by J. D. Robb
"I'm on it." He rose. "Let me put McNab on that service record. He'll be able to melt through any seals quicker."
Peabody opened her mouth, then shut it again in a thin line at one warning look from Eve.
"Tell him to send data to me as he gets it. Let's ride, Peabody. I want to find Ratso."
"I can access military data," Peabody complained as they headed down to the garage. "It's just a matter of going through channels."
"McNab can swim the channels faster."
"He's a show-off," she muttered and made Eve roll her eyes.
"I'll take a show-off as long as he gets the job done fast. You don't have to like everyone you work with, Peabody."
"Good thing."
"Shit, would you look at this?" Eve stopped to study her battered and abused car. Some joker had put a hand-lettered sign on the cracked rear window that read: Show mercy. Terminate me now.
"That's Baxter's warped sense of humor." Eve ripped the sign away. "If I turn this sucker in to maintenance, they'll just screw it up." She got behind the wheel. "And they'll take a month to do it. I'll never get it back the way it was."
"You're going to have to have the windows replaced at least," Peabody pointed out and tried to squint through the starburst of cracks on her side.
"Yeah." She pulled out, wincing when the car shuddered. Glancing up, she saw the sky through the hole in the roof. "Let's hope the temp controls still work."
"I can put in a request for a replacement."
"This is a replacement, remember?" Sulking, Eve headed south. "I'm going to take grief for this."
"I can ask Zeke to take a look at it."
"I thought he was a carpenter."
"He's good at everything. He can tinker with the innards, then you just get the glass replaced, the roof patched. It won't be pretty, but you won't have to turn the whole deal over to maintenance or enter the black hole of requisitions."
Something inside the dash controls began to rattle ominously. "When could he do it?"
"Soon as you want." She slid Eve a sidelong glance. "He'd really like to see your house. I told him about it, how you've got that mag old wood and furniture and stuff."
Eve shifted in her seat. "I thought you were going to a play or something tonight."
"I'll tag him, tell him not to get the tickets."
"I don't know if Roarke has plans."
"I'll check with Summerset."
"Shit. All right, okay."
"That's so gracious of you, sir." Happily, Peabody took out her palm 'link to call her brother.
They found Ratso at The Brew, contemplating a plate of what looked like undercooked brains. He blinked up as Eve slid into the booth across from him.
"These are supposed to be eggs. How come they ain't yellow?"
"Must be from gray chickens."
"Oh." Apparently satisfied with that, he dug in. "So what's up, Dallas? You got the guys who done Fixer?"
"I've got some lines to tug. What have you got?"
"Word is nobody sees Fixer that night. Don't expect to, 'cause he don't come out at night usual. But Pokey—you know Pokey, Dallas, he deals some Zoner if he scores enough, and does some street work as an LC."
"I don't believe Pokey and I are acquainted."
"Pokey's all right. Mostly he minds his own, you know? He says how he was doing street work that night. Not much business 'cause it's too fucking cold to fuck, you know? But he was tapped out, so he's out on the stroll, and he sees a van down from The Fixer's place. Nice new one. Figures how somebody's come around looking for some action, but there ain't nobody in it he can see. Said he scoped it out awhile in case somebody comes back and wants a quick poke. That's why they call him Pokey, he gives a real quick poke."
"I'll keep that in mind. What kind of van was it?"
Ratso toyed with his eggs and tried to look sly. "Well, see, I told Pokey you'd want to know stuff, and if it was solid data, you'd pay."
"I don't pay until I get the data. Did you tell him that?"
Ratso sighed. "Yeah, guess I did. Okay, okay, he says it was one of them fancy Airstreams, looked spanking, was black. Had zap security." Ratso smiled a little. "He knows 'cause he tried to get in and got the zap. So he's dancing and blowing on his hand and he hears a kinda commotion down the street."
"What kind of commotion?"
"I dunno. Like noise and maybe somebody yelling, and people coming. So he ducks around the corner in case who owns the van maybe saw him trying to break in. What he sees is two guys and one of 'em's carrying this big bag over his shoulder. The other—get this—is holding what Pokey says looks like a gun—like he's seen on-screen and on discs and shit. So they toss this bag in the back, and it makes a thump when it hits. Then they get in the front and drive away."
He scooped up more eggs, washed them down with the pissy-looking liquid in his glass. "I'm just sitting here thinking on it and wondering if I should tag you and fill you in, then here you are." He grinned at her. "Maybe it was Fixer in that bag. Maybe they took him off in it, and did him and tossed him in the river. Maybe."
"Pokey get the vehicle ID?"
"Nah. Pokey, he's not too smart, you know. And he said his hand was on fire and he didn't think nothing of it until I come around asking about Fixer."
"Black Airstream van?"
"Yeah, with the zapper. And oh yeah, he says how it had the full blast entertainment center in the dash. That's how come he thought maybe to get in. Pokey, he sometimes trades off electronics."
"Sounds like a real solid citizen."
"Yeah, he votes and everything. So how about it, Dallas, that's good data, right?"
She took out twenty. "If it leads anywhere, there's twenty more. Now, how much do you know about Fixer's military history?"
The twenty vanished inside one of the pockets in Ratso's dirty coat. "History?"
"What he did in the army? He ever talk to you about it?"
"Not much. Couple times when we was drinking and he sucked down too many. He said he took out plenty of targets during the Wars. Said how the army called 'em targets 'cause they didn't have the balls to call them people. He had a real hard-on for the army. Said how he gave them every fucking thing he had, and they took everything. Um, how they thought they could throw money at him to make it right. He took their money and screw 'em. Screw the cops, too, and the CIA and the goddamn president of the U.S. of A., too. But that was only when he was sloppy. Otherwise, he never said nothing."
"Have you ever heard anything about Apollo or Cassandra?"
Ratso swiped a hand under his nose. "Table dancer over at the Peek-A-Boo goes by Cassandra. She got tits like watermelons."
Eve shook her head. "No, this is something else. You ask around, Ratso, but ask around real careful. And if you hear anything, don't wonder if you should tag me. Just do it."
"Okay, but I'm kinda low on operating expenses."
She rose, then tossed another twenty on the table. "Don't waste my money," she warned. "Peabody."
"I'll start the run on Airstream vans," Peabody said, "New York and New Jersey registrations."
"Goddamn it!" Eve dashed toward her vehicle. "Look at this shit, would you?" she demanded, jerking a thumb toward the bright red frowny face someone had painted on her dented hood. "No respect. No respect whatsoever for city property."
Peabody coughed, forced her face into stern, disapproving lines. "It's a disgrace, sir. Absolutely."
"Was that a smirk, Officer?"
"No sir, it certainly was not a smirk. It was a scowl. A righteous scowl. Should I canvas the area for spray cans, Lieutenant?"
"Kiss my ass." Eve slammed into the car, giving Peabody just enough time to snort out the laugh that had been burning in her chest.
"I do," she murmured. "Constantly." She let out a long breath, shook off the grin, and climbed in the passenger seat.
"We'll finish out the shift at my home office. I'll be damned if I'm going to park this thing in the garage and have the precinc
t snickering."
"That works for me. You've got better food." And there'd be no chance of McNab swinging through to do one of his tap dances.
"Have you got Lisbeth Cooke's address? We can swing by and see if we can catch her before we take the rest of this home."
"Yes, sir, I believe it's on the way." Peabody called it up. "That's just off Madison at Eighty-third. Should I call and set up an interview?"
"No, let's surprise her."
It was obvious they did, and that Lisbeth didn't care for surprises. "I don't have to speak to you," she said when she opened the door. "Not without my attorney present."
"Call him," Eve suggested. "Since you've got something to hide."
"I've got nothing to hide. I've given you my statement, I've interviewed with the prosecuting attorney's office. I've taken the plea, and that's it."
"Since it's all neat and tidy, it shouldn't bother you to talk to me. Unless everything you stated was a lie."
Lisbeth's eyes flashed. Her chin jutted. Pride, Eve saw, had been the right target.
"I don't lie. I insist on honesty, for myself and the people I'm involved with. Honesty, loyalty, and respect."
"Otherwise, you kill them. We've established that."
Something flickered in Lisbeth's eyes, then her mouth thinned and they were cool and hard again. "What do you want?"
"Just a few questions to tidy up my case file." Eve angled her head. "Don't you include neatness in your list of required virtues?"
Lisbeth stepped back. "I warn you, the minute I feel you're out of line, I'm calling my representative. I can file harassment charges."
"Note that down, Peabody. No harassing Ms. Cooke."
"So noted, Lieutenant."
"I don't like you."
"Aw well, now you've hurt my feelings."
Eve studied the living area, the absolute order, the flawless taste. Style, she mused, she had to admit the woman had style. She could even admire it, in the twin streamlined sofas in deep green and blue stripes that looked as comfortable as they did attractive. In the trim, smoked glass tables and the vivid paintings of seascapes.
There was a case filled with books with faded leather bindings she knew Roarke would approve of, and a view of the city neatly framed with swept-back curtains.
"Nice place." Eve turned to study the perfectly groomed woman in casual at-home wear of buff-colored slacks and tunic.
"I don't believe you're here to discuss my decorating skills."
"J. Clarence help you pick out your knickknacks?"
"No. J. C.'s taste ran the gamut from the absurd to the tacky."
Rather than wait for an invitation, Eve sat on the sofa, stretched out her legs. "You didn't seem to have much in common."
"On the contrary, we enjoyed a great many of the same things. And I believed he had a warm, generous, and honest heart. I was wrong."
"A couple hundred million seems pretty damn generous to me."
Lisbeth merely turned away, took a bottle of water from a built-in minifridge. "I wasn't speaking of money," she said, and poured the water into a heavy, faceted glass. "But of spirit. However, yes, J. C. was very generous with money."
"He paid you to sleep with him."
Glass snapped against glass as Lisbeth slammed down her water. "He certainly did not. The financial arrangement was a separate matter, a personal one mutually agreed to. It kept us both comfortable."
"Lisbeth, you were taking the guy for a million a year."
"I was not taking him for anything. We had an agreement, and part of that agreement included monetary payments. Such arrangements are often made in relationships when one party has considerable financial advantage over the other."
"You have considerable financial advantage now that he's dead."
"So I'm told." She picked up her glass again, watched Eve over the rim. "I was unaware of the terms of his will."
"That's hard to believe. You had an intimate relationship, a long-term and intimate relationship that included, at your own admission, regular monetary payments. And you never discussed, never questioned what would happen in the event of his death."
"He was a robust, healthy man." She tried for a smooth shrug, but it came off in a jerk. "His death wasn't something we focused on. He did tell me I'd be taken care of. I believed him."
She lowered her glass and passion leapt into her eyes. "I believed him. I believed in him. And he betrayed me in the most insulting, the most intolerable of ways. Had he come to me and told me he wanted to end our arrangement, I would have been unhappy. I would have been angry, but I would have accepted it."
"Just like that?" Eve lifted her eyebrows. "No more payments, no more fancy trips and expensive gifts, no more boinking the boss?"
"How dare you! How dare you lower what we had to such crude terms. You know nothing, nothing about what was between J. C. and me." Her breath began to heave, her hands to clench. "All you see is the surface because you don't have the capability to see beneath it. And you, you're boinking Roarke; you wangled marriage out of him. How many fancy trips and expensive gifts are you raking in, Lieutenant? How many million a year goes in your pockets?"
With an effort, Eve kept her seat. Temper had washed ugly color into Lisbeth's face, turned her eyes into hot green glass. For the first time she looked fully capable of punching a drill through a man's heart.
"I haven't killed him," Eve said coolly. "And now that you mention it, Lisbeth, why didn't you wangle marriage out of J. C.?"
"I didn't want it," she snapped. "I don't believe in marriage. It was something we disagreed on, but he respected my feelings. I will have respect!" She'd taken three long strides toward Eve, fists clenched, when a movement from Peabody stopped her.
She seemed to tremble, and her knuckles went white with strain. The lips she'd peeled back in a snarl relaxed slowly and the wild color began to fade from her cheeks.
"That's some trigger you've got there, Lisbeth," Eve said mildly.
"Yes. Part of my plea bargain is to enter anger control therapy. I begin sessions next week."
"Sometimes it's not better late than never. You claim you went off when you learned J. C. was cheating on you. Yet no one knows of another woman in his life. His personal assistant swears there was no one but you."
"He's mistaken. J. C. deceived him even as he deceived me. Or he's lying," she said with a shrug. "Chris would have cut off his hand for J. C., so lying would be nothing."
"Why lie? Why cheat if, as you just told me, all he had to do was come to you and end the arrangement?"
"I don't know." She pushed an agitated hand through her hair, disturbing its perfect order. "I don't know," she repeated. "Perhaps he was like other men after all and found it more exciting to cheat."
"Don't like men much, do you?"
"As a whole, no."
"So, how'd you find out about this other woman? Who is she? Where is she? How is it no one else knows about it?"
"Someone does," Lisbeth said evenly. "Someone sent me photos of them together, discs of conversations. Conversations where they talked about me. Laughed at me. God, I could kill him all over again."
She whirled around, yanked open a cabinet, and pulled out a large pouch. "Here. These are copies. We gave the PA the originals. Look at him, with his hands all over her."
Eve tapped out the contents, frowned. They were decent shots. The man was very clearly J. Clarence Branson. In one, he sat on what looked like a park bench with a young blonde in a short skirt. His hand was resting high on her thigh. In the next, they were kissing with apparent passion, and the hand was under her skirt.
The others looked to be taken in a privacy room at a club. They were grainy, which fit if they'd been duped from disc. A club could lose its sex license if the management was caught running video of privacy rooms.
But grainy or not, they clearly showed J. C. and the blonde in various and energetic sexual acts.
"When did you receive these?"
"I've given a
ll that information to the PA's office."
"Give it to me," Eve said shortly. And she was damn well going to find out why the PA hadn't bothered to pass these tidbits on to the primary investigator.
"They were in my mail slot when I got home from work. I opened them, I looked at them. I went directly to J. C. to confront him. He denied it. He actually stood there and denied it, told me he didn't know what I was talking about. It was infuriating, insulting. I lost my temper. I was blind with rage. I grabbed the drill and…"
She trailed off, remembering herself and her lawyer's instructions. "I must have lost my mind, I can't remember what I was thinking, what I was doing. Then I called the police."
"Do you know this woman?"
"I've never seen her before. Young, isn't she?" Lisbeth's lips trembled before she firmed them. "Very young and very…agile."
Eve slid the photos and discs back in the pouch. "Why are you keeping these?"
"To remind me that everything we had together was a lie." Lisbeth took the bag back, placed it in the cabinet again. "And to remind me to enjoy every cent of the money he left me."
She picked up her water glass again, lifted it as if in a toast. "Every goddamn cent."
• • •
Eve got back in her car, slammed the door. And brooded. "It might have happened just the way she said. Hell." She rapped a fist on the wheel. "I hate that."
"We can run the photo of the woman, try to get an ID. Something may pop."
"Yeah, shuffle it in when you have time. And when we have the goddamn photos." Disgusted, Eve pulled away from the curb. "No way to prove she knew about the will or that was her motive. And damn it, after seeing her in action up there, I tend to believe her story."
"I thought she was going to try to rip your face off."
"She wanted to." Then Eve sighed. "Anger control therapy," she muttered. "What next?"
*** CHAPTER EIGHT ***
"Snag on system," Eve muttered as she pushed away from her desk-link. "The PA's office said we didn't get the photos and discs on the Branson case because there was an SOS. My ass." She rose to pace. "SOS also stands for sack of shit."
She heard the snicker, turned to glare at Peabody. "What are you grinning at?"