J D Robb - Dallas 17 - Imitation in Death

by Imitation in Death(lit)

  "I hear she's smoking," McNah commented and earned a frigid look from Peabody.

  "Of course, one of my primary concerns is the fact that she's smoking," Eve said coolly. "I've no doubt this attribute will assist us in identifying and apprehending a man who's killed two women and brutally assaulted another in under two weeks. Moving along," she said when McNab at least pretended to look chastised. "As you EDD guys didn't come in here doing the victory shuffle, I assume we haven't locked down the rental."

  "Why don't you take this, bright boy?" Feeney said. "See if you can redeem yourself."

  "He used a wireless unit," McNab began. "He didn't bother to bounce or filter, so it was fairly easy to trace back. The transmission for the order originated from the Renaissance Hotel. That's the fancy place on Park. You gotta be worth minimum of a mil just to get past the doorman. The van was ordered four days ago, at fourteen thirty-six."

  "Lunchtime crowd," Eve commented.

  "My guess is he frequents the place, knows where to go to shoot off a quick trans. Lots of big business types cart their pricey little portables to lunch meetings. Since he had very specific requirements for the order, he either had the trans ready to go, or he sat down in one of the privacy booths, or at a nice table with a glass of wine, and generated it there."

  "Good. We'll see if any of our choices lunched at the Renaissance on the order date. Not smart," she said with a satisfied nod. "Smarter would've been to dress down, use a cyber-hole somewhere. A place nobody knew him. But he likes to show off. He likes to play, so he goes to an exclusive hotel, where I just bet they know him by name.. - Peabody. Tell me about the plaster."

  "I've got building supply places in Brooklyn, in Newark, and in Queens who did cash transactions for small quantities of plaster in the past -sixty days. None in medical supply places for that substance, cash transactions."

  "None?"

  "No, sir. Credit or purchasing order from established accounts. Then I got a brainstorm and checked art supply outlets."

  "Art supply?"

  "Yes, sir. You can sculpt with plaster, and other forms of art may utilize it. I got several hits in the city, several more in the boroughs and New jersey for cash."

  "Looks like we're going to be busy then." She checked her wrist unit. "The plaster from the scene's been in the lab long enough. If they don't have an exact match on "the type; they should have. Let's see if Dickhead can earn his salary and tell us if there's a difference between household, medical, and art plaster."

  She looked at Feeney. "Feel like getting out of the house?"

  "Wouldn't mind a little' fresh air."

  "Let me know if you find any out there. Want to take the hotel?"

  "Long as I don't have to wear a tie."

  "Peabody and I will give Dickhead a push on our way to see the side dish."

  "She might hit on you," McNab commented. "Maybe we should take her. Ow!" He grabbed his side where Peabody's elbow jabbed. "Jeez, just kidding. Since you've been studying your brains out, you've got no sense of humor."

  "I'm going to laugh really hard after I kick your ass."

  "Kids, kids." Eve could feel her eye starting to twitch. "Let's save all this until after we catch the mean man and send him to his room. Feeney, control your moron. Not another word, Peabody."

  She gave her aide a solid push out the door.

  Peabody held it in until they'd driven five blocks. Eve figured it was a new record.

  "I just don't think he should talk about other women that way. Or look at them with that gleam in his eye. We signed a lease."

  "Oh Jesus Christ.on stilts. You've got lease fear, Peabody. Official document phobia. Get over it."

  "Jesus Christ on stilts?"

  "It just came to me. You're obsessing because you signed up for-what is it, a year? And now you're all, what if it doesn't work out? Who moves out? Who takes the communal salad plates or some stupid shit."

  "Well, maybe. But that's normal, isn't it?"

  "How the hell do I know what's normal?"

  "You're married."

  Sincerely shocked, Eve jerked the vehicle to a halt at a light. "That makes me normal? It just makes me married. Do you know how many abnormal married people there are out there across this great land and beyond? Just take a look at the double Ds that get called in, Manhattan borough alone. Marriage doesn't make people normal. Marriage isn't normal, probably. It just... is."

  "Why did you get married?"

  "I... Her mind went blank.- "He wanted to." Hearing just how lame that sounded, she shifted in her seat, and punched the gas. "It's just a promise, that's all. A promise, and you do your best not to break it."

  "Like a lease."

  "There you go."

  "You know, Dallas, that's almost wise."

  "Now I'm wise." She sighed. "Let me give you my little tidbit for the day. You want-McNab to stop thinking about, looking at, talking about other women, then you'd better take him to the vet and have him fixed. He'll make a nice pet. Women are the worst. They zero in on some guy. Oh boy, he's the one, gotta get. me that one. So they do. Then' they spend the rest of their time trying to figure out how to change him. Then if they manage it, they're not all that interested anymore, because guess what? He's not the one anymore."

  Peabody was silent for several moments. "Somewhere in there is a lot of good sense."

  "If you tell me I'm sensible in. addition to normal and wise, I'm going to punch you in the stomach.- I'm as screwed up as the next person, and I like it that way."

  "In many ways, Lieutenant, you're even more screwed up than the next person. It's what makes you, you."

  "I think I'll punch you in the stomach anyway. Put it on my calendar."

  She toyed with double parking, which always put her in a good mood, but found a spot on a street ramp.

  The Seventh Avenue building looked ordinary, even shabby, but the security there rivaled that at the U.N.

  She passed through the first post, which' required her badge, a palm print,. and a scan. At the second post, a uniformed guard requested her business and a second scan.

  She looked around the small lobby with its aging linoleum floor and bare beige walls. "What, you keep government secrets in here?"

  "More vital than that, Lieutenant." The guard offered a slight grimace as he passed her back her ID. "Fashion secrets. Competitors try every damn thing to get a peak. Delivery scams mostly, trying to get up to the design floor carrying deli bags or pizza boxes. But you get some more inventive ones, too. Phoney fire inspector last month. ID cleared, too, but the scan picked up his recorder and we booted him."

  "You on the job?"

  "Was." And he seemed pleased she'd made him. "Put in my twenty-five, most of it out of the one-two. This pays better, and it can get pretty lively around here before the big spring and fall shows."

  "I bet. You know Serena Unger, designer here?"

  "I might if you draw me a picture. "

  "Tall, thin, black, beautiful. Thirty-two. Short black hair with a reddish overcast, sharp face, long nose. Likes the ladies."

  "Yeah, I know the one you mean. Got a Caribbean accent. You got a line on her?"

  "She may be a line to somebody else. There's a woman she's playing with. About the same age. Blonde, snazzy looker. Five ten, curvy, slick, and professional. Married. Gates, Julietta."

  "She's cleared- through here a few times. Fashion writer. Seen the two of them go out together. Lunchtime, end of business day. Hold on a minute:'

  He turned to his computer, called up his log. "Last, hmm, last eight months by my log, Gates checked in for Unger ten times. Six -months before that, six hits for Unger. A once a month deal. Go back four more, you only get two visits."

  "Eighteen months." She considered the dates of the other murders. "Thanks."

  "Happy to help. Here." He unlocked a drawer and took out two-lapel pins. "Put these on and you'll clear through the rest of security," no hassle. You want the east elevator bank, fifteenth floor." />
  "Appreciate it."

  "No problem. Miss the job sometimes. The rush, you know?"

  "Yeah, I know."

  Fifteen' was a working floor with a hive of offices and a huddle of cubes for the drones. Unger didn't keep them waiting.

  "You're prompt. I appreciate that." She stepped around her desk-to offer a hand. "My day's stacked."

  "We'll try to let you get back to it."

  She closed the door, which told Eve she was discreet. It was a corner office, which told Eve she was successful, and it was stylishly decorated with beachy prints rather than fashion posters.

  She gestured to two chairs, and took her own behind the desk.

  "I have to say I'm a little confused as to why the police would want to talk to me."

  She was good, Eve thought. But not quite good enough. Julietta had talked to her, and she knew exactly why they were there.

  "If your day's stacked, Ms. Unger, why should we waste time doing the routine? Julietta Gates would have told you we've spoken to her, and her husband. You look like a bright woman, so you've figured out that we know about your relationship with Julietta."

  "I like keeping my personal life personal." Unger swiveled in her chair, her body language relaxed, her voice cool and calm. "And I don't see what my relationship with Julietta has to do with your investigation."

  "You don't have to see..You just have to answer questions."

  Unger's perfectly arched brows rose into her high forehead. "Well, that's moving straight to the punch."

  "I've got a pretty stacked day myself. You have a sexual relationship with Julietta Gates."

  "We have an intimate relationship, which is different than a sexual one."

  "So you just sit up in your hotel room at the Silby during your lunch breaks and chat?"

  Unger's lips pressed together as insult moved across her face. Then she hissed out a breath. "I don't like being spied on."

  "I imagine Thomas Breen doesn't much like being cheated on. We all have to live with what is."

  She took a long breath. "You have a point. Julietta and I have an intimate relationship that includes sex, and one that she prefers her husband remain unaware of."

  "How long have you had this intimate relationship?"

  "We've -known each other, professionally, for about four years. Our relationship began to change about two years ago, though we didn't become intimate right away."

  "That would have been more like a year and a half ago," Eve suggested, and Unger set her jaw.

  "You're very thorough. We have a great deal in common, and were attracted to each other. Julietta was, and is, restless in her marriage. This was her first affair, and it remains the only time I've entered into such a relationship with a married woman, or man for that matter. I don't like cheating."

  "Must be hard doing something you don't like for a couple years."

  "It's not without its difficulties, or its excitement. I won't deny that. Initially, we just forgot ourselves. But rather than the one time thing we both assumed it would be, our feelings deepened. I enjoy sex." She shrugged. "In general, I find women more interesting in bed than men. But with Julietta I found more. A kind of mate."

  "You're in love with her."

  "I am. I am in love with her, and it's difficult as we can't be together, openly."

  "She won't leave her husband."

  "No, she would. But she knows that I won't be with her if she does."

  "Now you've lost me."

  "She has a child. A child deserves to have both of his parents when, this is possible. I won't be a party to removing that child, that innocent, from the security he has now. It's not the boy's fault that his mother loves me instead of his father. We're adults, and responsible."

  "And she doesn't agree with your stand on this."

  "If Julietta has a flaw, it's that she's not as good a mother as she could be. Not as devoted or involved as I think she should be. I'd like to have children one day, and I expect my mate to want and care for the child as I will. From all I know, Thomas Breen is an excellent father, but he can't be the boy's mother. Only she can."

  "But he's not so hot as a husband."

  "As he's not mine it wouldn't be accurate or fair for me to judge. But she doesn't love him, or respect him. She finds him tedious and too easily led."

  "You were with her on the night of September second." "Yes, at my apartment. She told her husband she had a late meeting."

  "And you think he's buying it?"

  "She's careful. He hasn't confronted her. She would have told me. To be frank, Lieutenant, I think she wishes he would."

  "And the following Sunday morning, when she took the boy out. Were you with them?"

  "I met them in the park. Her voice warmed. "I enjoy the boy."

  "So you've spent time with him, ,the three of you- together."

  "Once a week or so. I want him to know me, so he's comfortable. When he's older, perhaps we'll find a way to blend our relationships."

  "Has Julietta ever told you her husband is violent?"

  "No. Believe me, if there was violence in the home, I would urge her to take the boy and leave. His work is odd, disturbing, but he appears to leave it at that. You suspect him of killing that woman in Chinatown. Lieutenant, if I believed him capable of such a thing, I'd get my lover and her son away from him. Whatever it took."

  "You know the trouble with people having extramarital affairs, Peabody?"

  "Explaining why you never wear all that sexy underwear you bought at home?"

  "There's that. But it's the delusion. They really believe they're getting away with it. Some do, for the short haul, but there are always tells. Too many late nights at the office, secret 'link transmissions, the friend of a friend who happens to see you having lunch with someone not your spouse in some out-of-the-way restaurant. And beyond all that, if that spouse isn't in a coma, there's a sense-a look, a smell, a change in touch. Serena Unger's no dummy, but actually believes Breen hasn't got a-clue.",

  "And you don't."

  "He knows. His wife's been playing pass the strap-on with another woman for a year and a half, he knows."

  "But if he does, how can he ignore it, just go around pretending everything's fine day after day? It would have to eat away at you, make you crazy... Which is exactly what you're getting at. If Roarke was fooling around with somebody, what would you do?"

  "They'd never find the bodies." She tapped her fingers on the wheel as she sat in traffic. "Women are ruining his happy home, threatening his family. Worse, it leaves him feeling dickless. You spend all day writing about murder. You're fascinated with it. Why not give it a try? Show those bitches who's boss. I think it's time to bring him in and press him. But first we'll check out some of your plaster outlets. Maybe we can add weight."

  Peabody pulled out her PPC, did a search for the closest address "Village Art Supplies, 14 West Broadway. Lieutenant, I know you're looking sharp at Breen and Renquist, but I've got just the opposite direction, which I sincerely hope doesn't piss you off so that you remember to punch me in the stomach. I've seen you punch, and it's gotta hurt."

  "If I got pissed off at everyone who disagrees with me... Oh, that's right, I do. But in this case I'll make an exception."

  "Big thanks for that."

  "Why do you disagree?"

  "Okay." Peabody scooted around in her seat to face Eve's profile. "I drink Fortney fits the profile more. He has no respect for women. He hits them and hits on them because it's a way to show what a big shot he is. He's hooked up with a strong woman because she'll take care of him, and the more she takes care of him, the more he resents it, and the more he cheats on her. He's got two exes who skinned him financially because he couldn't keep it in his pants, and without Pepper, he probably wouldn't be able to get a meeting in his chosen field. He's lied in interview to protect himself. His alibis have more holes than a pound of Swiss, and he's theatrical."

  " Those are all good points, and a proud tear threatens
my eye."

  "Really?"

  "About the tear? No. However, all those points you make are why he's still on the list."

  "But when you lean toward a guy like Breen, I just don't see it. A man that sweet with his kid. And if he does know about the affair, isn't it more likely he's holding it together because he loves his wife and son, and just wants it to go away? As long as he doesn't acknowledge it, it's not real. I can see how somebody'd handle it that way. He could convince himself it doesn't count because she's not with another man. She's going through a phase, experimenting, whatever."