by J. D. Robb
“Yes, sir.”
He finished his coffee, set it aside. “I’m not here to tell you how to do your job,” he said and rose. “But only to precede cautiously, and clearly, where the personal overlaps.”
“Understood, Commander. I can ask Roarke to turn over the documentation, so that it’s in our files.”
“He’s already done so, through Feeney.” Now Whitney inclined his head. “He is consulting primarily with EDD, correct, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, that would be proper procedure.”
“I’ll let you get back to work.”
Alone, she stewed for a moment. It might have been proper procedure for Roarke to give Feeney the documentation, but he might have told her he’d done it. Of course, he would have told her if she’d asked. Or he probably assumed she’d known he would, or ... screw it.
She couldn’t stand here trying to decipher the workings of Roarke’s brain when on this point she couldn’t quite decipher her own.
She gave it up and walked out to keep her appointment with Mira.
9
THERE WAS A CERTAIN RITUAL INVOLVED IN Eve’s consults with Mira. Mira would offer—and Eve would feel obliged to accept—a fancy cup of flowery tea. They both knew Eve preferred coffee, just as they both knew the tea represented Mira’s calming influence, a break from the pressure. At least for that initial few moments.
As Eve sat in one of Mira’s blue scoop chairs she noted, as usual, the office was efficient and female, like the woman who ruled it. Apparently it didn’t bother Mira in the least to discuss the criminal mind, and the horrors inflicted on victims while photos of her family looked on.
Maybe she chose calming colors in her decor and her wardrobe to counteract those horrors, and scattered those photos around to ground herself to her own reality.
It occurred to her that she herself placed no photographs in her office—not at Central, not at home. Maybe, she considered, they’d be a distraction from the work, or maybe she’d just find it disconcerting to be “watched” while she worked. Or ...
Didn’t matter, didn’t apply. Such analyses and suppositions were Mira’s territory. Eve needed the mind of the killer, needed to live inside it awhile—and her own sparse, uncluttered style suited her.
She considered her work outfit, one she’d chosen by simply grabbing what seemed easiest. Summer jacket, sleeveless tank, light-weight pants, boots. Work and weather related, period.
But Mira went for a breezy suit, sort of like a peppermint—white with tiny flecks of candy pink. The flecks matched the shiny shoes with the skinny heels that set off Mira’s very nice legs. She wore her glossy brown hair in flattering waves around her soft and pretty face, and added a little bit of glitter and shine in earrings, necklace, a fancy girl’s wrist unit.
Nothing overdone, Eve thought—at least not that her sense of style could discern. Everything just so, just right. And, yeah, she admitted, calming.
“You’re quiet,” Mira remarked as she handed Eve the ritual fancy cup of flowery tea.
“Sorry. I was thinking about wardrobe.”
Mira’s eyes, blue and as soft and pretty as the rest of her, widened in both humor and surprise. “Really?”
“As it applies to profession, or activity or personality. I don’t know.” See, she told herself, thinking about personal choices, personal style, was distracting.
“Peabody and McNab are heading to DC—a little undercover job at a game con,” she continued. “She’s all about needing to go home, shed what she thinks makes her look like a cop for what she thinks will make her look like a game buff. I figure she’s still pretty much going to look like Peabody because whatever she puts on came out of her closet, right, and she has it there because she put it there.”
“True. But there are different aspects to all of us, and often our choice of outfit for a particular occasion or duty reflects that aspect. You wouldn’t wear what you’re wearing now to accompany Roarke to a formal charity function, for instance, nor what you’d worn there here at work.”
“I would if I was running late for the charity deal—or if I got tagged while I was at the deal to a scene.” Eve shrugged. “But I get you. It’d be easier if we could wear whatever we want wherever we want.”
“And this from a woman who greatly respects rules. Society and fashion have them as well. Added to that what we wear can put us in the mood for what we have to do.”
She thought of the costume the game had programmed for her. She had to admit it had put her in the mood to fight, and made the sword feel familiar and right in her hand.
“The victim’s wardrobe didn’t have a lot of variety. He had some formal stuff and more traditional business attire mixed in, but primarily he went casual. Jeans, cargos, khakis, tees, and sweaters. And a lot of that—the shirts—was logoed and printed with game and vid stuff. He lived in his work.”
“You understand that.”
“The not just what he did but who he was, yeah. Everything I’ve got says he freaking loved it. He had toys and souvies all through his place. Games and game systems everywhere.”
“He must have been a happy man, to be able to do what he loved, and what he excelled at, every day. To make his living doing what made him the happiest. And with longtime friends.”
“Happy, normal, nice—these are the kinds of words I’m getting in statements from people who knew him.”
“Yes, it fits. He had a good life, and what appears to me to be a very normal and healthy one. He had a relationship, one that mattered, kept contact with his family, maintained his friendships, had enough ambition to work to see his company succeed and grow, but not so much as to exclude those relationships and friendships.”
She drank some tea, and Eve understood Mira took those moments to line up her thoughts.
“Your report says he enjoyed the company of children in his building, and was friendly with their parents. As much as he lived his work, he appeared to be well-rounded.”
“How does a healthy, well-rounded, happy guy get his head cut off in his own secured holo-room? That’s not really a question for you,” Eve added. “That’s something EDD and I have to figure out. But why, there’s a question. The method’s significant, and required a lot of trouble, a lot of work.”
“And it’s distracting.”
“Yeah, which could be part of the point. We’re puzzling over how the hell, why the hell, and maybe who the hell slips by. What kind of person uses this method, these circumstances?”
“Decapitation is certainly a form of mutilation, and would indicate a need or desire to defile—to conquer absolutely.”
The pink drops at Mira’s ears danced a little at the shake of her head. “But the extent of the other injuries don’t jibe with that, nor does the care in accessing the victim and leaving the scene. Those are organized, layered details, studied and complex. Severing the head from the body may be symbolic as the weapon used, and the method. A game. The victim lived and breathed games, and used his head, if you will, to build his business from them.”
“Which points to a competitor, or even some wack job who didn’t like his score on the games. Wack job rings truer because there are easier ways, and less publicity generating ways, to off a rival. Or, more crazy, somebody who has some sort of violent objections to the games themselves. However whacked, he had to have superior e-skills to get in and out undetected. Unless he lives or works in the building. We’re not getting a bump there, so far.”
“The victim’s company would hire those with superior e-skills.”
“Yeah. Added to that whoever did this had to know the vic, the setup, had to know he’d be home and ready to play the game. The game disc itself would’ve been worth considerable to a competitor, a rival. If that was the case, why not kill Bart before he’d locked in the disc? You do that, you’ve got it all—dead guy and the development disc for his next big thing. But he leaves it behind, which tells me either he didn’t need or want it, or it wasn’t any part
of the motive. And I don’t like the second option. I think he just didn’t need it.”
“You’re looking at his associates and employees.”
“Top of the list,” Eve confirmed. “He sure as hell wouldn’t have played the game with someone who wasn’t involved in it, who didn’t know about it, and couldn’t be trusted to keep it quiet. He used those kids for test studies on games, and my impression is he enjoyed playing with them. But he wasn’t ready to take it to them yet.”
“Because, at this point, it wasn’t only a game. It was a project. An important one.”
“Yeah. He told them he had something coming up, gave them a few vague details because, I think, he was too juiced not to. But they routinely play and test games in all stages of development at the U-Play offices.”
“Where the details wouldn’t have been so vague, even to those outside the inner circle.”
“According to the log the vic played this one often—solo and multi. Various partners when he went multi. EDD’s working on digging through that to see which fantasy scenarios, if any, he might’ve played repeatedly. And against whom. I’m going to push for a copy of the disc. The partners are being fairly cooperative, but they’re dragging their heels on that.”
Mira nodded, apparently enjoying her tea. “You have an organized, detail-oriented, e-skilled killer, one I believe, as you do, the victim knew and trusted. However, the method of the murder is violent and brutal—fast, efficient, and with a warrior’s weapon. A fanciful one perhaps, but an old method. The decapitation is also warriorlike—the total defeat of an enemy, the severing of his head from his body. An execution method, and one that would take focus, skill, and strength.”
“Not your typical e-geek.”
“Not at all, the pathology diverges sharply. You may have two.”
“Yeah, I thought of that. One to plan, one to execute the plan. I’ve even considered a droid. Someone who can reprogram, avoid alerting CompuGuard, and could convince Bart to try out the game against a droid. But how did he get the droid in there, and when? How did he get the weapon in, and when?”
“A droid? That’s interesting.” Mira sat back, recrossed her fine legs as she considered. “Certainly you’d have that quick efficiency, the necessary strength. And if programmed for warrior, for sword skills, very effective. It would suit the killer’s—speaking of the human element—pathology. The use of those clever e-skills. In a way, in his way, he would have pitted himself against the victim, thereby winning the game by his proxy, and eliminating his opponent with a method that spotlighted those skills. Droids have been used in combat and in assassinations before, which is why the laws and safeguards are so stringent. It would be a challenge to subvert those laws and safeguards. The killer enjoys a challenge.”
“Maybe we need to take another look at the vic’s house droid. It’s had the once-over in EDD, and there was no sign of tampering or reprogramming. But it was already inside, already trusted, and there was more than enough time between the murder and discovery to reprogram, dispose of the weapon. Leave her just where she’s supposed to be. Or ... maybe she was replaced earlier with a duplicate.”
The idea added another angle, more complications, and thinking of them Eve drank tea without realizing it. “Detail-oriented, organized, sure. But it’s a kind of showing off. Plus, it’s childishly risky. All of it. If Bart doesn’t do precisely what he did, it falls apart. He doesn’t go home early, doesn’t take the disc home, isn’t able to take the time to play the game then and there, it doesn’t work.”
“Calculated risks. Most game players take them, as do killers.”
“Especially if the player knows his opponent’s habits and style.” It just kept circling back to that. To knowledge and to trust. “There’s a lot of ego involved in game playing, especially if you take it seriously. A whole lot of ego. Nobody likes to lose. Some people practice obsessively, some cheat, some go off and sulk after a loss—and that can turn to festering obsession.”
“The more seriously one takes the game,” Mira commented, “the more real the game is to the player, the more frustrating the loss.”
Eve nodded. “Fights break out in arcades regularly. This wasn’t like that, not that passion and pissed at the moment. But it might have had its roots there, and what grew out of them turned entertainment and fantasy into something real.”
“Some have difficulty separating the violence in a game from actual violent behavior. Most use it as a release, as a way to play hero or villain without crossing lines. But for some, gaming stirs up violent tendencies already in place, held back, controlled.”
“If it wasn’t games it would be something else. But yeah, I’d say the line’s blurred between fantasy and reality. The killer’s crossed it. Maybe he’s done, he got what he wanted. He won. But it seems to me when the line’s that blurred, and it gets crossed, it’s easy to cross it again.”
“Winning can be addictive,” Mira agreed.
“So can murder.”
Going from Mira’s to EDD was something like leaving an elegant home where people engaged in quiet, intellectual discussion and being flung into an amusement park run by teenagers on a sugar rush.
Eve didn’t suffer from culture shock; she was too used to it. But both her ears and eyes began to throb when she was still ten feet outside the division.
Those who walked and worked here favored colors and patterns that stunned the system and spoke in incomprehensible codes that jumbled in the mind like hieroglyphic tiles. No one stayed still in EDD. The techs, officers, detectives all pranced, paced, or paraded to some inner music that always seemed to be on maximum speed.
Even those who sat at desks or cubes jiggled and wiggled, tapped and trilled. Feeney ran what Eve saw as a madhouse with a steady hand, even thrilled at being at the controls. In his baggy pants and wrinkled shirt, he struck her as a sturdy, unpretentious island in a riotous sea.
In his office he stood in front of a screen, frowning, mussed, normal as he moved blocks of numbers and letters—those hieroglyphics again—from location to location.
“Got a minute?” she asked him.
“Yeah, yeah. You took my boy.”
Since they were all his boys—regardless of gender—it took Eve a minute. “McNab? I asked you first.”
“I hadn’t had my coffee. You get these notions in the middle of the damn night it puts me at a disadvantage.”
“It was after six this morning.”
“Middle of the night when I didn’t crash out until two. Now I’m doing his work.”
She shoved her hands in her pockets. “I asked first,” she muttered. “What is that?”
“It’s bits and pieces we got off what’s left of the game disc—which isn’t a hell of a lot. We’ve got it running through the computer, but I thought I’d try it the old-fashioned way.”
“Any luck?”
He sent her a weary glance. “Do I look lucky?”
“Take a break for a minute.” Her fingers hit something in her pocket. She pulled it out. “Look. I have a sucking candy. It’s yours.”
He eyed it. Then shrugged and took it. “How long’s it been in there?”
“It can’t have been long. Summerset’s always bitching about stuff I leave in my pockets. They’re my pockets. Plus it’s wrapped, isn’t it?”
He unwrapped it, popped it in his mouth.
“I’ve got a couple new angles I want to try,” she began. “I want another look at the vic’s house droid.”
“She’s clean.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but two possibles. One, the killer programmed and used her for the kill, then set her back to normal. Two, he shut her down and brought in a dupe for the kill.”
“You’re looking at a droid whacking the guy’s head off?”
“I’m looking at the possibility. We’ve got two divergent styles—and Mira agrees.”
While he sucked on the candy, she ran him through the high points of the consult.
“How�
�d he switch the droids?”
“One step at a time, Feeney. Plus I don’t know they were switched. It’s a possibility. If you could run a second, deeper diagnostic on it, with those two possibilities in mind, we might be able to confirm or eliminate.”
“Somebody’s going to fuck around with a droid’s programming, bypass the safeguards, they need time and privacy. And equipment.”
“They have equipment at U-Play. Plenty of them work late, stay after hours. That’s time and privacy.”
He scratched his cheek. “Maybe.”
“The second thing is going over the game logs, finding a pattern to the vic’s play. What version did he favor, who’d he play with. I want to see who he beat routinely, and what he beat them playing.”
“Now you figure somebody cut off his head because he beat them gaming? ”
“It’s a factor. It plays. Why kill him during a game unless playing the game mattered? It’s showing off, isn’t it? All of this is a kind of showing off. Look how good I am. I made it real. I won.”
“Can’t tell anybody though. That takes some shine off it. You don’t play enough,” Feeney decided. “A serious gamer? He wants his name on the board. He wants the cheers and applause. He wants the glory.”
“Okay, okay, I get that.” She paced the office. “So maybe he gets that applause, that glory another way. Like ... people who steal art or have it stolen then stick it in a vault where nobody can see it. It’s all theirs. It’s a kind of glory, too. The big secret, the ownership. That takes control, willpower and a hell of an ego. It took all of that to set up this kill. It took precision, brutality, and cold violence to execute the kill. So, it takes me back to maybe we’ve got two involved. Maybe two people, maybe one and a droid. Or maybe a multiple personality type, but that’s low on the list for now.”
He sucked on the candy, scratched his cheek again. “The model’s copyrighted on account it’s a replica of a vid character and there’s merchandising rights and all that. Then you gotta register a droid. There’s some getting around all of that if you buy it black or gray market, but this one’s the real deal. She’s got her registration chip and the proper model number. We got the vic’s registration and his authentication certificate. If she was messed with, she passed the standard diagnostic. We can run deeper. As for copies, well, it’s a popular model. It’s a classic for a reason. You can run a search for ownership on that, and maybe you’ll get a pop.”