The In Death Collection, Books 26-29

by J. D. Robb

  Eve sat on the table in front of him, to face him. “Have you spoken with a grief counselor?”

  “Not yet. I’m not ready for that yet. I should offer you a drink.” When Eve started to shake her head, he continued. “I could use one. I’ve been careful not to, not to use that to block it out. But I think I could use a drink. There’s brandy on the sideboard.”

  “I’ll get it,” Roarke told him.

  “If not a counselor, would you speak with Mira? A friend?”

  He waited until Roarke came back with a snifter. “Thanks. I don’t know,” he said to Eve. “I don’t know yet. I’ve been thinking of dead love.”

  He drank some brandy, met her eyes. “But here you are,” he murmured. “Did you know I had a brother?”

  “No.”

  “I lost him when I was a boy. He was twelve, and I was ten. We were very close. There was an accident while we were on holiday one summer. He drowned. He wanted to go out, into the ocean early in the morning. We were forbidden, of course. Not without our parents, but we were just boys. He was a strong swimmer, and a daredevil. I worshipped him, as boys do.”

  He sat back, sipped his brandy. “I promised I wouldn’t tell, swore an oath to him. So he let me go with him, and I was so excited and terrified.” The memory brought a ghost of a smile to his lips, to his eyes. “There was little I liked more than when he’d let me in on an adventure. Our father would skin us if he found out, which made it only more thrilling. In we went—warm water, warm waves, with the sun barely up, and the gulls screaming.”

  He closed his eyes, and even that hint of smile vanished. “I wasn’t as strong a swimmer, and couldn’t keep up. He was laughing and teasing me as I thrashed my way back toward shore.

  “Out of breath, eyes stinging from the salt, the sun starting to burn over the water. I remember all that. I can still feel all that. I turned in the shallows, panting, to yell at him to come on, to come back before we got caught.”

  He opened his eyes, looked into Eve’s again. She saw old pain in them.

  “And he was gone. I couldn’t swim back, couldn’t save him. Couldn’t see him. I suppose if I’d tried, if it had occurred to me to do anything but run for my father, I’d have drowned, too.”

  He let out a breath. “So. They said he may have gotten a cramp, or been swamped by a wave, simply tired out, or been caught in an undertow. I wanted to know how and why my brother was dead. I wanted the truth. But they couldn’t tell me.”

  “So you look for it now,” Roarke said.

  “So I look for it now.” He looked at Roarke. “You’re right. The business of truth. I never found it with my brother. I’m not sure I can bear losing someone I love a second time and not know why. Not know the truth.”

  “What was his name?”

  Morris looked up from the brandy, into Eve’s face. For a moment his eyes swam with memories, tears, and gratitude. “Jin. His name was Jin.” He sat forward, gripped Eve’s hand. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you’re here. You . . . you’ve hurt your head,” he said abruptly.

  “It’s nothing. Just banged it.”

  “You’re not clumsy.”

  Truth, she remembered, and told him.

  “You’re not considering this may be someone who simply wants to kill or hurt cops?”

  “It doesn’t play that way. Neither incident was random.”

  “No.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “You’re right. You didn’t come here to tell me about this. Why did you?”

  “EDD’s been combing her electronics. Nothing pops, Morris. The investigations she was working on just don’t fit in with murder. There’s nothing in her files, her notes, her personals to give any indication she was in trouble, felt uneasy, had been threatened. There’s only one notation about Ricker—and that’s a memo in her date book that she was meeting AR, at the time and the date he confirms. There’s nothing to indicate she knew she was or had been under the watch of IAB. And she had been.”

  “IAB had investigated her.”

  “They got a tip about her relationship with Ricker, when they were in Atlanta. They had eyes on her, eyes and ears when they could manage it. They lived together, essentially, for well over a year.”

  He kept his eyes steady. “I knew she’d had a serious relationship. She never lied to me about it, or tried to play it down.”

  “Okay. She occasionally traveled with Ricker. Vacation type stuff. He bought her some jewelry. That’s all they had. They never assembled any evidence that it was anything but a personal, a romantic relationship.”

  “And, of course, never just asked her.”

  “Not according to my source.”

  “Which would be Webster, Dallas, I’m not a fool. Have they had her under watch here?”

  “Initially. The relationship with Ricker ended, appeared to end, a couple of months before she requested the transfer. Their contact was minimal after the breakup, and dribbled down to none. But the New York bureau was notified, and took a look at her. Webster said they bumped her down—just nothing there—and they weren’t on her when Ricker contacted her, when he got to New York.”

  “He’s your prime suspect.”

  “He’s a suspect. Prime’s pushing it with what I have. I know he’s crooked. She would have known that, too. Webster’s going to do some digging, and keep a lid on it. He’ll be careful with her, Morris.”

  “IAB, now—it’s—” He broke off, shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. She may have been a source for Alex back in Atlanta. Morris, you know I have to consider that. If she was involved with him, in love with him, she might’ve stepped over the line for him. I have to look there as long as I’m looking at him. And I have to think, either way it was, maybe she took a good hard look at things. After she’d come here, after she had that distance, and you. Maybe she’d started to put things down, thought about putting down details and flipping on him.”

  Both the anger and the fatigue had cleared from his face as he heard her out. “If that’s true, and he found out—”

  “If and if. But there’s nothing on her units. Nothing. She spent a lot of time here. A lot of time with you. Maybe time here when you weren’t.”

  “Yes, depending on our shifts, or if either of us got called in. You think she might have used my comps, tucked something in, because it felt safer. More secure.”

  “I’d like to have my expert consultant here take a look. And, I know it’s weird, but if I could do a search. In case she hid discs or any kind of documentation.”

  “Yes. Please.” He got to his feet. “I’ll make coffee.”

  Morris helped with the search, and Eve thought he seemed more himself—precise, focused—for the doing. She took the kitchen, the living area, leaving him to the bedroom while Roarke concentrated on the office.

  She dug through containers and clear jars, in drawers and behind them. Under tables, cushions, behind art, and through Morris’s extensive music disc collection. She examined every stair tread before going up.

  In the bedroom Morris stood in front of the closet, a filmy white robe in his hands.

  “It smells of her,” he said quietly. “It smells of her.” And hung it up again. “I can’t find anything.”

  “Maybe Roarke’ll have better luck. Can you think of anywhere else she might put something? Hide something?”

  “I can’t. She was friendly but distant with her neighbors. You know how it is. She was closest with her squad. But if she’d given one of them anything, they’d have come to you, or certainly to their lieutenant, with it by now.”

  “Yeah.”

  She blew out a breath. “Maybe there’s nothing here because there’s nothing anywhere.”

  “It feels as though it’s the first thing I’ve done of any consequence, the first I’ve done to help her. Even if it was to find nothing. You believe she crossed the line.”

  “IAB couldn’t prove it.”

  “That’s evasion. You think it.”

  “Tru
th, Morris? I don’t know.”

  “What did she do with the jewelry he bought her?”

  “She gave it back when they split.”

  He smiled, really smiled, for the first time since she’d come to his door the day before. “That’s who she was, Dallas.”

  She brooded about it on the drive home. “Waste of three hours. Nothing. Nothing there. If we couldn’t find anything between us, there’s nothing there. Wasted time.”

  “It wasn’t, and far from it. He looked alive again when we left. In pain, in sorrow, but alive.” Roarke reached out to cover her hand. “Not wasted time.”

  11

  BACK IN HER HOME OFFICE, SHE RAN THE SECUrity discs. She watched Rod Sandy, carrying a briefcase, exit the elevator, cross the lobby, exit the building at eleven-twenty-six the morning after Coltraine’s murder.

  He looked grim.

  “Favor,” she said to Roarke, “do a search on the time the first media reports of Coltraine’s murder hit.”

  While Roarke obliged, she continued the run, watched people come and go. None exited—according to the elevator readout—on the penthouse levels until Sandy returned at twelve-oh-eight.

  “The first bulletin hit at ten-fifty-three on ANN,” Roarke said, referring to All News Network. “Broad sweep reports followed on every major station by eleven.”

  “Quick work,” Eve muttered. “That’s quick work if Sandy carried discs and anything incriminating or questionable out with him—which he damn well did—to another location.”

  “He wouldn’t have taken his unregistered out across a public lobby.”

  “No.” She switched to elevator security. Again she saw Sandy step in, ride down, get off. Others took the car to other floors. Then the screen went blank and black. “What the—is that the disc or my equipment?”

  “Neither. The security cam shut down. Was shut down,” Roarke corrected. “No blip, no static, no jump such as you’d get if there was a malfunction. The building would have a basement, utility areas, a delivery entrance.”

  “Delivery entrance on the cross street.” Eve shifted to that disc. “Son of a bitch, coordinated shutdown. Smooth. Even if I dig up a wit from the building, or the buildings across the street that saw loading and unloading, it proves nothing. Still . . .”

  “He’d need a vehicle—truck or . . . a van to move the equipment.”

  “And to carry the new furniture in. He wouldn’t have used a stolen van,” she added, in response to Roarke’s unspoken question. “Furniture delivery truck maybe. He owns an antique store on Madison, and another downtown. Maybe I get somebody to ID it, and say, ‘Yeah, I saw these guys carting out boxes, carting in a dresser,’ it’s not evidence. But this tells me he took care of business the morning after Coltraine was killed. He covered his ass.”

  “Devil’s advocate, darling, but under the same circumstances, I’d have been covering mine hours earlier if I’d done murder. By the time the body was discovered, there’d be nothing on the premises I didn’t want the cops to see.”

  “He’s not as good as you. I said that before.”

  “I never tire of hearing it.”

  “On the night she died we’ve got him on the cam, coming and going at the times he gave us. Or close enough not to argue with. But he shuts it down to remove his unregistered and take a furniture delivery. No, not as good as you.”

  She gave Roarke a thoughtful look. “You’d’ve doctored the discs if you felt you needed to. But most likely, you’d have let it all go on record. What the fuck do you care if the cops see packages leaving your place? Something new coming in. No crime in it. The cops hadn’t had the first word with you. You’d’ve let it stand and said prove it. With the ‘fuck you’ implied.”

  “How comforting to be so well understood. He’s given you just what you wanted to know, hasn’t he? He’s—as you put it—on the shady side, and he had something to hide.”

  “Which doesn’t make him a killer,” Eve admitted. “But if the shady side included cops on the payroll, why stop at one? I’ve got to take another look at her squad, which probably means reaching out to IAB again. Crap.”

  “Again. Yes, I gleaned that when you talked to Morris.”

  Realizing she’d yet to mention her meet with Webster, she glanced over. “If a lead indicates the vic may have been a dirty cop, I’ve got to tap that resource.”

  “Define tap.”

  Even though she realized it was his intent, Eve nearly squirmed. “I had a meet with Webster. I used the Down and Dirty—Crack says hey. We’re both keeping it off the log, for now.”

  “Interesting venue.”

  “The connection with Crack makes it my turf. We’re sharing data.”

  Roarke tapped her chin. “Isn’t it lucky I’m not the jealous type?”

  She simply stared at him. “Oh yeah, that’s lucky.”

  When he laughed, she shook her head, then walked over to study her murder board one last time. “The killer’s on here. The trigger or the one who cocked it. Nothing else makes sense. But what did she do? What did she do, what did she know, who did she threaten to bring it down on her?”

  She slept on it, and didn’t sleep well.

  In the dream, Eve sat on a slab in the morgue, with Coltraine sitting on her own. They faced each other while the mournful sounds of a saxophone played through the chilled air.

  “You’re not telling me enough,” Eve said.

  “Maybe you’re not listening.”

  “That’s bullshit, Detective.”

  “You can’t think of me as Ammy, or even Amaryllis. You’re having a hard time seeing me as just a woman.”

  “You’re not just a woman.”

  “Because of the badge.” Coltraine held hers in her hand, turning it over, studying it. “I liked having it. But I didn’t need it. Not like you. For some, the job is just a job. You know that about me, you know that much. It’s one of the reasons you can think, can believe, I used the badge for personal gain.”

  “Did you?”

  With her free hand, Coltraine brushed back her blond, glossy hair. “Don’t we all? Don’t you? I don’t mean the pitiful pay. You gain, personally, every day, by being in charge, in control, doing the work. Pushing, pushing, pushing what you were aside for what you are.”

  “It’s not about me.”

  “It’s always about you. Victim, killer, investigator. The triad, always connected. Each one links the other, each one brings what they bring to the table. One can’t be without the other two in this game.” Coltraine puffed out a breath, a soft sound of annoyance. “I never expected to die for it, and that—let me tell you—is a total bitch. You do.”

  “I expect to die?”

  “Sitting on a slab, aren’t you? Just like me. But expect’s the wrong word. You’re prepared.” As if pleased, she nodded. “Yes, that’s better. You’re prepared to die, for the badge. I wasn’t. I was prepared to do the work until it was time to step away from it and get married, start a family. You’re still surprised you’ve managed to be a cop and a wife. You can’t figure how it’s possible to be one and have a family, so you don’t think about it.”

  “Kids are scary. They’re foreign and—”

  “What you were when he hurt you. When he beat you and terrorized you and raped you. How can you have a child until you fully understand, accept, forgive the child you were?”

  “Did getting murdered give you a license to shrink?”

  “It’s your subconscious, Lieutenant. I’m just one of your dead now.” She looked over to the wall, and all those cold, steel drawers. “One of the many. You and Morris, both so oddly comfortable here. Did you really never think about tapping that?”

  Even in the dream, Eve felt heat rise into her face. “Jesus, this is not my subconscious.”

  “It sure as hell isn’t mine.” With a laugh, Coltraine shook back her hair. “But loving someone without the sex, even the sexual buzz? That’s special. I’m glad he has you now, glad he has that with you. I
t was different for him and me. That sexual buzz?” She snapped her fingers. “Almost that quick. And from there, a lot more. He was the one, I think he would’ve been the one to be with, to believe in, have a family with.”

  “What about Alex Ricker? Sexual buzz?”

  “And then some. You know that. You know exactly the kind of sexual buzz a man like that throws off.”

  “He’s not like Roarke.”

  “Not that different, not all that different.” Coltraine pointed at Eve, smiled easily. “That bothers you. We’re not that different either. We fell for it, we wanted it. We just handled it differently. Would you, could you, have walked away from him if he hadn’t shed the shady?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t be sure. But I know if he had asked me to be with him, to make a life with him and to look the other way while he broke the law, he wouldn’t be Roarke. Roarke’s who I stayed with.”

  Now Coltraine wagged that finger back and forth. “But he does break the law.”

  “Hard to explain, even to me. He doesn’t break it for his own profit, for his own gain. Not now, not anymore. If he does, it’s because he believes in right, in justice. Not always the same right, the same justice as I do. But he believes. Ricker didn’t shed for you. I got that much, too.”

  “They come from harsh fathers and dead mothers, these men. Isn’t that part of what makes them, and part of our attraction to them? They’re dangerous and compelling. They want us, and want to give us things.”

  “I don’t care about the things. But you did. You did or you wouldn’t have given them back. Huh. Subconscious scores. You gave them back because they did matter, and because they mattered you couldn’t keep them. It wouldn’t have been a break then, not a clean one. You wore the ring your parents gave you instead, a reminder of who and where you’d come from. Solid middle-class family.”