by J. D. Robb
Eve paused, closed a drawer, looked around. “No sign she had sex in this apartment. No toys, no enhancements, no sexwear.”
“She could’ve taken that stuff with her.”
“Why? It’s not mission-oriented. She left clothes, some jewelry, photos, book discs, all the flotsam and jetsam of life. But she took the electronics, any spare discs, memo cubes, and any hard copies of business. Food in the kitchen, in the AutoChef. The neighbor claims not to poke in, but she’s not blind and deaf.”
Eve wandered, searched for a sense. What came to her was this was an alone place. She knew it, recognized it. She’d had one of her own once.
The apartment—the one Roarke had replicated for her.
Her alone place, because she’d had little but the mission—the job—in her life.
She knew MacKensie, she thought. She knew her under the skin.
“The neighbor? I bet she’d have remembered if MacKensie had a lover—male or female—show up regularly. There’s no love in this place—just work and sleep. The neighbor remembered Downing because they bumped into each other, and Downing was crying. That stuck. She’d have remembered seeing her before, so either coming here hadn’t happened before, or it was rare and they kept it on the down low.”
“You think she and Downing are lovers?”
“No. I don’t think she had anyone for that, not for that. They’re sisters, that’s what counts here. A shared experience—and one Su also shares. And a shared goal.
“What do you do when a sister comes over crying?”
“Ah. You listen, you sympathize.”
“You provide alcohol and crying food. Let’s check the kitchen.”
They found a nearly empty bottle of white wine, a half-pint bottle of bourbon.
“Let’s get the sweepers in here, do it right.” Eve stepped over to the AutoChef, ran the program. “Keeps it pretty well stocked, healthy crap.”
“Got ice cream—the real deal—in the freezer. Chocolate Coma, which is awesome. It’s unopened, Dallas.”
“Bet she got it to replace what she gave Downing. Downing comes to her, crying. How about this: Downing’s the one they’ve got doing the senator. She’s set up as his sidepiece. And she’s wearing thin, doesn’t see how she can keep going with it. Su doesn’t strike as the have-a-drink-and-some-ice-cream type, so she comes here for sympathy. Comes here because MacKensie had played the same role earlier. MacKensie knew what she was dealing with, could empathize. And maybe because Downing’s wearing thin, they decide to move on the mission.”
“One of them poses as the Realtor,” Peabody continued. “Like posing as the biographer, and like—don’t you think MacKensie was probably the one who got Edward Mira into Eclectia, so she could switch him off to Downing?”
“Yeah, I do. Taking turns with it, working on him.”
“So the young, sexy Realtor, who isn’t a Realtor, is willing to try to help the senator circumvent the deathbed promise.”
“That’s what plays. Unless there are four of them.”
“Crap.”
“Or more.”
16
They hit Downing’s place next and found a much chattier neighbor. Laurel Esty lived in the apartment next to Downing’s, and had already invited the uniforms inside her unit and given them coffee and cookies.
“She said she hasn’t seen Downing in a couple days, but that’s not unusual as she works nights. But her roommate mentioned seeing Downing leave the building with two suitcases this morning.”
“Where’s the roommate?”
“He’d be at work now, Lieutenant. We have his name and contact information.”
“Give it to my partner, and brush the cookie crumbs off your uniform, Officer. For God’s sake.”
Eve moved past him to where a pert blonde sat on a little blue couch in the center of a comfortably disordered living area. She popped up like a woman on springs when Eve stepped in and nearly spilled the fizzy in her hand.
“Wow! I just tagged my roomie—Officer Tanker said it was okay if I did, and I told Reb—my roomie—how I heard Officer Tanker say to Officer Messing that Lieutenant Dallas was on the way. And Reb said, ‘Bullshit, Laurie, no way.’ And I said, ‘True way, Reb,’ but he didn’t believe it. And here you are. We saw the vid. Julian is so completely iced, and Reb said when we did how he’d do you in one heart knock, and I . . . Gee, that’s probably rude. Sorry. Can I tag him back and show him you’re here?”
“No. You know Charity Downing?”
“Yeah, sure, she lives right next door. I don’t see her much because I work nights over at the Silverado—urban cowboy bar, but we get some actual cowboys sometimes, and they—”
“When did you last see or speak with Miss Downing?”
“Oh, um, gee. A few days ago, I guess. I get home about three most nights, and she leaves about nine or sometimes ten. I’m usually out like a light by then. But we’ve chatted up some when we connect—days or nights off, or the laundry scene. She’s really nice. Reb says she’s a les but he’s a guy and if a girl doesn’t fall for his”—she made air quotes—“charm, she’s a les. I don’t count ’cause we’ve been buds since forever and don’t screw around with each other like that even when we’re not screwing around with anybody else. It’s a pact.”
“Great. Pictures, Peabody.”
“I’m real sorry you died,” Laurel said to Peabody. “I mean the actress who played you in the vid. She looked a lot like you. Is that weird?”
“A little. Do you know any of these women?”
“Oh.” As if she just remembered she held it, Laurel put the fizzy down on a table. “You should sit down. I can get you a fizzy or some coffee, or whatev.”
“That’s okay. Take a look.”
Laurel sat with the photos, caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she studied them. “I don’t know them. Maybe it’s because I work nights I never saw them come around. But I saw these two.”
She held out Su’s and MacKensie’s photos.
“Where?” Eve demanded.
“In Charity’s apartment.”
“You just said you hadn’t seen them come around.”
“Not them them. But I saw them in the painting. One in Charity’s place. She painted them, and herself and I think it was two other women. They all looked really sad, but really strong. I said that to Charity.”
“Peabody, check it out. The other women aren’t in this painting?”
“Uh-uh. One’s old—I mean older. Like, I don’t know, fifty? And the other looked really young, really sad. Really pretty. They were all really pretty. Anyway— Oh!”
She actually clapped her hands together, as if applauding herself.
“That was the last time. I remember now. See I got up for work, and Reb hadn’t refilled the AutoChef. No coffee. Not enough anyway. And you know, it was desperate, and I went to Charity’s to see if she had any to spare, and she was all, sure, I can hook you up. Then I had to pee. I went for the coffee even before I peed, so I said I need to pee, and she said I could use her bathroom. She has a two-bed unit like us, and she uses the spare for like a studio. For painting? And I saw the painting of the women, and the other one. The scary one.”
“Scary?”
“I guess she’d tossed a cover over it, but it fell off, and there was this scary painting of these men—and it was like they were all screaming and falling into like a fiery pit in front of this big, spooky-looking horror vid house that was burning, too. You know, like hell. They were sort of wearing devil’s masks, and nothing else. It kind of looked like they were supposed to be devils, but I only saw it for a second before Charity came out with the coffee, and walked over and closed the door.”
Hunching her shoulders, Laurel flushed. “I wasn’t poking in, I swear! It was just the door was open and I saw. That’s not poking in. So I said I was s
orry, I just glanced in. I don’t think she was mad, but I could tell she didn’t want me to say anything, so I didn’t. I just said thanks for the coffee, and how she saved my life, and I left. That was a few days ago. Not like yesterday or the day before, but not like a week ago, either. Reb might remember because I told him about it. I texted him pretty quick because, you know, it was really scary and spooky.”
“Would you be able to describe the two paintings, in more detail? The women’s faces, the ones who aren’t here. To a police artist.”
“Oh.” The bottom lip got the nibble treatment. “I don’t know.”
“Detective Yancy.” Peabody came back in, smiling and flapping a hand over her heart.
“Really?” Laurel’s lashes fluttered over eyes now sparkling with interest. “Well, maybe. Okay.”
“Great. We’ll arrange to have you taken down to work with Detective Yancy, and we appreciate the help,” Eve added.
“Could I tag Reb? He’s going to want to blow off work for this. And, honest, I’d feel better if he came with me, or met me there. He’s, you know, like my brother. Like family.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Okay. I need to get dressed. Officer Tanker woke me up. Lieutenant Dallas? I don’t see how Charity could’ve done anything really wrong, except . . .”
“Except?”
“That picture she painted. Of the devil-men? I only saw it for a second, but it gave me nightmares.”
Eve walked next door with Peabody.
“No painting of women, or devil-men. Devil-men?”
“Men who looked like devils screaming as they fall into hell—with a burning house in the background.”
“That is spooky. It sounds like she was painting out her issues.”
They went inside. Like MacKensie’s the apartment struck Eve as a place abandoned. Still furnished, flowering plants on a sunny window, but no electronics. Some painting supplies, and some canvases left behind. But none matched the ones Laurel had described. No handy sketches of any of the women.
“Fuckwear.” Eve held up split crotch panties. “And a lot of it. She didn’t take it because she’s done with it.”
“She took most of the toiletries, but left some old stuff, and I’m betting she missed this.” Peabody came out with a small bottle. “Mixed in with skin creams. It’s sleeping pills—the heavy-duty, put-me-out-till-morning kind.”
“When we check her AutoChef, I’ll bet we find regular programs for soothers and over-the-counter tranqs. She was the one in the trenches, so to speak, with Senator Mira. Wearing thin,” she said again. “Sleeping pills and scary paintings. She’ll break when we find them.”
—
They repeated the process at Su’s apartment. They didn’t find an impatient neighbor or a gregarious one, but every indication Su had gone to ground with everything important to her.
“Hit building security,” Eve told Peabody. “Get the discs for the last two days. Let’s see her coming and going, and what she took when she went. It’s going to be her van, so let’s start checking on that.”
“No vehicle registered in her name. I checked that already.”
“She’s got one. We’ll check her parents’ names. Failing that, I’m going to lean on our expert civilian consultant to find aliases. She’s going to have a vehicle, and one of them owns or rents a house, a building, a place.”
While Peabody hunted up security, Eve continued on the apartment. Su had lived well, she noted. A good space in a good building, what appeared to be carefully selected furnishings. Plenty of good-quality clothes left behind—because she didn’t plan to come back.
She’d come from a stable family—or so it seemed, Eve thought. Got a top-drawer education, and had pursued a challenging career.
One that put her in a lab, Eve thought, probably working alone a great deal of the time. No sign or indication of romantic relationships.
Something happened at Yale, she thought again. Something that had put her on a path to ugly revenge. And on that path, she’d met Downing and MacKensie—and two other women, yet unidentified, if Downing’s painting carried the weight Eve believed it did.
Most likely met them in group or the crisis center.
It cycled back to rape for her money. A brotherhood of rape.
She took another pass at the apartment, this time with an eye toward hidden drawers or secret stashes.
When Peabody came back, Eve was crawling over the floor of the bedroom closet.
“Hoping to find a hidey-hole, but I got nothing.”
“I got the discs.”
“Let’s view them on the bedroom wall screen.”
Eve pushed to her feet, stepped out of the closet into the stringently neat bedroom with its simple and elegant bed—high, dark gray padded headboard, soft gray duvet, a few pillows in shades of blue.
Eve followed the urge to poke at the headboard, peer behind it. “If she had a hole, she’d have taken what was in it anyway,” she said as much to herself as Peabody.
Nodding, Peabody plugged the discs into the wall screen, cued it up.
“Full forty-eight?”
“For now, start when we came in to talk to her. We’ll view the rest back at Central.”
Peabody zipped through, slowed.
Eve watched the two of them step up to the door, into camera range, deal with door security. Into the lobby, and lobby cams, into the elevator, and those cams, and down the corridor to Su’s door.
“Speed it up some. Split it between entrance cam and the view of her floor.”
Eve watched them leave.
“I think my magic pink coat’s magically slimming.”
“Shut up, Peabody.”
Eve watched a delivery guy hit the door carrying a big vase of red and blue flowers, and a woman in a forest-green coat and checkered scarf come out with a white dog on a leash. Another exit—a man with a briefcase who looked hurried and harried. Then . . .
“Freeze it. Look at this one. She doesn’t want to have her face on the camera.”
“Could be.” Peabody pursed her lips. “But it was pretty damn cold. Most everybody bundles.”
“She’s got every strand of hair under that hat, and her face angled down. Scarf’s knotted up so you wouldn’t see the bottom half of her face anyway. Gloves, long coat. Start it—regular speed. Not a resident, see? She’s hitting the intercom, being buzzed in. But she knows where the cameras are. This is what, about twenty minutes after we left?”
“Ah . . . twenty-three.”
“Looking down or away through the lobby . . . off to the side in the elevator. Looks too tall to be MacKensie. Doesn’t move like Downing. Maybe we’ve got one of the others. Maybe . . . And that’s Su’s floor—moving to Su’s door. And in. She contacted someone after we left. We shook her, and she pulled in one of her partners. Keep the split screen in case she pulled in the rest. Can you speed up the corridor cam?”
“McNab could. Give me a second.”
While Peabody dealt with technology, Eve paced.
“She knew we were making the connections. That’s why they decided to go to ground when they did. These two, they’re in there talking it out, figuring it out, contacting the others. Su’s packing, you bet your ass.”
“Got it! Woo, I am e-skilled. Here, here, Dallas, they’re coming out again. Forty-six minutes inside.”
“Su’s got her suitcase, a big tote, and her friend’s got a second suitcase. And the friend’s still steady enough to remember not to show her face to the cameras. Not MacKensie. And I don’t think Downing. One of the others. We’ll have EDD go over this, do what they do. Maybe they can get enough.”
“If Yancy can pull Esty’s memory of the painting.” Peabody nodded. “Maybe.”
“Look how Su’s dressed. Boots—more work than dress—casual trousers under the
coat. Big black tote along with the suitcase. Hold it—look at her face. She’s glancing straight up at the camera. Not at the camera,” Eve corrected. “At us. She figures we’ll see this sooner or later. Look at her face.”
“Angry, but . . . smug.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly right.”
“She’s on her way to the others,” Peabody said quietly. “On her way to pick up the others.”
“And to get back to work on Betz. They have to take shifts. A woman’s got to earn a living, after all. So they take shifts. But they’re moving right along. Still have to try for Easterday—and in that outfit she’s not the one doing the luring. That’s MacKensie’s job this round.”
“Her vehicle, like you said.”
“Yeah, most likely. Go back—go back to yesterday, start about fifteen hundred.”
They watched Su exit at fifteen-ten. Dressed in full black, carrying the big black tote. Hair pulled back, sunshades masking her eyes. She pulled on gloves in the elevator, balled her hands into fists.
“Keep going,” Eve murmured. “Let’s see when she comes back.”
They watched the life of the building—people heading out for the evening—a party, dinner, the night shift. People coming back—late night at the office, from shopping or drinks with friends. A couple who, from the body language, had fought during the evening, came home stone-faced. Another couple who, from the body language, obviously hadn’t fought but had imbibed plenty, laughed and staggered their way inside.
Somebody was getting lucky, and somebody wasn’t.
“There she is. Just past four hundred hours. Doesn’t look smug now,” Eve continued as they followed Su’s progress into the building, up to her floor.
“No, she looks really tired—I’m not sympathizing, especially since we’re pretty damn sure she just got finished killing Wymann, and probably spent some time working on Betz. But she looks more than tired, Dallas.”
Fighting tears, Eve thought. Though Su threw one defiant look at the camera as she fumbled with her own key swipe, the look glittered with tears.
“She’s churned up, maybe even a little sick to her stomach, because the kill, this second kill, didn’t give her what she needs, what she wants more than anything else.”