J D Robb - Dallas 15 - Purity in Death

by Purity in Death(lit)

  "The clothes? If he doesn't have family, heirs, that kind of thing, they're donated to shelters."

  He pressed the button that had the first tier of suits revolving to reveal the second. "The sidewalk sleepers are going to be better dressed this year."

  He moved the second tier aside, studied the wall of shoes to his right. Smiled. "Here you have it."

  "Have what?"

  "Give us a minute," he said, running his fingertips along shelves, under them. "Ah, here we are. Let's see."

  He depressed a small lever. The lower third of the shelves swung slowly open. He crouched. "Here's your hidey-hole, Lieutenant. And your second safe."

  She was already breathing down his neck. "Can you open it?"

  "Would that be a rhetorical question?" he chuckled.

  "Just open the damn thing."

  He drew the jammer he'd taken from Jamie out of his pocket. "Well, this is why you're the cop and I'm not."

  "Because you can pop a safe?"

  "No. I could teach you to do it quick enough, even without this handy little toy. Because I thought you were wasting time coming back here tonight."

  "You still think I'm wasting time."

  "I suppose I do, but you've found your safe." The display on the jammer began to flash, numbers zipping by in a blur. Then a series of them locked on. The safe hummed once, then clicked.

  "Abracadabra," Roarke stated, and opened it.

  "Now that's more like it." Hunkered down beside him, Eve studied the neat stacks of cash. "This is how he stayed out of a cage so long. No credit, no e-transfers. Cash on the line. And a file box, loaded with discs and vids."

  "Best of all." Roarke reached in, took out a PPC. "His personal palm, very likely uninfected and chock-full of interesting data."

  "Let's load it up, get it in." She pulled out her memo book.

  "What're you doing?"

  "Logging the entry. I better not see any of that green stuff or those baubles go into your pockets, Ace."

  "Now I'm offended." He straightened, brushed at his shirt. "If I nipped anything, you can bet your ass you wouldn't see me do it."

  Chapter 18

  Eve started running the discs as soon as she got back into her office. She set the ones labeled financials and bookkeeping aside. They could wait.

  She passed the PPC onto Roarke to take to the lab for testing. In short order she found herself listening to what had been Greene's daily journal.

  He mentioned clients, but always by initials or an obvious nickname. Lardbutt had made his monthly payment. G.G. had begged for another extension. He made entries on shopping, on the club scene, on sexual exploits. They were all recorded in a tone of disdainful humor and derision.

  Greene had despised the people he'd served.

  So he'd blackmailed them, Eve mused. Squeezing them until he'd eventually become them. Wealthy, bored, and perverted.

  Brought home a nice piece of ass today,he noted on the day he'd hooked up with Hannah Wade.I've been watching her for a few days. She hangs around the clubs,targets her mark, and talks him into getting her in. Straight up to a privacy room most times. When she's done, she cruises the club looking for action. I decided to give her some. I've got clients who'll pay top for a session with this little number. She knows the score. Figure I'll keep her up here a couple weeks, enjoy the fringe benefits, class her up some. Outfit her right, she could pass for about fourteen. H.C.'s been asking for some new young meat. I just brought home the cow.

  "Creep," Eve said aloud, and ran through the week's journal. She hit the next level two days after he'd brought Wade home.

  Fucking headache. Fucking headache all day. Zoner barely touches it. Got meetings today. Can't miss. Told G.G. to come up with payment plus penalty by tomorrow or her loving husband's going to get a delivery. Wonder how he'll feel about seeing his wife do the nasty with a St. Bernard?

  Assholes. She tries to screw me over, she'll be sorry.

  There was more of the same over the next three days. Increasingly angry entries, full of vague threats, complaints, frustration. He talked aboutthe headaches, and for the first time mentioned a nosebleed.

  On the day before his death, the disc was full of weeping, of pounding as if he were beating a fist against the wall.

  Trying to screw me over. Everybody's trying to screw me over. I'll kill them first. Kill them. Locked her out, locked the little bitch out. She thinks I don't know. Oh God, oh God, oh God, my head. She put something in my head! Can't let her see. Can't let anybody see. Stay inside. Safe inside. I gotta sleep. I gotta sleep. Make it go away! Lock it up. I have to lock everything up tight. She won't get what's mine. Little whore-bitch.

  Eve filed the disc, walked into the kitchen for coffee. Then she just pulled open the terrace doors and breathed.

  It was easy to see how Greene's infection had progressed. Paranoia, anger, fear. The symptoms had started shortly after he'd installed Wade in the condo, so he'd believed she was responsible for them.

  In his sick way, he'd killed her in self-defense.

  She got her coffee, went back to her desk to make notes. Then, though her head was buzzing with a combination of caffeine, fatigue, and stress, she started on the videos.

  ***

  It was clear how Greene bumped his income up several brackets. The videos were not only technically well-done, but showed a strangely creative sense of theater.

  If you liked your entertainment raw and perverse.

  "Still at it?" Roarke walked in, headed straight into the kitchen without glancing at the screen. "Will you have some wine now?"

  "Oh yeah. I could use a drink."

  "I've sent the others on their way. You'll have your little nightcap here, Lieutenant, then I'm going to..."

  He trailed off as he came back with two glasses of wine. What was playing on-screen had even his jaded eyes widening. "What is that? A small bear?"

  "No, I think it's a really big dog. A St. Bernard."

  He took a sip of wine, walked closer. "I believe you're right. Someone should report this activity to the Animal Rights League or whatever it is. Although... hmmm. He certainly seems to be enjoying himself if the size of his... Mother of God."

  "Gimme that wine." She grabbed it, drank deep. "There's sick and there's sick. This one goes off the scale. I've got no term for it. You recognize the woman romping with Fido?"

  "It's a bit hard to tell, under the circumstances."

  "Greene lists her as G.G. I ran an image search on her while she was rubbing butter all over herself to help get Fido in the game. Gretta Gowan, wife of Jonah Gowan. That's Professor Jonah Gowan, of NYU. He's head of the Sociology Department. A staunch Conservative Party member and a Methodist deacon. Want to bet Clarissa Price took some of his classes?"

  "Never bet against the house," Roarke declared, fascinated despite himself with the on-screen action.

  "She recruited him into Purity, or he did her. I'd bet on that one. Anyway, Gretta there is the mother of two and-whoa, that is just nasty! Gretta chairs several committees, including the garden club, which would no doubt frown on her deep affection for canines."

  "There's a log entry on the PPC-it's clean by the way-for G.G. Six thousand paid in six days before the murders."

  "Fits with his journal. This vid wasn't done at his place," Eve said. "Some of the others I've viewed were. He used the second bedroom. They're tamer than this. Group sex with costumes, bondage, and role-playing. One used a teenaged girl. I ran her image, too. She popped as another runaway. Greene knew how to sniff them out. Copy disc, log to file."

  Roarke let out a long breath. "How about we run a nice classic comedy to cleanse the palate?"

  "I want to finish this tonight. At least get the IDs."

  "For what purpose, Eve?"

  "To know for one thing." She filed the disc, selected another. "And second, to see if I find a link."

  "Do you really think terrorists are killing all these people so they can get rid of a blackmailer?"
>
  "No, but I think each one of the victims was carefully selected, and with Greene the blackmail was part of it. Maybe just a bonus, but part of it. Run disc. You don't have to stay for this."

  "If you can stomach it, I can."

  "Home again," Eve said, recognizing the bedroom in Greene's condo. "My guess is he rigged the cameras before the client came in, ran them by remote until the session was over. Did the editing, made a copy. Gives that to the client with a demand for payments. Probably lost clients that way, but he kept the income. No overhead at all. Just pure profit. Here we go, curtain up."

  A woman stepped in from the adjoining bath. A rather elegant woman in a killer black dress with long, lush waves of icy blonde hair spilling over the shoulders. Her legs were sheathed in black hose, her feet tucked into mile-high heels.

  She wore a diamond choker, and her lips were bloody-murder red.

  "Looks familiar," Eve began. "Which is she? Client or hooker?"

  "Want an image search?"

  "Let it run awhile first."

  A man stepped in from the outer door. He was stripped to the waist, bulging in tight black leather. His chest gleamed with oil. His hair was slicked back from a striking face sharp of bone. There was a tattoo under his left nipple. When Eve froze and enhanced the image, she saw it was a tiny skull.

  He ran a slim riding crop through his fingers.

  "Roseanna." He spoke the name, and the woman lifted a hand to the diamond choker at her throat.

  "How did you get in?"

  "Role-playing," Eve said. "We run a search on both of them." She froze the disc again, blocked faces, started the task.

  "Eve?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Take a good look at her."

  "I am. I know that face. Continue disc play."

  With a half-smile on his face, Roarke leaned against the desk. "Take a better look."

  Frowning, Eve watched the scene play out. The man ran the riding crop down the woman's center. She shuddered. She turned as if to run. He dragged her back. Long, sloppy kiss. Lots of hands.

  Hands.

  Eve straightened with a snap. "That's not a woman."

  Distracted, Eve watched the bare-chested man yank the dress down to the blonde's waist. Beneath was a black lace waist cincher. Though the breasts that spilled over it were full and lush, Eve had no doubt they were just another part of the costume.

  The man dealt a couple of sharp slaps to the buttocks when his partner struggled.

  There was moaning now, breathy protests. The dress spilled to the floor.

  "Looks pretty good for a guy," Eve observed. The legs were slim, set off with thigh-high black hose, old-fashioned garters. Too much shoulder though, she mused, and the hands were too big. She could see the hint of an Adam's apple beneath the glittering choker.

  In her mind she erased the wig, the red lips, the heavily accented eyes, and tried to see beneath the female artifice. Sheknew that face.

  And when it filled the screen, flushed with excitement as the camera zoomed it, she heard the click.

  "Oh good God."

  "Did you make him? I'm not quite there yet. Give me another minute." But when the bare-chested man pushed his captive down to the knees, exposed himself, Roarke winced. "Never mind, as I'd soon skip this part. It doesn't-ah well."

  He blew out a breath as the face filled the screen again, another angle as the eyes, crystal blue, stared up-full of hunger.

  "Yes, indeed, I'd as soon skip watching his honor the mayor give leather boy a blow job."

  He turned away from the screen, caught Eve's chin in his hand. "That's why you're the cop, all right. You weren't wasting anyone's time. That'll teach me to doubt you."

  "I have to watch the rest of it."

  "Must you?"

  "I take this in tomorrow, I have to know what I'm dealing with. This isn't your average transvestite. This tosses Peachtree right into the middle of a sex scandal, and a major homicide investigation."

  "Then I'm getting another drink." He took her glass. "For both of us."

  ***

  "Smart," she said later. "Greene caters to a small clientele-rich with whacked whims. Out of that exclusive club, he handpicks a smaller group. A handful of people who've used his services, built a certain level of trust in him, who can't afford even a whiff of scandal. The payments are high, but none of them too high for these select few to afford. You got an even dozen paying out an average fee of twenty-five thousand a month, you rake in..."

  "An extra three million six annually. Nobody's squeezed so hard they'll pop, and you live in luxury."

  "And from what I can tell from his records, most he was blackmailing continued as clients."

  "The devil you know," Roarke decided. "Are you putting the mayor in Purity?"

  "I don't know. But I've sure got enough to ask him about it, don't I?"

  "You'll be putting your hand in the fire, Lieutenant."

  "Yeah, I got that, too." She pinched the bridge of her nose to relieve the pressure of a building headache. "Has to be on a need-to-know. Media gets a whiff of the scent, it's a disaster. Shit, I voted for the guy."

  "He might've gotten more votes yet if he'd campaigned in that little black dress. Very attractive." Roarke only grinned when she stared at him. "I'd say it's time for bed. We're tired."

  "You start talking about guys in black dresses looking pretty, you're more than tired, pal."

  "I said attractive," he corrected. "And I meant the dress. I wouldn't mind seeing you in one of those corsets, with spiked heels and little garters."

  "Yeah." She yawned as they rode to the bedroom. "You hold your breath on that one."

  She was in bed in five minutes, asleep in ten.

  When the dream started, she didn't know.

  A white room, washed with blood. She could see herself walking through it, her boots splashed with red as she stepped in grisly puddles.

  Even in sleep she could smell it.

  The girl was facedown on white carpet thick with red blood. Her arm was stretched out, fingers spread as if she reached for something.

  But nothing was there.

  The knife was there.

  In the dream she crouched down, picked up the knife by the hilt.

  She felt the slick warm wetness that ran from it onto her hand.

  When she looked, it wasn't the girl now, but a baby. Hardly more than a baby. Cut to pieces, curled up tight. Her eyes were like a doll's, staring.

  She remembered. She remembered. Such a little thing. So much blood for such a little body. And the man who'd done it, the father, mad on Zeus. The baby screaming, screaming, as Eve had charged up the stairs.

  Too late. She'd been too late to save the baby. Killed the father, but lost the child.

  She hadn't saved them, the baby, the girl. And their blood was on her hands.

  The knife gleamed over her fingers.

  The room wasn't white any longer. It was small and duty and cold. So cold. The red washed in from the light through the window. Over her hands. Little hands now on the hilt of a knife.

  When he walked in the door, the red light bounced off his face like a shadow of the blood yet to be spilled.

  "Eve." Roarke gathered her close, holding tight when she struggled. Her skin was iced. As she wept in her sleep, it tore his heart to pieces. "Eve, wake up. Come back now. Just a dream." He pressed his lips to her brow, her cheeks. "Just a dream."

  "Kill the father, save the child."

  "Ssh." He ran his hands soothingly over her back, under the old white shirt she favored for sleeping. "I'm here with you. You're safe."

  "So much blood."

  "God." He sat up with her, held her in his lap and rocked her in the dark.

  "I'm all right." She turned her face into his shoulder. Somehow just the scent of him could center her. "Sorry. I'm okay."

  "I'm not, so you can hold on to me awhile."

  She slid her arms around his waist. "Something about Hannah Wade, the way... the way sh
e died. It reminded me of this little girl. Baby really. The little girl whose father ripped her up. I got there too late."

  "Yes, I remember. It was just before we met."

  "She haunts me. I couldn't save her, couldn't get to her in time. And I think that maybe if you hadn't come into my life right after, that's the one that might've broken me. But she haunts me, Roarke. A little ghost to add to all the others. To add to myself."