Concealed in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Shelby and Mikki, they never got the same chance.”

  “I want to show you some other pictures.”

  Her hand tightened on Derrick’s. “The other girls.”

  “We have all but one identified. I wonder if you remember any of the others. Peabody.”

  “I just want to say, Ms. Moon, I admire what you’ve done. I admire someone who can take the pain and the hard from the past, and make it into the strong and the good. I just wanted to say.”

  “Thanks for that. It feels good to hear that.” Then she looked down at the rest of the pictures Peabody laid out.

  “Oh God. Oh God! That’s Iris there. Sweet Iris, oh God. And this one, she was in The Sanctuary with us. I don’t remember her name.”

  “Lupa Dison.”

  “Yes, Lupa. She was nice. Quiet, but nice. I know these faces, almost all. Not names of the others. I think I knew some of them on the street, either with Sebastian or just on their own. Mostly they’d have street names or made up ones anyway. I don’t remember this one at all.”

  Eve nodded when she touched Linh’s picture. “Okay.”

  “I’m sure of Iris, and this one. Lupa. And the one I told you I brought to Sebastian, and the one I sang with. We looked for Iris. I helped when I heard she’d left. She wasn’t . . . she was special, and Sebastian worried something would happen to her on her own. Something did.”

  “Yeah, something did. Lonna, would you be willing to work with a doctor? Someone who could help you remember what happened that night?”

  “No.” Derrick rapped his free fist on the tabletop. “She’s not doing that. She’s not letting someone poke around in her head, try to make her remember something that still makes her wake up crying some nights.”

  “I understand how you feel,” Eve said. “I know what it’s like to block something out, something bad and frightening. Something that comes back at you in dreams when you can’t block it so completely.”

  “Do you?” Lonna murmured.

  “Yeah. And I know what it’s like to have a man who loves me just want to make it stop. Just want me to have some peace. I know it can tear just as much at the one who has to hold you when you wake up from it. But it won’t stop until you pull it out, look at it square. It won’t just stop until you can look at it, then learn to deal with it.

  “You’re the only one we know of who survived. The only one who might have something buried down deep that can lead me to him so he can pay.”

  She took out a card, wrote Mira’s name and contact on it.

  “If you decide to do that, to dig down for it, look at it square, you contact this woman. I promise you she’s the best there is. She’ll take care because she’ll care.”

  “What I told you, what I do remember, is it enough to help?”

  “It is. You don’t have to give any more if you can’t.” She nudged the card closer. “This is for you, whether you talk to me again or not. Peabody’s right, you’ve made something good and strong.”

  She looked up at the stars on the ceiling. “And you’ve got a nice place here.”

  “You can come back sometime, have a real drink, see it at night, when it really shines.”

  “I might just.”

  She slid out of the booth, waited for Peabody to do the same.

  “Lieutenant? They were my friends. You have to find who hurt them.”

  “Working on it.”

  Outside as they walked back to the car, Eve tossed Peabody a look. “Your brain’s buzzing so loud I want to swat it. Spill.”

  “I’ve got more than one thing, but I guess I want to start saying you don’t usually—mostly ever—say something personal to a wit the way you did to her. About knowing what it’s like to block out something terrible, and have it come back at you anyway.”

  Eve let it hang between them until they’d gotten into the car, into the warm. “It felt okay with her. Okay on my side of it, the right thing on hers. It is personal, but sometimes you use the personal to lever off the lid of something.”

  “Do you still have nightmares?”

  “Not like I did.” And it wasn’t as hard to think about, Eve realized as she merged into traffic. “Hardly ever. I have weird dreams, talking to the dead.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  “Not really, not always. And it’s useful. Just another lever. See about Nash Jones. I want him in the box, and I’ve got just the lever to pry him open.”

  While Peabody tried to hook Nash Jones, Eve used the in-dash to contact Mira’s office.

  Mira’s dragon peered coolly from the screen. “Lieutenant.”

  “I need a few minutes with Dr. Mira.”

  “The doctor is in session. She has a meeting directly after, followed by a consult. Her day is booked, Lieutenant.”

  “Five minutes. Twelve dead girls and I need five minutes.”

  “I’ll get back to you when I find five minutes.”

  Eve bared her teeth at the screen as it went blank. “Who doesn’t have five fucking minutes? You’d think I was asking for an audience with God.”

  “Mira is her god,” Peabody pointed out. “And Nash Jones is also in session. Shivitz passed me to his assistant who said she’ll have him contact me as soon as he’s free. But also said his day was crowded.”

  “He’ll just have to make room.”

  Since without Nash Jones or Mira she had five minutes, Eve detoured to DeWinter’s lab.

  • • •

  She heard someone shouting as she walked in. Her hand went to the butt of her weapon, then released it again when she recognized elation rather than fear or violence.

  From the other direction she heard what sounded like a muffled explosion, followed by hysterical laughter.

  “What kind of madhouse is this?”

  “I think it’s kind of icy.” Peabody peered through glass walls, craned her neck to see over equipment. “But maybe you have to lean toward nerd to think it.”

  “You have to be neck-deep in nerd to think it. Like nerd quicksand. And why is it called quick anyway? In the vids people and unfortunate animals just sink slowly.”

  “Actually, you wouldn’t sink but float, unless you struggle.”

  Eve glanced to the left where some nerd—sex not quite apparent in the baggy lab coat and behind the fly-eye microgoggles—looked up from examining a jawbone.

  “What?”

  “Quicksand’s just ordinary sand that’s saturated with water to the point it can’t support weight, and it’s usually only a few feet deep. The grains lose their friction, being saturated. But if you can, just float on it because your body’s less dense than the quicksand.”

  “Okay, good to know. Next time I fall into some, I’ll remember that.”

  “But if the mixture contains clay, that’s a problem. The clay acts as a gel, so if you fell into it, the force would cause the gel to liquefy and bond the clay particles together.”

  The lab rat slapped one palm on the other. A good look at the hands determined male lab rat for Eve.

  “You could sink pretty deep. Then the force needed to pull you out would be about the same as to lift a car or small truck. The trick is to wiggle out, as the motion lets water seep in, so you’re back to floating.”

  “Okay then. I’m going to have to write all that down. Just in case.”

  To avoid more quicksand data, she got moving. “How do people know that stuff? Why do people know that stuff?”

  “Science,” Peabody said. “You can’t live without it.”

  Eve started to argue, then remembered she was on her way to nag a scientist.

  DeWinter wore the same weird little microgoggles, but her lab coat would never be called baggy. Today’s was hot pink and matched her skyscraper ankle boots.

  “I wondered if you’d make your way here today,”
she said without looking up from the bones on her steel table. “This is our last victim. COD remains the same. I put her age again between twelve and fourteen. Closer to fourteen, I believe, as there are signs of malnutrition. Her teeth indicate she had little professional dental care. Six cavities, apparently untreated, and two lost teeth, several others chipped or broken. Her right wrist had been broken in early childhood, probably around the age of five. It healed poorly, and likely troubled her.”

  Eve stepped in, studied the bones.

  “A more recent injury here. Hairline fracture, left ankle. Probably incurred a week to ten days prior to her death.”

  “Signs of abuse?”

  “The wrist, and this hairline again on the right elbow. From a fall, landing on the right. Certainly possible she was pushed. There’s considerable wear in the hips, the knees, for a person her age, indicating she did considerable walking, repetitive motion. And see the toes, how they overlap.”

  “Wearing shoes too small, like Shelby Stubacker.”

  “Yes.”

  “Street kid, and not a new one. She lived on the street for years.”

  “I tend to agree.”

  “How’s the facial reconstruction going on her? She’s the last of them.”

  “We can check. She couldn’t have run on that ankle.”

  “No, but she probably didn’t have the chance to try anyway.”

  “I got your e-mail,” DeWinter began as she removed the goggles. “While we’ve kept the media feed thin, with this last ID, I believe it’s time to open it up.”

  “I believe it’s not.”

  “Lieutenant, cooperation with the media can be very useful. Not only does it keep the public informed, as is their right, but the exposure of relevant data can and does generate interest, and interest can and does lead to information that can and does provide new leads.”

  Eve let her wind down so she could wind her back up. “First, I don’t care about keeping the public informed because right now, this is my business, not theirs. Second, I have a key interview yet to complete, and I don’t want information leaked that could bump up against that. When we have all identifications,” she continued, rolling right over DeWinter’s next pitch, “and if there’s any notification to be given to next of kin on the last vic, we can release their names.”

  She’d just make sure Nadine got the final names first.

  “You can do the release, make a statement, but”—Eve paused to drive the point home—“no information on my investigation is to be released. No components of the investigation, no discussion of potential suspects, motives, no release of COD.”

  “I’ve done this sort of thing before,” DeWinter said dryly.

  “Then it shouldn’t be a problem.” Eve glanced at the bones again. “But she comes first.”

  “Lieutenant.” Insult, with a thin coating of frustration, shimmered into her voice. “They matter to me, too. I hold their bones in my hands, I scrape at them, test them, incise them. To do that I have to keep . . .” DeWinter drew the flat of her hand down in front of her. “A certain separation. I have to focus on the science. But it doesn’t mean they don’t matter to me.

  “I can tell you about her.” She gestured. “How she walked and walked the streets in ill-fitting shoes, eating what she could find when she could find it. The pain her mouth gave her, those bad teeth aching and aching. The last week or so she lived, limping, her ankle swollen, bruised, miserable. I think she had a very, very hard life. Her death, the method of it, was almost kinder. Wrong and immoral and unfair, but almost kinder than the life she lived.”

  “Maybe it was. I can’t disagree with you, but her death, the method of it, the mind and hands behind it, have to stay on top for me. The public’s right to know doesn’t even come close.”

  “You have a suspect,” DeWinter realized. “You have someone in your sights.”

  “I need her face, her name. I need to complete an interview. With those, it’s possible this will break. Until then, I have lots of suspects.”

  “I’d like to know who—”

  “Why did you steal the dog?” Eve interrupted.

  “What?”

  “The dog. You were charged a few years back for dognapping.”

  “I didn’t steal the dog. I released it from its neglectful owner who kept it chained outside, summer and winter, with no shelter, who often forgot to feed it or give it fresh water. And”—oh, she was wound up now—“who told me when I spoke to him about it to mind my own fucking business, using that word in front of my little girl.”

  “Nice,” Eve commented.

  “One day instead of taking food and water over to the dog when the abusive, ignorant, disgusting excuse for a human who owned it was out—probably getting drunk, again—I took over bolt cutters. Then I took the dog to the vet.”

  “You got charged.”

  “Because I refused to give the dog back to him. The dog needed to stay at the vet to be treated for dehydration, malnutrition, fleas, mange, among other issues.”

  “Aw.” Peabody’s dark eyes filled with sympathy. “Poor thing.”

  “Yes! I refused to say where the dog was, and the pathetic man called the police. I was charged with taking the dog, and when the dog was examined, he was charged with animal abuse. That was satisfying.”

  “What happened to the dog?” Eve wondered.

  “We named him Bones, my daughter’s idea.” She smiled now. “He’s healthy, sweet-natured, and enjoying living in New York.”

  She pulled out her pocket ’link, swiped, then held it up. On screen sat a sleek brown dog with floppy ears and a dopey look in his eyes.

  “He’s so cute!” Peabody exclaimed.

  “He is now, and worth the arrest and the fine.”

  “If you’d’ve called the cops, you’d have avoided the arrest and the fine,” Eve pointed out.

  “Maybe, but I was too mad. And I enjoyed breaking Bones out of jail. So, now that we’ve settled that, about the media—” She broke off as her pocket ’link played a bar of—of all things—one of Mavis’s current hits. “That’s my girl’s signal.”

  “We’ll head over to Kendrick.”

  “I’ll be a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

  “I hate when people are mean to animals,” Peabody said as they headed out.

  “The guy was obviously an asshole,” Eve said, “but taking the dog that way? It’s playing vigilante and shows a little problem with impulse control.”

  “Maybe, but Bones sure looked happy. You’re really not going to tell her the theory?” Peabody glanced back as they turned toward Elsie Kendrick’s area.

  “I don’t know her well enough to trust her, and don’t know if I’ll trust her when I do know her well enough.”

  She walked in to find Elsie working at a control panel. “Hey. I’ve just about got her. Just fine-tuning.”

  “These are really mag.” Peabody turned from the sketches pinned to Elsie’s board. “They’re really beautiful. I wonder if maybe we could have copies for the ones who had somebody. Their parents or guardians, who cared about them.”

  “I can make copies, sure.”

  “That’s a good thought, Peabody.”

  “Here’s our last girl.” Elsie set the controls for the holographic reconstruction.

  Eve watched it shimmer into three dimensions.

  Not such a pretty girl, this one. A thin face, a little hollow on one side—the missing teeth, she thought. The eyes seemed hollow as well, a little sunken.

  “Peabody.”

  “Running it for match now, sir.”

  “She’s not in the Missing Persons file. Nobody reported her, but then, from the forensics, she’d been on the street a long time.”

  “It looks like it,” Elsie agreed. “She didn’t have an easy time of it.�
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  “Nothing’s popping,” Peabody put in.

  “Keep running it. Elsie, can you make a copy of this, then do another? Can you do the reverse-age thing? Take her back about, let’s say, three years.”

  “I can do that, good thought. Just hold on.”

  Eve took the copy, stuck it in Peabody’s file bag, then watched as their Jane Doe morphed into a younger girl. Just a little more fat in the cheeks, a little more symmetry.

  “Copy that, too. I’ll run this one.”

  “I can do a lateral search and match while you are,” Elsie told her. “One of us should hit.”

  But they didn’t.

  “Maybe I went off,” Elsie began.

  “I doubt it. You were on the nail with the other eleven. We’ll widen the search. Peabody, copy both images to EDD, ask Feeney to do a global. It’ll be faster going through EDD.”

  “I’ll keep it running here, too. If you find her, send me her name. I feel—I don’t know why—more with this girl.”

  “Maybe because it feels like she never really had anyone.”

  “Maybe.” Elsie nodded at Eve.

  Back in the car, Eve headed for Central. “Give Jones another push. He’s got to be out of whatever he was in by now. No, I’ll do it. Hit them with rank.”

  She used the in-dash, put cold cop on her face.

  “Higher Power Cleansing Center for Youths. How can I help you today?”

  “This is Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. I need to speak with Nashville Jones immediately.”

  “Oh! Just one moment, please, I’ll transfer you. Have a positive day.”

  “Yeah, yeah. People are always saying shit like that,” Eve complained to Peabody. “Have a good day, have a happy day, have a peaceful day or whatever. I’d rather have a kick-ass day.”

  “That should be your sign-off.”

  “Mr. Jones’s office, this is Lydia. How can I serve you today?”