The In Death Collection, Books 1-5

by J. D. Robb

  The lawyer shifted back and folded her hands. “My client and Ms. Fitzgerald were playing a harmless game. Foolish, admittedly, but it isn’t a crime to pretend to fight.”

  “No, it isn’t a crime.” Eve felt the first crackle, weakening the back of their alibi. “Neither is going off to Maui and pretending to play house with another woman. It was all make believe, wasn’t it, Justin?”

  “We just—I suppose we didn’t take time to think it all through. We were worried, that’s all. After you picked up Paul, we wondered if you’d shoot for us. We were all there that night, so it seemed logical.”

  “You know, that’s just what I thought.” She beamed a friendly smile. “It’s a very logical step.”

  “We both had important projects going. We couldn’t afford what’s happening right now. We thought if we pretended to split up, it would add weight to our alibi.”

  “Because you knew the alibi was weak. You had to figure we’d fall to the fact that either of you, or both of you, could have left the apartment undetected on the night of Pandora’s murder. You could have gone to Leonardo’s, killed her, and slipped back home without any security breach.”

  “We didn’t go anywhere. You can’t prove we did.” His shoulders straightened. “You can’t prove anything.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Your lover’s an Immortality junkie. You had possession of the drug. How did you get it?”

  “I—someone gave it to her. I don’t know.”

  “Was it Redford? Did he hook her, Justin? You must hate him, if he did. The woman you love. She started dying, Justin, the first time she took a sip.”

  “It’s not poison. It’s not. She told me that was just Pandora’s way of keeping it for herself. Pandora didn’t want Jerry to benefit from the drink. The bitch knew what it could do for Jerry, but she wanted—” He broke off, heeding his lawyer’s sharp warning a little too late.

  “What did she want, Justin? Money? A lot of money? You? Did she taunt Jerry? Did she threaten you? Is that why you killed her?”

  “No. I never touched her. I tell you I never touched her. We argued, all right? We had an ugly scene after Leonardo’s woman left that night. Jerry was upset. She had a right to be, after everything Pandora said. That’s why I took her out, had a few drinks, calmed her down. I told her not to worry, that there were other ways of getting a supply.”

  “What other ways?”

  His breath heaved in and out. Frantically, he shook off his lawyer’s restraining hand. “Shut up,” he snapped at her. “Just shut up. What the hell good are you doing me? She’ll have me in a cage for murder before she’s finished. I want to cut a deal. Why aren’t you cutting a deal here?” He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “I want to deal.”

  “We’ll have to talk about that,” Eve said calmly. “What have you got to offer me?”

  “Paul,” he said and shuddered out a breath. “I’ll give you Paul Redford. He killed her. The bastard probably killed them all.”

  Twenty minutes later, Eve paced the conference room. “I want Redford to stew for a while. Let him wonder how much they’ve told us.”

  “Not getting much out of the lady.” Casually, Casto propped his feet on the table, crossed his ankles. “She’s tough. Showing signs of withdrawal—dry mouth, trembling, occasional lack of focus—but she’s sticking.”

  “She hasn’t had a fix in what—over ten hours. How long do you figure she can last?”

  “Don’t know enough.” Casto spread his hands. “She could ice it out, come out the other side, or she could be a sloppy puddle of tapioca in another ten minutes.”

  “Okay, so we don’t count on her breaking.”

  “Redford was showing a few cracks,” Peabody put in. “He’s scared boneless. His lawyer’s the hard-ass. If we had him alone for five minutes, he’d crack like a walnut.”

  “That’s not an option.” Whitney studied the hard copy of the most recent interviews. “You’ll have Young’s statement to pressure him with.”

  “It’s weak,” Eve muttered.

  “You’ll have to make it look stronger. He claims Redford first introduced Fitzgerald to Immortality about three months ago, suggested a partnership.”

  “And according to our fair-haired boy, it was all going to be legal and aboveboard.” Eve gave a derisive grunt. “Nobody’s that fucking naive.”

  “I don’t know,” Peabody murmured. “He’s cross-eyed over Fitzgerald. I’d say she could have convinced him it was a straight deal. Research and development, a new line of beauty and youth aids carrying Fitzgerald’s name.”

  “And all they had to do was edge out Pandora.” Casto smiled. “The money would roll in.”

  “It still comes down to profit. Pandora was in the way.” Eve dropped into a seat. “The others were in the way. Maybe Young’s just an innocent schmuck, maybe not. He’s pointed at Redford, but what he hasn’t figured out yet is that he could be fingering Fitzgerald at the same time. She told him enough for him to plan a trip to the Eden Colony, hoping the two of them could finesse a specimen of their own.”

  “You’ve got your illegals conspiracy,” Whitney pointed out. “If Young shakes off the rest, he’ll have his deal. You’ve still got a way to go for murder. At this point, his testimony isn’t going to hold much weight. He believes Redford did Pandora. He gives us motive. We can establish opportunity. But there’s no physical evidence, no witnesses.”

  He rose. “Get me a confession, Dallas. The PA’s putting on the pressure. They’re dropping charges on Freestone Monday. If they don’t have something else to feed the media, we’re all going to look like assholes.”

  Casto took out a penknife, began trimming his nails as Whitney left the room. “Christ knows we wouldn’t want the PA to look like an asshole. Shit, they want it all laid out on a platter, don’t they?” His eyes lifted to Eve’s. “Redford’s not going to cop to murder, Eve. He’ll go down for the drug. Hell, it’s almost fashionable, but he’s not going to swing to four homicides. We’ve only got one hope to pin on.”

  “Which is?” Peabody wanted to know.

  “That he didn’t do it alone. We crack one of the others, we crack him. My money’s on Fitzgerald.”

  “Then you take her.” Eve blew out a breath. “I’ll work Redford. Peabody, take Redford’s picture. Go back to the club, go back to Boomer’s place, to Cockroach’s, to Moppett’s. Show the damn thing to everybody. I need one lousy make.”

  She scowled as the ’link beeped, and she engaged it. “Dallas, don’t bother me.”

  “It’s always lovely to hear your voice,” Roarke said implacably.

  “I’m in conference.”

  “So am I. I’m leaving for FreeStar in thirty minutes.”

  “You’re going off planet? But . . . well, have a good trip.”

  “It can’t be avoided. I should be back within three days. You know how to contact me.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She wanted to say things, foolish things, private things. “I’m going to be pretty tied up myself for a while,” she said instead. “See you when you get back.”

  “You might check your office, Lieutenant. Mavis has been trying to reach you most of the day. It appears you’ve missed your last fitting. Leonardo is . . . distraught.”

  Eve did her best to ignore Casto’s quick chuckle. “I’ve got other things on my mind.”

  “Don’t we all? Find a minute to deal with him, darling. For my sake. Let’s get all those people out of our house.”

  “I wanted to boot them out days ago. I thought you liked having all those people around.”

  “And I thought he was your brother,” Roarke murmured.

  “What?”

  “Old joke. No, Eve, I don’t like having all those people around. They are, in a word, maniacs. I found Galahad cowering under the bed just now. Someone has covered him with beads and tiny red bows. It’s mortifying, for both of us.”

  She bit down on her tongue to hold back the snort of laughter. Roar
ke wasn’t looking amused. “Now that I know they’re driving you crazy, I feel better. We’ll move them along.”

  “Do that. Oh, and I’m afraid there might be a few details for next Saturday you’ll have to handle while I’m gone. Summerset has the memos. My transport’s waiting.” She watched him signal to someone off screen, then his eyes locked back on hers. “See you in a few days, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah.” The screen went blank as she muttered. “Bon fucking voyage.”

  “Well, hell, Eve. If you need to run off to your dressmaker, or take your cat to therapy, Peabody and I can handle this minor matter of murder.”

  Eve’s lips stretched in a vicious smile. “Bite me, Casto.”

  Despite his many annoying qualities, Casto had solid instincts. Redford wasn’t going to break any time soon. Eve worked him hard and had the mild satisfaction of pinning him on the illegals charges, but a confession to multiple murder just wasn’t happening.

  “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight.” She rose. She needed to stretch her legs. She poured coffee. “It was Pandora who told you about Immortality. And that was?”

  “As I said, about a year and a half ago, perhaps a little more.” He was iced down now, totally in control. The illegals charges could be dealt with, particularly from the angle he’d chosen. “She came to me with a business proposition. Or so she termed it. She claimed to have access to a formula, something that would revolutionize the beauty and health industry.”

  “A beauty aid. And she didn’t mention the illegal or the dangerous qualities.”

  “Not at that time. She needed backing to start the line. One she intended to launch under her name.”

  “Did she show you the formula?”

  “She did not. As I told you before, she strung me along, made promises. Admittedly, it was poor judgment on my part. I was sexually addicted to her, a weakness she exploited. At the same time, the business aspect seemed to have merit. She was using the product in tablet form. And the results were impressive. I could see that it made her look younger, more fit. It increased her energy and her sexual drive. Marketed correctly, a product such as that would generate enormous profit. I wanted the money for some commercially risky projects.”

  “You wanted the money, so you continued to pay her, little dribs and drabs, without being fully informed.”

  “For a time. I did grow impatient and made demands. She made more promises. I began to suspect that she intended to go out on her own or that she was working with someone else. Using me. So I took a sample for myself.”

  “Took a sample?”

  He took his time answering, as if he was still crafting the words. “I took her key while she was sleeping and unlocked the box where she kept the tablets. I, in the interest of protecting my investment, took a few to have them analyzed.”

  “And when did you steal the drug, in the interest of protecting your investment?”

  “Theft is not established,” the lawyer interrupted. “My client had paid, in good faith, for the product.”

  “Okay, we’ll rephrase. When did you decide to take a more active interest in your business investment?”

  “About six months ago. I took the samples to a contact I have in chemical analysis and paid him for a private report.”

  “And learned . . .”

  Redford paused to study his fingers. “I learned that the product did indeed have the properties Pandora had promised. However, it was addictive, which pushed it automatically into the illegals category. It was also potentially lethal when taken regularly over a long period of time.”

  “And being a righteous man, you counted your losses and pulled out of the deal.”

  “Being righteous is not a legal requirement,” Redford said mildly. “And I had an investment to protect. I decided to do some research to see if the unacceptable side effects could be diminished or eradicated. I believe we accomplished that, or nearly.”

  “So you used Jerry Fitzgerald as a guinea pig.”

  “That was a miscalculation. Perhaps I was overeager as Pandora continued to push for more money and made statements that indicated she was about to go public with the product. I wanted to beat her to it, and knew that Jerry would be the perfect spokeswoman. She agreed, for a fee, to try the product my people had refined. In a liquid form. Science makes mistakes, Lieutenant. The drug was still, as we learned too late, highly addictive.”

  “And fatal?”

  “It seems. The process has been slowed, but yes, I’m afraid there is still the potential for physical harm in the long term. A possible side effect I warned Jerry of several weeks ago.”

  “Before or after Pandora discovered you were trying to ace her out?”

  “I believe it was after, just after. Unfortunately, Jerry and Pandora ran into each other at a function. Pandora made some comments about her former relationship with Justin. From what I gather, and this is secondhand, Jerry tossed the business deal we had made in Pandora’s face.”

  “And Pandora didn’t take kindly to it.”

  “She was, naturally, furious. Our relationship was rocky at best by that time. I had already procured a specimen of the Immortal Blossom, determined to delete all side effects from the formula. I had no intention, Lieutenant, of releasing a dangerous drug to the public. My records will substantiate that.”

  “We’ll let Illegals handle that one. Did Pandora threaten you?”

  “Pandora lived for threats. One became accustomed to them. I felt I was in a good position to ignore them, even to counter them.” He smiled now, more confident. “You see, if she had gone forward, knowing what properties were contained in the formula, I could have ruined her. I had no reason to harm her.”

  “Your relationship was rocky, yet you went to her home that night.”

  “In hopes that we could come to some compromise. That’s why I insisted that Justin and Jerry be present.”

  “You had sex with her.”

  “She was a beautiful, desirable woman. Yes, I had sex with her.”

  “She had tablets of the drug in her possession.”

  “She did. As I told you, she kept them in a box in her vanity.” His smile came back. “I told you about the box and the tablets because I assumed, correctly, that an autopsy would show traces of the drug. It seemed wise to be forthcoming. I did nothing but cooperate.”

  “Easy to cooperate if you knew I wouldn’t find the tablets. After she was dead, you went back for the box. Protecting your investment. If there was no product but yours, no competitor, how much more profit there would be.”

  “I did not go back to her home after I left. I had no reason to. My product was superior.”

  “Neither of those products would have made the market, and you knew it. But on the street, hers would have hit big, bigger than your refined, watered down, and most likely more expensive version.”

  “With more research, more testing—”

  “More money? You’d already put over three hundred thousand in her hands. You’d gone to the considerable expense to procure a specimen, paid for the research and testing to date, paid Fitzgerald. I imagine you were becoming a little anxious to see some profit. How much did you charge Jerry for a fix?”

  “Jerry and I had a business arrangement.”

  “Ten thousand a delivery,” Eve interrupted, and watched the point strike home. “That’s the amount she transferred three times over a two-month period to your account on Starlight Station.”

  “An investment,” he began.

  “You addicted her, then you hosed her. That makes you a dealer, Mr. Redford.”

  The lawyer went into his spin routine, turning a drug deal into a profit-and-loss arrangement between investment partners.

  “You needed contacts. Street contacts. Boomer was always a sucker for a credit in the hand. But he got carried away, liked to test the product. How did he get the formula? That was sloppy of you.”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “You saw him
flapping his lips at the club. Making a big deal of himself. When he went into a privacy room with Hetta Moppett, you couldn’t be sure how much he’d told her. But when he saw you, and he ran, you had to act.”

  “You’re on the wrong beam, Lieutenant. I don’t know these people.”

  “Maybe you killed Hetta in panic. You didn’t really mean to, but when you saw she was dead, you had to cover it up. That’s where the overkill came in. Maybe she told you something before she died, maybe she didn’t, but you had to get to Boomer then. I’d say you were enjoying it now, the way you messed him up, tortured him before you finished him. But you got a little overconfident, and didn’t get to his flop to search it before I did.”

  She pushed away from the table, took a turn around the room. “Now you’ve got big problems. The cops have a sample, they have the formula, and Pandora’s getting out of hand. What choice do you have?” She put her hands on the table, leaned in close. “What can a man do when he sees his investment and all those future profits going into the sewer?”

  “My business with Pandora was finished.”

  “Yeah, you finished it. Taking her to Leonardo’s was smart. You’re a smart man. She was already wired over Mavis. If you do her at his place, it’s going to look like he’d had enough. You’d have to do him, too, if he was there, but you had a taste for it now. He’s not there, so it’s easier. Easier still when Mavis walks in and you can set her up.”

  Redford’s breathing was a bit forced, but he was holding. “The last time I saw Pandora, she was alive, vicious, and eager to punish someone. If Mavis Freestone didn’t kill her, my guess would be Jerry Fitzgerald.”

  Intrigued, Eve angled back to her chair, leaned back. “Really? Why?”

  “They despised each other, were in direct competition, now more than ever. On top of everything else, Pandora was angling to lure Justin back. That was something Jerry wouldn’t tolerate. And . . .” He smiled. “It was Jerry who put the idea of going to Leonardo’s for a showdown into Pandora’s head.”