Witness in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Then the perp had to wait.” Peabody narrowed her eyes. “Wait, and count on no one making the switch through the next courtroom scene, through the dialogue and action. Wait out the play until Christine Vole grabs it up and uses it. That’s about thirty minutes. A long time to wait.”

  “Our killer’s patient, systematic. I think he or she enjoyed the wait, watching Draco prance around, emoting, drawing applause, all the while knowing it was his last act. I think the killer reveled in it.”

  Eve set down her coffee, sat on the edge of her desk. “Roarke said something last night. Life imitates art.”

  Peabody scratched her nose. “I thought it was the opposite.”

  “Not this time. Why this play? Why this time? There were easier, less risky, more subtle ways to off Draco. I’m thinking the play itself meant something to the killer. The theme of love and betrayal, of false faces. Sacrifice and revenge. The characters of Leonard and Christine Vole have a history. Maybe Draco had a history with his killer. Something that goes back into the past that twisted their relationship.”

  Feeney nodded, munched on a handful of nuts. “A lot of the players and techs had worked with him before. Theater’s like a little world, and the people in it bump into each other over and over.”

  “Not a professional connection. A personal one. Look, Vole comes off charming, handsome, even a little naive, until you find out he’s a heartless, ruthless opportunist. From what we’ve uncovered, this mirrors Draco. So who did he betray? Whose life did he ruin?”

  “From the interviews, he fucked over everybody.” McNab lifted his hands. “Nobody’s pretending they loved the guy.”

  “So we go deeper. We go back. I want you to run the players. Look for the history. Something that pops out. Vole destroyed a marriage or relationship, ruined someone financially. Seduced someone’s sister. Setback their career. You look for the data,” she told McNab and Feeney. “Peabody and I will chip away at the players.”

  • • •

  Eve decided to start with Carly Landsdowne. Something about the woman had set off alarms in her head since their first conversation.

  The actress lived in a glossy building with full security, glitzy shops, and circling people glides. The expansive lobby area was elegantly spare, with water-toned tile floors, modest indoor shrubbery, and a discreet security panel worked into an arty geometric design in the wall.

  “Good morning,” the panel announced in a pleasant male voice when Eve approached. “Please state your business in The Broadway View.”

  “My business is with Carly Landsdowne.”

  “One moment, please.” There was a quiet tinkle of music to fill the silence. “Thank you for waiting. According to our logs, Ms. Landsdowne has not informed us of any expected visitors. I’ll be happy to contact her for you and ask if she is able to receive guests at this time. Please state your name and produce a photo ID.”

  “You want ID? Here’s some ID.” Eve shoved her badge up to the needle-sized lens of the camera. “Tell Ms. Landsdowne Lieutenant Dallas doesn’t like waiting in lobbies.”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. One moment, please.”

  The music picked up where it had left off, and it had Eve gritting her teeth. “I hate this shit. Why do they think recorded strings do anything but cause annoyance and an urgent desire to find the speakers and rip them out?”

  “I think it’s kind of nice,” Peabody said. “I like violins. Reminds me of my mother. She plays,” Peabody added when Eve just stared at her.

  “Thank you for waiting. Ms. Landsdowne will be happy to see you, Lieutenant Dallas. If you would proceed to elevator number two. You have been cleared. Have a safe and happy day.”

  “I hate when they say that.” Eve strode to the proper elevator. The doors opened, and the same violin music seeped out. It made her snarl.

  “Welcome to The Broadway View.” A voice oozed over the strings. “We are a fully self-contained, fully secured building. You are welcome to apply for a day pass in order to tour our facilities, including our state-of-the-art fitness and spa center, which offers complete cosmetic, physical, and mental therapies and treatments. Our shopping area can be reached through public or private access and welcomes all major debit cards. The View also offers its patrons and, with proper reservations, the public, three five-star restaurants as well as the popular Times Square Cafe for those casual dining needs.”

  “When is it going to shut up?”

  “I wonder if they have a swimming pool.”

  “If you are interested in joining our exclusive community, just press extension ninety-four on any house-link and request an appointment with one of our friendly concierges for a tour of our three model units.”

  “I’d rather have all the skin peeled from my bones,” Eve decided.

  “I wonder if they have efficiencies.”

  “Please exit to the left and proceed to apartment number two thousand eight. We at The View wish you a pleasant visit.”

  Eve stepped out of the car and headed left. The apartment doors were widely spaced down a generously sized hallway. Whoever’d designed the place hadn’t worried about wasted space, she decided. Then she had the uncomfortable feeling she was going to discover her husband owned the building.

  Carly opened the door before Eve could buzz. The actress wore a deep blue lounging robe, her feet bare and tipped with ripe pink. But her hair and face were done and done well, Eve noted.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant.” Carly leaned against the door for a moment, a deliberately cocky pose. “How nice of you to drop by.”

  “You’re up early,” Eve commented. “And here I thought theater people weren’t morning people.”

  Carly’s smirk wavered a bit, but she firmed it again as she stepped back. “I have a performance today. Richard’s memorial service.”

  “You consider that a performance?”

  “Of course. I have to be sober and sad and spout all the platitudes. It’s going to be a hell of an act for the media.” Carly gestured toward an attractive curved sofa of soft green in the living area. “I could have put on the same act for you, and quite convincingly. But it seemed such a waste of your time and my talent. Can I offer you coffee?”

  “No. It doesn’t worry you to be a suspect in a murder investigation?”

  “No, because I didn’t do it and because it’s good research. I may be called on to play one eventually.”

  Eve wandered to the window wall, privacy screened, and lifted her brows at the killer view of Times Square. The animated billboards were alive with color and promises, the air traffic thick as fleas on a big, sloppy dog.

  If she looked over and down, and it was the down that always bothered her, she could see the Gothic spires of Roarke’s New Globe Theater.

  “What’s your motivation?”

  “For murder?” Carly sat, obviously enjoying the morning duel. “It would, of course, depend on the victim. But parallelling life, let’s call him a former lover who done me wrong. The motivation would be a combination of pride, scorn, and glee.”

  “And hurt?” Eve turned back, pinned her before Carly could mask the shadow of distress.

  “Perhaps. You want to know if Richard hurt me. Yes, he did. But I know how to bind my wounds, Lieutenant. A man isn’t worth bleeding over, not for long.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I thought I did at the time. But it was astonishingly easy to switch that emotion to hate. If I’d wanted to kill him, well, I couldn’t have done it better than it was done. Except I would never have sacrificed the satisfaction of delivering the killing blow personally. Using a proxy takes all the fun out of it.”

  “Is this a joke to you? The end of a life by violent means?”

  “Do you want me to pretend to grieve? Believe me, Lieutenant, I could call up huge, choking and rather gorgeous tears for you.” Though her mouth continued to smile, little darts of angry lights played in her eyes. “But I won’t. I have too much respect for myself and, as i
t happens, for you, to do something so pitifully obvious. I’m not sorry he’s dead. I just didn’t kill him.”

  “And Linus Quim.”

  Carly’s defiant face softened. “I didn’t know him very well. But I am sorry he died. You don’t believe he killed Richard, then hanged himself, or you wouldn’t be here. I suppose I don’t, either, however convenient it would be. He was a little, sour-faced man, and in my opinion didn’t think of Richard any more than he thought of the rest of us actors. We were part of his scenery. Hanging, it takes time, doesn’t it? Not like with Richard.”

  “Yes. It takes time.”

  “I don’t like suffering.”

  It was, Eve thought, the first simple statement the woman had made. “I doubt whoever helped him into the noose thought about it. Are you worried, Ms. Landsdowne, that tragedies come in threes?”

  Carly started to make some careless remark, then looking into Eve’s eyes changed her mind. “Yes. Yes, I am. Theater people are a superstitious lot, and I’m no exception. I don’t speak the name of the Scottish play, I don’t whistle in a dressing room or wish another performer good luck. But superstitions won’t stop me from going back on that stage the moment we’re allowed to do so. I won’t let it change how I live my life. I’ve wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember. Not just an actor,” she added with a slow smile. “A star. I’m on my way, and I won’t take a detour from the goal.”

  “The publicity from Draco’s murder may just give you a boost toward that goal.”

  “That’s right. If you think I won’t exploit it, you haven’t taken a good look at me.”

  “I’ve taken a look at you. A good look.” Eve glanced around the lovely room, toward the staggering view from the window. “For someone who hasn’t yet achieved that goal, you live very well.”

  “I like living well.” Carly shrugged. “I’m lucky to have generous and financially responsible parents. I have a trust fund, and I make use of it. As I said, I don’t like suffering. I’m not the starving-for-art type. It doesn’t mean I don’t work at my craft and work hard. I simply enjoy comfortable surroundings.”

  “Did Draco come here?”

  “Once or twice. He preferred using his place. In hindsight, I see it gave him more control.”

  “And were you aware he recorded your sexual activities?”

  It was a bombshell. Eve had her rhythm now, and recognized simple and utter shock in the eyes, in the sudden draining of color. “That’s a lie.”

  “Draco had a recording unit installed in his bedroom. He had a collection of personal discs detailing certain sexual partners. There’s one of you, recorded in February. It included the use of a certain apparatus fashioned of black leather and—”

  Carly leaped off the sofa. “Stop. You enjoy this, don’t you?”

  “No. No, I don’t. You were unaware of the recording.”

  “Yes, I was unaware,” Carly snapped back. “I might very well have agreed to one, have been intrigued by the idea if he’d suggested it. But I detest knowing it was done without my consent. That a bunch of snickering cops can view it and get their kicks.”

  “I’m the only cop who’s viewed it so far, and I didn’t get any kick out of it. You weren’t the only woman he recorded, Ms. Landsdowne, without her consent.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t give a fuck.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes until she could find a thread of control. “All right, what do I have to do to get it?”

  “It’s in evidence, and I’ve had it sealed. It won’t be used unless it has to be used. When the case is closed, and you prove to be cleared, I’ll see that the disc is given to you.”

  “I guess that’s the best I can expect.” She took a long breath. “Thank you.”

  “Ms. Landsdowne, did you employ illegals in the company of Richard Draco, for sexual stimulation or any reason?”

  “I don’t do illegals. I prefer using my own mind, my own imagination, not chemicals.”

  You used them, Eve thought. But maybe you didn’t know what he was slipping into that pretty glass of champagne.

  *** CHAPTER TWELVE ***

  Roarke had two holo-conferences, an interspace transmission, and a head-of-departments meeting, all scheduled for the afternoon and all dealing with his Olympus Resort project. It was over a year in the works, and he intended for it to be open for business by summer.

  Not all of the enormous planetwide pleasure resort would be complete, but the main core, with its luxury hotels and villas, its plush gambling and entertainment complexes, was good to go. He had taken Eve there on part of their honeymoon. It had been her first off-planet trip.

  He intended to take her back, kicking and screaming no doubt, as interplanetary travel was not on her list of favorite delights.

  He wanted time away with her, away from work. His and hers. Not just one of the quick forty-eight-hour jaunts he managed to push her into, but real time, intimate time.

  As he pushed away from his in-home control center, he rotated his shoulder. It was nearly healed and didn’t trouble him overmuch. But now and again, a faint twinge reminded him of how close both of them had come to dying. Only weeks before, he’d looked at death, then into Eve’s eyes.

  They’d both faced bloody and violent ends before. But there was more at stake now. That moment of connection, the sheer will in her eyes, the grip of her hand on his, had pulled him back.

  They needed each other.

  Two lost souls, he thought, taking a moment to walk to the tall windows that looked out on part of the world he’d built for himself out of will, desire, sweat, and dubiously accumulated funds. Two lost souls whose miserable beginnings had forged them into what appeared to be polar opposites.

  Love had narrowed the distance, then had all but eradicated it.

  She’d saved him. The night his life had hung in her furious and unbreakable grip. She’d saved him, he mused, the first moment he’d locked eyes with her. As impossible as it should have been, she was his answer. He was hers.

  He had a need to give her things. The tangible things wealth could command. Though he knew the gifts most often puzzled and flustered her. Maybe because they did, he corrected with a grin. But underlying that overt giving was the fierce foundation to give her comfort, security, trust, love. All the things they’d both lived without most of their lives.

  He wondered that a woman who was so skilled in observation, in studying the human condition, couldn’t see that what he felt for her was often as baffling and as frightening to him as it was to her.

  Nothing had been the same for him since she’d walked into his life wearing an ugly suit and cool-eyed suspicion. He thanked God for it.

  Feeling sentimental, he realized. He supposed it was the Irish that popped out of him at unexpected moments. More, he kept replaying the nightmare she’d suffered through a few nights before.

  They came more rarely now, but still they came, torturing her sleep, sucking her back into a past she couldn’t quite remember. He wanted to erase them from her mind, eradicate them. And knew he never would. Never could.

  For months, he’d been tempted to do a full search and scan, to dig out the data on that tragic child found broken and battered in a Dallas alley. He had the skill, and he had the technology to find everything there was to find: details the social workers, the police, the child authorities couldn’t.

  He could fill in the blanks for her, and, he admitted, for himself.

  But it wasn’t the way. He understood her well enough to know that if he took on the task, gave her the answers to questions she wasn’t ready to ask, it would hurt more than heal.

  Wasn’t it the same for him? When he’d returned to Dublin after so many years, he’d needed to study some of the shattered pieces of his childhood. Alone. Even then, he’d only glanced at the surface of them. What was left of them were buried. At least for now, he intended to leave them buried.

  The now was what required his attention, he reminded himself. And brooding over th
e past—there was the Irish again—solved nothing. Whether the past was his or Eve’s, it solved nothing.

  He gathered up the discs and hard copies he’d need for his afternoon meetings. Then hesitated. He wanted another look at her before he left for the day.

  But when he opened the connecting doors, he saw only McNab, stuffing what appeared to be an entire burger in his mouth while the computer droned through a background search.

  “Solo today, Ian?”

  McNab jerked from a lounging to a sitting position, swallowed too fast, choked. Amused, Roarke strolled over and slapped him smartly on the back.

  “It helps to chew first.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. Ah…I didn’t have much breakfast, so I thought it’d be okay if I…”

  “My AutoChef is your AutoChef. The lieutenant’s in the field, I take it.”

  “Yeah. She hauled Peabody out about an hour ago. Feeney headed into Central to tie up some threads. I’m working here.” He smiled then, a quick flash of strong white teeth. “I got the best gig.”

  “Lucky you.” Roarke managed to find a French fry on McNab’s plate that hadn’t been drowned in ketchup. He sampled it while he studied the screen. “Running backgrounds? Again?”

  “Yeah, well.” McNab rolled his eyes, shifting so his silver ear loops clanged cheerfully together. “Dallas has some wild hair about there might be some way-back connection, some business between Draco and one of the players that simmered all these years. Me, I figure we already scanned all the data and found zippo, but she wants another run, below the surface. I’m here to serve. Especially when real cow meat’s on the menu.”

  “Well now, if there is some bit of business, you’re unlikely to find it this way, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not?”

  “Something old and simmering, you say.” Considering the possibility, Roarke hooked another fry. “If I wanted to find something long buried, so to speak, I’d figure on getting a bit of dirt under my nails.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Sealed records.”