Brotherhood in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Before she’d finished the run, Roarke pulled up at a three-story townhouse. A couple of black-and-whites sat outside, along with Baxter’s snazzy vehicle.

  Two uniforms stood out on the sidewalk in their heavy winter coats, gloved hands around go-cups. Eve held up her badge.

  “Lieutenant,” one of them said. “Detectives are inside. Said wait on the canvass until you said different.”

  “Hold on that until I take a look at things. Who’s first on scene?”

  “That’s us. We were on patrol, and Dispatch sent us over, oh-three-forty-two. We arrived on scene within two. Vic’s grandson called it in.”

  “Does the grandson live here?”

  “No, sir, but he’s got the passcodes, swipes. Said he stayed here now and then.”

  “Okay. Hang tight.”

  The cop on the door must’ve been watching for them as he opened it before they started up the short flight of steps. “Lieutenant,” he said, and stepped aside.

  They’d left Wymann hanging. His eyes bulged out of his swollen, bruised face as he swayed gently from the rope attached to a complex series of boldly colored swirls that served as the foyer light. Dried blood left thin ribbons down his throat, his torso, his legs.

  Like Eve, Baxter stood, looking up. “He’s yours.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My boon companion and fresh-faced young detective and I want in.”

  “Yeah. Where’s the grandson?”

  “Baker, Jonas Wymann. Put him back in the kitchen with a uniform. He’s pretty wrecked.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Nope. First on scene got the basics. It only took one look to figure this was yours, so we just secured the scene, stowed the wit, and tagged you.”

  “Peabody’s on her way, Lieutenant,” Trueheart told her.

  “Okay, seal up,” she told Roarke, “and let’s get him down. Where’s the thing to lower the thing?” she wondered.

  Roarke found it, and at her nod, brought the swirling light and its burden down.

  “Detective Trueheart, verify vic’s ID.”

  She knelt with him, took out gauges to establish time of death while Baxter and Roarke exchanged small talk.

  “TOD’s reading oh-three-eleven. Nine-one-one came in about thirty minutes later. Didn’t miss them by much. Facial bruising, looks like a broken jaw, ligature marks on wrists, more bruising on the genitals, signs of anal rape. All injuries consistent with those on Edward Mira. Bag his hands,” she ordered. “Bag the placard and the rope for the lab.”

  “ID’s verified, sir, a Jonas Bartell Wymann, this address.”

  She put on microgoggles, got closer. “Busted his nose, too. It’s going to be a weighted sap. Security?”

  “The hard drive and discs are missing,” Baxter told her. “No signs I can see of forced entry. The little bit the uniforms got out of the wit was he wasn’t able to reach his grandfather all evening.”

  “Let’s talk to him.” After a glance at Baxter, she rose. “You and me, Trueheart. Baxter, go ahead, bring in the sweepers and the morgue. Let’s see what Morris can tell us. Have EDD come in, go over the electronics.”

  “Um,” Trueheart said as he started back with Eve.

  “Spit it out, Detective.”

  “Baxter and I cleared the house. There wasn’t any sign of struggle, any sign any of the beds had been slept in. There are two house droids, sir, but since we could see this would be your case, we didn’t take them out of sleep mode.”

  “We’ll get to them. Big fricking house,” she commented.

  “Yes, sir. Ah . . .” He cleared his throat. “There’s also what appears to be a sex droid in the closet of the master bedroom.”

  “Is that so? How do you know it’s a sex droid?”

  He flushed, pink and pretty. “Well, ah, Baxter mentioned he’d seen that model before, and it was built for that particular purpose.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said and walked through to a kitchen so shiny silver and glossy black her eyes wanted to twitch.

  A man sat at a square table of glass on a silver pedestal, his head in his hands, a cup of something in front of him.

  He looked up as she entered, showed her a ridiculously handsome face poet pale with shock and grief. And young, she noted as she gauged him as barely old enough to drink legally.

  “Are you in charge?” He had a voice like a bell—deep, clear, resonant.

  “Lieutenant Dallas. Yes, I’m in charge. This is Detective Trueheart. I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Baker.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Granddad—someone killed him. I don’t understand.”

  Eve flicked a glance at the uniform, dismissing her, then sat across from Baker. Another glance, this one at Trueheart, had the new detective taking a seat.

  “This is hard. Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here. This isn’t your residence.”

  “No, I don’t live here anymore. I did for a while, when I was just starting out. I stay sometimes. He’s mostly alone here, so I stay sometimes.”

  “When did you get here tonight?”

  “It was late—early, I mean. Three-thirty or something.”

  “Do you usually come over so early in the morning?”

  “No. No. He didn’t come to opening night, and he always . . . I thought maybe he forgot or just got busy, and I was even a little upset because it was my first . . .” He paused, pressed his fingers to his eyes, tawny gold, rimmed with red.

  “Whatever Works.”

  Baker dropped his hands at Trueheart’s words. “It’s been getting a lot of buzz,” Trueheart continued. “I just put it together. Jonas W. Baker, you’re the lead. I was going to try to take my girl to see it sometime. You opened last night?”

  “Yeah. Opening night. Musical comedy,” he said to Eve. “I’m the male lead. It’s my first time headlining. My mother’s in Australia, and my father—well, even if he was in the country, he probably wouldn’t have come. But my grandparents never missed.”

  “Your grandparents?” Eve repeated.

  “Yeah, they’re not married anymore—not for years—but they do the united front for my plays. But she’s stuck in Chicago. Her flight got canceled—they’re snowed under good. What I mean is whenever I got a part, they’d be there opening night. Front row center, every time. And my grandfather was the one who backed me when I wanted to go into theater instead of law or medicine or politics—whatever would’ve been suitable for my parents. He backed me, and he helped me, and let me live here while I was getting my start.”

  He picked up the cup in front of him, set it down again, pushed it away.

  “He never missed, so when he didn’t show, I thought he was running late or something. I had to put it away, you know, and do the job, do the show. We rocked the house, too, yeah, we did.”

  “You must’ve been upset not to have him there. Big night for you,” Trueheart added.

  “The biggest.”

  “I guess you didn’t have time to try to reach him. Try his ’link.”

  “I did, actually. I left a couple v-mails. The last one, during intermission, was pretty pissy. God. And when the show was over—six curtain calls, and a standing O—what did I do? I sulked about it.”

  “You wanted to share it with him,” Trueheart prompted.

  “I’ve got a girl, too, and she was there. But . . . he’s the one I wanted most. I just wanted him to see all that faith and support, they weren’t wasted.”

  “You wanted to make him proud.”

  “More than anything. So when he didn’t come, didn’t contact me, didn’t even send a message, I thought, Okay, fine, and went to the after-party. I drank a shitload of champagne, basked in the glory, basked some more when the reviews started coming in. Megastar—that’s me—in a megahit. I�
�m a freaking triple threat who owned the stage. Yeah, I basked. We’re all flying, nobody wants to let go of the night, you know. We’re going to go have some food somewhere, but I can’t let it go, I can’t let go he didn’t come. So I tell everybody I’ll catch up, but I have to take care of something.”

  He took a breath. “I know it was getting on to three o’clock by then. It just started nagging at me. My voice coach was there, my ex-girlfriend was there, my girlfriend, actors I’d worked with off Broadway, friends from Juilliard, all there. But the most important person hadn’t come. And it nagged at me because why hadn’t he come? I finally realized—got over myself and realized—something must’ve happened. Maybe he got sick or had an accident, something. So I came over, half expecting to find him sick in bed, or hurt on the floor—though he’s healthy as they get and really fit. Then I opened the door, and . . . God. God, God, God.”

  Eve gave him a minute while he wrapped his arms tight, rocked, as tears streamed down his face.

  “Mr. Baker—”

  “Jonas. You could call me Jonas. I was named for him.”

  “Jonas, was the door secured?”

  “Was the door secured? Ah, yes. Yes, I have the swipe, the codes. I came in, and saw him. I thought: That’s not real. It can’t be real. I called for him, I actually called for him as if he could make it stop.”

  His breath tore; his voice broke.

  “It’s okay, Jonas.” Trueheart’s voice was gentle as a mother’s touch. “Take a minute. Take your time.”

  “It’s just—I didn’t know what to do. I feel like I just stood there forever, doing nothing. Telling myself it wasn’t happening. Just stood there. Then, I don’t know, I looked down and my ’link was in my hand. I don’t remember getting it out of my pocket. Don’t remember doing it. I called nine-one-one, and the guy on the other end, he kept telling me to stay calm, to breathe, help was coming. And the police came. Everything in slow motion but really fast. How can that be? I didn’t know what to do for him. He always knew what to do for me.”

  “You did the right thing,” Trueheart assured him. “You did what was best for him. You got help.”

  “They—someone—took his life. And they took his dignity. Why?”

  “It’s my job to find that out.” As Trueheart played it easy, Eve played it brisk. “When was the last time you spoke with him?”

  “Yesterday. Early in the afternoon. I tagged him to remind him his ticket was at the box office, and I could tell he was upset about something. His old friend Edward Mira died. He’d been murdered. Granddad didn’t have a lot of the details, but . . .”

  Now any hint of color drained. “Jesus God. Senator Mira, and now Granddad. Is it the same? Is it the same person who did this?”

  “Did you know Senator Mira?”

  “Yeah, sure. He and my grandfather go way back—they were college buddies, and they stayed friends. Miss—”

  “Lieutenant. Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Lieutenant. Is it the same? Did the same person kill them both?”

  “We’re pursuing all leads and angles.” She hesitated a moment. He wasn’t in this, she thought. And if he was, he already knew. “There are enough similarities that I believe the same person or persons are involved.”

  “But that’s . . . it’s crazy.”

  “Nonetheless. When you spoke to your grandfather, did he express any thoughts or opinions on the senator’s murder?”

  “He didn’t seem to have any real details. I was on a media blackout—just keeping my head in the play—so I hadn’t heard. He said it seemed as if someone had abducted Senator Mira, and killed him. He was shaken up—like I said, they went back. I never thought of it, not when he didn’t show for the play. I didn’t think of it, or that he’d be grieving. If I’d gotten out of myself long enough to think of him, I would have. And I’d have left him be. I wouldn’t have come here this morning. I don’t know which is worse.”

  “What is, is. And the fact that you did come means we’re able to start gathering information quicker. Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against your grandfather? Or against both him and the senator?”

  “Not really.” Jonas sat back, scrubbed his hands over his face, and some color back into it. “They were both political, and politics makes enemies. Hell, what doesn’t? Not everybody liked Granddad’s line on economic issues, but you don’t kill somebody for that. I’d say not everybody liked Senator Mira’s lines, either, and he wasn’t my favorite person, but Jesus.”

  “You didn’t like him.”

  “I didn’t dislike him, especially. I just thought he was kind of a jerk, and pompous.” He shrugged. “He was my grandfather’s old college buddy so, you know, allowances. I have to tell my mother. Jesus. And Gram. God. I have to tell my grandmother.”

  He dropped his head into his hands again. “And my brother. My half sister, she’s in Australia with Mom, but Gavin’s in law school.”

  “Yale.”

  Jonas managed a shaky smile. “Yeah, family tradition. I didn’t make that cut. I got into Juilliard, and never looked back. I have to tell them. And my uncle. My mother’s brother. What do I tell them?”

  “I can make the notifications if you’d rather.”

  “I would rather, I’d rather anything, but I have to do it. I have to tell them myself. They shouldn’t hear it from a stranger. They won’t see him like that, will they? I don’t want them to see him like I did.”

  “No. The medical examiner will make sure he’s taken care of, given that dignity back. You and your family can check with Dr. Morris at the morgue about seeing your grandfather, and when you can make arrangements for him.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Now his ravaged eyes bored into hers. “I want to tell them, tell myself, you’re going to find whoever did this, why they did it, you’re going to put them away. Is that true?”

  “I can tell you that finding who did this and why is my focus, it’s my job. I take my job very seriously.”

  “That’s a good answer.”

  “I need to ask you a few more questions, then you can contact your family.”

  —

  When Eve left Jonas, she spoke quietly to Trueheart.

  “You did good, smoothed him over. It takes insight and the right touch to do that.”

  “I knew who he was. I didn’t remember last night was the opening, but the play’s been getting a lot of hype, and I’ve seen him on a couple billboards. He’s probably a good actor, but—”

  “He’s bottom of the list. If that was show, he’s Oscar worthy.”

  “It’s actually a Tony for Broadway.”

  “Whatever works,” she said, making Trueheart grin.

  She found Peabody with Baxter. The morgue team was in the process of removing the bagged body, and sweepers were already scattered around the area.

  “He’s not in this,” she said straight off. “But we verify. Trueheart, check the names on the list he gave us, who he was with up until around three this morning. And who he was with when the senator was taken, and at Senator Mira’s TOD. Let’s just cross him off.”

  “I brought McNab,” Peabody told her. “He and Roarke are taking the electronics. Roarke’s already gone over the front entrance. No sign of forced entry. According to the expert, whoever brought him in used the proper swipe, the code, the works.”

  “They’d have had Wymann’s, whether or not they did him here or elsewhere.”

  “We’ve done a walk-through.” Baxter took another look around. “Nothing that shows the vic was restrained and bashed around in here.”

  “Maybe they cleaned up.” She did her own look, slipped her hands in her pockets. “More likely they took him wherever they took the senator. They’ve got a place set up. When they took Wymann, where they took him from. Let’s find out. The why’s going to be the same as the senator.”

 
“What’s that?” Baxter asked.

  “Sex. It’s going to come down to sex. Our killers are female. Or at least one of them is. Yale’s another connection. Both vics were there, same time. Both go back for events, lectures, that sort of thing. Both were in politics, so that’s another link.”

  “Sex and politics,” Baxter said, “the most natural of bedfellows.”

  “And coincidence is bollocks.”

  “If that means bullshit, damn straight.”

  “Two of my suspects and one of the suspect’s alibis also have connections either to Yale or each other.”

  Baxter’s expression turned feral. “Coincidence is bollocks.”

  “Oh yeah, it is. Two wealthy and successful men.” Eve paced as she thought it through. “Both Yale alumni, both aimed toward politics, different areas thereof, but power seekers. First vic had a sidepiece of the month, or close enough.”

  “Love to say the same at his age.”

  That earned Baxter a stony stare. “We find out if this vic had the same ambitions in that area.”

  “Very sexy sex droid up in his bedroom.”

  “So I’m told.”

  She glanced up as Roarke came down.

  “And the sexy sex droid tells us it was last utilized thirty-two hours ago,” Roarke commented. “McNab’s taking in electronics, but we found nothing that pertains on his comps and ’links on a surface search. A spare pocket ’link in his home office, desk drawer. It hasn’t been used, so spare is literal to my way of thinking.”

  “And the one he did use isn’t here. So if anything on there pertains, the killers have it. Baxter, you and Trueheart take the vic’s professional contacts. Get a feel, get alibis. Find me his sidepieces if he had them.”

  “Can and will.”

  “I’ll send you names and pictures of the women on the first vic’s list. Let’s find out if they ring for anybody at the second vic’s office. Peabody, tell McNab I want every byte of data on every piece of equipment here and from the first vic’s office. Any- and everything that overlaps gets priority. This is payback. What did they do—together—to earn it? Tell him now. We need to get to the morgue.”