by J. D. Robb
“Okay, Dingo, what do you do for Hastings?”
“I-I-I-I-I-”
“Stop. Breathe. In and out, come on.”
Once he’d gulped in air, he tried again. “I’m working as studio and on-site assistant. I-I-” He sucked in air when Eve pointed her finger at him. “I have the camera ready, set the lights, change the set, whatever he wants.”
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Two weeks.” Dingo looked cautiously at the door of the room where Hastings waited. Then leaning closer to Eve, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Mostly his assistants don’t last long. I heard the one before me was in and out in three hours. That’s kind of a record. The longest was six weeks.”
“And why is this?”
“He freaks, man. Complete meltdown. Nuclear. You screw up, you don’t screw up, whatever, if something doesn’t fly right for him, he’s orbital.”
“Violent?”
“He breaks shit, throws shit. I saw him beat his own head against the wall last week.”
“Seen him beat anybody else’s?”
“Not so far, but I heard he threatened to throw this guy in front of a maxibus during a field shoot. I don’t think he actually did it, or anything.”
“Have you seen this girl around here? In person, in portraits?”
Dingo took the print. “No. Not my type.”
“Oh?”
“She doesn’t look like she’d party.”
“Would you say she’s Hastings’s type?”
“For party-time?”
“For any time.”
“Not for partying. Don’t think the dude parties much. But he’d go for the face.”
“You own a vehicle, Dingo?”
He glanced up at her again. “I got an airboard.”
“A vehicle, with doors?”
“Nah.” He actually grinned at the idea of it. “But I can drive. That’s one of the reasons I got the job, because I can drive Hastings to consignments and shit.” He paused a minute, frowned down at the print. “He didn’t really throw somebody in front of a maxi, did he?”
“Not that I know of. What were you doing night before last?”
“Just hanging, I guess.”
“And where would this hanging have taken place?”
“Um . . . I dunno. I was just . . .” The light dawned, turning his eyes into wide, glassy saucers in a face gone dead pale. “Oh man, oh Jesus, I’m like a suspect?”
“Why don’t you tell me where you were, what you were doing, who you were with?”
“I-I-I, jeez! Loose and Brick and Jazz and me, we hung at Brick’s place for a while, then we cruised The Spot, this club we go to mostly, and Loose, he got pretty messed up, so we dumped him home about, jeez, about one, maybe? Then we hung a little more, and I went home and crashed.”
“Do these hanging buddies have actual names?”
“Oh, oh, yeah.”
“Give them to the officer, along with your address. Then you’re free to go.”
“I can go? Just go?” His face underwent rapid changes, from shock to suspicion, from relief to disappointment. “I don’t have to, like, get a lawyer or something?”
“Just stay available, Dingo.”
She had to pick her way through the same minefield of nerves with Liza Blue, who turned out to be hair and enhancement consultant. When her teeth started chattering, Eve heaved a long, long breath.
“Look, Liza, do you have anything to feel guilty about?”
“Well, I cheated on my boyfriend last week.”
“I’m not going to arrest you for that. How long have you worked for Hastings?”
“Um, I freelance, you know. I work for lots of photographers, and do hair and enhancements for weddings and special occasions, like that. He likes my work, so I’ve been doing shoots for about a year.” She looked plaintively at Eve. “Is that right?”
“Who supplies the enhancements?”
“I have my own kit, but Hastings keeps a supply. He’s real fussy. Lots of them are.”
“Does he have any Barrymore products?”
“Sure. That’s good stuff.”
“Have you ever worked on this girl?” Eve asked, handing over the print of Rachel Howard.
Liza pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. I’d use a good strong pink lipdye. If I used Barrymore, like you were asking about, I’d maybe use First Blush or Spring Rose. Bring out the shape of her mouth. She’s got a nice one, but it could pop a little more. And she ought to bring out her eyes some. She looks kind of familiar though. I don’t know where—”
She broke off, and dropped the print as if it had burst into flames. “That’s the one who’s dead. I saw on the news. That’s the girl they found downtown in a recycle bin.”
“Where were you night before last?”
“With my boyfriend.” Her voice quivered. “With Ivan. I felt real bad about cheating on him. I don’t know why I did. I almost told him last night, but I clucked. We went to a vid, then back to his place.”
“Peabody, get her data. You can go on home, Liza.”
“You think maybe Hastings killed her? I don’t want to come back here if you think he killed her.”
“He’s not charged with anything. I just need to ask questions.”
Eve went to the room where Hastings waited. He was sitting, his arms folded over his chest, staring at himself in the dressing room mirror.
“We can do this a couple of ways,” Eve began. “I can take you in, hold you, while I get warrants to search this building, including your private residence upstairs, and your vehicles. Or, you can agree now to allow this search.”
“You’re not going to find a fucking thing.”
“Well then, it shouldn’t worry you to have us look.”
His eyes met hers in the mirror. “So look.”
Chapter 9
She called in a team, and looked.
She found no illegals, which surprised her. She’d have pegged Hastings as the type for a taste of a little recreational Zoner, but his place was clean. None of the tranq used in subduing Rachel Howard turned up in the toss of his apartment, studio, or vehicles.
There were a number of Barrymore enhancements in the studio kit, and she matched the shades and products to those used on Rachel.
Tried to imagine Hastings carefully painting the girls lips, brushing color on her eyelids with those big hands.
There was no chair on the premises that matched the one used in Rachel’s death portrait, but she did find a large spool of wire. The wire and enhancements went into evidence bags, without a peep of protest from Hastings when she gave him a receipt.
She’d leave it to the sweepers and lab techs to take samples of carpet for a comparison to the fibers in evidence while she concentrated on the massive imaging files.
Part of that concentration was to breathe down McNab’s neck while he ran a disc search.
“Lieutenant.” In defense, McNab hunched his bony shoulders. “This guy’s got tens of thousands of images on file. It’s going to take some time for me to run through them and match the victim’s face, if she’s here.”
“She’s here. He recognized her.”
“Okay, but . . .” He turned his head, and all but bumped noses with Eve. “I could use a little space here.”
Eve scowled at the computer screen. Half of it was filled with Rachel’s smiling face, the other with a rapid blur as filed images whizzed by. Sooner or later it would stop. She knew it would stop. And a second image of Rachel would appear.
“The machine’s doing all the work.”
“I respectfully disagree,” he replied. “The machine’s only as good as its operator.”
“EDD propaganda.” But she backed off. She was crowding him, and knew it. “I want to know the minute you get a hit.”
“You’ll be the first.”
She glanced over to where Hastings sat, arms folded, mouth set in a perpetual frown as he watched the small army of cops buzz t
hrough his studio. With her attention on him, she motioned to her aide. “Peabody.”
“Sir.”
“Pick a uniform and go interview the second name on your list.”
“Sir?”
“Was there some foreign language in that order?”
“You want me to handle the interview?” Peabody’s face had gone sheet pale. “Without you?”
“Is there any reason, after more than a year in Homicide, you feel unable to question a suspect without the primary holding your hand?”
“No, sir.” Now her face went bright pink. “It’s just that you always—I haven’t—” She swallowed hard under Eve’s bland stare, then squared her shoulders. “I’ll take Catstevens, Lieutenant.”
“Fine. When you’ve finished, contact me for further orders.”
“Yes, sir. I appreciate you trusting me with this.”
“Good. Don’t screw up.” She turned her back on Peabody, mentally crossing her fingers to wish her aide luck, then sauntered over to Hastings.
Her gut told her the lead was here, and Peabody would get nothing more out of the assignment than some solid field experience.
She leaned back against the windowsill, crossed her feet at the ankles. “It’s a pisser, isn’t it, having strangers put their fingers all over your stuff.” She waited a beat while he simply stared through her. “We can cut a lot of the crap if you tell me how you know Rachel Howard.”
“I never said I knew her. Seen her face somewhere. That’s not a freaking crime.”
“You take pictures of her?”
“Might have.”
“Here, in the studio.”
His brows drew together. Eve saw him struggle to think back. “No.”
“She’s never been up here?”
“How the hell do I know?” His voice boomed out again, ripe with frustration. “People bring people up here. Christ knows why. I hire a model or a group, and they just have to bring somebody along. Mostly I kick their asses back out, but every once in a while I’m in a good mood.” He smiled thinly. “I try not to let that happen often.”
“You make decent money with the imaging?”
Now he sneered. “You make decent money as a cop?”
“Hell, no. So you do it because you do it.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, finding herself intrigued by him. “And you take images of people, even when you don’t particularly like the breed.” Now, she nodded. “I can relate to that. But what we have here’s a pretty young girl. Men usually find a use for pretty young girls.”
His color came up. “I don’t muck around with the college set. For Christ’s sake, I’m forty years old, what do I want with some skinny coed? I use LCs for sex. It’s clean, professional, and there’s no baggage. I don’t like personal connections.”
He’s playing me, Eve thought with some amusement. “Yeah, they sure complicate things.”
“I like faces.” He muttered it. “I can sit here right now thinking you’re a pain in the ass cop who’s royally screwed up my day, but I like your face. I can hate your guts and still like your face.”
“I don’t know what the hell to think about yours.”
Now he snorted. “Don’t come much uglier. But there’s a beauty in that.” He looked down at his hands a moment, then blew out a windy sigh. “I never killed that girl. Never killed anyone. I like to think of ways to kill people who irritate me. Throwing them off high buildings, boiling them in oil, locking them in a dark room with live snakes, that kind of thing. It gets me through the day.”
“You’re a piece of work, Hastings.”
“We all are. That face. That girl’s face. Harmless. You know what makes people such pricks, Lieutenant Dallas?”
“They destroy the harmless.”
“Yeah, they do.”
“Lieutenant!” McNab waved a hand with his eyes still on-screen. “Found her.”
She crossed over, studied the screen. She spotted Rachel instantly, though she was in a group of other young people. Dressed up, fussy dresses, with flowers in the background. Some sort of formal party, she imagined. Probably a wedding.
Rachel had her arm around another girl, her own head thrown back as the photo caught her in a bright, delighted laugh.
“Hastings.” Eve motioned him over. “Who, what, where, and when?” she demanded.
“That’s it!” His shoulder bumped McNab as he maneuvered to study the full screen, and nearly knocked the lightweight EDD man out of his chair. “I knew I’d seen that face. What is this, what is this? Yeah, the Morelli-Desoto wedding, in January. See it’s labeled. There are more—”
“Don’t touch the keyboard,” Eve snapped. “McNab, enlarge and print the image. You’ve got more of her, Hastings?”
“I got the whole fricking wedding. Part of the package is I keep them for a year so people can take their time selecting. And Aunt Jane or Grandma Whoosits can come around six months later and order some. There’re more of the girl there, and some I took of just her because of that face.”
“McNab, run through, select any images of the victim. Enlarge and print.”
He scrolled through, giving the commands. Eve saw portions of the wedding unfold—the bride and groom, the family portraits, the candids. Young people, old people, friends and relatives.
“That’s the lot, Dallas.”
“No. No, it’s not,” Hastings interrupted before Eve could speak. “I took more. I told you I took more of her, and some other faces that interested me. Subfile on this disc. Faces. They’re under Faces.”
McNab called it up. Eve noted Hastings hadn’t bothered with the bride or groom here. There was a portrait of an old, old woman, a dreamy smile almost lost in the wrinkled map of her face. A child with icing ringing his mouth. Another, surprisingly tender, of a little girl in her party dress, fast asleep across a chair.
Faces streamed by.
“This isn’t right,” Hastings muttered. “She’s not in here. I took them, goddamn it. Four or five candids, two posed. I took more of her than anyone else outside the freaking wedding party. I took those shots.”
“I believe you.” Considering, Eve tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Couple of things here, Hastings. Are you willing to take a Truth Test?”
“Fuck. Fuck. Yeah, what the hell.”
“I’ll set it up.” She glanced at her wrist unit. Too late in the day to schedule one. “For tomorrow. Now, who worked with you on this job?”
“How the hell do I know? It was freaking January.”
“You got files, records?”
“Sure, on the jobs, on the images, on the shoots. Not on assistants. I go through assistants like toilet paper, and toilet paper’s a lot more useful.”
“You pay them, don’t you?”
“More than they’re worth,” he began, then blinked. “Right. Right. Lucia takes care of it. She’ll know.”
For the first time since he’d laid eyes on Eve, Roarke was relieved she wasn’t there when he got home. Ignoring a quick tug of guilt, he went directly upstairs rather than heading back to Summerset’s quarters to check on him.
He needed time. He needed privacy. He needed, for Christ’s sweet sake, to think.
It could all be a hoax. It probably was, he told himself as he coded into the secured room that held his unregistered equipment. It likely was a hoax, some complicated, convoluted scheme to bilk him out of some ready cash, or to distract him from some upcoming negotiations.
But why use something so deeply buried in his past? Why, for God’s sake, try to tangle him up with something he could, and bloody well would, unravel quickly enough?
It was bullshit. Bollocks.
But he wasn’t quite sure.
Because he wanted a drink, a little too much, he opted for coffee, strong and black, before turning to the sleek black console.
He’d had this room built, had added all the security precautions personally. For one purpose. To get around the all-seeing eye and the sticky tendrils of CompuGuard. The
re was some business, even for the legitimate businessman he’d become, that was no one’s concern but his.
Here, in this room with its privacy screened windows, its secured door, he could send and receive any communiqués, conduct any searches, hack into anything he had the time or skill to pursue without alerting CompuGuard.
There had been a time, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, when he’d used the equipment in this room for purposes not quite legal—as much for fun, he could admit, as for profit. Perhaps even more out of simple habit.
He’d grown up a thief and a grifter, and such habits were difficult to break. Especially if you were good.
He’d always been good.
So good, it had been a very long time since he’d needed to steal to survive. He’d shed his criminal associations and activities, layer by layer, slicking on the polish money could bring.
He’d made something of himself, he thought now, as he looked around the room. Had begun to, in any case.
Then there’d been Eve. His cop. What could a man do when he was so utterly besotted but shed more layers?
She’d been the making of him, Roarke supposed. And still, for all they were to each other, there was a core in him even she couldn’t touch.
Now someone had come along, some stranger trying to make him believe that everything up to now—everything he’d done, everything he was, everything he wanted—rested on a lie? A lie, and murder?
He crossed to a mirror. His face, his father’s face. All but one and the same, and there was no getting around it. It wasn’t something he thought about often, even considered. Which was why, he imagined, having it slapped hard in that face this way shook him down to that hard, cold, unreachable core.
So, he would deal with it. And be done with it.
He sat behind the glossy, U-shaped console, laid his palm on the screen against the slick black. It glowed red as it scanned his palmprint. And his face was set, like stone.
“This is Roarke,” he said. “Open operations.”
Lights winked on, machines began their quiet, almost human hum. And he got to work.
First, he ordered a deep-level search on Moira O’Bannion. He would know her better than she knew herself before he was done.