The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  “Lots of big, bad cities out there.”

  “None of them is New York.”

  Thoughtfully, Eve studied the traffic jammed on the streets. Horns blasted in arrogant defiance of city ordinances. On the corner, a glide-cart vender shouted out colorful insults to the retreating back of a customer who’d obviously annoyed him.

  “You got that right.”

  “Well. Well. This is a very unusual request.”

  The store manager dithered in her tiny office, where the single chair was covered in what looked to Eve to be a lot of scraps stuck together in a pattern that worshipped some demanding and possibly psychotic god of color.

  She was a fortyish woman with apple cheeks and a constant smile. She continued to use it even as she stood wringing her hands together and looking confused.

  “You do keep a customer list, Ms. Chancy?”

  “Well, of course. Of course, we do. Most of our clientele repeat, and they appreciate being notified of specials and sales and events. Why, just last week we had—”

  “Ms. Chancy? We just want the list.”

  “Yes. Well, yes. Lieutenant, is it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “You see, I’ve never had a request of this nature, and I’m unsure how to proceed.”

  “Let me help you out with that. You give us the list, and we say thank you for your cooperation.”

  “But our customers. They may object. If they feel I’ve, somehow, infringed on their privacy, they may object, you see. And shop elsewhere.”

  It wasn’t difficult, in the confined space, for Peabody to nudge Eve. “We can assure you of our discretion, Ms. Chancy,” she said. “This is a very serious matter we’re investigating, and we need your help. But there’s no reason for us to reveal to any of your customers how we obtained their name.”

  “Oh, I see. I see.”

  But she continued to stand, biting her smiling lip.

  “What a beautiful quilt chair.” Peabody ran her hand over it. “Is this your work?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. I’m particularly proud of it.”

  “I can see why. It’s exceptional work.”

  “Thank you! Do you quilt?”

  “A little. I do a little of this, a little of that. I’m hoping to make more time for my handwork in the future, especially since I’m moving to a new apartment shortly. I’d like to have it reflect my interests.”

  “Well, of course,” Ms. Chancy said, enthusiastically.

  “I noticed how well supplied and how organized your shop is. I’ll certainly be back, in an unofficial capacity, as soon as I’ve settled into my new place.”

  “Wonderful! Let me give you our store information. We hold classes, you know, and have monthly clubs for any interest.” She plucked a disc out of a box covered with fabric daisies.

  “Great.”

  “You know, Lieutenant, handcrafting not only gives you the opportunity to create beautiful things that reflect your own style and personality while honoring centuries of traditions, but it is very therapeutic. I imagine anyone in your line of work needs to be able to relax and cleanse the soul.”

  “Right.” Peabody swallowed the tickle of laughter at her field promotion by the shopkeeper. “I couldn’t agree more. I have a number of friends and associates who could use the same.”

  “Really?”

  “If we could have your customer list, Ms. Chancy.” Peabody gave her a bright, toothy smile. “We’d very much appreciate your cooperation, and your support of the NYPSD.”

  “Oh. Hmm. When you put it that way.” She cleared her throat. “But you’ll be discreet?”

  Peabody kept the smile plastered on her face. “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll just make you a copy.”

  Back on the street Peabody’s smile turned smug, and there was a little bounce to her step as she walked. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Come on.” She jabbed Eve with her elbow. “Spread a little glory.”

  Eve stopped at a glide-cart. Caffeine was going to be an essential part of the day. “Couple tubes of Pepsi,” she ordered.

  “One straight, one Pepsi Fitness. Watching the weight,” she said to Eve.

  Eve shrugged, dug out credits. She took the first hit and decided there was hope left in the world. “You did a good job. Maybe a longer dance than the one with me smashing Chancy’s face into her desk, but not as messy.”

  “See, now that we’re partners, I can be the one with the voice of reason.”

  “Uh-huh. What was up with that chair?”

  “Quilt chair. They can be a real focal point—homey or amusing or striking. And it’s a clever way to recycle scraps from other projects. I didn’t like her choice of fabrics, but the workmanship was first class.”

  “Gee, the things you learn,” Eve said. “That have absolutely no use. Pick up the pace, Peabody, it’s a quicker way to ditch the weight than drinking PFs.”

  “But see, I’m drinking the PF and exercising. Which means I can have dessert at the dinner party tonight. So, what are you wearing?”

  “What am I . . . oh shit.”

  “I don’t think that’s appropriate attire for a casual dinner. We have to go,” she continued before Eve could speak. “Unless things heat up, we have to. A couple, three hours—after shift—socializing and recreating with friends isn’t going to hamper the investigation, Dallas.”

  “Jeez.” She chugged Pepsi as she strode the half a block north toward the first fitness center. “It’s weird enough, this whole cozy gathering, but now I have to do it on no sleep and with bodies piling up. My life used to be simple.”

  “Mmm.”

  “It did. Because it didn’t have all these people in it.”

  “If you need to shove somebody out, you know, to simplify? Could you give Roarke the push? See, McNab and I have this understanding. If Roarke’s clear, I get to take my shot at him. McNab gets one at you.”

  When Eve choked on the last swallow from the tube, Peabody gave her a helpful thump on the back. “Joking. Just sort of joking.”

  “You and McNab have a sick, sick relationship.”

  “We do.”

  Peabody beamed. “It makes us very happy.”

  Jim’s Gym was a hole in the wall down a dingy flight of stairs and through a muscular iron door. Eve assumed if a prospective member couldn’t handle the door, he was laughed back up to the sidewalk where he could slink away holding his puny biceps.

  It smelled male, but not in a flattering sense. It was the kind of odor that hit you dead center of the face, like a fist wrapped in a sweaty jock strap.

  Paint was peeling from the walls that had been tuned up to an industrial gray around the time she’d been born. There were rusty splotches in the ceiling from water damage and a grimy beige floor so soaked with sweat and blood the fumes of both rose up like fetid fog.

  She imagined the men who frequented the place breathed it in like perfume.

  The equipment was elemental—no frills. Weights and bars, a couple of heavy bags, a couple of speed bags. There were a few clunky machines that looked to have been manufactured in the last century. A single spotted mirror where a man built like a cargo shuttle was doing biceps curls.

  Another was bench-pressing what looked like your average redwood, without a spotter. She imagined the concept of spotters would be spat upon in such facilities.

  A third man pummeled one of the heavy bags like it was an adulterous ex-wife.

  All were stripped down to baggy gray sweatpants and shirts with the arms ripped off. Like a uniform, she thought. All that was missing were the words Bad Ass emblazoned over the chest.

  When Eve and Peabody stepped in, all movement stopped. Biceps Curls held his fifty-pounder suspended, Bench Press clanked his redwood in the safety, and Heavy Bag stood, pouring sweat, with his fist laid into the bag.

  In the silence, Eve heard the echoing thuds from the next room, and the encouraging: “Lead with your left, you stupid fuck!”<
br />
  She scanned the faces, then went with Heavy Bag because he was the closest. “Place got a manager?”

  To her amazement, he flushed scarlet—all two hundred twenty-five pounds of him. “Ah, just Jim. He’s, um, he owns the place. He’s, um. Um, he’s got Beaner sparring over in the ring. Ma’am.”

  She started across the room. Bench Press sat up, eyed her with open suspicion and considerable dislike. “Jim, he don’t take no females in here.”

  “Jim must be unaware that it’s illegal to discriminate due to sex.”

  “Discriminate.” He barked a laugh and sneered. “He don’t discriminate. He just don’t take no females.”

  “A fine distinction. What you got there? Two seventy-five. That be about your weight?”

  He swiped sweat from his wide, cocoa-colored face. “Guy can’t bench his weight, he’s a girl.”

  With a nod, Eve unlocked the weights, adjusted them. “That’s my weight.” Then she wagged a thumb, inviting him to rise.

  Heavy Bag stepped over as she positioned herself on the bench. “Ma’am. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  “No, I don’t. Spot me, Peabody.”

  “Sure.”

  Eve curled her hands around the bar, set. And did ten slow, steady reps. She replaced the bar, slid off the bench. “I ain’t no girl.”

  She nodded to Heavy Bag, who blushed again, then strolled toward the next room.

  “I can’t bench my weight yet,” Peabody said in an undertone. “I guess I’m a girl.”

  “Practice.”

  She stopped to watch the sparring match.

  There was a bruiser in the ring with black skin so glossy it looked oiled. He had tree-trunk legs, abs that looked like ridges of steel. A punishing right, she noted, but he telegraphed it by dropping his left shoulder.

  His opponent was in the Nordic god style, and quick on his feet. When she stepped closer, she made it as a droid.

  The trainer was wrapped in gray sweats and jogged to different spots outside the ring to shout instruction and insult with equal fervor.

  He was about five eight, Eve judged, and on the shady side of fifty. From the looks of it, his nose had had the occasion to meet someone’s fist with some regularity. When he peeled back his lips to spew abuse on his fighter, Eve caught the glint of a silver tooth.

  She waited until the end of the round and watched the black guy—heavyweight division—hang his head as the flyweight berated him from outside the ropes.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Eve began.

  Jim’s head whipped around. “I don’t like women in my place.” He heaved a towel at his fighter, then rolled toward Eve like a small tank. “Out.”

  Eve took out her badge. “Why don’t we start over?”

  “Female cops. Worse than a regular female. This is my place. Man oughta be able to do what he wants to do in his own place and not have some female cop come around telling him he has to cater to women.”

  He was working up a good head of steam, eyes bulging, head bopping like a pigeon’s, feet dancing in place. “I’ll shut down before I have females prancing around here and asking me where’s the fucking lemon water.”

  “Aren’t we both lucky I’m not here to bust your chops about your overt violations of discrimination laws.”

  “Discrimination, my ass. This is a serious gym, not some froufrou palace.”

  “So I see. I’m Lieutenant Dallas, this is Detective Peabody. We’re Homicide.”

  “Well, I sure as hell haven’t killed anybody. Lately.”

  “That’s a big relief to me, Jim. You got an office?”

  “Why?”

  “So we could go there and have a discussion instead of me cuffing you and hauling your disagreeable ass into Central to have the discussion there. I’m not interested in shutting you down. I don’t give a rat’s skinny ass if you block women from your membership list or if you haul them in by the bargeload to dance naked in the showers. Providing you have shower facilities, which from the smell of things, you don’t.”

  “I got showers. I got an office. This is my place, and I run it my way.”

  “Fine and good. Your office or mine, Jim?”

  “Goddamn females. You.” He jabbed a finger at his fighter who continued to stand, gloves dangling, head down. “You do an hour with the rope till you learn what to do with your damn clumsy feet. I gotta go have a discussion.”

  He marched off.

  “Things started going downhill,” Peabody commented as they started after him, “as soon as they gave us the vote. Bet he has that sad day circled in funeral black on his perpetual calendar.”

  They had to climb a set of rusty iron stairs to a second level. The amazing stench of body odor, mildew, and flatulence identified the shower facilities. And made the eyes water.

  Even Eve, who didn’t consider herself overly fussy, was forced to agree with Peabody’s whispered: gross.

  Jim turned into a room identified as his office by the desk buried under sparring gloves, mouth guards, paper, and used towels. The walls were decorated with photos of a younger Jim in boxing trunks. In one he held a title belt aloft. Since his right eye was swollen shut, his nose bloody, and his torso black-and-blue, she assumed it hadn’t been an easy victory.

  “What year did you take the title?” Eve asked him.

  “Forty-five. Twelve rounds. Knocked Hardy into a coma. Took him three days to come out of it.”

  “You must be proud. We’re conducting an investigation into the rape and strangulation of two women.”

  “Don’t know nothing about it.” He tossed what might have been a pile of dirty laundry off a chair and sat. “Got two ex-wives. Gave up on women after the second one.”

  “Wise choice. We believe the killer lives, works, or frequents this area.”

  “Which is it? Typical female, can’t make up your mind.”

  “I can see why you have those two ex-wives, Jim. You’re such a charmer. Two women are dead. They were beaten, raped, strangled, and mutilated, for no reason other than they were women.”

  The cocky grin faded from his face. “That’s why I don’t watch nothing but the sports channels. You think I go around beating and raping and killing women? I gotta get me a damn lawyer now?”

  “That’s up to you. You’re not a suspect, but we believe the man who killed these women, who may have killed others, is serious about his body maintenance. He’s big, and he’s very strong. You’d get that type in here.”

  “Well, Jesus H. Christ, what am I supposed to do? Ask a guy when he comes in to lift if he’s going out to strangle some woman after?”

  “You’re supposed to cooperate with the authorities and give me your membership list.”

  “I know laws and shit. I don’t have to do that unless you slap me with a warrant.”

  “Try this instead.” Eve reached into Peabody’s bag and took out Elisa Maplewood’s ID photo. “This is what one of his victims looked like. Before. I won’t show you the after. You wouldn’t recognize her, not after what he’d done to her. She had a four-year-old daughter.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.” He looked away from it, glowered at the wall. “I know the guys who come in here. You think I’d let some crazy woman-killer use my place? I’d sooner have females.”

  “The membership list.”

  He puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t hold with rape. Man’s got a hand, doesn’t he? Plenty of LCs around if he’s got to stick his dick in something. I don’t hold with rape. Worse than killing, you ask me.”

  He shoved at the debris on his desk until he unearthed an ancient portable computer.

  Peabody heaved out a breath when they were back on the street. “That was an experience. My olfactory sense is still in shock. It may take a week to recover. Some of the places we hit yesterday were a little ripe, and you could say colorful. But that wins the trophy.”

  “We’ve got another one to go. Second craft place is two blocks west. We’ll hit that, double back, and take th
e next gym.”

  Peabody calculated the distance already hiked, the distance yet to go. “I get two desserts tonight.

  It took more than two hours. It would’ve taken longer, but they caught an assistant manager at the craft center who was so excited at the prospect of being even a peripheral part of a murder investigation she would have given them every scrap of data at her fingertips.

  The second gym was cleaner, more crowded, and a great deal less pungent. But the manager insisted on speaking with the owner, who refused any cooperation until he, himself, could come in to deal with the situation.

  He was a hard-bodied six three, a light-skinned Asian with a skullcap of salt-and-pepper hair. He offered Eve a hand and took hers in the careful way of a big man who was aware of his size and strength.

  “I’ve heard about these murders. It’s a terrible thing.”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?”

  His office wasn’t any larger than Jim’s, but it looked to have been cleaned and outfitted not only within the last quarter century, but perhaps within the last week.

  “I understand you want a list of our members.”

  “That’s right. Our investigation indicates the killer may use facilities such as this.”

  “I don’t like to think I’m acquainted with, or doing business with, anyone who could do something like this. It’s not that I don’t want to cooperate, Lieutenant, but it seems I should consult with my lawyer first. Membership lists are confidential.”

  “You’re free to do so, Mr. Ling. We’ll get a warrant. It’ll take some time, but we’ll get one.”

  “And the time it takes may give him the opportunity to kill another woman. I hear the subtext, loud and clear. I’m going to give you the list, but I’m going to ask if you need anything else, to come directly to me, rather than my manager. I’ll give you my private number. Men gossip, Lieutenant, the same as anybody. I don’t want our members put off by the idea they may be pumping iron or showering off next to a homicidal maniac.”

  “That’s no problem.” She waited a moment while he ordered his computer to access the membership list and copy to disc. “You don’t cater to women?”

  “Female members are welcome,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Otherwise I’d be in violation of federal and state statutes regarding discrimination. But oddly enough, you’ll see we have no women on our membership list currently.”