The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  There was soccer practice once a week beginning in March, and something called Brain Teasers the kid attended every Saturday morning. Followed, two Saturdays a month, by a volunteer stint with an organization called From the Kids.

  In addition to the monthly schedule, there were additions of birthday parties, field trips, school projects, Drama Club meetings, doctors’ appointments, museum and library trips, art projects, family outings.

  As far as Eve could see, the kid had more going on than both of her parents.

  No wonder they needed the au pair, Eve mused. Though it was a little odd that Allika had carried professional mother status from the time Rayleen was born until the death of the son. Though she wasn’t pursuing a career, or even a paying hobby outside the home, Allika had let that status lapse.

  Eve bagged the notebooks. She wanted more time to study them, and to verify all the names and groups and locations.

  She went through the little desk. Monogrammed stationery—so Allika handwrote some of those thank-yous and invites, Eve mused. Huh. An organized-by-occasion selection of cards—birthdays (humorous, flowery, formal, youth), sympathy, congratulations, and so on.

  Spare discs and memo cubes, address book, a file of clippings on decorating.

  It made Eve think of the clippings Peabody had found in Lissette Foster’s cube. Common ground, Eve mused. Something there? Maybe the women had crossed paths in their interest in decorating.

  She made a note to check it out, though she doubted Allika and Lissette shopped for doodads or draperies at the same level.

  Correspondence Allika had saved ran to cute little cards or notes from girlfriends, printed out e-mails from same, or from the kid.

  There were birthday cards and feel-better cards from Rayleen, all of them handmade. And with more style and skill, Eve admitted, than she herself could claim. Pretty paper and colors, some comp-generated, some hand-drawn.

  DON’T BE SAD, MOMMY!

  One of the cards announced in big, careful printing on heavy pink paper. There was a drawing of a woman’s face with shiny tears on the cheeks.

  Inside the woman was smiling, with her cheek pressed to the cheek of a girl’s face. Flowers bloomed all around the edges and a wide rainbow curved at the top. The sentiment read:

  I’LL ALWAYS BE HERE TO MAKE YOU SMILE! LOVE, YOUR OWN RAYLEEN

  Eve noted Allika had written the date on the back of the card. January 10, 2057.

  In the closet she found some art supplies, a paint smock, clear boxes filled with things like glass marbles, stones, beads, ribbons, silk flowers. Hobby stuff, Eve supposed, all as organized as the rest of the place.

  And on the top shelf, behind boxes of supplies, a large and lovely fabric-covered box with a jeweled latch.

  Eve took it down, opened it. Found the dead son.

  Here were the photographs, from infant to toddler. A beaming and pregnant Allika, a dreamy-eyed Allika holding an infant wrapped in a blue blanket. Pictures of the baby boy with his big sister, with his father, and so on.

  She found a swatch of the blanket, a lock of downy hair, a small stuffed dog, a single plastic block.

  Eve thought of the memory box Mavis and Leonardo had given her and Roarke one Christmas. This was Allika’s memory box, dedicated to her son.

  How often did she take it out, Eve wondered. Look through all the pictures, rub that blue fabric between her fingers or stroke that lock of hair against her cheek?

  Yet she kept it all on a high shelf at the back of a closet. Tucked away. And not one memento of the boy, that Eve had seen, touched the rest of the house.

  Why?

  She went through it all, every piece. Then replaced it and put the box back.

  When she finished with the room, she stepped over to where Peabody was just winding up with Straffo’s home office.

  “Nearly done here. McNab started on the master bedroom up here so we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Boxed a lot of discs and files. Nothing’s popped out though.”

  “You find anything on the kid? Their dead kid?”

  “Who? Oh, oh, right. Forgot. No, nothing here on their son.” Peabody stopped, frowned. “Nothing,” she repeated. “That’s kind of odd, really.”

  “One more thing. There’s a stash of decorating clippings in Allika’s sitting room. Lissette had some in her cube.”

  “Yeah, she did. So maybe they crossed there?” Peabody frowned, shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ve got a stash of my own, and a bunch of decorating sites bookmarked on my home comp. Don’t you ever…Forget I nearly asked,” Peabody said when Eve stared at her.

  “It’s worth checking out. Running the name by Lissette, showing her Allika’s picture.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to tag her now, ask her?”

  “Yeah, let’s cross that off the list, then take the master bedroom next.” She walked over. McNab turned. “Anything shaking?” she asked him.

  “Steady as they go. A lot of incomings and outgoings, but nothing that pops. Mostly personal data—banking, marketing, schedules, and like that on the main-level units. Nanny’s unit more of the same. Talks to family and pals back in Ireland a couple times a week, e-mails regular. All chatty, little bits on the Straffos and the kid, but nothing that’d make you jump.”

  “Keep looking.”

  It didn’t take long for Eve to discern that both Straffos preferred good fabrics in classic cuts—and plenty of it. The his and hers closets were spacious and pristine, and loaded.

  Shoes were organized according to type and tone and all in clear protective boxes. Wardrobe was color-coordinated into groupings. Casual, work, cocktail, black-tie. The more formal wear hung with ID tags that described the outfit, when and where it had been worn.

  If they liked sex toys, those playthings had been smuggled out before the warrant was executed. The nightstand drawers held book discs, memo cubes, minilights.

  But there was some very provocative lingerie in Allika’s dresser, and a varied selection of body creams and oils. Since there’d been a reminder in Allika’s date book to renew her semiannual birth control, sex was likely part of the regularly scheduled events.

  She found antianxiety and antidepression medication, and sleeping pills in Allika’s underwear drawer.

  Eve took a sample of each medication, bagged it.

  “Lissette didn’t recognize Allika’s name or image,” Peabody reported.

  “Long shot.”

  “Yeah. Dallas, I know we’re not supposed to get wound up in the personal areas of an investigation, but that woman, Lissette, just breaks my heart. She asked, the way they do, if we had anything new, anything we could tell her. I had to give her the standard line. She took it.” Sympathy, all those personal feelings an investigator is supposed to block out, resonated in her voice, on her face. “Held on to it like it was the only thing keeping her head above water right now.”

  “Then we’d better follow through on the line, Peabody, and give her the answers she needs.”

  Leaving Peabody, Eve headed down to find either one of the Straffos. He was pacing, talking on a headset, while she pretended to be absorbed in a magazine. The minute he spotted Eve, Straffo ended the transmission.

  “Finished?”

  “No. You’ve got a big place. Takes time. There’s a safe in the master bedroom closet. I need it opened.”

  His lips tightened, just a little, and before Allika could rise, he waved her down. “I’ll see to it,” he told her. Then looked at Eve again. “Have you completed your business on the third floor?”

  “It’s clear.”

  “Allika, why don’t you have Cora take Rayleen up to the family room when they get back?”

  “All right.”

  He stopped, and Eve saw something in him soften as he touched a hand to her shoulder. She thought, Okay, he loves his wife. What does that mean?

  He didn’t speak until they were far enough up the steps to be out of his wife’s hearing. “How would you feel, I wonder, to have your
home turned inside out this way, your personal things pawed over?”

  “We try not to paw. We’ve got two bodies, Straffo, both of whom you knew, one of whom was your client.” She sent him a look, let a little sarcasm leak into it. “Tough way to lose a client, by the way.”

  “A foolish way to dismiss one,” he countered. “And yes, I knew them both—casually. Maybe you’re theorizing that I’m annoyed with Rayleen’s academic program, and I’m working my way one by one through her instructors.”

  “Maybe I’m wondering why you took a lowlife like Williams as a client. If I knew that, we might have avoided this.”

  “I’m a defense attorney.” His tone was as cool and flat as hers. “My client list isn’t always the bright lights of the city.”

  “You got that. We all do what we do, Straffo.”

  “Yes, we all do what we do.” He went into the bedroom, ignored Peabody, and went straight to the closet safe. “I opened the one in the study downstairs for your associates,” he said as he plugged in the combination, finished with his thumbprint.

  “Appreciate it.”

  It was jewelry—his and hers. Pricey wrist units, some antique wristwatches, glittering stones, gleaming pearls. While he stood watch, Eve went through it, checked for false bottoms, compartments.

  When she was satisfied, she stepped back. “You can lock her up.”

  He did so. “How much longer?”

  “Couple hours, at a guess. I want to ask one question. Lot of family photographs around the house. I haven’t seen one out of your son. Why is that?”

  There was a look in his eye, for only a moment, and the look was bleak. “It’s painful. And it’s private.” He turned and left.

  Questions and possibilities circled in Eve’s mind as she watched him go. “Have Baxter and Trueheart take the guest room up here, Peabody. You handle the bathrooms to start. I’m taking the kid’s room.”

  What was interesting, Eve thought, was that with the kid’s schedule, Rayleen had time to use the elaborate space. But it was obvious she did from the art projects in progress, the schoolwork discs filed in her pink, monogrammed case. A paper desk calendar with a pair of insanely adorable puppies was turned to the correct date.

  She had photos as well. One which had to be her classmates at Sarah Child all lined up by height, facing the camera in their spiffy uniforms. Another of a vacation shot with Rayleen flanked by her parents, all looking sun-kissed and windblown. Her own solo school picture, and another solo of her in a pink party dress.

  There were a couple of thriving live green plants on her windowsill in pink and white pots. Obviously Rayleen didn’t tire of the color scheme. Or had no choice in it.

  Eve was voting for the former.

  The kid had more clothes than Eve could have claimed for all the years of her own childhood put together. All as neat and organized as her parents’ had been. There were dance clothes, dance shoes, a soccer uniform, soccer shoes. Three identical school uniforms, dressy clothes, casual clothes, and play clothes, all with appropriate shoes.

  There was a forest of hair ties, bands, clips, pins, and ribbons, all meticulously kept in a designated drawer.

  At least nothing was tagged to indicate where and when she’d worn anything. But a lot of items—notebooks, bags, stickers, writing tools, art cases, and so on—were labeled with her name.

  A big decorative pillow on her bed had PRINCESS RAYLEEN splashed across it, as did a fluffy pink bathrobe and the matching slippers.

  She had her own date book, with all of her activities and appointments plugged in, her own address book with the names of schoolmates, relatives, her father’s various ’link numbers.

  Eve bagged them.

  “How come you’re allowed to take that?”

  Eve turned, though she’d known Rayleen was there. “Aren’t you supposed to be someplace else?”

  “Yes.” A smile curved, charming, conspiratorial. “Don’t tell. Please? I just wanted to watch how you searched. I think maybe I’ll work in crime investigation one day.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Daddy thinks I’d make a good lawyer, and Mom hopes I’ll go into art, or dance. I like to dance. But I like to figure things out more. I think maybe I’ll study to be a criminalist. That’s the right word, because I looked it up. It’s somebody who studies evidence. You gather it, but then other people study it. Is that right?”

  “More or less.”

  “I think anyone can gather it, but studying it and analyzing it would be important. But I don’t understand how come my address book and stuff could be evidence.”

  “That’s why I’m the cop, and you’re not.”

  The smile turned right down into a pout. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “I’m not very nice. I take things because I need to look at them when I have more time. Your father will get receipts for anything that leaves the premises.”

  “I don’t care. It’s just a stupid book.” Rayleen shrugged. “I remember everyone’s numbers and codes anyway. I have an excellent head for numbers.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I looked you up and you’ve solved lots of cases.”

  “It’s ‘closed.’ If you’re going to work with cops, you have to use the right term. We close cases.”

  “Closed,” Rayleen repeated. “I’ll remember. You closed the one where those men broke into a house and killed everyone in it but a girl, younger than me. Her name was Nixie.”

  “Still is.”

  “Did she give you clues? To help you close the case?”

  “As a matter of fact. Shouldn’t you go find your mother or something?”

  “I’ve been trying to think of clues for this one.” She wandered to a mirror, studied her own reflection, fluffed her curls. “Because I was right there and everything. I saw, and I’m very, very observant. So I could help close the case.”

  “If you think of anything, be sure to let me know. Now scram.”

  Her eyes met Eve’s in the mirror, a quick flash, then Rayleen turned. “It’s my room.”

  “It’s my warrant. Beat it.”

  Rayleen narrowed her eyes, folded her arms. “Will not.”

  The kid’s face was a study of defiance, arrogance, confidence, temper. And Eve noted, challenge. Make me.

  Eve took her time absorbing it all as she crossed over. Then she took Rayleen by the arm, pulled her out of the room.

  “Taking me on’s a mistake.” Eve said it quietly, then closed the door. Locked it.

  In case Rayleen got ideas, Eve strode down to the bedroom door, closed and locked that as well.

  Then she went back to work.

  She was undisturbed until Peabody knocked. “Why’d you lock the door?”

  “Kid got under my feet.”

  “Oh. Well. I had the guys haul some of the boxes we’re taking out. They’re labeled, receipts done. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any poison in the spice cabinet or blackmail notes in the library. But we’ve got some shit to cull over once we log it in at Central. You get anything in here?”

  “This and that. Here’s what I haven’t got. Her diary.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t keep one.”

  “She mentioned she did when Foster was killed. I’m not finding it.”

  “They can hide them good.”

  “I can find them good, when they’re here.”

  “Yeah.” Peabody pursed her lips, looked around. “Maybe she doesn’t keep one after all. Ten’s a pretty much between-age for boys, and boys are the big topic of diaries.”

  “She’s got an active, busy brain for any age. So where’s the ‘Mom and Dad won’t let me have a tattoo. It’s so bogus!’ Or ‘Johnnie Dreamboat looked at me in the hall today!’”

  “Can’t say, and can’t think what that would tell us if she had a journal going and we found it.”

  “Daily stuff—what Mommy said to Daddy, what this teacher did, and so on. The kid notices things. Got a snotty st
reak, too.”

  Peabody grinned. “You think all kids are snots.”

  “Goes without saying. But this one’s got something in there.” Eve glanced back at the mirror, saw again the way Rayleen had looked at herself, then the flash in her eyes. “If something pissed her off or hurt her tender feelings, you bet your ass she’d document. Where’s her documentation?”

  “Well…Maybe McNab will find something buried on her comp. She’s smart enough, she’d want to keep her observations and bitches where Mommy and Daddy and the au pair wouldn’t find them if they poked around.”

  “Put a flag on that.”

  “Sure. Seems a little out there, Dallas.”

  “Maybe.” She turned, studied the vacation shot again. “Maybe not.”

  17

  WHEN THE ITEMS FROM THE STRAFFO RESIDENCE were logged, Eve commandeered a conference room. There, she and Peabody spread everything out, grouping according to area, subgrouping by person or persons who owned or used the item.

  She dragged in her murder board, clipping up pictures of various items or groupings.

  She studied, she circled, she paced.

  “Please, sir, I must have food.”

  Distracted, Eve glanced over. “What?”

  “Food, Dallas. I gotta eat something or I’m going to start gnawing on my own tongue. I can order something in or run down to the Eatery.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Mag-o. What do you want?”

  “To nail this bastard down.”

  “To eat, Dallas. Food.”

  “Doesn’t matter, as long as it comes with caffeine. She had a box full of pictures.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Allika, in her sitting room. A big pretty box, up in her closet, not quite hidden, but not out in the open. It was full of pictures of the dead kid, had a lock of his hair, some of his toys, a piece of his blanket.”

  “Jeez.” Peabody’s tender heart ached a little. “Poor woman. It must be awful.”

  “Not one picture of the kid anywhere in the open, but bunches of them in her box. Hers.” Eve moved around the groupings again, stopped by the section taken or copied from Oliver Straffo’s office. “Nothing like that in Straffo’s office or in the bedroom or any of the family areas.”