by J. D. Robb
She poked at the other fosters again, looking for some connection, some click. One in a cage, one dead, she thought.
But what if—
“Got your manifests here.”
Distracted, she glanced over. “Already?”
“One day you’ll afford me the awe I so richly deserve.”
“You’re rich enough to afford your own awe. What about matches?”
“If you’re in a hurry, you take half.” He tapped keys. “There. Transferring to you. Handle it from there?”
“I know how to do a search and match,” she muttered, and set it up to run. She swiveled around to look at him. “I’ve got these two long shots. Just plucking out of the air. One of the fosters is in a cage. Assaults, mostly. No family, no known associates in particular. Nothing in her jacket to indicate any real smarts, or connections. But maybe Trudy tried to hit her up along the line. So this career violent tendency decides to get back some of her own. Works a deal with somebody who’s close, or can get close to the mark. Take her out—got your revenge—make some money while you’re at it.”
“How would this person know Trudy was going to New York now, with the idea of shaking us down, and be able to put this kill together so quickly?”
“The kill’s of the moment. I still say that. Could’ve had the shill in place already. And yeah, I know it’s a long one. But I’m going to have another chat with the warden after Christmas. Maybe reach out to her last arresting officer.”
“And the other shot in the dark?”
“One of the fosters worked as a dancer in that club that was bombed a few years ago. Miami. Remember, a couple of bonzos got through the door, protesting sin or something. Things went wrong and the boomers blew. Took out over a hundred and fifty people.”
“I don’t remember, sorry. Before you, I can’t say I paid as much attention to that sort of thing.” But he stopped what he was doing, considered it. “So she survived?”
“No. At least she’s listed among the dead. But it was an underground club, and they run loose. Explosions, body parts flying. Blood, terror, confusion.”
“I get the picture, thanks.” He sat back, walking his mind along the path she was taking. “So, she somehow survives, is misidentified, and lives to plot Trudy’s eventual demise?”
“It’s an angle,” Eve said stubbornly. “There are others. Somebody close to her comes back on Trudy. Revenge again. A lover or a close friend. I can talk to some of the survivors anyway, some of the people she worked with. Maybe get a clearer picture of her at least.”
She got up to pace. “And there’s this other thing going through my head. Did Trudy ever catch Bobby sneaking food to one of the girls? If so, what did she do about it? To her, to him. Or later, when he was older, did he ever get in contact with one of them? Or did one of them ever approach him? He never said anything about that. Easiest way to get to Trudy, it seems to me, would be through him.”
“You’re back to Zana.”
“Yeah.”
“Try this. What is it about Zana Lombard that keeps you circling back?”
“Well, like I said, she cries a lot.”
“Eve.”
“It’s irritating. But beyond that personal annoyance, she’s on the spot, both incidents. She’s the only one who saw her alleged abductor.”
“Why make up a story like that? It only brings her to the foreground. Wouldn’t she prefer to stay in the back?”
She rose to walk over, study her murder board. “Criminals are always complicating things, saying or doing more than they should. Even the smart ones. Add ego. Look what I pulled off, but nobody knows. Nobody can say, ‘Wow, that was pretty damn clever of you. Let me buy you a drink.’”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You think she did it.”
She drew a line with her finger from the photograph of Trudy, to Bobby, to Zana. A very handy triangle, she decided. Neat and tidy.
“I’ve thought she did it since I opened the door and found Trudy dead.”
He turned in the chair now, studying her face. “Kept that one close to the vest, didn’t you?”
“No need to get pissy.”
“I never get pissy.” He rose, deciding it was time for a brandy. “I do, occasionally, become irked. Such as now. Why didn’t you say earlier?”
“Because every time I circled around her, she’s come up clean. I’ve got no facts, no data, no evidence, no clear motive.”
She stepped closer to Zana’s photo. Big blue eyes, wavy blond hair. The guileless milkmaid, whatever the hell a milkmaid was.
“I’ve run probabilities on her, and they come up low. Even my head tells me it’s not her. It’s my gut saying otherwise.”
“You generally trust your gut.”
“This is different, because my gut’s already involved because of my connection to the victim.” She walked away from the board, back to her auxiliary station. “And the suspect on the top of my gut list hasn’t given me any solid reason to have her there. Her actions and reactions, her statements, her behavior are pretty much what they should be under the circumstances. But I look at her, and I think: It ought to be you.”
“And Bobby?”
“Could be working with her. One or both of them knew what Trudy was up to. One or both of them seduces the other, uses sex, love, money—all of the above.”
She stopped, pulled the fresh scene photos of Bobby’s injuries out of her file, and moved over to tack them to her board.
“But this, the incident that landed him in the hospital, doesn’t fit with that. I made sure I saw him before she did. He gave no sign she’d pulled a double-cross on him. They were wired on their walk around the city, and Baxter’s oral indicated they talked about shopping and lunch. Nothing about Trudy, nothing about any plot or plan. It just doesn’t feel like him, doesn’t feel like teamwork. But—”
“You’re afraid your memory of him colors your instincts.”
“Maybe. I need to push the pieces around some more.”
Task completed. There are no matches in the manifest with files currently on record…
“Well, that was a bust,” Eve complained. “We can try name combinations, look for aliases.”
“I’ll set it up.”
Eve poured more coffee, waiting until his back was turned to avoid a caffeine lecture. “You’re married to someone—and you work with them, live with them, sleep with them—don’t you figure you’d get an inkling if they were stringing you? I mean, day after day, night after night. The stringer’s got to make a slip sometime and put the stringee on guard.”
“You’ve heard the expression ‘love is blind.’”
“I think it’s bullshit. Lust dazzles, sure, at least for the short term. But love clears the vision. You see better, sharper, because you feel more than you did before.”
His lips curved as he stepped to her, touched her hair, her face. “That, I think, is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”
“It’s not romantic, it’s—”
“Hush.” He laid his lips on hers briefly. “Let me enjoy it. You have a point, but love can also cause you to see things as you prefer to see them, as you want them to be. And you haven’t factored in—if we stick with your gut, and she’s responsible—that she may love him. Part of her motive might have been to free him from what she saw as a destructive, even dangerous influence.”
“Now who’s being romantic? If I put her in as the killer, then she pushed her husband in front of a cab a few hours ago. No way—if she did Trudy—that was an accident, a coincidence.”
“You have me on that one.”
“No, what I have is nothing. I’ve got one material witness/suspect in the hospital. Another in a hotel room, under watch. I have no evidence that points to either of them, or anyone else at this time. I need to pick at it, that’s all. Shuffle things up and keep picking at it.”
She thought of the recording, and Roarke’s skill, his fancy computer lab. She could ask him
to work it for her, put in the time.
Not right, not fair. Not starting so late.
“Guess we’ll pack it in for now. Check the results of that last run in the morning.”
“That suits me. What about a swim first? Work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” She started for the elevator with him, then narrowed her eyes. “Is this some ploy to get me wet and naked?”
“Love certainly doesn’t blind you, Lieutenant. You see right through me.”
Chapter 17
IT WASN T SNOW FOR CHRISTMAS EVE, BUT another bout of nasty, freezing rain that made gleeful skittering sounds against the windows. It would, Eve thought in disgust, coat the streets and sidewalks and give the city employees who were on a shift another excuse to blow the day off.
She was tempted, nearly, to join them. She could drag on a sweatshirt and work from home, avoid the ice rink of the streets. Stay warm and comfortable. It was sheer contrariness that had her preparing to go in.
Knowing that didn’t bother her a bit.
“You have everything you need here,” Roarke reminded her.
“Don’t.” She shouldered on her weapon harness. “Don’t have Feeney, for one. Don’t have Mira. And I’m going to try to snag her long enough to get a profile on Zana and Bobby. Don’t have whoever’s bad luck has them in the lab today. And I want to go by the hotel, the hospital, do follow-ups there.”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard.” He stretched out his legs to enjoy another cup of coffee. “There’s a marvelous invention called the telelink. Some, as we have here, are also equipped for holo-conferences.”
“Not the same.” She pulled a jacket over her weapon. “You sticking home today?”
“If I said I was?”
“You’d be lying. You’re going in, same as me, finishing things up personally. Going to let your staff go early, you softie, but you’re heading in.”
“I’ll stay if you do.”
“I’m going, and so are you.” But she walked over, framed his face, and kissed him. “See you in a few hours.”
“Well, have a care, will you? The roads are bound to be treacherous.”
“So’s a chemi-head with a lead bat, but I’ve handled those.”
“Figuring as much, I had one of the all-terrains brought around.” He lifted a brow when she frowned. “I’ll be using one myself, so you’ve no argument there.”
“Fine, okay.” She glanced at the time. “Well, while you’ve got your worrywart on, maybe you could check with the shuttle, see if Peabody got off okay.”
“Already did, they’re in the air and already out of the weather. Wear your gloves,” he called out as she went through the door.
“Such a nag,” she mumbled under her breath.
But she was grateful for them, and the thin, soft fur lining that had somehow found its way into her coat. How did he manage that stuff?
Whatever was spitting out of the sky felt like nasty little needle pricks as cold as Mars. She climbed into the muscular vehicle, found its efficient heater already running. The man missed nothing. It was almost spooky.
Even warm, and in a vehicle with the traction and power of a jet tank, she had an ugly fight on her hands all the way downtown. Where before she’d cursed people who ditched work for an extended holiday as lazy wimps, now she cursed them for not staying the hell home. Or for driving a vehicle that couldn’t handle the icy roads.
Twice she came upon fender benders, felt obliged to stop and get out, determine if there were injuries before calling it in to Traffic.
When traffic stalled, again, she imagined what it would be like just to roll over the cars in her path. The tank she was in could handle it, she thought.
When she arrived at Central, she calculated that more than twenty percent of the slots on her level were empty.
One of the detectives hailed her when she walked into Homicide.
“Slader, aren’t you on graveyard?”
“Yes, sir. Caught one a couple hours before end of tour. Got the guy in the cooler. Vic’s his brother, who was visiting from out of town for the holidays. Ends up with a broken neck at the bottom of the stairs. Guy in the cooler has some swank place over on Park. Vic’s a loser, no fixed address, no visible means of employment.”
“He get helped down the steps?”
“Oh, yeah.” Slader’s smile was thin and wry. “Guy claims the brother was stoned—and we’ll get the tox on that—but he did have some Juice on him. Suspect said he was in bed, heard the noise of the fall, and found his brother at the bottom of the steps. Thing is, he apparently didn’t think we’d notice the vic’s facial bruises, or hoped we put them off on the fall. But seeing as our guy’s got scraped knuckles, and a split lip, we’re figuring otherwise.”
Eve scratched the back of her neck. People, she thought, could be unbelievably stupid. “You work him toward the self-defense or accidental angle?”
“Yeah, but he’s sticking to his story. He’s an exec for an ad company. Figure he doesn’t want to get his name on-screen. We’re going to go at him again after he sweats a little more. Guy broke down and cried twice, but he’s not moving off the story. Thing is, Lieutenant, we’re into overtime.”
“Keep at him, get it wrapped. I’ll clear the OT. Half the damn squad’s out. I’m not passing it off. He call for a lawyer?”
“Not yet.”
“You run into a wall, tag me. Otherwise, just put it to bed.”
She left her coat in her office after skimming the waiting paperwork and what had accumulated overnight. It bred, she thought as she headed to EDD, like rabbits.
For once, the walls of EDD weren’t bouncing with voices, music, or electronic chatter. There were a handful of detectives in cubes or at desks, and some of the machines humped away, but it was, for this division, eerily quiet.
“Crime could run rampant with the number of cops at home hanging their damn Christmas stockings.”
Feeney looked up. “Things are mostly quiet.”
“That’s what happens before things blow up,” she said darkly. “Things get mostly quiet.”
“You’re cheerful. Here’s something that’s going to put a kink in your hose.”
“You still haven’t pinned down the account.”
“I haven’t pinned down the account, because there is no account. Not with those numbers, in that order.”
“Maybe she mixed up the numbers. If you do a random search, utilizing the numbers in any order, then—”
“You’re going to stand there, tell me how to do e-work?”
She blew out a breath, dropped into his visitor’s chair. “No.”
“Thing is, we got too many numbers. At least one extra. So you run a random, taking out any number, or numbers, what you’ve got, Dallas, is a hell of a lot of accounts.”
“Well, shit” was the best she could think of.
“No way to pin it, I can pin the random accounts, but it’s going to take time if you want all of them. ‘Cause what you’re doing this way, is pulling rabbits out of hats.”
She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “I’ll take them when you get them. Start cross-referencing.”
He gave her one of his hangdog looks. “Gonna be a headache of major proportions. Thing is, Dallas, you’re getting the data from a woman who was under duress and stress. No telling if she got the numbers she gave you right in the first place.”
“Why didn’t he make her record them? Write them down. Have some way of being sure she got them right? He’s got two million on the line, and he trusts the memory of a terrified woman?”
“People are stupid more than half the time.”
It was God’s truth, to her mind, but it wasn’t helping her. “He’s smart enough, allegedly, to kill, remember the details to cover himself for the murder, get out and away undetected. He’s smart enough, allegedly, to be on the spot in order to get another woman into a closed establishment, without anyone they passed noticing the abduction. He leaves no tra
ce there either. But he flubs up the main deal? He screws up on what we would be led to believe was the motive for murder? You buy that, Feeney?”
“Well, you put it that way, I’ll save my money.” He pulled on his bottom lip. “You think she made it up?”
“I think it’s a possibility that needs to be explored. You know, it doesn’t put a kink in my hose so much as it adds weight to a theory I’ve been working on.”
“Want to walk it by me? Got time, got coffee.”
He’d trained her, she thought. She could remember countless times they’d talked through a case, picking over, niggling over the details over bad food and worse coffee.
He’d taught her how to think, how to see, and most of all how to feel an investigation.
“Wouldn’t mind, but I don’t see why I should have to suffer through that sludge you call coffee. Figure maybe you could share the holiday token I brought you.”
She tossed a gift bag on his desk, and watched his eyes light up like Christmas morning. “That coffee in there? The real deal?”
“No point in bringing you the fake stuff if I’m going to be drinking it.”
“Hot damn! Thanks. Hey, close the door, will you? Don’t want anybody getting wind while I set this up. Jesus, I’m going to have to put a lock on my AC, or my boys will be swarming in here like locusts.”
Once the door was safely shut, he moved to the AutoChef to begin the homey tasks of loading and programming. “You know, the wife’s trying to stick me with decaf at home. Might as well drink tap water, you ask me. But this…”
He took a long, deep inhale through his nose. “This is prime.” He turned his head, sent her a quick grin. “Got a couple of doughnuts in here. Logged ‘em in as pea soup so the boys don’t get wise.”
“Smart.” She thought of her travails with the candy thief who continually unearthed her office stash. She might give Feeney’s method a shot.
“So what do you got pointing to the female wit?”
She ran it through for him while he dealt with the coffee, shared his doughnuts.
He listened, sipping his coffee, taking an occasional generous bite out of the glazed doughnut. Sugary crumbs dotted his shirt. “Probability’s going to favor the son, if it’s a family job. Blood kills quicker. Could be he brought the wife into it, pressured her. Hey, guess what, honey? I just killed Mom. So I need you to say I was in here with you, sleeping like a baby.”