Connections in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Work, on both sides. How things were going with me and Lilah—Detective Strong. His family. Sports.” In a helpless gesture, Matt lifted his hands, let them fall again. “We were friends. We got to be friends.”

  “Did he mention Duff, or any concerns he had about other gang members?”

  “Not Thursday night. I’m going to say I’d discouraged him from giving his hard-earned money to Dinnie. We didn’t talk about it Thursday, but we had before, a few times. I tried to show him that he was, by trying to be kind, enabling her.”

  “He still had an attachment to her,” Eve prompted.

  “He had this hope she’d eventually come into Clean House, or go to a meeting with him. Basically, he wanted to save her, even knowing she had to save herself.”

  “He had feelings for her.”

  “Not romantic ones, but romanticized ones, if you follow me.”

  Because she did, Eve nodded. “Okay.”

  “I backed off there some because he had to make his own choices, and it felt like he was starting to see my point. She wouldn’t let go, Lieutenant, and he had to. I think he would have, but…”

  He lowered his head, took a grip on Strong’s hand. “I never saw this coming. I knew she was trouble, but not like this. Now they’re both dead.”

  “It’s not on you, Matt.”

  “You, either,” he said to Strong, pressing their joined hands to his heart. “It’s not on you, Lilah. I warned her off once.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “Just a couple weeks ago Lyle tagged me, said he felt like he needed a meeting after work, and could I meet him.”

  “Was that usual?” Eve asked.

  “Not unusual. I still tag my sponsor when, for whatever reason, I’m feeling the pull. It’s backup,” he explained. “You get that. Sometimes you need backup.”

  “Sure.”

  “I went by the restaurant so we could walk to a meeting together, and she was out front. She was pissed because she knew she wouldn’t get anything out of Lyle if I was around. She tried to shake me down instead.”

  Strong stared at him. “Jesus, Matt.”

  He only shrugged. “She said she needed rent money. If I didn’t want her getting it from Lyle, I needed to cough it up—and offered me a BJ in exchange.”

  “I didn’t hear about this,” Strong muttered.

  “Neither did Lyle. I didn’t see the point. I asked her if she’d like me to call the cops, have her hauled in for unlicensed solicitation, unlicensed begging. Maybe I could get stalking tossed in there, too. We said a few uncomplimentary things to each other, but she left. Parting shot? Unless I was—sorry about the language—‘sucking Lyle’s dick,’ she’d get him back, and I could go to hell.”

  “You should’ve told me, Matt.”

  “Babe, if I told you about every time I have hard words with an addict, it’s all we’d talk about. She took off, Lyle and I went to the meeting, had coffee after. He thanked me for going with him, said he was feeling a little down.”

  “Did he tell you why?” Eve asked.

  “Yeah. It was the anniversary of his mother’s suicide. He got through it, and I felt like getting Dinnie off him that particular day was, well, meant, you know? He just didn’t need that shit.”

  “Any other recent altercations with her, or anybody else in the gang?”

  “No. I’m not in their territory. I do know Slice went into Lyle’s work right after Lyle got the job. They go back, you know, to when they were kids. Slice figured he’d come back to the gang, Lyle said he was done with that life. They got into it a little, but Lyle said Slice backed off—in a ‘fuck you then’ kind of way.”

  “Any return visits?”

  “I don’t think so. I really believe he’d have told me if Slice kept at him.”

  Matt reached for Strong’s hand again, obviously needing the connection. “Lyle contacted me after that time, needed to talk. I know he told his parole officer, and his boss backed him up on it. Some of the other Bangers went in off and on in the first few weeks, trying to get a rise. He didn’t give them one. He stuck.”

  Matt scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not easy, Lieutenant, to stick, to push back your old life, the people in it, to stay straight and sober every day when somebody’s tempting you otherwise. But he stuck.”

  That picture came through clear enough, Eve thought. “How about the prison shrink? Lyle met with him on and off, too. Do you know him?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would Lyle have told him anything he wouldn’t tell you or Detective Strong?”

  “I can’t say, but from what I know Lyle just wanted to keep that connection open. He credited Ned with helping him turn the corner while he was inside.”

  Matt shifted, leaned forward a little, met Eve’s eyes straight-on.

  “Addicts are liars, Lieutenant. I spent a good part of my life smoking, popping, drinking anything I could get my hands on, and lying about it. I’m spending this part of my life dealing with people who are either doing the same thing or trying to break the cycle. I’m probably nearly as good at spotting a liar as both of you. And I believe Lyle told me whatever weighed on him, whatever lifted him, worried him, made him proud. Being a CI made him proud, but he’d never have done it if they hadn’t put that boy in the hospital. He talked to me about it before he made the call.”

  He looked at Strong, smiled a little. “Backup,” he repeated. “I was his backup, so I said how it might’ve been him. Not in the hospital, but putting some kid in there. Beating on some kid just because he could. And until he’d gotten straight, he wouldn’t have given a damn. Kid should mind his own, right? Shouldn’t get in front of Banger business. Asking for it. He saw things different now.”

  “Okay. If you think of anything else, let me know. Detective Strong, I’ll be in touch.”

  When she rose, so did Matt. “Lieutenant? Is it all right if I go see Lyle’s grandmother? I know the family. Hell, they invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. I’d like to go see them, do something.”

  “I’ve got no problem with it. Keep his CI status out of it, for now.”

  Eve went to get her coat, her partner. “Lyle’s sponsor comes off solid and steady. It’s clear they had a tight, personal friendship, also solid and steady.”

  “How’s Strong holding up?”

  “She’ll stand. Did you make notification on Duff?”

  “Yeah. Duff’s mother took it like she’d been waiting for notification most of Duff’s life. Sad, resigned, unsurprised.”

  They headed out of the bullpen as Peabody ran it through.

  “She said she hadn’t spoken to Duff in more than a year. Duff’d gone home, claiming she was in trouble, needed to come home to get well, and so on. Not for the first time,” Peabody added. “A couple of days in, the mother comes home from work, the daughter’s gone, the living room screen, costume jewelry, and the cash gone with her.”

  “That couldn’t have been a big surprise, either,” Eve said as they rode down to the garage.

  “Not really. The mother had taken her in with the warning if she screwed up again, she’d never let her come back. She screwed up. The mom had all the locks changed, and told her neighbors if they saw her daughter, they should get the police. And she left a message saying the same on the ’link number she had.”

  They worked their way down to the garage.

  “She said her daughter didn’t have friends. She had losers and thugs. Always blamed everybody else when something went wrong, started using when she was about fourteen. Took off whenever she liked, would come back crying, being sorry, making promises, then do it all again. Took up with the Bangers, and the mother laid down the law. If she ran with that type, she couldn’t come home. Anyway, she didn’t know who she ran with, specifically, just the gang, the type.”

  And that picture, Eve thought, also came though clear enough. “Okay.”

  “On the journal search,” Peabody said as she settled into the car, “there are
mentions of Duff, of the gang, Slice and other members, of Strong, his sponsor—but, at a glance, he doesn’t write about being a CI.”

  “Kept it confidential, even from his journal. It wasn’t passcoded, probably to show his sister he had nothing to hide, but he’s careful. Maybe somebody breaks in, takes it, reads it.”

  “He didn’t have any trouble writing down his thoughts about Duff. You go back a few months, they’re conflicted. She needs help. Maybe he can help, that sort of thing. But I read an entry he put in just a few days ago where he wrote about deciding he had to cut her off, all the way off, and why. What he said to her, what she said.”

  “That jibes with the sponsor’s take. What was the why?”

  “He finally realized what his sponsor, the prison shrink, his family, his boss, the waitress at work had been telling him all along. He wasn’t helping, but enabling. In the case of his boss, it was a little more direct. She was a junkie whore, and just because he wasn’t doing her didn’t mean she wasn’t screwing him, and he paid her for it.”

  “Sounds like his boss had it right. But Lyle still let her into his apartment.”

  “From some I skimmed in the journal?” Peabody began. “He had a lot of soft spots. The wit said she was crying, and how she needed help. In the journal, Lyle wrote he told her she could come to him if she was ready to admit she needed help—for her addiction. He’d help her get into Clean House, take her to meetings, ask his sponsor to sponsor her. Otherwise, blow basically. If she kept coming around, high or jonesing to get high, he’d call the cops.”

  “So she comes to his place, says she needs help. Maybe says he had it right, she’s ready to ask for help. Please help. He buys it, opens the door. She can spin him a load of bullshit, but she has to get him out of the room long enough for her to let the muscle in. So, can she have some water—crying, shaking. He goes into the kitchen to get it, takes out his ’link. Likely to tag his sponsor. And that’s that.”

  As she thought it through, Eve drummed her fingers on the wheel. “But how does the junkie whore come up with a plan to get into the apartment, when Lyle’s alone, and distract him enough to get all that muscle in there—with the tranq, with the illegals. And why, if she set it all up, doesn’t she hang around and watch it go down? If this is her payback for him cutting her off, wouldn’t she want a bigger piece of it?”

  She glanced over at Peabody’s thoughtful face. “Don’t you want to stay, make sure it’s done right? And where did she get the illegals, or the money to buy them?”

  “All good and valid points,” Peabody conceded, “but we’ve got enough to confirm that’s how it went down.”

  “We’ve got enough to confirm she got him to open the door, then she let in the killers. What all this says to me? She’s the bait. Maybe she wanted him dead, too—but then again, why did she leave?”

  “She didn’t want to see the rest.”

  Eve waved that off. “I’m not giving her the credit of actual feelings. She left, I think, because she’d done what she came to do. What someone with enough punch—and access to illegals—ordered up. Add in, they don’t kill him in a fight, don’t beat the crap out of him in payback or to teach him a lesson. Because it wasn’t so much payback. It was … business,” she decided.

  “Sloppy, poorly planned, but business. Personal business. With Duff as the bait. And once that business was done, they—what is it?—cut off bait.”

  “Just cut. Cut bait.”

  “Whatever.” Eve pulled up in front of the apartment building on the edge of Tribeca.

  “Yeah, and ‘whatever’ makes sense.” Peabody angled in her seat. “Duff whines to the right person—or the wrong one—about Lyle’s cutting her off, even threatening her. And that person sees an opportunity. Take the ex-Banger out—who does he think he is?—and use the junkie who can’t keep her mouth shut to do it, then take her out. The gang-war angle, Dallas,” she continued as they got out of the car. “Jones said he’s not looking for that, but maybe he is—the property-value angle you played with. Or maybe one or more of his lieutenants are trying for a coup.”

  “Dissention in the ranks, very possible. Or Jones saw this as a way to cement his authority.” She needed to think about that, the ins and outs of that.

  They went inside, started up. “Sacrificing an ex-member and an easy lay isn’t much of a sacrifice.”

  “Like pawns in chess.”

  Eve considered, rolled it around. “Yeah, like that.”

  They found Rochelle already on her apartment level, in the arms of the witness across the hall.

  A young man Eve recognized from the ID shots as the younger brother stood a few steps away.

  “I’m so sorry, Ro, just so sorry. When I think I watched those awful people go right in there…”

  “If you hadn’t, we might not know what they did. So I’m grateful. We’re all grateful.”

  “He was a good boy. He’d come back to you a good boy,” Ms. Gregory said as she moved back. “You let me know when you’re having his memorial. I’m going to be there.” She let out a sigh as she nodded toward Eve. “I’ve got to get to work. You let me know if you need anything.”

  “If I could have just a minute, Ms. Gregory? Peabody, why don’t you take Rochelle and her brother inside?”

  “I just feel sick about all this,” the woman said when she and Eve stood alone in the narrow hallway.

  “I just want to confirm what you told us yesterday. You saw the woman we’ve identified as Dinnie Duff on the stairs.”

  “I did, and heard her knocking on Lyle’s door. Calling and crying.”

  “Do you recall what she said?”

  “Something about needing help, asking him to help her, crying her crocodile tears and saying she couldn’t keep on, was ready for help.”

  “‘Couldn’t keep on.’”

  “‘Can’t keep on like this’—something like that. Saying how he promised to help. I didn’t hear it all. I was heading down, like I said. Trash night.”

  “Yes. But you also saw the three she let in—through your peep. You’re sure they were males?”

  “Big guys. I saw ’em from behind, but you don’t see many women with those builds.”

  She thought of the female Strong had mentioned—built like a tank.

  Maybe.

  “Anything about them, anything at all, stand out? Something they said, a gesture, clothing?”

  “Didn’t say a word in the few seconds I looked out. Just standing there in the dark hoodies—hoods up—and baggies. I just didn’t see…”

  She frowned, poking her bottom lip out, then pulling on it while she thought back. “Well, now that I think about it again, one of them had the jitteries.”

  “‘Jitteries’?”

  “Couldn’t stand still.” She demonstrated, bopping her shoulders, a little shuffling of her feet. “And he kept—” She held her arms down by her sides, started snapping her fingers, one hand, the other, and back again. “I didn’t think of that last night. I guess it was like he was listening to music. Might’ve been. Then that bitch opened the door, and they went right in, she snuck right out. I don’t know how that helps you any.”

  “It’s very helpful. If anything else comes to you, let me know.”

  “I can promise you that. I have to go. I had my morning off, but I’m due in right now.”

  “Thank you again.”

  As Ms. Gregory hurried down the stairs, Eve went into the Pickering apartment. She could still smell fading death and the lingering whiff of the sweepers’ chemicals.

  “I don’t see anything out of place in here,” Rochelle was saying. She stopped, turned to Eve. “Everything in here looks like it always does. In the kitchen, too. I’m sorry, this is my brother Walter. Walt, this is Lieutenant Dallas.”

  He kept his hair cropped close to the skull and his face clean shaven. Like his sister, he had heavy-lidded eyes. At the moment, they looked sleep starved.

  “I read the book, saw the vid.” He d
idn’t smile when he said it, but extended a hand. “I hope you’re as good as they made you out to be.”

  “Walt.” Rochelle spoke quietly, laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

  “Why don’t we go through the rest of the apartment,” Eve suggested. “Rochelle, you’ll be most familiar with your own room. Let’s start there.”

  They walked down—another narrow hallway.

  “It looks like I left it.”

  “Why don’t you check the closet, the dresser drawers, the desk drawers.”

  “All right. I really don’t have anything worth stealing. I always try to keep twenty dollars in emergency cash in the pocket of this jacket. And here it is. I don’t see…”

  Exactly, Eve thought. “What don’t you see?”

  “I was going to say I don’t see anything missing, but my red purse is gone. I’ve had this old red purse for years. I always had it hanging on this hook. Gram bought it for me—remember, Walt?—when I got the job. She said red’s good luck. I still use it sometimes. It’s not here.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “It’s just a red purse—bright, shiny red—pretend patent leather, you know, nothing extravagant. It has a silver chain if you want to wear it on your shoulder, and a magnet clasp. It’s what you call an envelope bag, I guess. About a foot long, maybe, and I don’t know, eight inches wide. It’s not worth anything.”

  “Bright red, silver chain. Caught the eye. Anything else?”

  “No.” She pressed a hand to her temple. “I loved that damn purse.”

  Eyes a little blurry, she walked out, yanked open a dresser drawer. “They killed my brother, and I’m getting upset thinking they came into my room, pawed my things.”

  “Ro.” Walter moved behind her, rubbed her back. “It’s natural.”

  “Nothing feels natural.” She pulled a long, thin black box from the top drawer. And opening it, let out a choked gasp. “Oh, Walter, they took Mama’s brooch. That terrible, gaudy old pin. And oh, the earrings Wilson gave me for Valentine’s Day. And, oh God, just a cheap bangle bracelet I picked up on the street one time. It’s just costume jewelry, but they took it anyway.”