by J. D. Robb
“A beginning and an end.”
“The probability is extremely high these are the two parameters left. I should add, it’s possible he hasn’t yet made contact with the widow or widower. While this is, by pattern established, the last target, the newlywed will almost certainly be next, and may be targeted for this coming weekend.”
For the first time the enigmatic face showed a frisson of fear. “So soon. Lieutenant, we are, fortunately, long-lived in my family. We have suffered loss, of course. An aunt who was dear to me passed only a year ago.”
“I’ll take the information, but I believe the target will be female. Both his victims and the three targets we’ve established have been women.”
“Ah . . . a cousin a few months ago. His wife—” She pressed a finger to her temple. “I’ll have to check. She lives in Prague. My mother would have all the information. She’s a family database.”
“Someone closer. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but devastate you.”
“None of my children or grandchildren are recently married. Two of the grandchildren are engaged. I have a niece who was married last summer, another who’ll be married this fall. And . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Let me take an hour or so on this. I’ll contact my mother. She’ll know. In fact, she’ll have a list of everyone and their current address from the renewal ceremony invitations.”
“Renewal?”
“Yes, yes, my parents decided to renew their wedding vows on Valentine’s Day. She decided after seventy years they’d earned a booster shot, a massive party, and a second honeymoon.”
“A second honeymoon. Like newlyweds.”
“Yes. They’re eighty-nine and ninety-three and . . .” Mimoto’s face went blank with horror. “Oh my God. My mother? He’s targeted my mother?”
“It’s possible. I want to bring her in. Sit tight, Your Honor. Peabody.”
“I’m pulling up the number now.”
“Put it on speaker when you have her ’linked, in case she wants to verify with her daughter. Then have two officers in plainclothes report to her residence to ensure her safety. We’ve got her,” she assured Mimoto. “She’ll be covered.”
Within minutes, the holo-image of Charity Mimoto sat beside her daughter. For someone looking square-eyed at ninety, Eve thought, the woman looked damn good.
She was long where her daughter was petite, rawboned while the judge was delicate, and her skin tone several shades deeper. But the eyes, intelligent and azure, were all but identical.
Charity took one look at the wall screen. “Why it’s Denny. He’s shaved his little beard and fiddled with his hair, but sure, that’s Denny all right.”
“Do you have his full name, Mrs. Mimoto?”
“Of course, I do. Dennis—but he goes by Denny—Plimpton. He’s that nice young boy I’ve been teaching to play piano. I teach piano a little to earn my mad money. He’s taking lessons on the sly to surprise his mama. It’s so sweet.”
“Oh dear Jesus. Are the police there yet? Mama, don’t you or Daddy answer the door unless it’s the police. Make them show—”
“Seri, your grandma didn’t raise a fool.” With admirable aplomb, Charity crossed her long legs and got comfortable. “What’s this boy done, Lieutenant Dallas? Because it’s hard for me to believe he’s done anything to cause all this commotion. He couldn’t be sweeter or more well-mannered.”
“He’s the prime suspect in two homicides.”
“Murders? This boy?” She started to laugh it off, then narrowed her eyes at Eve’s face. “Wait just one minute. I know you. Of course, I do. I’m so fuddled up about all this business and beaming around like old Star Trek episodes I didn’t see it. I’ve seen you on the news, and I saw you on it just today. About that little girl, and the other one. You think this boy did that?”
Eve started to give the departmental line, then decided to cut through it. “I know he did. How long have you been giving him le ssons?”
Charity held up both hands, pushing them out as if to thrust the words back. “Just a minute. A minute here. I’ve always been a good judge of character. Passed it on to you, didn’t I, Serenity? I never saw any bad in that boy. But I’m looking right at you, Lieutenant, and I guess I can judge that. I’ve given him five lessons so far, Wednesday afternoons, though he had to switch one to a Thursday evening a couple back.”
“Daddy plays golf Wednesday afternoons. You’ve been alone with this monster.”
“Why did he switch the one lesson?” Eve asked.
“He said he got called into work. He’s a computer programmer, and there was some glitch or other he had to take care of. It was raining that day,” she added. “My Deke doesn’t play golf when it rains, so he was home all day. And once a month, Thursday evenings, he goes and plays poker with some of the boys. He wasn’t home the Thursday evening this one came.”
Those soft blue eyes sharpened. “That was smart, wasn’t it? Smart to know all that, to make sure I’m the only one who’s seen him. Why, he’s a fucker, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am, he is. Has he ever come to your home on a weekend?”
“No, but he asked to switch this week’s lesson to Friday afternoon.”
“Lieutenant, my father, my husband, brothers, the grandsons, they’re all going on a camping trip this weekend. They’re leaving Friday. My mother would be home alone until Sunday. He must know.”
“Sure he knows, didn’t I tell him myself?” Charity slapped a hand to her own thigh. “I must’ve said something a couple weeks back about how glad I was going to be to have the house to myself for a couple days, and damned if I didn’t tell him all about it. He asked where they camped, how long they’d be away. It was smooth, when I think about it, all how he’d never gone camping, wasn’t sure he’d like it. And last Wednesday, he brought it up, making sure, I see now, that it was still on.”
She gave a grimace of disgust. “He’s planning on coming here to kill me. I’ll kick that little bastard’s ass to next week.”
“I bet you could,” Eve said. “But you’re going to have to leave that part to me.”
Charity drew a deep breath, then gave Eve a look of approval. “You look like you can handle it. What do you want us to do?”
It took time to lay it out, reassure, and to bring in the last name on her list, find the target, interview, and again reassure.
At the end of it, a tired Peabody sighed. “We’ll get him tomorrow, at the memorial. We’ll get him then, and all the rest will just be precaution and backup. Because, well, we want him but . . . Louise’s wedding.”
“Don’t. Don’t even start.” Tired herself, Eve scrubbed her hands over her face. “Briefing tomorrow as scheduled. We’ll bring the rest of the team up to speed. I’ll write it up. Go ahead and fill in McNab and Jamie since you’re going to do that anyway. Then shut down. You need to be on full charge tomorrow.”
“I will. Because we have to take him tomorrow. For the sake of law and justice. And true love.”
“Roarke. Please.”
He smiled. “Good night, Peabody,” he said, and discharged the holo.
“Okay, and peace reigns across the land. For a minute. I need the recording so I can—”
“Disc copy.” He offered it. “And another is already transmitting to your unit. Now, come with me.”
“I have to—”
“Yes, I know you do.” He took her hand, drew her to the elevator. “If there was enough time—or I thought I could browbeat you into it—I’d see you took a hot bath and a relaxation session, but rather than argue for the next many minutes . . .”
He drew her into the bedroom.
“I don’t have time for that either.”
“Dear God, sex, sex, sex. It’s all you think about.” He turned her toward the sitting area.
There was candlelight, two glasses of wine, and—
“Is that cake?”
“It is.”
“I get cake?”
He pulled her back be
fore she could pounce. “It depends.” He pulled a small case out of his pocket, watched her happy surprise turn to annoyed scowl.
“I don’t need a blocker.”
“You do if you want cake. I know you have a headache—overwork, stress—overthinking—it shows. Take the blocker like a good girl, and you’ll have cake.”
“It better be really good cake.” She popped the blocker, then immediately grabbed the plate. One bite had her closing her eyes. “Okay, it is. Really good. Worth it. Ten minutes for cake.”
“Seems only fair.” He tugged her down to sit.
“We found them all.” She closed her eyes again, not in pleasure but relief. “All five.”
“Saved them all.”
“No, not all.”
“There are five women, and their families, who think differently.”
“If we can take him tomorrow.” She let it ride a moment, took another bite of cake. “The judge’s mother? Something.”
“Indeed she is.”
“Do the math. Seventy years into the marriage deal, and she’s ninety. Twenty when she stepped into the deal, started popping out kids. Seven decades later, and it’s still there. It’s what Pauley wants to destroy. Not just the person, but the connection. Strangle them with their own family ties.”
A slow sip of wine went down smoothly. “If we don’t take him tomorrow, she’ll hold up. She’ll stand to it.
“I don’t want to screw up the wedding,” she said suddenly. “I don’t want to mess this up, but if—”
“One step at a time.”
She let out a huff of breath. “Yeah. One step at a time.”
In the morning, Eve stood in the conference room outlining positioning and strategy for her team. Using a remote, she highlighted specific areas of the blueprint on screen.
“The ten-story building holds bereavement facilities on floors one through three, offices and counseling centers for same, four and five, ah, showrooms and retail spaces on six and seven. Eight through ten are hotel facilities offered to families and other attendants of the memorials and funerals held on site.”
“One-stop shopping,” Baxter commented.
“Yeah.” And, well, creepy to her mind. “Moreover, their preparation facilities in the basement comprise over four thousand square feet, and two outside entrances. There are four banks of elevators for a total of twelve cars, a glide between the hotel floors and the retail areas. Stairs, here, here, here, and here.” She highlighted. “Serving all floors.”
“Lots of ins, lots of outs,” Feeney added.
“Plus, you have the main doors here, facing south, additional entrances west and east, and two egresses north. Both the size and the position of the building add complexity. The MacMasters memorial is being held on level two, southwest corner, which includes a large, open terrace facing the park, as do all rooms on the west side. Three other memorials and two viewings overlap the time frame of the MacMasterses. Twenty of the twenty-two hotel rooms are occupied. All offices, chapels, counseling centers, and retail markets will be open.”
“Place’ll be jammed,” McNab pointed out. “That could give him an advantage.”
“We weren’t able to persuade the owners or various managers to cooperate, and have no authority to compel them to do so. We’ll focus on entrances and egresses, concentrating on the memorial areas. They consist of this room where the formal memorial will take place, and these two smaller parlors, all with access to the terrace and the corridor.”
She switched to a view of the memorial areas, with points already highlighted and numbered. “We cover the exits, as assigned here, with rovers continually sweeping point to point. If and when he’s spotted, we close off the exits, box him in. Those positioned at exits remain at their stations while those roving move in. I want him taken fast and clean.”
“Lieutenant.” One of the uniforms from MacMasters’s squad signaled. “The place is going to be jammed, but the memorial’s going to be jammed with cops. That’s an advantage for us, if we get the suspect’s picture out, put the full blue on it.”
“Making the picture department-wide gives us more eyes, and no control or focus. I want this tight, and I don’t want the suspect tipped off because a cop gives him the hard eye. He’s been on the grift all his life. He’ll know what to look for. I don’t want it there for him to find. Feeney.”
“We have an e-team monitoring the security cams. The building has cameras at every entrance, on all elevators, and in their retail areas. Any sighting’ll be relayed.”
“If and when that happens, everyone is to remain at post,” Eve continued. “We want to lure him in, not scare him off. Now, any questions about the overview?” She waited, scanned the room. “All right, specific assignments.”
When she’d dismissed the team, Eve continued to study the screen, searching for flaws. “A lot of ins and outs,” she said, echoing Feeney.
“We’ll have them all covered.” Still Peabody studied the screen as well. “It’s a good point about all the cops that’ll be there, at some time during the two hours. If we broadcast the sketch through the department, it would be like a rabbit walking into the wolf den.”
“Too many opportunities for leaks and hotheads and mistakes. I thought rabbits hopped.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And if we’re going to use that kind of analogy, bringing the department in would be like all those cooks burning the pie or whatever it is.”
“I think it’s spoiling the broth.”
“Who eats broth?”
“Sick people, maybe.”
“Burning the pie makes more sense, because then nobody can eat it, sick or healthy. A small, tight team,” she continued while Peabody puzzled over pie. “Then when he’s in, we box and close. He’s got no reason to be worried. He thinks we’re chasing our tails.”
“Yeah, we’re getting hammered by the media. Even knowing it’s for the good of the cause, it’s an ouch.”
“Suck it up,” Eve ordered. “He can walk right in, go right up to MacMasters, look him in the eye, and see the result of his work. Then that task is complete. Multitasking, that’s what he does. He figures he’ll have the third on his list, the judge’s mother, Friday or Saturday, and the Robins memorial Monday. He’s free to move on to the next.”
She shut down the comp and screen, gathered the discs.
“Let’s head over there now. I want to go through the place, top to bottom, before the team assembles.”
Not for the first time Eve wished the MacMasterses had chosen a smaller, less complex venue for their daughter’s memorial. She stood in the large entrance foyer, all but smothered by the scent of lilies, and studied the various escape routes.
Up, down, in, out, sideways, she thought. The place was a hive, and the staff a swarm of quiet bees in black suits. She crossed the slick marble floor toward the first bank of elevators.
“Excuse me. Is there any way I might help you?”
Eve looked at the sober face of the woman who stepped toward her.
“Security detail for the MacMasters family.” Eve pulled out her badge.
“Of course.” The woman consulted a mini e-board. “The MacMasters memorial service will be held in Suite two hundred. That’s the second floor. Would you like me to escort you?”
“I think we can find the second floor.”
“Of course.” Sarcasm slid off her well-oiled composure, as her eyes, her voice, continued to radiate an oddly efficient sympathy. “Nicholas Cates is managing that program. I’ll notify him of your arrival. Is there anything else I might help you with today?”
“No.”
Eve stepped into the elevator, called for the second floor.
“She was just creepy,” Peabody decided. “I know she’s supposed to be comforting or reassuring, but creepy is what she is with that whispering-in-the-graveyard voice. So’s this whole place creepy. It’s like the upscale death hotel.”
Considering, Eve pursed her lips. “I was thin
king it’s more like an exclusive spa of death. They give corpses manicures in the basement.”
“Eeww.”
“Don’t say ‘eeww.’ It’s wussy.”
“Places like this make me feel wussy, especially now that I’m picturing some chatty death tech painting a DB’s fingernails.”
“Maybe Trina should work here.”
They stepped off into another wide corridor, with more rivers of marble, more elaborate banks of flowers. As they walked, Eve glanced into open doorways to see respectfully black-suited staff already setting up for services.
More flowers, she noted, wall screens activated to do test runs of vids or photos the family of the dead chose.
“Lieutenant Dallas.” A man with golden hair and an angelic face hurried toward her. He boasted the male version of the whispering-in-the-graveyard voice Peabody had coined. “I’m Nicholas Cates. My supervisor told me to expect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t downstairs to greet you. What can I do to help?”
“You can cancel the other services and viewings this morning, and keep everyone not directly connected to the MacMasters memorial off this floor.”
He smiled, sadly. “I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”
“So I’m told.”
“While we want to cooperate to the best of our ability, there are others, the departed and their loved ones, who must be considered.”
“Right. You’ve verified your internal security, and all staff members on site?”
“Of course. Everyone’s accounted for. We’ve accommodated your electronics teams. They’ll have use of my offices for the day.”
She moved past him, into the main room of the suite. As with the others, preparations had begun. She ignored the flowers, the laughing young face of the dead on the wall screen, in images on easels, the glossy white coffin draped in pink and purple flowers—bold blossoms on ice.
She checked the terraces, the parlors, the stairways, the restrooms, and the small meditation room across the corridor.
All exits would be covered by electronic eyes and warm bodies. She and Peabody had completed runs of every staff member, and secondary runs on every staff member assigned to duty that day. She would have plainclothes officers, including herself, mingling with the mourners. And all of them would be wired.