The In Death Collection, Books 30-32

by J. D. Robb

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Friend, it ain’t about luck.” He gave Roarke another salute and sauntered off.

  Amused, and considering the concept of dates, Roarke walked into Eve’s office.

  She stood in front of her murder board, hands on her hips. “Computer,” she said, “save and copy all data to my home unit.”

  “This is good timing.”

  “I need some mulling time.”

  “I’ve your copy. Sealed and logged.”

  She took it from him. “Aren’t you all official?”

  “I certainly hope not. You can have your mulling time on the way.”

  “I’ve got a couple more things—”

  “That can wait,” he interrupted. “I want dinner.”

  She pulled a derringer out of her pocket. Obligingly, he lifted his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”

  “Bet you’re not.”

  He only smiled. “You can search me later. Clever little thing there. Where’d you get it?”

  “Souvenir from Peabody and McNab.” She cocked it. It’s small, but it’s mean. just like me.

  He laughed and stepped forward to take a better look at it. “There was this screen show—television,” he corrected, “as it was about a century ago. What was it? In any case, it was in the American West, and the hero was a mercenary—a gun for hire. He carried one of these.”

  “I hope he didn’t charge much.”

  “He had the full-size as well, but this was his—”

  “Clutch piece.”

  “There you are. We’ll have to watch some of them the next time we’re free. Now, Lieutenant, as Baxter would say, we’re gone.”

  “Okay, okay.” She gathered up files. “You drive. I’ll mull.”

  “You’re looking at his three friends, the partners,” Roarke said as they worked their way down to garage level.

  “Easiest access to his personal space, most to gain, and most intimately acquainted with the vic’s habits, routines, the business itself, and the game at the center of it.”

  “You’re leaning toward one.” With a regret and grim acceptance he thought they shared, they wormed their way onto a jammed elevator. “One more than the others,” he continued, jockeying for room in a space that smelled of boiled onions and stale sweat. “Which?”

  “I’m still structuring the theory. Besides that’s not how the game’s played.” She shoved her way off again. “Which would you pick?”

  “It’s difficult for me to think of any of them as capable of this. I don’t know them especially well, but what I do know just rejects the idea.”

  “Why, particularly?”

  “I suppose, in part, because of the way they came up together. Longtime mates.”

  “And you had yours,” Eve commented. “In Dublin.”

  “I did, and while none of us would’ve been above a bit of a cheat, as that’s a kind of game as well, we’d never have hurt each other, or caused hurt.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about today. Friendships, long-term, short-term, what clicks and why. Friendships can enhance, right, complete in a way. But they can also erode and scrape, and simmer under the surface. Add money or sex or ego to the mix, and it can boil right over.”

  “I’m hardly one to look at things through rose-colored glasses, or for that matter to doubt your instincts.” Their footsteps echoed as they crossed the garage. “Still, I’ve watched the four of them together, listened to them, and listened to Bart speak of them.”

  “You know, I bet when the pizza lady first hooked up with the husband she wanted dead, she had really nice things to say about him, too.”

  He had to shake his head, half in amusement, half in resignation. “Back to that, are we?”

  “I’m saying relationships change, people change, or sometimes an event, an action, or a series of them just pisses somebody off.” She slid into the passenger’s seat when they reached her vehicle, waited until he’d taken the wheel. “Play the game. Let’s call it Deduction. If you had to choose which murdered or arranged to have murdered the friend and partner, which? And why?”

  “All right.” If nothing else, he thought, it might help him reach some level of objectivity. “First, if one of them did the murder, Cill doesn’t have the muscle for it.”

  “Well, you might be wrong there. She, like the others, practices martial arts, combat fighting, street defense, weaponry, and so on regularly. In fact, she has a black belt in karate, and she’s working on one in tae kwon do.”

  “Ah, well. It doesn’t pay to underestimate small packages.”

  “She’d be agile, quick, stronger than she looks. And the weapon itself may have given her more heft. Being a female with a small build doesn’t rule her out.”

  “The blow came from above, but I suppose it’s possible she stood on something, or used a leap or jump to give her height and momentum.”

  “Now you’re thinking.”

  He shot her a mild look. “I can’t see it, but will agree for now she can’t be ruled out. Var. The same stipulations apply on the physicality. He’d be as capable of it physically as the others—I assume.”

  “Correct.”

  “Otherwise, from my outside observer’s view, Var and Bart were like two parts of the same whole.”

  “Some people get tired of being a part, and want the whole.”

  “Such a cop,” he murmured. “They both enjoyed digging down into the business side of things, digging into the nuts and bolts of sales, distribution, marketing as much as the creative side. They enjoyed having each other for the checks and balances, fine-tuning each other’s concepts when it came to promotion, expansion, that sort of thing. Bart told me once when they met Var, it was like the last piece clicked on. I know what that’s like.”

  Eve stretched out her legs, comfortable with the way he wound through irritable traffic. “And if they disagreed?”

  “I can’t tell you how they worked things out as I wasn’t involved. But I never heard Bart express any sort of frustration on that score.”

  “We’ll agree the victim was loyal and content with the status quo. That doesn’t mean Var, or any of the others were. Are.”

  “There are considerably less messy ways of dissolving a partnership or changing the status quo.”

  Her smile edged toward smirk. “Easier ways to get rid of a husband than cracking him open with a pipe wrench.”

  “I believe I’m going to see that any tools we might have around the house are locked away. On to Benny. He’d be, to my mind, the most intellectual of the four. He enjoys spending his hours in research, sifting through details, theorizing about the underlying meaning of a game, and the reasons they’re played. He’ll research myths, real crimes, historical figures, wars and battles and strategies to add other layers to a game.”

  “Good with details, strategy, and the art of combat.”

  “You don’t seriously believe—”

  “Just pointing out the facts.” She pulled out her PPC, added something to her notes. “When it comes down to it, they all had the means and the motive, and all could easily have arranged the opportunity. In fact, they all, or any two of them, might have planned it out together.”

  “To what end, really?” Roarke asked. “U-Play will likely get a quick boost in sales from curiosity and the public’s thirst for scandal. But without Bart, they’re going to be set back on their heels, at least for a bit. He was, and this is from a business standpoint, essentially the glue that held those four parts together into a productive whole.”

  Nodding, she keyed in more, spared Roarke an absent glance. “I agree with that. But that doesn’t account for ego, and again, that deep, passionate fury that only people who are intimate in some way can feel for one another. These four were intimate.”

  “Family.”

  “Yeah. And nobody kills more often than family.”

  “In fact I believe I’ll have the tools taken out of
the house altogether.” He swung over to grab a parking spot, and watched her frown.

  “What’s this? I thought we were going home.”

  “I see for once you were caught up enough in a game not to pay attention to your surroundings. I didn’t say home,” he reminded her. “I said dinner.”

  “I haven’t updated my reports, or finished with the analysis of the runs. I have to run a full series of—”

  As he stepped out and shut the door of the car, that was all he heard. He came around, opened her door. “Come on, Lieutenant, put it away for an hour. It’s a pretty night. Time for a little walk and a meal.”

  “See?” She poked a finger in his chest when she got out. “This is why people in intimate relationships bash each other over the head.”

  He took her hand, kissed it. “An hour shouldn’t kill either one of us.”

  “I have to go through the game scenarios on the disc.”

  “I’ve eliminated half of them. You’re looking for one that uses a sword. There’s only the two. Quest-1 and Usurper. The others involve more modern weaponry.”

  “Still ...” She trailed off, and he saw when her annoyance faded enough for her to make the neighborhood. Just as he saw her smile bloom with surprise, and with pleasure, when she stopped in front of the hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.

  “Polumbi’s. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. It hasn’t really changed at all.”

  “It’s nice isn’t it, when some things remain constant? You told me you came here when you first got to the city. You had your first slice of New York pizza, watched the people walking by. And you were happy. You were free.”

  “I felt like my life could finally begin when I sat at the counter at the window. Nobody knew me or cared. I had no friends, no lovers. Nobody but me. And it was incredible.”

  She looked at him, those gilded eyes warm, so for a moment it seemed no one else walked the sidewalk, no one else breathed the air. Only the two of them.

  “Things are different now. It’s good they changed. It’s good this is the same.” This time she took his hand, linked fingers firmly. “Let’s go have some pizza.”

  They didn’t take the counter, but grabbed a narrow two-top and sat on squat, stingily cushioned stools.

  He could have chosen anywhere, Eve thought. Snapped his fingers and scored them a table for two at the most exclusive restaurant in the city. Somewhere with snooty waiters, a superior wine cellar, and a temperamental chef who created complex dishes with an artist’s skill.

  But he’d given her a crowded, noisy joint where the tables crammed so close together the patrons’ elbows bumped, where the scents of spices and onions and cheap wine in squat carafes stung the air.

  More, he’d given her a memory.

  When they’d ordered, she propped her chin on her hand. Yes, things were different now, she thought. She was hardly embarrassed at all that she went gooey over him. “Did you buy this place?”

  “No. Some things should remain constant. But we’re keeping an eye on it, in the event the owners decide to retire or sell off.”

  So it could stay as it was, for her, she thought, even if years passed before she came back.

  “It seems to be the day for people to give me presents. I’ve got one for you.”

  “Really? What would it be?”

  “There’s a cookie in my file bag—a really good cookie with your name on it. Figuratively.”

  “What kind of cookie?”

  She grinned at him. “Mega chocolate chunk. Nadine came by. It’s her own fault she got the bullpen used to being bribed with baked goods, but she comes through.”

  “She wanted info on the investigation?”

  “Actually no.” The beer came in bottles, which made it a much safer bet than the wine. Eve picked hers up when the waitress set it on the table. “She did say she’d had Bart on the show a couple times, and I think she might’ve pushed there if she hadn’t been so whacked.”

  “Her book hits this week.”

  “Exactly. And when were you going to remind me about this party deal tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow.” He smiled, sipped his beer. “Giving you less time to fuss and fret about having to go to a party when you’re deep into a case.”

  “I don’t fuss and fret.”

  “No, you bitch and complain, but it’s such a nice evening I used code.”

  She eyed him over a swig of beer. There was no point in denying what was truth. “I suppose you’ve already decided what I’m wearing.”

  “There would be suitable attire earmarked, though naturally you might decide you’d prefer something else.” He brushed his hand lightly over the top of hers. “You could always go through your closet tonight and give it some thought.”

  “Yeah, that’s going to happen. I have to go. I mean, if the case breaks I can work around it and put in an appearance.”

  “If the case breaks, assuming you’re right about it being one of the three, you’d hardly be facing down a career criminal or fighting for your life. At the core of it, they’re still geeks.”

  “One or more of them killed a fellow geek in a really creative and ugly way,” she reminded him. “But yeah, I think I can handle him, her, or them.”

  “So tell me why you have to go, which is not your default statement when it comes to events like this.”

  She blew out a breath as the pizza landed in front of them. “Because I meant it when I said Nadine was whacked. She’s got herself all wound up, wrapped up, twisted up about the book thing. How maybe it sucks and all that. Lack of confidence isn’t what you call her default setting either.”

  “She put a lot into it, and it’s, for her, a new area.”

  “I get it.” Eve shrugged with another sip of beer. “So I’ve got to at least show my face, do the moral support deal. Which is one of the annoyances of friendships.”

  “There’s my girl.”

  She laughed, picked up a slice, then took a bite. Closed her eyes. She could see herself, with absolute clarity, taking that first long-ago bite by the window while New York and all its possibilities rushed, pushed, and bitched along on the other side of the glass.

  She opened them, smiled into the eyes of her friend, her lover, her partner. “It’s still damn good pizza.”

  He’d been right, she thought as they walked outside again. The hour had cleared her head, settled her mood, geared her up for the next steps and stages.

  “I want to go by U-Play before we head uptown.”

  “It would be closed by this time,” he said, as his fingers linked with hers. “I can certainly get you in if you’re after a bit of B&E.”

  “Nobody’s breaking and entering. I don’t want to go in anyway.”

  “Then?”

  “I figure it’s closed, sure, but I wonder if it’s empty.”

  He indulged her, wound his way through traffic and farther downtown. The summer light lengthened the day, spun it out and gilded it. The heat of the day had given way, just a little, just enough, to a few fitful breezes.

  Both tourists and those who made their home in the city took advantage, filling street and sidewalk with a throng of bare legs, bare arms. She watched a woman, blond hair flying, race along, long tanned legs scissoring with pretty feet balanced on towering needle heels.

  “How do they do that?” She pointed to the blond as she watched her lope along. “How do women, or the occasional talented tranny or cross-dresser-walk on streets like this in those heels, much less run like a gazelle across ... whatever gazelles run across.”

  “I imagine it’s the result of considerable practice, perhaps even for the gazelle.”

  “And if they didn’t? If women, trannies, and cross-dressers everywhere revolted and said, screw this, we’re not wearing these ankle-breaking stilts anymore—and they didn’t—wouldn’t the sadists who design those bastards have to throw in the towel?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you, your women, trannies, and cross-dressers will never re
volt. Many of them actually appear to like the style and the lift.”

  “You just like them because they make the ass jiggle.”

  “Absolutely guilty.”

  “Men still rule the world. I don’t get it.”

  “No comment as any would be misconstrued. Well, you were right about this.” He eased onto the edge of the warehouse lot. “Closed, no doubt, but not empty.”

  She studied the faint glow of light against the glass, imagined the way the sun would slant through the windows this late in the day. The shadows cast, the glare tossed back at certain angles. Yes, they’d want the artificial light. For comfort, she thought, and for practicality.

  Just as she imagined they’d want to be together, the three of them, in that space. For comfort, and maybe for practicality.

  “Are you seriously imagining them in there discussing how they’d managed murder and what steps to take next?”

  “Maybe.” She titled her head, studied him. “You don’t like it because you like them, and because you see something of yourself in all four of them. Just a little piece here and there. Because of that, because you’d never kill a friend, never kill an innocent or kill simply because killing was expedient, you don’t like the idea one of them did.”

  “That may be true, all of it true enough. But you and I have both killed, Eve, and once you have you know taking a life isn’t a game. Only the mad think otherwise. Do you believe one of them is mad?”

  “No. I think they’re all very sane. I’m not looking for a mad scientist or a geek gone psycho. This is something else.” She watched as a shadow passed behind one of the windows. “Whoever did it may regret it now, may feel it’s all a terrible mistake, a nightmare that won’t let go. I may crack the killer open like an egg with that guilt and horror when we get that far.”

  She watched those windows, the lights and shadows, for another moment in silence.

  “Or, and we both know this, too, sometimes the taking of a life hardens you, it ... calcifies your conscience. He deserved it, I only did what I had to do. Or worse yet, it excites. It opens a door in you that was so secret, so small, so tightly locked no one, even you, knew it was there. And there’s a kind of joy in that. Look what I did! Look at the power I have.”