by J. D. Robb
“She was happy.”
TWO
“Run Rosenthall and Whitwood,” Eve told Peabody. “And get what you can on the Canal Street Get Straight.”
“Already on it. And the sweepers are on their way.”
“Good.” Eve walked back into the building. “It’s going to take them a while to sort through this mess.” She poked through a bit. “Credits, cash, even loose change. I’m not finding any’links.”
“They probably had them—who doesn’t?—so the killer probably took them.”
“Takes the ’links but leaves the scratch. He, or they, didn’t care about the money. Just the kill. And if he took the ’links, he either had contact with them or thought they talked about him to each other, or someone else, via ’link.”
“It’s sad,” Peabody murmured. “They were young, and trying to reboot their lives. They had a good chance of making it, too. The floor’s clean.”
“Suddenly I question your cleanliness standards.”
“I mean if you overlook the blood and the mess. It’s not dusty or dirty. They kept the floor clean. And see, somebody repaired and painted this chair. They weren’t very good at it,” Peabody added as she picked up one of the broken legs. “But they tried. And when I checked out the bathroom, I guess it’s an employee’s restroom deal. Anyway, it was clean. The killers must not have used it. But the vics, they kept it clean.”
“Lieutenant?” One of the uniforms stepped in. “We found this in the recycler out back.”
He held up the clear protective coat, covered with blood, like the ones she’d seen countless doctors wearing. “Just one?”
“So far, sir.”
“Keep checking. Anything pop from the canvass?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep on that, too. Bag that for the sweepers. They’re on their way. Rosenthall, Peabody.”
“Dr. Justin Rosenthall, thirty-eight. He specializes in chemical addictions—and was given a grant by the Whitwood Group for same—cause, rehabilitation. He works primarily out of the Whitwood Center, a facility for the study of addiction, with a health center and visitor’s lodging attached. No criminal.”
“Let’s go see if the doctor’s in.”
“He’s very studly,” Peabody added and continued to work her handheld as they walked to the car. “Has numerous awards for service and innovations in his field. Donates time to the Canal Street Clinic, Get Straight, and others.”
Peabody slid into the car as Eve took the wheel. “I got lots of pops on gossip and society pages. He and Arianna are quite the item. She’s a looker. And really, really rich. Not Roarke rich,” Peabody said, referring to Eve’s husband, “but she’s up there. Or the Whitwood Group—headed by her parents—is. She’s thirty-four, a therapist, again specializing in addictions. From the fluff pieces I’m skimming, it looks like they met four years ago, and were engaged last fall. The wedding’s set for next month, billed as the wedding of the year. And . . . oh, she had a brother. Chase, died at the age of nineteen. OD’d. She was sixteen. The Whitwood Center opened three years later.
“Oh, listen to this. Rosenthall had a sister. She made it to twenty-two before she OD’d. He was on track to becoming a topflight cardiac surgeon. Switched his focus after his sister’s death.”
“A surgeon. Gave that up,” Eve commented, “to work with junkies. Like his sister, like his fiancée’s brother. Day in and day out, seeing them, listening to them, treating them, hearing bullshit out of them. Something could snap.”
“Cynic alert. Honest, Dallas, from what I’m reading here, the guy sounds like a saint. A studly saint. Saint Studly of Rosenthall.”
“Do you know why the saints are all dead?”
“Why?”
“Because dead’s the only way you can pull it off. Living’s messy, and everyone living has some dirty little secret. That’s why we have jobs.”
“A dirty little secret that has a renowned and studly doctor slaughtering three recovering addicts?”
“Somebody did it. He’s got the connection, he’s got the skill, and according to our source, he’s the one who gave them the green light to squat there. If he’s so saintly, why didn’t he float them a couple months’ rent?”
“That’s a good question.”
“It’s one I’m going to ask him.”
Old, time-faded brick housed the Whitwood Center. No flash, Eve noted, no gloss—at least not on the exterior—so the building sat comfortably in the old Meatpacking District.
With Peabody, she walked in the front entrance. The lobby area was large and quietly furnished. Comfortable chairs, simple art, some plants gave off the atmosphere of a living area rather than a waiting one despite the reception counter manned by two people.
The man, early thirties, continued to work on his comp while the woman, a few years younger with a pretty face and earnestly welcoming eyes, smiled in their direction.
“Good morning. How can we help you today?”
Eve approached the counter, laid her badge on it. “We need to speak with Dr. Rosenthall.”
“I see.” The woman didn’t so much as blink at the badge. “Is the doctor expecting you?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“His offices are on the second floor, east. One of his interns or his assistant should be able to help you.”
“Okay.”
“Stairs to the left, elevators to the right.”
As Eve angled left, the woman continued. “You’ll want to take the right corridor, go over the garden breezeway, then take the first turn to the left.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s nice work,” Peabody said as they started up. “The work they’ve done on the old building. Kept its character. It’s comfortable, and it doesn’t shout, ‘We’re really rich philanthropists.’ ”
On the second floor they walked by several doors, all discreetly shut, with their purposes or a doctor’s name on a plaque.
They passed people in lab coats, in street wear, in sharp suits, and in tattered pants. Eve noted the security cameras, and the card slots and palm plates on some of the doors. They passed a nurse’s station and the waiting area across from it.
Then they came to the garden breezeway. Below, through treated glass, a central fountain gurgled in a fantasy of flowering plants, shrubs, trees in riotous bloom. White stone benches offered seating, bricked paths wound in an invitation to stroll.
“That says, ‘We’re really rich philanthropists,’ ” Eve commented.
“But in a really pretty way.”
They made the left into a small blue and cream reception area. The woman behind the counter tapped her earpiece, turned away from the smart screen where, it looked to Eve, she’d been working on updating a complex schedule.
“Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody.” Eve held up her badge. “We need to speak with Dr. Rosenthall.”
“Is there a problem?”
“There almost always is.”
The woman didn’t look pleased by the answer, and reminded Eve of Dr. Mira’s admin. The dragon at the gates of the NYPSD’s shrink and top profiler.
“Dr. Rosenthall’s in his lab this morning.”
“Where’s his lab?”
“I really must insist you tell me your business before I disturb the doctor.”
“I really must insist you take us to his lab.” Eve tapped her badge. “And this has a lot more insistence than you because it can arrest you for interfering with a police investigation.”
“I’ll check with the doctor.” The words sounded as sour as the woman’s face looked. She tapped her earpiece again. “Yes, Pach, would you tell Dr. Rosenthall two police officers are here and insist on speaking with him. Yes. No, they won’t say. Thank you.” She waited a moment, staring holes through Eve. Then scowled. “Very well.”
After another tap, she spoke to Eve. “The doctor’s lab assistant will come out and take you back. The doctor will see you.”
Moments later a side door opened. The man who came out had deep brown skin and large, heavy-lidded eyes nearly as black as his crown of curly hair. He wore a standard white lab coat over jeans and a red T-shirt that asked, “My petri dish or yours?”
“Officers?”
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody.”
“Oh. Um . . .” He flashed a very white smile. “If you’ll come this way?”
Through the door was a maze, a rabbit warren of rooms off angled corridors. The lab assistant negotiated them on flapping gel sandals. He paused at double steel doors, swiped his card, spoke his name. “Pachai Gupta.”
The security blinked green in acceptance, and the doors slid open into a large lab. Eve felt a weird juxtaposition as her friend Mavis’s voice wailed out about love on the wild side over the pristine red and white room. Strange equations and symbols held frozen on one of the wall screens while something bubbled blue in a heated beaker. A woman with short, sleek red hair hunched over a microscope while her foot tapped to Mavis’s grinding beat. Another lab coat diligently worked two comps at a long white counter. He sported a short stub of a ponytail and ragged skids.
In the center of it, amid the coils of tubing, the sparkling electronics, the busy screens, and the forest of test tubes, beakers, and specimen dishes, stood Justin Rosenthall.
He wore a lab coat like other men wore a tux, perfectly fitted and somehow elegant. His gilded mane of hair gleamed under the bright lights. Vid-star handsome, poetically pale, he removed a beaker from its heater with tongs and set it in a bath of water. Steam hissed and curled.
Through the thin curtain of it, Eve saw his eyes, tawny as a lion’s, fix intently on some sort of gauge.
“What’s he working on?” she asked their guide.
“An antidote.”
“To what?”
“To evil.” At her raised eyebrows, Pachai flushed, shrugged.
Eve heard a low beep. Justin lifted the beaker again, slid it into a container, sealed it, set another gauge.
Only then did he step back, look over.
“Sorry.” There was an absent charm in his smile, in his movements as he crossed to them. “The timing’s crucial. You’re the police?”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, NYPSD.”
“Dallas. Of course, you’re Roarke’s wife.” His smile warmed as he extended a hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you. How is Roarke? I haven’t seen him in . . . it’s probably been a year. More.”
“He’s good. This isn’t a social call, Dr. Rosenthall.”
“Justin. No, of course not. Sorry. How can I help you?”
“You know Jennifer Darnell, Coby Vix, Wilson Bickford.”
“Yes.” His smile faded. “Are they in trouble? I can assure you they’ve been working very hard against their addictions. It’s a hard road, and there will be stumbles, but—”
“They were murdered early this morning.”
Behind her, Pachai let out a strangled gasp as Justin just stared at her. “What? Sorry, what?”
“They were murdered between two and two-forty this morning in the building where they were squatting.”
“Dead? Murdered? All?”
“How?” Pachai took Eve’s arm, then quickly released it. His eyes were liquid onyx swimming under inky lashes. They only shimmered more intensely when Justin laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Pach, let’s sit down.”
“No. No. I’m sorry, but how can they be murdered? I saw them only yesterday.”
“When?”
“Pach,” Justin repeated, gently. “Music off,” he ordered. The redhead called out a protest when Mavis stopped wailing.
“Not now, Marti.” Justin rubbed his temple. “There’s no mistake?”
“No. When did you see them last?” she asked Pachai.
His lips trembled, and tears continued to swarm those heavy-lidded eyes. “Before Jen and Coby went to work, after Wil got off. We had coffee. We have coffee almost every day.”
“You were friends?”
“Yes. We—I—I don’t understand.”
“No, neither do I,” Justin said. “What happened?”
The lab rat with the stubby ponytail had turned and, like the redhead, watched.
“Early this morning Wilson Bickford was stabbed to death, Coby Vix was bludgeoned to death, and Jennifer Darnell was strangled.”
Pachai began to weep, and the harsh sobs bore him down to the floor, where he covered his face with his hands.
Justin turned ashen. At her station the redhead sat very still, staring at Eve as if she’d spoken in an ancient foreign language. The other man slumped back in his chair, shuddered, then closed his eyes, lowered his head.
No one spoke.
THREE
In the silence, Eve gave Peabody a signal, and responding, Peabody moved to Pachai. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she began in the comfort voice she used so well. “Let me help you. Let me help you up. Why don’t we go over here, sit down?”
“How could—was it—I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I just can’t think. They were attacked? In the building on West Twelfth?”
“Yes.”
“But why, for God’s sake? None of them belonged to a gang, none of them had any valuables to speak of. Was this just some random killings?”
“Do you know anyone who’d wish them—any one of them—harm?”
“No. No, I don’t. They were turning their lives around, and the three of them had formed a strong bond. Their own small support group.”
“They were addicts.”
“In recovery,” Justin said quickly.
“Was there anyone who they—again any one of them—used to associate with prior to their recovery who might have resented the fact that they were getting clean, staying clean?”
“I don’t know, but if so, they didn’t mention it to me. If there was someone, something, one of them might have told Arianna. Arianna Whitwood. She was the therapist of record for all three of them.”
“Your fiancée.”
“Yes.” He looked away, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “My God, they were so young, so hopeful.”
“You gave them permission to squat in that property.”
“Yes. They couldn’t make the rent on Jen’s apartment. She’d fallen behind before she’d made the commitment to recovery. Pachai told me they were sleeping on the street. I thought . . . it would be a roof over their heads until they found a place.”
“You formed an attachment to them?”
“To Jen, then through her to Coby and Wil. She was so determined, and you could see the light coming back into her. You could see her finding her quiet. It was gratifying. Even inspiring.”
“I guess I’m curious why you didn’t float them the rent.”
“I wish I had.” Mouth tight, he glanced over to where Peabody murmured to Pachai. “We have a policy not to lend money to anyone in the program, but to try to find another way to help, to guide them to help themselves. I never imagined . . . The three of them together should have been safe. God knows, each one of them had experience on the street, handling themselves.”
“I have to ask where you were between one and four this morning.”
“Yes. I . . . Well, here. I was here.”
“That’s a lot of midnight oil to burn.”
“What I’m working on, it’s—I believe—at its tipping point. I worked until after two, then bunked on the sofa in my office.”
“Did you see or speak with anyone during that time?”
“No. I sent Ken and Pachai home about eleven, I think it was. You can ask them, or check the log-outs. Marti left earlier. I spoke with Arianna . . . I’m not sure, I’d have to check the’link log. Maybe ten or ten thirty before I sent the boys home.”
“What are you working on?”
“A serum to counteract deep and chronic addiction and substance abuse. It w
ill treat the craving on both a physical and psychological level, quiet the violence of that need during withdrawal, and after.”
“There are medications for that already.”
“Medications that basically substitute one chemical for another. I’m attempting to work with natural ingredients that will trigger the chemistry in the brain and the body to return to the levels prior to the addiction. A rebalancing, we’ll say.”
He rubbed at his temple again, the same two fingers on the same spot in the same circular motion. “Is there anything I—we—can do for them now? Contacting family? I can’t remember the details of that, but Arianna will have it. With the burial, memorial? Anything?”
“We’ll be notifying next of kin. I’ll need to talk to Ms. Whitwood, and as soon as possible. First I’d like to speak with your other assistants.”
“Interns,” he corrected automatically. “Marti Frank and Ken Dickerson are here on intern scholarships. Sorry, it hardly matters. I want to tell Ari in person, face-to-face, not over the’link. We lose patients, Lieutenant. To their addiction, to the violence it often generates, or the physical abuse it causes. But this? This comes very, very hard.”
“Is she in the Center now?”
“Yes, she should be in session now. I’ll go up, tell her.”
“If you’d tell her I want to speak with her before we leave, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to meet you this way. I’m just . . . sorry.”
Eve let him go, and decided to take the redhead first.
“You got the picture,” Eve began.
“Yeah. It’s a really ugly picture.”
“Were you close to the victims?”
“I hate that word. Victim.” She folded her hands together on her lap as if she wanted to keep them still. “It’s overused.”
“It is in my line of work.”
“Yeah, I guess. Not especially close. I liked them. Jen in particular. She was just so damn likable.”
“You work in the lab. Do you get friendly with a lot of people in the program?”