Brazen Virtue

by Nora Roberts

  She put the cups down at the sound of the doorbell and went to answer it. If Father Donaldson had come early she’d go over the funeral arrangements with him. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t to a priest but to Jonathan Breezewood the third.

  “Grace.” He nodded at her but didn’t offer his hand. “May I come in?”

  She had to struggle against the urge to slam the door in his face. He hadn’t cared about Kathleen when she was alive, why should he care about her dead? Saying nothing, she stepped back.

  “I came the moment I was informed.”

  “There’s coffee in the kitchen.” She turned her back on him and started down the hall. Because he put his hand on her shoulder, more, because she didn’t want to show him a weakness, she stopped in front of Kathleen’s office.

  “Here?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him long enough to see something move across his face. Grief, disgust, regret. She was too tired to care. “You didn’t bring Kevin.”

  “No.” He continued to stare at the door. “No, I thought it best that he stay with my parents.”

  Because she was forced to agree, she said nothing. He was a child, too young to face funerals or the sounds of mourning.

  “My parents are upstairs resting.”

  “Are they all right?”

  “No.” She moved again, compelled to distance herself from the locked door. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, Jonathan.”

  “Kathleen was my wife, the mother of my son.”

  “Yes. But apparently that wasn’t enough to insure your fidelity.”

  He studied her with calm eyes. He was undoubtedly a beautiful man, clear-cut features, thick, California-blond hair, a hard, well-kept body. But it was the eyes Grace had always found so unattractive. Calm, always calm, just edging toward cold.

  “No, it wasn’t. I’m sure Kathleen told you her version of our marriage. It hardly seems appropriate now for me to tell you mine. I came here to ask you to tell me what happened.”

  “Kathleen was murdered.” Holding herself together, Grace poured coffee. She’d lived on nothing else all day. “Raped and strangled in her office last night.”

  Jonathan accepted the cup, then slowly lowered into a kitchen chair. “Were you here when—when it happened?”

  “No, I was out. I came back a little after eleven and found her.”

  “I see.” Whatever he felt, if anything, wasn’t apparent in the two brief words. “The police, do they have any idea who did this?”

  “Not at the moment. You’re free to talk to them, I’m sure. Detectives Jackson and Paris are handling it.”

  He nodded again. With his connections, he could have copies of the police reports in an hour without having to deal directly with detectives. “Have you set a time for the funeral?”

  “The day after tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. There will be a Mass at St. Michael’s, the church we used to belong to. There’ll be a viewing tomorrow night because it’s important to my parents. At Pumphrey’s. The address is in the book.”

  “I’d be glad to help with any of the details, or expenses.”

  “No.”

  “All right then.” He rose without having tasted his coffee. “I’m staying at the Hotel Washington if you need to contact me.”

  “I won’t.”

  He lifted a brow at the venom in her voice. As sisters, he’d never seen the least resemblance between Kathleen and Grace. “You never could stand the sight of me, could you, Grace?”

  “Barely. It hardly matters how you and I feel about each other at this point. I would like to say one thing.” She dug the last cigarette out of her pack and lit it without a tremor. Loathing brought out a strength she could only be grateful for. “Kevin is my nephew. I’ll expect to be able to see him whenever I’m in California.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And my parents.” She pressed her lips together a moment. “Kevin is all they have left of Kathleen. They’re going to need regular contact.”

  “It goes without saying. I’ve always felt my relationship with your parents was reasonable.”

  “You consider yourself a reasonable man?” The bitterness slipped out, surprising her. Just for an instant, she’d sounded like Kathleen. “Did you think it reasonable to take Kevin away from his mother?”

  He said nothing at first. Though his face was bland, she could almost hear the workings of his mind. When he spoke, it was brief and without expression. “Yes. I’ll let myself out.”

  She cursed him. Swinging around to lean on the counter, she cursed him until she was empty.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  ED PUSHED HIS FACE into a sink filled with cold water and held his breath. Five seconds, then ten, and he could feel the fatigue draining. A ten-hour day wasn’t unusual. A ten-hour day on two hours’ sleep wasn’t unusual. But the worry was. He was discovering that it sapped energy more completely than a fifth of gin.

  What was he supposed to tell her? He lifted his head so that water ran down his beard. They didn’t have the first lead. Not a glimmer. She was smart enough to know that if the trail cooled during the first twenty-four hours, it got dead cold fast.

  They had a batty old woman who may or may not have seen a car that may or may not have followed her sister’s car sometime or other. They had a barking dog. Kathleen Breezewood had no close friends or associates, no one closer than Grace herself. If she was telling everything she knew, the trail led to suspect unknown. Someone who had seen Kathleen on her way to work, at the market, in the yard. The city had its share of violence, provoked and otherwise. At this point, it looked as though she had simply been one more random victim.

  They’d questioned a couple of rejects that morning. Two parolees whose lawyers had bargained them back on the streets after separate assaults on women. Gathering evidence and making a clean arrest didn’t mean a conviction, just as the law didn’t mean justice. They hadn’t had enough to hold either one of them, and though Ed knew that sooner or later they’d probably rape some other woman, they hadn’t done Kathleen Breezewood.

  It wasn’t good enough. He grabbed a towel from a closet. The lattice doors he’d chosen for it were tilted against a wall downstairs, waiting for sanding. He’d planned to work on them tonight for an hour or two so they’d be ready for hanging on his day off. Somehow he didn’t think working with his hands would make his mind easy this time.

  He buried his face in the towel and thought about calling her. To say what? He’d made certain she’d been notified that the body would be released to her in the morning. The medical examiner’s report had been on his desk when he’d checked into the station at six.

  It wasn’t any use giving her the details. Sexual assault, death by strangulation. Death between 9:00 and 10:00 P.M. Coffee and valium in the system and little else. Blood type O positive. Which meant that the perp’s blood type was A positive. Kathleen hadn’t let him get away clean.

  She’d taken some skin and some hair with the blood, so they knew he was white. And he was young, under thirty.

  They’d even lifted a couple of partial prints off the phone cord, which made Ed figure the killer had either been stupid or the murder unpremeditated. But prints only worked if they could be matched. So far, the computer hadn’t come up with anything.

  If they brought him down, they had enough circumstantial evidence to bring him to trial. Maybe enough to convict him. If they brought him down.

  It wasn’t enough.

  He tossed the towel over the lip of the sink. Was he edgy because the murder had been committed in the house next to his? Because he knew the victim? Because he’d begun to have a few entertaining fantasies that involved the victim’s sister?

  With a half laugh, Ed dragged his damp hair away from his face and started downstairs. No, he didn’t think his feelings for Grace, whatever they were, had anything to do with the fact that instinct told him there was something nastier about this than was already apparent.

  Maybe it was close, but he’d lo
st people who had been a great deal closer to him than Kathleen Breezewood. People he’d worked with, people whose families were familiar to him. Their deaths had left him feeling angry and frustrated, but not edgy.

  Dammit, he’d feel better if she were out of that house.

  He walked to the kitchen. He was more comfortable in the room he’d redesigned and rebuilt with his own hands. With his mind on other things, he pulled over a basket of fruit to chop for a salad. He worked briskly, as a man who’d been fending for himself, and fending well, for most of his life.

  A great many of the men he knew satisfied themselves by settling for a can or a frozen dinner eaten over the sink. To Ed that was the most depressing act of single life. The microwave had made it even more so. You could buy a complete meal in a box, zap it for five minutes, and eat it without using a pan or a plate. Neat, convenient, and lonely.

  He often ate alone, with only a book for company, but he did more than watch his cholesterol and carbohydrates. It was all a matter of attitude, he’d decided long ago. Real plates and a table made the difference between a solitary meal and a lonely one.

  He dropped some carrots and celery into his juicer and let them whirl through. The knock at his back door surprised him. Ben used the back way occasionally, but he never knocked. Partners and spouses developed similiar intimacies. Ed switched off the machine, then grabbed a dishcloth for his hands before answering.

  “Hi.” Grace gave him a quick smile but kept her hands in her pockets. “I saw the light, so I hopped over the fence.”

  “Come on in.”

  “I hope you don’t mind. Neighbors can be a pain.” She stepped into the kitchen and felt solid and safe for the first time in hours. She’d told herself she’d come to ask the questions that had to be asked, but knew she’d come just as much for comfort. “I’m messing up your dinner. Listen, I’ll run along.”

  “Sit down, Grace.”

  She nodded, grateful, and promised herself she wouldn’t weep or rage. “My parents went to church. I didn’t realize how I’d feel about being alone over there.” She sat, moving her hands from her lap to the table, then back to her lap. “I want to thank you for pushing through the paperwork or whatever. I’m not sure my parents could get through another day without, well, seeing Kath.” She shifted her hands to the table again. “Don’t let me hold up your dinner, okay?”

  He realized he could stay happy for several hours just looking at her. When he caught himself staring, he started to fuss with the salad. “Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head and nearly managed to smile again. “We ate before. I figured the only way to get my parents to eat was to set the example. It’s funny how something like this will have you switching roles. What’s that?” She glanced at the glass Ed set on the table.

  “It’s carrot juice. Want some?”

  “You drink carrots?” It was a small thing, but enough to pull out what passed for a laugh. “Got a beer?”

  “Sure.” He pulled one out of the fridge, remembered a glass, then put both down in front of her. When he dug an ashtray out of a kitchen drawer, she shot him a look of profound gratitude.

  “You’re a pal, Ed.”

  “Yeah. You need any help tomorrow?”

  “I think we’ll manage.” Grace ignored the glass and drank straight from the bottle. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you if you found out anything.”

  “No. We’re still in the preliminary stages, Grace. It takes time.”

  Though she nodded, she knew as well as he that time was the enemy. “Jonathan’s in town. Will you question him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean you.” She took out a cigarette as he sat across from her. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of good cops in your department, but can you do it?”

  “All right.”

  “He’s hiding something, Ed.” When he said nothing, she picked up her beer again. It would do her no good to become hysterical, to make the accusations that had been simmering in her brain all day. Ed might have been kind and sympathetic, but he wouldn’t take anything she said in the heat of emotion seriously.

  And the truth was, she wanted to believe Jonathan had been responsible. That would be easy, that would be tangible. It was so much more difficult to hate a stranger.

  “Look, I know I’m not functioning at top level. And I know that I’m starting off biased against Jonathan.” She took a steadying breath. Her voice was calm and reasonable. She didn’t hear, as Ed did, the light trace of desperation around the edges. “But he’s hiding something. It’s not just instinct, Ed. You’re a trained observer, I’m an innate one. I was born cataloging people. I can’t help it.”

  “Whenever you’re too close to something, the vision blurs, Grace.”

  Her hackles rose, prompted by the strain of the last twenty-four hours. She felt her temper slip and barely managed to catch it. “All right. That’s why I’m asking you to talk to him. You’ll see for yourself. Then you can tell me.”

  Ed ate his salad slowly. The longer this went on, he thought, the harder it was going to be. “Grace, I can’t tell you about the investigation, not specifics, not any more than the department decides to release to the press.”

  “I’m not a goddamn reporter, I’m her sister. If Jonathan had anything to do with what happened to Kathleen, don’t I have a right to know?”

  “Maybe.” His eyes were on hers, very calm and suddenly distant. “But I don’t have the right to tell you anything until it’s official.”

  “I see.” Very slowly, and with a precision she possessed only when she deliberately controlled her temper, Grace tapped out her cigarette. “My sister was raped and murdered. I found her body. I’m the only one left to comfort my parents. But the cop says the investigation’s confidential.” She rose, knowing she was on the edge of another crying jag.

  “Grace—”

  “No, don’t give me any platitudes, I’ll hate you for it.” She willed herself to calm down again as she studied him. “You have a sister, Ed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Think about it,” she said as she reached the back door. “And let me know how much departmental procedure would mean to you if you were putting her in the ground.”

  When the door shut, Ed pushed aside his plate, then picked up her beer. He finished it off in two long swallows.

  Chapter 6

  JERALD WASN’T SURE WHY he sent flowers to her funeral. In part it was because he felt it necessary to acknowledge the odd and unique role she’d played in his life. He thought too that if he acknowledged it, he would be able to close the chapter, stop dreaming about her.

  He was already searching for another, listening hour after hour for that one voice that could bring him the rush and thrill. He never doubted that he’d find it, that he would recognize it with one phrase, one word. The voice would bring him the woman, and the woman would bring him the glory.

  Patience was important, timing was vital, but he wasn’t sure how long he could wait. The experience had been so special, so unique. To experience it again would be, well, perhaps like dying.

  He was losing sleep. Even his mother had noticed it, and she rarely noticed anything between her committees and her cocktails. Of course she’d accepted his excuse about studying late and had tutted and patted his cheek and told him not to work so hard. She was such a fool. Still, he didn’t resent her. Her preoccupations had always provided him with the space he needed for his own diversions. In return, he’d given her the illusion of the ideal son. He didn’t play loud music or go to wild parties. Such things were childish anyway.

  He might have considered school a waste of time, but he maintained good, even excellent, grades. The simplest way to keep people from bothering you was to give them what they wanted. Or to make them think you were doing so.

  He was fastidious, even fussy, about his room and his personal hygiene. In that way it was accepted that the servants would stay out of his personal space. His mother considered it a mild, eve
n endearing, eccentricity. And it insured that no one would find his cache of drugs.

  More important, no servant, no family, no friend ever touched his computer.

  He had a natural aptitude for machines. They were so much better, so much cleaner than people. He’d been fifteen when he’d tapped into his mother’s personal checking account. It had been so easy to take what he needed, and so much more rewarding than asking for it. He’d tapped into other accounts, but he’d soon tired of the money.

  It was then he’d discovered the phone, and how exciting it could be to listen to other people. Like a ghost. The Fantasy line had been an accident at first. But soon it was all he cared about.

  He couldn’t stop, not until he’d found the next, not until he’d found the voice that could soothe the pounding in his head. But he had to be careful.

  He knew his mother was a fool, but his father … if his father noticed anything, there’d be questions. Thinking of it, Jerald took a pill, then two. Though he preferred amphetamines to barbiturates, he wanted to sleep that night, and dreamlessly. He knew just how clever his father was.

  He’d put his talent to use for years in court before he’d made the almost seamless switch to politics. From Congress to the Senate, Charlton P. Hayden had earned a reputation for power and intelligence. His image was that of a wealthy, privileged man who understood the needs of the masses, who fought for lost causes and won. A paragon, without a shadow to smear his reputation. No, his father had always been a very careful man, a very dedicated man, a very clever man.

  Jerald had no doubt that when election year was over, when the votes were tallied and the last of the confetti swept up, his father would be the youngest and most glamorous resident of the Oval Office since Kennedy.

  Charlton P. Hayden wouldn’t be pleased to learn that his only son, his heir apparent, had strangled one woman and was waiting for the opportunity to do so again.

  But Jerald knew himself to be very clever. No one would ever know that the son of the front-running candidate for president of the United States had a taste for murder. He knew if he could hide it from his father, he could hide it from anyone.