Brazen Virtue

by Nora Roberts

  Not a fan, Grace thought. Not here, not now. Tess saw the withdrawal and offered her hand.

  “I’m Tess. Tess Paris, Ben’s wife.”

  “Oh. Hello.”

  “Are you waiting for Ed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like we’re both out of luck. Want some coffee?”

  Grace hesitated, started to refuse. Then a weeping woman was half carried into the room.

  “My son’s a good boy. He’s a good boy. He was just defending himself. You can’t keep him here.”

  Grace watched as the woman was helped into a chair while a female detective leaned over her and talked steadily. There was blood on both of them. “Yes,” Grace said quickly, then, “I’d like that.”

  Tess stood and walked quickly into the hall. She drew change out of her wallet and pushed it into a machine. “Cream?”

  “No, black.”

  “Good choice. The cream usually sprays all over the floor.” She passed the first cup to Grace. Putting herself in the position of a sounding board was part of her profession. It was also part of her personality. Tess noticed the slight tremor in Grace’s fingers and knew she couldn’t turn away. “Do you want to walk outside? It’s a nice day.”

  “All right.”

  Tess led the way out, then leaned against the banister. It pleased her to remember that she’d met Ben for the first time in this spot, in the rain. “Washington’s at its best in the spring. Are you staying long?”

  “I don’t know.” The sun was bright, almost too bright. She hadn’t noticed it on the drive over. “I’m having a hard time making decisions.”

  “That’s not unusual. After a loss, most of us float for a while. When you’re ready, things will click back into place.”

  “Is it usual to feel guilt?”

  “About what?”

  “About not stopping it.”

  Tess sipped her coffee and watched a scatter of daffodils wave in the breeze. “Could you have?”

  “I don’t know.” Grace thought about the card she carried in her purse. “I just don’t know.” With a half laugh, she lowered herself onto the steps. “This sounds like a session. All we need’s a couch.”

  “Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who isn’t involved.”

  Grace turned her head, shielding her eyes with her hand. “Ed said you were beautiful.”

  Tess smiled. “Ed’s a sweet man.”

  “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Grace turned back to clasp her hand over her purse again. “You know, I’ve always been able to take things as they come. I’m even better at making them come out the way I like. I hate this. I hate being confused, I hate not being able to decide whether to turn left or right. I don’t even feel like the same person anymore.”

  “Strong people often have a more difficult time with grief and loss.” Tess recognized the squeal of brakes and glanced over toward the parking lot, thinking that Ed must be driving. “If you’re in town for a while and need to talk, let me know.”

  “Thanks.” She put down her coffee cup and rose slowly. As she watched Ed approach, her palms grew damp and she rubbed them against her jeans.

  “Grace.”

  “I need to show you something.”

  Ben slipped his hand over Tess’s and started inside.

  “No, please, wait a minute.” Grace let out a long breath and opened her purse. “I found this when I was going through the sympathy and florists’ cards this morning.” She took out the plain white envelope she’d slipped the card into and handed it to Ed.

  He drew it out, turning it so Ben could read it as he did. “Does this mean something to you, Grace?”

  “Yes.” She closed her purse, wondering why she felt nauseated. She hadn’t eaten. “That was the name Kathy was using for Fantasy. Kathleen was Desiree. That was her cover, you see. Her cover so no one would know who or where she was. But someone did. And he killed her.”

  “Come inside, Grace.”

  “I have to sit down.”

  Tess nudged Ed aside and pushed Grace’s head between her knees. “I’ll bring her inside in a minute,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Come on.” Ben pushed the door open and laid a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “We’d better get this to the captain. Tess’ll take care of her,” he added when Ed didn’t move.

  “Take some deep breaths,” Tess murmured as she massaged Grace’s shoulders. With her free hand, she monitored her pulse.

  “Dammit, I’m sick of this.” Grace fought back the weakness inch by inch.

  “Then you’d better start eating instead of living off coffee, and you’d better start getting some rest. Otherwise, this is going to keep happening.”

  Grace kept her head down but turned it until her eyes met Tess’s. She saw sympathy there and understanding, mixed with cool common sense. It was the exact combination she needed. “Right.” She was still pale when she sat up, but her pulse was stronger. “The bastard killed my sister. No matter how long it takes, I’m going to see him pay for it.” She pushed her hair back with both hands as she took one long breath. “I think things just clicked back into place.”

  “Are you ready to go in?”

  Grace nodded and rose. “I’m ready.”

  In short order, Grace found herself seated in Captain Harris’s office. Very slowly, and with a coherence she’d just found again, she related the story of Kathleen’s involvement with Fantasy.

  “I was concerned at first with her talking to some creep who might give her trouble. But she explained the system, how no one but the main office had her number. And how she didn’t even use her own name. Desiree. She told me that was the name she was using for the calls. I didn’t even remember it until I saw the card. No one but the people she worked for, and the people she talked to, knew her by that name.”

  Ben took out his lighter and passed it from hand to hand. He hadn’t liked the way Tess had looked at him before she’d gone back to her office. She was going to give him grief over this. “Is it possible your sister told someone else about her moonlighting, about the name?”

  “I have to say no.” She accepted the cigarette Ben passed her. “Kathy was very private. If she’d had a close friend, maybe. But she didn’t.” She drew deep, then exhaled.

  “She told you,” Ed reminded her.

  “Yes, she told me.” Grace paused a moment. She had to keep her mind clear. “When I think it through, I believe the only reason she told me was because she felt a little shaky herself. It was probably an impulse, and one I know she regretted. I pressed her for details a couple of times and she wouldn’t say word one. It was her business, hers alone. Kath was very firm on what was her business.” The wheels were beginning to turn again. She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Jonathan. He could have known.”

  “The ex-husband?” Harris asked.

  “Yes, when I talked to him at the funeral, he admitted that he knew Kathy had hired a lawyer and a detective. If he knew that much, it’s likely he knew the rest. I asked him what he would have done to keep Kath from getting custody of Kevin, and he told me he’d have done whatever became necessary.”

  “Grace.” Ed passed her a Styrofoam cup of tea. “Breezewood was in California the night your sister was murdered.”

  “Men like Jonathan don’t kill. They hire other people to do it. He hated her. He had a motive.”

  “We’ve already talked to him.” Ed took the cigarette that had burned down between her fingers and crushed it out. “He was very cooperative.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  “He admitted he’d hired an agency to keep tabs on your sister.” Ed saw her eyes darken and went on. “To watch her, Grace. He knew about her plans for a custody suit.”

  “Then why did you let him go back to California?”

  “We didn’t have any reason to hold him.”

  “My sister’s dead. Dammit, my sister’s dead.”

  “We have no proof that your former brother-in-law had any part in your sister
’s murder.” Harris, his hands clasped together, leaned forward on his desk. “And there is nothing whatever to tie him to the second murder.”

  “Second murder?” Forcing herself to take slow, even breaths, she turned to Ed. “There was another?”

  “Last night.”

  She wasn’t going to let the weakness take over again. Deliberately, she sipped the tea Ed had given her. It was important to keep her voice calm, even reasonable. The time for hysterics was past. “The same? The same as Kathy?”

  “Yes. We need a link, Grace. Did you know a Mary Grice?”

  She paused. Her memory was excellent. “No. Do you think Kath knew her?”

  “The name wasn’t in your sister’s address book,” Ben told her.

  “Then it’s unlikely. Kathy was very organized about such things. About everything.”

  “Captain.” The young cop stuck his head in the door. “We got some tax information on Mary Grice.” He glanced at Grace before handing the printout to Harris. “It lists her employers for last year.”

  Harris scanned the report and honed in on one name. Grace pulled out another cigarette. The wheels were indeed working again. “She worked for Fantasy, too, didn’t she? That’s the link.” She flicked on her lighter and felt stronger than she had in days. “That’s the only thing that plays.”

  Harris’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. “This investigation is confidential, Miss McCabe.”

  “Do you think I’d go to the press?” She blew out a stream of smoke as she rose. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Captain. The only thing that interests me is seeing my sister’s murderer pay. Excuse me.”

  Ed caught up with her as she reached the hall. “Where are you going?”

  “To talk to whoever owns or runs Fantasy, Incorporated.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She stopped long enough to level a hard look at him. “Don’t tell me what I’m going to do.” She turned away, then was more surprised than annoyed to find herself whirled around and shoved into an empty office. “I bet you could clear the backfield single-handed.”

  “Sit down, Grace.”

  She didn’t, but crushed out her cigarette in an empty cup. “You know something I’ve noticed? I’m just catching onto it, though it’s been happening for some time. You give orders, Jackson. I don’t take them.” She was calm, almost too calm, but it felt right. “Now, you’re bigger than I am, but I swear to God, if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll mow you down.”

  He didn’t doubt it, but now wasn’t the time to put it to the test. “This is police business.”

  “This is my business. My sister. And I’ve finally found something I can do besides staring at the ceiling and asking myself why.”

  Her voice had wavered, then strengthened again. He was absolutely sure if he offered comfort she’d slap it aside. “There are rules, Grace. You don’t have to like them, but they’re there.”

  “Fuck the rules.”

  “Fine, then maybe today we’ll find another woman dead, and tomorrow one more.” Because he saw that one point had hit home, he pressed. “You write a hell of a detective novel, but this is real. Ben and I are going to do our job, and you’re going home. I can slap a restraining order on you.” He paused as her eyes challenged him, half-amused, half-furious. “Or I can put you in protective custody. You’d like that.”

  “Bastard.”

  The single word might have been furious, but Ed knew he’d gotten his way. “Go home, get some sleep. Better yet, go to my place.” Reaching in his pocket, he drew out his keys. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to keel over again. That’s not going to do anybody a hell of a lot of good.”

  “I’m not going to sit around and do nothing.”

  “No, you’re going to eat, you’re going to sleep, and you’re going to wait for me to get back. If there’s anything I can tell you, I will.”

  In reflex, she caught the keys he tossed to her. “What if he kills someone else?”

  That was a question he’d been asking himself since two A.M. “We’ll get him, Grace.”

  She nodded because she’d always believed right won out over wrong. “When you do, I want to see him. Face-to-face.”

  “We’ll talk about it. You want someone to drive you home?”

  “I’m still capable of driving a car.” She opened her purse and dropped his keys inside. “I’ll wait, Jackson, but I’m not a patient woman.”

  As she started to move by him he caught her chin in his hand. There was color in her face again, the first real color he’d seen in days. Somehow, it didn’t reassure him. “Get some sleep,” he muttered before he swung the door open for her.

  WHEN THEY WALKED THROUGH the door into Fantasy’s cramped office, Eileen was on the phone. She looked up, unsurprised, then finished giving her operator instructions. Even when Ben tossed a warrant on her desk, she didn’t miss a beat. Her call finished, she picked it up and read it carefully.

  “This seems to be in order.”

  “You lost another employee last night, Mrs. Cawfield.”

  She looked up at him, then back down at the warrant. “I know.”

  “Then you also know that you’re the link. Your business is the only connection between Mary and Kathleen.”

  “I know that’s the way it looks.” She picked up the warrant again to run it between her fingers. “But I can’t believe it’s true. Look, I told you before, this isn’t a dial-a-porn operation. I run a clean and organized business.” There was a flash of panic as she looked up again. Ed noted it, though her voice remained calm and reasonable. “I majored in business management at Smith. My husband’s a lawyer. We’re not backstreet people. We provide a service. Conversation. If I thought I was responsible, somehow responsible for the deaths of two women …”

  “Mrs. Cawfield, there’s only one person responsible. That’s the man who killed them.” She shot Ed a look of gratitude, and he pressed his advantage. “A woman called in a disturbance at Mary Grice’s place last night. It wasn’t a neighbor, Mrs. Cawfield.”

  “No. Could I have one of those?” she asked when Ben pulled out a cigarette. “I quit two years ago.” She smiled a little as he lit it for her. “Or my husband thinks I did. He’s into health, you know? Prolonging your life, improving your lifestyle. I can’t tell you how much I’ve grown to detest alfalfa sprouts.”

  “The call, Eileen,” Ben prompted.

  She drew on the cigarette, then sent out smoke in a quick, nervous puff. “There was a client on the phone with Mary when—when she was attacked. He heard her scream, and what he thought were sounds of a struggle. In any case, he called back here. My sister-in-law didn’t know what to do, so she called me. The minute she explained things to me, I phoned it in.” The phone rang beside her, but she ignored it. “You see, the client couldn’t have called this in to the police. He wouldn’t have known where to tell them to go, or who to tell them was in trouble. That’s part of the protection.”

  “We need the name of the client, Mrs. Cawfield.”

  She nodded at Ed, then neatly tapped out her cigarette. “I need to ask you to be as discreet as possible. It’s not just a matter of my losing business, which I’m bound to do. It’s more that I feel I’m betraying client confidentiality.”

  Ben glanced at her phone as it started to ring again. “Those things get shot to hell when there’s murder involved.”

  Without a word, Eileen turned to her computer. “It’s top of the line,” she explained when the printer began to hum. “I wanted the best equipment.” She picked up the phone and handled the next call. As she hung up, she swiveled in her chair and detached the printout. She handed it to Ed.

  “The gentleman who was talking to Mary last night was Lawrence Markowitz. I don’t have an address, of course, just a phone number and his American Express.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Ed told her.

  “I hope so. I hope you take care of it very soon.”

  As they w
alked out, the phone rang again.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG to run down Lawrence K. Markowitz.

  He was a thirty-seven-year-old CPA, divorced, self-employed. He worked out of his home in Potomac, Maryland.

  “Jesus, look at these houses.” Ben slowed down to a crawl and craned his head out of the car window. “You know what places go for around here? Four, five hundred thousand. These people have gardeners who make more than we do.”

  Ed bit into a sunflower seed. “I like my place better. More character.”

  “More character?” Ben snorted as he pulled his head back into the car. “The taxes on that place over there are more than your mortgage.”

  “The monetary value of a house doesn’t make it a home.”

  “Yeah, you ought to stitch up a sampler. Look at that place. Must be forty, fifty thousand square feet.”

  Ed looked but was unimpressed with the size; the architecture was too modern for his taste. “I didn’t think you were interested in real estate.”

  “I’m not. Well, I wasn’t.” Ben drove by a hedge of azaleas in a pale, dusty pink. “I figure Doc and I’ll want a place sooner or later. She could handle this,” he murmured. “I couldn’t. They probably have an ordinance about color coordinating your garbage. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants.” And senators’ granddaughters, he thought, thinking of the understated elegance of his wife.

  “And no crabgrass.”

  “I like crabgrass. Here we are.” He stopped the car in front of a two-story H-shaped house with French doors. “Tax sheltering must pay real good.”

  “Accountants are like cops,” Ed said as he tucked away his bag of seeds. “You’re always going to need them.”

  Ben pulled up in the sloping driveway and yanked on the parking brake. He’d have preferred to stick a couple of rocks behind the back tires, just in case, but there didn’t seem to be any available. There were three doors to choose from. They decided to take the front. It was opened by a middle-aged woman in a gray dress and white apron.

  “We’d like to see Mr. Markowitz, please.” Ed held up his badge. “Police business.”