The In Death Collection, Books 6-10

by J. D. Robb

  Which meant desperation, she mused. Most applicants to UHA became so strangled, so smothered in red tape reeled out by the sticky fingers of bureaucrats, they stumbled off into the night and were pitifully grateful to find a bed in one of the shelters.

  She imagined that stepping into Draco’s bloody shoes would considerably up Proctor’s salary. Money was an old motive, as tried as it was true.

  Eve considered double-parking on Seventh, then, spotting a parking slot on the second level street side, went into a fast vertical lift that had Peabody yelping, and shot forward to squeeze in between a rusted sedan and a battered air bike.

  “Nice job.” Peabody thumped a fist on her heart to get it going again.

  Eve flipped on the On Duty light to keep the meter droids at bay, then jogged down the ramp to street level. “This guy had something tangible to gain by Draco’s death. He’s got a good shot at the starring role—if only temporarily. That gives him an ego, a career, and a financial boost all rolled into one. Nothing popped on his record, but every criminal has to start somewhere.”

  “I love your optimistic view of humanity, sir.”

  “Yeah, I’m a people-lover all right.” She glanced at the street hustler on air skates, eyed his wide canvas shoulder bag. “Hey!” She jabbed a finger at him as he hunched his shoulders and sulked. “You set up that game on this corner, I’m going to be insulted. Take it off, two blocks minimum, and I’ll pretend I didn’t see your ugly face.”

  “I’m just trying to make a living.”

  “Make it two blocks over.”

  “Shit.” He shifted his bag, then scooted off, heading west through the billowing steam from a glide-cart.

  Peabody sniffed hopefully. “Those soy dogs smell fresh.”

  “They haven’t been fresh for a decade. Put your stomach on hold.”

  “I can’t. It has a mind of its own.” Glancing back wistfully at the glide-cart, Peabody followed Eve into the grimy building.

  At one time the place had boasted some level of security. But the lock on outer doors had been drilled out, likely by some enterprising kid who was now old enough for retirement benefits. The foyer was the width of a porta-john and the color of dried mud. The old mail slots were scarred and broken. Above one, in hopeful red ink, was M. Proctor.

  Eve glanced at the skinny elevator, the tangle of raw wires poking out of its control plate. She dismissed it, and headed up the stairs.

  Someone was crying in long, pitiful sobs. Behind a door on level two came the roaring sounds of an arena football game and someone’s foul cursing at a botched play. She smelled must, urine gone stale, and the sweet scent of old Zoner.

  On level three there was classical music, something she’d heard Roarke play. Accompanying it were rhythmic thumps.

  “A dancer,” Peabody said. “I’ve got a cousin who made it to the Regional Ballet Company in Denver. Somebody’s doing jetés. I used to want to be one.”

  “A dancer?” Eve glanced back. Peabody’s cheeks were pretty and pink from the climb.

  “Yeah, well, when I was a kid. But I don’t have the build. Dancers are built more like you. I went to the ballet with Charles a couple of weeks back. All the ballerinas were tall and skinny. Makes me sick.”

  “Hmmm.” It was the safest response when Peabody mentioned her connection to the licensed companion, Charles Monroe.

  “I’m built more like an opera singer. Sturdy,” Peabody added with a grimace.

  “You into opera now?”

  “I’ve been a few times. It’s okay.” She blew out a relieved breath when they reached the fourth floor and tried not to be irritated that Eve wasn’t winded. “Charles goes for that culture stuff.”

  “Must keep you busy, juggling him and McNab.”

  Peabody grinned. “I thought there was no me and McNab in your reality.”

  “Shut up, Peabody.” Annoyed, Eve rapped on Proctor’s door. “Was that a snort?”

  “No, sir.” Peabody sucked it in and tried to look serious. “Absolutely not. I think my stomach’s growling.”

  “Shut that up, too.” She held her badge up when she heard footsteps approaching the door and the peephole. The building didn’t run to soundproofing.

  A series of clicks and jangles followed. She counted five manual locks being disengaged before the door opened.

  The face that poked into the crack was a study of God’s generosity. Or a really good face sculptor. Pale gold skin stretched taut and smooth over long cheekbones and a heroic, square jaw that boasted a pinpoint dimple. The mouth was full and firm, the nose narrow and straight, and the eyes the true green of organic emeralds.

  Michael Proctor framed this gift with a silky flow of rich brown hair worn with a few tumbling, boyish curls. As his eyes darted from Eve to Peabody and back, he streamed long fingers through the mass of it, slicking it back before he tried out a hesitant smile.

  “Um . . . Lieutenant Houston.”

  “Dallas.”

  “Right. I knew it was somewhere in Texas.” Nerves had his voice jumping over the words, but he stepped back, widening the opening. “I’m still pretty shaken up. I keep thinking it’s all some kind of mistake.”

  “If it is, it’s a permanent one.” Eve scanned what there was of the apartment. The single room held a ratty sleep chair Proctor hadn’t bothered to make up for the day, a skinny table that held a low-end tele-link/computer combo, a pole lamp with a torn shade, and a three-drawer wall chest.

  For some, she supposed, acting wasn’t lucrative.

  “Um . . . let me get . . . um.” Coloring slightly, he opened the long closet, fumbled inside, and eventually came out with a small folding chair. “Sorry. I don’t do much more than sleep here, so it’s not company friendly.”

  “Don’t think of us as company. Record on, Peabody. You can sit, Mr. Proctor, if you’d be more comfortable.”

  “I’m . . .” His fingers danced with each other, tips to tips. “I’m fine. I don’t really know how to do this. I never worked in any police dramas. I tend to be cast in period pieces or romantic comedies.”

  “Good thing I’ve worked in a number of police dramas,” Eve said mildly. “You just answer the questions, and we’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. All right.” After glancing around the room as if he’d never seen it before, he finally sat on the chair. Crossed his legs, uncrossed them. Smiled hopefully.

  He looked, Eve thought, like some schoolboy called down to the principal’s office for a minor infraction.

  “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Proctor, Michael, in subject’s residence. Peabody, Officer Delia, as aide.”

  Watching Proctor, she recited the revised Miranda. As he listened, he tapped his fingers on his knees and succeeded in looking as guilty as a man with six ounces of Zeus in each pocket.

  “Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”

  “Yes, I think. Do I need a lawyer?” He looked up at Eve like a puppy, one hoping not to be whacked on the nose for spotting the carpet. “I’ve got a representative, a theatrical rep. Maybe I should call her?”

  “That’s up to you.” And would waste time and complicate matters. “You can request one at any time during the interview. If you prefer, we can move the process down to Central.”

  “Well now. Gosh.” He blew out a breath, glanced toward his link. “I don’t guess I’ll bother her now. She’s pretty busy.”

  “Why don’t you start by telling me what happened last night.”

  “You mean . . .” He shuddered visibly. “I was in the wings. Stage left. It was brilliant, just brilliant. I remember thinking that if the play had a long run, I’d get a chance to be Vole. Draco was bound to miss a performance or two along the way . . .”

  He trailed off, looked stunned, then appalled. “I don’t mean to say . . . I never wished for anything bad to happen to him. It was more thinking that he’d catch a cold or something, or maybe just need a night off. Like that.”

  “S
ure. And what did you see from the wings, stage left, in the last scene?”

  “He was perfect,” Proctor murmured, those deep green eyes going dreamy. “Arrogant, careless, smooth. The way he celebrated his acquittal even as he cast Christine off like a leftover bone. His pleasure in winning, in circumventing the system, fooling everyone. Then the shock, the shock in his eyes, in his body, when she turned on him with the knife. I watched, knowing I could never reach that high. Never find so much in myself. I didn’t realize, even after everyone broke character, it didn’t sink in.”

  He lifted his hands, let them fall. “I’m not sure it has yet.”

  “When did you realize that Draco wasn’t acting?”

  “I think—I think when Areena screamed. At least, I knew then that something was horribly wrong. Then everything happened so quickly. People were running to him, and shouting. They brought the curtain down, very fast,” he remembered. “And he was still lying there.”

  Hard to jump up and take your bows with eight inches of steel in your heart, Eve thought. “What was your personal relationship with Richard Draco?”

  “I don’t suppose we had one.”

  “You had no personal conversations with him, no interactions?”

  “Well, um. . .” The fingers started dancing again. “Sure, we spoke a couple of times. I’m afraid I irritated him.”

  “In what way?”

  “You see, Lieutenant, I watch. People,” he added with another of those shaky smiles. “To develop character types, to learn. I guess my watching him put Draco off, and he told me to keep out of his sight or . . . or he’d, hmmm, he’d see to it that the only acting job I got was in sex holograms. I apologized right away.”

  “And?”

  “He threw a paperweight at me. The prop paperweight on Sir Wilfred’s desk.” Proctor winced. “He missed. I’m sure he meant to.”

  “That must have pissed you off.”

  “No, not really. I was embarrassed to have annoyed him during rehearsal. He had to take the rest of the day off to calm down.”

  “A guy threatens your livelihood, throws a paperweight at you, and you don’t get pissed off?”

  “It was Draco.” Proctor’s tone was reverent. “He’s—he was—one of the finest actors of the century. The pinnacle. His temperament is part—was part—of making him what he was.”

  “You admired him.”

  “Oh yes. I’ve studied his work as long as I can remember. I have discs and recordings of every one of his plays. When I had a chance to understudy Vole, I jumped at it. I think it’s the turning point in my career.” His eyes were shining now. “All my life I dreamed of walking the same stage as Richard Draco, and there I was.”

  “But you wouldn’t walk that stage unless something happened to him.”

  “Not exactly.” In his enthusiasm, Proctor leaned forward. The cheap chair creaked ominously. “But I had to rehearse the same lines, the same blocking, know the same cues. It was almost like being him. In a way. You know.”

  “Now, you’ll have a shot at stepping onto his—what do you call it—his mark, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” Proctor’s smile was brilliant, and quickly gone. “I know how awful, how selfish and cold that must sound. I don’t mean it that way.”

  “You’re having some financial difficulties, Mr. Proctor.”

  He flushed, winced, tried that smile again. “Yes, ah, well . . . One doesn’t go into the theater for money but for love.”

  “But money comes in handy for things like eating and keeping a roof over your head. You’re behind on your rent.”

  “A little.”

  “The understudy job pays enough to keep you current with your rent. You gamble, Mr. Proctor?”

  “Oh, no. No, I don’t.”

  “Just careless with money?”

  “I don’t think so. I invest, you see. In myself. Acting and voice lessons, body maintenance, enhancement treatments. They don’t come cheap, especially in the city. I suppose all that seems frivolous to you, Lieutenant, but it’s part of my craft. Tools of the trade. I was considering a part-time job to help defray the expenses.”

  “No need to consider that now, is there? With Draco out of the way.”

  “I suppose not.” He paused, considering it. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage the time. It’ll be easier to—” He broke off, sucked in a breath. “I don’t mean that the way it sounds. It’s just that following your line of thinking, it takes some strain off my mind. I’m used to doing without money, Lieutenant. Whatever else, the theater’s lost one of its finest, and one of my personal idols. But I guess I’d feel better if I said—if I was honest and said—that there’s a part of me that’s thrilled to think that I’ll play Vole. Even temporarily.”

  He sighed, long and loud, closed his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I do feel better. I wish he’d just caught a cold, though.”

  Eve’s head was throbbing lightly as she walked back up the steps to her car. “Nobody’s that naive,” she muttered. “Nobody’s that guileless.”

  “He’s from Nebraska.” Peabody scanned her pocket unit.

  “From where?”

  “Nebraska.” Peabody waved a hand, vaguely west. “Farm boy. Done a lot of regional theater, some video, billboard ads, bit parts on-screen. He’s only been in New York three years.” She climbed into the car. “They still grow them pretty guileless in Nebraska. I think it’s all that soy and corn.”

  “Whatever, he stays on the short list. His fee for walking into the part of Vole is a big step up from watching in the wings. He’s living like a transient in that dump. Money’s a motivator, and so’s ambition. He wanted to be Draco. What better way than to eliminate Draco?”

  “I’ve got this idea.”

  Eve glanced at her wrist unit to check the time as she zipped down into traffic. Goddamn press conference. “Which is?”

  “Okay, it’s more of a theory.”

  “Spill it.”

  “If it’s good, can I get a soy dog?”

  “Christ. What’s the theory?”

  “So, they’re all actors in a play. A good actor slides into the character during the performance. Stays there. It’s all immediate, but another part of them is distant—gauging the performances, remembering the staging, picking up vibes from the audience and stuff like that. My theory is whoever switched the knives was performing.”

  “Yeah, performing murder.”

  “Sure, but this is like another level. They could be part of the play and watch it go down without actually doing the crime. The objective’s reached, and it’s all still a role. Even if it’s a tech who did it, it’s all part of the play. Vole’s dead. He’s supposed to be. The fact that Draco’s dead, too, just makes it all the more satisfying.”

  Eve mulled it over, then pulled over at the next corner where a glide-cart smoked and sizzled.

  “So it’s a good theory?”

  “It’s decent. Get your soy dog.”

  “You want anything?”

  “Coffee, but not off that bug coach.”

  Peabody sighed. “Wow, that sure stirs my appetite.” But she got out, beelined through the pedestrian traffic, and ordered the double wide soy dog and a mega tube of Diet Coke to convince herself she was watching her weight.

  “Happy now?” Eve asked when Peabody dropped back into the passenger seat and stuffed the end of the dog into her mouth.

  “Ummm. Good. Wanna bite?”

  Peabody was saved from a scathing response by the beep of the car ’link. Nadine Furst, reporter for Channel 75, floated on-screen. “Dallas. I need to talk to you, soon as you can manage.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” Eve ignored the transmission and whipped around the corner to head back to Central. “Why she thinks I’ll give her an exclusive one-on-one before a scheduled press conference, I don’t know.”

  “Because you’re friends?” Peabody hazarded with her mouth full of soy dog and rehydrated onion flakes.

  “Nobody’s that friendly.”r />
  “Dallas.” Nadine’s pretty, camera-ready face was strained, as Eve noted with mild curiosity, was her perfectly pitched voice. “It’s important, and it’s. . . personal. Please. If you’re screening transmissions, give me a break here. I’ll meet you anywhere you say, whenever you say.”

  Cursing, Eve engaged transmission. “The Blue Squirrel. Now.”

  “Dallas—”

  “I can give you ten minutes. Make it fast.”

  It had been a while since she’d swung through the doors into the Blue Squirrel. As joints went, there were worse, but not by much. Still, the dingy club held some sentimental attachment for Eve. At one time, her friend Mavis had performed there, slithering, bouncing, and screaming out songs in costumes that defied description.

  And once, during a difficult and confusing case, Eve had gone in with the sole purpose of drinking her mind to mush.

  There Roarke had tracked her down, hauled her out before she could accomplish the mission. That night, she’d ended up in his bed for the first time.

  Sex with Roarke, she’d discovered, did a much better job of turning the mind to mush than a vatful of screamers.

  So the Squirrel, with its debatable menu and disinterested servers, held some fond memories.

  She slid into a booth, considered ordering the hideous excuse for coffee for old times’ sake, then watched Nadine come in.

  “Thanks.” Nadine stood by the booth, slowly unwinding a brilliant multicolored scarf from around her neck. Her fingers plucked at the long, dark fringe. “Peabody, would you mind giving us a minute here?”

  “No problem.” Peabody pushed herself out of the booth, and because Nadine’s eyes were clouded, gave the reporter a quick, reassuring squeeze on the arm. “I’ll just go sit at the bar and watch the holo-games.”

  “Thanks. Been a while since we’ve been in here.”

  “Never long enough,” Eve commented when Nadine took her seat across the wobbly table. At a server’s approach, Eve merely took out her badge and set it in clear view on the table. She didn’t think she or Nadine were in the mood for a snack, much less possible ptomaine. “What’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe there isn’t one.” Nadine closed her eyes, shook back her hair.