The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  In fact, it was just a little too normal at the moment. She couldn’t wait for classes to get into a serious rhythm again. She wanted to get back in full swing, spending more time with friends. And she was toying with getting a bit more serious with a guy she’d started flirting with during her aborted summer session.

  She got off the subway two blocks from the apartment she shared with two of her cousins. It was a good location—family approved—with quiet streets and a neighborhood feel. The short walk didn’t worry her. She’d been taking the same route for over two years, and no one had ever bothered her.

  Sometimes she almost wished someone would, just so she could prove to her doting family she could handle herself.

  She turned the corner and saw a mini moving van, one of the rentals from the same company she’d used when she’d moved from her parents’ place to the one she shared with her cousins.

  It was a weird time for somebody to be moving in or out, she thought, but she heard thumps, and a couple of breathless male curses as she came up alongside of it.

  She saw the man struggling to get a small sofa into the back. He was well-built, and though his back was to her, she took him to be young enough to manage it. Then she saw the thick white cast on his right arm.

  He tried to muscle it up left-handed, using his shoulder, but the weight and angle fought against him, causing the end of the sofa to thump onto the street again.

  “Damn it, damn it, damn it.” He took out a white handkerchief, mopped at his face.

  She got a look at him now, and thought he was cute. Under his ball cap, curly dark hair—her favorite on a man—spilled out over the collar of his shirt.

  She started to walk by. Cute or not, it wasn’t smart to talk to strange men on the street in the middle of the night. But he looked so pitiful—hot, frustrated, and just a little helpless.

  Her good nature had her pausing; her New York caution had her keeping her distance. “Moving in or out?” she asked.

  He jolted, making her bite back a laugh. And when he turned and saw her, his already flushed face went pinker. “Ah, looks like neither. I guess I could just leave the stupid thing like this and live in the truck.”

  “Did a number on your arm, huh?” Curiosity had her edging a little closer. “I’ve never seen a cast like that.”

  “Yeah.” He ran his hand over it. “Two more weeks. Broke it in three places rock climbing in Tennessee. Stupid.”

  She thought she’d caught the South in his voice, and edged a little closer. “Pretty late at night for moving day.”

  “Well, my girl—ex-girlfriend,” he said with a grimace, “works nights. She said if I wanted my stuff, I had to haul it out when she wasn’t around. Another bad break,” he added with a hint of a smile. “My brother’s supposed to be here, but he’s late. Typical. I want to get this stuff loaded before Donna gets back, and I’ve only got the rental till six A.M.”

  He was cute. A bit older than her usual type, but she liked the hint of twang in his voice. Plus he was in a jam. “Maybe I could give you a hand with it.”

  “Really? You wouldn’t mind? I’d really appreciate it. If we could just get this bastard in, maybe Frank will show. I think I could handle some of the other stuff.”

  “No problem.” She stepped closer. “Maybe if you get up in the back, I could push it, and you could guide it or something.”

  “We’ll give it a shot.” He climbed in, hampered somewhat by the cast.

  She did her best to lift and shove, but the end of the sofa thudded on the pavement again.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He grinned at her, though she thought he looked exhausted. “You’re just a little thing, aren’t you? If you’ve got another minute, we could try it the other way. I can take the weight. Use my back, shoulders. Maybe you could come up in here, hold it steady, sort of pull while I push.”

  There was a vague ring from a warning bell in the back of her mind, but she ignored it. She clambered up into the truck, warmed by his grateful smile as he slid out.

  He called out instructions as he grunted and cursed his brother, Frank, in a way that made her laugh. As the sofa began to slide in, she backed up, tugging it along with a fine sense of accomplishment.

  “Mission accomplished!”

  “Hold on, just a minute. Let me . . .” He boosted himself in, swiping his good arm over his brow. “If we could just shove it, that way.”

  He started to point, and though the warning bell had pealed louder when he’d climbed in with her, into the small dark cave, she glanced over at the direction of his finger.

  The first blow caught her on the side of the head, and sent her staggering. She saw lights flash, and felt a terrible and confusing pain.

  She stumbled, catching her foot on the leg of the sofa and pitching to the left without any idea that the spill saved her skull from a second, brutal blow with the cast.

  It smashed her shoulder instead, had her whimpering as she tried to crawl away from the attack, from the pain.

  She could hear his voice through the screaming in her head, but there was something different about it. Something ripped—her clothes, her body—as he hauled her back.

  No, you don’t. Sneaky little twat.

  She couldn’t see now, there was only dark and those awful flashing lights. But she tasted blood, her own blood, in her mouth. And she could hear, just hear through the screams in her head, horrible things panted out in a horrible voice.

  She was crying, making tiny animal sounds that turned to moans as more blows rained on her back. With a trembling hand, she reached into her pocket, fighting to stay conscious, fighting to make her numb fingers grip the gift her uncle had given her when she’d gone to work for him.

  With blind instinct, she pointed it toward the sound of his voice.

  He howled—a grotesque sound that told her the mugger spray had hit the mark. The panic siren attached to the device wailed. Sobbing—she thought she was sobbing, but it might have been him—she tried to crawl again.

  Pain, more pain exploded inside her when a vicious kick hit her ribs, her jaw. She felt herself falling, falling, and the world was already dropping away when her head hit the pavement with a violent crack.

  At four A.M., Eve stood on the sidewalk studying the blood on the pavement. Marlene Cox had been transported to the hospital an hour before. Unconscious, she was not expected to live.

  He’d abandoned the rental, and his props, and left his victim bleeding on the street. But he hadn’t finished her.

  Eve crouched, and with her sealed fingers picked up a small shard of white plaster. She’d fought back long enough, hard enough to chase him away.

  She studied the ball cap and wig already sealed in evidence. Cheap models, she mused. Tough to trace. The sofa looked old, shabby, used. Something he picked up at a flea market. But they had the moving van, so maybe they’d get lucky.

  And a twenty-three-year-old woman was dying.

  She looked up as Peabody sprinted down the sidewalk. “Lieutenant?”

  “Twenty-three-year-old female,” Eve began. “Identified as Marlene Cox. Lives in that building,” she said, gesturing. “Apparently on her way home from work. I’ve checked with the hospital where she was taken before I arrived on scene. She’s in surgery, prognosis poor. She was beaten severely about the head, face, body. He used this—to start, anyway.” She held up a chunk of plaster.

  “What is it?”

  “Plaster. I’d say from a cast, an arm cast. Poor guy’s trying to haul the sofa in or out of the truck. Probably in. He’d want to get her inside. Got a busted wing, can’t quite manage it. He looks harmless, helpless, so she gives him a hand. He was probably charming. Lots of smiles and aw, shucks. Then when she’s inside, he hits her. Goes for the head, needs to knock her down, debilitate and disorient. Keep hitting her, hard enough to smash the cast.”

  She stepped up to the opening in the back of the van. Close quarters, small space. That was a mistake, Eve
noted. Didn’t give himself enough room to really wind up for the hits, and the props—the couch, the packing boxes—got in the way.

  The imitation was good, she decided, but the stage had been cramped and spoiled his performance.

  “He didn’t move fast enough,” she said out loud. “Or maybe he was enjoying it too much. She had some mugger spray.” Eve lifted the evidence bag with the pocket bottle. “I figure she got off at least one good shot in his face or near enough to hurt him, and the panic siren tripped. So he ran. From the looks of it,” she added, nodding to the blood on the pavement, “she either fell out of the truck, or he shoved her out. Uniform that briefed me said there was so much blood from her head he thought she was DOS. But she had a pulse.”

  “Ted Bundy. I’ve been boning up,” Peabody said when Eve looked at her. “Especially on the serial killers you put on your hot sheet. He used this method.”

  “Yeah, and more successfully than our guy. That’s going to piss him off. Even if she dies, he’ll be pissed off. Let’s run the truck, Peabody. I’ve got some uniforms doing the knock-on-doors, and I’m about to set the sweepers loose on the rental. Let’s fucking find something on this bastard.”

  Marlene was still in surgery when Eve got to the hospital. The surgical waiting area was packed with people. The nurse on duty had already warned her the patient’s family was there, en masse.

  She recognized the mix of shock, fear, hope, grief, and anger on the faces as, nearly as one, they turned toward her.

  “I’m sorry to intrude. I’m Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. I’d like to speak with Peter Waterman.”

  “That’s me.” He rose, a big, burly man with a military cut to his dark hair, and the shadows of worry in his eye.

  “If you could step out here, Mr. Waterman.”

  He bent to murmur to one of the waiting women, then followed Eve into the corridor.

  “I’m sorry to pull you away from your family, but my information is you were the last to speak with Ms. Cox before she left for home this morning.”

  “She works for me, for us. I got a bar, and Marley, she waits tables a few times a week.”

  “Yes, sir, I know. What time did she leave?”

  “Right after two. I sprang her, did the lock up myself. Watched her walk to the subway station. It’s only a few steps from the door. She’s only got two blocks to go once she’s off. It’s a good neighborhood. My two kids, they live there with her. My own daughters live right there.”

  And his voice shook on the statement so that he had to stop, just stop and breathe.

  “My brother, he lives half a block from them. It’s a good neighborhood. Safe. Goddamn it.”

  “It’s a good neighborhood, Mr. Waterman.” And small comfort. “When the panic siren went off, people came out. They didn’t burrow inside and ignore it. We’ve already got a couple of witnesses who saw the man who attacked her running away. He might not have run if it wasn’t a good neighborhood, if people hadn’t opened their windows or come outside to help.”

  “Okay.” He swiped the heel of his hand across his cheek, the back of his hand under his nose. “Okay. Thanks. I helped them find that apartment, you see. My sister, Marley’s mother, she asked me to check the place out.”

  “And you found her a place where people come out to help. Mr. Waterman, a guy runs a bar, he notices people, right? You get a feel. Maybe you got a feel for somebody who’d come in recently.”

  “People don’t come into my place looking for trouble. We got sing-alongs for Christ sake. We got regulars, and there’s some tourist trade. I got a deal going with a couple of hotels. It’s a middle-class, neighborhood pub, Sergeant.”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know anybody who’d do this to our Marley. I don’t know anybody who’d do this to anybody’s daughter. What kind of sick bastard beats a little girl like that? Can you tell me? What kind of sick bastard does something like this?”

  “No, sir, I can’t tell you. Did she mention anyone she met recently, or anyone she noticed around the neighborhood, around where she shopped or ate or hung out? Anything at all?”

  “No. Some guy she met in school earlier this summer. I don’t know his name. One of my girls might.” He took out a handkerchief, blew his nose. “We pushed her to drop her summer classes, because of those kids that were killed. Those college kids a few weeks ago. She knew one of them, the first one, so it upset her. Upset all of us. I got her that mugger spray, told her to keep it in her pocket. She did. She’s a good girl.”

  “And she used it. That means she’s smart and she’s tough. She drove him off, Mr. Waterman.”

  “The doctors won’t tell us.” Eve turned as a woman spoke behind her. She’d come to the door and stood there, leaning on the opening as if she couldn’t bear her own weight. “They won’t say, but I could see what they thought. That’s my baby they’ve got in there. My baby, and they think she’ll die. But they’re wrong.”

  “She’s going to be fine, Sela.” Waterman pulled her into his arms, held her tight. “Marley’s going to be just fine.”

  “Mrs. Cox, is there anything you can tell me that will help?”

  “She’ll tell you herself, when she wakes up.” Sela’s voice was stronger than her brother’s, and absolutely sure. “Then you’ll go after him, and you’ll lock him up. When you do, I’m going to come in, and look right at his face and tell him it was my girl, it was my baby who put him there.”

  Dallas left them alone, found a corner, a cup of coffee, and waited until Peabody returned and sat down beside her.

  “No luck on the rental yet, but McNab and Feeney are on it.”

  “Smart. Careful,” Eve commented. “Rents it via computer with a bogus name and license number, and pays to have it delivered to the bogus address. Nobody sees him. He seals up, so we’ve got no prints, no hair, no nothing inside the van except the wig he ditched and the pieces of plaster.”

  “Maybe some of the blood on-scene will turn out to be his.”

  Eve only shook her head. “He’s too smart for that. But he’s not as smart as he thinks he is because he didn’t get Marlene Cox. Not the way he wanted. And somebody’s seen him. Somebody saw him get in that rental or park it by her building. Just the way people saw him running like a scared rabbit away from the scene.”

  She took a long breath, a long sip of coffee. “The moving van, that was his stage set, so he was careful there. He wanted us to find her inside the van. But he had to run, with his eyes burning, his throat on fire from the spray. Had to get to his bolt-hole.”

  She looked over as a doctor in surgical scrubs came down the hall. On his face she could see what Sela Cox had seen—the grimness. “Damn it.”

  Eve got to her feet, and waited for him to go in and speak with the family.

  She heard weeping, male and female, and voices down to murmurs. She was waiting when he stepped back out.

  “Dallas.” She flipped out her badge. “I need a minute.”

  “Dr. Laurence. She can’t talk to you, or anybody else.”

  “She’s alive?”

  “I don’t know how she made it through surgery, and I don’t expect her to last the morning. I’m letting her family go in, to say good-bye.”

  “I wasn’t able to speak to the MTs on-scene. Can you tell me about her injuries?”

  He stalked over to a vending machine, ordered coffee. “Broken ribs. I’d say he kicked her. Collapsed lung, bruised kidneys, dislocated shoulder, broken elbow. Those are just some of the minor injuries. Her skull, that’s a different matter. Ever taken a hard-boiled egg, run it with your palm over a hard surface to break up the shell?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s about what her skull looked like. The MTs got to her fast, and they did a heroic job, but she’d lost a lot of blood before they responded. Her skull’s fractured, Lieutenant, and the damage is severe. There were bone splinters in her brain. The chances of her regaining consciousness, even for a few minutes, are sli
m to none. The odds of her being able to speak, have a coherent thought, motor functions—should that miracle occur?” He shook his head.

  “I’m told she sprayed the guy,” he added.

  “There was a container of mugger spray on-scene,” Eve confirmed. “The siren engaged. It was identified as belonging to her. My take is she got him; otherwise, he’d have finished what he started. I’m betting she got his eyes.”

  “I’ve put the word out. Anybody comes in this ER, or any other facility I’ve been able to reach with the symptoms, we’ll send up a flag.”

  “That’s helpful, thanks. Any change in her condition, one way or the other, I’d appreciate it if you’d contact me. Peabody? You got a card?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One more thing,” Eve said when he’d slipped it into his pocket. “You have much call to use this anymore?” She offered him a shard of plaster.

  “Haven’t used this since my intern days,” he said, turning it over in his hand. “Still see it now and then, depending on the injury and the insurance. Plaster’s cheaper than the skin casts used more habitually now. A break takes longer to heal, and the cast’s cumbersome, uncomfortable. More likely to see these on low-income patients.”

  “Where do you get it, the stuff you make it from?”

  “Medical supply company, I imagine. Hell, probably pick some up at a higher end rehab place, for people who want the old stuff, want authentic plasterwork.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Appreciate it.”

  “Medical supplies or building supplies?” Peabody asked as they walked out.

  “I want both. Cash sales. He won’t want a paper trail. And I’m betting there aren’t that many cash sales for this sort of thing. Small amounts, self-pickup. Delivery means he had to give an address. He walked in and bought this, paid cash, walked out. Run building supplies first,” she decided. “Any Joe Blow can walk into one of them and nobody notices. That’s his first choice.”

  She checked the time as she slid into the car. “Briefing in one hour. When we’re done, we’re going shopping.”

  She walked into her office and wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or amused to see Nadine Furst sitting at her desk enjoying a cup of coffee and a tiny muffin.