Concealed in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Putting them there helps her find them.”

  “I’m very glad that’s not my job.”

  “And she sees them, too, Garnet. She sees the dead, just as you and I do.”

  • • •

  Eve saw them now, as she started out of the maze, the ones whose faces she knew.

  “I hope you’re right about the tranqing,” Peabody said. “It wouldn’t have been so painful and terrifying that way.”

  “Lieutenant!”

  Eve stopped, looked back to see Elsie Kendrick waddling—that was the only word for it—down the wide steps to the lower-level lab.

  “I’m glad I caught you. I have two more.” She offered both disc and hard copies. “I should have at least another two by the end of the day.”

  “Fast work.”

  “I set it on auto for a few hours last night, just bunked here.” She rubbed circles on her truly enormous belly. “I’ve never done so many from one case. I can’t get them out of my head. Would you send me their names, like you did the others? I want their names.”

  “You’ll have them when we do. Good work, and thanks.”

  She handed Peabody the disc as they continued out, and studied the computer-generated sketches.

  “I know these two, they were on my Missing Persons search list. Pull up the file I sent you. They’re both in there.”

  And two more of the pretty young girls had faces, had names.

  She went back to central, to her office, to put those names and faces on her board. Both of them runaways, with LaRue Freeman fresh out of a stint at juvie for theft, and Carlie Bowen circling the foster system after being removed from an abusive home.

  Their stories were all too typical, Eve thought as she scanned their files. A short, hard life with too much of it spent on the streets.

  Neither of them had been registered at The Sanctuary or HPCCY.

  Still, it didn’t mean they weren’t somehow connected. Street kids had networks, she thought as she began to run cross-checks. Networks could become gangs. But even on a lesser level street kids, like most kids, tended to form packs.

  Both Shelby and LaRue had done time in juvie—not together, she noted, but . . . and there it was.

  Both had had the same CPS caseworker. Odelle Horwitz no longer worked for CPS—nothing unusual there, Eve thought as she grabbed coffee while the current data generated.

  Social workers burned out faster than a struck match.

  Horwitz, age forty-two, on her second marriage, one offspring, now managed a flower shop on the Upper East Side.

  Maybe she’d remember something, maybe she wouldn’t, but it was worth the contact. She turned to her ’link.

  She’d ended the interview, had grabbed her coat when Baxter rapped on her doorjamb. “Got a minute, boss?”

  “About that.”

  He stepped in on his high-gloss shoes. The detective had a wardrobe more typical of Wall Street than Homicide, but she’d take him and his fancy suits through the door with her anytime, anywhere.

  “Trueheart and I caught one yesterday, a double slice and dice in the theater district.”

  “Those auditions are a bloodbath.”

  He laughed. “Funny you should mention it, because it looks pretty much just like that.”

  He gave her a brief outline of two actors competing for the same part in a new production. Now one of them, along with his cohab, was in the morgue.

  “The other guy, his alibi’s solid. He was onstage playing Gino in a revival of West Side Story. Reviews are mixed, but there were a couple hundred people in the audience, plus the cast and crew who can all verify he was dancing with the Sharks at TOD.”

  “There’s dancing sharks?”

  He started to laugh again, then realized she wasn’t kidding. “The Sharks—and the Jets. They’re rival gangs, LT. The play’s like a Romeo and Juliet takeoff, but set in New York. Rival gangs, first love, violence, friendship and loyalty, singing, dancing.”

  “Yeah, those street gangs are always breaking into song and dancing on their way to the next beat down.”

  “I guess you’ve got to see it to get it.”

  “Fine. So the competing actor’s clear. He just got lucky?”

  “We’re looking hard at his boyfriend. He claims he was backstage during the performance, which would put him clear. And he’s got some cover from some people who say they saw him. But the play runs a couple hours and he could’ve slipped off. We worked out the timing. Crime scene’s a five-minute walk from the theater. Half that at a decent jog. He’s got no priors, we’ve got no murder weapon, no wits. No security on the building. It’s half a dump. But my gut, my nose—hell, my toned and manly ass—says he did it.”

  “Bring him in, sweat it out of him.”

  “Plan on it. I want Trueheart to take him.”

  She had a lot of respect for Officer Trueheart, despite the few smudges of green still left on him. “No wits, no weapon, a reasonable alibi, and you want Trueheart to get the guy to say he sliced up two people so his boyfriend could get a part in a play?”

  “It’s the lead.” Baxter smiled. “And the thing is, the guy got that look in his eye for Trueheart when we interviewed him.”

  “What look?”

  “The ‘I’d like to take you out to lunch, eat the main course off your hard yet sensitive abs, and have you for dessert.’”

  “I didn’t need that picture in my head, Baxter.”

  “You asked.”

  Well, she supposed she had. “If you think Trueheart can bust him—and not because you think it’ll look good when Trueheart takes his detective’s exam next month—do it.”

  “He can bust him, and it’ll look good. And it’ll boost his confidence going into the exam. It’s an all-around win.” He paused a moment, looked at her board. “You ID’d two more.”

  “This morning, yeah. You keeping track?”

  “We all are. And we’re all up for OT if you need it.”

  “It’s appreciated. Count on me letting you know. Now go wrap this guy up.”

  She walked out with him, signaled Peabody. “With me.”

  “I’ve got next of kin on the last two vics. Freeman, father unknown, mother doing her second stint for assault, with a side of illegals. This one in Joliet. There’s an aunt in Queens, she’s the one who filed the report.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “The older sister filed the one on Bowen,” Peabody added as she struggled into her puffy coat.

  “Both parents have been guests of the state,” Eve continued as they made their way down to the garage. “Older sister had filed for custody when she was only eighteen. It was working its way through the system, the kid in foster.”

  “The sister runs a sandwich shop with her husband.” Now the scarf—a mile of bright green, wrapping, wrapping around Peabody’s neck, then tucking into some sort of complicated twist. “Midtown spot. Two kids. Sealed juvie record on her, and a minor bump for him. They’ve been clear for about fifteen years.”

  “When her kid sister went missing. We’ll talk to them, and the aunt in Queens.”

  “Sandwich shop would be an efficient stop—interview, lunch, all together.”

  Eve calculated the timing. “You do that. I’ll drop you off at the sister’s place on my way to check out this Frester character. You can contact the aunt, and we’ll decide if it’s worth doing a linkup with the mother. We’ll hook up back at the crime scene. I want another walk-through.”

  “I’ll pick you up some takeout. What do you want?”

  “Surprise me.”

  The doorman at the hotel had obviously gotten the memo. He might have given a cop a little grief about leaving her vehicle in front of the grand edifice of the premier hotel, but for Roarke’s wife, he rolled out the red carpet.

  It wa
s a little bit annoying.

  Still it saved time, as did her stop at the front desk—memo also received. With a security guard as escort, she breezed through the checkpoints for the ballroom event, and straight inside.

  Talk about grand. The glint of crystals dripping from chandeliers that managed to look Old World and futuristic at once, the gleam of white marble with silver veining, walls smoky gray to set off the black shine of trim and cornices.

  About five hundred people at her estimate sat around big round tables draped in dark gray cloth with a navy underlayer. Servers moved silent as wraiths to clear dessert plates or serve coffee, pour fizzy water into glasses.

  Lemont Frester stood on the wide front stage, a huge screen behind him showing him with various luminaries from Hollywood, music, politics. Mixed in were images of him speaking to prisoners, addicts, youth groups. Or pictures of him dressed for a hike with forested mountains around him, looking pensive and pious staring out at the roll of blue seas, on the back of a white horse in some golden desert.

  They all had one common link. Lemont Frester was the focus.

  His voice rolled out, as ripe and fruity as a basket of oranges. He practices, she thought: the rhythm, the punch words, the gestures, the expressions, the pause for a bit of laughter or approving applause.

  He wore a three-piece suit, directly between the shades of the room’s walls and table linen. She wondered if he’d had it made for just that purpose, along with the tie of pale gray chevrons on navy.

  Too perfect a match for happenstance, which was usually bullshit anyway. And a man who’d order his wardrobe to coordinate with a speaking arena, or vice versa, had a towering ego, a tsunamic vanity.

  She didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way his eyes glinted, his voice rolled, his suit matched. Didn’t like the sense that he was on the same level as one of those pay-as-you-pray evangelists who banged the good-looking faithful on the side, and scammed the money from susceptible old women.

  But not liking him didn’t make him a murderer.

  She listened with half an ear. He talked of not just overcoming his addictions, his flaws, what he called the dark child inside him—he’d triumphed over it. And the audience could, too. They could all lead strong, productive lives (that included world travel, Eve supposed, and fancy suits), could counsel others, even the darkest inner child, to win the desperate personal battle.

  The answers, the solutions, the checklists were all handily contained in his latest book package, which included a disc compilation of homilies and highlights. And all that for the bargain price of a hundred and thirty-eight dollars, only twenty bucks more for the autographed package.

  A steal, Eve thought. Oh yeah, Frester was robbing people blind, and not one of them appeared to mind a bit.

  Her ’link signaled. She pulled it out, found a voice mail from Roarke, switched it to text only.

  I’m between meetings, briefly, and assume you are as well. Mavis and her family will be coming over tonight for drinks and a casual dinner. It’ll do us all good. I’ve put it on your calendar, but as we both know I might as well write it on air.

  Take care of my cop until I see you, then I’ll look out for her.

  She had a moment of wondering why he’d asked their friends over when she was in the middle of a very ugly case, then remembered they’d talked of it the night before.

  But that was then, with all the Christmas and champagne haze.

  Still, she decided, it probably would do her good. Especially since Mavis had been a street kid, living on the grift for several years. An expert consultant, she decided, and immediately sent a text to her friend, asking if they could come maybe a half hour earlier and for Mavis to come up to her office.

  Couple questions on a case I’m working. Street kids. Want to poke in your memory for more insight. See you tonight. Dallas.

  So, she’d combine hanging with friends with work. The perfect, for her, compromise.

  She did a little more multitasking while Frester took questions, sending an e-mail to Mira, with DeWinter’s findings on COD attached.

  Waiting to interview a possible suspect. Question. Murder by drowning, multiple cases—very likely in the tub of The Sanctuary dorms. Not a practical method, comparatively. Possible kill thrill—hands on, face-to-face. But possibly symbolic? Washed clean maybe. Submerged. Listening to asshole speak on submerging dark inner child, makes me wonder about that angle.

  Some sort of ritual maybe?

  Would you explore this area, or am I going off?

  Dallas

  Before putting it away, Eve began the laborious—to her—process of using her ’link to order her office comp to begin researching ritual drownings and submerging.

  Then she walked to the side of the ballroom to work her way down toward the stage as the time slotted for the Q&A section ran down.

  A hard-eyed female security type in a snug suit that set off an impressive rack stepped in front of her. Eve merely held out her badge, returning hard eye for hard eye.

  “You’re not cleared. Mr. Frester is engaged directly after this event. You’ll need to contact his first assistant or his lawyer.”

  “Or I can make a cop scene right here, in the middle of said event. I bet that’ll cut into the sales of the inspirational packages.”

  “I’ll need to speak directly with your superior.”

  “Here and now I am my superior. Now step aside or I’ll arrest you for interfering with a police officer in the course of her duties, with a side of obstruction of justice and a sprinkle of being a pain in my ass.”

  Hard eye grew harder. “We’re going to take this outside.”

  She clamped a hand on Eve’s arm.

  Eve smiled, toothily. “Now you’ve done it. You just added assaulting an officer to the menu of choices.”

  With her free hand, Eve swung the woman toward the wall, took an elbow in the gut with enough force behind it to make her grunt. And to make her think just how much she’d enjoy knowing Big Rack Security Bitch did some time in holding.

  “You’re now officially under arrest.” Eve put some force behind her own next move, and shoved the woman’s face to the wall, then grabbed the wrist of the hand that reached down for the stunner clipped to her waist.

  “And it gets better and better,” she said as people at the nearby tables began to react with alarm and movement.

  “Police,” Eve said clear and firm, as she yanked the woman’s arms behind her back. “You’re going to want to stay in your seats.”

  The woman had some skill, or so Eve thought when she managed to shift her weight, get one arm free, and use it for a back fist Eve couldn’t quite avoid.

  It glanced off her cheekbone and sent out some angry sparks of pain.

  “You’re just asking for it.”

  She kicked the woman’s feet out from under her, planted a knee in the small of her back, and restrained her arms behind her.

  She glanced up as a beefy male security type trotted up.

  “Police,” she repeated, and since it was the easiest way, and a little more dignified, she rose, exchanged knee for boot, flashed her badge.

  The man’s demeanor changed instantly. Another memo received, she imagined. “Lieutenant Dallas. What can I do to help?”

  “Hotel security?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’d say this event is over. If you could see that Mr. Frester is brought to me in whatever room or area is most convenient, and systematically clear this room, I’ll arrange for the prisoner to be transported to Central.”

  “She attacked me!” Big Rack bucked under Eve’s boot. “I was doing my job, and she attacked me.”

  Eve simply pointed to her aching cheek, then drew out the grip of the stunner she’d managed to dump in her coat pocket during the scuffle. “Hers, which she tried to draw on me. You’d have s
ecurity feed in here. My arrest will hold up.”

  “I’ll take care of it right away.”

  With a nod, Eve pulled out her communicator and called for the closest unit to report to her location for prisoner transport.

  All in all, she decided, it made up nicely for the doorman’s red carpet treatment.

  • • •

  They set her up in a meeting room that held a round table with a half dozen chairs, a two-seater sofa, a jumbo wall screen, and a nice view of the great park in its current frigid glory.

  They’d brought in coffee service, so what the hell, she poured some, drank it while she went over her notes.

  Frester glided in—flanked by two suits, one male, one female. All three were polished to high gloss—with him the shiniest.

  He radiated smiles and good fellowship, which just put her off.

  “The famous Lieutenant Dallas!” He shot out a hand accented by a gold pinky ring with a fat ruby.

  She didn’t get pinky rings or people who wore them.

  He pumped her hand three times, firm grip, soft palm.

  “I wasn’t in town for the vid premiere, but I enjoyed the book, and watched the vid at a private screening last month. Marvelous! Clones.” He lifted his hands toward the ceiling, palms up. “I’d have sworn it was science fiction, but you actually lived through the entire thing.”

  “Just another day on the job. Have a seat, Mr. Frester,” she said when he let out a barking laugh. Eve gave his two companions a once-over. “Do you feel the need for bodyguards during this interview?”

  “Standard procedure, I’m afraid.” He did the hand lift again, pulled out a chair. “Those of us in the public eye, as you know, can draw the wrong kind of . . . enthusiasm, we’ll say. Greta is also an attorney, so . . .”

  Eve only lifted her eyebrows as he trailed off. “That’s fine, simple. Since you have a legal rep in the room, I’ll just read you your rights, then we’re all covered.”

  “My rights? Why—”

  “So . . .” She mimicked him, then recited the Revised Miranda. “Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter, Mr. Frester?”