by J. D. Robb
When they reached the car, she rattled off the address, let him take the wheel.
“It wasn’t that severe. Not visibly. A slice.” She demonstrated, swiping a finger over her biceps. “Not especially deep. It’s a damn efficient way to kill. Economic. One quick slice, walk away, and—what I gather—her heart does the rest, just pumps out the blood with every beat.”
Taking out her PPC, she glanced at Roarke. “What do you know, if anything, about Fabio Bellami?”
“A bit. I’ve met him a handful of times. Third—or it may be fourth—generation money. International banking with some tentacles in broadcasting and entertainment. Bellami’s into the entertainment end of things, I believe. Theater primarily. And though he had a reputation as a wastrel in his youth, appears to have steadied up since his marriage.”
“‘Wastrel’?”
Roarke lifted a shoulder. “It fits. Squandering his trust fund, buzzing about the globe and off-planet to clubs and other rich-boy hangouts, and causing enough trouble to require payoffs and restitution. He had a taste for women—often a few at the same time, so the stories go—along with drink and illegals.”
“Sounds like Mars’s type of story line.”
“Would have been but, as I said, he’s left that lifestyle behind. He’s produced a couple of well-received plays, become involved in charitable causes, and appears well married if what I’ve heard is accurate.”
“So, reformed?”
Roarke sent her a genuine smile. “It happens to the worst of us.”
She couldn’t argue with reformation, since she’d married a Dublin street rat and wildly successful thief—former. But she also knew habits were hard to break.
“Maybe he slipped, and she caught wind. Or maybe she was just pressuring him for juice. Either way he didn’t like it. Their waiter was clear on that—and the couple of times I paid attention to them, Bellami didn’t look happy to be there.”
She sat back. “But he was there. Why does a rich, successful, reformed wild child meet with a gossip reporter at a fancy French bar? And why does said gossip reporter frequent said bar—downtown bar, when she lives on Park Avenue, uptown?”
“We have a superior wine list.”
“She went for the Kir Royale. And I bet there are fancy, upscale bars a lot closer to her place, or to Channel Seventy-Five. You probably own them.”
“Maybe one or two. She may have frequented those as well. Mixing it up.”
“Maybe.” She chewed it over while Roarke hunted for parking. Once he’d bagged a space, she got out, studied the area until he joined her on the sidewalk. “Nice neighborhood.”
“Not far from our own.” He took her hand. “You know, there are spare gloves for you in the dash box.”
“I forgot. Why am I wearing six-thousand-dollar boots?”
Brows lifted, Roarke looked down, studied them. “To protect your feet in both a practical and fashionable manner.”
“I could do that for a couple hundred bucks.”
“Debatable. How do you know they’re six-thousand-dollar boots?”
“Because DeWinter said they were.” As they walked, she poked a finger into his arm. “She dinged me on it, and I didn’t have a decent comeback. That’s three large a boot, for God’s sake.”
“I believe your math is correct. I expect they’re comfortable.”
“Yeah, they’re comfortable, but—”
“And sturdy, as you prefer,” he continued smoothly. “I imagine if necessary—as it often is—you could chase a suspect several blocks in those.” He brought the hand he held to his lips. “My cop spends a good portion of her day on her feet, walking these streets and chasing bad guys. I have a fondness for those feet, and consider good boots as essential in your daily pursuits as your weapon.”
“For six grand they ought to be gold-plated,” she muttered.
“Far too heavy,” he said easily. “And you’d surely end up with blisters. Here we are.”
She dropped the argument she wouldn’t win—for now anyway—and studied the stone building with its curvy concrete trim. Three stories, long, narrow windows, ornately studded double doors of dark, aged wood.
“How old do you figure?”
“Late nineteeth century. It was a residence, then a bank. It survived the Urban Wars intact, and morphed into a high-fashion boutique for a time, but the owners failed to maintain it.”
“It’s yours?’
“It was. I sold it a few years ago.”
“You sold it to Bellami?”
“More accurately my representatives sold it to his representatives, and now it’s a residence again. One that appears well tended. I find that satisfying.”
“I bet you made a tidy profit, too.”
The smile he pulled out for her equaled pure sin. “Darling, how else could I afford to keep my wife in six-thousand-dollar boots?”
“You’re a real funny guy.”
“I live for your laughter.” With her hand still in his, he tugged her up the trio of stairs to the double doors.
Top-of-the-line security, she noted, including full-sweep cams.
At the press of a buzzer, the computer-generated voice answered.
Good evening. How may I assist you?
“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.” Eve held up her badge. “And Roarke, expert consultant, civilian. I need to speak with Fabio Bellami.”
One moment, please, while I verify your identification …
Your identification has been verified. Please produce identification for Roarke, expert consultant, civilian.
“Thorough,” Eve commented, smirking a little when Roarke took out his ID.
Thank you. Please wait while Mr. Bellami is notified.
“When’s the last time you spoke with Bellami?” Eve asked.
“A year, or more. I know more of him than know him.”
The right side of the doors opened. The woman wore slim black pants and a sweater. Her pale blond hair, drawn back in a smooth tail, left her quietly pretty face unframed.
“Please come in.” Her voice carried the faintest accent. Maybe Scandinavian, Eve thought. “Mr. and Mrs. Bellami are in the living room. May I take your coats?”
“No, thanks.” Eve scanned the entrance. Lofty ceilings with fancy exposed beams and a tiered chandelier that mated rust-colored iron with sparkling crystal. Some art—dreamy landscapes—a couple of chairs that looked old and were painted a bold red, a cream-colored table holding a trio of vases, in varying heights where rainbows of flowers spilled.
It said rich, classy, and secure.
They walked over a floor of gold-toned wood through a wide brick archway.
Bellami rose from his seat on a high-backed love seat of shimmery blue. He wore, Eve noted, the same suit and tie as he had in Du Vin.
“Roarke. A pleasure, and a surprise.”
A surprise, Eve judged as he crossed over to shake Roarke’s hand. But the anxiety in his eyes didn’t denote pleasure. “And Lieutenant. It’s lovely to meet you. DeAnna, Eve Dallas and Roarke. My wife, DeAnna.”
When she started to level herself off the love seat—and to Eve’s eye she’d need a pulley and tackle, as she was hugely, amazingly pregnant—Bellami jabbed a finger at her.
“You sit.”
DeAnna laughed, deep brown eyes sparkling with humor in a face, Eve decided, that owed some of its current roundness to the same reason her belly humped out in a considerable mountain.
“I will, as it would probably take me ten minutes to get up on my own. Please sit down. Fabio, get our guests a drink.”
“That’s all right,” Eve began, but she caught something in Bellami’s eyes. What might have been a plea. “Actually, coffee would be great.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
DeAnna beamed at the blonde. “Thanks, Lanie. I can sit here with my weak tea and be jealous.”
“When are you due?” Roarke said conversationally as he nudged Eve into a chair.
“March twen
ty-first.”
At Eve’s expression—it had to be shocked—DeAnna laughed again. The sound managed to be full-throated and musical at the same time. “But we’re told to be ready in a couple of weeks. We’ve having triplets, and they come early. Thank God.”
“There are three in there?” Eve heard herself say, then immediately apologized. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Fabio and I had the same reaction when we found out. And all girls. Poor Fabio. He’ll be surrounded.”
“I can’t wait.”
He looked as if he meant it, Eve mused.
“We have a mutual acquaintance,” DeAnna said to Eve. “Well, more than an acquaintance for you, as I understand you’re very good friends. Mavis Freestone.”
“You know Mavis?”
“I do. Before this…” She circled her hands on her stupendous belly. “She and I performed together at a fund-raiser. She’s marvelous. Unique and marvelous.”
“She’s all that.”
Something—somethings—moved inside DeAnna’s belly—visibly. Uneasy with that, Eve concentrated on her face. Shadows of fatigue under those dark eyes, and a pallor under the olive skin.
The blonde came in with a coffee service. Bellami rose to take it from her, murmured to her. She nodded.
“Doctor’s orders,” Bellami said, setting down the tray.
“Oh, but I’m just sitting here.”
“Come on now, Mama.” Lanie crossed to her, got an arm around DeAnna, and helped launch her to standing. “Bed rest means bed. Your babies are tired.”
“They don’t feel tired.” She rested her hand on them again. “I’m sorry,” she said to Roarke and Eve. “I’m at the stage where I eat, sleep, and waddle. And not a lot of waddling right now. I hope you’ll come back when I’m not being sent off to bed.”
“It was lovely to meet you.” Rising, Roarke took her hand. “Stay well.”
“I’m doing all I can. Good night.”
She did waddle, Eve noted. Who wouldn’t with that front-end load?
“I’m sorry if that seemed abrupt. She’s had some complications, and she’s on modified bed rest for the duration now. And the doctor made it clear she’s not to be upset or stressed.”
He looked after his wife another moment, then poured out the coffee. “I’m assuming since you’re here—I’m aware of what you do, Lieutenant—something’s very wrong. Did something happen to one of my family, or DeAnna’s?”
“No. Just black’s fine.” She took the cup, waited for him to serve Roarke and sit again. “You had drinks with Larinda Mars this evening.”
“I … Yes.”
“Can you tell me what time you left Du Vin?”
“About six-thirty, quarter to seven, somewhere around there. I think was home by about seven. Why?”
“What’s your relationship with Ms. Mars?”
Everything in his face tightened. “We have no relationship.”
“Yet you spent nearly an hour together over drinks.”
He picked up the brandy he’d set aside when they’d come in. “You could call it a business meeting.”
“What sort of business?”
“Mine. If Mars is determined to cause trouble, I’ll have my lawyers deal with her. I won’t have my wife upset. If she’s filed some sort of complaint or made some accusation, I—”
“She’s dead.”
Eve said it flatly, watched for reaction.
“I don’t care what she … What?” Now his face went slack, as if from a gut punch. “What did you say?”
“I said Larinda Mars is dead.”
He simply stared, showing confusion. “But we were just…” Confusion flashed into shock. “Oh God. My God. I left the bar. She was still there. Someone had to see me leave—there must be security. I was home around seven, by seven-fifteen. House security will show that. Lanie will verify that. Please, don’t question DeAnna. Please, don’t upset her.”
He shoved off the love seat, rubbing his fingers on his temples as he paced. “She left the table—we were done and she left—not the bar. She went downstairs. The restroom, I assume. I sat there for another minute or two, then I paid the bill and left. I paid the bill, got my coat, and left. She hadn’t come back. I came straight home. I took a cab. I’m sure you can check that.
“When was she killed?”
“You assume she was killed?”
“You said she’s dead. You’re Homicide. Yes, I assume.” He snapped it out, then quickly looked toward the archway. Took a long breath. “She was alive when I left the bar.”
“She was attacked in the bar. Downstairs.”
“Attacked?” He sat again. “I’m not surprised. She was a vulture, a vampire. I couldn’t be the only one.”
“The only one?”
“Who detested her. I barely knew her, and detested her. If she was attacked, someone must have heard, or seen. I couldn’t have sat there more than two or three minutes after she got up. I couldn’t have been in the bar a full five minutes after she got up. How could I follow her down and beat her to death—or wring her neck—and get back out in five minutes?”
Eve eyed him coolly. “Is that what you wanted to do? Beat her to death or wring her neck?”
“The thought occurred,” he muttered, then shut his eyes. “I should get my lawyers. I know better, but—” Opening his eyes again, he looked toward the archway. “I’ll tell you everything—freely. I only ask that you don’t involve my wife. A couple of weeks, they say. Longer is better, but in a couple of weeks, we’ll be in the clear if she goes into labor. Please, we need that time.”
“I’ve no reason to speak to your wife about this. Unless you killed Larinda Mars.”
“I haven’t killed anyone. I’ve done some stupid things, careless, reckless things in my life, but I’ve never killed anyone. She was blackmailing me.”
“For?”
“Before I met DeAnna, I did those stupid, careless, reckless things routinely. I reveled in doing them, in shocking people—particularly my family. Spoiled, entitled.” He shook his head. “If I drank, it was with the purpose of getting drunk. If I used, it was to get as high as possible. Every time. I wasn’t an alcoholic or an addict. I used substances, and people, because I could. I was going nowhere, and that’s just where I wanted to be.
“Then I met DeAnna. There are moments, there are people, who change your life, who save it. DeAnna changed mine. Saved mine.”
“She would have been a bright light on Broadway when you met her,” Roarke calculated. “A star, full of talent and promise.”
“Yes. Gorgeous, talented, a shining prize in the box. And I thought, I’ll have one of those.”
He pressed his lips together in a show of self-disgust.
“That’s just how I thought of it. She wouldn’t be had, not DeAnna. She saw me for what I was—careless, callous—and blew me off. That posed a challenge, so I pursued. I got nowhere with her,” he said with a small smile. “I began to see her not as a shiny prize in the box but a puzzle. Then as a person. I wanted to prove something to her, and to myself. I found a play.
“An old friend of mine had a play, and couldn’t get anyone to look at it,” Bellami explained. “I looked. And I asked DeAnna to look. She did, and she talked to my friend, met with him, with me. We worked. I worked, for the first time in my life, really. And that was a revelation. I was good at it, actually good at it, and I liked being good at it. I began to mend some fences. I began to live a life. I produced that play, and it did all right. It didn’t shake the theater world, but it did all right. I produced another, and it did all right. My friend wrote another play, a really good one, and working on it, asking for DeAnna’s input, we, well, found each other. She fell in love with me. I was already in love with her. We built a life, we’re building a family. She helped me earn the trust and respect of my parents again, of my grandparents, my sister. She helped me earn respect for myself.”
“All that’s in the past,” Eve said. “How could Mars b
lackmail you about things your wife, your family, really anyone who cared to look, already knew?”
“A couple months ago—early December—DeAnna took a weekend with a couple of her college friends. She was so tired, so worn-out, and this trip—a retreat, a health spa just a short drive out of the city—came highly recommended. Her doctor approved, in fact, he told us it would do her a lot of good. The night she left I went downtown to see a singer we were considering for the new play. We—my friend and I—wanted to see how she performed in front of an audience. We met at the club, and halfway through the first set, he got tagged. The person identified herself as a nurse at Clinton Memorial, and said his mother had taken ill. Not an emergency, but she’d been given some medication and had asked them to contact him, to ask him to come and take her home. She gets terrible migraines, and if one triggers she can get very ill. He had to go, and I decided to stay, see the rest of the show, told him to tag me if it turned out to be more serious.
“I remember listening to her sing, watching her—imagining her in the part. I remember I started to feel … off. Mildly dizzy even sitting down, a bit queasy. I remember leaving cash on the table because I wanted to get out, out in the air.
“The next I remember, I woke upstairs, in my own bed. A raging headache, the smell of booze-sweat, the taste in my mouth. I remember those mornings very well.”
Pausing, he stared down at his hands. “I’d had one brandy—one. I wanted a clear head to rate the performance. And I rarely have more than two drinks, ever. I don’t remember leaving the club or getting home or going to bed. I had never had a blackout, not even when I abused everything that could be abused. I told myself either the brandy or the quick meal I’d had before had made me ill. But … I could smell perfume on me—stale perfume, and not my wife’s. I ignored it, I pushed it away and showered it away, and…”
“You think you were drugged.”
“I know it.” Eyes fierce now, he jerked his head up. “I know it now absolutely. But even back then? I spoke with my friend later that day and he was furious. He’d gone to the hospital. His mother had never been there. No nurse had contacted him. He went to his mother’s apartment, and she was fine. They—someone had wanted me alone. At that time we both thought it was just some sick joke. I even thought it might have been pulled off by one of the crowd I used to run with. It would be something we’d do for a laugh.”