by J. D. Robb
“Why did you get married?”
“I . . .” Her mind went blank. “He wanted to.” Hearing just how lame that sounded, she shifted in her seat, and punched the gas. “It’s just a promise, that’s all. A promise, and you do your best not to break it.”
“Like a lease.”
“There you go.”
“You know, Dallas, that’s almost wise.”
“Now I’m wise.” She sighed. “Let me give you my little tidbit for the day. You want McNab to stop thinking about, looking at, talking about other women, then you’d better take him to the vet and have him fixed. He’ll make a nice pet. Women are the worst. They zero in on some guy. Oh boy, he’s the one, gotta get me that one. So they do. Then they spend the rest of their time trying to figure out how to change him. Then if they manage it, they’re not all that interested anymore, because guess what? He’s not the one anymore.”
Peabody was silent for several moments. “Somewhere in there is a lot of good sense.”
“If you tell me I’m sensible in addition to normal and wise, I’m going to punch you in the stomach. I’m as screwed up as the next person, and I like it that way.”
“In many ways, Lieutenant, you’re even more screwed up than the next person. It’s what makes you, you.”
“I think I’ll punch you in the stomach anyway. Put it on my calendar.”
She toyed with double parking, which always put her in a good mood, but found a spot on a street ramp.
The Seventh Avenue building looked ordinary, even shabby, but the security there rivaled that at the U.N.
She passed through the first post, which required her badge, a palm print, and a scan. At the second post a uniformed guard requested her business and a second scan.
She looked around the small lobby with its aging linoleum floor and bare beige walls. “What, you keep government secrets in here?”
“More vital than that, Lieutenant.” The guard offered a slight grimace as he passed her back her ID. “Fashion secrets. Competitors try every damn thing to get a peak. Delivery scams mostly, trying to get up to the design floor carrying deli bags or pizza boxes. But you get some more inventive ones, too. Phoney fire inspector last month. ID cleared, too, but the scan picked up his recorder and we booted him.”
“You on the job?”
“Was.” And he seemed pleased she’d made him. “Put in my twenty-five, most of it out of the one-two. This pays better, and it can get pretty lively around here before the big spring and fall shows.”
“I bet. You know Serena Unger, designer here?”
“I might if you draw me a picture.”
“Tall, thin, black, beautiful. Thirty-two. Short black hair with a reddish overcast, sharp face, long nose. Likes the ladies.”
“Yeah, I know the one you mean. Got a Caribbean accent. You got a line on her?”
“She may be a line to somebody else. There’s a woman she’s playing with. About the same age. Blonde, snazzy looker. Five ten, curvy, slick, and professional. Married. Gates, Julietta.”
“She’s cleared through here a few times. Fashion writer. Seen the two of them go out together. Lunchtime, end of business day. Hold on a minute.”
He turned to his computer, called up his log. “Last, hmm, last eight months by my log, Gates checked in for Unger ten times. Six months before that, six hits for Unger. A once a month deal. Go back four more, you only get two visits.”
“Eighteen months.” She considered the dates of the other murders. “Thanks.”
“Happy to help. Here.” He unlocked a drawer and took out two lapel pins. “Put these on and you’ll clear through the rest of security, no hassle. You want the east elevator bank, fifteenth floor.”
“Appreciate it.”
“No problem. Miss the job sometimes. The rush, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Fifteen was a working floor with a hive of offices and a huddle of cubes for the drones. Unger didn’t keep them waiting.
“You’re prompt. I appreciate that.” She stepped around her desk to offer a hand. “My day’s stacked.”
“We’ll try to let you get back to it.”
She closed the door, which told Eve she was discreet. It was a corner office, which told Eve she was successful, and it was stylishly decorated with beachy prints rather than fashion posters.
She gestured to two chairs, and took her own behind the desk.
“I have to say I’m a little confused as to why the police would want to talk to me.”
She was good, Eve thought. But not quite good enough. Julietta had talked to her, and she knew exactly why they were there.
“If your day’s stacked, Ms. Unger, why should we waste time doing the routine? Julietta Gates would have told you we’ve spoken to her, and her husband. You look like a bright woman, so you’ve figured out that we know about your relationship with Julietta.”
“I like keeping my personal life personal.” Unger swiveled in her chair, her body language relaxed, her voice cool and calm. “And I don’t see what my relationship with Julietta has to do with your investigation.”
“You don’t have to see. You just have to answer questions.”
Unger’s perfectly arched brows rose into her high forehead. “Well, that’s moving straight to the punch.”
“I’ve got a pretty stacked day myself. You have a sexual relationship with Julietta Gates.”
“We have an intimate relationship, which is different than a sexual one.”
“So you just sit up in your hotel room at the Silby during your lunch breaks and chat?”
Unger’s lips pressed together as insult moved across her face. Then she hissed out a breath. “I don’t like being spied on.”
“I imagine Thomas Breen doesn’t much like being cheated on. We all have to live with what is.”
She took a long breath. “You have a point. Julietta and I have an intimate relationship that includes sex, and one that she prefers her husband remain unaware of.”
“How long have you had this intimate relationship?”
“We’ve known each other, professionally, for about four years. Our relationship began to change about two years ago, though we didn’t become intimate right away.”
“That would have been more like a year and a half ago,” Eve suggested, and Unger set her jaw.
“You’re very thorough. We have a great deal in common, and were attracted to each other. Julietta was, and is, restless in her marriage. This was her first affair, and it remains the only time I’ve entered into such a relationship with a married woman, or man for that matter. I don’t like cheating.”
“Must be hard doing something you don’t like for a couple years.”
“It’s not without its difficulties, or its excitement. I won’t deny that. Initially, we just forgot ourselves. But rather than the one-time thing we both assumed it would be, our feelings deepened. I enjoy sex.” She shrugged. “In general, I find women more interesting in bed than men. But with Julietta I found more. A kind of mate.”
“You’re in love with her.”
“I am. I am in love with her, and it’s difficult as we can’t be together openly.”
“She won’t leave her husband.”
“No, she would. But she knows that I won’t be with her if she does.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“She has a child. A child deserves to have both of his parents when this is possible. I won’t be a party to removing that child, that innocent, from the security he has now. It’s not the boy’s fault that his mother loves me instead of his father. We’re adults, and responsible.”
“And she doesn’t agree with your stand on this.”
“If Julietta has a flaw, it’s that she’s not as good a mother as she could be. Not as devoted or involved as I think she should be. I’d like to have children one day, and I expect my mate to want and care for the child as I will. From all I know, Thomas Breen is an excellent father, but he can’t be the boy�
��s mother. Only she can.”
“But he’s not so hot as a husband.”
“As he’s not mine it wouldn’t be accurate or fair for me to judge. But she doesn’t love him, or respect him. She finds him tedious and too easily led.”
“You were with her on the night of September second.”
“Yes, at my apartment. She told her husband she had a late meeting.”
“And you think he’s buying it?”
“She’s careful. He hasn’t confronted her. She would have told me. To be frank, Lieutenant, I think she wishes he would.”
“And the following Sunday morning, when she took the boy out. Were you with them?”
“I met them in the park.” Her voice warmed. “I enjoy the boy.”
“So you’ve spent time with him, the three of you together.”
“Once a week or so. I want him to know me, so he’s comfortable. When he’s older, perhaps we’ll find a way to blend our relationships.”
“Has Julietta ever told you her husband is violent?”
“No. Believe me, if there was violence in the home, I would urge her to take the boy and leave. His work is odd, disturbing, but he appears to leave it at that. You suspect him of killing that woman in Chinatown. Lieutenant, if I believed him capable of such a thing, I’d get my lover and her son away from him. Whatever it took.”
“You know the trouble with people having extramarital affairs, Peabody?”
“Explaining why you never wear all that sexy underwear you bought at home?”
“There’s that. But it’s the delusion. They really believe they’re getting away with it. Some do, for the short haul, but there are always tells. Too many late nights at the office, secret ’link transmissions, the friend of a friend who happens to see you having lunch with someone not your spouse in some out-of-the-way restaurant. And beyond all that, if that spouse isn’t in a coma, there’s a sense—a look, a smell, a change in touch. Serena Unger’s no dummy, but actually believes Breen hasn’t got a clue.”
“And you don’t.”
“He knows. His wife’s been playing pass the strap-on with another woman for a year and a half, he knows.”
“But if he does, how can he ignore it, just go around pretending everything’s fine day after day? It would have to eat away at you, make you crazy . . . Which is exactly what you’re getting at. If Roarke was fooling around with somebody, what would you do?”
“They’d never find the bodies.” She tapped her fingers on the wheel as she sat in traffic. “Women are ruining his happy home, threatening his family. Worse, it leaves him feeling dickless. You spend all day writing about murder. You’re fascinated with it. Why not give it a try? Show those bitches who’s boss. I think it’s time to bring him in and press him. But first we’ll check out some of your plaster outlets. Maybe we can add weight.”
Peabody pulled out her PPC, did a search for the closest address. “Village Art Supplies, 14 West Broadway. Lieutenant, I know you’re looking sharp at Breen and Renquist, but I’ve got just the opposite direction, which I sincerely hope doesn’t piss you off so that you remember to punch me in the stomach. I’ve seen you punch, and it’s gotta hurt.”
“If I got pissed off at everyone who disagrees with me . . . Oh, that’s right, I do. But in this case I’ll make an exception.”
“Big thanks for that.”
“Why do you disagree?”
“Okay.” Peabody scooted around in her seat to face Eve’s profile. “I think Fortney fits the profile more. He has no respect for women. He hits them and hits on them because it’s a way to show what a big shot he is. He’s hooked up with a strong woman because she’ll take care of him, and the more she takes care of him, the more he resents it, and the more he cheats on her. He’s got two exes who skinned him financially because he couldn’t keep it in his pants, and without Pepper, he probably wouldn’t be able to get a meeting in his chosen field. He’s lied in interview to protect himself. His alibis have more holes than a pound of Swiss, and he’s theatrical.”
“Those are all good points, and a proud tear threatens my eye.”
“Really?”
“About the tear? No. However, all those points you make are why he’s still on the list.”
“But when you lean toward a guy like Breen, I just don’t see it. A man that sweet with his kid. And if he does know about the affair, isn’t it more likely he’s holding it together because he loves his wife and son, and just wants it to go away? As long as he doesn’t acknowledge it, it’s not real. I can see how somebody’d handle it that way. He could convince himself it doesn’t count because she’s not with another man. She’s going through a phase, experimenting, whatever.”
“You could be right.”
“I could?” Emboldened, Peabody pressed on. “And Renquist. He’s just too prissy or something. The whole Sunday brunch at ten routine. Then there’s his wife. I can see her looking the other way if he likes to try on her underwear occasionally in the privacy of their own home, but I can’t see her living with a psychopath. She’s too prissy. And she’d have to know. You could tell she has her finger on the pulse of that household, so she’d have to know something.”
“I think you’re right about that. Nothing gets by her. But I think she could live with a psychopath just fine. As long as he doesn’t drip any blood on her floors. I met the woman who raised him, Peabody. He married the same basic type, just more upscale and stylish. But you think Fortney, I’ll tell you what. If we haven’t closed this by the day after tomorrow, you take him.”
“Take him where?”
“Work him, Peabody. Make him your focus and see what comes up.”
“You think we’re going to close it.”
“Soon. But you may get your shot.”
They checked out three outlets before Eve decided it was time to go by the hospital to check on Marlene Cox. She acknowledged the guard she’d stationed outside the door, and told him to take a ten-minute break while Peabody stood as relief.
Inside, she found Mrs. Cox reading aloud from a book beside the bed while machines kept her daughter tethered to the world.
Sela looked up, then marked her place before setting the book aside. “They know people in comas can often hear sounds, voices, and respond to them. It can be like being behind a curtain you can’t quite open.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“One of us takes turns reading to her.” Mrs. Cox reached over, fussed with the sheet that covered Marlene. “Last night we put in a disc. Jane Eyre. It’s one of Marley’s favorites. Have you read it?”
“No.”
“It’s a wonderful story. Love, survival, triumph, and redemption. I brought the book today. I think hearing me read it would be comforting for her.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“You think she’s already gone. That’s what they think here, though they’re very kind, and they’re working very hard. They think she’s gone. But I know she’s not.”
“It’s not for me to say, Mrs. Cox.”
“Do you believe in miracles . . . I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“I’m Dallas. Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Do you believe in miracles, Lieutenant Dallas?”
“I’ve never thought much about it.”
“I believe in them.”
Eve crossed to the bed and looked down. Marlene’s face was colorless. Her chest moved gently up and down to the rhythm of the machine that breathed for her in constant, whooshing notes. She saw death all over her.
“Mrs. Cox, he would have raped her. He would have been brutal. He would have done his best to keep her conscious during it so she’d have felt the pain and the fear and the helplessness. He would have reveled in that, and he would have taken some time to torture her. There were . . . instruments in the van he would have used on her.”
“You want me to know that because she fought, she escaped that. She stopped him from doing those terrible things to her, and that’
s a kind of miracle.” Her breath shuddered as she fought back a sob. “Well, where there can be one, there can be another. As soon as she can open the curtain she’ll tell you who it was. They told us she probably wouldn’t live through the morning. It’s past noon now. Can you tell me, if you believe she’s done, why you came in today?”
Eve started to speak, then shook her head and looked back at Marlene. “I was going to tell you it’s routine. But the fact is, Mrs. Cox, she belongs to me, too, now. That’s the way it is for me.”
When her communicator signaled, she excused herself and stepped out into the corridor.
“Peabody,” she said the minute she ended transmission, “with me.”
“Have we got something?”
“I had a man watching Renquist’s place. The nanny just took a cab to the Metropolitan Museum, without the kid. I’ve been looking for an opening to talk to her solo.”
Sophia was doing a slow walk through French impressionism. Eve spoke briefly to the shadow, dismissed her, then wandered in the au pair’s direction.
“Sophia DiCarlo.” Eve held up her badge and watched the woman jolt and go pale.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Then you shouldn’t look so guilty. Let’s sit down.”
“I haven’t broken the law.”
“Then don’t start now by refusing to speak to a police officer.” It was hardly a criminal offense, but she could see Sophia didn’t know that.
“Mrs. Renquist said I wasn’t to speak to you. How did you find me here? I could lose my job. It’s a good job. I do a good job with Rose.”
“I’m sure you do, and Mrs. Renquist doesn’t have to know you spoke with me.”
To ensure some cooperation, Eve took her arm and drew her to a bench in the center of the room. “Why do you think Mrs. Renquist doesn’t want you to talk to me?”
“People gossip. If the family and the staff are questioned by the police, people will gossip. Her husband is a very important man, very important. People like to gossip about important men.”