Connections in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel

by J. D. Robb

  12

  He kept the smile going, though it looked a little sickly to Eve’s eye. He hit about five-eight, carried a soft belly under a white shirt and navy sport coat. His gilded hair showed no gray as it swept back from a high forehead. His eyes, blue, looked both worried and calculating.

  He said, “Ha ha!” Then seemed to recover his balance as he strode into the room. “El, sweetie, how about you get the house droid to make some coffee for our guests.”

  “We’re not here for coffee.”

  At Eve’s flat statement his balance teetered a bit, but he kept up the jovial tone. “Well then! Let’s take this back to my office.”

  “Here’s good. We’re here, Mr. Cohen, to discuss your business relationship with Marcus Jones.”

  “Business is business. Excuse us, El.”

  “She stays,” Eve said. “As Ms. Vinn’s name is on the paperwork in the real estate holdings with you and Mr. Jones, we have questions for her, too.”

  “Yeah, how’d that happen, Sam?” Eldena’s voice, no longer cheerful, dripped with venom. “How is it we have real estate, we own buildings, but I’m taking my clothes off five nights a week at the Bump and Bang so we can pay the freaking rent?”

  “It’s complicated, baby, complicated. We’ve got some investments. I’m looking out for our future. I’m—”

  She jabbed a finger in the air that cut off his words as if she’d sliced his throat.

  “You said the only way we could get by, could live in a decent place, was for me to stick with the club while you worked to establish your consulting business. And now there’s real estate, partners with some guy I never heard of. My signature’s on the papers, but you never told me any of this.”

  “We’ll talk about all that, don’t you worry, sweetie.” He moved to give her hand a pat, but she jerked away. “What’s the problem?” he demanded of Eve. “It’s not against the law to own property.”

  “Your business partner, Marcus Jones, is the current leader of the urban gang known as the Bangers, who are known to traffic in illegals, identify theft, the protection racket, and the unlicensed sex trade.”

  “Oh my God, Sam.” Horror replaced venom. “Oh my God!”

  “Jones is currently a suspect in two murders.”

  “None of that has anything to do with me.” He actually flicked his hands in the air as if brushing it all away. “I’m not legally culpable in any way for the alleged criminal actions of an individual who has a minor interest in my real estate holdings.”

  “Including the holding where Jones and his gang have their headquarters?”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Pale as death, Eldena pressed a hand to her stomach.

  “Just be quiet, Eldena!” Cohen snapped, and her color flooded back.

  “Excuse me?” She fisted her hands on her hips. “Excuse the hell right out of me.”

  “This is a legal matter, El.” Though he calmed it, Cohen put authority into his tone. “It’s best for you to say nothing. Someone’s at the door,” he added when the buzzer sounded.

  Eldena merely folded her arms across her chest and stayed planted.

  “Fine then, fine! I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Roarke rose, his smile ice sharp. “Just in case you find a need to take the air.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  When Cohen stomped out, Roarke strolled after him.

  “I didn’t know anything about this.” Turning, Eldena held out her hands to Eve, a pleading gesture. “Any of this, I swear.”

  “I believe you,” Eve said.

  “But, but, but…” Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she fisted those hands, tapped her own chest. “I’ve signed papers without actually reading them, which makes me an idiot. Sam takes care of things like taxes and insurance, and I don’t know. He says, Sign this, sweetie. Oh my God.”

  Cohen stomped back in, dumped the take-out bags on a table. “Eldena, these people don’t have your best interest at heart. Let me handle this, then you and I will talk privately.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you became acquainted with Marcus Jones?” Eve asked.

  “Through a client.”

  “That would be former client, seeing as you’ve been disbarred.”

  In his eyes came a quick, keen rage. “That’s neither here nor there, and is something I intend to rectify. My relationship with Jones is strictly business. I learned he had an interest in purchasing the property downtown, and as I was looking for an investment, we formed the partnership. There’s nothing more to it.”

  “You were aware of his criminal history and gang affiliation?”

  “Neither here nor there,” he repeated with another flick of his hand. “Strictly business.”

  “It’s both here and there that Jones gets his money to invest with you through criminal activities.”

  “Then prove same and arrest him.”

  “When did you last see or speak with Mr. Jones?”

  “We have no need to communicate unless it concerns one of the properties.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  He aimed a stony stare at the wall. “I can’t recall.”

  “You can’t recall the last time you saw or spoke to a business partner with whom you own several million dollars of real estate?”

  “Millions,” Eldena breathed out.

  “That’s on paper, sweetie. You don’t understand how business works. I know nothing about Mr. Jones’s personal life, and since I can’t help you with your investigation, I have nothing more to say.”

  “Try this. Where you were last night between six and ten P.M.?”

  “This is outrageous! And I was home, with Eldena.”

  “He was from six to at least eight,” Eldena confirmed. “I left about eight—to work for a living. But he was here at least until then.”

  “What time did you get back home, Ms. Vinn?”

  “About three. Sam was in bed, as usual, when I got home after I spent hours naked or getting naked, and giving lap dances to assholes because I get a percentage of the fee.”

  “That’s all going to be over soon,” Cohen began.

  “Too bad for you.” Eve decided to twist the knife. “Since you and Jones, and apparently Ms. Vinn, own the club where she works.”

  “You—” Eldena lost her breath, pushed the heel of her hand up her chest as if to find it. “How could you? How could you do that?”

  “I’ll explain it all, I’ll explain.”

  “So you have no alibi between the hours of eight P.M. and three A.M.?” Eve interrupted.

  Cohen sent Eve a disgusted look, or tried, as panic jittered in his eyes. “I was home, and have no need for an alibi.”

  “Think again,” she advised.

  “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” Roarke said conversationally. “That someone with a legal background, however nefarious, would enter into multiple partnerships with someone they claim to know little to nothing about? It would make that person either a fool or a liar.”

  “Could be both,” Eve added.

  “It could, yes. Plus, one more. This person may also have a financial interest in the partner’s—also nefarious—other business ventures. Of the illegal sort.”

  “This interview is over.” Cohen surged to his feet. “If you want to speak to me again, it’ll be through my lawyer.”

  “You can count on it.” Eve rose, dug out a card, handed it to Eldena. “If you think of anything more, you can contact me.”

  “Thank you. I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “There’s no need to—”

  Eldena rounded on Cohen. “Now you be quiet.”

  When she opened the door, Roarke touched a hand to her arm. “The lieutenant likely feels unable to give you any advice at this time. I’m not as hampered. You should get your own lawyer. A good one.”

  “Thank you. You can count on it.”

  As they walked away, Eve glanced over at Roarke. “That last bit�
�to him, not her? Good timing on that. And nice, what is it, derision.”

  “Heartfelt.” He paused by the car. “You know how you often say, after I’ve done a bit of something, that you owe me one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to collect.”

  “How exactly?”

  “You need to let me dig into this bloody bloke, and bury him once I have. He’ll have more tucked away here and there, and possibly some of that will help your case. Regardless, I want to dig, and deep. I shouldn’t need the unregistered, but if I do, I do. That’s the payment.”

  “If you need the unregistered, tell me. If you get anything there that does play into the investigation, I need to know how to deal with it.”

  “Agreed. You drive. I’m going to get started.”

  Since he pulled out his PPC as soon as he got into the car, she gave him quiet to work. She had plenty to think about.

  She had no doubt Cohen was as dirty as they came—a liar, a cheat, very likely into some fraud, tax evasion. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least to learn he got a small percentage of Banger income.

  The question was: How deep did it go? Just business? Did just business include accessory to murder?

  Why put the woman’s name on the documents? She’d have asked Roarke, but he was already muttering to himself as he worked.

  She had a theory. The properties all carried mortgages. Was she cover? Something goes south, he leaves her holding the bag?

  Considering that, she called in, ordered surveillance on the residence. If Cohen left, she wanted to know where he went.

  “His partnership with Jones extends to a company,” Roarke said as he continued to work. “CoJo Corp. They use it to bank rents, to pay for maintenance, taxes, insurance. All very standard, with each of them taking a percentage every month—of what they report, in any case.”

  “You’ve got more than that,” Eve said as she drove through the gates.

  “I do. I’ve found two buried accounts already in the time it’s taken to get home, and that’s on a bleeding portable. Sort of a pity, as playing with the unregistered would be a bit of fun. He’s just not good enough at this to bother.”

  “Or you’re too good to need to bother.”

  When they got out of the car, he skirted the hood, took both her hands. “I wish I didn’t know, absolutely, you sign papers of ours without the reading of them.”

  “I give them a scan.” Sometimes. “If you fucked me over, I’m a cop. I know how to make you pay without letting it show. Like, the one where I tranq your wine, dress you in a diaper and pasties, get you in your office, and transmit the image globally.”

  “You’ve given this some thought.”

  “Just in my free time.” She gave his hands a squeeze before drawing hers away and laying them on his cheeks. “Bottom line? She wasn’t wrong to trust a man she loves—because it has to be love. He’s not rich or good-looking or powerful. She just loves the wrong man. I don’t.”

  “Well now,” he murmured, then leaned in to take her mouth in a soft, slow, sweet kiss.

  “There’s the one where I coat the inside of all your boxers with a biological that causes your works to develop festering boils.”

  It made him wince. “Christ Jesus, you obviously have far too much free time.”

  “I’ve got a whole list,” she said as he opened the front door. “For him, too,” she added, shooting a finger at Summerset.

  Summerset merely cocked his eyebrows. “No visible injuries once again. We appear to be on a streak.”

  “For him I have the stick up his ass surgically removed, and without it, his whole body collapses into a puddle of ghoul.”

  She tossed her coat over the newel post. “You’ll be too busy with festering boils to have him reanimated.”

  “Don’t ask,” Roarke told Summerset as Eve headed upstairs with the cat on her heels.

  He went up after her.

  “I want another thirty on this,” he told her. “And you’ll be wanting to set up your board.”

  “Thirty’s good.”

  She dealt with her board. Two murders, she thought, and she hadn’t had five minutes in her home office on either. That changed now.

  Seated at her command center, she wrote up notes on the Cohen/Vinn interview. She circled a finger in the air when Roarke came in. “Need another five.”

  “And a meal.”

  He strolled into the kitchen, considered the options. By the time she’d finished he had the domed plates and a bottle of wine on the table.

  “You know he never asked—like Vinn did—who died and how.”

  “I noticed.” Roarke poured the wine, lifted the domes.

  “Because he was part of it, heard about it, and/or Jones contacted him for some legal advice after our visit.” She sat, added—in his opinion—entirely too much salt and butter to her mashed potatoes.

  “Again, it could be all of the above.”

  “Could be.” She sampled the potatoes, deemed them good, cut a slice of a pork medallion. “The real question is how much time he’ll do and where—not if.”

  “I can give you tax evasion.”

  “Already?”

  Roarke studied his wine, sipped. “I regret calling for payment on this one. But what’s done is done. Shell companies—so thin I could’ve cracked them with a thought. He’ll have fraudulent identification to access some of his six accounts.”

  “Six?”

  “Not counting the legitimate ones, or the one with Jones. I’ll give him some credit for knowing enough to live within Eldena’s means, and to carefully file their taxes on what they report. What he doesn’t report is considerably more. More rent than either of them show—which means you can likely slap Jones with tax evasion and so on. He also owns the residence—and makes a very nice rent from the other units, and from Eldena.”

  “I had a feeling. Is her name on that one, too?”

  “It is. Jones’s isn’t, so he’s kept that apart. It’s mortgaged, you see, like the others. Cohen needed her income to float the loans. The rent more than covers the expenses, and he banks the profits. The bloody bastard takes most of her income—which I imagine he tells her is to pay rent and so on. Banks that as well. I’ll give you hard numbers, but for the moment, we’ll say he’s very well set.”

  As he often did for her, Eve broke a dinner roll in half, handed him a share.

  “Okay, fraud and tax evasion, good start, and an excellent way to sweat anything else out of him. I’ll buy the connection with Jones through a client due to the sleaze factor. But he knows more than real estate holdings. He should’ve asked about the murders, should’ve at least tried to look shocked about a couple homicides.”

  Because he felt they’d both earned it, Roarke topped off their wineglasses. “I have to say, after so easily unearthing his system and accounts, he’s not particularly smart. He sees himself as what my mates and I would’ve called a cute hoor. Someone who’s getting the leg up on the quiet. But he’s a bumbler. Canny or greedy enough to set this all up, not bright enough to do it very well. And tying himself to someone like Jones?”

  Sincerely baffled by the ineptitude, Roarke shook his head over another sip of wine. “A violent gangster already known to the authorities. Jones runs afoul of those authorities, they begin to dig—as indeed happened—and Cohen’s in the drink. Bleeding eejit.”

  Eve studied him as she ate. “You’re really pissed. Because it was too easy, not enough fun?”

  “That’s a minor disappointment, but no. Eldena Vinn. He used her, stole from her, all while patting her head and telling her he’d take care of things. It’s not the same, not nearly, as telling someone a loved one’s dead, but, Eve, her world fell apart right then and there. You could see it. It fell apart because he valued his bank accounts more than a woman who loved him.”

  “Better she knows,” Eve said simply. “Now we’ll see what she does about it. I can’t see her taking him a cake and a smile on visiting
day or gearing up for a conjugal. Meanwhile, he’s a non-cute hoor—which makes no sense in any language—a bleeding eejit, a sleazy, disbarred lawyer. But is he complicit in murder?”

  “Are you asking yourself or me?”

  “It can be both. Let’s start with you.”

  As he ate, Roarke considered it. “He’s small-time, basically a grifter running a long con on an easy mark—because she cares for him, trusts him, it’s easy. Some part of him believes the con—he’s taking care of things.”

  He sat back, gestured with the wine. “He got lucky, as I see it, having a young, attractive woman fall for him, and again making contact with someone like Jones. He gives each of them what they want or need from him.”

  “Which is?”

  “For the woman, he’s attentive, charming, he buys her little thoughtful gifts, I’d wager, makes her feel special. Meanwhile he plays to her hopes for a future. If she can just support him now—emotionally, financially—just until he reestablishes, he’ll give her everything she wants. He hates to ask, of course, hates to put such a burden on her. He’s not worthy of her.”

  “Which makes her feel special, again. Puts her in a position of proving he’s worthy.”

  “It’s likely a Mira question on why she’d fall for it, but by all accounts, she did. With Jones, he’s the professional. The smart guy, the lawyer. Disbarred, but that’s just a technicality, and it gives him that leg up. He knows the ins and outs, the back doors, the underbelly. And if one of his gang has a little legal problem, he can step in, give advice on the side—those ins and outs. He gives Jones a way to own something, to look at these properties, and think: That’s mine. That’s powerful, take it from me.”

  Bouncing things off Roarke never failed, Eve thought. Because he really did know the ins and the outs.

  “It’s not just cutting Cohen in on a percentage of the action—that’s business,” she said. “It’s the trust again. He’s got a lawyer, one with connections, one who helps him out now and again, and one who isn’t fussy about where the percentage comes from. Cohen’s in it, too, and that builds trust. I go down, you go down.”

  “Again, I’d defer to Mira, but wouldn’t that be the sort of bond Jones would trust? Add in profit, the tangible buildings. Jones may believe what he tells Cohen falls under attorney-client privilege.”