by J. D. Robb
“Possible, and it’s a good line for you to tug. I’m more inclined to think it was the area first. Neighborhood. Select the setting, then the character, then put on your play.”
“Speaking of neighborhoods, this is really nice.” Peabody gazed out at shady sidewalks, large old houses, pretty urban gardens planted in window boxes or pots. “I could go for this one day. You know, when I settle down, start thinking family and stuff. You ever think about that? Kids and all.”
Eve thought of the hate-filled eyes, staring at her out of a dream. “No.”
“Tons of time and all. I figure maybe to think about it in six, eight years anyway. Definitely going to be taking McNab on a long test drive before I commit to more than cohabbing. Hey, your eye didn’t twitch.”
“Because I’m not listening to you.”
“Are, too,” Peabody muttered when Eve pulled to the curb. “He’s been really great working with me for the exam. It makes a difference having somebody rooting for me. He really wants it for me because I want it. That’s . . . well, that’s just solid.”
“McNab’s a moron the majority of the time, but he’s in love with you.”
“Dallas!” Peabody shifted in her seat so sharply her cap tipped over one eye. “You said the ‘L’ word and ‘McNab’ in the same sentence. Voluntarily.”
“Just shut up.”
“Happy to.” With a happy smile, she squared her cap. “I’m just going to savor in silence.”
They walked three houses down to a three-story home that Eve imagined had once been a multifamily dwelling. Writing about killers was obviously profitable if Breen could afford something this up-market.
She went up a short flight of flagstoned steps to the main entrance, noted the full security system that must have made the man confident enough to keep the etched glass panes on either side of the front door.
There was a wife as well, she knew from her quick background check, and a two-year-old boy. Breen collected partial professional father pay from the government as primary at-home parent while his wife earned a substantial salary as a VP and managing editor of a fashion rag called Outre.
A nice, tidy setup, Eve mused, as she rang the bell and held up her badge for scan.
Breen answered the door himself with his son sitting astride his shoulders. The boy was holding on to Breen’s blond hair like the reins on a horse.
“Go, ride!” the boy shouted and kicked his feet.
“Only this far, partner.” Breen hooked his hands around the boy’s ankles, either to anchor him, Eve thought, or to stop the busy little heels from digging holes in his armpits. “Lieutenant Dallas?”
“That’s right. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, Mr. Breen.”
“No problem. Always happy to talk to the cops, and I’ve followed your work. I’m hoping to do a book on New York murders eventually, and figure you’ll be one of my prime sources.”
“You’ll have to talk to public relations at Central about that. Can we come in?”
“Oh yeah, sure. Sorry.”
He stepped back. He was in his thirties, of strong, medium build. From the definition in his arms, Eve doubted he sat at a computer all day. He had a good face, handsome without being soft.
“Blaster!” the boy called out as he spotted Eve’s weapon under her jacket. “Zappit!”
Breen laughed, flipped the child off his shoulders in a rapid and smooth move that had the kid squealing in delight. “Jed here’s a little bloodthirsty. Runs in the family. I’m just going to set him up with the droid, then we can talk.”
“No droid!” The kid’s face went from angelic to mutinous in a heartbeat. “Stay with Daddy!”
“Just for a little while, champ; then we’ll go out to the park.” He tickled the boy into giggles as he charged up the steps with him.
“Nice to see a guy handle a kid that way, and enjoy it,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. Wonder what a guy, a successful guy, thinks about pulling in a professional father stipend, dealing with an offspring, while the mother’s being a busy exec at a major firm every day. Some guys would resent that. Some might think the little lady’s pushy, domineering. Maybe his mother was the same—Breen’s mother is a neurologist and his father went the professional parent route. You know,” Eve added, looking up the stairs, “some guys would build up a nasty little resentment of women over that kind of setup.”
“That’s really sexist.”
“Yeah, it is. Some people are.”
Peabody frowned up the steps. “It’s some brain that could take a nice, homey scene like we just witnessed and turn it on its head into a motive for murder.”
“Just one of my natural-born talents, Peabody.”
Chapter 9
Breen set them up in a roomy office just off the kitchen. Two large windows faced the rear, where they could see a kind of tidy patio skirted by a low wall. Behind the wall were leafy trees. With the view, they might have been in some quiet suburb rather than the city.
Someone had put pots of flowers on the patio, along with a couple of loungers. There was a small table shaded by a jaunty blue-and-white striped umbrella.
A couple of big plastic trucks lay on their sides, along with their colorful plastic occupants, as if there had been a terrible vehicular accident.
Why, Eve wondered, were kids always bashing toys together? Maybe it was some sort of primitive cave-dweller instinct that, if things went well, the kid outgrew or at least restrained into adulthood.
Jed’s father looked civilized enough, sitting in his rolly chair that he’d scooted around from his workstation. Then again, he made the bulk of his living writing about people who restrained nothing, and rather than outgrowing any destructive instincts, had bumped it up from plastic toys to flesh and blood.
It took, Eve was very aware, all kinds.
“So, how can I help?”
“You’ve done considerable research into serial killers,” Eve began.
“Historical figures, primarily. Though I have interviewed a few contemporary subjects.”
“Why is that, Mr. Breen?”
“Tom. Why?” He looked surprised for a moment. “It’s fascinating. You’ve been up close and personal with the breed. Don’t you find them fascinating?”
“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use.”
He leaned forward. “But you have to wonder what makes them who they are, don’t you? What separates them from the rest of us? Is it something more or something less? Are they born to kill, or does that need evolve in them? Is it a single instance that turns them, or a series of events? And really, the answer isn’t always the same, and that’s fascinating. One guy spends his childhood in poverty and abuse”—he tapped his index fingers together—“and becomes a productive member of society. A bank president, faithful husband, good father, loyal friend. Plays golf on the weekend and walks his pet schnauzer every night. He uses his background to springboard himself into something better, higher, right?”
“And another uses it as an excuse to dive into the muck. Yeah, I get it. Why do you write about the muck?”
He sat back again. “Well, I could give you a lot of jive about how studying the killer and the muck he wades in gives society insight into how and why. And understanding, information, is power against fear. It would be true,” he added with his quick and boyish smile. “But on another level entirely, it’s just fun. I’ve been into it since I was a kid. Jack the Ripper was the big one for me. I read everything about him, watched every vid ever produced, surfed the Web sites, made up stories where I was a cop back then and tracked him down. Along the way I expanded, studied up on profiling and types, the steps and the stages—you know, trolling, hunting, the rush and the lull.”
He shrugged now. “I went through a phase where I thought I’d be a cop, chase the bad guys. But I got over that one. Considered going into psychology, but it just didn’t suit me. What I really wanted to do was write, and that’s what I was good at. So I write
about my lifelong interest.”
“I hear some writers need to experience the subject they’re writing about. Need that hands-on approach before they can put it down in words.”
Amusement bloomed on his face. “So, you’re asking if I’ve gone out and carved up a couple of street LCs in the name of research?” His laughter rolled out, then stopped, like a wave hitting a wall as Eve only continued to watch him.
He blinked, several times, then swallowed audibly. “Holy shit, you really are. I’m a suspect?” The healthy color in his face had drained away to leave it pale and shiny. “For real?”
“I’d like to know where you were on September second, between midnight and three A.M.”
“I was home, probably. I don’t . . .” He lifted both hands, rubbed the sides of his head. “Man, my brain’s gone fuzzy. I figured you wanted me to consult. Was pretty juiced about it. Ah . . . I was here. Jule—Julietta, my wife—had a late meeting, and didn’t get home until about ten. She was whipped and went straight up to bed. I put in some writing time. With Jed, the only time the house is really quiet is the middle of the night. I worked until one, maybe a little after. I can check my disc log.”
He opened drawers in his workstation, began to root around. “I, ah, Jesus, did the man of the house routine. I go through it every night before I turn in. Check the security, make sure everything’s locked up. Look in on Jed. That’s it.”
“How about Sunday morning?”
“This Sunday?” He glanced up, over. “My wife got up with Jed.”
He paused, and Eve could see the change taking place. The shock was ebbing and the interest, the enjoyment, even the pride in being considered a murder subject was rolling in.
“Most Sundays I sleep in and she takes over. She doesn’t get as much one-on-one time with him as I do. She took him to the park. They go out early and have a picnic breakfast if the weather’s good. Jed loves that. I didn’t surface till close to noon. What’s Sunday? I’m not following . . .”
Then he did. She could see it click. “The woman who was found strangled in her apartment on Sunday. Middle-aged woman, living alone. Sexual assault and strangulation.”
His eyes were narrowed now, his color back. “The media reports were sketchy, but strangulation and sexual assault, that’s not Ripper style. An older woman, at home in her apartment, that’s not Ripper style either. What’s the connection?”
At Eve’s steady stare, he scooted forward in the chair. “Listen, if I’m moonlighting as a killer, I already know so you won’t be telling me anything. If I’m just an expert on serial killers, giving me some details might let me help. Either way, how can you lose?”
She’d already decided what she would and wouldn’t tell him, but held his gaze another moment. “The sash of the victim’s lounge robe was used as the murder weapon, and tied in a bow under the chin.”
“Boston Strangler. That was his signature.” He snapped his fingers, and began to push through the piles of discs and files on his desk. “I’ve got considerable notes on him. Wow. You’ve got two killers imitating the famous? Teamwork, like Leopold and Loeb? Or . . .” He paused, took a long breath. “Not two, just one. One killer working his way down a list of his heroes. That’s why you’re looking at me. You’re wondering if the people I write about are heroes to me, and if I’m mixing up my work and my life. If I want to be one of them.”
He pushed to his feet, pacing with what looked to Eve to be energy rather than nerves. “This is fucking amazing. He’s probably read my books. That’s sort of creepy, but icy in a strange way, too. DeSalvo, DeSalvo. Different type from Jack,” Breen mumbled. “Blue collar, family man, a sad sap. Jack was probably educated, likely a member of the upper class.”
“If the information I just gave you finds its way to the media, I’ll know where it came from.” Eve paused until Breen stopped pacing and looked at her. “I’ll make your life hell.”
“Why would I give it to the media, and let somebody write about it first?” He sat again. “This has best-seller written all over it. I know that sounds cold, but in my line of work I have to be as detached as you do in yours. I’ll help however I can. I’ve got mountains of research and data accumulated on every major serial killer since the Ripper started it all, and a few interesting minor ones. I’ll make it all available to you, pitch in as a civilian consultant, and waive the fee. And when it’s over, I’ll write it.”
“I’ll think about it.” Eve got to her feet. And saw, under the mess he’d made of his desk, a box of cream-colored stationery.
“Fancy writing paper,” she commented, stepping over to pick up the box.
“Hmm? Oh yeah. I use it when I want to impress somebody.”
“Is that so?” Her eyes flashed to his like lasers. “Who did you want to impress lately?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I think I used it a couple weeks ago when I sent what my dad always called a bread-and-butter note to my publisher. A thanks for a dinner party thing. Why?”
“Where’d you get it? The paper?”
“Jule must’ve bought it. No, wait.” He rose himself, looking baffled as he took the box from Eve. “That’s not right. It was a gift. Sure, I remember now. Came through my publisher with a fan letter. Readers send stuff all the time.”
“A token from a reader, to the tune of about five hundred dollars?”
“You’re kidding! Five hundred. Wow.” He was watching Eve more carefully now as he set the box back on his desk. “I should be more careful with it.”
“I’ll want a sample of that paper, Mr. Breen. It matches the type left at both homicides I’m investigating.”
“This is just too fucking weird.” He sat, heavily. “Take it.” Several emotions seemed to run across his face as he scooped a hand through his luxurious hair. “He knows about me. He’s read my stuff. What the hell did the note say? I can’t remember, just something about how he appreciated my work, my attention to detail or something like that, and my—what—enthusiasm for the subject.”
“Do you have the note?”
“No, I wouldn’t keep it. I answer some of the mail personally, have a droid do the bulk. If it’s snail mail, we recycle the paper after it’s answered. He’s using my work as research, don’t you think? That’s horrible, and really flattering at the same time.”
Eve passed one of the sheets and envelopes to Peabody to seal into evidence. “Give him a receipt for it,” she ordered. “I wouldn’t be flattered if I were you, Mr. Breen. This isn’t research, or words in a discbook.”
“I’m part of it now. Not just an observer this time, but part of something I’ll write about.”
She could see he was more pleased than appalled.
“I plan to stop him, and soon, Mr. Breen. Things go my way, you’re not going to have much of a book.”
“I don’t know what to think about him,” Peabody said when they were outside. She turned back, studied the house and imagined the good-looking Breen swinging his handsome son onto his shoulders and taking him to the park to play. And dreaming of fame and fortune written in blood. “The stationery was right out of the blue. He didn’t try to hide it.”
“Where’s the excitement if we don’t find it?”
“I get that—and he likes the rush, no question. But his story sounds solid, especially if the killer has read his stuff.”
“He can’t prove where it came from, and we have to waste time trying to trace it. And Breen’s juiced by it.”
“I guess it’s the sort of thing that’d juice him. His job’s on the sick side.”
“So’s ours.”
Surprised, Peabody hiked with Eve to the car. “You liked him?”
“I haven’t made up my mind. If he’s no more than he claims to be, I’ve got no problem with him. People like murder, Peabody. They jive on it when it’s got at least one of those degrees of separation. Reading about it, watching vids about it, turning on the evening news to hear about it. As long as it isn’t too close. We don’t pay
to watch a couple of guys hack each other to death in an arena anymore, but we’ve still got the blood lust. We still get off on it. In the abstract. Because it’s reassuring. Somebody’s dead, but we’re not.”
She remembered, as she climbed into the car out of the vicious heat, how that thought raced through her head, again and again, when she’d huddled in the corner of that frigid room in Dallas and looked at the bloody waste of the thing that had been her father.
“You can’t feel that way when you see it all the time. When you do what we do.”
“You can’t,” Eve said as she started the car. “Some can. Not all cops are heroes just because they’re supposed to be. And not all fathers are good guys just because they give their little boys a ride on their shoulders. Whether I like him or not, his lack of alibi, his line of work, and his possession of the notepaper put him on the list. We’re going to do a very careful check on Thomas A. Breen. Let’s run the wife, too. What didn’t we hear from him in today’s conversation, Peabody?”
“I’m not following you.”
“He told us she came home from a late meeting. She went to bed. He worked. He slept in. She took the kid to the park. But I never heard anything about we. My wife and I, Jule and I. Me and my wife and Jed. That’s what I didn’t hear. And what impression do you suppose I get from that?”
“You’re thinking the marriage isn’t good, that there’s friction or disinterest between Breen and his wife. Yeah, I can see that, but I can see how with two careers and a kid a couple could get into a routine that revolves around work and pass the toddler.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t seem much point in being together if you never are though, does there? Good-looking guy like that might start getting resentful and frustrated with that sort of routine. Especially if he sees it as a repeat of his own childhood. A guy doesn’t want to look in the mirror at thirty-something and see his father looking back at him. We’ll take a good close look at Thomas A. Breen,” she repeated. “And see what we see.”
Eve decided her next stop would be Fortney. But it was time to play it, and him, a different way. “I want to nudge Fortney on the second murder, revisit the first. His alibi’s bullshit. And since I tend to get cranky when people lie to me, I’m not going to be particularly friendly.”