by J. D. Robb
“First was for Peabody. Second was . . .”
“I know. For all of them.” He knew it embarrassed her, but he couldn’t help himself. He leaned down, kissed her. “You are my hero.”
“Get out.”
“Lieutenant?” One of the team called out from below. “You’re going to need to see this. Basement level.”
“On my way.”
It was a horror she’d never forget. No matter how many she’d already witnessed, how many were yet to come.
The basement had been converted, some years before from the look of it, into a small warren of rooms. His primary living space, Eve concluded, with some recent adjustments.
His office was tidily and efficiently set up. Three complete d and c units, a wall of discs, minifridgie, miniAutoChef. And lights so bright they almost burned the eyes.
He’d set up a personal fitness center, equipment, mirrors, a sparring droid nearly as big as he was. The lights seared.
In the third room, the walls were also mirrored, and the lights burned bright, bouncing their reflections everywhere. She could see the fitness area from that position.
It was his bedroom—a young boy’s room with toys on a shelf, Space Invaders paper on one of the walls. The bed was narrow and neatly made with a cover that boasted interplanetary warriors in full battle.
There was a chair, child-sized, fit with restraints. Wrist and ankle shackles. Tied on one of its arms was a bright red cloth.
She’d cast him into the basement, Eve thought. And despite the toys, the touches of youthful decor, had made it his prison.
He’d kept it as one.
But he’d made an addition.
There was a single long shelf bracketed into the wall. New from the looks of it, and the metal brackets shone clean and silver.
On it were fifteen clear jars filled with a pale blue liquid.
Floating in the pale blue were fifteen pairs of eyes.
“Fifteen,” Eve said and forced herself to look. “Fifteen.”
Eve stood with Roarke in Observation. Inside Interview A, Blue was shackled to the table—hand and foot.
He’d screamed like a madman—mad child—when they’d muscled him down, snapped them on. Had only calmed when, at his terrified demands, they’d boosted the lights in the room to full.
She imagined, if he got riled enough he could lift the whole shebang and do some damage.
“You’re not going in alone.” It wasn’t a question Roarke asked, it was a statement with the subtle edge of warning.
“I’m not stupid. It’s me, Feeney, and two uniforms built like Arena Ball tackles. You sure you want to watch this?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.”
“Patching it through to Peabody’s hospital room, so she and McNab can watch. They’ll put him away in an institution. Mental defectives. It’s not the cage I’d choose for him, but it’ll have to do.”
“You need him to tell you where the bodies are.”
She nodded. “He’ll tell me.”
After one last look, she moved out of Observation. Signaling to Feeney, she unlocked the door, stepped inside ahead of him and the two guards.
“Record on.” She recited the data, smiled. “Hello, John.”
“I don’t have to talk to you. Bitch.”
“No, you don’t have to talk to me.” She sat down, hooked an arm around the back of her chair. “And that’s Lieutenant Bitch to you. You don’t want to have a chat, we can send you back to a cage. You’re booked, John. All those murder charges. Rape, murder, mutilation. Got you cold, and you’re smart enough to known it. Crazy as a shithouse rat, maybe, but you’re not stupid.”
“You shouldn’t call him crazy, Dallas.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” She smirked at Feeney. “Probably got a bunch of sob stories to tell. Traumas and emotional scarring. Shrinks’ll eat that up. Me, I don’t give that shithouse rat’s skinny ass. You’re going down, John. Fact is, you are down. We got evidence flying out our butts on you. You go and leave us the eyes. What’s with that? What’s with the eyes, John?”
“Fuck you.”
“Rape isn’t fucking. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”
He reared back, face contorting. “You shut up about my mother.”
Got your trigger, she thought. “I don’t have to shut up about anything. See, how it works is I’m in charge here. I’m the boss. I’m the woman who busted your balls and locked you up. You messed up my partner, John, so I’m not going to shut up until you squeal like a pig.”
She slapped her hands on the table, shoved her face into his. “Where are they, John? Where are the rest of the bodies that go with the eyes?”
“Fuck you, whore bitch.”
“Sweet-talking me isn’t going to work.”
“Come on, Dallas.” Feeney patted her shoulder. “Ease back a little. Listen, John, you want to help yourself here. You got trauma, I can see that.”
Eve made a rude noise.
“We saw the shackles, John. We saw how it must’ve been for you when you were a kid. I bet you’ve been through a lot, and maybe you didn’t know what you were doing. Not really. You couldn’t help it. But you need to help yourself now. You need to show us some remorse. You need to tell us where the others are, John. You do that, you volunteer that, and it’s going to make a difference with the PA.”
“She says you’re going to lock me away for killing a bunch of whores. How’s telling you where anything is going to help me?”
“Listen, the police officer’s going to be okay.”
“Her name’s Peabody,” Eve interrupted. “Detective Delia. She got one into you, didn’t she, John. Gave you back some pain.”
She arched her eyebrows when he drew one of his arms toward his chest. “Stings like a bitch, doesn’t it, when the stream hits.”
“Doesn’t bother me.” His gaze tracked to the mirror, and his shoulders relaxed again. “Look at me. I can take anything.”
“Ran, didn’t you? Ran like a rabbit.”
“Shut up, you bitch! I did what I had to do.”
“Let’s calm down.” Feeney gestured down with his hands, keeping the tone and rhythm of good cop in play. “The important thing for you, John, is Detective Peabody’s all right. That counts a lot. Maybe we couldn’t help you out if she’d taken a downturn, but she’s okay. There are things we can do for you, John. You cooperate, you show remorse, you give us the information we need to bring some closure to the families of those other victims, we’re going to put in some good words for you.”
“I did what I had to do. Why do you lock a man up for doing what he has to do?”
Eve pulled a red cord out of her pocket. “Why did you use this?” When he only stared, she wrapped it around her own throat, watched his eyes go glassy. “You like how it looks on me? Want to get your hands on the ends, John, and pull?”
“Should’ve killed you first.”
“Yeah, you got that right.”
His gaze was locked on the cord, and beads of sweat were popping out on his face, on the dome of his head. “Where’s your mother, John?”
“Shut up, I said, about my mother!”
“She liked to do crafts. We got her account from Total Crafts. But you know what, word is nobody’s seen her around in months. Damn near a year now. You kill her first, John? You take some of her ribbon, like all that red ribbon we found in the house, and wrap it around her neck? You rape your own mother, John? Did you rape and strangle your mother, and take her eyes?”
“She was a whore.”
“What did she do to you, John?”
“Deserved what she got.” Breathing shallow, he stared at the mirror again. Nodded slowly. “Deserved it. Every time.”
“What did she do?” There was nothing wrong with his eyes. She could see that, and she’d checked his medicals. And she thought of the bright lights. Sunshades and bright lights. Eyes in jars.
“It’s a little bright in here,” she said conversa
tionally. “Lights, fifty percent.”
“Turn them back up.” The sweat was rolling now. “I’m not talking to you in the dark.”
“You’re not saying anything I want to hear. Lights, thirty percent.”
“Turn them on, turn them on! I don’t like the dark. Don’t leave me in the dark. I didn’t mean to see!”
His tone had gone high. A boy’s voice in panic and plea. It touched something in her, but she tamped it down. “See what? Tell me, John. Tell me, and I’ll turn the lights up again.”
“Whore, naked in bed. Letting him touch her, touching him. I didn’t mean to see.”
“What did she do to you?”
“Put the cloth over your eyes. Tie it tight. Little prick, got no business spying on me when I’m working. Lock you in again. Lock you in the dark. Maybe I’ll poke your eyes out next time, then you won’t see what you’re not supposed to see.”
Chains rattled as he struggled in the chair. “I don’t want to be in the dark. I’m not weak and puny and stupid.”
“What happened in the park?”
“Just playing, that’s all. Just playing, me and Shelley. I just let her touch it. It hurts, it hurts when Mommy hits it with a stick. Burns, burns when she scrubs it with the powder. Pour acid on it next time and see how you like it. In the dark, can’t see, can’t get out.”
He fell against the table, weeping.
“You got strong, didn’t you, John? You got strong and paid her back for it.”
“She shouldn’t have said those things to me. She shouldn’t laugh at me and call me names. I’m not a freak. I’m not good-for-nothing. I’m a man.”
“And you showed her you were a man. A man who can rape whores when he wants to. You shut her up.”
“Shut her right up.” He lifted his head, and madness rolled in his eyes even as tears streamed out of them. “How do you like it now? She only sees what I tell her to see now. That’s what. I’m in charge now. And when I see her again, I know what to do.”
“Tell me where she is now, John. Where the rest of her is.”
“It’s dark. Too dark in here.”
“Tell me so I can turn the lights back up.”
“Buried. Decent burial, but she kept coming back! It’s dark in the ground. Maybe she doesn’t like it there. Put her outside, put her in the park. Make her remember! Make her sorry.”
“Where did you bury her?”
“Little farm. Granny’s farm. She liked the farm. Maybe she’ll live there one day.”
“Where’s the farm?”
“Upstate. Not a farm anymore. Just an old house. Ugly old house, locks on the doors. She’ll lock you in there, too. Maybe leave you there for the rats to eat you don’t do what she says, when she damn well says it. Granny locked her in plenty, and that’ll teach you to mind your p’s and q’s.”
He was jerking on the chains as he spoke, rocking back and forth in the chair, teeth bared, skin shining with sweat.
“But she won’t sell it. Greedy bitch won’t sell it and give me my share. She won’t give me anything. Not giving her hard-earned to some freak. Time to take it, take it all. Bitch.”
“Lights on full.”
He blinked against them, like a man coming out of a trance. “I don’t have to say anything to you.”
“No, you’ve said enough.”
Chapter 22
She ordered droids and dogs, a search unit, and the equipment necessary for multiple-remains location, identification, and removal.
And knew it would be a very long, very difficult procedure.
She requested Morris personally, and asked that he select a team. She expected and was unsurprised when Whitney and Tibble arranged to make the trip upstate.
For the moment, for a small window of time, they would keep the media at bay. But it would leak soon enough, she knew, and the ugly carnival would begin.
Because she wanted time to prepare, to think, without the distraction of cop chatter or questions, she traveled upstate in one of Roarke’s jet-copters, with him in the pilot seat.
They flew through a steady, dreary rain. Nature’s way of weighing in, she thought, to make a hideous job more so. She saw a little burst of lightning bloom on the horizon, far to the north, and hoped it stayed there.
Roarke didn’t ask questions, and his silence throughout the flight helped steady her for what was to come. This sort of procedure would never be routine. Never could be routine.
“Nearly there.” Roarke glanced at the comp map highlighting their destination, then nodded toward the windscreen. “At two o’clock.”
It wasn’t much of a house. She could see that from the air as they started the descent. Small, ill-kept, poorly maintained, if she was any judge. It looked to her as if the roof sagged—probably leaked, and the lawn fronting the steep, narrow road was weedy and littered with trash.
But the back was blocked in with trees, and in front of them ranged a high fence. The lawn, such as it was, spread up, dipped down, following the rise and fall of land.
There were other houses, and the curious would come out of them before long. None of those houses were close, not to the bumpy land back of the house. A man with a mission, she thought, a man with a job to do, could carry it out in relative privacy in such a place.
Uniforms would knock on doors and ask about the Blues, and a dark van, and any odd activities.
They set down. Roarke killed the engines.
“You feel some sympathy for him. John Blue.”
Through the rain, she stared at the house, the dark, dirty windows, the scabs of paint puckering its skin. “I feel some sympathy for a defenseless child tortured by a parent, by a woman who most certainly was vicious and cruel. We know what that’s like.”
She turned her head, looked at him. “We know how it can twist and scar. What it can drive you to. And I feel a twinge, maybe more than a twinge, at the way I played the child in Interview. You saw how I went after him.”
“I saw you doing what needed to be done, even when it hurt you. Hurt you, Eve, as much as him. Maybe more.”
“Needed to be done,” she agreed, and would live with that. “Because a child didn’t kill these women. A child didn’t rape and beat and strangle them, mutilate their bodies. A child didn’t put Peabody in the hospital. So no, when it comes down to the line, I don’t feel for John Blue. We had as bad.”
“You had worse.”
“Maybe.” She breathed deep. “Maybe. And like him, I killed my tormentor.”
“Not like him, Eve. Nothing like him.” It was that point, that vital point, he’d wanted to make to her. “You were a child, in desperate terror and pain. Defending yourself, doing whatever you could to make it stop. He was a man, and had the choice of walking away. However she twisted him, he was a man when he committed these acts.”
“The child lives inside. I know that’s shrink pap, but it’s true enough. We’ve both got that lost child in us.”
“And?”
“And we don’t allow that lost, damaged child to strike the innocent. I know. You don’t have to soothe me. I know. We use, I guess, that child to stand for the innocent. Me with my badge, you with places like Dochas. We could’ve gone the other way, but we didn’t.”
“Well, I had a few detours.”
It made her smile, and thank God for him. “And we haven’t finished the trip yet. Roarke.” She touched a hand to his. “You don’t know how hard this is going to be.”
“I have some idea.”
She shook her head, and her face was already bleak. “No, you don’t. I’ve done this before. It’s worse than you can imagine. I’m not going to ask you to go back or hang around the edges, because you won’t. But I’m saying, if you need a break from it, take it. Walk away for a while. Others will, believe me. There’s no shame in it.”
She, he thought, would never walk away. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
She had the back of the house cordoned off. While the dogs and droids were
sent in, she took a team into the house. It was dank and foul inside, dark as a cave, but when she called for lights, the place illuminated like a torch.
No dark rooms for John Blue, she thought.
He’d killed them in the bedroom, the smaller of the two. His room, Eve assumed, whenever they’d made the trip here. There were locks on the outside of the door—old locks. Locks she’d undoubtedly installed to keep the boy inside. Lock him in the dark, as her mother had locked her.
So he’d killed her there, on the stained mattress, lying naked on the floor. Killed others there, in her image.
She saw lengths of red cord, remnants of women’s clothing, and the smears and stains of blood that had dried on the mattress, on the floor.
“Everything bagged and tagged,” she ordered. “I want a full sweep. Personal items of some of the vic’s may include their identification. When it’s done, I want the porta-lab and tech in here to get samples of the blood. We’re going to ID every victim he brought here.”
“Lieutenant?” One of the team stepped up. He wore his full protective suit, but had yet to attach the mask and filter. “We’re locating them.”
“How many so far?”
“Dogs just found number seven, and it doesn’t look like they’re done.”
“On my way.”
Feeney hustled over to join her. His Mrs. Feeney suit was smeared with cobwebs and muck. “Found a Robo-dig in the basement. Looks fairly new. Been used.”
“Why use a shovel when you can use a machine? And one that makes a manly hum. Neighbors could’ve heard that.”
“I’ll dispatch some uniforms, start the knock on doors.”
“Get it started.” She pulled on her protective suit, carried her mask out into the rain.
Found seven, she thought. No, they hadn’t finished yet. She knew exactly how many more would be found.
Droids scooted along the uneven ground. One of the dogs barked, and his body went into a shiver of wagging as he snuffed along the ground. At his handler’s signal, he sat, waited.
He’d done his job. And they put up the marker for number eight.
Eve walked to Whitney who stood under a wide, black umbrella. “Sir. Do you want me to begin evacuation?”