by J. D. Robb
Eve strode in, moving by the long white counters and stations, the clear-walled cubes. She spotted Berenski scooting back and forth on his stool in front of his counter, tapping his spider-leg fingers on keyboards or tapping them to screens.
For a dickhead, she thought, he was hell at multitasking.
“Where’s my report?” she demanded.
He didn’t bother to look up. “Back up, Dallas. You want it fast or you want it right?”
“I want it fast and right. Don’t fuck with me on this one…Dick.”
“I said, ‘Back up.’”
She narrowed her eyes because when he swung around on the stool, there was fury on his face. Not his usual reaction to anything.
“You think I’m screwing with this?” he snapped out. “You think I’m jerking off here?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“This isn’t the first time either, is it?”
She flipped back through her memory. “You weren’t chief nine years back.”
“Senior tech. I did the skin and hair on those four vics. Harte took the bows for it, but I did the work. Goddamn it.”
Harte, Eve remembered, had also had a nickname: Blowharte.
“So you did the work. Applause, applause. I need an analysis of this vic’s hair and skin.”
“I did the work,” he repeated, bitterly now. “I analyzed and researched and identified what was barely any trace. I gave you the damn brand names of the soap, the shampoo. You’re the one who didn’t catch the bastard.”
“You did your job, I didn’t do mine?” She leaned down, nose-to-nose. “You’d better back up, Dick.”
“Ah, excuse me. Don’t clock the referee.” Courageously—from her point of view—Peabody eased between the chief tech and the primary. “Everyone who was involved nine years ago feels this one more now.”
“How would you know?” Dick rounded on Peabody. “You were in some Free Ager commune sitting in a circle chanting at the frigging moon nine years ago.”
“Hey.”
“That’s it.” Eve kept her voice low, and the tone stinging. “You can’t handle this one, Berenski, I’ll request another tech.”
“I’m chief here. This isn’t your shop. I say who works what.” Then he held up his hand. “Just back off a minute, back off a minute. Goddamn it.”
Because it wasn’t his usual style, Eve kept silent while he stared down at his own long, mobile fingers.
“Some of them stick with you, you know? They stick in your gut. Other shit comes in and you work that, and it seems like you put it away. Then it comes back and kicks you in the balls.”
He drew a breath, looked up at Eve. It wasn’t just fury, she saw now, but the bitter frustration that on the job could push perilously close to grief.
“You know how when it stopped, just stopped cold, everybody figured he got dead, or he got tossed in a cage for something else? We didn’t get him, and that was a bitch, but it stopped.” Berenski heaved out a breath. “But it didn’t. He didn’t get dead or tossed in a cage. He was just bopping around Planet Earth having his high old time. Now he’s back on my desk, and it pisses me off.”
“I’m serving as President of the Pissed-off Club. I’ll take your application for membership under advisement.”
He snorted out a laugh, and the crisis passed.
“I got the results. I was just rerunning the data. Triple check. It’s not the same brands as before.”
“The old brands still available?”
“Yeah, yeah, here’s the thing. He used shea butter soap with olive and palm oils, oils of rose and chamomile on the four prior vics. Handmade soap, imported from France. Brand name L’Essence or however the frogs say that. Cake style, about fifteen bucks a pop nine years back. Shampoo, same manufacturer, same name, caviar and fennel extracts.”
“They put caviar in shampoo?” Peabody demanded. “What a waste.”
“Just fish eggs, and disgusting if you ask me. Tech in Wales was good enough to work the trace, got the same deal as me. Same for Florida. They didn’t get anything in Romania or in Bolivia. But now he’s switched brands.”
“To?”
“Okay, what we got is still handmade soap, got your shea butter—cocoa butter addition, olive oil, and oil from grapefruit and apricot. Specifically—and this took a little finessing—your pink grapefruit. It’s made in Italy, exclusively, and get this, it’s going to run you fifty smacks a bar.”
“So he upgraded.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. I took a look at the Internet site, check these out.” He brought the images of the soaps up. Each was a deep almost jewel-like color, with various flowers or herbs studding the edges. “Only one store in the city carries them. The shampoo’s from the same place. White truffle oil, running one-fifty for an eight-ounce bottle.”
He sniffed, he snorted. “I wouldn’t pay that for a bottle of prime liquor.”
“You don’t have to pay,” Eve said absently. “You get your booze in bribes.”
“Yeah, but just the same.”
Pricey, exclusive products. Prestige, Eve thought. The best of the best? “What’s the outlet in the city?”
“Place called Scentual. Got a store midtown on Madison and Fifty-third, and one down in the West Village on Christopher.”
“Good. How about the sheet?”
“Irish linen, thread count of seven hundred. That’s another change. First time he used Egyptian cotton, five hundred thread count. Manufacturer’s in Ireland and Scotland. Buncha outlets around. Your higher-end department stores and bedding places carry the brand. Fáilte.”
He massacred the Irish, Eve knew, as she’d heard the word before.
“Okay, send copies to me, to Whitney, to Tibble, and to Feeney. You finish with the water?”
“Still working it. At a guess, and I mean guess, it’s city water, but filtered. May be out of the tap, but with a filtration system that purifies. We got good water in New York. This guy, I’m thinking, is a fanatic for pure.”
“For something. Okay, thanks. Peabody, let’s go shopping.”
“Hot dog!”
“Dallas.” Berenski swiveled on his stool again. “Bring me something more this time. Get me something.”
“Working on it.”
She hit the downtown boutique first, and was assaulted with fragrance the moment they walked in. Like falling into some big-ass bouquet, Eve thought.
The clerks all wore strong colors. To mirror the products, Eve supposed, and the products were displayed as if they were priceless pieces of art in a small, intimate museum.
There were a number of customers, browsing, buying, which, given the price tag on a bar of soap, made Eve wonder what the hell was wrong with them.
She and Peabody were approached by a blonde who must have hit six-two in her heeled boots. The boots, like the skinny skirt and rib-bruising jacket, were the color of unripe bananas.
“Welcome to Scentual. How can I help you today?”
“Information.” Eve pulled out her badge.
“Of what sort?”
“Soap with cocoa and shea butter, olive oil, pink grapefruit—”
“From our citrus line. Yes, please, this way.”
“I don’t want the soap, I want your customer list for sales of that soap, and for the truffle oil shampoo. Customers who purchased both products.”
“That’s a little difficult as—”
“I’ll make it easy. Customer data or warrant for same, which will tie up the shop for a number of hours. Maybe days.”
The blonde cleared her throat. “You should probably speak to the manager.”
“Fine.”
She glanced around as the blonde hurried off, and saw Peabody sniffing at minute slivers of soap that were set out as samples. “Cut it out.”
“I’ll never be able to afford so much as a scraping of this kind of thing. I’m just smelling. I like this one—gardenia. Old-fashioned, but sexy. ‘Female,’ as my guy would say.
Did you see the bottles? The bath oil?”
Her dazzled eyes tracked along the jewel-toned and delicate pastels of fancy bottles in display shelves. “They’re so mag.”
“So you pay a couple hundred for packaging for stuff that eventually goes down the drain. Anything in a bottle costs that much, I want to be able to drink it.”
She turned back as another woman came over, this one petite and redheaded in a sapphire suit. “I’m Chessie, the manager. There’s a problem?”
“Not for me. I need your customer list for purchases of two specific products as said products are related to a police investigation.”
“So I understand. Could I see some identification, please?”
Eve pulled out her badge again. Chessie took it, studied it, then lifted her gaze to Eve’s. “Lieutenant Dallas?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can. The specific products?”
Eve told her, nodded as the woman asked for a moment, then watched her walk away. “Peabody—” When she looked around, her partner was testing out an elf-sized sample bottle of body cream on her hands.
“It’s like silk,” Peabody said, reverently. “Like liquid silk. I’ve got a cousin who makes soaps and body creams and all, and they’re really nice. But this…”
“Stop rubbing stuff all over yourself. I have to ride with you, and you’re going to make the ride smell like some big, creepy meadow.”
“Meadows are pastoral.”
“Exactly. Creepy. He could’ve bought the stuff here,” she said, thinking out loud. “Or at the midtown store, off the Net. Hell, he could’ve bought the stuff in Italy or wherever the hell else it’s sold and brought it with him. But it’s something.”
Chessie came back with some printouts. “We haven’t had any sales—cash or credit—of both products at the same time. Nor has our Madison Avenue store. I contacted them. As a precaution, I’ve generated all the sales for each product, from each of our stores. Obviously, we don’t have customer names for the cash sales. I went back thirty days. I can go back further if that would be helpful.”
“This should do for now. Thanks.” Eve took the printouts. “Did you get a memo about me?”
“Yes, certainly. Is there anything more I can do for you?”
“Not right now.”
“If she got the ‘Cooperate with Lieutenant Dallas’ memo, Roarke owns that place,” Peabody said when they were back on the street. “You can swim in that bath oil if you want. How come you—”
“Hold on.” She flipped out her ’link, contacted Roarke.
“Lieutenant.”
“Do you manufacture bedding—sheets and linens—under the brand name Fáilte?”
“I do. Why?”
“I’ll let you know.” She ended transmission. “I’m not buying coincidence here, Peabody.”
“Oh. Just caught up. First vic worked for him, was washed down in products from a store he owns, was laid out on a sheet he manufactures. No, I’m not buying that today either, thanks. But I don’t know what the hell it means.”
“Let’s go. You drive.” Eve pulled out her ’link again, and tagged Feeney. “Missing persons, add in a new piece of data. Look for a woman who’s employed by Roarke. Don’t say anything to him as yet. Just look for anyone reported missing in the last few days who fits our vic profile and who works for one of Roarke’s interests in the city.”
“Got that. I’ve got three potentials from MP from the tristate. Give me a minute on this. Aren’t you due at the media blather?”
“I’m on my way there.”
“Okay, okay,” he grumbled, “takes time. He’s got a lot of layers on some of his…son of a bitch. Rossi, Gia, age thirty-one, works as a personal trainer and instructor at BodyWorks, a subsidiary of Health Conscience, which is a division of Roarke Enterprises. She was reported missing last night.”
“Take one of the uniforms, get to her place of employment, her residence, talk to the person who reported her missing, to—”
“I know the drill, Dallas.”
“Right. Move on it, Feeney.” She clicked off. “Goddamn media.”
“You have to tell him, Dallas. You’ve got to tell Roarke about this.”
“I know, I know. I’ve got to get through this media crap first, and think. I have to think. Roarke will deal. He’ll have to deal with it.”
She’d think about that part later. At the moment, she could only think that it might be too late for Gia Rossi. She could only wonder what might have been done to her already.
He cleansed her to Falstaff. It always put him in a happy mood—this music, this little chore. His partner needed to be absolutely clean before the work began. He particularly enjoyed washing her hair—all that lovely brown hair.
He enjoyed the scents, of course—that hint of citrus, the feminine fragrance mixed with the smell of her fear.
She wept as he washed her, blubbered a bit, which concerned him just a little. He preferred the screams, the curses, the prayers, the pleas, to incoherent weeping.
But it was early days yet, he thought.
The water he hosed her off with was icy, which turned the weeping to harsh gasps and small shrieks. That was better.
“Well now, that was refreshing, wasn’t it? Bracing. You have excellent muscle tone, I must say. A strong, healthy body makes such a difference.”
She was shivering now, violently, her teeth chattering, her lips pale blue. It might be interesting, he decided, to follow up the cold with heat.
“Please,” she choked out when he turned away to study his tools. “What do you want? What do you want?”
“Everything you can give me,” he replied. He chose his smallest torch, flicked on the flame, then narrowed it to the point of a pin.
When he turned, when her eyes wheeled toward that flame, she rewarded him with those wild, wild screams.
“Let’s get started, shall we?”
He moved to the base of the table, smiled in delight at the high, elegant arch of her feet.
5
SHE HATED MEDIA CONFERENCES, BUT NEARLY always hated the media liaison more. It was suggested, by same, that Eve might prep for fifteen minutes with the media coach, and make use of the provided enhancements in order to present a more pleasant image on screen.
“Murder isn’t pleasant,” Eve snapped back as she strode toward the main doors of Cop Central.
“No, of course not.” The liaison jogged to keep up. “But we’re going to avoid words like murder. The prepared statement—”
“Isn’t going to be tasty when I stuff it down your throat. I’m not your mouthpiece, and this isn’t a political spin.”
“No, but there are ways to be informative and tactful.”
“Tact’s just bullshit with spit polish over it.”
Eve pushed through the doors. Tibble had opted for the steps of Central not only to show the sturdy symbol of the building, but, Eve guessed, to insure the briefing would remain short.
The March wind wasn’t being tactful.
She stepped up to the podium, and waited for the noise level to drop off. She picked Nadine out immediately. The bright red coat stood out like a beacon.
“I have a statement, then I’ll take a few brief questions. The body of a twenty-eight-year-old woman identified as Sarifina York was found early this morning in East River Park. It has been determined that Ms. York was most likely abducted last Monday evening, held against her will for several days. The method in which she was murdered and the evidence gathered so far indicates Ms. York was killed by the same individual who took the lives of four women in a fifteen-day period in this city, nine years ago.”
That caused an eruption, and she ignored it. She stood still and silent while questions and demands were hurled out. Stood still and silent until they ceased.
“The NYPSD has authorized and formed a task force. Its soul purpose will be to investigate this crime, and to apprehend and incarcerate the perpetrator.
We will use every resource, every man-hour, and all the experience at our disposal to do so. Questions.”
They flew like missiles. But the fact that there were so many allowed her to cherry pick.
“How was she killed?” Eve repeated. “Ms. York was tortured over a period of days, and died as a result of blood loss. No, we do not have any suspects at this time, and yes, we are, and will continue to follow any and all leads.”
She fielded a few more, grateful her time was nearly up. She noted Nadine tossed out no questions, and had in fact moved out of the pack to talk on her ’link.
“You said she was tortured,” someone called out. “Can you give us details?”
“I neither can nor will. Those details are confidential to this investigation. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t give them to you so you could broadcast her suffering and cause yet more pain for her family and friends. Her life was taken. And that’s more than enough for outrage.”
She stepped back, turned, and walked through the doors of Central.
It would take Nadine a few minutes to get up to Homicide and charm her way through any potential roadblocks to Eve’s office.
Besides, Eve thought, she could wait. Just wait.
First, Eve needed to speak to Roarke.
She caught the scent as soon as she stepped into the conference room, and much preferred it to the olfactory bombardment at Scentual.
Somebody, she thought, brought in gyros.
She made her way over to Roarke’s workstation, noted he’d gone for the cold-cut sub. He paused in his work long enough to pick up half the sub, hand it to her. “Eat something.”
She peered between the slabs of roll. “What is it?”
“No substance in nature, I can promise you. That’s why I said eat something.”
More to please him than out of appetite, she took a bite. “I need to talk to you.”
“If you’re after some answers on this chore you gave me, you won’t get any as yet. There are, literally, countless homes, private residences, warehouses, and other potential structures in New York, the boroughs, into New Jersey, that have been owned by the same person or persons or organization for the last decade.”