by J. D. Robb
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas. I brought you in.”
“Yes. With the man. He has blue eyes. I remember his blue eyes.”
“Hard to forget. This is my partner, Detective Peabody.”
“Oh.” Daphne shifted her gaze. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Strazza.” Eve pulled her attention back. “I regret to inform you, your husband was killed early this morning.”
Daphne continued to stare. “Killed? But he’s very important.”
“His body was found in the bedroom where you were attacked.”
Daphne lay still, but her breathing quickened. The monitor beeped faster. “But…” She turned her head, eyes still wide but dry, staring toward the window. “I wasn’t dead. I thought … My husband is dead.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Strazza,” Peabody said.
“My husband’s dead. Something terrible happened. Do you know what happened?”
“Do you?”
Daphne closed her eyes. Her hands lay still on the white sheets, as if she were asleep. “It’s like looking through a curtain. In some places it’s thin, and I can see. In others it’s thick, and I can’t. I feel as if I could float away, just float away.” She opened her eyes again. “Am I floating?”
“It’s the meds.”
“It feels good to float. It feels free. I can’t see my husband. Not through the curtain, not when I float. I can’t see what happened to him. Maybe he’s not dead. He’s very important. He’s very strong. He’s a very skilled surgeon. He’s—”
“I’m sorry,” Eve interrupted. “I identified his body.”
“His body,” Daphne whispered.
“What do you see? What do you remember?”
“The devil. But it’s not the devil. It’s a man. How can the devil be a man? I think a man can be a devil.”
“What does the devil look like?”
“His face is red, burning red, and there are little horns here.” She touched the top of her forehead. “He has a terrible smile. I think his eyes are red, but then I think they’re yellow. The lights are flashing, red and yellow. Someone’s screaming. Someone’s laughing. Anthony? No, my husband’s not laughing. He’s not screaming. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can.” Eve laid a hand on Daphne’s shoulder as the woman jerked up gasping. “You can breathe. No one’s hurting you now.”
“But it hurts. It hurts.” The tears came now, spilling out of those wide eyes. “You can’t go away because he brings you back. I had sex with the devil, and it burns, it tears. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.”
“He can’t touch you now.” Eve slapped down the bed guard, sat on the side of the bed. “He can’t get to you now.”
“He’ll find me.” Daphne gripped Eve’s arm, used it as a lever to sit up, then still holding tight, looked wildly around the room. “He can find me. He can find me anywhere.”
“No, he can’t. He won’t.”
“He chose me. Devil’s whore. It hurts when he makes me his whore. It burns. It glows red and it burns.” She gripped Eve’s hands hard, spoke in a whisper. “If you beg, if you fight, he’ll make it hurt more.”
“You’re safe here.”
Daphne collapsed back, shut her eyes as tears ran down her cheeks. “Nowhere is safe.”
Del rushed in. “Hey. Back off,” he snapped at Eve, then laid a gentle hand on Daphne’s wet cheek. “It’s okay now. It’s all good. Remember me?”
She opened her eyes, stared at him. “You’re the doctor. You’re noble.”
“That’s my name. I want to take a look at you, okay? See how you’re doing.” He glanced back as a female nurse stepped in. “And this is Rhoda. She’s going to help me with the exam.”
“Do you have to touch me?”
“We’ll be careful. I promise.”
Rhoda stepped up, smiled. “Dr. Nobel’s a sweetheart.”
“Aw,” he said.
“He’s been looking out for you. He’s going to keep looking out for you.”
“If the devil comes—”
“The police won’t let the devil in here. Neither will Dr. Nobel.”
Del glanced over his shoulder at Eve. “Give us a minute.”
In the corridor, Eve paced. “Get that fresh uniform in here.”
“She’s on her way. I thought, under the circumstances, a female officer.”
“Yeah, yeah, good. She’s not faking.”
“No, she’s not. Hallucinogenic?”
“We’ll see what Nobel says. They ran a tox screen. Maybe he wore a mask, or makeup. Made himself look like a devil. See if you can find assaults, murders, rapes, break-ins where the perp disguised himself as a devil.”
“I’ll get on it. But the eyes—red or yellow?”
“Could’ve dyed them. Could’ve brought his own light show—red and yellow flashing lights—to add to the trauma and confusion. Or she’s fucked-up over it all and just sees it that way.”
“Yeah. And the glowing red penis—you can get condoms in all sorts of glowing or sparkling or—”
“I know about condoms, Peabody. Maybe she saw his hands. If he wasn’t gloved up she might be able to tell us race. We need to—”
She stopped when Nobel stepped out.
“I can’t have you pressuring her that way. She’s weak and fragile right now.”
“I wasn’t pressuring her. It’s not my first round with a rape victim. I had to notify her. Anthony Strazza was killed.”
“Killed?” Del took one short step back. “He’s dead?”
“That’s what happens when you’re killed.”
“Jesus.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Del closed his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
“She remembers bits and pieces, and what she remembers goes back to that devil business. Tox?”
“Clean.” After hissing out a breath, Del opened his eyes. “No illegals, no drugs whatsoever. No DNA from the assailant. He sealed up there, fucker.” On a second hissing breath, Del pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not my first round, either, but she hit a chord. God, Strazza. Look, I need coffee. Break room’s down here.”
He turned, started walking.
“Have you been on all night?”
Del shrugged. “I hit the bunk for a couple hours. She knows me, or remembers me enough, trusts me as far as she can. So I need to be around until she’s steadier.”
He swiped them into a room not very different from the break room off her own bullpen. It smelled not very different. Bad coffee and fatigue.
“Want?”
Eve studied the dilapidated AutoChef. “Absolutely not.”
On a half laugh, he glanced at Peabody, got a firm shake of the head. “Just me then. Here’s the deal, and forgive all the medical jargon. She got the crap beat out of her, the crap raped out of her, got choked, cut, terrorized, and bashed in the head. Her brain’s pretty scrambled.”
“I think I can pick through the complexities of your medical jargon.”
“Good.” He gulped coffee, said, “Praise Jesus,” gulped again. “Add the hypothermia. Her memory of the events that happened in that house are bound to be confused, and some pieces missing. Some pieces may stay missing. It’s not only the physical trauma—the blow to the head, the hypothermia—it’s emotional shielding. And now that I know her husband was probably killed in front of her, I suspect that shield’s thick and sturdy at this point. Her brain blocks out what she can’t handle.”
“I’m aware,” Eve said evenly. “I don’t need lectures on trauma. I’ve been a cop longer than you’ve been a doctor.”
He studied her over the rim of the ugly gray mug. “I don’t know. I made my debut playing doctor with Cassie Rowling. We were six.”
“That’s not vocation. That’s being a perv.”
“A six-year-old can’t be a perv.”
“The seeds are there.”
He laughed again. “I like you. I didn’t get to see the vid or read the book. I used to see vids and read book
s,” he said wistfully. “But I looked you up. You’d be Peabody?”
“Yeah, nice to meet you.”
“I’d like you just from this conversation. I’d like you for getting a woman in distress to the hospital. But I really like both of you after looking you up. I know Daphne’s in good hands with you guys. But she’s in my hands first. Has to be. To add more complicated medical jargon: She’s a fucking wreck. We’re going to help her, and she’ll get stronger and steadier. I’m just asking you not to push from your end.”
“How much stronger and steadier will she be when she knows the bastard who did this to her, who killed her husband, is in a cage?”
“You make a good point. Let’s try this. We’ll both do what we do. I’ll try to cut you some slack. You cut Daphne some slack.”
“I can agree to that. We’re keeping a cop on her door. She should know that. It may help her.”
“Officer Marilynn Wash,” Peabody said with a glance at her ’link. “Just checked in. She’ll be on for eight, then her relief—already in line—is Karen Lorenzo, followed in another eight-hour shift by Zoey Russe.”
“All girl cops. Good touch.” Del glanced at his wrist unit, dumped more coffee into his mug. “I had to give Daphne something to soothe her out. She has a hard time with the exams. Give her a few hours, okay? She’s not going to remember anything else right now. And I need to ease her into talking to a rape counselor. Add on a grief counselor now.”
“I have one on tap who can serve as both.”
“I don’t want some—”
“Dr. Mira.”
The defensive look on his face eased away. “Dr. Charlotte Mira?”
“That’s right. Objections?”
“Not only none, but I’d be grateful for her.”
“She’ll contact you. Set it up. If any of those missing pieces shake loose, I want them asap.”
“You’ll have them. I’ll feel a lot better myself when the bastard who did this is in a cage.”
With a nod, Eve left him contemplating another mug of terrible coffee.
“Get me a meet with Mira,” she told Peabody as they walked. “And see who in the bullpen can handle some interviews. Odds of it being a party guest are pretty slim at this point, but they have to be covered. We’ll take the caterer.”
“On it. Hey, wait, wait. I got a sort of something on the like crimes.” Hustling to keep up, Peabody studied her screen. “We got a pair of assaults, rapes, beatings. In-home deal, same as this. First one last summer, and the vics said he looked like Dracula. Second this November. Described assailant as a ghoul.”
“Mask or makeup?”
“Unsure, both cases. And in both cases he restrained the male, beat him with fists and a sap, beat and choked the female, raped her. He put on sound effects. Howling wolves in the first, screams and rattling chains in the second. Added lights in the second. A strobe light.”
Peabody glanced up quickly as they moved into the elevator. “Had a knife in the second attack, cut both vics a little, threatened to slit their throats if the male didn’t give him the combo of the safe, and the female didn’t shout he was the best. That she wanted more. He left all vics alive, releasing them—evidence indicates—he took the contents of the safe, a few other items, and raped her a final time.”
“Who’s on it?”
“Detectives Olsen and Tredway, Special Vics Unit.”
“Reach out. We need everything they have.”
4
Morning traffic thickened with loaded maxibuses lumbering, cabs and cars inching along the black ribbons of roads, and pedestrians pouring onto sidewalks.
Ad blimps blasted their relentless hype. Their current focus beat the retail drum for Valentine’s Day.
Eve didn’t get it, just didn’t get it. Who the hell decided everyone was supposed to go mad with romance and gift buying on some random day in February? Hadn’t everybody just gone mad with good cheer and gift buying in December?
When would it end?
When she said as much, snarling her way through the next vehicular tangle, Peabody sent her a sad, sad look.
“But it’s for sweethearts.”
“Oh, bollocks. It’s just another scam designed so restaurants and shops can con people into spending money on expensive dinners, bunches of flowers, and the sparkly things some poor schnook buys on credit thinking he’ll get lucky. You want to be sweethearts, stay home and bang your brains out.”
“It’s kind of nice doing that after a special night out.”
“Eat in bed, bang more. I caught this case a few years back. Couple’s doing the V-Day deal, big-time, retro, dinner and dancing at the Rainbow Room.”
“Romantic, classic.”
“Yeah, and while the guy’s dropping about two grand on overpriced pork medallions, the wife goes off to the john. While she’s in there, her ’link signals—left it or forgot it on the seat of the booth—and he takes a look. Turns out it’s a text from the guy she had a romantic room-service lunch and hotel sex with that same afternoon. So the husband takes a closer look, finds lots of sexy texts between his wife and hotel-sex guy where they have a couple of good chuckles about her clueless husband and his substandard banging.”
“Ouch.”
“So—” Eve spotted her chance, zipped to the curb in front of a massive delivery truck, which expressed its annoyance with a barking horn. “This caterer place should be about a block and a half west.”
She got out and, after judging the traffic, Peabody managed to nip out of the passenger side and squeeze between bumpers to the curb.
“What did the husband do?”
“He asked for the bill, signed for it. When the wife got back, he gave her the ’link, said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, bitch,’ and stabbed her in the neck with his dinner knife.”
“Holy shit. He killed her, right in the Rainbow Room?”
“They had a candlelit corner booth. Nobody noticed this woman bleeding out while her husband polished off the rest of the champagne. Let that be a lesson to you.”
“To me?”
“Stay home and bang.”
Peabody, muffled in her scarf, aimed a suspicious look. “You made all that up.”
“Elina and Roberto Salvador, 2055 or ’56—not quite sure. You can look it up.”
The minute they stepped into Jacko’s, the siren scent of yeast and sugar assailed them. Peabody audibly moaned.
“I didn’t know it was a bakery.” Peabody closed her eyes, drawing in the scent. “I didn’t know.”
Not just a bakery, Eve noted. Through a side opening, tables and chairs, a bar, and a hostess podium stood in the dark. But here, in this section, the lights were on and sparkling on glass displays of muffins and pastries, coffee cakes and breads with drizzles of white icing.
Staff in white smocks bagged, boxed, and rang up purchases briskly. Customers waited while others carried out those fragrant bags and glossy boxes.
“Wipe the drool off your chin,” Eve advised, walking to the far end of the counter where a pretty girl of about twenty constructed more boxes.
“Need to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, if there’s a problem, I…” She trailed off, big blue eyes going bigger as Eve palmed her badge, held it up. “Oh. Oh, gosh. Just a minute, okay? Just a minute.”
She bolted, down the counter and through a swinging door.
“I know you personally can go days without actual food—which makes no sense as you have no body fat stored—but I need to eat.” Peabody huffed out a breath. “I was going to settle for a yogurt bar and egg pocket from a cart or Vending, but jeez.”
“Get something when we’ve finished the interview.”
“They have cinnamon buns,” Peabody said reverently. “Cinnamon sticky buns.”
“Don’t bitch about your own sticky bun after you scarf one down.”
“They are not to be scarfed, the cinnamon sticky bun, but savored.”
The pretty young
thing hurried back. “Ma’am,” she began in a stage whisper, “Jacko can’t come out of the kitchen right now, so if you could go back?”
“Sure. We’ll go back.”
At the girl’s direction, they moved down the counter. On the other side of the swinging doors, the baking smells nearly had Eve’s reputedly zero body fat moaning out loud.
Besides a wall of busy ovens, she spotted some sort of mixer nearly as big as the woman running it, a line of stainless-steel cabinets, what she took to be a mammoth refrigerator, and racks full of trays and supplies.
At one counter, a man in a skullcap used some sort of tool to add tiny petals and leaves to a towering cake. At another, a girl used a different tool to squeeze batter into a tray filled with pleated cups.
At the center of it all, at an island counter, a big, broad-shouldered man wearing a white trailing cap and smock rolled out dough while he sang about getting down to live it up. He had a voice like a foghorn.
“Uncle Jacko? Here’s the police.”
“Huh? Oh, okay, okay. You’re a good girl, Brooksie. Go on back out.” Still rolling, he gestured at Eve and Peabody with his chin. “Come on over. We got a run on the buns like always. Gotta see the badges.”
He worked as he studied them, nodded. “Okeydoke, what can I do for you?”
“You catered a dinner party last night.”
“Had four events last night—two dinner parties. Which one?”
“Anthony and Daphne Strazza.”
“Ah, Mrs. Strazza. Sweet thing, knows her party planning. Yeah, we catered that. Party of fifty. Appetizer course, served in the living area, lobster medallions in a piquant sauce. Main dining room, warm salad—seared scallops, haricots verts, and bell peppers in a walnut vinaigrette with a main of roast prime rib—”
“Got it. Don’t need the menu.”
“It sounds amazing,” Peabody put in, making him smile as he spread butter over the rolled-out dough.
“You gonna eat, you should eat good.” From a bowl he sprinkled a mixture—Eve could smell the cinnamon and sugar—over the butter. “What’s the problem?”
“The Strazzas were attacked by an intruder after the party.”
His hand stopped mid-sprinkle, and all the easy levity died out of his face. “Is she okay? Mrs. Strazza? I mean, are they okay?”