outlets first, playing the Ripper angle. I’ve got a couple of celebs, a politician type, a retired financier, and the asshole lover of some actress named Pepper.”

  “Pepper Franklin?”

  “Yeah, she strikes me as straight up, but the guy . . .” She trailed off, narrowing her eyes as Roarke scooped up a spoonful of parfait. “You know her.”

  “Mmm. This is very nice, refreshing.”

  “You banged her.”

  Though his lips twitched he managed to maintain a sober expression as he sampled more parfait. “That’s a very unattractive term. I prefer saying we had a brief and mature relationship, which included the occasional banging.”

  “I should’ve known. She’s just your type.”

  “Is she?” he queried.

  “Gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated sex.”

  “Darling.” He sat back to sip his coffee. “How conceited of you. Not that you aren’t all those things, and more.”

  “I’m not talking about me.” She scowled at him a moment, then went to work on the parfait. “I should have figured her for one of your formers the minute I saw the portrait.”

  “Ah, she still has that, does she? The Titania portrait?”

  She shoveled parfait in her mouth. “You’re going to tell me you gave it to her.”

  “As what you might call a parting gift.”

  “What, like on a game show?”

  His laughter was rich and full of fun. “If you like. How is she? I haven’t seen her in, Christ, seven or eight years, I suppose.”

  “She’s dandy.” Watching him, she licked her spoon. “But her taste in men has seriously declined.”

  “Why, thank you.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it. “While mine, in women, has seriously improved.”

  She wouldn’t have minded working up a good head of jealousy steam, to see what it felt like. But it just didn’t work for her. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s hooked up with a guy named Leo Fortney. Operator. He’s got operator all over him, and a couple of pops, including sexual assault.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Pepper’s usual fare. Is he your prime suspect?”

  “He’s number one right now, though he was home in bed during the time involved. She’s corroborating, but since she was sleeping, I’m not putting much weight there. Plus, he lied, said they went nighty-night together, and she said different before she realized she’d be blowing it for him. Still, she struck me as a straight shooter.” She paused, waited.

  “She is, yes.”

  “So whether or not he was there, she thinks he was. We’ll see where it goes. Meanwhile, I’ve got informals set up tomorrow with Carmichael Smith to start.”

  “Pop music king. Irritatingly saccharin lyrics, over-orchestrated melodies.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “You may not have been told, as I’ve been, that Smith enjoys young women, preferably more than one at a time. And makes considerable use of groupies, as well as professionals, to help him . . . relax between recording sessions and gigs.”

  “Minors?”

  “There’ve been rumblings that there might have been an underage fan now and again, though he’s usually more careful. No violence that I’ve heard of. Though he likes bondage games, he prefers being the one bound.”

  “He one of yours?”

  “No, he’s still with his original label. I could probably poach him, but his music just annoys me.”

  “Okay, moving on. There Niles Renquist, works for U.N. Delegate Marshall Evans.”

  “I know Renquist, slightly. So do you.”

  “I do?”

  “You met him, I think it was last spring, at another appalling obligation.” He watched her eyebrows draw together as she tried to place it—the place, the meet, the man. “More a quick introduction than a meet, actually. A silent auction benefiting, well, there you have me,” he murmured. “I’d need my book for that. But it was a few months ago, here in New York. You’d have been introduced to him and his wife at some point.”

  Because she couldn’t bring it in, she let it go. “Did I have an impression?”

  “Apparently not. He’s, let’s see . . . conservative, leaning toward stuffy. Late thirties, I’d say, well-spoken, well-educated. What you might call a bit prissy. His wife’s quite pretty in the British tea party style. They have homes here and in England, I know, as I recall his wife telling me she enjoyed New York, but much preferred their home outside London where she could garden properly.”

  “Did you have an impression?”

  “Can’t say I liked either of them overmuch.” He lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug. “A bit on the pompous side, and very aware of class distinctions and levels of society. The sort I’d find tedious if not downright annoying with regular exposure.”

  “You know a lot of people who fit that box.”

  His lip twitched. “I do. Yes, I do.”

  “Elliot P. Hawthorne?”

  “Yes, I’ve had dealings with him. Seventies, sharp, lives for golf. Apparently dotes on his third, considerably younger wife, and travels quite a lot now that he’s retired. I like him quite a bit. Is that helpful at all?”

  “Anybody you don’t know?”

  “Not worth mentioning.”

  The evening at home with Roarke had helped clear her mind, Eve decided as she rode up in the jammed elevator to the Homicide Division. Not only did she feel rested, well-fed, and tuned up, but his informal rundown of some of the names on her list gave her a different insight. It was more personal and certainly more informative than the dry facts from a standard ID run.

  She could shuffle his data around in her head as she questioned each party, and angle those questions around the more personal information. But first, she needed to check for any updates on lab and ME reports, round up Peabody, and face the media music.

  She elbowed her way out of the elevator and turned toward her sector.

  And all but ran into Nadine Furst.

  The on-air reporter had a new short and sleek hairdo. What was it, Eve thought, with new hair on everybody? It was blonder, swingier, and swept back from Nadine’s perfect, angular face.

  She was wearing a short, fitted jacket over slim, fitted pants, both in power red, which told Eve she was camera-ready.

  And she carried a huge white bakery box that smelled gloriously of fat and sugar.

  “Doughnuts.” There was no mistaking that scent, and Eve homed in on it like a hound on a fox. “You’ve got doughnuts in there.” She tapped a finger to the box. “That’s how you get through the bull pen, avoid the civilian and media lounges, and end up in my office. You bribe my men.”

  Nadine fluttered her lashes. “And your point is?”

  “My point is, how come I never get a damn doughnut?”

  “Because generally I time it better, dump my offering in the bull pen, sometimes it’s brownies, and while every cop in Homicide descends like a pack of coyotes, I settle down in your office and wait for your arrival.”

  Eve waited a beat. “Bring the doughnuts, leave the camera.”

  “I need my camera,” Nadine said, gesturing to the woman beside her.

  “I need a sunny Sunday at the beach where I can romp naked as a puppy in the surf, but I’m not going to get it anytime soon either. Doughnuts in, camera out.”

  To ensure obedience, and to prevent her men from rioting, she snatched the bakery box herself before striding into the bull pen.

  Several heads lifted, noses sniffed the air. “Don’t
even think about it,” Eve ordered and kept right on walking through choruses of protests and complaints.

  “There are three dozen in there,” Nadine told her as she followed Eve into her office. “You can’t possibly eat them all.”

  “I could, just to teach those greedy hogs a lesson. However, this is a lesson in discipline and authority.” She opened the box, sighed deep as she perused her choices, all glossy, all hers. “I’ll let them think I’m keeping them all, and have my fill, then have them weeping with gratitude when I take out the leftovers to share.”

  She plucked one out, brought up coffee on the AutoChef, then bit in. “Cream filled. Yum.” Chewing, she checked her wrist unit, then counted back from ten as she crossed to the door. Peabody rushed to the doorway as Eve hit one.

  “Dallas! Hey! I was just—”

  Taking another enormous bite, Eve closed the door in her aide’s sorrowful face.

  “That was really cold,” Nadine commented and did what she could to swallow the laugh.

  “Yeah, but fun.”

  “Now that we’ve had our fun, I need an update on the Wooton murder, and a one-on-one. It would’ve been easier to set this up if you’d bothered to return any of my calls.”

  Eve sat on the corner of the desk. “Can’t do it, Nadine.”

  “I need to verify if there was, as rumored, some sort of communication left at the crime scene, and the contents therein. Also what progress has or has not been made since—”

  “Nadine, I can’t.”

  Undaunted, Nadine helped herself to coffee, sat in Eve’s battered visitor’s chair, crossed her legs. “The public has a right to know, and I, as media representative, have a responsibility to—”

  “Save it. We can go through the dance, but you’ve brought me these nice doughnuts and I don’t want to waste your time.” Giving Nadine a moment to stew, Eve licked sugar off her thumb. “I’m going to issue a press release, give a statement, and you’ll have it along with the other media reps within the hour. But I can’t give you a head start, or agree to a one-on-one. I need to pull back a little—”

  Nadine was finished stewing and ready to cut to the core. “What makes this case different? If there’s to be some sort of media shutdown—”

  “Stop. Shift out of reporter mode for one goddamn minute. You’re a friend of mine. I like you, and beyond that I think you do a good job, a responsible one.”

  “Great, fine, and right back at you, but—”

  “I’m not shutting you out. The fact is, I’m treating you as I would any other media rep.”

  Except, Eve thought, for the doughnut gorging and private chat. “My tendency to show favoritism toward you is one of the reasons you were pulled into the Stevenson case last month.”

  “That was—”

  “Nadine.” It was the quiet patience in Eve’s tone—something rarely heard—that had Nadine subsiding again. “There were complaints. And there’s speculation of the sort that could bring us both grief if I don’t throttle back on the cop/ reporter relationship a bit. So I can’t feed you this time. I need the rumbles to quiet down before I start to be known as Furst’s pet, or you as mine. Enough reporters get together and start crying foul and favoritism, it’s not going to be good for either of us.”

  Nadine hissed through her teeth. She’d heard the complaints, and the speculation, and had already weathered some resentment among her own rank and file. “You’re right, and that’s a pisser. Doesn’t mean I won’t hound you, Dallas.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  The battle light shone in her eyes again, and matched the sharp little smile. “Or bribe your men.”

  “I like brownies, especially the ones with those chunks of chocolate in them.”

  Nadine set the coffee down, got up. “Listen, if you need to leak something, give Quinton Post a try. He’s young yet, but he’s good, and the work matters to him as much, maybe even a little more, than the ratings. That won’t last,” she added cheerfully. “But you might as well get him while he’s fresh.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Alone, Eve refined her official statement, then ran it through channels. Carting the bakery box back into the bull pen, she dropped it on the communal AutoChef.

  All movement stopped. Silence fell.

  “Peabody,” she said into the breathless hush, “with me.”

  She’d barely hit the doorway when the riot of rushing feet and clamor of voices erupted behind her.

  Cops and doughnuts, she thought. A well-honored tradition that almost brought a sentimental tear to the eye.

  “I bet there were jelly-filled. I bet there were,” Peabody muttered as they muscled onto an elevator.

  “Some of them had those little colored sprinkle things on top. Like edible confetti.”

  Peabody’s square and sturdy jaw wobbled with emotion. “All I had time for this morning was reconstituted banana slices on a stale bagel.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.” At garage level, Eve strolled off the elevator. “Carmichael’s first stop. We’re catching him between his morning aqua therapy and daily skin treatment.”

  “You could’ve saved me one. One little doughnut.”

  “I could have,” Eve agreed as they climbed in her vehicle. “I could have done that. In fact . . .” She rummaged around in her pocket, pulled out an evidence bag. Inside was a jelly doughnut. “I believe I did.”

  “For me?” Overjoyed, Peabody snatched it, sniffed through the bag. “You saved me a doughnut. You’re so good to me. I take back everything I was thinking—you know, how you’re a cold, selfish, doughnut-hogging bitch and all that. Thanks, Dallas.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I really shouldn’t eat it though.” Peabody caught her bottom lip between her teeth, stroking the bag as Eve backed out of the slot. “I really shouldn’t. I’m on a diet. I’ve just got to lose some of the square footage of my ass, so I—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Give it back then.”

  But when Eve reached out, Peabody cringed back, doughnut bag clutched at her breasts, face screwed into dangerous lines. “Mine.”

  “Peabody, you continue to be a fascination to me.”

  “Thanks.” Slowly, savoring the moment, Peabody unsealed the bag. “Anyway, I deserve it. I’m using up lots of calories studying for the detective’s exam, and stressing about it. Stress sucks up calories like a vacuum. That’s why you’re so thin.”

  “I’m not thin, I’m not stressed.”

  “If you’ve got an excess ounce of body fat, I’ll eat it. Respectfully, sir,” Peabody added with a mouthful of jelly doughnut. “But I’ve really been hitting the discs and the simulators. McNab’s helping me out. He’s hardly even being an asshole right now.”

  “Wonder of wonders.”

  “It’s coming up really soon. I was wondering if you could tell me where you think my weak areas are so I could work on them.”

  “You question yourself. Even when your gut tells you you’re right, you don’t trust it enough. You’ve got good instincts, but you tend to be afraid to go with them without confirmation from a superior. You often question your own competence, and when you question yours, you’re questioning mine.”

  She glanced over, unsurprised to see Peabody keying her comments into her notebook between bites of doughnut. “You’re writing this down.”

  “It helps to see it, you know. Then to do these affirmations in the mirror. I’m a confident, competent officer of the law, and like that.” She flushed a little. “It’s just a method.”

  “Whatever.”

  Eve nosed into a narrow space at the curb. “Let’s confidently and competently see where Carmichael Smith was night before last.”

  “Yes, sir, but I also have to stress and obsess about having eaten that jelly doughnut. That’ll work off the calories and even it out. It’ll be like I never ate it at all.”

  “Then you might want to wipe the jelly off your lip.”

 
Eve stepped out of the car, studied the building. It had been, she supposed, a small three-level apartment building at one time. Now it was a single residence on a tony street. Private security again, two entrances in the front. At least one in the back, she assumed.

  Not so far from an alley in Chinatown geographically, but worlds away in every other form. No LCs on the stroll here, no glide-carts on the corners. High maintenance and low crime.

  She circled around the walk and up to the main entrance on the second level.

  Security panel, palm plate, and a retinal scan. A very careful man. She engaged the panel and frowned at the music that soared out. A lot of strings and keyboard around a creamy male voice.

  “ ‘Love Lights the World,’ ” Peabody identified. “It’s sort of his signature song.”

  “It’s got more calories than your doughnut.”

  WELCOME, the computer said in polite, female tones. WE HOPE YOU’RE HAVING A WONDERFUL DAY. PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME AND YOUR BUSINESS.

  “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.” She lifted her badge for a scan. “Police business. I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Smith this morning.”

  ONE MOMENT, PLEASE . . . THANK YOU, LIEUTENANT. MR. SMITH IS EXPECTING YOU. YOU’RE CLEARED.

  Almost immediately the door was opened by a dark-skinned woman in snowy white. There was more music here, quietly dripping its sweetness in the air.

  “Good morning. Thank you for being prompt. Please come in, make yourself at home in the living area. Carmichael will be right with you.”

  She glided, Eve thought, like a woman on rollers instead of feet, as she ushered them into a large room with blond walls. There was a mood screen taking up one of those walls, with an image of a white boat drifting on a blue sea as calm as a plate of glass. Thick gel cushions were spread over the floor in lieu of actual furniture, and all were in pastels. Tables were long and low, in that same blond tone.

  A fuzzy white kitten curled on one of the tables, and blinked emerald eyes at Eve.

  “Please relax. I’ll let Carmichael know you’re here.”

  Peabody walked over and poked at one of the floor cushions. “I guess you sink right in and it molds to your butt.” Experimentally, she reached back and patted a hand over her ass. “That could be embarrassing.”