by J. D. Robb
“There’s Elliot Hawthorne with his supply of the same paper.”
“Speaking of him, he’s divorcing his current wife. Something about a tennis pro.”
She took time to smirk. “Figured Hawthorne would get around to it. He was a toss in, never seriously on my list. Too old for the profile, and nothing there. No pop.”
“But you still had to take the time to check him out, had to have him in the general mix. That would’ve pleased Renquist.”
“There you go. Then Breen, sending him the paper, just added a nice touch for Renquist. Breen was the expert, and someone Renquist probably admired. A month’s pay says we find Breen’s books in Renquist’s office. He’s studied Breen, the work and the man.”
“You never thought it was Breen.”
“Didn’t fit. Arrogant enough, knowledgeable enough. But this isn’t a guy who hates or fears women.”
She remembered his devastated face as she hammered at him, remembered the broken look in his eyes. She’d have to live with her part in putting it there.
“He loves his wife, and that makes him a sap, not a murderer. He likes being at home with the kid. Probably he’d do it whatever the mother did. But I pushed him anyway, pushed him hard.”
He heard the regret in her voice, and brushed a hand over her arm. “Why?”
“In case I misjudged him. In case . . .” She blew out a breath and tried to let the guilt blow out with it. “In case I was wrong. I liked him, right off, the same way I didn’t like Renquist.”
“So you worried part of it was personal for you.”
“Some. And Breen could’ve been involved, that was an angle I had to factor in. He could’ve provided the killer with data, pooled all of it to put into his next book. How he acted and reacted, answered, didn’t answer, in interview mattered.”
“He’ll get through it, Eve, or he won’t. It’s his wife who betrayed him, not you.”
“Yeah, all I did was shatter his nice fantasy shield. Anyway, anyway. Renquist’s got a good line on Breen. I bet he knows about the wife’s sidepiece. I’ll double that bet and say we’ll find unregistered equipment in his office, equipment he’s used to research and track the other suspects. He lined them right up for me, the son of a bitch.”
“I value my money too much to take that wager. Why not Carmichael Smith?”
“Because he’s pitiful. He needs a woman to adore him, and tend to him. He doesn’t kill them or who’d rub his feet and stroke his head?”
“I appreciate a good foot rub myself.”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “Take a number.”
He reached out to twist a lock of her shaggy hair around his finger, just to touch. And asked the next question just to keep her talking. “Fortney, then.”
“Peabody’s favorite. Mostly she leaned toward him because he offended her sensibilities. She’s soft yet, you know.”
“Yes. I know.”
“She’ll keep some of that, the soft.” Eve tried not to think about the exam in the morning, and how much of Peabody’s ego and esteem was wrapped up in it. “That’s good,” she added. “It’s good she’s got the makeup to keep some of it. You get too hard, you stop feeling, then the job’s just being on the clock.”
You’ve never stopped feeling, he thought. You never will. “You’re worried about her.”
“I’m not.” She shot the words out, then hissed when he chuckled. “Okay, maybe I am. A little. Maybe I’m worried she’s so nervous and sweaty about this damn, stupid detective’s exam that she’ll blow it. Maybe I wish I’d waited another six months to put her up for it. If she blows it, it’s going to set her back—inside. It’s so fucking important to her.”
“Wasn’t it to you?”
“That was different. It was,” she said with conviction when he raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t going to blow it. I had more confidence in myself than she does. Had to. I didn’t have anything else.”
She surprised herself by smiling, looking over at him. “Then.”
It didn’t surprise her to feel his hand brush her cheek. “Enough mush. Back to Fortney. He clouded Peabody’s thinking. He’s a putz, and just not smart enough for this. Not an organized thinker, and not cold enough. Violent tendencies toward women, but a sock in the eye isn’t mutilation. You gotta be cold to mutilate. And brave, in a screwed-up way. Fortney’s not brave enough to go the whole route. For him, sex is his way of humiliating women. He bought the paper second, and I imagine that gave Renquist a smile—if he was following the purchases.”
“And you believe he was.”
She gazed at the rearview to make sure the team was still behind her. “Dead sure, and he likely did a search on Fortney and knew he’d be in New York during this period. Takes time to put on a show, months of lead time. Renquist didn’t plan this overnight.”
“Keep going.”
Roarke was keeping her talking, she realized, so she wouldn’t lose her temper and her patience with the traffic. Which was hideous. She toyed briefly with hitting the sirens and punching it. But that violated procedure. She’d do this straight, right down the line.
“He needed time to scope out his targets, so you’ve got several weeks between him sending the paper to Breen and the first murder. The first in New York,” she amended. “We’re going to find more bodies, or what’s left of them, scattered over the planet, and possibly off.”
“He’ll tell you,” Roarke deduced.
“Oh yeah.” Her face was grim as she threaded through a narrow break between bumpers. “Once we get him in, he’ll tell us. He won’t be able to stop himself. He wants his place in the history books.”
“And you’ll have yours. Care about it or not, Lieutenant,” Roarke said when she scowled. “You’ll have yours.”
“Let’s stick with Renquist. He’s a perfectionist, and he’s had years of practice. In his work, within the image he’s built, he has to be discreet, diplomatic, often subservient. And this goes against the grain, day after day. At heart, he’s an exhibitionist, a man who finds himself above others—even as he’s been hammered down by females all his life. Women are inferior, yet they have power over him, so they have to be punished. He hates us, and killing us is his greatest joy, his finest accomplishment.”
“You were going to be his last.”
She glanced over, saw him watching her. “Yeah, he’d have gotten around to me, later rather than sooner because he’d want to string this out. I saw it in his eyes the first time I met him. Just an instant. Couldn’t stand the son of a bitch. I wanted it to be him.”
She pulled up in front of the Renquist home, and the search team pulled up behind her. “This is going to be fun.”
She waited for Feeney, let the team file in behind. Home security scanned her badge, then the warrant, before shifting to a holding pattern. Within two minutes, the housekeeper, in a long black robe, opened the door.
“I’m sorry,” she began, “there must be some mistake—”
“This warrant authorizes me and my team to enter this residence and conduct a search thereof. I am also authorized to arrest Niles Renquist on multiple counts of suspicion of murder in the first degree, and a count of first-degree assault with intent. Is Mr. Renquist on the premises?”
“No, he’s away on business.” She looked more baffled than annoyed. “I’ll need to ask you to wait here while I inform Mrs. Renquist of these . . . circumstances.”
Eve held up the warrants again. “These mean I don’t have to wait. But go right ahead and tell her we’re here. After you direct me to Mr. Renquist’s home office.”
“I’m not . . . I can hardly take the responsibility for—”
“It’s my responsibility.” She signaled the team behind her to enter. “Split into groups of two. I want a complete and thorough room-by-room. All recorders on. The office?” she said to the housekeeper.
“It’s on the second level, but—”
“You’re going to want to lead the way, Stevens, then step back. You don�
��t want a part of this.”
Without waiting for the housekeeper, Eve started up the staircase. Stevens came after her in a trot. “If you’d just let me wake Mrs. Renquist and inform her—”
“As soon as you show me his office.”
“It’s the last door, on the right. But it’s secured.”
“You got the code?”
She pokered up then, struggling for dignity as she stood in her nightrobe surrounded by cops. “Only Mr. Renquist has the code. It’s his personal office, and he handles sensitive material. As an official of the British government—”
“Yeah, yeah, blah blah.” Eve decided she’d been right. This was fun. “My warrant gives me the right to open this door, with or without the code.” She pulled out her master. “I am employing that authorization at this time, and using a police master code to disengage the subject’s security on this door.”
The housekeeper turned and fled up to the third floor. Mrs. Renquist, Eve thought, was about to get a rude awakening.
She used the master, and wasn’t the least surprised to find the police code denied.
“He’s taken extra precautions.” She looked over her shoulder at Roarke. “At this time I find it necessary and expedient to employ alternate methods. If the electronic experts on team are unable to disengage locks, I will utilize the battering ram.”
“Let’s have a look first,” Feeney suggested, and Eve deliberately turned her recorder away so that it wouldn’t show Roarke crouching down with burglar tools in his hands.
“Feeney, I’m going to need you to confiscate all security discs. I suspect the subject doctored them, so that he wasn’t scanned when he left the house for the murders and attack.”
“If he did, we’ll find the shadows.” He tracked his gaze toward Roarke and had to bite down on a grin. Magic hands he thought again.
“I want all ’links and transmission devices as well.” She didn’t look at Roarke, kept her back to him. But her mind was muttering: Hurry up, damn it, hurry up. I can’t stall much longer.
“Lieutenant,” Roarke said a moment later, “I believe the locks are now disengaged.”
“Good.” She turned back. “We’re now entering the private home office of Niles Renquist.” She opened the door, called for lights on full, then took a deep breath. “Let’s get to work.”
The room was meticulously organized, even elegant in its choice of furnishings and decor. The antique desk held modern communication and data equipment, and what she concluded, after a puzzled study, was an old silver ink well and quill. There was a leather-bound notebook, an electronic calendar, and deeply cushioned chairs in dark, masculine green.
There was a neat black-and-white bath attached with the towels perfectly aligned on the rack.
He would wash up there after the murders, she presumed. She could see him perfectly, cleaning, grooming, watching himself in the long mirrors that shone on the walls.
She turned back, mentally measuring the room, and gestured to what looked to be a closet door.
“There. Five gets you ten his unregistered’s in there.”
She crossed the room, found the door locked. Rather than waste time, she waved to Roarke, then planted her feet at the sound of rushing footsteps.
With a pale peach robe swirling around her, Pamela Renquist rushed into the room. Her face was naked of enhancements, and looked older than it had. Her color was high, her teeth were already peeled back in a snarl.
“This is outrageous! This is criminal. I want you, all of you, out of my home immediately! I’m calling the ambassador, I’m calling the consulate, and your superiors.”
“Be my guest,” Eve invited, and all but slapped the warrant in her face. “I have all the proper authorization for this search, and I will complete same with or without your cooperation.”
“We’ll see about that.” She started to march to the desk, and Eve blocked her. “You won’t be able to use this ’link, or any of the house ’links until the search is complete. If you wish to make a call or send a transmission, you are restricted to the use of your personal ’links, in the company of a duly authorized officer. Where is your husband, Mrs. Renquist?”
“Go to hell.”
“He’s going to beat me there, I promise you.”
She caught the signal from Roarke out of the corner of her eye, and moved over to the unlocked door. She opened it.
“Well, well, well, what have we here. A little hidey-hole, complete with data and communication center. We’re going to find this is unregistered, Feeney. And look at all these discs. Renquist is a big fan of Thomas A. Breen, and his ilk. All these books and data on serial killers tucked in here.”
“It’s hardly against the law, even in this country, to have a private space, and to own books on any subject.” But Pamela was losing her furious color.
Eve eased farther in, and opened a barrel-shaped leather bag. “Not against the law to own surgical tools either, but it sure is funny. I’m sure he cleaned these very well, but I just bet we find traces of Jacie Wooton’s blood on them.”
She opened a long cupboard, felt her own blood pump when she studied the collection of wigs, the black cape, the city employee uniform, and other costumes. “Niles likes to play dress up?”
She booted a container of plaster with her toe. “And does his own home improvements, too. A real Renaissance man.”
Opening a drawer, she felt a little hitch in her heart. Then reached in with a sealed hand and picked up a gold band, set with five small sapphires.
“Lois Gregg’s ring,” she murmured. “I think her family will want this back.”
“Got another of that sick bastard’s souvenirs.”
Eve turned, saw Feeney’s face was white. He held the lid of a portable cold box, and she knew before he spoke what was inside.
“Looks like we found the rest of Jacie Wooton.” Feeney breathed slowly through his teeth. “Son of a bitch has it labeled, for sweet Christ’s sake.”
Eve made herself look, made herself take the step over and look down into the container where the icy steam was already dissipating. Within was a clear, sealed bag, with its horror meticulously labeled:
WHORE
She whirled around quickly and caught the expression on Pamela’s face. “You knew. Part of you knew, and you covered for him. Don’t want any scandal, don’t want any smudges on your perfect little world.”
“That’s ridiculous. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was a green tinge to her skin now, as she stepped back from the closet and its awful contents. But her chin stayed high and firm, and her tone dismissive.
“Yes, you do. You know what goes on in your house. You make it your business to know. Why don’t you take a closer look.” Eve took her arm, gave it a little tug, though she had no intention of letting her into the closet. “Get a good up-close at what Niles has been up to. And think about when it might have been your turn. Or your daughter’s.”
“You’re out of your mind. Take your hand off me. I’m a British citizen. I’m not under your aegis.”
“You’re hip-deep in my aegis, Pam.” She stepped just a little closer. “I’m going to put him away. That’s priority. And after I’ve got him in a cage, I’m going to make it my mission in life to get you on accessory.”
“You have no right to speak to me that way. In my own home. When I’m finished with you—”
“We’ll see who finishes. Feeney, get her out of here. House arrest, female guard. She gets one call.”
“Don’t you touch me. Don’t you dare put your hands on me. I’m not leaving this room until I’m satisfied every one of you has forfeited your badge.”
Eve tucked her thumbs in her pockets, stood with hip thrust out, and hoped. “You go voluntarily with Captain Feeney, or I add resisting and have you forcibly restrained.”
Pamela’s hand swung out. It was a girl move, and one Eve could easily have dodged or deflected. But she let it land, and got her wish. “I was so hoping
for that. There’s resisting and assaulting an officer. You just made my night.” In a quick move, Eve had her restraints out. As Pamela blustered, she spun the woman around, jerked her arms back, and cuffed her.
“Have her transported to Central,” Eve told Feeney. “Booked on resisting and assaulting an officer. She can stay in a box until we’re through here.”
Pamela kicked, swore with a vehemence and creativity that had Eve’s eyebrows lifting. “I like her better that way.” Rolling her shoulders as Feeney muscled Pamela out, Eve turned to Roarke. “I need to verify that this is unregistered equipment, which gives me another nice ball to add to the weight against Renquist. And I need all data contained within. What are you grinning at, pal?”
“You baited her so she’d take that swipe at you.”
“So?”
“So I’m surprised you didn’t take her out yourself.”
“She’s small change. I’m going to pocket that change before I’m done, but I want him first. I’m going to update the commander.” She pulled out her communicator. “Get me that data.”
Within fifteen minutes she had an all-points out on Renquist and was reading over Roarke’s shoulder.
“It’s all here,” she noted. “Carefully logged. His travel, his trolling, his selection. Every victim, with chosen method. Tools, wardrobe.”
“You’ll notice he has quite a file on you, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, I can read.”
“And,” Roarke continued in that same cool tone, “that he intended you to be his crescendo. Using Peter Brent’s cop-killing method. Long-range laser blaster.”
“Which means he’s got one in here. Better find it.”
“And him. I want him now, as much as you.”
She shifted her gaze, met his. “It’s not personal.” She waited a beat, shrugged. “Okay, what is it you say to crap like that? Bollocks. It’s personal, but it can wait. I’m not next on his list.”
She looked back to the screen. “Katie Mitchell, West Village. CPA. Twenty-eight, divorced, no kids. Lives alone, works primarily out of her loft. He’s got everything on her. Height, weight, habits, routines, even her fucking shopping preferences. Stores, purchases. He’s a thorough bastard. He’s looking to do a Marsonini on her.”