Secrets in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Well now,” Roarke replied, “listen to you.”

  “I know where his loyalties are, and they’re unquestionable, unassailable. I’d say the same for Caro. Mira’s admin would block God himself from getting through her door if Mira was in a session. It’s loyalty, and it’s a kind of possessiveness, too. I’ve never had an admin, thank Christ, but I could say when Peabody was my aide, she’d have put up shields.”

  “And so?” he prompted as he brought her a glass of wine.

  “Annie Knight’s personal assistant, admin, whatever the hell he is. I didn’t like him. He put up blocks, unnecessary ones. He was aggressively territorial. He was obnoxious about keeping us away from her. Even when we made contact with her, he tried to push in.”

  “That’s rather the job, darling.”

  “Maybe, and maybe that’s a reason I don’t like admins in general. Caro being the exception—and I probably wouldn’t like her if I were a schmoe trying to get a meet with you. But he got seriously pissed, ordered an underling to lie, then went straight to lawyer. Knight herself was already prepared to talk—but didn’t know, as he hadn’t told her, we were coming in. He blocked her, too, as much as he could.”

  Roarke reconsidered. “I rarely meet with schmoes. But an important visitor, an official one? Caro wouldn’t block me, or filter it.”

  “Exactly. And Caro knows who you do meet with, and that’s a point. Like Missy Lee, Annie Knight probably believes this asshole didn’t know anything about her problem with Mars. But maybe he did. And her partner, who did know, seems like a solid sort, but maybe. I’d lean more to the asshole than the partner.”

  “You really didn’t like him.”

  “Really didn’t, which is why I got back in his face after I’d talked to her. He had that smirky, sneery, superior attitude, had me and Peabody tangled up at every level to get to Knight. What would Caro have done, say, if a couple of cops said they needed to speak to you?”

  “She’d have tangled them up until she’d spoken with me, then would have followed my lead.”

  “Yeah, that’s my thought, too. He didn’t speak to Knight, tell her we were there. Unless she lied to us, and since she was immediately cooperative, I don’t see the lie. And he jumps to lawyer before consulting her. Anyway, I want to check with security, find out if he told me the truth about when he logged out yesterday, and if he had a window to get to Mars.”

  “To kill her because she was shaking down his boss? That’s some serious dislike you have there.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he just gave off a vibe. I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you think he’s romantically involved, or wishes to be, with Knight?”

  She considered it; dismissed it. “No, she and the partner are solid, and the asshole gave off another vibe. The I-like-guys-better vibe, so I don’t think he’s into that or wants to be with Knight in that way. Anyway, it might take me a few minutes to wind my way through security and get the answer.”

  “Then I’ll see about that stew.”

  It didn’t take as long as she’d calculated. It helped that the man on the desk used to be on the job, and had even worked under Feeney before he’d switched from Homicide to EDD.

  When she had what she needed, she sat back, frowned at her board.

  “No window?” Roarke asked.

  “He logged out at nineteen-six, pretty much when he said. TOD is about thirty minutes earlier, so no. No window. Asshole’s clear.”

  “Come console yourself with cocido.”

  “It smells pretty good.” She walked to the table, studied the stew in thick blue bowls. “Looks like a lot of vegetables in there.”

  “As there’s also a lot of meat, that should balance it for you.”

  Suspicious, she sat, spooned up a little as Roarke cut pieces from a small round loaf of warm bread. Even as she wondered why they couldn’t just have regular stew, she warily tasted.

  Flavors exploded in her mouth.

  “Okay, it’s really good.”

  Smiling, he handed her a chunk of bread. “Now you can relax and enjoy it.”

  “Did you ever cook anything? I mean where you put stuff with other stuff and add more stuff?”

  “I have actually. When I came to Summerset, he insisted on teaching me—or attempting to—how to prepare a few basic meals. I hated every bleeding moment of it, and surely did my best to turn it all to shite.”

  He grinned, ate. “Likely I didn’t have to try that hard. It’s the one area where he gave up on me, to the great relief of both of us. You?”

  “One of the state schools I was in had a required course. They called it Life Science, and we had to learn how to cook some basics. I did the fake scrambled eggs. They’d either come out hard and dry or runny and mostly raw. The instructor finally gave me the check mark, I figure out of pity or desperation.”

  “She and Summerset could have commiserated,” Roarke supposed.

  Eve shoveled in more. Vegetables didn’t taste so healthy when they had a kick and swam around in the really damn good.

  “Life Science, my ass,” she said between bites. “I was always coming to New York, and you can always get pizza, so cooking was as useless as knowing what year that guy on the elephants crossed the mountains. The strategy, that’s useful. But what the fuck does it matter what year it was? That was then, this is now.”

  Amused, Roarke drank some wine. “Summerset’s angle was what if I found myself in some situation where it was cook or starve. And my angle was, I knew how to be hungry, didn’t I, and I could always steal food come to that.”

  “He likes doing it.” She dug into the stew again, though she was pretty sure some of the green stuff was cabbage. “It takes all kinds.”

  “Even after I was with him weeks, and he saw to it I never went hungry, I stole food. Stashed it away—just in case. After a time, he sat me down, told me I was taking that food out of someone else’s mouth, who might go hungry. And I should have a care for those who had less than I.”

  Eve brushed a hand over the back of his because it touched her. And still, she puzzled over it. “But he didn’t have a problem with you stealing otherwise.”

  “It’s a process, isn’t it?” With a shrug, Roarke ate. “Over time he pressed that point on me. Have a care for those who have less. In a way you’d find perverse, I became a better thief because I began to take that to heart and aimed higher.”

  “It is perverse,” she agreed.

  “And yet. It might have been easier to lift the shaky locks on this little flat and pull out the bit of cash the family had stashed in the potato bin, but I’d think: They have less than I, so leave that be. But that fine house there, with all that security to wrangle through? They have a great deal more.”

  He shrugged again, unrepentant. “He had, for a time, two young mouths to feed and clothe and house and care for. And our world was a hard place.”

  He smiled over at her. “You were born to be a cop, and I was born to be something else entirely. I’d likely still be that, if only in small ways that entertained me, if not for you. You finished the process, we’ll say.”

  She thought of him, and thought of herself. Sitting there in the big, beautiful house, having a good meal with good wine before she went back to the job.

  “I guess you finished me, too.”

  “And here we are.”

  “If we ever find ourselves in a situation, I could probably make bad, semi-disgusting fake scrambled eggs.”

  “I wager I could steal enough to keep our bellies full.”

  “Then I could arrest us both and we’d get three hots in a cage.”

  “I do adore you, Eve. Every bit of you.”

  “Mutual.” She nudged her empty bowl aside. “Don’t ever tell me what was in that.”

  “There’s a promise. You want to get to your updates.”

  “Yeah, and the case file the St. Louis asshole finally sent.”

  “What can I do for my cop?”

  “If your own
decks are clear, there’s that angle about Mars going for pattern under another name. Maybe using another name to buy or rent another place. It’s all speculation, but it’s a good angle.”

  “I can play with that. Once I get that set up, it’s going to run primarily on auto. I can clear what’s left on my decks while it does. I’ll start that in my office.”

  Following their tacit agreement, since he’d put the meal on, she cleared it off before updating her board and book.

  She let the updates simmer while she read the St. Louis file.

  Not really sloppy work, she thought, not altogether careless work, but borderline on both. One witness had mentioned a teenage girl running out of the alley, but the investigating officers didn’t follow up or through on it. And obviously didn’t put much faith in the statement of another junkie whore.

  Partially the times, she thought, partially the area. And far too much who-gives-a-shit because the dead were the dregs.

  A cop had to give that shit, no matter the dregs, or didn’t deserve the badge.

  In any case, the ME had done his job, she decided. The throat wound on the male vic had been severe, as had two chest wounds and a gash on the arm—but the gut wound had been determined as COD. A few defensive wounds as well—both vics. Female vic, two facial gashes, three chest wounds. Including the heart stab (a lucky shot, in Eve’s opinion) that had killed her. The vics’ TODs were within two minutes of each other, with the male bleeding out last as he attempted to crawl out of the alley.

  Eve read it all a second time, considered, then engaged her ’link.

  A woman with a pleasant face, a pleasant voice answered. “Good evening, Knight residence.”

  “Lieutenant Dallas to speak with Ms. Knight.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Knight has retired for the evening and asked not to be disturbed.”

  “Disturb her with my name, see what she says.”

  “One moment, please.”

  It took barely more than that for Knight to come on—making Eve think of the personal assistant again.

  “Lieutenant.”

  “I thought you’d want to know, I received and reviewed the case files from St. Louis.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I—what?” Knight lifted a hand and pressed it to her mouth. “I’m sorry?”

  “Sarvino might have died from the throat wound you inflicted if he hadn’t sought medical assistance. But, in point of fact, that didn’t cause his death. They killed each other, sloppily and stupidly, because, in my opinion, they were high and pissed off. Carly Ellison died because she dragged a thirteen-year-old girl into an alley so she could make some money by allowing a junkie to rape her. You didn’t kill anyone, so put it away. Tell your mother to put it away.”

  “I…”

  “This is what I do for a living, Ms. Knight. I’m telling you, you weren’t responsible for what happened in that alley. I’m telling you that as an investigator. Mars had to know you weren’t responsible. If she dug deep enough, she knew, but she exploited you anyway.”

  Tears glittered in Knight’s eyes. “We didn’t go to the police.”

  “I’m the police,” Eve said. “Better late than never.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’m doing my job. Put it away.”

  “I think I can at least start to. I think I finally can. Thank you. Good night, Lieutenant.”

  Eve clicked off, began her deeper runs on connecting names she felt were low probability. Get them out of the way, she thought.

  From there, she moved on to what she thought of as the next tier. Unlikely, but more possible.

  She programmed coffee, gathered data, added notes to her murder book.

  Then she went back to Guy and Iris Durante. Missy Lee’s parents—father leading—were most probable of her current crop to her mind. But she’d added Wylee Stamford’s sports agent and his two other friends from back in his old neighborhood who fit the pattern of victims of the abuser.

  If Stamford’s story had come out, theirs might, too.

  When Roarke came in, she noted his warning look when she reached for more coffee. Instantly annoyed, she started to snap something, then noted the time.

  Okay, he had a point.

  “It’ll continue to run on auto,” he told her. “Nothing substantial as yet. I did find a Starr—that’s two r’s—Venus with a flat downtown, but she’s actually an over-the-’link psychic, born Karen Leibowitz. Did some time under that name for fraud. And how about you?”

  “I’ve moved the bulk of connections to the bottom of the list. No one there has a probability over ten percent. I’ve got a couple who hit low twenties. Guy Durante’s at sixty-five and change with current data, so he bears more study. And I’ve got a couple of possibles connected to Wylee Stamford. Very likely victims of the same fucking pedophile. If I keep on them, I’m going to find who killed the fucking pedophile. I lean toward the father of one of them.”

  He read the conflict on her face. “Will you push on that?”

  She stood, paced. “Rock, hard place. It’s my job. But I can tell myself it’s not my case. I can take the straight-arrow line and start peeling things back. And the man I’d peel things back on has two more kids, has worked at the same company for thirty years, volunteers at a youth crisis center—he started there six months after the fuck’s death. He also coaches a Little League team.”

  “He, if you’re right, would have been protecting his son.”

  “He should have gone to the cops.”

  “Who knows how the boy would have reacted? Who knows if he’d have been believed? What would it serve, after all these years? We both know what it is to be abused as a child. For me, it was neglect or beatings, but you and that boy have more in common. Summerset saved me,” Roarke continued, more passionately than he’d intended. “And someone did me the favor of putting a knife in Patrick Roarke, as he’d have found me and likely done for me sooner or later.”

  Eve slid her hands into her pockets, looked away, walked to the window to look out.

  She didn’t respond, just stared out the window.

  “You saved yourself,” Roarke continued. “We don’t know what it is to have a child, but we know what it is to be one. What wouldn’t we do, either of us, to protect what we loved and cherished?”

  “I need to look—for my own case, not for someone else’s. If it turns out either the father or the son learned what Mars was doing to Stamford and took action to stop her, it all comes out. If not … I don’t know. I need to let it settle.”

  “Fair enough.” He walked to her, took her hand. “Let it all settle for the night.”

  She’d disappointed him, she could see it. And still felt herself torn. She had a duty, and yet …

  She believed she knew who’d killed a man—or a monster disguised as a man. Just as she knew who’d killed Patrick Roarke.

  So she knew just how far a man might go to protect—or avenge—his son. Or the boy he’d made his son.

  17

  Even tucked in, Roarke’s arm around her, the cat curled at the small of her back, dreams slipping through. Alleyways, crumbling projects marred and scarred with grafitti, the stench of garbage gone ripe with the undertone of brew-fueled piss.

  Deep shadows and muddy pools of light from failing security lamps smeared the stained ground.

  She knew it to be that urban, hopeless anywhere.

  She’d hidden in one like it as a broken child. Though the bloody body of the man who’d broken her lay at her feet, she knew it wasn’t the alley in Dallas.

  It was anywhere. It was nowhere. It was everywhere.

  Another body lay to the right, a knife protruding from its throat. Dazzling blue eyes, Patrick Roarke’s eyes, stared up at her.

  To the left, another. A big man, beaten ruthlessly into shattered bones and torn flesh. She imagined his face haunted Wylee Stamford’s dreams.

  Three monster
s disguised as men. Three secrets of violence and pain and terror.

  She knew the secrets. How they’d died, why they’d died, and who had ended them.

  Her badge weighed heavy.

  “What about me?”

  Larinda Mars strolled into the alley on the high, thin heels of her green boots, her pink skin suit highlighting every curve, her golden hair sweeping around her expertly crafted face.

  “What are you doing about me?”

  “My job,” Eve said, and got a dismissive pftt in return.

  “Your job? Dreaming about three men long dead while I’m still fresh in a drawer at the fucking morgue is your job?”

  “Maybe. What was yours?”

  As Mars stood hipshot, she waved a hand in the air. “To get the dish, to dig it out, cook it up, and serve it to millions on a silver platter. Nobody did it better.”

  Even in death, even in dreams, Mars projected sheer, unapologetic arrogance.

  “That might be because others in your line of work don’t stoop to blackmail and extortion.”

  Larinda threw back her head and laughed—a good, hearty one that echoed down the fetid alley. “Oh, don’t be naive. Besides, if someone chooses to pay or barter to keep a secret buried, it’s their choice, isn’t it? They should’ve gone to the police,” she added in a sneering mimic of Eve’s words. “But they didn’t. That’s not on me.”

  “It’s all on you.”

  “So I deserved to die?”

  “No. That’s on your killer.”

  Hands on hips now, Mars gave an exaggerated look around the alley. “Well, my killer’s not here, is he? So why are you?”

  Eve studied the bodies. “Sometimes old business crawls up over the new.”

  “What bullshit!” Anger now, the fierce lash of it skinned with disgust. “You’re wallowing. You’d kill him again, wouldn’t you? Stick that knife in him a thousand times again to save yourself. Go to the police, my ass. You made your choice.”

  “He was raping me.”

  “Oh, boo hoo! And that dead Irish bastard? You wouldn’t have minded a shot at him. You didn’t get one, but you’re protecting the man who got one, and took it. That’s personal, sister. Murder’s murder, but you let it ride. And that last one, the little boy diddler? Same goes. You feel for the man who bashed his head in, broke his bones. Go to the cops?”