"Problem?" Eve asked.
"That's what I'm asking you." The man rolled his shoulders, rocked up on the balls of his feet. Combative stance. "Nobody's home there. If you're a friend of the person who lives there, you should know that."
"You a friend of hers?"
"I live across the street." He gestured with his thumb. "We look out for each other around here."
"Glad to hear it." Eve pulled out her badge. "You know what happened here?"
"Yeah. Wait a sec." He held up a hand, turned and called out to the woman in the doorway, "It's okay, honey. They're cops. Sort of figured you were," he said when he turned back to them. "But I wanted to make sure. Couple of cops came by and talked to us already. Sorry about jumping on you. We're all a little edgy right now."
"No problem. Were you around last Thursday night?"
"We were home. We were right there across the street while..." He stared hard at the Gannon house. "Jesus, it's tough to think about. We knew Andrea, too. We've been to parties at Sam's, and she and my wife did the girls'-night-out thing a couple times with friends. We were right across the street when this happened."
"You knew Andrea Jacobs was staying here while Ms. Gannon was out of town?"
"My wife came over here the night before Sam left for her book tour deal-just to say goodbye, wish her luck, ask if she wanted us to feed the fish or anything. Sam told her Andrea would be around to take care of stuff."
"Did you see or speak to her, to Andrea Jacobs, during the time Samantha Gannon was out of town?"
"Don't think I saw her more than once. A quick wave across the street kind of thing. I leave the house about six-thirty most mornings. Hit the gym before the office. Wife's out by eight. Andrea kept different hours, so I didn't expect to see much of her. Never thought anything when I didn't."
"But you noticed us at the door tonight. Is that because of what happened, or do you usually keep an eye out?"
"I keep an eye. Not like an eagle," he said with a half smile. "Just try to stay aware, you know. And you guys were sort of loitering there, you know?"
"Yeah." Like someone might who was trying to lift the locks and bypass the alarm. "Have you noticed anyone who doesn't belong? Did you see anyone at the door, or just hanging around the area in the last couple weeks?"
"Cops asked me the same thing before. I've thought and thought about it. I just didn't. My wife either, because we've talked about it since we found out what happened. Haven't talked about much else."
He let out a long breath. "And last Thursday, my wife and I went to bed about ten. Watched some screen in the sack. I locked up right before we headed up. I'd've looked out. I always look out, just habit. But I didn't see anything. Anyone. It's terrible what happened. You're not supposed to know people this happens to," he said as he looked at the house. "Somebody else is supposed to know them."
She knew them, Eve thought as she walked back to Roarke. She knew countless dead.
"See how long it takes," she said to Roarke, and gestured toward the door.
"All right then." He drew a small leather case out of his pocket, selected a tool. "You'll take into consideration that I've not researched nor practiced on this particular system." He crouched.
"Yeah, yeah. You get a handicap. I just want to reconstruct a possible scenario. I don't think anybody casing this house would've gotten past Joe Gym across the street. Not if they spent any time in the neighborhood."
"While you were talking to him, half a dozen people came to doors or windows and watched."
"Yeah, I made that."
"Still, if you were casing, you might walk by, take photos." He straightened, opened the door. "And you might invest in a remote clone, if you could afford one." While he spoke, he opened the security panel inside the door, interfaced a mini-pocket unit to it and manually keyed in a command. "Dress differently, take another walk. You'd just need some patience. There, that's done."
"You said three or four minutes. That was under two."
"I said someone with some skill. I didn't say me. It's a decent system, but Roarke Industries makes better."
"I'll give you a plug next time I talk to her. He went upstairs first."
"Did he?"
"He went up first because if he wasn't expecting anyone to come in, he'd have left the lights on after he hit the privacy screens. She'd have noticed that when she came in. She'd have noticed the lights, and the mess in the living area. But she didn't. Assuming she had a working brain, if she'd walked in on that, she'd have run right out again, called the cops. But she went upstairs."
She opened the front door again, let it slam shut. "He heard her. She checks the locks, the alarms. Maybe she checks the 'link down here for messages." Eve walked through the living area, skirting around the mess, ignoring the chemical smell left behind by the sweepers. "She's been clubbing, probably had a few drinks. She doesn't spend much time down here. She's wearing arch-killing shoes, but she doesn't take them off until she's in the bedroom. Can't see why she'd walk around down here in them for long with nobody around to admire her legs. She starts upstairs."
She moved up the steps. "I bet she likes the house. She's lived in an apartment for nearly a decade. I bet she likes having all this room. She turns into the bedroom, kicks off the fuck-me shoes."
"Minor point, but how do you know she didn't take off the shoes downstairs, walk up barefoot, carrying them?"
"Hmm? Oh, their position-and hers. If they'd been in her hand when she got sliced, they'd have dropped closer to her body. If she'd carried them up, she'd have turned toward, or at least have tossed them closer to, the closet. Seems to me. See where I'm standing?"
He saw where she was standing, just as he saw the splotches and splatters of blood on the bed, the floor, the lamp, the wall. The stench of it all was barely hidden under the chemicals. And he wondered how, how in God's name, anyone could come back and sleep in this room again. Live with the nightmare of this room.
Then he looked at his wife, saw she was waiting. Saw her cop's eyes were cool and flat. She lived with nightmares, waking and sleeping.
"Yes, I see."
"Closet doors were open. I'm betting the closet. He didn't start in here. I think he started in the office down the hall. I think that was his first stop, and he didn't get very far."
"Why?"
"If he'd tossed this room, she'd have seen the mess as soon as she opened the door. No defensive wounds, no sign she tried to run or fight. Second, there's a workstation in the office, and it's still neat as a pin. I figure that was his starting point, and he'd planned to be careful, to be tidy. Jacobs comes in, screws that plan for him."
"And Plan B is murder."
"Yeah. No way he missed her workstation, but he didn't mess it up. He went through everything else, and wasn't worried about being neat, but he'd already searched the workstation. Why mess with it again?"
Roarke looked at the horror of blood and fluids staining the floor and walls. "And slicing a woman's throat is more time efficient."
"That could factor. I think he heard her come in, and instead of waiting until she went to sleep and getting the hell out, instead of knocking her senseless, he slipped right in here, slid back into the closet and watched her come in and kick off her fancy shoes. Push that stuff out of the way, will you? We've already been through here, scene's on record. Stand in the closet."
"Christ." He pushed the heaps of clothes and pillows aside, stepped back inside the open closet.
"See the angle? This had to be the angle from the way she landed. She's standing like this, facing away. He came up behind, yanked her head back by the hair-she had long hair, and the angle of the wound-had to be. Slice down, left to right. Do that. Just fake the hair."
He reached her in two strides, gave her short hair a tug, feigned the swipe with a knife.
She imagined herself jerking once. The shock the system experienced, the alarm screaming in the brain even as the body died. And looked down at the floor, brought the p
osition of the body back into her mind.
"Had to be. Had to be just like that. He couldn't have hesitated, not for a second. Even a second warning, she'd have turned, changed the angle some. Had to be fast and smooth. See, she hit the side of the bed when she fell. Spatter indicates. Hit the side of the bed, bounced, rolled, landed. Then he went back to work. He had to do most of this after he'd killed her. He must've spent another hour, maybe two, in the house with her, some of that right in this room with her while she was bleeding out. He's got steady hands. And he's got cold blood."
"Have you got a watch on Samantha Gannon?"
"Yeah. And it's going to stay on her until I take him down. Let's get out of here."
He waited until they were outside again, in the hot summer air. Until she'd resealed the door. Then he ran his hands down her arms, drew her against him and kissed her lightly.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"We needed it."
"Guess you're right." She took his hand, walked down the steps. "We did."
***
The media had already caught the scent. Eve's office 'link at Cop Central was clogged with requests, pleas, demands for information. She dumped them all, with some pleasure, shooting them to the media liaison. They could sniff for blood all they wanted, but they weren't getting any from her until she was ready.
She expected to get a personal visit from Nadine Furst before much longer. She'd deal with that when the time came. The fact was there was probably a way for her to use Channel 75's hotshot on-air reporter.
She programmed coffee and decided it was never too early to nag the ME or the lab.
She was arguing with the ME assigned to her case, disgusted to be informed Chief Medical Examiner Morris was on leave, when she heard hoots and whistles erupt from the bull pen outside her office.
"I don't care if it is the summer crunch in your line of work," Eve snapped. "Sending in bodies doesn't happen to be my little hobby. I need results, not excuses."
She broke transmission, decided her first ass-kicking of the day put her in the perfect mood to bitch at the lab. Then scowled at the clicking sound approaching her office.
"Morning, Dallas,"
The stalwart Peabody, newly promoted to detective, no longer wore her spit-and-polish uniform. And Eve was discovering that was a damn pity. Her sturdy body, which showed a lot more curves out of her blues, was decked out in a pair of pegged lavender pants, a snug purple top and a floaty sort of jacket that picked up both colors in thin stripes. Instead of her clunky and perfectly respectable cop shoes she had on pointy-toed purple shoes with short skinny heels.
Which explained the clicking.
"What the hell have you got on?"
"Clothes. They're my clothes. I'm trying out different looks so I can settle on my particular work style. I'm thinking about new hair, too."
"Why do you have to have new hair?" She was used to Peabody's dark bowl of hair, damnit. "Why do people always have to have new hair? If you didn't like the old hair, why did you have the old hair? Then you won't like the new hair, and you'll have to have new new hair. It makes me crazy."
"So much does."
"And what the hell are those?" She jabbed a finger at the shoes.
"Aren't they great?" She turned her ankle to show them off. "Surprisingly comfortable, too."
"Those are girl shoes."
"Dallas, I don't know how to tell you this, but I am a girl."
"My partner's not a girl. I don't have girl partners. I have cops. My partner is a cop, and those are not the shoes of a cop. You click."
"Thanks, Lieutenant." Peabody smiled down at herself. "I do think it all works well together."
"No, Jesus Christ in spandex. You click when you walk."
"They just need to be broken in." She started to sulk, then saw the case file, the crime-scene stills, on Eve's desk. "What're you doing? Are you working on a cold case?"
"It's hot. I caught it yesterday, right before end of shift."
"You caught a case and you didn't tag me?"
"Don't whine. I didn't call you in because you had The Big Night. Remember how you kept saying it, like it was a vid title? I know how to work a scene, Peabody. There was no reason to screw up your plans."
"Despite your opinion of my shoes, I'm a cop. I expect to have my plans screwed."
"This time they weren't. Shit, I wanted you to have it. If you're going to make a big deal here, you're just going to piss me off."
Peabody folded in her lips. Shifted her stance as the shoes weren't quite as comfortable as she'd claimed. Then she smiled. "I'm not. I appreciate it. It was important to me, and McNab went to a lot of trouble. So thanks. We had a great time. I drank a little more than I should, so I'm a little fuzzy this morning. But a hit of real coffee should help that."
She looked hopefully toward Eve's AutoChef, where there was real as opposed to the sludge disguised as coffee in the bull pen.
"Go ahead. Then sit down. I'll bring you up to speed."
***
"Missing diamonds. It's like a treasure hunt," Peabody decided. "Like booty. It could be fun."
Saying nothing, Eve passed her one of the on-scene stills of Andrea Jacobs's body. Peabody let out a hiss between her teeth. "Okay, not so much. No sign of forced entry? Sexual assault?"
"None apparent from the on-scene."
"She could've brought someone home with her. Bad choice. People make them."
"We'll check that out. I ran her debit card. Her last transaction, which looks like clearing the evening's tab, was at Club Six-Oh. Sixtieth and Second, at eleven forty-five on Thursday night. Estimated time of death was between midnight and one."
"So she'd have gone straight to the Gannon residence from the club. If she had company, she found it there."
"We're in the field," Eve said, gathering the file. "We talk to Gannon's ex, Jacobs's employer and coworkers, hit the club and swing by the morgue to harass people."
"I always like that part. I get to flash my new badge," she added as they walked out. She flipped her jacket open to reveal the detective's badge hooked to her waistband.
"Very nice."
"My new favorite accessory."
***
The powers-that-be at Tarbo, Chassie and Dix obviously subscribed to the theory that a display of excess drew in clients whose finances needed planning. The midtown offices were spread over four floors with a main information center the size of the Yankees' outfield. Eight young men and women, certainly hired as much for their perky good looks as their communication skills, manned an alarm-red island counter that could have housed a small suburb. Each wore a personal communicator and manned slick minidata and communication centers.
Each obviously practiced superior dental hygiene if their dazzling, identical smiles were any gauge.
Around them were smaller counters with more perky, toothy men and women in snappy suits, three waiting areas with cushy-looking chairs, equipped with screens for passing the time with magazines or short vids, and a little, tastefully planted garden with its own tiny blue pool.
Bouncy, repetitive music danced through the air at a discreet volume.
Eve decided she'd be in a padded room for mental defectives in under a week if she worked under similar conditions.
She walked to the main counter over a springy silver carpet. "Chad Dix."
"Mr. Dix is on forty-two." The beaming brunette tapped her screen. "I'll be happy to have one of his assistants escort you. If I might have your name, and the time of your appointment?"
Eve laid her badge on the glossy red counter. "Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. And I'd say my appointment is now. We can get up to forty-two ourselves, thanks, but you might want to tell Mr. Dix we're on our way."
"But you have to be cleared for the elevator."
Eve picked up her badge, wiggled it back and forth. "Then you'd better take care of that." She pocketed the badge and strode to the bank of elevators with Peabody.
"Can I be bitch
cop next time?" Peabody whispered as they waited for the doors to open. "I really need to practice."
"Seems to me if you need to practice, it's not a true calling, but you can take a shot." She stepped onto the elevator. "Forty-two," she demanded. And leaned back on the side wall as the car whisked them up. "Take the assistant they're going to toss in our way."
"Hot dog." Peabody rubbed her hands together. Then rolled her shoulders, circled her neck.
J D Robb - Dallas 18 - Remember When Page 30