[In Death 15] - Purity in Death

by J. D. Robb

  The other was faceup, staring with some surprise at the ceiling. Through an open doorway beside the bodies she could hear the sounds of weeping and groaning.

  The door across was also open. She noted several fresh holes and dents in the hallway walls, splinters of wallboard, splatters of blood. And what had once been a baseball bat was now a broken club, covered with blood and brain matter.

  Straight as a soldier, pale as a ghost, Trueheart stood at the doorway. His eyes still held the glassy edge of shock.

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Hold it together, Trueheart. Record on, Peabody.” Eve crouched down to examine the two bodies. The bloodied one was big and beefy, the kind of mixed fat and muscle build that could usually plow through walls if annoyed enough. The back of his skull looked like an egg that had been cracked with a brick.

  The second body wore only a pair of grayed Jockey shorts. His thin, boney frame showed no wounds, no bruising, no damage. Thin trickles of blood had seeped out of his ears, his nostrils.

  “Officer Trueheart, do we have identification on these individuals?”

  “Sir. The, um, initial victim has been identified as Ralph Wooster, who resided in apartment 42E. The man I—” He broke off as Eve’s head whipped up, as her eyes drilled into his.

  “And the second individual?”

  Trueheart wet his lips. “The second individual is identified as Louis K. Cogburn of apartment 43F.”

  “And who is currently wailing inside apartment 42E?”

  “Suzanne Cohen, cohabitation partner of Ralph Wooster. She called for aid out the window of said apartment. Louis Cogburn was assaulting her with what appeared to be a club or bat when I arrived on-scene. At that time—”

  He broke off again when Eve held up a finger. “Preliminary examination of victims indicates a mixed-race male—mid-thirties, approximately two hundred and thirty pounds, approximately six foot one—has suffered severe trauma to head, face, and body. A bat, apparently wooden, and marked with blood and brain matter would appear to be the assault weapon. The second male, also mid-thirties, Caucasian, approximately one hundred and thirty pounds, approximately five foot eight, is identified as the assailant. Cause of death as yet undetermined. Second vic bled from ears and nose. There is no visual trauma or wound.”

  She straightened. “Peabody, I don’t want these bodies touched. I’ll do the field exam after I talk to Cohen. Officer Trueheart, did you discharge your weapon during the course of this incident?”

  “Yes, sir. I—”

  “I want you to surrender that weapon to my aide, who will bag it at this time.”

  There were grumblings from the two uniforms at the end of the hall, but she ignored them as she held Trueheart’s gaze. “You are not obliged to surrender your weapon without representation present. You may request a representative. I’m asking you to give your weapon to Peabody so there’s no question as to the sequence of this investigation.”

  Through the shock, she saw his absolute trust in her. “Yes, sir.” When he reached down for his weapon, she put a hand on his arm.

  “Since when are you a southpaw, Trueheart?”

  “My right arm’s a little sore.”

  “Were you injured during the course of this incident?”

  “He got a couple of swings in before—”

  “The individual you were obliged to draw on assaulted you in the due course of your duties?” She wanted to shake him. “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”

  “It happened awfully fast, Lieutenant. He rushed me, came in swinging, and—”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “Sir?”

  “Lose the shirt, Trueheart. Peabody, record here.”

  He blushed. God, what an innocent, Eve thought, as Trueheart unbuttoned his uniform shirt. She heard Peabody suck in a breath, but whether it was for Trueheart’s undeniably pretty chest, or the bruising that exploded over his right shoulder and mottled the arm to the elbow, she couldn’t be sure.

  “He got in a couple of good swings by the look of it. I want the MTs to take a look at you. Next time you’re hurt on the job, Officer, make it known. Standby.”

  Apartment 42E was in shambles. Though from what was left of the decor, Eve imagined housekeeping wasn’t a high priority of its residents. Still, it was doubtful the place was normally a minefield of broken glass, or the walls decorated with surreal paintings of blood splatters.

  The woman on the gurney looked like she’d known better days as well. A bandage streaked across her left eye, and above it, below it, the skin was raw.

  “She coherent?” Eve asked one of the medical technicians.

  “Just. Kept her from going all the way under since we figured you’d want a word with her. Make it snappy though,” he told her. “We need to get her in. She’s got a detached cornea, shattered cheekbone, broken arm. Guy whaled on her good and proper.”

  “Five minutes. Miss Cohen.” Eve stepped up, leaned down. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “He went crazy. I think he killed Ralph. Just went crazy.”

  “Louis Cogburn?”

  “Louie K., yeah.” She moaned. “Ralph was pissed. Music up so loud you couldn’t think straight. Fucking hot. Just wanted a couple of brews and a little quiet. What the hell? Louie K., he mostly plays the music loud, but this was busting our eardrums. He’s had it wailing for days.”

  “What did Ralph do?” Eve prompted. “Ms. Cohen?”

  “Ralph went and banged on the door, told him to cut it back. Next I knew, Louie came busting out, swinging a bat or something. Looked crazy. Blood was flying, he was screaming. I was scared, really scared, so I slammed the door and ran to the window. Called for help. I could hear him screaming out there, and these awful thumping sounds. I couldn’t hear Ralph. I kept calling for help, then he came in.”

  “Who came in?”

  “Louie K. Didn’t even look like Louie. Had blood all over him, and something was wrong with his eyes. He come at me, with the bat. I ran, tried to run. He was smashing everything and screaming about spikes in his head. He hit me, and I don’t remember after that. Hit me in the face and I don’t remember until the MTs started working on me.”

  “Did you see or speak with the officer who responded to your call for help?”

  “I didn’t see nothing but stars. Ralph’s dead, isn’t he?” A single tear slid down her cheek. “They won’t tell me, but Louie’d never have gotten past him ’less he was dead.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. Did Ralph and Louie have a history of altercations?”

  “You mean did they go at it before? Yelled at each other sometimes about the music, but they’d more likely have a couple brews or smoke a little Zoner. Louie’s just a little squirt of a guy. He never caused no problems around here.”

  “Lieutenant.” One of the MTs moved in. “We’ve got to transport her.”

  “All right. Send somebody in to take a look at my officer. He caught a couple solids in the arm and shoulder.” Eve stepped back, then moved to the door behind them. “Trueheart, you’re going to give me a report, on record. I want it clear, I want it detailed.”

  “Yes, sir. I clocked off at eighteen-thirty and proceeded southeast from Central on foot.”

  “What was your intended destination?”

  He flushed a little. Color came and went in his face. “I was, ah, proceeding to the home of a friend where I had arrangements for dinner.”

  “You had a date.”

  “Yes, sir. As I approached this building, I heard calls for assistance and looking up saw a woman leaning out of the window. She appeared to be in considerable distress. I entered the building, proceeded to the fourth floor where I could hear the sounds of an altercation. Several individuals came to their doors, but no one attempted to come out. I called requests for someone to call nine-eleven.”

  “Did you take the stairs or the elevator?” Details, she thought. She needed to take him through every detail.

 
“The stairs, sir. I thought it would be faster. When I reached this floor, I saw the male identified as Ralph Wooster lying on the floor of the corridor between apartments 42E and 43F. I did not, at that time, check him for injuries as I could hear screaming and breaking glass emitting from 42E. I responded to this immediately and witnessed the individual identified as Louis K. Cogburn assaulting a woman with what appeared to be a baseball bat. The weapon was . . .”

  He paused a moment, swallowed hard. “The weapon was covered with what appeared to be blood and gray matter. The woman was unconscious on the floor, with Cogburn above her. He held the bat over his head as if preparing to strike another blow. I drew my weapon at this time, called for the assailant to cease and desist, identifying myself as Police.”

  Trueheart had to stop now, and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. The look he sent her was both helpless and pleading. “Lieutenant, it all happened fast from there.”

  “Just tell it.”

  “He turned away from the woman. He was screaming something about spikes in his head, about blasting out the window. Crazy stuff. Then he lifted the bat again, shifting so it looked like he was going to strike the woman. I moved in to prevent this, and he charged me. I tried to evade, to get the bat. He landed a couple of blows—I believe it broke at that time—and I fell back, knocked something over, hit the wall. I saw him coming at me again. I yelled at him to stop.”

  Trueheart took a steadying breath, but it didn’t stop the quaver in his voice. “He cocked the bat back like he was swinging for home, and I discharged my weapon. It’s set on low stun, Lieutenant, the lowest setting. You can see—”

  “What happened next?”

  “He screamed. He screamed like—I’ve never heard anything like it. He screamed and he ran out into the hall. I pursued. But he went down. I thought he was stunned, just stunned. But when I got down to put restraints on him, I saw he was dead. I checked his pulse. He was dead. I got jumbled up. Sir, I got jumbled up. I know it was incorrect procedure to tag you before calling—”

  “Never mind that. Officer, were you at the time you deployed your weapon, in fear for your life and/or the lives of civilians?”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I was.”

  “Did Louis K. Cogburn ignore any and all of your warnings to cease and desist and surrender his weapon?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “You.” Eve pointed to one of the uniforms down the hall. “Escort Officer Trueheart downstairs. Medical attention for his injuries has been called for. Put him in one of the black-and-whites until the MTs can see him. Stay with him until I’m done in here. Trueheart, call your representative.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I’m advising you to call your representative,” she said. “I’m stating here, for the record, that in my opinion, after a cursory examination of the evidence, after an interview with Suzanne Cohen, your account of this incident is satisfactory. The deployment of your weapon appears to have been necessary to protect your life and the life of civilians. That’s all I can tell you until my on-scene investigation into this matter is complete. Now I want you to go, get off your feet, call your rep and let the MTs take care of you.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Come on, Trueheart.” The other uniform patted Trueheart on the back.

  “Officer? Any of the beat cops know these dead guys?”

  The uniform glanced back at Eve. “Proctor has this sector. He might.”

  “Get him,” she said as she sealed up and walked into 43F.

  “He’s awful shook,” Peabody said.

  “He’ll have to get over it.” She scanned the room.

  It was a filthy mess, smelling ripely of spoiled food and dirty laundry. The cramped kitchen area consisted of a two-foot counter, a mini-AutoChef and minifridgie. A huge tin sat on the counter. Eve lifted her brows as she read the label.

  “You know, I just don’t see our Louie K. baking a lot of cakes.” She opened one of the two cupboards and perused the neat line of sealed jars. “Looks like Louie was in the illegals line. Funny, everything in here’s neat as Aunt Martha’s, and the rest of the place is a pigsty.”

  She turned around. “No dust on the furniture though. That’s funny, too. You wouldn’t figure a guy who sleeps on sheets that smell like a swamp would bother chasing dust.”

  She opened the closet. “Tidy in here, too. Clothes show a lack of fashion taste, but they’re all clean. Look at that window, Peabody.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Glass is clean, inside and out. Somebody washed them within the last couple weeks. Why do you wash your windows and leave—what the hell is this?—unidentified spilled food substance all over the floor?”

  “Maid’s week off?”

  “Yeah, somebody’s week off. That’s about how long this underwear’s been piled here.” She glanced at the door when a uniform stepped in.

  “You Proctor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know those two dead guys?”

  “I know Louie K.” Proctor shook his head. “Shit—sorry, Lieutenant, but shit, this is some mess. That kid Trueheart’s down there puking his guts out.”

  “Tell me about Louie K., and let me worry about Trueheart and his guts.”

  Proctor pokered up. “Small-time Illegals rat, went after schoolkids. Gave them samples of Zoner and Jazz to lure them in. Waste of air, you ask me. Did some time, but mostly he was pretty slick about it, and the Illegals guys never got much out of the kids.”

  “He a violent tendency?”

  “Anything but. Kept a low profile, never gave you lip. You told him to move his ass along, he moved it. He’d give you a look now and then like he’d like to do more, but he never had the guts for it.”

  “Had guts enough to open Ralph Wooster’s head, bash a woman and assault a uniform.”

  “Must’ve been sampling his own product’s all I can think. And that’s not profile either. He maybe smoked a little Zoner now and then, but he was too cheap to do more. What’s out there looks like Zeus,” Proctor added with a jerk of the thumb toward the corridor. “Little guy like that going nutso. But he never handled anything that hot I heard about.”

  “Okay, Proctor. Thanks.”

  “Guy sells illegals to schoolkids, world’s better off without him.”

  “That’s not our call.” Eve dismissed him by turning her back. She moved to the desk, frowned at the computer screen.

  ABSOLUTE PURITY ACHIEVED

  “What the hell does this mean?” she asked aloud. “Peabody, any new shit on the streets going by the name Purity?”

  “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “Computer, identify Purity.”

  INVALID COMMAND.

  Frowning, she entered her name, badge number, and authorization. “Identify Purity.”

  INVALID COMMAND.

  “Huh. Peabody do a run on new and known illegals. Computer, save current display. Display last task performed.”

  The screen wavered, then opened a tidy, organized spreadsheet detailing inventory, profit, loss, and coded customer base.

  “So, according to the last task, and time logged, Louie was sitting here, very efficiently doing his books when he got a bug up his ass to bust his neighbor’s head open.”

  “It’s hot, Dallas.” Peabody looked over Eve’s shoulder. “People can just get crazy.”

  “Yeah.” Maybe it was just that simple. “Yeah, they can. Nothing on his inventory named Purity.”

  “Nothing on the current illegals list by that name either.”

  “So what the hell is it, and how was it achieved?” She stepped back. “Let’s take a look at Louie K., see what he tells us.”

  Chapter 2

  He didn’t tell her as much as she’d have liked.

  The best she could determine on-scene with her field kit was that Louie K. had died due to neurological melt-down. That wasn’t exactly the sort of term that elicited sage nods from the brass.
/>   She passed the body off to the ME, flagged for priority.

  Which meant, due to summer hours and summer glut, she’d be lucky if she got a confirmed pathology by the first frost.

  She meant to push, calling in chips with the chief medical examiner.

  Meanwhile she spoke with Trueheart’s departmental rep via ’link, and danced the bureaucratic dance. She sent the still shaken rookie home, and ordered him to stand by for Testing.

  Then she went back to Central to write, and rewrite, a detailed report on the incident that had resulted in two deaths and one critical injury.

  And though her stomach curdled, she followed procedure and copied Internal Affairs.

  By the time she got home, it was well past the dinner hour.

  The lights were on, so that the urban fortress Roarke had built glowed like a beacon in the night. Green shadows from grand and leafy trees threw patterns on velvet grass and slid softly over rivers of flowers that were bright and bold by day.

  The Lower East Side neighborhood that had eaten up most of her evening was a world away from this private paradise of wealth, of privilege, of indulgence.

  She was almost accustomed to straddling worlds now without losing her balance. Almost.

  She left her vehicle at the base of the stone steps and jogged up them more out of a desperate desire to shrug off the weight of heat than out of hurry.

  She’d barely stepped in, taken that first breath of cool, clean air, when Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, appeared in the foyer like an unwelcome vision.

  “Yes, I missed the dinner,” she said before he could open his mouth. “Yes, I’m a miserable failure as a wife and a poor example of a human being. I have no class, no courtesy, and no sense of decorum. I should be dragged naked into the streets and stoned for my sins.”

  Summerset raised one steel gray eyebrow. “Well, that seems to cover it.”

  “Good, saves time.” She started up the stairs. “Is he back?”

  “Just.”

  A little annoyed she’d given him no opportunity to criticize, he frowned after her. He’d have to be quicker next time.