by J. D. Robb
Farrell sent him one quiet look, then called for the file.
“This matter was investigated and ruled death by misadventure. Investigating officer . . .” She trailed off, sighed. “Inspector Maguire. You knew him?” she asked Roarke.
“Yes, I knew him.”
“I did not, not personally. But his reputation is not one this department has pride in. You knew the men who murdered this girl.”
“I knew them. They’re dead.”
“I see.” Her gaze flickered. “Their names, please.”
As Roarke listed each, Farrell pulled files, scanned them.
“They were not sterling citizens of our city,” she murmured. “And they died badly. One could say . . . vengefully.”
“One could,” Roarke agreed.
“Men who choose that lifestyle often die badly,” Eve put in. “It’s my belief that due to the link to Marlena’s murder, this killer has set out to avenge one or more of their deaths in the mistaken belief that Roarke was responsible. Those who died in New York also knew Marlena and the true circumstances of her death. Summerset was her father and maintains a close personal relationship with Roarke. I’ve distracted him for the moment, but we have another day or two at best before he kills the next.”
“Do you have any idea who will be next?”
“Nineteen years, Inspector,” Roarke said. “I’ve contacted everyone I can think of who might be a target. But even that didn’t help Jennie.”
“I can access official data on the families of these men,” Eve began, “but it’s not enough. I need a personal take from a professional eye. I need a cop’s view, a cop who knows them, their styles, their minds. I need a workable list of suspects.”
“Do you have a profile on your man?”
“I do.”
Farrell nodded. “Then let’s get to work.”
“Career criminals,” Farrell commented, tapping a slim black pointer against her palm. They’d moved into a small, windowless conference room with a trio of wall screens. She gestured toward the first image. “Ryan here, a bad one, I put him in the nick myself five years back on armed robbery and assault. He’s vicious, but more a bully than a leader. He’s been out for six months—but it’s doubtful he’ll stay that way. He doesn’t fit your profile.”
Across the room Eve had tacked stills to a wide board, victims on one side, possible suspects on the other. Taking Farrell’s word, she removed Ryan.
“O’Malley, Michael.”
“He was in the system the night Conroy was murdered.” Eve frowned at the data beside the image. “Drunk driving.”
“He has a problem with the bottle it seems.” Farrell scrolled down, noted the dozens of violations for drunk and disorderly, driving while intoxicated, disturbing the peace. “And a wife beater as well. A darling man.”
“He used to get pissed-faced then knock around the girl he was courting. Annie, I think her name was.”
“Annie Murphy. And she married him and gets knocked around even today.” Farrell sighed.
“A creep but not the killer.” Eve pulled down his still. “How about charmer number three.”
“Now here’s a likely one. I’ve had dealings with Jamie Rowan, and he’s not a bonehead. Smart, smug. His mother’s family came from money that bought him a fine education. He has a taste for the high life.”
“Handsome son of a bitch,” Eve commented.
“That he is, and well aware of his charms. A gambling man is Jamie, and when those who lose don’t pay quick enough, he has one of his spine crackers pay a visit. We questioned our boy here for accessory to murder just last year. It was one of his men right enough who did the deed on his orders. But we couldn’t stick it.”
“Does he ever crack spines himself?”
“Not that we’ve ever proved.”
“We’ll keep him up, but he looks too cool to me, more of a button pusher. Did you know him, Roarke?”
“Well enough to bloody his eye and loosen a few of his teeth.” Roarke smiled and lighted a cigarette. “We would have been about twelve. He tried to shake me down. Didn’t work.”
“Those are the last three of your main possibles. So now we’re down to—what?” Farrell took a quick count of the stills. “An even dozen. I’m inclined toward Rowan here, or Black Riley. The smartest of the lot.”
“Then we’ll put them at the top. But it’s not just brains,” Eve continued, walking around the conference table. “It’s temperament, and it’s patience. And ego. And it’s certainly his personal religion.”
“Odds are for Catholic if he’s from one of these families. Most are churchgoers, attending Mass like the pious of a Sunday morning, after doing as they please on a Saturday night.”
“I don’t know a lot about religion, Catholic or otherwise, but one of the transmissions he sent was identified as a Catholic Requiem Mass, and the statues he leaves at the scene are of Mary, so that’s my take.” Absently Eve fingered the token in her pocket, pulled it out. “This means something to him.”
“Luck,” Farrell said. “Bad or good. We’ve a local artist who uses the shamrock as her signature on her paintings.” Farrell frowned when she turned it over. “And a Christian symbol. The fish. Well, there I’d say you have a man who thinks Irish. Pray to God and hope for luck.”
Eve slipped the token back in her pocket. “How much luck will you have pulling these twelve in on something for questioning?”
Farrell laughed shortly. “With this lot, if they’re not brought in once a month or so they feel neglected. If you like, you can go have a bit of lunch, and we’ll start a gathering.”
“I’d appreciate it. You’ll let me observe the interviews?”
“Observe, Lieutenant, but not participate in.”
“Fair enough.”
“I can’t stretch that to include civilians,” she said to Roarke. “You might find the afternoon more profitable by looking up some of your old friends and standing them to a pint.”
“Understood. Thank you for your time.”
She took the hand Roarke offered, held it a moment while she looked into his eyes. “I pinched your father once when I was a rookie. He took great exception to being arrested by a female—which was the mildest term he used for me. I was green, and he managed to split my lip before I restrained him.”
Roarke’s eyes went cool and blank. He drew his hand free. “I’m sorry for that.”
“You weren’t there as I recall,” Farrell said mildly. “Rookies rarely forget their first mistakes, so I remember him quite well. I expected to see some of him in you. But I don’t. Not a bit. Good day to you, Roarke.”
“Good day to you, Inspector.”
By the time Eve got back to the hotel, lunch had worn off and jet lag was fuzzing her mind. She found the suite empty, but there were a half dozen coded faxes waiting on the machine. She added more coffee to her overburdened system while she scanned them.
She yawned until her jaw cracked, then put through a call to Peabody’s palm ’link.
“Peabody.”
“Dallas. I just got in. Have the sweepers finished with the white van found abandoned downtown?”
“Yes, sir. Wrong trail. That van was used in a robbery in Jersey and dumped down on Canal. I’m still pursuing that lead, but it’s going to take more time to eliminate vehicles. The cabdriver was a wash. He didn’t even know his tags had been lifted.”
“McNab make any progress on the jammer?”
Peabody snorted, then sobered. “He claims to be making some headway, though he phrases all of it in electro-ese and I can’t make it out. He had a great time with some e-jockey of Roarke’s. I think they’re in love.”
“Your snotty side’s showing, Peabody.”
“Not nearly as much as it could be. No transmissions have come through, so our boy’s taking a break from mayhem. McNab is staying here at your home office tonight in case there’s a send. I’m staying, too.”
“You and McNab are staying in my office ton
ight?”
Her mouth moved perilously close to a pout. “If he’s staying, I’m staying. Besides, the food’s superior.”
“Try not to kill each other.”
“I’m showing admirable restraint in that particular area, sir.”
“Right. Is Summerset behaving himself?”
“He went to some art class, then out for coffee and brandy with his lady friend. I had him shadowed. It was all very dignified according to the report. He got back about twenty minutes ago.”
“See that he stays in.”
“I’ve got it covered. Any progress there?”
“That’s debatable. We have a list of potentials, which was shorted by half during interviews. I’m going to take a closer look at six,” she said, rubbing her tired eyes. “One’s in New York, and one’s supposed to be in Boston. I’ll run them when I get in tomorrow. We should be back by noon.”
“We’ll keep the home fires burning, Lieutenant.”
“Find that damn van, Peabody.” She disengaged the ’link and ordered herself not to wonder, or worry, about where Roarke could be.
He knew better than to go home. It was foolish and fruitless and irresistible. The shanties had changed little since he’d been a boy trying to crawl his way out of them. The buildings were cheaply constructed, with roofs sagging, windows broken. It was rare to see a flower bloom here, but a few hopeful souls had scratched out a stamp-sized garden at the doorstep of the six-flat building where he’d lived once.
But the flowers, however bright, couldn’t overcome the odor of piss and vomit. And they couldn’t lighten the air that lay thick with despair.
He didn’t know why he went in, but he found himself standing inside the dim lobby with its sticky floors and peeling paint. And there were the stairs his father had once kicked him down because he hadn’t made his quota lifting wallets.
Oh, but I had, Roarke thought now. What was a kick and tumble compared to the pounds he’d secreted away? The old man had been too drunk, and often too stupid, to have suspected his whipping boy of holding back any of the take.
Roarke had always held back. A pound here, a pound there could make a tidy sum for a determined boy willing to take his licks.
“He’d have given me his fist in my face in any case,” he murmured and gazed up those battered stairs.
He could hear someone cursing, someone else weeping. You would always hear cursing and weeping in such places. The odor of boiled cabbage was strong and turned his stomach so he sought the thick air outside again.
He saw a teenage boy in tight black pants and a mop of fair hair watching him coolly from the curb. Across the street a couple of girls chalking the cracked sidewalk for hopscotch stopped to watch. He walked passed them, aware there were other eyes following him, peering out of windows and doorways.
A stranger in good shoes was both curiosity and insult.
The boy called out something vile in Gaelic. Roarke turned, met the boy’s sneering eyes. “I’m going back in the alley,” he said, using the same tongue, found it came more easily to his lips than he’d expected, “if you’ve a mind to try your luck on me. I’m in the mood to hurt someone. Might as well be you as another.”
“Men have died in that alley. Might as well be you as another.”
“Come on then.” And Roarke smiled. “Some say I killed my father there when I was half your age, sticking a knife in his throat the way you’d slaughter a pig.”
The boy shifted his weight, and his eyes changed. The sneering defiance turned to respect. “You’d be Roarke then.”
“I would. Steer clear of me today and live to see your children.”
“I’ll get out,” the boy shouted after him. “I’ll get out the way you did, and one day I’ll walk in fine shoes. Damned if I’ll come back.”
“That’s what I thought,” Roarke sighed and stepped into the stinking alley between the narrow buildings.
The recycler was broken. Had been broken as long as he could remember. Trash and garbage were strewn, as always, over the pitted asphalt. The wind whipped his coat, his hair, as he stood, staring down at the ground, at the place where his father had been found, dead.
He hadn’t put the knife in him. Oh, he’d dreamed of killing the man; every time he’d taken a beating by those vicious hands he’d thought of pounding back. But he’d only been twelve or so when his father had met the knife, and he’d yet to kill a man.
He’d crawled out of this place, out of this pit. He’d survived, even triumphed. And now, perhaps for the first time, he realized he’d changed.
He’d never again be like the mirror image of himself who had challenged him from the curb. He was a man grown into what he had chosen to be. He enjoyed the life he’d built for itself now, not simply for its opposition to what had been.
He had love in his heart, the hot-blooded love for a woman that could never have rooted if the ground had remained stony.
After all these years he discovered that coming back hadn’t stirred the ghosts, but had put them to rest.
“Fuck you, bloody bastard,” he murmured, but with outrageous relief. “You couldn’t do me after all.”
He turned away from what had been, set his direction on what was, and what would come. He walked, content now, through the rain that began to fall as soft as tears.
chapter sixteen
Eve had never been to a wake before, and it surprised her that, given Roarke’s usual style of doing things, he’d chosen to hold it in the Penny Pig.
The pub was closed to outside traffic, but crowded just the same. It seemed Jennie had left behind a lot of friends, if no family.
An Irish wake, Eve was to discover, meant pretty much what an Irish pub meant. Music, conversation, and drinking great quantities of liquor and beer.
It made her think of a viewing she’d attended only the month before, one that had led to more death and violence. There the dead had been laid out in a clear side-viewing casket, and the room had been heavy with red draperies and flowers. The mood had been sorrow, the voices hushed.
Here, the dead were remembered in a different manner.
“A fine girl was Jennie.” A man at the bar raised his glass, and his voice over the noise of the crowd. “Never watered the whiskey or stinted when pouring it. And her smile was as warm as what she served you.”
“To Jennie then,” it was agreed, and the toast was drunk.
Stories were told, often winding their way from some virtue of the dearly departed and into a joke on one of those present. Roarke was a favored target.
“There’s a night I remember,” Brian began, “years back it was, when our Jennie was just a lass—and a fine figure of one was she—that she was serving the beer and the porter. That was when Maloney owned the place—God rest his thieving soul—and I was tending bar for a pittance.”
He paused, took a drink, then puffed into life one of the cigars Roarke had provided. “I had an eye for Jennie—and what right-minded young lad wouldn’t—but she had none for me. ’Twas Roarke she was after. On that evening, we had a fair crowd in, and all the young bucks were hoping to get a wink from young Jennie. I gave her all me best love-starved looks.”
He demonstrated with a hand over his heart and the heaviest of sighs so his audience hooted with laughter and cheered him on.
“But to me she paid no mind at all, for her attention was all for Roarke. And there himself sat, perhaps at the table where he’s sitting where he is tonight. Though he wasn’t dressed so fine as he is tonight, and I’d wager a punt to a penny that he didn’t smell so fresh either. Though Jennie sashayed by him a dozen times or more, and leaned over, oh, leaned over close in a way that made my heart pound wishing I were exposed to such a fine and lovely view, and she would ask so sweetly could she fetch him another pint.”
He sighed again, wet his throat, and went on with it. “But Roarke, he was blind to the signals she was sending, deaf to the invitation in that warm voice. There he sat with the girl of my dreams o
ffering him glory, and he kept noting figures in a tattered little book, adding them up, calculating his profits. For a businessman he ever was. Then Jennie, for a determined girl was she when her mind was set, and it was set on Roarke, asked him please would he give her a hand for just a moment in the back room, for she couldn’t reach what she needed on the high shelf. And him being so tall, and strong with it, could he fetch it down for her.”
Brian rolled his eyes at that while one of the women leaned over the booth where Roarke sat with Eve and good-naturedly pinched his biceps. “Well, the boy wasn’t a cad for all his wicked ways,” Brian continued, “and he put his book away in his pocket and went off with her into the back. A frightful long time they were gone I’m after telling you, with my heart broken to bits behind Maloney’s bar. When come out they did, with hair all mused and clothes askew, and a bright-eyed look about them, I knew Jenny was lost to me. For not a bloody thing did he carry back for her from the high shelf in the back room. All he did was sit again, give her a wicked, quick grin . . . and take out his book and count his profits.
“Sixteen years old we were, the three of us, and still dreaming about what our lives might be. Now Maloney’s pub is mine, Roarke’s profits too many to count, and Jennie, sweet Jennie, is with the angels.”
There were a few tears at the end of it, and conversation began again in murmurs. Bringing his glass, Brian walked over, sat across from Roarke. “Do you remember that night?”
“I do. It’s a good memory you brought back.”
“Perhaps it was ill-mannered of me. I hope you didn’t take offense to it, Eve.”
“I’d need a heart of stone to do that.” Maybe it was the air, or the music, or the voices, but they made her sentimental. “Did she know how you felt about her?”
“Then, no.” Brian shook his head, and there was a warm gleam in his eye. “And later, we were too much friends for else. My heart always leaned toward her, but it was in a different way as time passed. It was the thought of her I loved.”