by J. D. Robb
Blindly, she reached out and Bic gripped her hand in both of his.
“It’s all right. You’re all right.”
“He hit her,” Knight continued, “backslapped her away. Her nose started bleeding, and she hit him. He had a knife, he waved the knife, and they were cursing at each other. So high, just flying high. Him waving the knife, and it cut my hand a little. I grabbed the knife from him, full of fear and rage and shock, and I stabbed him. In the throat. I know it was in the throat. The blood was gushing, and she was laughing again. I dropped the knife, and when he turned on her, I ran. That part’s a blur. Running, getting on a bus again, getting back, running home. I told Mom, told her everything. I’d barely been gone an hour.”
Knight breathed deep. “A lifetime can only take an hour. She bagged my clothes. We’d go to the police. She made sure I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t hurt. Just some scrapes and bruises, that shallow cut on my hand. She held me all night, rocked me like a baby all night. We’d go to the police in the morning, she told me, and not to worry. But in the morning, there was a media report about a man and a woman found dead in an alley. Multiple stab wounds on both. They showed the photos—the ID photos. Carly and the man.”
Now Knight’s eyes swam. “The truth, the absolute truth? I don’t know if I killed him or if she did. I don’t know if he killed her before he bled to death from where I’d stabbed him with her knife. The media said it appeared they’d fought, both of them high on illegals, and they’d succumbed to their injuries. My mother burned the clothes I’d been wearing. She said we’d let the dead bury the dead, and there was no need to put me through what going to the police would put me through. It wouldn’t change anything. She said it wasn’t my fault. She said she loved me from the first instant, but she hadn’t been honest with me, so it was her fault.”
Her eyes, dark and wet, met Eve’s, pleaded.
“But it wasn’t her fault, and I can’t blame a scared and angry child. It was Carly’s fault. Carly Ellison, and his fault, Wayne Sarvino. We moved back home, and put it behind us. When I was sixteen, Mom married Abe Knight, and we both took his name. She told him everything, all of it. They gave me a good life, they built a good life. I have a brother and a sister. They’re good people with good families of their own. So when Larinda threatened to expose all of this, I paid. I kept it from them, as Mom had kept things from me. I was going to go home this weekend and tell them, and talk to the police in St. Louis. I was going to take that weapon out of Larinda’s hand.”
Eve said nothing, let it all play out until Knight finished. “How did she find out?”
“She never told me, wouldn’t. Just said she had lots of clever birds and they loved to chirp. My mother registered my birth—an at-home birth—with her as mother, and father unknown. But if anyone really wanted to dig down, it wouldn’t be hard to find our connection to Carly Ellison—my mom changed her last name to her mother’s maiden when she moved to St. Louis. But it wouldn’t be hard to dig down and find Carly, then how she died, where Mom and I lived.”
“All right.” Eve rose.
“Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m going to talk to St. Louis, I’m going to review the facts, the evidence, and the investigative steps in the two deaths. I want your files, and I want a copy of your home-security feed for the night in question. If after we’ve studied and evaluated all the above and determine an arrest is in order, you’ll have your twenty-four.”
“All right.”
“Who else knows this story?”
“Nobody. Well, Bob Turnbill now, as of last night. Otherwise, my mom and dad, my grandparents.”
“Who else knew about the extortion?”
“No one. I didn’t tell my family. Only Bic, and now Bob.”
“Your PA?”
“Bill? No. He’s loyal and protective—maybe overly—and all-around terrific, but no. This is personal business.”
“Okay. We need the file and the feed.”
“They’re both at home. I have to be on set in—God, twenty minutes.”
“I’ll go. I’ll get them,” Bic told her.
“Always got my back.” She gripped his hand, pressed her lips to it.
“Always will.”
“We’ll arrange for a uniformed officer to meet you at your residence and transport. Thank you for your cooperation. Record off.”
She stood a moment, then went with her gut. “If you’ve told me the truth, if you haven’t left out salient details or slanted the angles, no one’s going to arrest or prosecute you for defending yourself against an assault, or arrest or prosecute the woman who protected her minor child from additional trauma.”
As her eyes welled, Knight got shakily to her feet, reached out a hand. “Thank you.”
“If you left anything out, now’s the time.”
“You have it all. If I’d listened to Bic—and I won’t hear the end of that anytime soon—I’d have come to you or someone like you twenty-one months ago.”
“Next time, listen to Bic,” Eve suggested.
14
Because as Peabody had said, it could be fun, Eve decided to make it so and wove back to Hyatt’s office.
He shoved up from his desk, outrage in every pore, and flicked at his ear ’link.
“I intend to file a complaint on Ms. Knight’s behalf.”
“Okay, then you can add one on your own behalf after you give me your whereabouts last evening from six to seven P.M.”
He stared down his nose in a way that made her think Summerset did it a lot better. “I’m under no obligation to tell you a thing.”
“Maybe you should get that lawyer back on the phone, see what he has to say.” Wanting to goad him, Eve took another step toward his desk.
And had the satisfaction of watching him take a step back. “I’m going to have you both escorted from the building.”
She bared her teeth. “Try it. Peabody, make a note, Mr. Hyatt is unable to verify his whereabouts during the time in question.”
“So noted.”
“You can go to hell,” he said. “I was here, here in my office until shortly after seven. If you knew how to do the job my tax dollars pay you to do, you could easily determine this by checking the log for these offices and studios. Log in and out is required, by ID swipe. Now get out.”
“Do you often stay more than an hour after your boss?”
“I do my job. I do what has to be done. And I don’t answer to you.”
“You will if you’re lying,” Eve said easily. As she left, she heard him demand someone contact his lawyer.
It was a little bit of fun.
After they’d wound their way back down, Eve took the long route around the pedestrian area.
“Let’s take a closer look at Bill Hyatt. I just don’t like him.”
“Happy to. I didn’t like him, either. I liked her, and Bic.”
“People you like can still be murdering bastards.”
“But you don’t think so, not these two.”
“I don’t think so,” Eve confirmed, “but I’ll be checking their stories, right down the line. How much is public about Knight’s background?”
“Well, the Missouri girl, raised by her single mother, the teacher. I think I knew about them moving back to the hometown. And if you know anything about her or the show, you get she’s tight with family—considers her stepfather her dad. I know she started in broadcasting back in St. Louis, worked her way up. She hit pretty big by the time she was like thirty, got a New York gig as part of a morning talk-show ensemble, and brokered that popularity into her own. She’s an icon there. I know she’s been with Bic a long time. Easy to find out how long, but long.”
“We’ll take a look at him, too. He’s devoted, that comes across. Devoted enough, you can do something stupid. Doesn’t ring for me, but we’ll tug that line.”
A lot of lines, she thought, and time to tug them.
* * *
Back in her office, Eve updated he
r board, did a full run on Terrance Bicford.
New York native, law degree from Columbia. Hotshot in a hotshot firm all the way up to partner. Estate law, financial law. One marriage and divorce before Knight. One offspring—daughter, also a hotshot lawyer.
Cohabbed with Knight for—huh—nineteen years. He sat on the board of her foundation, and her company—which wasn’t peanuts.
A lot of money in the Knight world, Eve noted. But then again, he’d had a very nice pile of his own when they hooked up.
It wasn’t about money, she thought. It was about secrets.
She got up to program coffee, sat down, coffee in hand, putting her boots up and letting her mind wander.
At some point, it wasn’t the money for Mars, either. It was the having of it, the taking of it, and the mining for more.
It was the knack she’d had—a kind of primal instinct—for finding vulnerabilities, and for exploiting people who could afford to pay.
Who would pay rather than have those secrets and vulnerabilities exposed?
Hit the rich, the rich and the really fucking rich, Eve mused. A few thousand a month meant nothing. Image? Priceless.
She’d miscalculated. Either sucked too hard and long on a mark, hit on someone who’d kill rather than risk exposure. Or somebody who, under the image, couldn’t afford the payments.
Protection. A child defending herself, a mother protecting her child, a man covering a shakedown, trying to shield the woman he loved.
Another pattern. Marks not just covering themselves, but those they loved. And those they loved protecting them.
Isn’t that what Mars had tried with Roarke? Another miscalculation. Probably she’d made others. And maybe one of those others had flipped her off, as Roarke had. But had also decided to silence her.
Dropping her boots back on the ground, she contacted St. Louis.
It took time, and she had to work her way up to her counterpart in St. Louis Homicide before she got close to anywhere.
“You want us to dig up the file on a john/prossy case from better than forty fricking years ago.”
“I understand it’s more than forty years, Lieutenant, but dead’s still dead. And there may be a connection to an open case here.”
Her counterpart gave her a sour look, added a curled lip. “And how’s that?”
“I don’t know until I see the file. If I could speak to the investigating officers—”
“Forty years,” he repeated. “I can’t even tell you right off if the investigating officers are still alive, for Christ’s sake.”
“I would appreciate it very much”—you lazy fuckhead—“if you’d check on that. I’ll make myself available at any time.” And though she hated pulling the Whitney card, she wasn’t in the mood to screw around. “I can have my commander contact yours, Lieutenant, if that would expedite the matter.”
“We got open cases here, too. We may not be New York City, but cops do the job here, too.”
“And as one cop to another, I need to review that case file and, if possible, speak to one of the investigators. Once again, the DBs were Carly Ellison and Wayne Sarvino.”
“I heard you the first time. We’ll get to it when we get to it.”
“Have you got a problem with me personally or just New York City cops?”
“I got a problem with New York City cops telling me to jump and expecting me to say how high.”
“You’re going to like me less when I tell you if I don’t have that case file within two hours, I’ll be contacting not only your commanding officer with a formal complaint, but your IAB.”
“Now, you look here—”
“Getting me that file’s no skin off your ass, but I’ll damn well take a bite out of said ass if you keep fucking with me. One more thing? This communication has been recorded, as is SOP for my own case file. Dallas out.”
She broke communication. “Asshole.”
“He seemed remarkably uncooperative.”
She spun around in her chair to where Roarke leaned against her doorjamb. “Lazy is what he is. He doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork, and doesn’t seem to like New York.”
“He doesn’t like female rank,” Roarke corrected.
“Come on.”
“My take.” Roarke shrugged, stepping in to sit on the corner of her desk. “And young female rank—young, female New York rank—that just ices the cake for that type.”
“Just makes him a bigger asshole.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t care how big an asshole he is, as long as I get the case files. Progress in the e-world?”
“Considerable. Feeney’s sending you the data and a report. We’ve got more names, amounts, but she’s got books elsewhere. What she kept with her, at home, even at work, is sketchy. More of, in my opinion, a kind of pocket guide.”
“So we’re back to her having another place somewhere.”
“And I haven’t found any such place in the names she used for alternate accounts, or variations of them. Yet.”
She angled her head. “You’re having fun with it.”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s a fine puzzle, isn’t it? And as it appears bodies won’t be piling up, the urgency is lessened.”
Eve turned back to the board. “You never know about those bodies.”
“Do you have any reason to think he’ll kill again? For what purpose?”
“No reason, but once you kill, the purpose can get murky. Hey, that went well! And now that I think about it, my landlord, neighbor, brother, ex-wife, really piss me off.”
“You’re a cynical soul, Lieutenant. Only one of the countless reasons I love you. And now.”
He rose, went to the door, shut it. “What is it?”
“What’s what?”
“What’s troubling you under it all?”
“I’ve got nearly twenty-four in on a case that happened under my nose. And I’m not feeling the wind at my back.”
“Under it all,” he repeated, cupping her chin in his hand. “I can see it.”
He always could, she thought and, with a shrug, wandered away to her narrow window. “Evil’s one of those words people toss around too much, or other people say people use too easily. But the fact is, there are a lot of degrees of evil. Plain, simple evil. Cops end up seeing pretty much every form of it. You take it down when you can, just like you take down the petty bullshit. Like the pair of street thieves Peabody and I collared today.”
“Which explains the bit of bruising on your jaw.”
“Head butt.” Absently, Eve rubbed at it. “I had to at least half admire her style. Not evil, but the potential’s always there, depending on circumstance. You could have turned evil. Me, too. The potential’s there,” she said as she shifted to look at him again.
“That may be. While I’ve done my share in cold blood, and more than my share of deeds the cop in you may understand and will never approve of. And still, I’ve looked at myself before and after you, and come to realize that as lost as I was before you, there were lines I couldn’t and wouldn’t cross. And you, Lieutenant?”
He studied her as she did him. “You? Your lines are, and have always been, closer and deeper than mine. There’s mean in you, just another of the countless reasons I adore you. But your potential for evil—and I agree that’s in all of us—is far, far outweighed by your absolute dedication to protecting and serving, not just people, but that amorphous goal of justice.”
“I can see myself before and after you, just as clearly. And I can see me doing the job I’m doing now. With this.” She gestured to the board. “And not letting myself feel what I’m feeling. Not admitting it to myself, much less anyone else.”
There it was, Roarke thought, the under it all. “What are you feeling?”
“Those degrees of evil. Mars? She’s on the scale. She doesn’t ring the bell, but she’s on the scale. She didn’t kill or rape or beat small children. She didn’t disembowel some stranger for kicks. I’ve s
een worse. We’ve seen worse.”
He had to touch her now, just glide a hand down her back.
“And you’ve stood for dead higher on that scale than Mars. What troubles you?”
“Her victims, because that’s what they are, every one. We say marks—it’s an easier word, and even puts some of the blame on them. Well, some of it is on them, as they made a choice. But they’re still her victims. Some of them hit close to home, but it’s not even that.”
“How close?”
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Annie Knight. You know who she is.”
“I do.”
“At thirteen she found out the good, loving woman she thought was her mother was her aunt, and her mother was a junkie whore. So the kid did the stupid, ran off to confront the junkie whore, and ended up stabbing a junkie john who tried, with the whore’s cooperation, to rape her.”
Saying nothing, he crossed the room, took her face in his hands, kissed her gently.
“It’s not like me. She gave him a jab and ran. She had a mother—because the aunt was her mother—to run to. And unless the case file from the asshole in St. Louis leads me in a different direction, she didn’t kill him like she thinks she did. He and the whore ended up putting several holes in each other. But she’s carried that around, and that I understand. We’ve got another mother trying to protect her kid from rape by sick fuck ex, and the kid ends up killing him. Santiago and Carmichael caught that one. We’ve got people, so far on this one, mostly trying to protect loved ones as much, maybe more, than themselves. That was Mars’s skill.”