Naked in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Just trying to get my facts straight.” It was fascinating watching him battle for composure. He was having a rough time of it, she noted, hands shaking, chest heaving. “I’m trying to find the man who killed Sharon, senator. I assume that’s also high on your agenda.”

  “Finding him won’t get her back.” He sat again, obviously exhausted by the outburst. “What’s important now is to protect what’s left. To do that, Sharon must be segregated from the other women.”

  She didn’t like his opinion, but neither did she care for his color. It was still alarmingly high. “Can I get you some water, Senator DeBlass?”

  He nodded, waved at her. Eve slipped into the corridor and dispensed a cup of bottled water. When she came back, his breathing was more regular, his hands a bit steadier.

  “The senator has been overtaxing himself,” Rockman put in. “His Morals Bill goes before the House tomorrow. The pressure of this family tragedy is a great weight.”

  “I appreciate that. I’m doing everything I can to close the case.” She tilted her head. “Political pressure is also a great weight on an investigation. I don’t care to be monitored on my personal time.”

  Rockman gave her a mild smile. “I’m sorry. Could you qualify that?”

  “I was monitored, and my personal relationship with a civilian reported to Chief Simpson. It’s no secret that Simpson and the senator are tight.”

  “The senator and Chief Simpson have a personal and a political allegiance,” Rockman agreed. “However, it would hardly be ethical, or in the senator’s best interest, to monitor a member of the police force. I assure you, lieutenant, Senator DeBlass has been much too involved with his own grief and his responsibilities to the country to worry about your . . . personal relationships. It has come to our attention, however, through Chief Simpson, that you’ve had a number of liaisons with Roarke.”

  “An amoral opportunist.” The senator set his cup aside with a snap. “A man who would stop at nothing to add to his own power.”

  “A man,” Eve added, “who has been cleared of any connection with this investigation.”

  “Money buys immunity,” DeBlass said in disgust.

  “Not in this office. I’m sure you’ll request the report from the commander. In the meantime, whether or not it assuages your grief, I intend to find the man who killed your granddaughter.”

  “I suppose I should commend your dedication.” DeBlass rose. “See that your dedication doesn’t jeopardize my family’s reputation.”

  “What changed your mind, senator?” Eve wondered. “The first time we spoke, you threatened to have my job if I didn’t bring Sharon’s murderer to justice, and quickly.”

  “She’s buried,” was all he said, and strode out.

  “Lieutenant.” Rockman kept his voice low. “I will repeat that the pressure on Senator DeBlass is enormous, enough to crush a lesser man.” He let out a slow breath. “The fact is, it’s destroyed his wife. She’s had a breakdown.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The doctors don’t know if she’ll recover. This additional tragedy has his son crazed with grief; his daughter has closed herself off from her family and gone into retreat. The senator’s only hope of restoring his family is to let Sharon’s death, the horror of it, pass.”

  “Then it might be wise for the senator to take a step back and leave due process to the department.”

  “Lieutenant—Eve,” he said with that rare and quick flash of charm. “I wish I could convince him of that. But I believe that would be as fruitless an endeavor as convincing you to let Sharon rest in peace.”

  “You’d be right.”

  “Well then.” He laid a hand on her arm briefly. “We must all do what we can to set things right. It was good to see you again.”

  Eve closed the door behind him and considered. DeBlass certainly had the kind of hair-trigger temper that could lead to violence. She was almost sorry he didn’t also have the control, the calculation, to have meticulously planned three murders.

  In any case, she’d have a hard time connecting a rabidly right-wing senator to a couple of New York prostitutes.

  Maybe he was protecting his family, she mused. Or maybe he was protecting Simpson, a political ally.

  That was crap, Eve decided. He might work on Simpson’s behalf if the chief was involved in the Starr and Castle homicides. But a man didn’t protect the killer of his grandchild.

  Too bad she wasn’t looking for two men, Eve mused. Regardless, she was going to do some pecking away at Simpson’s underpinnings.

  Objectively, she warned herself. And it wouldn’t do to forget that there was a strong possibility that DeBlass didn’t know one of his favorite political cronies had been blackmailed by his only granddaughter.

  She’d have to find out.

  But for now, she had another hunch to follow. She located Charles Monroe’s number and put through a call.

  His voice was smeared with sleep, his eyes heavy. “You spend all your time in bed, Charles?”

  “All I can, Lieutenant Sugar.” He rubbed a hand over his face and grinned at her. “That’s how I think of you.”

  “Well, don’t. Couple of questions.”

  “Ah, can’t you come on over and ask in person? I’m warm and naked and all alone.”

  “Pal, don’t you know there’s a law against soliciting a police officer?”

  “I’m talking freebie here. I told you—we’d keep it strictly personal.”

  “We’re keeping it strictly impersonal. You had an associate. Georgie Castle. Did you know her?”

  The seductive smile faded from his face. “Yeah, actually, I did. Not well, but I met her at a party about a year ago. She was new in the business. Fun, attractive. Game, you know. We hit it off.”

  “In what way?”

  “In a friendly way. We had a drink now and again. Once when Sharon had an overbooking, I had her send a couple of clients Georgie’s way.”

  “They knew each other.” Eva pounced on it. “Sharon and Gerogie?”

  “I don’t think so. As far as I remember, Sharon contacted Georgie, asked her if she was interested in a couple of fresh tricks. Georgie gave it the green light, and that was that. Oh, yeah, Sharon said something about Georgie sending her a dozen roses. Real ones, like a thank-you gift. Sharon got a real kick out of the old-fashioned etiquette.”

  “Just an old-fashioned girl,” Eve said under her breath.

  “When I heard Georgie was dead, it hit hard. I gotta tell you. With Sharon it was a jolt, but not that much of a surprise. She lived on the edge. But Georgie, she was centered, you know?”

  “I may need to follow up on this, Charles. Stay available.”

  “For you—”

  “Knock it off,” she ordered, before he could get cute. “What do you know about Sharon’s diaries?”

  “She never let me read one,” he said easily. “I used to tease her about them. Seems to me she said she’d kept them since she was a kid. You got one? Hey, am I in it?”

  “Where’d she keep them?”

  “In her apartment, I guess. Where else?”

  That was the question, Eve mused. “If you think of anything else about Georgie or about the diaries, contact me.”

  “Day or night, Lieutenant Sugar. Count on me.”

  “Right.” But she was laughing when she broke transmission.

  The sun was just setting when she arrived at Roarke’s. She didn’t consider herself off duty. The favor she was going to ask had been simmering in her mind all day. She’d decided on it, rejected it, and generally vacillated until she’d disgusted herself.

  In the end, she’d left the station for the first time in months right on the dot of the end of her shift. With what limited progress she’d made, she’d hardly needed to be there at all.

  Feeney had hit nothing but a dead end in his search for a second lock box. He had, with obvious reluctance, given her the list of cops she’d requested. Eve intended to run a make on each of the
m—on her own time and in her own way.

  With some regret, she realized she was going to use Roarke.

  Summerset opened the door with his usual disdain. “You’re earlier than expected, lieutenant.”

  “If he isn’t in, I can wait.”

  “He’s in the library.”

  “Which is where, exactly?”

  Summerset permitted himself the tiniest huff. If Roarke hadn’t ordered him to show the woman in immediately he would have shuffled her off to some small, poorly lit room. “This way, please.”

  “What exactly is it about me that rubs you wrong, Summerset?”

  With his back poker straight, he led her up a flight and down the wide corridor. “I have no idea what you mean, lieutenant. The library,” he announced in reverent terms, and opened the door for her.

  She’d never in her life seen so many books. She never would have believed so many existed outside of museums. The walls were lined with them so that the two-level room positively reeked with books.

  On the lower level, on what was surely a leather sofa, Roarke lounged, a book in his hand, the cat on his lap.

  “Eve. You’re early.” He set the book aside, picked up the cat as he rose.

  “Jesus, Roarke, where did you get all these?”

  “The books?” He let his gaze roam the room. Firelight danced and shifted over colorful spines. “Another of my interests. Don’t you like to read?”

  “Sure, now and again. But discs are so much more convenient.”

  “And so much less aesthetic.” He stroked the cat’s neck and sent him into ecstasy. “You’re welcome to borrow any you like.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How about a drink?”

  “I could handle that.”

  His ’link beeped. “This is the call I’ve been waiting for. Why don’t you get us both a glass of wine I’ve had breathing over on the table?”

  “Sure.” She took the cat from him and walked over to oblige. Because she wanted to eavesdrop, she forced herself to stay the length of the room away from where he sat murmuring.

  It gave her a chance to browse the books, to puzzle over the titles. Some she had heard of. Even with a state education, she’d been required to read Steinbeck and Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. The curriculum had taken her through King and Grisham, Morrison and Grafton.

  But there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of names here she’d never heard of. She wondered if anyone could handle so many books, much less read them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when the call was complete. “That couldn’t wait.”

  “No problem.”

  He took the wine she’d poured him. “The cat’s becoming quite attached to you.”

  “I don’t think he has any particular loyalties.” But Eve had to admit, she enjoyed the way he curled under her stroking hand. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about him. I called Georgie’s daughter and she said she just couldn’t face taking him. Pressing the matter only made her cry.”

  “You could keep him.”

  “I don’t know. You have to take care of pets.”

  “Cats are remarkably self-sufficient.” He sat on the sofa and waited for her to join him. “Want to tell me about your day?”

  “Not very productive. Yours?”

  “Very productive.”

  “A lot of books,” Eve said lamely, knowing she was stalling.

  “I have an affection for them. I could barely read my name when I was six. Then I came across a battered copy of Yeats. An Irish writer of some note,” he said when Eve looked blank. “I badly wanted to figure it out, so I taught myself.”

  “Didn’t you go to school?”

  “Not if I could help it. You’ve got trouble in your eyes, Eve,” he murmured.

  She blew out a breath. What was the use of stalling when he could see right through her? “I’ve got a problem. I want to do a run on Simpson. Obviously, I can’t go through channels or use either my home or office units. The minute I tried to dig on the chief of police, I’d be flagged.”

  “And you’re wondering if I have a secured, unregistered system. Of course I do.”

  “Of course,” she muttered. “A nonregistered system is in violation of Code four fifty-three-B, section thirty-five.”

  “I can’t tell you how aroused it makes me when you quote codes, lieutenant.”

  “It’s not funny. And what I’m going to ask you to do is illegal. It’s a serious offense to electronically breach the privacy of a state official.”

  “You could arrest both of us afterward.”

  “This is serious, Roarke. I go by the book, and now I’m asking you to help me break the law.”

  He rose, drew her to her feet. “Darling Eve, you have no idea how many I’ve already broken.” He fetched the wine bottle, letting it dangle from two fingers of the hand he slipped around her waist. “I ran an underground dice game when I was ten,” he began, leading her from the room. “A legacy from my dear old father who’d earned himself a knife through the gullet in a Dublin alley.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We weren’t close. He was a bastard and no one loved him, least of all me. Summerset, we’ll have dinner at seven-thirty,” Roarke added as he turned toward the stairs. “But he taught me, by means of a fist to the face, to read the dice, the cards, the odds. He was a thief, not a good one, as his end proved. I was better. I stole, I cheated, I spent some time learning the smuggling trade. So you see, you’re hardly corrupting me with such a nominal request.”

  She didn’t look at him as he decoded a locked door on the second floor. “Do you . . .”

  “Do I steal, cheat, and smuggle now?” He turned and touched a hand to her face. “Oh, you’d hate that, wouldn’t you? I almost wish I could say yes, then give it all up for you. I learned a long time ago that there are gambles more exciting for their legitimacy. And winning is so much more satisfying when you’ve dealt from the top of the deck.”

  He pressed a kiss to her brow, then stepped into the room. “But, we have to keep our hand in.”

  chapter sixteen

  Compared to the rest of the house she’d seen, this room was spartan, designed rigidly for work. No fancy statues, dripping chandeliers. The wide, U-shaped console, the base for communication, research, and information retrieving devices, was unrelieved black, studded with controls, sliced with slots and screens.

  Eve had heard that IRCCA had the swankiest base system in the country. She suspected Roarke’s matched it.

  Eve was no compu-jock, but she knew at a glance that the equipment here was vastly superior to any the New York Police and Security Department used—or could afford—even in the lofty Electronic Detection Division.

  The long wall facing the console was taken up by six large monitor screens. A second, auxiliary station held a sleek little tele-link, a second laser fax, a hologram send-receive unit, and several other pieces of hardware she didn’t recognize.

  The trio of comp stations boasted personal monitors with attached ’links.

  The floor was glazed tile, the diamond patterns in muted colors that bled together like liquid. The single window looked over the city and pulsed with the last lights of the setting sun.

  It seemed even here, Roarke demanded ambiance.

  “Quite a setup,” Eve commented.

  “Not quite as comfortable as my office, but it has the basics.” He moved behind the main console, placed his palm on the identiscreen. “Roarke. Open operations.”

  After a discreet hum, the lights on the console glowed on. “New palm and voice print clearance,” he continued and gestured to Eve. “Cleared for yellow status.”

  At his nod, Eve pressed her hand to the screen, felt the faint warmth of the reading. “Dallas.”

  “There you are.” Roarke took his seat. “The system will accept your voice and hand commands.”

  “What’s yellow status?”

  He smiled. “Enough to give you everything you need to kno
w—not quite enough to override my commands.”

  “Hmmm.” She scanned the controls, the patiently blinking lights, the myriad screens and gauges. She wished for Feeney and his computer-minded brain. “Search on Edward T. Simpson, Chief of Police and Security, New York City. All financial data.”

  “Going right to the heart,” Roarke murmured.

  “I don’t have time to waste. This can’t be traced?”

  “Not only can’t it be traced, but there’ll be no record of the search.”

  “Simpson, Edward T.,” the computer announced in a warm, female tone. “Financial records. Searching.”

  At Eve’s lifted brow, Roarke grinned. “I prefer to work with melodious voices.”

  “I was going to ask,” she returned, “how you can access data without alerting the Compuguard.”

  “No system’s foolproof, or completely breach resistant—even the ubiquitous Compuguard. The system is an excellent deterrent to your average hacker or electronic thief. But with the right equipment, it can be compromised. I have the right equipment. Here comes the data. On viewing screen one,” he ordered.

  Eve glanced up and saw Simpson’s credit report flash onto the large monitor. It was the standard business: vehicle loans, mortgages, credit card balances. All the automatic E-transactions.

  “That’s a hefty AmEx bill,” she mused. “And I don’t think it’s common knowledge he owns a place on Long Island.”

  “Hardly murderous motives. He maintains a Class A rating, which means he pays what he owes. Ah, here’s a bank account. Screen two.”

  Eve studied the numbers, dissatisfied. “Nothing out of line, pretty average deposits and withdrawals—mostly automatic bill paying transfers that jibe with the credit report. What’s Jeremy’s?”

  “Men’s clothier,” Roarke told her with the smallest sneer of disdain. “Somewhat second rate.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Hell of a lot to spend on clothes.”

  “Darling, I’m going to have to corrupt you. It’s only too much if they’re inferior clothes.”