The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  The housekeeper gave her the same information.

  “You see him leave? You personally?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You watch him walk out the door with his suitcase?”

  “I fail to see the relevance of such a question, but as it happens, I carried Mr. Renquist’s luggage to the car myself.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I’m not privy to that information, and would not be free to divulge it if I were. Mr. Renquist’s duties often require travel.”

  “I bet. I’d like to see Mrs. Renquist.”

  “Mrs. Renquist isn’t at home. Nor is she expected to be until this evening.”

  Eve looked past her, into the house. She’d have given a month’s pay for a search warrant.

  “Let me ask you something, Jeeves.”

  She winced. “Stevens.”

  “Stevens. When did the boss get this call to duty?”

  “I believe he made the arrangements very early this morning.”

  “How’d he find out he was hitting the trail?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A transmission come in, a call, a private messenger whiz by, what?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “Some housekeeper you are. How’d his eyes look this morning?”

  Stevens looked perplexed, then simply annoyed. “Lieutenant, Mr. Renquist’s eyes are not my concern nor yours. Good day.”

  She thought about booting the door open when it started to shut in her face, but decided it was a waste of energy.

  “Peabody, start the EDD troops doing a search to find out where Renquist went, and how he’s getting there.”

  “I guess he’s the one.”

  “Why?”

  It was Peabody’s turn to look perplexed and she hurried after Eve to the vehicle. “He’s molesting the nanny. He and his wife lied about him being home all morning on Sunday. He’s got a private, locked room in his house, and this morning, he’s conveniently called out of town.”

  “So you cross off Fortney, just like that. Peabody, you’re an investigative slut.”

  “But it all fits.”

  “You can fit it this way, too. He’s molesting the nanny because he’s a royal shit and a perv. His wife’s not putting out, and he’s got a young, pretty girl in the house who’s afraid to say no. They lied because they’re both royal shits who don’t want to be hassled by the police, and saying he was home is more convenient. He’s got a locked home office because he’s got staff who might poke into sensitive material, and a kid he doesn’t want bothering him when he’s working. He’s called out of town this morning because his line of work demands he get up and go when the call comes.”

  “Well, hell.”

  “If you don’t think it from both ends, you don’t get the right answers. Now let’s see how Breen holds up in formal interview.”

  He was waiting, examining the one-way glass when Eve stepped into Interview Room B. He turned, and sent her one of his boyish smiles.

  “I know I should be pissed off, and yelling lawyer, but this is just iced.”

  “Happy to entertain you.”

  “I had to leave Jed with a neighbor though. I don’t trust the droid when I’m not in the house. So I hope this isn’t going to take too long.”

  “Then sit down, and let’s get started.”

  “Sure.”

  She engaged the recorder, recited the case data, and the Revised Miranda. “Do you understand your rights and obligations, Mr. Breen?”

  “Oh yeah. Look, I heard the media reports on the attack early this morning. Guy pulled a Bundy. What do you think—”

  “Why don’t you let me ask the questions, Tom?”

  “Sorry. Habit.” He flashed a grin.

  “Where were you this morning at two A.M.?”

  “At home, asleep. I knocked off work about midnight. By two, I was sawing them off.”

  “Was your wife at home?”

  “Sure. Sawing them off right beside me, but in a delicate, ladylike manner.”

  “You think you get points for witty remarks in here, Tom?”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  Saying nothing, Eve shifted her gaze to Peabody.

  “Well, yeah,” Peabody responded. “If you piss her off, it can hurt. Trust me.”

  “Are you going to do the good cop/bad cop gambit?” He rocked back in his chair, balancing it casually on its back legs. “I’ve studied all the basic interrogation techniques. I can never figure out why that one works. I mean, come on, it’s the oldest one in the books.”

  “No, the oldest one in the books is where I take you into a private room and during our little chat you trip and somehow manage to break your face.”

  He continued to rock while he studied Eve. “I don’t think so. You’ve got an attitude for sure, and some innate violent tendencies, but you don’t pound on suspects. Too much integrity. You’re a good cop.”

  He spoke earnestly now, obviously high on his own intellect and intuition. “The kind that digs in and doesn’t let go because you believe. More than anything else you believe in the spirit of the law, maybe not the letter, but the spirit. Maybe you take shortcuts now and then, stuff that doesn’t find its way into your official reports, but you’re careful about the lines—the ones you cross, the ones you don’t. And beating confessions out of suspects isn’t one of your shortcuts.”

  Now he looked at Peabody. “Nailed her, didn’t I?”

  “Mr. Breen, you couldn’t nail the lieutenant if you made the attempt your life’s work. She’s beyond your scope.”

  “Oh, come on.” He gave an irritated little twist of his lips. “You just don’t want to admit I’m as good at this sort of game as you are. Listen, when you study murder, you don’t just study murderers, you study cops.”

  “And victims?” Eve put in.

  “Sure, and victims.”

  “All that studying, researching, analyzing, writing . . . that would hone your observational skills, wouldn’t it?”

  “Writers are born observers. It’s what we do.”

  “So when you’re writing about crime, you’re writing about who committed it, who it happened to, who investigated it, and so on. In essence, you’re writing about people. You know people.”

  “That’s right.”

  “An observant guy like you, you’d pick up on nuances, on habits, on what people think, how they behave, what they do.”

  “Right again.”

  “So, being so observant, so in tune with human nature and behavior, you wouldn’t have missed the fact that your wife’s out having chick sex while you’re at home playing horsey with your kid.”

  That wiped the smug look off his face as if she’d hit a delete button. What replaced it was the shock that turned the skin shiny white before the heat of humiliation and rage bloomed.

  “You’ve got no right to say something like that.”

  “Come on, Tom, your amazing powers of observation haven’t failed you inside your own little castle where a man is king. You know what she’s been up to. Or maybe I should say down on.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s gotta be a pisser, doesn’t it?” Shaking her head, Eve rose, strolled around the table to lean over his shoulder, to speak directly in his ear. “She doesn’t even have the courtesy to fuck another guy while you’re home playing mommy. What does that say about you, Tom? The sex was so boring she decided to see what it was like in the other end of the pool? Doesn’t say much for your equipment, does it?”

  “I said shut up! I don’t have to listen to this kind of crap.”

  Fists balled, he pushed up from the chair. Eve shoved him down again. “Yeah, you do. Your wife wasn’t at a meeting the night Jacie Wooton was slaughtered. She was with her lover, her female lover. You know that, don’t you, Tom? You know she’s been sneaking off, cheating on you for nearly two years. How do you feel about that, Tom? How does it feel to know she wants another woman, loves another
woman, gives herself to another woman while you’re raising the son you made together, keeping the house together, being more of a wife than she ever was?”

  “Bitch.” He covered his face with his hands. “Goddamn bitch.”

  “I’ve got to have some sympathy for you, Tom. Here you are, doing it all. The house, the kid, the career. An important career, too. You’re somebody. But you go the professional father route, and that’s admirable. While she spends her day in a big office, having meetings about clothes, for Christ’s sake.”

  Eve gave a hefty sigh, slowly shook her head. “About what people are going to wear. And that’s more important to her than her family. She ignores you and the kid. Your mother did the same. But Jule, she takes it another step. Lying, cheating, whoring herself with another woman instead of standing up and being a wife, being a mother.”

  “Shut up. Can’t you just shut up?”

  “You want to punish her for that, Tom, who could blame you? You want to get some of your own back, who the hell wouldn’t? It eats at you. Day after day, night after night. Makes you a little crazy. Women, they’re just no damn good, are they?”

  She sat on the edge of the table, close, pushing into his space, knowing he could feel her pushing, even as she felt him vibrating.

  “She looks me right in the eyes and lies. I love her. I hate her for that, hate her because I still love her. She doesn’t think about us. She puts that woman ahead of us, and I hate her for it.”

  “You knew she wasn’t at a meeting. Did you stew about that while she was gone? And she came home, and went up to bed. Tired, too tired to be with you because she’d been with another woman. Did you wait until she was upstairs, settled in, before you left the house? Did you take your tools down to Chinatown, imagine yourself as Jack the Ripper? Powerful and terrifying and beyond the law? Did you see your wife’s face when you cut Jacie Wooton’s throat?”

  “I didn’t leave the house.”

  “She wouldn’t know if you went out. She doesn’t pay any attention to you. She doesn’t care enough.”

  She saw him flinch when she said it, watched his shoulders hunch as if bracing for hammering blows. “How many times did you go down to Chinatown before you did Jacie in that alley, Tom? A guy like you does his research. How many trips did it take over there to scope out the whores and junkies?”

  “I don’t go to Chinatown.”

  “Never been to Chinatown? A native New Yorker?”

  “I’ve been there. Of course, I’ve been there.” He was starting to sweat now, and the cockiness had been replaced by shaky nerves. “I mean I don’t go there for . . . I don’t use LCs.”

  “Tom, Tom.” Eve clucked her tongue and sat across from him again. There was a pleasant smile on her face and a look of amused incredulity in her eyes. “A young, healthy man like you? You’re going to tell me you never paid for a quick blow job? Your wife hasn’t been inclined to give you much of a bounce for what, close to two years? And you haven’t made use of a perfectly legal service? If that’s true you must be pretty . . . wrought up. Or maybe you just can’t get it up anymore, and that’s why your wife checked out the competition.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.” His color came up again. “Jule’s just . . . I don’t know, she just has to get this out of her system. And, okay, so I’ve hired an LC a few times since things have gotten messed up at home. Jesus, I’m not a eunuch.”

  “She’s making you one. She’s insulted, belittled, betrayed you. Maybe you were just going out to pick up some stranger. Guy’s entitled when his wife shuts him out. Maybe things got out of hand. All that anger and frustration just built up. Thinking about how she’d lied to you, how she was in your bed fresh from another woman. Lying, cheating, making you nothing.”

  She let that single word vibrate in the room, let it slap at him. “You needed some attention, goddamn it. You’ve got a head full of men who knew how to get attention. Knew how to make a woman stand up and take notice. Had to feel good to rip into Jacie, into the symbol of her, to cut out what made her a woman. To make her pay, make them all pay for ignoring you.”

  “No.” He wet his lips, and his breath shuddered through them. “No. You’ve got to be out of your mind. Out of your mind. I’m not talking to you anymore. I want a lawyer.”

  “Are you going to let me beat you, too, Tom? You gonna let some female cop beat you down? Once you call the lawyer, I win the round. Start whining lawyer, and I charge you with suspicion of murder in the first, two counts. Assault with intent, one count. I get to squeeze your balls blue, that is if you’ve still got balls to squeeze.”

  His breath hissed in and out, in and out in the silence that followed. And he turned his face from hers. “I don’t have anything else to say until I’ve consulted with my attorney.”

  “Looks like it’s my point then. This interview is ended to allow the subject to arrange for legal representation at his request. Record off. Peabody, arrange for the standard psych exam for Mr. Breen, and escort him to holding where he can contact his legal rep.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Breen?”

  He got shakily to his feet. “You think you’ve humiliated me,” he said to Eve. “You think you’ve broken me down. But you’re too damn late. Julietta already took care of that.”

  She waited until he’d gone out, then she walked over and stared at her own reflection in the mirror.

  Exhausted, she went back to her office. For once she couldn’t face the buzz of coffee and opted for water. Standing by her stingy window, she drank like a camel, and watched the air and street traffic.

  People came, people went, she observed. They didn’t know what the hell went on in here. Didn’t want to know. Just keep us safe—that was the bottom line when they gave the cops inside the building a passing thought. Just do your job and keep us safe. We don’t care how you do it, as long as it doesn’t spill over on us.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Eve continued to stare out the window. “You got him tucked?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s contacted the lawyer, and he’s clammed. He requested a second transmission, re child care. I, um, I authorized it, with supervision. He contacted the neighbor and asked if she could keep Jed for several more hours. Said he’d gotten tied up with something. He made no request to contact his wife.”

  Eve simply nodded.

  “You were pretty rough on him in there.”

  “Is that an observation or a complaint?”

  “An observation. I know you’re going to say I’m an investigative slut, but he’s starting to look good to me. The way you sprang knowledge of the wife’s affair on him, he never recovered from that.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “And pushing the LC angle. The way he fumbled it, denying any association, then breaking down and admitting it to prove to you he was still sexually capable.”

  “Yeah, that was stupid of him.”

  “You don’t sound too juiced about it.”

  “I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

  “Maybe you want to take a break before you wrap him up. The lawyer’s got to get here, do the consult. You’ve got an hour anyway if you want to grab a bunk.”

  Eve started to speak, started to turn, and Trueheart stepped in. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, but Pepper Franklin is here, wants to see you. I didn’t know if you wanted me to pass her through.”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Do you want me to sit in?” Peabody asked her when Trueheart left. “Or go baby-sit Breen?”

  “Fortney was your pick before you decided to be fickle. Let’s both hear what she has to say.”

  She walked to her desk, sat, and swiveled toward the door when Pepper entered. The actress was wearing enormous silver sunshades and bright red lip dye. Her glamorous hair was pulled straight back in a long, sleek tail. The sunny yellow skinsuit was in direct opposition to the murderous expression on her lovely face.

  “Get us some coffee, Peabody. Have a seat, Pepper. What can I do for you?”<
br />
  “You can arrest that lying, cheating son of a bitch Leo, and drop him in the deepest, darkest hole you can find until the flesh rots off his fucking bones.”

  “No need to stifle your emotions in here, Pepper. Tell us how you really feel.”

  “I’m not in the mood for jokes.” She whipped off the shades and revealed an impressive shiner. It would be more impressive in a few hours, Eve judged, when the blood finished gathering in bruises.

  “Bet that hurts.”

  “I’m too mad to feel it. I found out he’s been boffing my understudy. My goddamn understudy. And the assistant stage manager. And Christ knows who else. When I confronted him, he denied it, just kept lying, telling me I was imagining things. Have you got any vodka?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Probably just as well. I woke up about three this morning. I don’t know why, generally I sleep like I’m in a coma. But I woke up, and he wasn’t there. I was confused, and concerned, so I did a house scan. And damned if it didn’t tell me he was there, in bed. Well, he wasn’t there, in bed. He’d programmed it to say so, I suppose, if I ever got suspicious and ran a replay, the system would verify that he’d never left the house. Bastard!”

  “I guess you looked through the place to make sure it wasn’t a glitch, and he was in the kitchen raiding the AutoChef.”

  “Of course I did. I was worried.” Bitterness spewed out like acid. “That was my only thought then. I looked all over the house, and I waited, and I thought about calling the police. Then it occurred to me he might have just gone out for a walk, or a drive, or Jesus, I don’t know. And the security system was faulty. I convinced myself, and I actually dozed off in the chair about six. When I woke up a couple hours later, there was a message on the ’link.”

  She reached into a handbag the size of Nebraska and pulled out the disc. “Do you mind? I’d like to hear it again.”

  “Sure.” Eve took it, slid it into her own ’link, and requested message play. Leo’s voice spilled out.

  GOOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD! DIDN’T WANT TO WAKE YOU. YOU LOOKED SO BEAUTIFUL SNUGGLED UP IN BED. GOT UP EARLY, DECIDED TO HEAD STRAIGHT TO THE HEALTH CLUB, AND ENDED UP HAVING A BREAKFAST MEETING. YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOU’LL RUN INTO. I’VE GOT A PRETTY FULL SCHEDULE, SO I WON’T BE BACK UNTIL AFTER YOU’VE LEFT TO RECORD THAT PROMO SPOT THIS AFTERNOON. YOU’LL BE GREAT! PROBABLY WON’T SEE YOU UNTIL AFTER THE SHOW TONIGHT. I’LL WAIT UP, ’CAUSE I MISS YOU, BABY DOLL.