Concealed in Death

by J. D. Robb

  She wasn’t on the resident list Philadelphia had given her. To be sure, she contacted CPS, then wheedled, browbeat, and nagged the overworked and unlucky social worker who answered to dig into the archives.

  There’d been a file on Kim Terrance—some truancy, some shoplifting. Counseling for her and her mother both times the mother had run with the kid to a women’s shelter.

  And both times the mother had gone back, dragging the kid into the hot hell their lives must have been. A pattern, Eve thought, too often repeated. At least the vic’s mother had finally broken the chain, but not until she’d lost her kid to the streets, scraped herself off the bottom of her personal barrel.

  And all too late, Eve thought, too late for the kid to trust the woman who’d boomeranged back to the man who beat her, who took swipes at the child they’d made together. Too late for the kid to care about the fear and self-loathing that kept a woman tied to an abusive man, too late to care about breaking the pattern, turning the corner.

  Too late for her to ever grow into her face.

  She finished up her notes. Not a churchgoer like Lupa or Carlie. Not a girl taking a shot at rebellious independence like Linh. Not, from the accounts, as hardened or tough as Shelby.

  More like Mikki, Eve supposed. Sick of it all.

  She spent some time on the ’link, tugging some threads, snipping off others. Then, because it nagged at her, checked Peabody’s data on Montclair Jones.

  The youngest of the four, he’d barely made it to twenty-three. Seven-year gap between him, Eve noted, and Philadelphia. Homeschooled like his siblings, but unlike Nash and Philadelphia he hadn’t taken a spin through the public sector for the certification in social work.

  Unlike sister Selma, nearly thirteen years his senior, he hadn’t traveled, then planted himself far away, made a family.

  She dug back, shoved forward, shoved sideways.

  When Peabody came in, Eve held up a hold-on-a-minute finger, continued to talk on her ’link.

  “I appreciate the help, Sergeant Owusu.”

  “It is my pleasure to assist you in any way.”

  Peabody angled her head to see the face that matched the crisp and musical voice. “I will speak with my grandfather and my uncle. If there is more information I will contact you. Good evening to you, Lieutenant.”

  “And to you, Sergeant.”

  “What was that? Who was that?”

  “Sergeant Alika Owusu, of the Republic of Zimbabwe Police and Security Department.”

  “No freaking shit! You were talking to Africa?”

  “A small part of it.”

  “What time is it there? Did you hear any lions or elephants or anything?”

  “She was on the night shift, which was lucky considering I don’t know what the hell time it is there because I’m here. I didn’t hear any roaring, or anyone screaming as they were being mauled by the local wildlife.”

  “I’d like to see an elephant,” Peabody said thoughtfully. “Not in a wildlife refuge, but in its natural habitat. And I’d like to hear a hyena, even thought they’re supposed to be mean and crazy. I’d like—”

  She finally caught Eve’s stony stare.

  “Anyway enough about that. You’re on the idea of Montclair Jones.”

  “I want more clear intel on it, that’s all. I managed to track the sergeant down. She was a girl when the whole lion-eating-man deal happened. She remembers Jones a little—remembers better what was left of him after the lion, which her grandfather killed.”

  “Aw.” The romantic safari building in Peabody’s head shattered. “I know, man-eater, but still. It’s just the nature of the beast, right?”

  “Rogue man-eating lion, small village with tiny, tiny children, slow old ladies, and hapless pets. Lion loses.”

  “I guess. But she confirmed Jones was lion chow?”

  “She confirmed there was an incident, and a missionary named Montclair Jones who worked in the area was attacked and killed.”

  “Which jibes with his siblings’ story, and the official data.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “It bugs me, that’s all. Biggest sister Selma, goes off on missions, finds her place in Australia, marries a sheepherder. Why do people herd sheep?”

  “You’re wearing a wool jacket.”

  “I am?”

  “Soft,” Peabody said reverently as she snuck a stroke down the sleeve.

  “Hands off. Anyway, she’s herding sheep, making babies, and younger brother and younger sister are getting college degrees, doing missions, and eventually pooling their resources to buy the building on Ninth and found The Sanctuary.

  “Some of those resources, FYI, come from a small inheritance, and a share of the sale of the family home after the mother’s suicide, and after the father sells the home to go on a mission.”

  “I saw the self-termination in the file,” Peabody commented. “It looked, from what I scanned, she’d had bouts of depression since her final pregnancy.”

  “Popping one out when you’ve got three—one’s a teenager—and you’re rounding the bag to fifty sounds depressing to me.”

  “I don’t . . . On second thought,” Peabody considered, “it kind of does.”

  “So both mother and youngest son have some treatment for depression, anxiety. And baby brother sticks close to home until Mom opens the veins in her wrists. After, he lives with Jones and Jones. He didn’t go for any higher ed or certification—did one youth group mission to Haiti at eighteen. And never went to any out of the country again.”

  “That all sounds depressing, too.”

  “Probably, but the mother had a history of emotional and mental challenges, ending with her offing herself with the classic slit wrists in the bathtub.”

  “It’s less messy, and the hot water helps numb. But bathtub.” A little glint shone in Peabody’s eyes. “I didn’t go back that far.”

  “It’s a standard self-termination style, especially for females, but the bathtub’s a little bell. From what I can tell he did mostly scut work at The Sanctuary. Some cooking, cleaning, repairs, assisting in classes or groups. No real authority.”

  She rose, tapping the old ID photo of Montclair Jones she’d put on her board. “Then, about the time we’ve got twelve dead girls tucked between the walls at The Sanctuary building, his sibs send him off to Africa.

  “He’d traveled before that one time, on the missionary trail, but never again out of the States, never alone, never without one of the sibs or an experienced associate.” Eve shook her head. “The timing sure is interesting.”

  “But if they knew, they’d have gotten rid of the bodies,” Peabody insisted. “And I don’t know how they could’ve just kept quiet all this time, or gone cruising along knowing all those girls were in that building.”

  “Hangs me up a little, too. But the time line . . . If he were here, if he still lived and worked here, he’d be number one on my list. So, for now, he’s number one on my look-a-little-harder list. What did you get?”

  “A big goose egg. There’s no connection I can find linking the latest two vics ID’d with The Sanctuary, HPCCY, Nash, Philadelphia, any of them.”

  Eve nodded, as she’d laid the same goose egg. “We have the Korean market linking Shelby and Linh. We’re going to find other connections, just that nebulous. I’m taking this home. I need to spread it out, shuffle it up, look at it from other angles.”

  “Did you notify next of kin on the latest?”

  “I talked to her mother. She didn’t know any of the other vics, never heard of The Sanctuary.”

  “How’d she handle it?”

  “Glazed over some,” Eve said as she packed up what she wanted. “But toughed it out. She’ll claim the remains when we’re clear with them. I backtracked, too, and got the data on Jubal Craine. His wife killed him, set
their barn on fire with him in it.”

  “She must’ve been very upset.”

  “Apparently she got a little ticked off when he beat the crap out of her, yet again. But according to everything I can find, he was alive and well, and in fricking Nebraska during September of ’forty-five. And since his daughter didn’t slip the leash again until November of that year, he didn’t have any reason to come back here.”

  “You didn’t really think he’d killed them.”

  “No, mostly because I don’t think he’d have spent all that time in godless New York, or if he had, any of those girls would’ve gone with him without a serious fight.” She yanked on her coat. “But it was a loose end.”

  “McNab’s on the hunt for DeLonna and T-Bone. We’ll probably take that home, too.”

  “If he finds them, either of them, I want to know asap.”

  She carted the file discs, headed out.

  Deliberately, she drove home through the insane circus of Times Square. She studied the packs of teenagers, the packs of girls she gauged to be on the cusp of their teens or just over the line.

  She’d never sought out a pack, alone had suited her. Too much bouncing from place to place in the beginning in any case, she thought, even if she’d been inclined to the pack mentality.

  But she understood she represented the exception.

  They looked alike, she noted, streaming along under the flooding, jittery light that kept the dark away and invited everyone to the endless party. Their coats, hats, scarves, gloves might be different colors, but a definite style ribboned through most. Clunky boots that must have weighed like anchors, bright pants worn tight, bright coats worn big, hats with long ties flopping.

  They sucked on tubes of fizzies, yammered on ’links, chowed on warm, soft pretzels they tore apart and shared.

  And they stuck together as if hooked by invisible wires.

  Boys scattered through some of the groups of older girls, but the younger ones—the vics’ age range—largely stuck with their own kind. Not only gender, she saw now, but class.

  She picked out huddles of cheaper boots, thinner coats, most of them hatless with streaks of color through their hair rather than their wardrobe.

  She spotted one helping herself to some scarves while her two partners kept the vendor busy on the other side of the stall. She watched the handoff to the girl doing a brisk walk-by before Light Fingers wandered around to her friends, all innocence and empty pockets.

  Would they wear them, sell them?

  Then the light changed, and she drove on.

  You couldn’t pull them all in, couldn’t chase them all down, couldn’t wrap them all up in the system so they came out the better for it.

  Some, as Roarke had, were just surviving, taking what they could from the streets so they’d have food in their bellies or enough to catch a vid. Others just looked for a quick thrill, some noise, some movement, with them so much in the center.

  And all of them thought they’d live forever.

  She left the crowds, the noise, the jittery lights behind, and drove toward home.

  The elves had definitely paid another visit, she thought as she studied the house. It looked like some elegantly wrapped gift with its starry lights, countless wreaths, flowing greenery.

  A long way, she thought, a long, long way from the single spindly tree Mavis had pushed on her every year.

  “Mavis.” She said it out loud. “Crap, crap. I forgot.” She glanced at the time, winced, then grabbed her file bag.

  If they were already here, Summerset would have something snide to say. Hell, he’d have something snide to say anyway, but she’d deserve it—a little—if they were already here.

  And she needed a few minutes to get upstairs, update her board. A few minutes to just sit and think.

  She stopped herself from dashing inside—it would look as if she knew she ran late—that she cared she ran late. Instead, she sauntered in.

  He stood there, of course, looming in black—but she didn’t hear voices.

  “Fortunately for you, your guests are running a bit late,” Summerset told her. “And had the courtesy to contact me to let me know.”

  “Not a guest.” She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it over the newel post so he could scowl at it. “Don’t answer to you.”

  Grateful they were later than she was, she saved any insults on cadaverous looks for another time, and jogged up the stairs with the cat on her heels.

  She went straight to her office, hit the house search. “Where’s Roarke?”

  Roarke has not yet arrived.

  “Even better.”

  With some luck she’d get her board updated, get one hit of coffee while she studied it, and let her brain circle around.

  She tried a new system, live girls front, remains back.

  On the front she pinned parents, guardians, the staff of The Sanctuary.

  She connected Shelby and Linh, Shelby and Mikki. Shelby, Mikki, and Lupa, as they’d all been in residence together whether or not they’d interacted.

  She pinned Seraphim as a girl, and as an adult. Another connection.

  She got the coffee, sipped while she circled, changed photos, took another hard look at the tubs, the bathroom areas where she believed the girls had died.

  She sat at her desk, propped up her boots, and studied some more.

  Mikki went looking for Shelby, that played for her. Had Shelby already been dead? They didn’t die together or they’d have been hidden together. No, Shelby and Linh, they’d died together, and very likely on the night, or near to it, they’d stopped in the market next door.

  Lupa, Carlie Bowen, LaRue Freeman. Next group, stacked together. Had he killed them all in one night? Why the rush? And a lot to take on.

  But it’s his sanctuary now, so there is no rush.

  Time line again. Three days between Lupa going missing and Carlie Bowen. Not killed together, concealed together. With LaRue possibly between. She was listed as Victim Four. After Lupa, she thought, before Carlie.

  But no other connection between them yet come to light.

  What did he—

  She glanced over as the cat jumped off her desk, and watched him pad his pudgy way over to Roarke.

  “You’re later than me.”

  “So I’ve been told.” He studied her face as he crossed to her, then stroked a fingertip gently down her bruised cheek. “As I was told about this?”

  “Huh? How? Oh, your security guy?”

  “Yes. One of Frester’s private security, was it?”

  “She objected to my presence. I objected when she put hands on me and actually tried to pull her stunner. She objected when I pushed her face to the wall—and she got in one lucky backfist—just caught the cheekbone.”

  “So I see.” Now he brushed his lips over the bruise.

  “She really objected when I put her on the ground and cuffed her. So I won.”

  “There’s the upside,” he said. “Still, it could use a cold pack.”

  “Maybe later. Mavis should be up here soon. I wanted to talk to her about street kids, girl packs. Girl packs now, ice packs later.”

  “Hmm. You’ve identified more, I see.”

  “Yeah. I was going to update you, but I guess it should wait for later. We’ve still got five more outstanding. I’ve made some connections, and I’m trying some new angles.”

  “Such as this.” He tapped Montclair Jones’s photo. “Lion fodder.”

  “Yeah. The timing bothers me, so I’m just playing around with it. The timing, his lack of real work or apparently any desire for it. His mother’s suicide—slit wrists, bathtub. His treatment for depression like his mother.”

  “He’s your top suspect. I can hear it.”

  Damn it, she thought when she jammed her hands in her pockets, he was.
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  “He just fits. But I can’t interview him, I can’t look at his eyes. I can’t know it. I can tell you Shelby Stubacker forged docs to skip out of the home. Jones claims he didn’t sign the doc, and I’m having the signature tested. Nobody knows who took her out, if she walked out on her own, what. It was all moving-out-and-in confusion.”

  “You think she had help.”

  “I think she was pretty canny, but where does a kid get the document paper, because it looked legit at a glance. How does she know what documents, what paperwork? The judge’s name on it, real. The caseworker, real. I think a girl who knows how to trade blow jobs for brew knows how to trade for information and documentation. Montclair Jones was early twenties, young enough to be stupid. Well, men are stupid about blow jobs.”

  “It’s difficult to resist challenging you to prove that. I believe my intelligent quotient can stand the test.”

  “Even you, pal, lose brain cells when your dick’s involved. But let’s stick with Jones, the younger. She bartered bjs for favors. He could have gotten her the doc paper, the names. Nobody’s going to say anything if he goes into his brother’s office, right?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m having difficulty understanding. I was thinking about my penis.”

  “Funny. And probably true.”

  She got up again, circled again. “You ran with a pack. Would you have just ditched them, taken off on your own?”

  In the end, he supposed he had. “Some are more loyal than others.”

  “Yeah, I get that, too, but the instinct, if you’ve formed a pack, is to keep it. I wonder if she planned on getting the others out. Could she have had the idea they’d all flop back in the old building? Familiar place, but without the rules, the supervision. Before she can follow through, she’s dead. This one gets reinstated with her rehabilitated mother.”

  Eve tapped Mikki’s photo. “The last thing she’d want if she had plans to hunker up with her friends. Before long, she takes off from there, and violently.”

  “And if she’d been meeting or intended to meet Shelby at the building . . .”

  “She’d walk right in, and she’s dead.”