by J. D. Robb
“Up yours, wigwam.” Linus added another blob for the hell of it.
“You use twice too much.” The operator, a battle-scarred Asian with less than three months on the corner, danced in place on tiny feet. “You pay extra.”
Linus considered squirting what was left in the tube in the man’s pruney face, then remembered his upcoming fortune. It made him feel generous. He dug a fifty-cent credit out of his pocket, flipped it in the air.
“Now you can retire,” he said as the operator snagged it on the downward arc.
He sucked at the mustard-drowned pretzel as he strolled away.
He was a little man, and skinny, too, but for the soccer ball-sized potbelly over his belt. His arms were long for his height, and ropey with muscle. His face was like a smashed dish badly glued back together, flat and round and cracked with lines. His ex-wife had often urged him to spend a little of his hoarded savings on some simple cosmetic repair.
Linus didn’t see the point. What did it matter how he looked when his job was, essentially, not to be seen?
But he thought he might spring for some work now. He was going to take himself off to Tahiti, or Bali, or maybe even to one of the resort satellites. Bask in sun and sand and women.
The half million he’d be paid to keep his little observations to himself would pump up his life’s savings nicely.
He wondered if he should have asked for more. He’d kept the payoff on the low end—nothing an actor couldn’t scrape up, in Linus’s opinion. He’d even be willing to take it in installments. He could be reasonable. And the fact was, he had to admire the guts and skill involved here, and the choice of target.
He’d never met an actor he’d despised more than Draco, and Linus hated actors with almost religious equality.
He stuffed the rest of the pretzel in his mouth, wiped mustard from his chin. The letter he’d sent would have been delivered first thing that morning. He’d paid the extra freight for that. An investment.
The letter was better than a ‘link call or a personal visit. Those sorts of things could be traced. Cops might have everybody’s ‘links bugged. He wouldn’t put it past the cops, who he distrusted nearly as much as actors.
He’d kept the note simple and direct, he recalled.
I know what you did and how you did it. good job. meet me at the theater, backstage, lower level. eleven o’clock. I want $500,000. I won’t go to the cops. He was a son of a bitch anyway.
He hadn’t signed it. Everyone who worked with him knew his square block printing. He’d had some bad moments worrying that the note would be passed to the cops, and he’d be arrested for attempted blackmail. But he’d put that possibility away.
What was half a million to an actor?
He used the stage door, keying in his code. His palms were a little sweaty. Nerves and excitement. The door closed behind him with a metallic, echoing clang. Then he breathed in the scent of the theater, drew in the glorious silence of it. He felt a tug at his heart, sharp and unexpected.
After today, he’d be giving this up. The smells, the sounds, the lights, and lines. It was all he’d really ever known, and the sudden realization of love for it rocked him.
Didn’t matter a damn, he reminded himself, and turned to the stairs that led below the stage. They had theaters on Tahiti if he wanted a busman’s holiday. He could even maybe open his own little regional place. A theater-casino palace.
That was a thought.
The Linus Quim Theater. Had a ring to it.
At the base of the stairs, he turned right, down the twisty corridor. He was humming now, happy in his own space, bubbling lightly with anticipation of what was to come.
An arm snaked out, hooked around his neck. He yelped, more in surprise than fear, started to turn.
Fumes poured into his mouth and nose. His vision blurred, his head rang. He couldn’t feel his extremities.
“What? What?”
“You need a drink.” The voice whispered in his ear, friendly, comforting. “Come on, Linus, you need a drink. I got the bottle out of your locker.”
His head drooped down, weighing like a stone on his skinny neck. All he could see behind his eyelids were bleeding colors. His feet shuffled over the floor as he was gently led to a seat. He swallowed obediently when a glass was held to his lips.
“There, that’s better, isn’t it?”
“Dizzy.”
“That’ll pass.” The voice stayed soft and soothing. “You’ll just feel very calm. The tranq’s mild. Hardly more than a kiss. You just sit there. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Okay.” He smiled vaguely. “Thanks.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble.”
The noose had already been prepared from a long length of rope culled from the fly floor. Gloved hands slipped it smoothly around Linus’s neck, snugged and straightened it.
“How do you feel now, Linus?”
“Pretty good. Pretty damn good. I thought you’d be pissed.”
“No.” But there was a sigh that might have been regret.
“I’m taking the money and going to Tahiti.”
“Are you? I’m sure you’ll enjoy that. Linus, I want you to write something for me. Here’s your pen. That’s the way. Here’s the pad you always use to make your notes. You never use an e-pad, do you?”
“Paper’s good enough for me, goddamn it.” He hiccupped, grinned.
“Of course. Write this down, would you? ‘I did it.’ That’s all you have to say. Just write ‘I did it,’ then sign your name. Perfect. That’s just perfect.”
“I did it.” He signed his name in a stingy little scrawl. “I figured it out.”
“Yes, you did. That was very clever of you, Linus. Are you still dizzy?”
“Nope. I feel okay. I feel fine. Did you bring money? I’m going to Tahiti. You did everybody a favor by wasting that stupid bastard.”
“Thank you. I thought so, too, Let’s stand up now. Steady?”
“As a rock.”
“Good. Would you do me a favor? Could you climb up the ladder here? I’d like you to loop this end of the rope over that pole and tie it off. Nice and snug. Nobody ties knots like a veteran stagehand.”
“Sure thing.” He went up, humming.
On the ground, his killer watched with heart-thrumming anticipation. There had been fear when the note had arrived. Tidal waves of fear and panic and despair.
Those were done now. Had to be done. Only mild irritation and the spur of challenge remained.
How to deal with it? The answer had come so smoothly, so clearly. Eliminate the threat, give the police their killer. All in one stroke.
In moments, only moments now, it would all be done.
“All tied off!” Linus called. “She’ll hold.”
“I’m sure. Oh no, Linus, don’t walk back down.”
Confused, he shifted on the ladder, looked down at the smiling face below. “Don’t walk down?”
“No. Jump. Jump off the ladder, Linus. Won’t that be fun? Just like jumping into the pretty blue water in Tahiti.”
“Like in Tahiti? That’s where I’m going once I’m flush.”
“Yes, like Tahiti.” The laughter was delighted, encouraging. A careful ear might have heard the strain beneath it, but Linus only laughed in return. “Come on, Linus. Dive right in! The water’s fine.”
He grinned, held his nose. And jumped.
This time death wasn’t quiet. The panicked, kicking feet knocked the ladder down with a thunderous clatter. It hit the bottle of brew in an explosion of glass. Choked gasps forced their way through the tightened noose, became rattles. For seconds, only seconds, but the air seemed to scream with them.
And then there was only the faint creak of the rope swinging. Like the creak of a mast in high seas, it was curiously romantic.
*** CHAPTER EIGHT ***
“Weighing in Mira’s profile of the killer, the scales drop on the side of a performer. An actor,” Eve continued. “Or someone who wants or w
anted to be one.”
“Well, you got your headliners.” Feeney stretched out his legs. “Your second string, your extras. Add them all up, you still got more than thirty potentials. You add the wanna-bes to that, and Christ knows.”
“We divvy them up and cut them down. The same way Baxter should cut down audience members.”
Feeney spread his lips in a grin. “We heard his whining all the way over in EDD.”
“Then my job there is done. We factor in connections to the victim,” Eve went on, “placement during the last act. We haul the most probables into Interview and start sweating them.”
McNab shifted in his chair, lifted a finger. “It’s still possible that the killer was someone in the audience. Somebody who knew Draco, had theater experience. Even working Baxter and whoever he drags into it with him twenty-four/seven on probabilities and backgrounds, it’ll take weeks to eliminate.”
“We don’t have weeks,” Eve shot back. “This is high profile. Pressure’s going to build on The Tower,” she said, referring to the office of the commissioner. “That means it’s going to squeeze us, and squeeze us soon. We run the audience as Baxter passes on potentials, and keep running them until we whittle it down. Meantime, we focus on the stage.”
She moved to the board where the stills of the murder scene, the body, the graphs and charts from the probability scans and background checks run to date were already tacked.
“This wasn’t a spree killing. It wasn’t an impulse. It was planned, staged. It was performed. And it was recorded. I’ve got copies of the discs for everyone. We’re going to watch the play, each of us, study it until we know the lines, the moves, so well we could go on the road with it ourselves.
“It’s about twisting the law,” she murmured. “About playing with it. And in the end, it’s about a kind of justice. The murderer might see Draco’s death that way. A kind of justice.”
Feeney rattled the sugared nuts in the bag in his pocket. “Nobody loved him.”
“Then we figure out who hated him most.”
• • •
The boy’s name was Ralph, and he looked both terrified and excited. He wore a battered Yankees jacket over his dull brown janitorial uniform. He either had a very bad haircut or, Roarke supposed, was sporting some new fashion. Whichever, he was forced to blow, sweep, or shake the ragged streams of dark hair out of his eyes on a continual basis.
“I didn’t think you’d come yourself, sir.” Part of Ralph’s panicked excitement came from the idea of speaking face-to-face with the legendary Roarke. Everybody knew the man was totally ice. “Orders are to report anything out of the ordinary to control, so when I saw how the stage door wasn’t locked and coded, I figured how I should report it right off.”
“That’s right. Did you go inside?”
“Well, I…” Ralph didn’t see any point in admitting his over-active imagination hadn’t let him get two feet beyond the door. “I started to, you know. Then I saw how there were lights on that aren’t supposed to be on. I thought it was smarter to stay out here and…be guarding the door, like.”
“Good thinking.” Roarke crouched down, studied the locks, glanced up idly at the security camera. Its indicator light was off, and it shouldn’t have been. “Do you usually work alone?”
“Oh no, sir. But since, you know, the building’s closed because of that guy getting dead and stuff, my super asked one of the cleaning crew to volunteer for light maintenance. With the whole deal on opening night, nobody ever got to cleaning the bathrooms and stuff. The super, he said how the cops gave us clearance to go back in since they got what they needed already.”
“Yes.” Roarke had been informed only that morning that certain areas of the building were not cleared.
“We’re not supposed to pass the police barriers onstage or back. Super said they’ll give you a bitch of a shock if you try to mess with them.”
“Super is quite correct.”
“So, I’m just supposed to deal with the bathrooms is all. I popped for it ‘cause I can use the money, you know?”
“Yes.” Roarke straightened, smiled at the boy. “I know very well. Well then, Ralph is it? We’ll just go in and see what’s what.”
“Sure.” There was an audible gulp as Ralph stepped inside behind Roarke. “You know, they say a murderer always returns, like, to the scene of his crime.”
“Do they?” Roarke’s voice was mild as he scanned the area. “You’ll learn there’s very little always in the world, Ralph. But it’s possible they could be right this time around.”
The rooms beyond the anteroom were dark, but there was a backwash of light shining up the stairs from the lower level. Roarke started down, tucked a hand in his pocket where he’d slipped a small, illegal-for-civilian-use stunner when he’d gotten the call of a potential break-in.
He followed the glow toward the under-stage area.
He smelled home brew, the just-going-sour punch of it, and a nasty undertone he recognized as death.
“Yes, I’m afraid they’re right this time,” he murmured, then turned the corner.
“Oh, shit. Oh, man.” Ralph’s voice jumped over the words, and his eyes goggled at the figure dangling from a stout length of rope. “Is that a guy?”
“It was. If you’re going to be sick, there’s no shame in it, but find another place.”
“Huh?”
Roarke glanced back. The boy’s face was sheet white, his eyes going glassy. To keep it simple, Roarke simply pressed a hand on Ralph’s shoulder and lowered him to the floor. “Put your head down, take slow breaths. That’s the way, son. You’ll do fine.”
Turning from the boy, Roarke walked to the hanged man. “Poor, stupid bastard,” he thought aloud, and took out his palm ‘link to call his wife.
“Dallas. What? Roarke, I can’t talk to you now. I’m up to my neck here.”
“Speaking of necks. I’m looking at one now that’s been considerably stretched. You’ll need to come to the theater, Lieutenant, lower level. I’ve found another body for you.”
• • •
Death demanded routine, even if the primary investigator’s husband discovered the body.
“Can you identify him?” she asked Roarke, and signaled for Peabody to record the scene.
“Quim. Linus Quim. I checked the employment records after I called you. Head stagehand. He was fifty-six. Divorced, no children. He lived on Seventh—alone, according to his file.”
“Did you know him personally?”
“No.”
“Okay, stand by. Peabody, get me a ladder. I don’t want to use this one until we’ve done a full sweep. Who’s the kid?” she asked Roarke.
“Ralph Biden. One of the janitorial team. He was going to work solo today, saw the stage door was unlocked, and called it in.”
“Give me times,” Eve demanded as she studied the angle of the fallen ladder, the pattern of shattered glass from the broken brew bottle.
After one long stare, Roarke took out his log. “He contacted maintenance control at eleven twenty-three. I was alerted six minutes later and arrived on-scene at noon, precisely. Is that exact enough to satisfy, Lieutenant?”
She knew the tone and couldn’t help it if he decided to be annoyed. Still, she scowled at his back and he walked away to take a small stepladder from Peabody.
“Did you or the kid touch anything?”
“I know the routine.” Roarke set the ladder under the body. “Nearly as well as you by now.”
She merely grunted, shouldered her field kit, and started up the ladder.
Hanging is an unpleasant death, and the shell left behind reflects it. It bulges the eyes, purples the face. He hadn’t weighed more than one-twenty, Eve thought. Not enough, not nearly enough for the weight to drop down fast and heavy and mercifully snap his neck.
Instead, he’d choked to death, slowly enough to be aware, to fight, to regret.
With hands coated with Seal-It, she tugged the single sheet of cheap recycled p
aper out of his belt. After a quick scan, she handed the paper down. “Bag it, Peabody.”
“Yes, sir. Self-termination?”
“Cops who jump to conclusions trip over same and fall on their asses. Call for a Crime Scene team, alert the ME we have an unattended death.”
Chastised, Peabody pulled out her communicator.
Eve logged time of death for the recorder and examined the very precise hangman’s knot. “Why self-termination, Officer Peabody?”
“Ah…subject is found hanged to death, a traditional method of self-termination, in his place of employment. There is a signed suicide note, a broken bottle of home brew with a single glass. There are no apparent signs of struggle or violence.”
“First, people have been hanged as an execution method for centuries. Second, we have no evidence at this time the subject wrote the note found on-scene. Last, until a full examination of the body is complete, we cannot determine if there are other marks of violence. Even if there are not,” Eve continued, backing down the ladder, “a man can be coerced into a noose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On. the surface, it looks like self-termination. It’s not our job to stop at the surface and assume but to observe, record, gather evidence, and eventually conclude.”
Eve stepped away, studied the scene. “Why would a man come here to an empty theater; sit and drink a glass of brew; write a brief note; fashion himself a nice, tidy noose; secure it; walk up a ladder; then step off?”
Since she understood she was expected to answer, Peabody gave it her best. “The theater is his workplace. Self-terminators often take this step in their place of employment.”
“I’m talking about Quim, Linus. Specifics, Peabody, not generalities.”
“Yes, sir. If he was responsible for Draco’s death, which could be the meaning of the note, he may have been overcome by guilt, and he returned here, to where Draco was killed, balancing the scales by taking his own life under the stage.”
“Think of the profile, Peabody. Think of the original crime and its method of execution. I find calculation, ruthlessness, and daring. Tell me, where do you find guilt?”
With this, Eve strode off to where Ralph was sitting, pale and silent in a corner.