by J. D. Robb
Changes, and Eve admitted she wasn’t always comfortable with change. But pink shoes or not, Peabody was a cop right to the bone.
“Money doesn’t make you an asshole,” Eve said when Peabody opened the door, “it just makes you an asshole with money.”
“Okay.”
“And people who kill for thrills? They always had the thirst for it, the predilection for it. Just maybe not the stones.”
Peabody wiggled her butt to settle in. “And you think we’re going to see that about Dudley when we talk to the ex-fiancée?”
Cop to the bone, Eve thought again. “I’m going to be pretty damn surprised if we don’t.”
“From the background I ran, she seems like the solid type. Volunteers as a counselor at the local youth center and he coaches softball. They belong to the country club, and she chairs a committee here and there. Feels like sort of the usual bits for that social and financial lifestyle.”
Ordinary people, Eve thought again, with money.
“She’d have been a lot higher on the ladder if she’d married Dudley.” Peabody shrugged. “But she’s not exactly scraping bottom. Anyway, with what you dug up last night she’s connected to Dudley and Moriarity with the cousin thing, the college pal thing. Makes you wonder, if we’re right about these two, how far back they’ve been into the nasty.”
“That kind of partnership requires absolute trust—or stupidity. I don’t think they’re stupid—or not completely stupid.” Eve considered. “And that kind of trust has to build over some time. Because if one of them cracks, it all cracks, if one talks, they both go down. And still . . .”
“Still?”
“If it’s competition, one has to lose. Losing would be not making the kill, or getting caught, or screwing up. I can’t turn it any other way.”
“Maybe neither one of them believes he can lose.”
“Somebody has to,” Eve countered.
“Yeah, but when McNab and I play, for instance, I’m always sort of shocked and pissed off if I lose. I go in knowing I’m going to win. Every time. It’s the same with him. I think because we’re pretty well matched in the games we get into. And separately we usually destroy whoever else we’re playing against.”
“It’s a thought.” Eve squeezed it a little harder. “It’s a good thought,” she decided. “They’re arrogant bastards. Maybe the concept of losing isn’t on the table.” She rolled it around in her mind, let it bump against the other elements. “The killings are planned. They’re orchestrated, and so far we know two were orchestrated back-to-back. There’s no impulse about it. Someone plots and plans and basically choreographs murder, there’s something in there that wants the kill. You can hide it, spruce it up with coats of polish, but that something’s going to eke through off and on.”
Peabody nodded. “Especially with or around someone who’s close enough to see it. So they, you could say, recognized each other.”
Recognition. Wasn’t that the same term she’d come to when considering her long friendship with Mavis?
“Yeah. I would say recognition’s a factor. What we need is to find other people who recognized them. We need to build on that until we have enough to bring them in, sweat them some. Or enough to get a search. Because they have to be communicating after a kill. There’s no way either of them would or could wait until the media hits to confirm the round.”
“On my fork, I haven’t found any connection between the vics, between the vics and Sweet or Foster, between the vics and Moriarity or Dudley, or any combination thereof, except for the known company connections.”
“Might still be there, something more subtle, or something that just doesn’t show.”
Connecticut was different, Eve mused. The space people could claim for their own purposes spread, with lots of green, lots of trees, gardens manicured as luxuriously as any society matron after a salon session. Vehicles showed off their style and shine on paved driveways—and as those private spaces increased in size, she caught glimpses of red clay tennis courts, the Caribbean blue of swimming pools, the dark circles of helipads.
“What do people do out here?”
“Whatever they want” was Peabody’s opinion.
“What I mean is, you can’t walk anywhere. There’s no deli on the corner, no handy glide cart, no buzz, no movement. Just houses.”
“I guess that’s why people live out here, or move out here. They don’t want the buzz. They want the quiet, and the space. You get to have both,” Peabody pointed out.
Using the navigation on her wrist unit, Eve turned into a driveway that circled to a house on a small rise. VanWitt had gone for a modified U-shape with the center two-story leg connecting the long, single-story juts in a mix of stone and wood and glass.
Flowers were cheerful and plentiful, trees tall and shady.
She angled where the drive widened into a small lot, and pulled in beside a spiffy little topless number in stoplight red.
“It’s pretty.” Peabody looked around as they walked to the main door. “Probably a nice place to raise kids with all this room. Low crime area, good schools.”
“You thinking of moving?”
“No. I want the buzz, too. But I can see how people aspire to places like this.”
A woman in cropped pants and a tucked white shirt answered the bell. “May I help you?”
“Felicity VanWitt.” Eve held up her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, NYPSD. We’d like to speak with her.”
“The children.” The woman’s hand rushed up to slap against her heart.
“It has nothing to do with the children.”
“Oh. Oh. They’re on a field trip in New York today, with their youth club. I thought . . . Sorry. Doctor VanWitt is in session. Can you tell me what this is about?”
“Who are you?”
“Anna Munson. I’m the house manager.”
“We’ll need to speak with Doctor VanWitt directly.”
“She should be done in about ten minutes.” Still she hesitated. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be rude, but we’re not used to having the police at the door.”
“There’s no trouble,” Eve told her. “We’re hoping the doctor can give us some insight regarding an investigation.”
“I see.” Clearly she didn’t, but she stepped back. “If you don’t mind waiting. I’ll let the doctor know you’re here as soon as she’s out of session.”
The house was as pretty and spacious inside as out, managed, Eve supposed, very well by Anna. Flowers looked to have come straight from the gardens, and had been arranged without fuss. Anna showed them to a sitting area with views of those gardens, and a pretty little house that served a sparkling swimming pool.
“Can I get you something cold to drink? I was just thinking about iced coffee.”
Eve couldn’t understand why anybody wanted to screw good coffee up with ice, and shook her head. “No, thanks.”
“I’d love some, if you’re making it, anyway.”
Anna smiled at Peabody. “It gives me an excuse to have some. Please, sit down, be comfortable. I’ll only be . . . did you say Lieutenant Dallas? Eve Dallas?”
“That’s right.”
“In the book? The Icove investigation? I read it last week. Oh, it’s so exciting—horrible,” she added quickly. “But I couldn’t put the book down. Dallas and Peabody. Imagine that. Doctor VanWitt’s reading it now. She’ll be thrilled to meet you.”
“Great,” Eve said and left it at that. She didn’t roll her shoulders to shift off the discomfort until Anna hurried out. “How long do you figure that’s going to happen? Ooh, the Icove book. Crap.”
“I don’t know, I think it’s pretty frosty. And you’ve got to admit, it changes attitudes. She was polite but suspicious, now she’s juiced we’re here.”
“I guess there’s that.” Eve wandered the room. Flowers, some family photos, nice paintings, comfortable furnishings in soft and serene colors.
Given the size and layout of the h
ouse, she suspected this was a kind of company room rather than a family hangout.
Anna was back quickly with a tray holding Peabody’s iced coffee, a second glass, and a cup of hot black. “I remember from the book you like coffee, Lieutenant, so I made some just in case. The doctor will be right with you. The other iced coffee’s for her. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. We’re set. Thanks for the coffee.”
“It’s no problem at all. I’ll just . . .”
She trailed off as Felicity came in, another glass in her hand. “Anna, you left your coffee in the kitchen.” Felicity passed the glass, then walked straight to Eve. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Both of you. I’m absolutely riveted by the Icove story, and desperately hoping you’re here to ask me to consult on some fascinating murder.”
She laughed when she said it, bright and easy, and obviously not at all serious. She wore her hair short and brightly red, and her eyes, a deep, dark green, held warmth and ease.
“Actually, Doctor VanWitt, we’d like to ask you some questions about Winston Dudley.” And Eve watched that warmth and ease die.
“Winnie? I don’t know what I could tell you. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“You were engaged at one time.”
“Yes.” The smile remained in place, strained at the corners. “That was practically another life.”
“Then you can tell us about that life.” Deliberately Eve picked up her coffee, sat.
“I’ll just be in the kitchen,” Anna began.
“No, please stay. Anna’s family,” Felicity said. “I’d like her to stay.”
“That’s fine. How did you meet Dudley?”
“At a party, at my cousin’s—at Patrice Delaughter’s. She knew him a little. She was seeing Sylvester Moriarity, and in fact became engaged shortly after the party. Winnie and I started seeing each other, and were engaged for a short time.”
“Why short?”
“I wish you’d tell me why this matters to anyone. It was nearly fifteen years ago.”
“I wonder why it’s difficult for you to talk about it, after almost fifteen years.”
Now Felicity sat, picked up her coffee for a long, slow sip as she studied Eve. “What has he done?”
“What makes you think he’s done anything?”
“I’m a psychologist.” Both her face and her voice sharpened. “You and I can play cryptic all day long.”
“I can only tell you he’s connected to an investigation, and my partner and I are conducting background checks. Your name came up.”
“Well, as I said, I haven’t seen or spoken to him in a very long time.”
“Bad breakup?”
“Not particularly.” Her gaze shifted away from Eve’s. “We simply didn’t suit.”
“Why are you afraid of him?”
“I’ve no reason to be afraid of him.”
“Now?”
She re-angled in her chair. Stalling, Eve noted, trying to pick the right words, the right attitude.
“I don’t know that I had any reason to be afraid of him then. You’re not here because you’re doing simple background, because he’s connected to an investigation. You’re investigating him. I think it’s reasonable for me to know what and why before I tell you anything.”
“Two people are dead. Is that enough?”
Felicity closed her eyes, lifted a hand. Without a word, Anna moved over to sit on the arm of the chair, take that hand in hers.
“Yes.” She opened her eyes again. They stayed direct and steady as they met Eve’s. “Do I have any reason to be afraid of him, for myself, for my family?”
“I don’t believe so, but it’s hard to say when I don’t have the background between you and Dudley. He was at a dinner party in Greenwich a few nights ago,” Eve added. “A few miles from here. He didn’t contact you?”
“No. He’d have no reason to. I’d like it to stay that way.”
“Then help us out, Doctor VanWitt.” Peabody kept her voice low and soothing. “And we’ll do everything we can to make sure it does stay that way.”
“I was very young,” Felicity began. “And he was very charming, very handsome. I was absolutely dazzled. Swept off my feet, cliché or not. He pursued me and courted me. Flowers, gifts, poetry, attention. It wasn’t love on my part, I realized that after it ended. It was . . . thrall. He was, literally, everything a young woman could have wanted or asked for.”
She paused a moment. Not stalling now, Eve noted, but looking back. Remembering. “He didn’t love me. I realized that sooner than I realized my own feelings, but I wanted him to. Desperately. So I tried, as young women often do, to be what he wanted. He and I and Patrice and Sly went everywhere together. It was exciting, and God, so much fun. Weekends at Newport or the Côte d’Azur, an impromptu dinner trip to Paris. Anything and everything.”
She took a deep breath. “He was my first lover. I was naive and nervous, and he was very considerate. The first time. He wanted other things, things that made me uncomfortable. But he didn’t push, not overtly. Still, the longer we were together, the more I felt something off. Something . . . as if I’d catch a shadow or movement out of the corner of my eye, then turn and it would be gone. But I knew I’d seen it.”
She drank, cleared her throat. “He enjoyed illegals. Many did, and it was recreational. Or it seemed so. Then again, recreation was what he did, what we did, so there was always a little boost of something. And he did pressure me to use, to have fun, not to be so closed in.
“When he and Sly were together, there was a kind of wildness. And it was appealing at first, exciting at first. But then it got to be too much. Too fast, too hard, too wild because, at the core I wasn’t what I was trying to be.”
She paused, breathed, and on the arm of the chair Anna continued to sit. A silent wall of support.
“He started hurting me. Just a little, little accidents—accidents that left bruises, and I started to realize he liked to see me frightened. He’d always soothe me after, but I could see on his face he enjoyed frightening me—accidentally locking me in a dark room, or driving too fast, or holding me under just a bit too long when we went to the beach. And the sex got rough, too rough. Mean.”
She stared into her iced coffee for a long moment—remembering again, Eve thought—but her hand stayed steady as she lifted the glass to drink.
“He was so charming otherwise, and so smooth. For a time I thought it was me, that I was too closed in, not open enough to the new or the exciting. But . . .”
“You didn’t want what he wanted,” Eve prompted. “Or to do what he pressured you to do.”
“No, I didn’t. It just wasn’t me. I started to realize, more to accept, I was pretending to be something I wasn’t to please him and I knew I couldn’t keep it up. I didn’t want to keep it up,” she corrected. “Once I overheard him and Sly talking about it, laughing at me. I knew I had to break it off, but didn’t know how. My family adored him. He was so charming, so sweet, so perfect. Except for those movements out of the corner of the eye, except for the accidents. So I picked a fight with him, in public, because I was afraid of him. And I maneuvered him into breaking it off. He was so angry, and he said horrible things to me, but every word was a relief because I knew he didn’t want me, and he wouldn’t bother about me. He’d walk away, and I’d be free. He never spoke to me again.”
She shook her head, let out a short, surprised laugh. “I mean that literally. Never another word. It was as if all those months hadn’t happened. We both attended my cousin’s wedding to Sly, and he didn’t even speak to me, or look at me—not, if you understand me, in a way that was a deliberate snub. It was as if I were invisible, didn’t exist. Never had. I was just no longer there for him. And that was an even bigger relief.”
They look through you, Roarke has said, and Eve understood exactly what Felicity meant.
“Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Yeah. You have a nice place here, Doctor
VanWitt. I bet you have nice kids, and a good husband, work you’re good at and enjoy, friends who matter.”
“Yes, I do. Yes.”
Eve rose. “Maybe you were young, maybe you were naive and dazzled and swept. But you weren’t stupid.”
“He’s a dangerous man, they both are. I believe that.”
“So do I. He won’t bother you or your family,” Eve promised. “You’re not in his world, and he has no reason to hurt you. I’m going to talk to your cousin.”
“Will it help if I contact her, tell her some of this?”
“It might.”
“Then I will.” Felicity got to her feet, held out a hand. “I hope I helped, but I have to tell you this sort of thing is a lot more exciting, and a lot less emotionally wearing, in a book than it is in real life.”
“You got that right.”
14
PEABODY STAYED QUIET FOR SEVERAL MILES while the lushly green landscape whizzed by.
“You really don’t think there’s a chance Dudley will go at her, or her family?”
“Not now, not while he’s into this competition. If he’d wanted to pay her back for dumping him, or maneuvering him into dumping her, he’d have done it before this.” She wanted to talk to Mira, but . . .
“She wasn’t worthy of him. He was just using her as a toy, then he got tired of her. That’s how it plays in his head. So, just as she said, she stopped existing in his world. She’s not even a blip at this point. If they keep at it, continue to rack up points or however they’re scoring this deal, either one of them could decide to make it personal. But not now.”
“If it is a competition, how do two men like these two come up with it? Does one of them just say, ‘Hey, let’s have a murder tournament?’ I can almost see that,” Peabody added. “Too much to drink, hanging out, maybe add in some illegals. Things you say or do under the influence that seem so brilliant or funny or insightful, and you’re never going to follow through with clean and sober. But they do, and if this is a contest, they go forward with it, with rules, with, like you said, structure.”
She shifted, frowned at Eve. “It’s a big deal. Even if it’s just a game to them, it’s a big game. Not just the killing itself, which is way big enough, but the selections—vics, weapons, timing, venue, and cover-your-ass. Do you go into that cold? I mean, if you’re going to compete in a major competition—sports, gaming, talent, whatever, you don’t just jump in, not if you want to win. You don’t jump on a horse to compete for the blue ribbon if you’ve never ridden before, right? Because odds are pretty strong for not only losing, but humiliating yourself in the bargain. I don’t see these guys risking humiliation.”