by J. D. Robb
“He’s shaking,” Peabody murmured.
“Yeah, and he’s sweating.” But he didn’t run, Eve noted. His eyes darted right, left, right as he hurried down the hall to the elevator. But he didn’t run.
She watched him ride down, his back pressed to the wall, the leather bag clutched against his chest. But he was thinking, she mused. Thinking carefully enough to take the elevator to the basement instead of the lobby, to exit the building by the delivery port instead of the front doors.
“There was no sign of struggle in the apartment. And between time of death, and the time she hit, no time for him to put it back to rights if there had been a fight. But she was dead before she went over. Before he threw her over,” Eve added. “She’d been using illegals, but there were no illegals in her apartment. Let’s put a bug in the lab’s ear on the contents of the wine bottle and glasses. Then go home, catch some sleep.”
“You’re going to call Feeney? You need EDD to walk through her computer and find the e-mails she and the suspect exchanged, trace the account.”
“That’s right.” Eve rose, and though she knew it was a mistake, ordered one more cup of coffee from her AutoChef. “Put the personal garbage in the recycler, and do the job.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d give McNab that same order. Sir.”
Eve turned back. “He hassling you?”
“Yes. Not exactly.” She huffed out a breath. “No.”
“Which is it?”
“He just makes sure I know about all the hot women he’s sleeping with, and how he’s practically doing handsprings since I cut him loose. And he doesn’t even have the decency to do it to my face. He just makes sure I hear about it.”
“It sounds like he’s moved on. You did cut him loose, Peabody. And you’re hanging with Charles.”
“It’s not like that with Charles,” Peabody insisted, speaking of the sexy licensed companion who’d become her friend. And had never been her lover. “I told you.”
“But you didn’t tell McNab. Your business,” Eve said quickly when Peabody started to speak. “And I don’t want any part of it. McNab wants to screw every female in the five boroughs, and it doesn’t interfere with the job, it’s none of my business. And none of yours. Leave the priority requests for the morgue and the lab, then go home. Report in at eight hundred hours.”
Alone, Eve sat back at her desk. “Computer, status on identification search.”
SEARCH EIGHTY-EIGHT-POINT-TWO PERCENT COMPLETE. NO MATCHES.
“Expand search statewide.”
AFFIRMATIVE. WORKING . . .
Eve sat back with her coffee, and hoped for a name. Hoped for quick justice for Bryna Bankhead.
Despite the caffeine, Eve managed a more restful sleep on her office floor than she had in the big, empty bed at home. When she woke, she widened the thus far negative identity search. Taking yet another cup of coffee with her into the locker room, she washed up, finger-combed her hair, and rolled up the sleeves of Roarke’s shirt.
It was just after eight when she walked into Captain Feeney’s office in EDD. He was standing at his own AutoChef with his back to her. Like Eve, he was in his shirtsleeves, with his weapon harness in place. His wiry, ginger-colored hair had probably seen a comb that morning, but looked no tidier than hers.
She stepped in, sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”
He whirled around, his long, basset hound face covered with surprise. And, she thought, guilt.
“Nothing. What’s up?”
She sniffed again. “Doughnuts. You got doughnuts in here.”
“Shut up, shut up.” He stalked by her to shut the door. “You want the whole squad pouring in here?” Knowing a closed door wouldn’t be enough, he locked it. “What do you want?”
“I want a doughnut.”
“Look, Dallas, the wife’s gone on some health kick. You can’t get a decent bite to eat in my house these days with all the tofu this and rehydrated vegetable that. A man’s gotta have some fat and sugar once in awhile or his system suffers for it.”
“I’m with you, so’s the crowd. Gimme a doughnut.”
“Goddamn it.” He strode over to the AutoChef, popped it open. Inside were a half dozen doughnuts, fragrant in the low heat.
“Holy shit. Fresh doughnuts.”
“Bakery down the block does a few dozen reals every morning. You know what they charge for one of these bastards?”
Quick as a whiplash, Eve reached in, snagged one, bit in. “Worth it,” she said around a mouthful of fat and cream.
“Just keep it down. You start making yummy noises, they’ll beat the door in.” He took a doughnut and blissfully chewed the first bite. “Nobody wants to live forever, right? I tell the wife, hey, I’m a cop. Cops face death every day.”
“Damn straight. You got jelly, too?”
Before she could reach in, he closed the AutoChef. Smartly. “So, being a cop, facing death, all that, who gives a horse’s ass about pumping a little fat into the arteries?”
“Really superior fat, too.” She licked sugar off her fingers. She could’ve blackmailed him into a second doughnut, but figured she’d just get sick off it. “Got a sidewalk splat last night.”
“Leaper?”
“Nope. Already dead when she went off. I’m waiting for the ME and some lab reports, but it looks like sexual homicide. She had a date with a cyber-guy, e-mail lovers. I got a visual of him going in and out of her place, but the ID search hasn’t hit a match. I need you to track him through her computer.”
“You got the unit?”
“Yeah. I’m holding it in Evidence. Victim’s Bankhead, Bryna. Case-file H-78926B.”
“I’ll get somebody on it.”
“Appreciate it.” She paused at the door. “Feeney, if you bring McNab in, maybe you could ask him to, I don’t know, tone it down around Peabody.”
The glow the doughnut brought to his face faded into painful embarrassment. “Aw, jeez, Dallas.”
“I know, I know. But if I have to deal with her, you’ve got to deal with him.”
“We could lock them in a room together, let them hash it out.”
“We’ll keep that as an option. Let me know as soon as you find something on the victim’s unit.”
The search wasn’t getting anywhere. Without much hope, Eve bumped it up to global. She wrote and filed her preliminary report for her commander, then shot it off through the interoffice system. After ordering Peabody to keep pushing on the lab and morgue, she headed to the courthouse to give her testimony in a case on trial.
Two and a half hours later, she stormed out, damning all lawyers. She flipped on her communicator and tagged Peabody. “Status.”
“Test results still pending, sir.”
“Fuck that.”
“Rough day in court, Dallas?”
“Defense council seems to think the NYPSD splattered the victim’s blood all over his innocent client’s hotel room, clothes, person just to give psychopathic tourists who stab their wives a couple dozen times during a marital spat a bad name.”
“Well, it is tough on the Chamber of Commerce.”
“Ha-ha.”
“We have identified the woman Bankhead spoke with on the ’link the night she died. CeeCee Plunkett. She worked with the victim in the lingerie department at Saks.”
“Grab transpo. Meet me there.”
“Yes, sir, and may I suggest their lovely sixth-floor café for lunch? You need protein.”
“I had a doughnut.” With an evil smile, Eve broke transmission on Peabody’s shocked and envious gasp.
Being caught in the hell of lunch-shift traffic did little to improve her mood. Cars bumped and churned in place for so long she considered the possibility of just leaving her vehicle where it was and hoofing it across town.
Until she studied the jammed sidewalks.
Even the sky was packed—ad blimps, airbuses, tourist trams vying for air space. The noise was ridiculous, but for some reason, the sheer weig
ht of sound smoothed out the rough edges. So much so that when she was trapped at a light at the corner of Madison and Thirty-ninth, she leaned out the window and spoke pleasantly to the glide-cart operator.
“Give me a tube of Pepsi.”
“Small, medium, or large, fair lady?”
Her eyebrows lifted, disappeared under her fringe of bangs. An operator that friendly was either a droid or new. “Make it large.” She dug in her pocket for loose change.
When he leaned down to make the exchange, she saw he was neither droid nor new. She pegged him at a well-tended ninety, and his smile showed an appreciation of dental hygiene far superior to most glide-carters.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
She looked at the traffic, at the knots of vehicles that were all but blocking out the sky in this sector. “You gotta be kidding.”
He only smiled again. “Every day you’re alive’s a beauty, miss.”
She thought of Bryna Bankhead. “Guess you’re right.”
She popped the tube, sucked on it contemplatively as she inched her way up Madison. At Fifty-first, she cut over, double parked, and engaged her ON DUTY sign.
And girding her loins, strode into Saks and the gauntlet of cosmetic shills.
High-fashion droids glided by the doors in a pattern designed to dazzle the eye, and make it impossible to break through unscathed. Backing them up were human consultants who manned booths, counters, or patrolled the aisle looking, in Eve’s opinion, for escapees. The air was choked with scent.
A female droid with a starburst of magenta hair slithered across the floor to block Eve’s forward progress.
“Good afternoon, and welcome to Saks. Today our premiere fragrance—”
“One drop goes on me, just one, and I’ll ram that spritzer down your throat,” she warned as the droid moved in for the kill.
“Indeed, madam, it only takes a drop of Orgasma to entice the lover of your dreams.”
Eve flipped her jacket aside, tapped her fingers on her weapon. “It only takes one blast of this to put you in the recycle bin, Red. Now back off.”
The droid backed off, with satisfying speed. Eve heard the call go up for Security as she plowed through the wall of customers and consultants. She flipped out her badge as a pair of uniformed droids rushed toward her.
“NYPSD. Official business. Keep those damn smell pushers off me.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. May we be of some assistance?”
“Yeah.” She tucked her badge in her pocket. “Where’s the lingerie department?”
At least, Eve thought as she got off on the proper floor, nobody up here rushed you waving underwear. Still, selling sex seemed to be the order of the day as model droids roamed the department in foundation garments or nightwear. Human clerks, at least, wore real clothes.
She spotted CeeCee Plunkett immediately and waited until the woman completed bagging up a sale.
“Ms. Plunkett?”
“Yes, may I help you?”
Eve took out her badge again. “Is there a place we can speak privately?”
She had rosy cheeks, and they went white. She had pretty blue eyes, and they went wide. “Oh God. Oh God, it’s Bry. Something’s happened to Bryna. She didn’t come into work, she doesn’t answer her ’link. She’s been hurt.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“I—yes.” Pressing a hand to her temple, CeeCee looked around. “The—the dressing area, but I’m not supposed to leave my station. I . . .”
“Hey.” Eve snagged a droid in a sheer black bra and panties. “Take over here. Which way?” she asked CeeCee and came around the counter to take her arm.
“Back here. Is she in the hospital? Which hospital? I’ll go see her.”
Inside one of the small changing cubes, Eve closed the door. There was a tiny padded stool in the corner, and she guided CeeCee to it. “Sit down.”
“It’s bad.” She gripped Eve’s arm. “It’s very bad.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” There would never be an easy way. There was only the fast way—a quick stab to the heart rather than slicing inch by inch. “Bryna Bankhead was killed early this morning.”
CeeCee shook her head, kept shaking it slowly as the first tear trickled down her cheek. “She had an accident?”
“We’re trying to determine what happened.”
“I talked to her. I talked to her yesterday, last night. She was going out on a date. Please tell me what happened to Bry.”
The media had already reported the death, and the circumstances, so far as they were known. If they hadn’t ferreted out the name by now, Eve thought, it wouldn’t take them much longer.
“She . . . fell from her balcony.”
“Fell?” CeeCee started to surge to her feet, but only sank back down again. “That can’t be. That just can’t be. There’s a safety wall.”
“We’re investigating, Ms. Plunkett. You’d help a great deal if you’d answer some questions for me. On record?”
“She wouldn’t have fallen.” There was anger now, and insult, pricking through the shock. “She wasn’t stupid or clumsy. She wouldn’t have fallen.”
Eve took out her recorder. “I’m going to find out what happened. My name is Dallas. Lieutenant Eve Dallas,” she said for CeeCee, and the record. “I’m primary investigator in the matter of the death of Bryna Bankhead. I’m interviewing you, CeeCee Plunkett, at this time, because you were a friend of the deceased. You had a conversation with her via ’link last night, a few minutes before nine o’clock, just before she left her apartment.”
“Yes. Yes. She called me. She was so nervous, so excited.” Her voice went thick. “Oh, Bry.”
“Why was she nervous and excited?”
“She had a date. Her first date with Dante.”
“What’s his full name?”
“I don’t know.” She dug in her jacket pocket for a tissue, then tore it to pieces rather than mopping her face. “They met online. They didn’t know each other’s last names, that’s part of the deal. It’s for safety.”
“How long had she been in contact with him?”
“Maybe three weeks now.”
“How did they meet?”
“A poetry chat room. There was this discussion of great romantic poetry through the centuries and . . . Oh God.” She leaned forward, buried her face in her hands. “She was my best friend. How could this happen to her?”
“Would she confide in you?”
“We told each other everything. You know how it is with girlfriends.”
More or less, Eve thought. “This was, to your knowledge, her first date with Dante?”
“Yes. That’s why she was so excited. She bought a new dress, and shoes. And these great earrings . . .”
“And would it be usual for her to bring a first date back to her apartment for sex?”
“Absolutely not.” CeeCee gave a watery laugh. “Bry’s got too many old-fashioned hang-ups about sex and relationships and stages. A guy had to pass what she called the Thirty Day Test before she’d go to bed with him. I used to tell her nothing stays fresh for a month, but she . . .” CeeCee trailed off. “What are you saying?”
“I’m only trying to get a picture. Did she do illegals?”
Though tears were still glistening in them, CeeCee’s eyes went hard. “I don’t like your questions, Lieutenant.”
“They have to be asked. Look at me. Look at me,” Eve repeated. “I don’t want to hurt her, or you. I have to know who she was, to do right by her.”
“No, she didn’t do illegals,” CeeCee snapped. “She took good care of herself, inside and out. That’s the way she was. She was smart and she was fun and she was decent. And she did not get crazy on illegals and fall off her goddamn balcony. She didn’t jump either, so don’t even think about trying to pass this off as suicide. If she went off that balcony, it’s because somebody pushed her off. It’s because . . .”
As her own words sank in, CeeCee’s anger flared. “Someone k
illed her. Someone killed Bry. That—that Dante. He, he followed her home after their date. And he got into her apartment somehow, and he killed her. He killed her,” she repeated and dug her fingers into Eve’s wrist. “You find him.”
“I’ll find him,” Eve promised. “CeeCee, I don’t know all the facts yet, but I will. Tell me what you can about this man she knew as Dante. Everything you remember Bryna told you.”
“I can’t take it in. I’m sorry, I just can’t.” She rose, walked slowly to the pitcher of ice water on the dressing room table. When the pitcher shook and sloshed, Eve went over, poured the glass.
“Thanks.”
“Take a minute. Sit down, drink your water, and take a minute.”
“I’m okay. I’ll be okay.” But she had to hold the glass with both hands to drink. “He was supposed to own his own business. He was rich. She said he didn’t brag about it, but she could tell from the little things he said. Places he’d been, like Paris and Moscow, the Olympus Resort, Bimini, I don’t know.”
“What kind of business?”
“They didn’t get into specifics about that. Just like he wasn’t supposed to know she worked here. But he did.”
Eve’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know that?”
“Because he sent her pink roses here last week.”
Pink roses, Eve thought. Pink rose petals.
“What else?”
“He spoke Italian, and um, French and Spanish. Romance languages,” she added, smearing tears and mascara with the backs of her hands. “Bry was all caught up in the romance of it. She said he had the most romantic soul. And I’d say, well great, but what about his face? She’d just laugh and say that appearances didn’t matter when hearts spoke to each other. But it wouldn’t hurt her feelings any if he looked as good as he sounded.”
Steadier, she turned the glass in her hands. “Lieutenant . . . Did he rape her?”
“I don’t know.” Eve drew out a picture she’d printed off disc. “Do you recognize this man?”
CeeCee studied Dante’s face. “No,” she said, wearily now. “I’ve never seen him before. This is him, isn’t it? Well. Well. I guess he looked as good as he sounded. The son of a bitch. The vicious son of a bitch.” She began shredding the photo, and Eve did nothing to stop her.