by J. D. Robb
“It’s not the first time Ricker’s suspected of arranging a cop killing. But he’s generally more subtle.”
“There was something personal in this, Commander. Whether for the badge or for Kohli, I don’t know. But it was very personal. Roarke owned the club,” she added.
“Yes, so I’ve heard.” He turned back, skimmed his gaze over her face, and walked to his desk. “Personal all around, Lieutenant?”
“It will be easier and quicker to obtain data on the club and on its staff and clientele. The manager’s already come in voluntarily for interview. The fact that Kohli concealed his attachment to the NYPSD makes me wonder if he was on the job—on his own. He deliberately misrepresented himself and went so far as to arrange a cover. There’s no indication he was working in soft clothes for the department, so it would have been unofficial.”
“I have no knowledge of any investigation, official or otherwise, that required Detective Kohli to go under in Purgatory. But I will pursue that matter with Captain Roth.” He held up a hand before Eve could object. “It’ll be smoother if that particular inquiry comes from this office rather than from you, Dallas. Let’s keep it smooth.”
“Yes, sir.” But it grated. “I want a warrant to open Kohli’s financials. They’re jointly held with his widow. At this time, I prefer not to request permission from Mrs. Kohli.”
“Or alert her before they’re open,” he finished. He spread his hands on the desk. “You think he was taking?”
“I’d like to eliminate that angle, sir.”
“Do it,” he ordered. “And do it quietly. I’ll get your warrant. You get me a cop killer.”
Eve spent the rest of the day poring over Kohli’s record, familiarizing herself with his case load, trying to get a handle on the man. The cop.
What she saw was an average officer who’d performed steadily, if slightly under his potential. He’d rarely missed a shift and just as rarely put in any overtime.
He’d never used his weapon for maximum force and therefore had never undergone extensive Testing. Still, he’d closed or been in on the closing of a good number of cases, and his reports on those closed and those open were efficient, carefully written, and thorough.
This was a man, Eve thought, who followed the book, did the job, then went home at night and put his day away.
How? she wondered. How the hell did anyone manage that?
His military record was similar. No trouble, no glow. He enlisted at the age of twenty-two, served six steady years, the last two in the military police.
Every t was crossed, every i dotted. It was, to her mind, a perfectly ordinary life. Almost too perfect.
The call to Nester Vine from Purgatory got her as far as his harassed-looking wife, who informed Eve that Vine had come home before the end of his shift the night before, dog-sick. She herself had just gotten in from the hospital where she’d taken her husband at three that morning for what turned out to be appendicitis.
As alibis went, it was a beaut. The only tip she pried out of Mrs. Vine was that she should get in touch with some stripper named Nancie, who’d apparently stuck around after Kohli had urged Vine to go home.
Still, she contacted the hospital and verified one Nester Vine had indeed had his appendix removed, in emergency, early that morning.
Scratch Nester, she thought, and put the stripper on her talk-to list.
Calls to Lieutenant Mills and Detective Martinez went unreturned. In the field and unavailable was the response. She left one last message for each, gathered the files, and prepared to go home.
She’d take a hard look at Kohli’s financials that evening.
She caught Peabody in her cubicle in the bullpen dealing with the follow-up paperwork.
“Leave the rest of that until tomorrow. Go home.”
“Yeah?” Peabody’s face lit up as she glanced at her wrist unit. “Almost on time, too. I’ve got an eight o’clock dinner with Charles. Now I’ll have just enough time to go snazz myself up.”
When Eve’s response was a grunt, Peabody grinned. “You know the problem with juggling two guys?”
“Do you consider McNab a guy?”
“On a good day, he’s a nice contrast to Charles. Anyway, you know the problem with seeing both of them?”
“No, Peabody, what’s the problem with seeing both of them?”
“There isn’t one.”
With a hoot of laughter, Peabody grabbed her bag and shot out of her cubicle. “See you tomorrow.”
Eve shook her head. One guy, she decided, was plenty problem enough for her taste. And if she got the hell out of Central, she might even beat him home for a change.
In a kind of test, she tried to click her mind off her case files. Traffic was ugly enough to keep her mind occupied, and the current blast of the billboards were hyping everything from spring fashions to the latest hot sports car.
When she caught a familiar face burst across one of the animated screens, she nearly sideswiped a glide-cart.
Mavis Freestone, her hair a riot of flame-colored spikes, whirled over the street at Thirty-fourth. She jiggled, spun, in a few sassy and amusingly placed scraps of electric blue. With each revolution, her hair changed from red to gold to blinding green.
It was, Eve thought with a foolish grin on her face, just like her.
“Jesus, Mavis. Would you just look at that? What a kick in the ass.”
A long way. Her oldest friend had come a long way from the street grifter Eve had once busted, to performance artist in third-rate clubs, and now to bona fide musical star.
Musical, Eve thought, in the broadest sense of the word.
She reached for her car-link, intending to call Mavis and tell her what she was looking at, when her personal palm-link beeped.
“Yeah.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the billboard, even when several impatient drivers honked rudely. “Dallas.”
“Hey, Dallas.”
“Webster.” Instantly, Eve’s shoulders tensed. She might have known Don Webster on a personal level, but no cop liked receiving a transmission from Internal Affairs. “Why are you calling on my personal ’link? IAB’s required to use official channels.”
“I was hoping to talk to you. Got a few minutes?”
“You are talking to me.”
“Face-to-face.”
“Why?”
“Come on, Dallas. Ten minutes.”
“I’m on my way home. Tag me tomorrow.”
“Ten minutes,” he repeated. “I’ll meet you at the park right across from your place.”
“Is this Internal Affairs business?”
“Let’s talk.” He gave her a winning smile that only increased her level of suspicion. “I’ll meet you there. I’m right behind you.”
She narrowed her eyes, checked her rearview, and saw he meant it literally. Saying nothing, she broke transmission.
She didn’t stop across from the gates of her home but drove another block and a half, on principle—then made certain she found the only convenient parking spot before she pulled in.
It didn’t surprise her when Webster simply double-parked and, ignoring the snooty glares from an elegant couple and their three equally stylish Afghan hounds, flipped on his On Duty light and joined her on the curb.
His smile had always been a handy weapon, and he used it now, keeping his light blue eyes friendly. His face was thin, sharp-angled, and would probably be termed scholarly as he aged. His dark brown hair waved a little and was cut to flatter.
“You’ve come up in the world, Dallas. This is some neighborhood.”
“Yeah, we have monthly block parties and get crazy. What do you want, Webster?”
“How’s it going?” He said it casually and started strolling toward the lush green and the trees still tender with spring.
Sucking in temper, she jammed her hands in her pockets and matched her steps with his. “It’s going fine. How about you?”
“Can’t complain. Nice evening. You gotta love spri
ng in New York.”
“And how about those Yankees? Now, that should conclude our period of small talk. What do you want?”
“You never were much on chat.” He remembered very well the one and only time he’d managed to get her into bed; they hadn’t done any talking. “Why don’t we find a bench? Like I said, it’s a nice evening.”
“I don’t want to find a bench. I don’t want a soy dog, and I don’t want to talk about the weather. I want to go home. So if you don’t have anything interesting to say, that’s what I’m going to do.”
She turned, took three steps.
“You pulled the Kohli homicide.”
“That’s right.” She turned back, and her inner alarm system flashed to red light. “What does that have to do with IAB?”
“I didn’t say it had anything to do with IAB, other than the usual run we do when a cop goes down.”
“The usual run doesn’t mean a private meet, off duty, with the primary.”
“We go back a ways.” He lifted a hand. “Hell, all the way back to the Academy. It seemed friendlier this way.”
She kept her eyes on his as she walked to him, stood toe to toe. “Don’t insult me, Webster. Where does IAB come into my investigation?”
“Look, I’ve seen the prelim. This is a rough one. Rough on the department, his squad, his family.”
Something started clicking in her brain. “Did you know Kohli?”
“Not really.” Webster gave a thin smile, just a little bitter at the edges. “Most detectives don’t care to socialize with Internal Affairs. Funny how we all frown over a dirty cop, but nobody wants to rub elbows with the ones digging them out.”
“Are you saying Kohli was dirty?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss an internal investigation with you, if there was an internal investigation.”
“Bullshit, Webster. Just bullshit. I have a dead cop. If he was mixed up in something off, I need to know.”
“I can’t discuss IAB business with you. It came to my attention that you’ve opened his financials.”
She paused a minute as her temper threatened to spike. “I can’t discuss a homicide investigation with you. And why would part of the procedure of that investigation come to the attention of the Rat Squad?”
“Now you’re trying to piss me off.” He kept his composure, gave a little shrug. “I thought I would give you a heads-up, unofficially and in a friendly manner, that the department, as a whole, will be better off if this investigation is closed quickly and quietly.”
“Was Kohli in bed with Ricker?”
This time a muscle jumped in Webster’s cheek, but his voice stayed smooth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Digging into Detective Kohli’s financials is a dead end, Dallas, and will upset his family. The man was killed off duty.”
“A man was beaten to death. A cop. A woman’s been widowed. Two children lost their father. And it’s supposed to matter less that it happened when he was off duty?”
“No.” He had the grace or the wit to look uncomfortable. And then to look away. “That’s just the way it went down. That’s all there is to it.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Webster. Don’t ever tell me how to conduct a homicide investigation. You gave up cop work. I didn’t.”
“Dallas.” He caught up with her before she reached the curb again. He gripped her arm and braced himself for the storm when she whirled on him.
Instead, she met his eyes, her own cold, flat, empty. “Move your hand. Now.”
He complied, slipping his into his pocket. “I’m just trying to tell you IAB wants this closed quiet.”
“What makes you think I give one good fuck about what IAB wants? You have something to say to me regarding my investigation into the death of Detective Taj Kohli, you do it in an official capacity. Don’t tail me again, Webster. Not ever.”
She climbed into her car, waited for a break in the mild traffic, and swung into a U-turn.
He watched her cover the distance, then turn into the high gates of the world she lived in now. He took three deep breaths, and when that didn’t work, kicked viciously at his own rear tire.
He hated what he’d done. And more, he hated knowing he’d never really gotten over her.
chapter three
She was steaming when she barreled down the drive to the great stone house Roarke had made his home. And hers.
So much, she thought, for checking your work at the door. What the hell were you supposed to do when it followed you to the damn threshold? Webster was up to something, which meant there was an agenda here, and the agenda was IAB’s.
Now she had to calm herself down so she could filter out her annoyance at being waylaid by him. It was more important to puzzle out what he’d been trying to tell her. And more important yet, to calculate what he’d been so damn careful not to tell her.
She left the car at the end of the drive because she liked it there and because it annoyed Roarke’s majordomo, the consistently irritating Summerset.
She grabbed her bag that held the files and was halfway up the steps when she stopped. Deliberately, she blew out a long, cleansing breath, turned, and simply sat down.
It was time to try something new, she decided. Time to sit and enjoy the pleasant spring evening, enjoy the gorgeous simplicity of the flowering trees and shrubs that spread over the lawn, speared into the sky. She’d lived here for more than a year now and rarely, very rarely took time to see. Time to appreciate what Roarke had built or the style with which he’d built it.
The house itself with its sweeps and turrets and dazzling expanses of glass was a monument to taste, wealth, and elegant comfort. There were too many rooms to count filled with art, antiques, and every pleasure and convenience a man could make for himself.
But the grounds, she thought, were another level. This was a man who needed room, who demanded it. And commanded it. At the same time, he was a man who could appreciate the simple appeal of a flower that would bloom and fade with its season.
He’d decorated his grounds with those flowers, with trees that would outlive both of them, with shrubs that spread and fountained. And closed it all away with the high stone walls, the iron gates, and the rigid security that kept the city outside.
But it was still there, the city, sniffing around the edges like a hungry, restless dog.
That was part of it. Part of the duality of Roarke. And, she supposed, of her.
He’d grown up in the alleys and tenements of Dublin and had done whatever was necessary to survive. She’d lost her childhood, and the flickers of memory, the images of what had been, of what she’d done to escape, haunted the woman she’d become.
His buffer against yesterday was money, power, control. Hers was a badge. There was little either of them wouldn’t do, hadn’t done, to keep that buffer in place. But somehow, together, they were . . . normal, she decided. They’d made a marriage and a home.
That was why she could sit on the steps of that home, with the ugliness of her day smearing her heart, look at blossoms dancing in the breeze. And wait for him.
She watched the long, black car slide quietly toward the house. Waited while Roarke climbed out the back, had a word with his driver. As the car drove off, he walked to her in that way he had, with his eyes on her face. She’d never had anyone look at her as he did. As if nothing else and no one else existed.
No matter how many times he did so, just that long, focused look made her heart flutter.
He sat beside her, set his briefcase aside, leaned back as she was.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi. Lovely evening.”
“Yeah. The flowers look good.”
“They do, yes. The renewal of spring. A cliché, but true enough, as most clichés are.” He ran a hand over her hair. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly. That’s out of character for you, darling Eve.”
“It’s an
experiment.” She crossed her scarred boots at the ankles. “I’m seeing if I can leave work at Central.”
“And how are you doing?”
“I’ve pretty much failed.” Still with her head back, she closed her eyes and tried to recapture some of it. “I was doing okay with it on the drive home. I saw Mavis’s billboard.”
“Ah yes. Fairly spectacular.”
“You didn’t tell me about it.”
“It just went up today. I figured you’d see it on your way home and thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“It was.” And remembering brought her smile back. “I nearly clipped a glide-cart, and I was sitting there, grinning at it, about to call her, but I had a transmission come through.”
“So work intruded.”
“More or less. It was Webster.” Because the smile was gone again, and she was scowling at the trees, she didn’t notice the slight tension in Roarke’s body. “Don Webster from Internal Affairs.”
“Yes, I remember who he is. What did he want?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. He called on my personal and asked for a private meet.”
“Did he?” Roarke murmured, his voice deceptively mild.
“He went out of his way for it, tailed me from Central. I met up with him just down the block from here, and after he got finished trying to make nice, he started a song and dance on the Kohli case.”
Just thinking about it again got her blood boiling. “Tells me how IAB wants it put away quiet, doesn’t like the idea that I’m going to look into Kohli’s financials. But he won’t confirm or deny anything. Claims it’s just a friendly, unofficial heads-up.”
“And do you believe him?”
“No, but I don’t know what he’s feeding me. And I don’t like IAB’s sticky fingers poking into my case files.”
“The man has a personal interest in you.”
“Webster?” She looked over now, surprised. “No, he doesn’t. We blew off some steam one night years back. That’s the beginning and end of it.”