by J. D. Robb
“I contacted him. He’s on his way.”
“It’s a goddamn mess, Peabody. Let’s do what we can to mop it up. See that this room—Hey, you.” She saw the officer she’d left on guard at the end of the hallway. Her finger pointed like an arrow. She could see that it hit its mark by the way the uniform winced before she blanked her face and started toward her commanding officer.
Eve blew off some steam giving the uniform a dressing down. She didn’t have to know Eve would recommend no disciplinary action be taken. Let her sweat.
In the end, when she was sweating and pale, Eve studied the nasty bruising scrape on the officer’s collarbone. “The VT give you that?”
“Sir, before I restrained him.”
“Have it seen to, for Christ’s sake. You’re in a health center. And I want this door secured. You got that this time? Nobody in, nobody out.”
“Yes, sir.” She snapped to attention, looking, Eve thought, pathetically like a whipped puppy. Barely old enough to buy a beer at a street stall, Eve mused with a shake of her head.
“Stand your watch, Officer, until I order your relief.”
She spun away, gesturing for Peabody to follow.
“You ever get that pissed off at me,” Peabody said in her mild voice, “I’d prefer a bare-knuckled punch in the face to a tongue lashing.”
“So noted. Casto, glad you decided to join us.”
His shirt was rumpled, as if he’d tossed on the first thing that had come to hand. Eve knew the routine. Her own shirt looked as if it had been balled in someone’s pocket for a week. “What the hell happened here?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. We’re setting up in Dr. Ambrose’s office. We’ll question the relevant staff one at a time. For the patients we’re likely going to be required to do a room to room. Everything on record, Peabody, starting now.”
In silence, Peabody took out her recorder, clipped it to her lapel. “On record, sir.”
Eve nodded to Ambrose, then followed her through reinforced glass doors, down a short hallway, and into a small, cluttered office.
“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Questioning of possible witnesses in the death of Fitzgerald, Jerry.” She checked her watch for time and date and recorded them. “Also present are Casto, Lieutenant Jake T., Illegals Division, and Peabody, Officer Delia, temporary attaché to Dallas. Questioning to take place in the office of Dr. Ambrose, Midtown Rehabilitation Center for Substance Addictions. Dr. Ambrose, please send in the ward nurse. And stand by, Doctor.”
“How the hell did she die?” Casto demanded. “Her system just give out? What?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’ll fill you in as we go.”
He started to speak, then controlled himself. “Can we get some coffee in here, Eve? I haven’t had my fix.”
“Try that.” She jerked her thumb at a battered AutoChef, then took her place behind the desk.
It didn’t get much better. By midday, Eve had personally questioned every staff member on duty in the wing, with nearly the same results each time. The VT in room 6027 had gotten out of his restraints, attacked his ward nurse, and all hell had broken loose. From what she could gather, people had poured down the hallway like a river, leaving Jerry’s room unattended for anywhere from twelve to eighteen minutes.
More than enough time, Eve supposed, for a desperate woman to flee. But how did she know where to find the drug she craved, and how did she gain access to it?
“Maybe some of the staff were talking about it in her room.” Casto shoveled in veggie pasta on their midday break in the center’s eatery. “A new blend always creates a big buzz. It’s not much of a stretch to figure that the ward nurse or a couple of orderlies were gossiping about it. Fitzgerald obviously wasn’t as sedated as anyone thought. She hears them, and when she sees her chance, goes for it.”
Eve chewed over the theory and a forkful of grilled chicken hash. “I can buy that. She had to hear it somewhere. And she was desperate, and smart. I can buy that she’d figure a way to get down to it undetected. But how the hell did she get past the locks? Where’d she get the code?”
He fumbled there and scowled down at his meal. A man wanted meat, damn it. Good red meat. And these pussy health centers treated it like poison.
“Could she have gotten a master code somewhere?” Peabody speculated. She was sticking to green leaf salad, undressed, with the idea of shaving off a couple of pounds. “Or a code breaker.”
“Then where is it?” Eve shot back. “She was stone dead when they found her. The sweepers didn’t find any master code in the room.”
“Maybe the frigging door was open when she got there.” Disgusted, Casto shoved his plate aside. “That’s the kind of luck we’ve been having.”
“That’s a little too serendipitous for me. Okay, she hears a discussion about Immortality, how it’s being kept in the drug hold for research. She’s in acute withdrawal, with whatever they’ve plugged into her smoothing out the worst of the raw edges. But she needs it. Then, like a gift from God, there’s a commotion outside. I don’t like gifts from God,” Eve muttered. “But we’ll run with it for now. She gets up, the guard’s gone, and she’s out of there. She gets down to the drug hold, though I can’t see a couple of orderlies discussing directions to it. Still, she got there, we’ve established that. But getting in . . .”
“What are you thinking, Eve?”
She lifted her gaze to Casto’s. “That she had help. That somebody wanted her to get to it.”
“You think one of the staff led her down there so she could help herself?”
“It’s a possibility.” Eve shrugged off the doubt in Casto’s voice. “A bribe, a promise, a fan. And when we go through everyone’s records, we might hit on something that indicates a weak link. In the meantime—” She broke off as her communicator sounded. “Dallas.”
“Lobar, sweeper. We found something interesting in the disposal hold down here, Lieutenant. It’s a master code, and its got Fitzgerald’s prints all over it.”
“Bag it, Lobar. I’ll be down shortly.”
“That explains a lot,” Casto began. The transmission perked up his appetite enough for him to dig into the pasta again. “Somebody helped her, like you said. Or she copped it from one of the nurses’ stations during the confusion.”
“Clever girl,” Eve murmured. “Very clever girl. Times it all like clockwork, goes down, unkeys what she wants, then takes the additional time to ditch the master. She sure was thinking clearly, wasn’t she?”
Peabody drummed her fingers on the table. “If she took a hit of the Immortality first—and it seems likely she would, it probably jolted her back on full. She probably realized she could be caught there, with the master. If she ditched it, she could claim she’d wandered off, that she was confused.”
“Yeah.” Casto flashed her a smile. “That works for me.”
“Then why stay?” Eve demanded. “She’d had her fix. Why didn’t she make a run for it?”
“Eve.” Casto’s voice was quiet, sober, as were his eyes. “There’s a possibility we haven’t touched on here. Maybe she wanted to die.”
“A deliberate OD?” She had thought of it, didn’t like what it did to her stomach muscles. Guilt descended like a clammy mist. “Why?”
Understanding her reaction, he laid a hand briefly over hers. “She was trapped. You had her. She had to know she was going to spend the rest of her life in a cage—in a cage,” he added, “with no access to the drug. She’d have gotten old, lost her looks, lost everything that mattered most to her. It was a way out, a way to die young and beautiful.”
“Suicide.” Peabody picked up the threads and wove them. “The combination she took was lethal. If she was clear-headed enough to get into the hold, she would have been clear-headed enough to know that. Why face the scandal, imprisonment, another withdrawal if you could go out quick and clean?”
“I’ve seen it happen,” Casto added. “In my line, it’s not unusual. People can’t liv
e with the drug, can’t live without it. So they take themselves out with it.”
“No note,” Eve said stubbornly. “No message.”
“She was despondent, Eve. And like you said, desperate.” Casto toyed with his coffee. “If it was an impulse, something she felt she had to do and do quick, she might not have wanted to think long enough to leave a message. Eve, nobody forced her. There’s no sign of violence or struggle on the body. It was self-induced. It may have been an accident, it may have been deliberate. You’re not likely to fully determine which.”
“It doesn’t close the homicides. No way she acted alone.”
Casto exchanged a look with Peabody. “Maybe not. But the fact is that the influence of the drug may explain that she did just that. You can hammer away at Redford and Young for a while. Christ knows, neither one of them should get off clean in this. But you’re going to have to close this thing sooner or later. It’s done.” He set his cup down. “Give yourself a break.”
“Well, this is cozy.” Justin Young stepped up to the table. His eyes, hollow and red-rimmed, fastened on Eve. “Nothing spoils your appetite, does it, you bitch?”
As Casto started to rise, Eve lifted a finger, signaling him down. She shoved pity aside. “Your lawyers manage to spring you, Justin?”
“That’s right, all it took was Jerry dying to push them into granting bail. My lawyer tells me that with these latest developments—that’s just how the fucker phrased it—with these latest developments, the case is all but closed. Jerry’s a multiple murderer, a drug addict, a dead woman, and I’m all but in the clear. Handy, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Eve said evenly.
“You killed her.” He leaned forward on the table, the slap of his hands rattling cutlery. “You might as well have rammed a knife in her throat. She needed help, understanding, a little compassion. But you kept hacking away at her until she fell to pieces. Now she’s dead. Do you understand that?” Tears began to swim in his eyes. “She’s dead and you get a nice big star next to your name. Bagged yourself a mad killer. But I’ve got news for you, Lieutenant. Jerry never killed anyone. But you did. This isn’t over.” He swept an arm across the table, sending dishes to the floor in a mess of broken crockery and spilled food. “No way in hell is this over.”
She let out a long breath as he walked away. “No, I guess it’s not.”
chapter twenty
She’d never known a week to move so fast. And she felt brutally alone. Everyone considered the case closed, including the PA’s office and her own commander. Jerry Fitzgerald’s body was reduced to ashes, her final interview logged.
The media went into its usual frenzy. Top level model’s secret life. The killer beneath the perfect face. Quest for immortality leaves a trail of death.
She had other cases, certainly had other obligations, but she spent every free minute reviewing the case, picking through evidence, and trying out new theories until even Peabody told her to give it up.
She tried to juggle the few little details on the wedding Roarke had asked her to see to. But what the hell did she know about caterers, wine selections, and seating charts? In the end, she swallowed her pride and dumped the whole mess on a sneering Summerset.
And was told, in didactic tones, that a wife of a man in Roarke’s position would have to learn basic social skills.
She told him to shove it, and they both went off, well satisfied to do what they did best. Under it all, Eve was almost afraid they were beginning to like each other.
Roarke wandered from his office into Eve’s. And shook his head. They would be married the next day. In less than twenty hours. Was the bride-to-be fussing with her wedding gown, bathing herself in fragrant oils and perfumes, daydreaming about her life to come?
No, she was hunched over her computer, muttering at it, her hair tousled from constant raking with her fingers. There was a stain on her shirt where she’d spilled coffee. A plate holding what might have once been a sandwich had been set on the floor. Even the cat avoided it.
He walked up behind her, saw, as he had expected to see, the Fitzgerald file on screen.
Her tenacity fascinated him, and yes, allured him. He wondered if she had allowed anyone else to see that she suffered over Fitzgerald’s death. If she’d been able, she would have hidden it even from him.
He knew the guilt was there, and the pity. And the duty. All would push her, chain a part of her to the case. It was one of the reasons he loved her, that huge capacity for emotion strapped into a logical, restless mind.
He started to bend down to kiss the crown of her head just as she lifted it. They both swore when her head connected hard with his jaw.
“Christ Jesus.” Torn between amusement and pain, Roarke dabbed at the blood on his lip. “You make romance a dangerous business.”
“You shouldn’t sneak up behind me that way.” Frowning, she rubbed the top of her head. It was just one more spot to throb. “I thought you and Feeney and a few of your hedonistic friends were going out to rape and pillage.”
“A bachelor’s party is not a Viking invasion. I have some time yet before the barbarism begins.” He sat down on the corner of her desk and studied her. “Eve, you need a break from this.”
“I’m going to be taking a three-week one, aren’t I?” she hissed as he only lifted his brows patiently. “Sorry, I’m being bitchy. I can’t get past this, Roarke. I’ve put it aside a half dozen times this past week, but I keep coming back.”
“Say it aloud. Sometimes it’s helpful.”
“Okay.” She shoved back from the desk, narrowly missed stepping on the cat. “She could have gone to the club. Some of the fancy people slum at that kind of place.”
“Pandora did.”
“Exactly. And they did run with the same basic crowd. So yeah, she could have gone to the club, she could have seen Boomer there. She might even have had a contact tell her he was in. This is all supposing that she knew him, which is not firmly established. And was working with him, or through him. She sees him there, realizing he’s mouthing off. He’s a loose end, someone who’s outlived his usefulness and is now a liability.”
“So far that’s logical.”
She nodded, but didn’t stop pacing. “Okay, he spots her after he comes out of the privacy room with Hetta Moppett. Jerry has to worry now what he’s said. He could have bragged, even puffed up his own connection to impress the woman. Boomer’s smart enough to know he’s in trouble, takes off, goes underground. Hetta’s the first victim. She’s got to go because she might know something. She’s taken out quick, brutally, so it looks like a random rage hit. Her ID’s taken. That means it’ll take longer to trace her, connect her with the club and Boomer. If anyone cared to connect her, which was unlikely.”
“Except they didn’t count on you.”
“There’s that. Boomer’s got a sample, he’s got the formula. He had quick hands when he wanted them, and a skill for larceny. Judgment wasn’t his strong suit. Maybe he pressed for more money, a larger cut of the whole. But he was good at his job. Nobody knew he was a weasel but a handful of people connected to NYPSD.”
“And those who did wouldn’t have known how seriously and personally you take a partnership.” He cocked his head. “Under most circumstances, I’d say his death would have been chalked off to a soured drug deal, a revenge hit by one of his associates, and left at that.”
“True enough, but Jerry didn’t move quick enough. We found the stuff at Boomer’s, started to work on that angle. At the same time, I get a first-hand look at Pandora at work. You know the story there, and you’ve heard the rundown on the circumstances on the night of her death. Pinning Mavis with the crime was a stroke of luck, good and bad. It gave Jerry time, presented her with a convenient scapegoat.”
“A scapegoat who just happened to be near and dear to the primary’s heart.”
“That’s the bad luck. How many times am I going to walk into a case and know the most likely suspect is absolutely innocent? Despit
e all the evidence, despite everything? It’s just not going to happen.”
“I don’t know. It did with me a few months ago.”
“I didn’t know, I felt. After awhile, I knew.” She jammed her hands in her pockets, ripped them out again. “With Mavis I knew, from the get go, I knew. So I approached the entire case from a different angle. Now I see three potential suspects, all, as it turns out, with motive, with opportunity, and with means. One of those suspects, I begin to believe, is addicted to the very drug that started the ball rolling. Just when you think it’s safe to start assuming, a dealer on the East End is taken out. Same MO. Why? That’s a sticking point, Roarke, one I can’t clean up. They didn’t need Cockroach. The odds of Boomer trusting him with any data on this are so long they reach through the stratosphere. But he’s taken out, and there are traces of the drug in his system.”
“A ploy.” Roarke took out a cigarette and lighted it. “A distraction.”
For the first time in hours, she grinned. “That’s what I like about you. Your criminal mind. Toss in a red herring to confuse the issue. Leave the cops straining to find a logical connection with Cockroach. In the meantime, Redford’s manufacturing a variety of Immortality on his own, he’s given it to Jerry. Along with a hefty fee. But he got that back by bleeding her for every bottle of it from then on. A smart businessman, he’s gone to the trouble, taken the risk of procuring a specimen from the Eden Colony.”
“Two,” Roarke said and had the pleasure of seeing that intense face go blank.
“Two what?”
“He ordered two. I swung by Eden on my way back on planet, had a talk with Engrave’s daughter. I asked if she could find the time to do some cross-checking. Redford ordered his first specimen nine months ago, using another name and a forged license. But the ID numbers are the same. He had it shipped to a florist on Vegas II, one with a dubious reputation for dealing in contraband flora.” He paused to tap his ash into a marble bowl. “I’d say it was sent from there to a lab, where the nectar was distilled.”