by J. D. Robb
“Cops. Look, we reported the illegals’ deals we saw, and the junkies roaming around in the broad fricking daylight. We did our civic duty, and don’t appreciate getting hassled in the middle of the night.”
“We’re not with Illegals, Mr. Steeple. Carleen Steeple?”
The woman eased out, tugging at the belt of a robe. “Yes.”
“Your sister is Lily Napier?”
“Yes.” There was a flicker over her face. That first dawning of fear. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m sorry to inform you, your sister’s dead.”
“No.” She said it quietly, the single sound on the verge of a question.
“Oh Jesus. Jesus.” Andy Steeple transformed from pissed-off man to concerned husband in a snap. He walked quickly to his wife, gathered her against him. “Oh, honey. What happened?” he asked Eve. “What happened to Lily?”
“No,” Carleen said again. Just: No.
“Can we sit down, Mr. Steeple?”
He gestured toward a seating area with comfortably worn chairs, a sofa cheerfully covered in bright, overblown flowers. “Come on, honey. Come on, sweetie.” With his arm around his wife, he led her to the sofa. “Let’s just sit down.”
“Daddy?” A little girl, all curls and sleepy eyes, padded into the room.
“Go back to bed, Kiki.”
“What’s wrong with Mommy?”
“Go on back to bed, baby. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Kiki—”
“Would you like me to take care of her?” Peabody asked.
“I . . .” He looked undone for a moment, then nodded.
“Hi, Kiki, I’m Dee.” Peabody walked over, took the little girl’s hand. “Why don’t we get a glass of water?”
“My partner’s good with kids,” Eve told him. “She’ll be fine.”
“Could there be a mistake?”
“No, sir.”
“An accident?” Carleen turned her face into her husband’s shoulder. “An accident?”
“No. Your sister was murdered.”
“Junkies,” Steeple said. Bitterly.
“No.” Eve studied Carleen’s face, the pallor, the tears, the plea in her eyes. “I know this is difficult. It’s going to get more so. It appears that your sister was attacked on her way home from work. In Memorial Park.”
“She always cut through the park.” Carleen groped for her husband’s hand. “It’s quicker. It’s safe.”
“A mugging?”
Get through it, Eve told herself. Get it done fast, so they don’t suffer in the speculation. “She was raped and strangled.”
“Lily?” Carleen’s teary eyes went huge in shock. “Lily?” She would have slid to the floor if her husband hadn’t held her. “No, no, no.”
“The city should be safe.” There were tears in Steeple’s eyes now as he rocked his wife. “A woman should be able to walk home from goddamn work and be safe.”
“Yes, sir. She should. We’re going to do everything we can to find who did this to her. We need your help. I need to ask you some questions.”
“Now?” He tightened his hold on his wife. “Can’t you see we’re grieving?”
“Mr. Steeple.” Eve leaned forward so he met her eyes, so he saw what was in them. “Did you care for your sister-in-law?”
“Of course I did. Jesus.”
“Do you want the man who did this to her punished?”
“Punished?” He spat out the word. “I want him dead.”
“I want to find him. I want to stop him. I will find him, and I will stop him. But with your help, I may be able to do it faster. I may be able to do it before he does this to someone else’s sister.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Could you give us a minute? A minute alone?”
“Sure.”
“You could go in the kitchen over there.” He gestured.
Eve left them alone, walked into a galley-style kitchen with a bump out for eating. There were benches for seating covered by cushions with zigzagging patterns of yellows and blues. Yellow curtains with blue borders framed the windows. Place mats, she supposed you called them, lay on the table at each space, and matched the bench cushion.
Eve picked one up, fingering it.
“Lieutenant Dallas?” Steeple came to the doorway. “We’re ready now. I’m going to make some coffee. I think we could all use some.”
They sat in the living area, and with the little girl settled down, Peabody joined them. Carleen’s eyes were stark and damp, but she was making an effort to compose herself, Eve saw.
“Nothing about this is easy,” Eve began. “We’ll be as brief as possible so we can give you some privacy.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not at this time, no. I’m sorry. Your sister worked at O’Hara’s Bar and Grill?”
“Yes. Five years now. She liked it there. It’s a friendly place, and close to her apartment. She made good tips. She liked working nights and having most of her afternoons free.”
“Was she in a relationship?”
“Not right now. She dated some, but she’s been a little shy of men since the divorce.”
“And the ex-husband?”
“Rip? He’s remarried and lives in Vermont. I think, really, he was the love of her life, but she wasn’t his. Things just fell apart. It wasn’t ugly. It was just sad.”
“Don’t go looking at him for this.” Temper spiked in Steeple’s voice. “Some junkie maniac did this, and you waste time hassling a decent guy. A moron, but a decent guy, while the bastard who—”
“Andy.” With a muffled sob, Carleen gripped his hand. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But whoever did this is out there running around right now, and we’re just sitting here. Next thing, she’s going to ask where I was, and shit like that. Oh, goddamn.” He lowered his head to his hands. “Oh, goddamn.”
“The sooner questions are asked and answered, the sooner we can leave you alone. Do you know if anyone’s been bothering her?”
“No.” Carleen stroked her husband’s hair as she spoke. “Some of the guys at the bar tease her, but it’s not like that. She’s shy. Lily’s shy, but she’s comfortable there. They’re nice people. We go in sometimes. She never hurt anyone. I have to tell our parents. They live in South Carolina now. On a houseboat. They . . . how do I tell them Lily’s gone? How do we tell Kiki?”
“Don’t think about that yet,” Steeple said before Eve could speak. He lifted his head, appeared to have regained some composure. “One step at a time, sweetie. Is this like the other woman?” he asked Eve. “I saw it on the news. I saw you. Is this the same?”
“We’re pursuing that probability.”
“She was—”
Eve saw it in his eyes. Mutilated. But he stopped himself from saying the word, and drew his wife closer. “She was killed uptown.”
“Yes. Mrs. Steeple, did Lily do crafts?”
“Crafts? Lily?” A smile trembled onto her lips. “No. She didn’t like to play house, as she called it. It was part of the problem between her and Rip. He wanted a homebody, and Lily just wasn’t.”
“You have what look like handcrafted pieces in the other room.”
“Kiki’s room, too,” Peabody added. “It’s a lovely quilt on her bed.”
“That’s my work. When I got pregnant with Drew, our son, I decided—well, we decided,” she amended, linking her fingers with her husband’s, “that I’d try the professional mother route. I wanted to be able to stay home with the children. Then I realized, pretty quickly, I’d need something to do. I started quilting, then that expanded to needlepoint, macramé. I enjoy it.”
“Where do you get your supplies?”
“What does this have to do with Lily?”
“Mrs. Steeple, where do you get your craft supplies?”
“A number of places.” She named several on Eve’s list.
“Did Lily ever go with yo
u, when you shopped for supplies?”
“Well, yes. We often shopped together, for a lot of things. She liked to shop, to spend time with me and the kids. We shopped together at least once a week.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“But . . . Isn’t there something else?” Carleen asked when Eve got to her feet. “Isn’t there something more we can do?”
“There may be. We’ll stay in touch, Mrs. Steeple. You can reach either Detective Peabody or myself through Central, any time. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“I’ll show you out. Carleen, you should check on the kids.”
He walked them to the door, waited until he was sure his wife was out of earshot. “Look, I’m sorry I shot off like that.”
“No problem.”
“I want to know. Was she mutilated—like that other woman? I don’t want Carleen to see her if . . .”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“I’m not going to give you those details, not at this time. They’re confidential to the investigation.”
“I want to know when you find him. I want to know. I want—”
“I know what you want. But what you need to do is take care of your wife, of your family. You need to leave the rest of it to us.”
“You didn’t know her. You didn’t know Lily.”
“No. But I know her now.”
Chapter 11
It was after five A.M. when Eve walked into Homicide. The skeleton squad from the graveyard shift was handling the ’links, catching up on paperwork. Or sleep. She gestured a come-ahead to Peabody so her partner would follow her into her office.
“I’ve got to contact Whitney.”
“Better you than me.”
“While I do, you tag Celina. Inform her we’re sending a couple of plainclothes to bring her in for a statement. I want her here at eight hundred hours. Then find me two cops to take the detail. When you get that set, you should catch a couple hours in the crib.”
“Don’t have to tell me that twice. Gonna join me?”
“No, I’ll stretch out in my office.”
“Where?”
“Just get this set up and close the door behind you.”
Alone, Eve stared at the ’link, and recited a little mantra in her head.
Let the commander answer and not his wife, let the commander answer and not his wife. In the name of all that’s holy, let the commander answer and not his wife.
Then, sucking it up, she sat down and made the call.
She nearly let out a cheer when Whitney’s tired face popped on screen.
“I’m sorry to wake you, sir. There’s been a homicide in Memorial Park. Single victim, Caucasian female, age twenty-eight. Sexual homicide with mutilation. The same MO as Maplewood.”
“Scene secure?”
“It is, sir. I’ve closed the park and have men at every entrance.”
“Closed it?”
“Yes, sir. It’s necessary, for the next ten to twenty-four hours.”
He let out a long, long sigh. “Which means it’s necessary for me to wake up the mayor. I want a full report on my desk by eight hundred hours. I’ll see you in my office at nine hundred.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eve looked at the blank screen. No, she didn’t see how she was going to manage sleep.
She input her notes and the record from on scene. Preparing for the long day ahead, she programmed a full pot of coffee, then sat to refine her report.
She read it over, searching for any missed details. Finding none, she ran standard probabilities, included the results. Then she saved it, filed it, and copied her commander, her partner, and Mira.
Rising, she pinned Lily Napier’s photos, alive and dead, to her board.
At seven-fifteen, she set her wrist unit, stretched out on the floor and slept, restlessly, for twenty minutes. Primed with another cup of coffee, she took a shower in the facilities off the locker room. Briefly, she considered popping some Stay-Up, but it always made her feel jittery and strange.
If she was going to be heavily caffeinated, she preferred doing it with coffee.
She opted to use a conference room rather than her office for her session with Celina, and since Peabody didn’t appear to be up from her nap, scheduled it herself.
Then she called down to the desk sergeant on duty and requested to be informed when Celina Sanchez checked in.
Rather than tolerate the swill the department offered, she culled another pot of coffee from her office and carried it to the conference room.
The desk sergeant beeped her just as Peabody came in. She sniffed the air. “God. Just pour it in a saucer and I’ll lap it up.”
“Get us some bagels or something from vending first,” Eve told her. “Charge them to the squad budget.”
“You’re actually thinking about food. I must be dreaming.”
“Sanchez is on her way up. So get your ass moving.”
“That’s the Dallas I know and love.”
When the door was shut again, Eve pulled out her personal ’link and beeped Roarke’s.
He answered quickly.
“Okay, she’s . . .” Eve narrowed her eyes. “Where are you?”
“About to continue my little adventure in Daytime Breaking and Entering.”
“I told you to wait until I contacted you.”
“Hmm.” He smiled and continued to work on Celina’s bedside ’link. “It appears I’ve disobeyed, once again. I expect to be roundly punished at the first opportunity.”
“Damn it—”
“Would you like to continue this chat, or let me get on with things?”
“Do it.”
In Celina’s bedroom, Roarke smiled to himself. He had a habit of irritating his wife, and was afraid he was just small enough to enjoy it.
He’d watched the cops pull up, go into Celina’s building. Casual shirts and trousers aside, he’d have made them as what they were at two blocks, heading in the opposite direction.
Cops looked like cops, especially to the eye of a criminal. Even a former criminal.
And though he trusted his cop implicitly, he preferred casing a job personally.
Ten minutes after Celina had come out and driven off with her escort—it was always best to make certain the mark didn’t turn around and go back for something forgotten—he jammed her security cameras with a remote. And strolled across the street.
Under three minutes later he was through the outside locks and alarms, and strolling inside.
A short time later, he’d verified the source of the transmission and was replacing the ’link. Celina had made the call exactly as she’d claimed. From her own bedside unit, moments after two A.M.
His cop could stop wondering.
It was hard to resist that poking around Eve had warned him against. It was, after all, in his nature. She, his cop, would never understand the hum in the blood that came from simply being where you were not allowed to be.
He gave himself a moment of it, admiring the art on the bedroom walls—fanciful, sensual, evocative. The color scheme that was richly and confidently female.
And if he wandered the second level of the loft, he was, technically, on his way out.
He liked the style, the openness of space, and again what he saw as the confidence of a woman who knew how she wanted to live, and did so.
He thought it might be interesting to hire her for some business event down the road.
He strolled out, as he’d strolled in. And with a check of the time, calculated he’d be in midtown in plenty of time for his first meeting of the day.
He didn’t beep her. Eve knew Roarke and his clever fingers. When her personal ’link hadn’t signaled by the time Celina was brought into the conference room, she knew the transmission was verified as being made from the bedroom ’link as stated.
No need to wonder, she thought. And no mistaking the emotional state of the stricken and exhausted woman who came into the room.
She looked drawn and sallow, like someone who was recovering from a long and severe illness.
“Dallas.”
“Have a seat. Have some coffee.”
“I will.” She sat at the conference table and used both hands to lift the mug. Her rings clinked lightly against the cheap stoneware. “I took a soother after we spoke last night. Didn’t help very much. I took another right before I came in. That doesn’t seem to be doing the job either. What I’d like to do is tranq myself into a coma. But I’m not sure that would help either.”
“It wouldn’t help Lily Napier.”
“That’s her name?” She drank. Paused. Drank again. “I didn’t turn on the media reports this morning. I was afraid I’d see her.”
“You saw her last night.”
Celina nodded. “It was worse than the last one. What I mean is, for me. I’m not equipped for this.”
“It’s very difficult for someone with your gift to witness or experience violence,” Peabody said, and was rewarded with a grateful smile.
“Yes. God, yes. It’s not that I experience the same extent—the full physical extent of the violence as the victim, but enough. And if . . . when you’re linked, psychically, the emotions reverberate in you. I know how she suffered. I’m alive. I’m alive and whole and drinking coffee, while she’s not. But I know how she suffered.”
“Tell me what you saw,” Eve ordered.
“It was . . .” Celina held up a hand, as if halting everything until she gathered herself. “The other time, it was like a dream. A vivid and disturbing dream, but something I could dismiss as just that. Until I saw the media reports. This was more. I wouldn’t have, couldn’t have mistaken it for anything but a vision. One of the most powerful I’ve ever had. It was like being there. Walking alongside her.
“She walked quickly, with her head down.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Ah, dark skirt—black, I think—short. A white shirt. Long sleeves, open collar, and a little cardigan-style sweater over it. Flat shoes with thick soles. Gel-soles, perhaps. She barely made a sound. She had a bag. A small purse she wore on a strap over her shoulder.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark. I don’t know. She didn’t know he was there, waiting, inside the park. In the shadows. He was dark, everything about him is dark.”