by J. D. Robb
“According to known information,” she said wearily for the recorder, “the victim lived alone. No indication from initial investigation to the contrary. No indication that the victim left her apartment other than voluntarily, and no record of an appointment that would explain why the victim traveled to the location of the murder. Primary has secured data from her computer and tele-link for further investigation. Door-to-doors will begin at oh seven hundred and building security discs will be confiscated. Primary is leaving victim’s residence and will be en route to victim’s offices in City Hall. Lieutenant Dallas, Eve. Oh five oh eight.”
Eve switched off the audio and video, secured her field kit, and headed out.
It was past ten when she made it back to Cop Central. In concession to her hollow stomach, she zipped through the eatery, disappointed but not surprised to find most of the good stuff long gone by that hour. She settled for a soy muffin and what the eatery liked to pretend was coffee. As bad as it was, she downed everything before she settled in her office.
It was just as well, as her ’link beeped instantly.
“Lieutenant.”
She bit back a sigh as she stared into Whitney’s wide, grim-eyed face. “Commander.”
“My office, now.”
There wasn’t time to close her mouth before the screen went blank.
The hell with it, she thought. She scrubbed her hands over her face, then through her short, choppy brown hair. There went any chance of checking her messages, of calling Roarke to let him know what she was into, or of the ten-minute catnap she’d been fantasizing about.
She rose again, worked out the kinks in her shoulders. She did take the time to remove her jacket. The leather had protected her shirt, but her jeans were still damp. Philosophically, she ignored the discomfort and gathered up what little data she had. If she was lucky, she might get another cup of cop coffee in the commander’s office.
It only took Eve about ten seconds to realize the coffee would have to wait.
Whitney wasn’t sitting behind his desk, as was his habit. He was standing, facing the single-wall window that gave him his personal view of the city he’d served and protected for more than thirty years. His hands were clasped behind his back, but the relaxed pose was negated by the white knuckles.
Eve briefly studied the broad shoulders, the grizzled dark hair, and the wide back of the man who had only months before refused the office of chief to remain in command here.
“Commander.”
“It’s stopped raining.”
Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement before she carefully made them blank. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s a good city all in all, Dallas. It’s easy to forget that from up here, but it’s a good city all in all. I’m working to remember that right now.”
She said nothing, had nothing to say. She waited.
“I made you primary on this. Technically, Deblinsky was up, so I want to know if she gives you any flak.”
“Deblinsky’s a good cop.”
“Yes, she is. You’re better.”
Because her brows flew up, she was grateful he still had his back to her. “I appreciate your confidence, Commander.”
“You’ve earned it. I overrode procedure to put you in control for personal reasons. I need the best, someone who’ll go to the wall and over it.”
“Most of us knew PA Towers, Commander. There isn’t a cop in New York who wouldn’t go to the wall and over it to find who killed her.”
He sighed, and the deep inhalation of air rippled through his thick body before he turned. For a moment longer he said nothing, only studied the woman he’d put in charge. She was slim, deceptively so, for he had reason to know she had more stamina than was apparent in that long, slender body.
She was showing some fatigue now, in the shadows under her whiskey colored eyes, in the pallor of her bony face. He couldn’t let that worry him, not now.
“Cicely Towers was a personal friend—a close personal friend.”
“I see.” Eve wondered if she did. “I’m sorry, Commander.”
“I knew her for years. We started out together, a hotdogging cop and an eager-beaver criminal lawyer. My wife and I are godparents to her son.” He paused a moment and seemed to fight for control. “I’ve notified her children. My wife is meeting them. They’ll stay with us until after the memorial.”
He cleared his throat, pressed his lips together. “Cicely was one of my oldest friends, and above and beyond my professional respect and admiration for her, I loved her very much. My wife is devastated by this; Cicely’s children are shattered. All I could tell them was that I would do everything, anything in my power to find the person who did this to her, to give her what she worked for most of her life: justice.”
Now he did sit, not with authority but with weariness. “I’m telling you this, Dallas, so that you know up front I have no objectivity on this case. None. Because I don’t, I’m depending on you.”
“I appreciate you being frank, Commander.” She hesitated only an instant. “As a personal friend of the victim’s, it’ll be necessary to interview you as soon as possible.” She watched his eyes flicker and harden. “Your wife as well, Commander. If it’s more comfortable, I can conduct the interviews at your home rather than here.”
“I see.” He drew another breath. “That’s why you’re primary, Dallas. There aren’t many cops who’d have the nerve to zero in so directly. I’d appreciate it if you’d wait until tomorrow, perhaps even a day or two longer, to see my wife, and if you’d see her at home. I’ll set it up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What have you got so far?”
“I did a recon on the victim’s residence and her office. I have files of the cases she had pending and those that she closed over the last five years. I need to cross-check names to see if anyone she sent up has been released recently, their families and associates. Particularly the violent offenders. Her batting average was very high.”
“Cicely was a tiger in the courtroom, and I never knew her to miss a detail. Until now.”
“Why was she there, Commander, in the middle of the night? Prelim autopsy puts time of death at one sixteen. It’s a rough neighborhood—shake-downs, muggings, sex joints. There’s a known chemical trading center a couple of blocks from where she was found.”
“I don’t know. She was a careful woman, but she was also . . . arrogant.” He smiled a little. “Admirably so. She’d go head to head with the worst this city’s got to offer. But to put herself in deliberate jeopardy . . . I don’t know.”
“She was trying a case, Fluentes, murder two. Strangulation of a lady friend. His lawyer’s using the passion defense, but word is Towers was going to send him away. I’m checking it out.”
“Is he on the street or in a cage?”
“On the street. First violent offense, bail was dead low. Being it was murder, he was required to wear a homing bracelet, but that doesn’t mean diddly if he knew anything about electronics. Would she have met with him?”
“Absolutely not. It would corrupt her case to meet a defendant out of the courtroom.” Thinking of Cicely, remembering Cicely, Whitney shook his head. “That she’d never risk. But he could have used other means to lure her there.”
“Like I said, I’m checking it out. She had a dinner appointment last night with George Hammett. Do you know him?”
“Socially. They saw each other occasionally. Nothing serious, according to my wife. She was always trying to find the perfect man for Cicely.”
“Commander, it’s best if I ask now, off the record. Were you sexually involved with the victim?”
A muscle in his cheek jerked, but his eyes stayed level. “No, I wasn’t. We had a friendship, and that friendship was very valuable. In essence, she was family. You wouldn’t understand family, Dallas.”
“No.” Her voice was flat. “I suppose not.”
“I’m sorry for that.” Squeezing his eyes shut, Whitney rubbed his hands over his face. “T
hat was uncalled for, and unfair. And your question was relevant.” He dropped his hands. “You’ve never lost anyone close to you, have you, Dallas?”
“Not that I remember.”
“It shreds you to pieces,” he murmured.
She supposed it would. In the decade she had known Whitney, she had seen him furious, impatient, even coldly cruel. But she had never seen him devastated.
If that was what being close, and losing, did to a strong man, Eve supposed she was better off as she was. She had no family to lose, and only vague, ugly flashes of her childhood. Her life as it was now had begun when she was eight years old and had been found, battered and abandoned, in Texas. What had happened before that day didn’t matter. She told herself constantly that it didn’t matter. She had made herself into what she was, who she was. For friendship she had precious few she cared enough for, trusted enough in. As for more than friendship, there was Roarke. He had whittled away at her until she’d given him more. Enough more to frighten her at odd moments—frighten her because she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had all.
If she gave him all, then lost him, would she be in shreds?
Rather than dwell on it, Eve dosed herself with coffee and the remains of a candy bar she unearthed in her desk. The prospect of lunch was a fantasy right up there with spending a week in the tropics. She sipped and munched while she scanned the final autopsy report on her monitor.
The time of death remained as issued in the prelim. The cause, a severed jugular and the resulting loss of blood and oxygen. The victim had enjoyed a meal of sea scallops and wild greens, wine, real coffee, and fresh fruit with whipped cream. Ingestion estimated at five hours before death.
The call had come in quickly. Cicely Towers had been dead only ten minutes before a cab driver, brave or desperate enough to work the neighborhood, had spotted the body and reported it. The first cruiser had arrived three minutes later.
Her killer had moved fast, Eve mused. Then again, it was easy to fade in a neighborhood like that, to slip into a car, a doorway, a club. There would have been blood; the jugular gushed and sprayed. But the rain would have been an asset, washing it from the murderer’s hands.
She would have to comb the neighborhood, ask questions that were unlikely to receive any sort of viable answers. Still, bribes often worked where procedure or threats wouldn’t.
She was studying the police photo of Cicely Towers with her necklace of blood when her ’link beeped.
“Dallas, Homicide.”
A face flashed on her screen, young, beaming, and sly. “Lieutenant, what’s the word?”
Eve didn’t swear, though she wanted to. Her opinion of reporters wasn’t terribly high, but C. J. Morse was on the lowest end of her scale. “You don’t want to hear the word I’ve got for you, Morse.”
His round face split with a smile. “Come on, Dallas, the public’s right to know. Remember?”
“I’ve got nothing for you.”
“Nothing? You want me to go on air saying that Lieutenant Eve Dallas, the finest of New York’s finest, has come up empty in the investigation of the murder of one of the city’s most respected, most prominent, and most visible public figures? I could do that, Dallas,” he said, clicking his tongue. “I could, but it wouldn’t look good for you.”
“And you figure that matters to me.” Her smile was thin and laser sharp, and her finger hovered over the disconnect. “You figure wrong.”
“Maybe not to you personally, but it would reflect on the department.” His girlishly long lashes fluttered. “On Commander Whitney for pulling strings to put you on as primary. And there’s the backwash on Roarke.”
Her finger twitched, then curled into her palm. “Cicely Towers’s murder is a priority with the department, with Commander Whitney, and with me.”
“I’ll quote you.”
Fucking little bastard. “And my work with the department has nothing to do with Roarke.”
“Hey, brown-eyes, anything that touches you, touches Roarke now, and vice versa. And you know, the fact that your man had business dealings with the recently deceased, her ex-husband, and her current escort ties it up real pretty.”
Her hands balled into fists of frustration. “Roarke has a lot of business dealings with a lot of people. I didn’t know you were back on the gossip beat, C. J.”
That wiped the smarmy little smile off his face. There was nothing C. J. Morse hated more than being reminded of his roots in gossip and society news. Especially now that he’d wormed his way onto the police beat. “I’ve got contacts, Dallas.”
“Yeah, you’ve also got a pimple in the middle of your forehead. I’d have that taken care of.” With that cheap but satisfying shot, Eve cut him off.
Springing up, she paced the small square of her office, jamming her hands into her pockets, pulling them out again. Goddamn it, why did Roarke’s name have to come up in connection with the case? Just how closely was he involved with Towers’s business dealings and her associates?
Eve dropped into her chair again and scowled at the reports on her desk. She’d have to find out, and quickly.
At least this time, with this murder, she knew he had an alibi. At the time Cicely Towers was having her throat slashed, Roarke had been fucking the hell out of the investigating officer.
chapter two
Eve would have preferred to have gone back to the apartment she continued to keep despite the fact that she spent most nights at Roarke’s. There, she could have brooded, thought, slept, and walked herself back through the last day of Cicely Towers’s life. Instead, she headed for Roarke’s.
She was tired enough to give up the controls and let the auto program maneuver the car through late-evening traffic. Food was the first thing she needed, Eve decided. And if she could steal ten minutes to clear her mind, so much the better.
Spring had decided to come out and play, prettily. It tempted her to open the windows, ignore the sounds of bustling traffic, the hum of maxibuses, the griping of pedestrians, the overhead swish of air traffic.
To avoid the echoing bellow of the guides from the tourist blimps, she veered over toward Tenth. A shot through midtown and a quick zip up Park would have been quicker, but she would have been treated to the droning recitation of New York’s attractions, the history and tradition of Broadway, the brilliance of museums, the variety of shops—and the plug for the blimp’s own gift emporium.
As the blimp route skimmed over her apartment, she’d heard the spiel countless times. She didn’t care to hear about the convenience of the people glides that connected the sparkling fashion shops from Fifth to Madison or the Empire State Building’s newest sky walk.
A minor traffic snag at Fifty-second had her pondering a billboard where a stunning man and a stunning woman exchanged a passionate kiss, sweetened, they claimed each time they came up for air, by Mountain Stream Breath Freshener.
Their vehicles jammed flank to flank, a couple of cabbies shouted inventive insults at each other. A maxibus overflowing with passengers laid on its horn, adding an ear-stinging screech that had pedestrians on rampways and sidewalks shaking their heads or their fists.
A traffic hovercraft dipped low, blasted out the standard order to proceed or be cited. Traffic inched uptown, full of noise and temper.
The city changed as she moved from its core to its edges, where the wealthy and the privileged made their homes. Wider, cleaner streets, the sweep of trees from the islands of parks. Here the vehicles quieted to a whoosh of movement, and those who walked did so in tailored outfits and fine shoes.
She passed a dog walker who handled a brace of elegant gold hounds with the steady aplomb of a seasoned droid.
When she came to the gates of Roarke’s estate, her car idled until the program cleared her through. His trees were blooming. White blossoms flowed along with pink, accented by deep, rich reds and blues, all carpeted by a long sweep of emerald grass.
The house itself towered up into the deepening sky, glass sparkl
ing in the late sun, the stone grand and gray. It had been months since she had first seen it, yet she had never grown used to the grandeur, the sumptuousness, the simple, unadulterated wealth. She had yet to stop asking herself what she was doing here—here, with him.
She left her car at the base of the granite steps and climbed them. She wouldn’t knock. That was pride, and it was ornery. Roarke’s butler despised her and didn’t trouble to hide it.
As expected, Summerset appeared in the hall like a puff of black smoke, his silver hair gleaming, a frown of disapproval ready on his long face.
“Lieutenant.” His eyes scraped her, making her aware that she was wearing the same clothes she’d left in, and they were considerably rumpled. “We were unaware of the time of your return, or indeed, if you intended to return.”
“Were we?” She shrugged, and because she knew it offended him, peeled off her scarred leather jacket and held it out to his elegant hands. “Is Roarke here?”
“He is engaged on an interspace transmission.”
“The Olympus Resort?”
Summerset’s mouth puckered like a prune. “I don’t inquire as to Roarke’s business.”
You know exactly what he’s doing and when, she thought, but turned out of the wide, glittery hall toward the curve of the stairs. “I’m going up. I need a bath.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder. “You can let him know where I am when he’s finished his transmission.”
She climbed up to the master suite. Like Roarke, she rarely used the elevators. The moment she’d slammed the bedroom door behind her, she began to strip, leaving a trail of boots, jeans, shirt, and underwear in her wake on the way to the bath.
She ordered the water at 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and as an afterthought tossed in some of the salts Roarke had brought her back from Silas Three. They foamed into sea green froth that smelled of fairy tale woods.
She all but rolled into the oversized marble tub, all but wept when the heat seeped into her aching bones. Drawing one deep breath, she submerged, held herself down for a count of thirty seconds, and surfaced with a sigh of sheer sensual pleasure. She kept her eyes closed and drifted.