Festive in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Well now. You didn’t like him at all.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “I’m happy to look. What did you say he did?”

  “Public relations. Something he’s apparently pretty good at. So he’s high on my list. Along with him, I have a female writer type who was one of the vic’s clients, who he slipped the drug to, who has no alibi for the time in question. And a former boxer, current gym owner and trainer who hated the vic, and had good reason to want some payback.

  “There are others,” she added, “which is the problem. We have no shortage of people who might have given Ziegler a good whack, with what could be argued as cause.”

  “You could give me an early Christmas gift,” Roarke suggested. “Provide me a list, and I’ll comb over all the financials.”

  “You really would consider that a gift.”

  “Stealing was such bloody fun.” He leaned back, gesturing with his glass before savoring more wine. “The thrill of sliding through the dark, into places meant to be locked and barred to me. Places with such beauty—the sort a Dublin street rat could never hope to see, much less touch. And never hold, never keep. Beyond the need for survival that started it with lifting locks or pinching purses, it became a world of possibility, as much an art as the paintings or jewelry I might have nicked.”

  “Did nick,” she corrected.

  “Did indeed,” he said with the wistful affection of memory. “And beyond the light fingers and slipping into the dark, there was the technology that so appealed to me.”

  “A geek thief.”

  “As you like. More slipping, more sliding, more lifting. More worlds of possibilities. Now the stealing’s off the table, isn’t it?”

  “It is—you took it off yourself.”

  “Without a single regret from where I’m sitting now, looking at the only world of possibilities I need for a lifetime.”

  “Is that like saying there aren’t enough stars?”

  Curious, he smiled at her. “It could be. But the point is, darling Eve, survival through possibilities, and those possibilities became a kind of game or indulgence as I’d learned to make my own through business. Legitimately. A man can put aside games and indulgences for bigger prizes.”

  He lifted her hand, kissed her fingers. “It doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy a bit of the slipping and sliding, if the lifting is in a good and righteous cause. You give me that, by trusting me, and sharing what you are with me. I’ve a medal that sits beside yours, floating in glass, given me by a man who stands as your father. A man I respect more than most. I have that as well because you gave me other possibilities, opened other worlds to me that were once barred and locked.”

  “You opened them yourself. You earned them yourself.”

  “I’d never have looked toward them at all without you. It doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy poking my fingers into bits of business some would say I have no business in.

  “I’ll find the accounts,” he promised her, “as I agree they’re there to be found. And consider the time well spent.”

  She brought her hand to his cheek. “Then Merry Christmas. Oh, wait. Shit. Don’t wear a tux.”

  “I had thought to change into black tie for a bit of cyber stealth, but I can stay as I am if you like.”

  “No, tomorrow. Feeney’s wife’s been on him about wearing one, and he’s standing firm—but if you wear one, she’ll dog him on it. So don’t.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Good. Then it’s simple. What am I wearing?”

  “Not a tux.”

  “Again good, because she’d probably dog him for that, too. You aren’t going to tell me,” she decided after a moment.

  “If you don’t like what Leonardo designed for the occasion, you can choose something else. I hope you won’t.” He kissed her hand again. “I’ve seen the holographic image, and you’ll look amazing.”

  “If I’m going to look so amazing after I put it on, why do I need an hour and a half with Trina slathering stuff all over me first?”

  He gave her hand a squeeze, then a quick pat. “I stay out of such matters—for my own well-being.”

  “I’m not going to think about it. That’s tomorrow, and this is now, and who knows anyway?”

  “Succinctly put.”

  “Shut up. Money for you, murder for me.” She rose, bent over, kissed him. “And, I guess, for us it doesn’t get much better.”

  • • •

  She sat at her desk, coffee at the ready, her board in full view. And went back to the beginning.

  She brought the crime scene reconstruction on screen, studied the two figures, the angles, the arc of the first blow, the second.

  To be thorough, she checked her notes, found Sima’s statement, rechecked Alla Coburn’s. The two women known to have had access to the bedroom both stated the vic’s latest trophy stood prominently on the bureau.

  So the reconstruction held from her point of view. As did the probability—97.4 percent—the murder was the impulse and passion of the moment.

  A man, approximately six feet in height—or a woman of that height or in heels that lifted her to it.

  Unless Sima had been standing on a box, that left her out. And however Eve felt personally about Trina, she couldn’t see the hair-and-skin monster beating a guy’s head in because he’d dissed a friend.

  Coburn. Possible if she’d worn five-inch heels, which strangely women did. But then why leave so much evidence tying her to the scene? Panic? Possible. But writing a note, getting a knife from the kitchen, jamming that knife into a dead body, didn’t speak of panic.

  If a woman had the cold blood for that, she had enough control to grab her bra and her shoes.

  Still . . . Eve played with her notes. Would that same woman be clever enough to leave incriminating evidence behind as a kind of cover? A stretch, Eve thought. Something to weigh in, but she just hadn’t gotten shrewd calculation from Alla Coburn.

  Lill Byers, the vic’s supervisor. Absolutely no evidence she’d had anything but a professional relationship with the victim. Physically, she’d fit. Height, strength, and she’d have known the vic’s address. She’d known at least some of what he did on the side.

  Possible kickback? Vic pays her a percentage of his side business in order to run it smoothly out of the facility. She wants more, they argue over it, she loses it.

  Weak, Eve thought, just weak. And the computer agreed with her at a 53.6 probability.

  David “Rock” Britton. About the right height, certainly strong enough. Motive and potential opportunity with the lack of an alibi.

  The computer liked him, she noted, with a probability of nearly ninety percent. But the computer hadn’t looked in his eyes. If he’d gone after Ziegler, he’d have used his fists.

  The fashion blogger. Tall enough, fit enough. And if her previous experience with date rape held true, more than enough motive. Somebody got away with it once, by Christ, this fucker wasn’t getting away with it.

  So motive, no alibi, physically able.

  Eve rose, walked around her board, rearranged some photos, some data.

  She sat again, studied it again.

  Of that group, the blogger went to the top. The flourish of the note, the knife? Yeah, she could see it. Insult to injury.

  Martella Schubert. Delicate—but that was personality more than physicality. She seemed delicate, a little on the fragile side. Monied, pampered—and there was always power in money. Taken at face value, her statement indicated she hadn’t known she’d been dosed, felt guilty for betraying her marriage.

  And, taken at face value, her statement could indicate she felt guilty enough to confront the vic, argue with him. He wants more money to keep their tryst a secret. She loses it.

  It could play, Eve mused. She could see that playing out. But she could
n’t see the delicate Martella adding the flourish.

  But who was she with the first time Eve had interviewed her?

  The sister. Big sister.

  Impulse, rage, violence, panic.

  What if she’d called on the sister.

  Tash, I’m in trouble. Oh God, he’s dead! I killed him. What should I do?

  What would big sister do? Would she run to the rescue, assess the situation? And with the knowledge the vic had slept with her and the sister, lead with a little of her own rage?

  The note, the knife, then unity. Each keeping the big secret while dribbling out bits of the rest.

  Maybe.

  Or Natasha Quigley alone. She claimed the arrangement with Ziegler was over, ended with her hopes of mending her marriage. Maybe Ziegler didn’t want it over—wanted her to keep paying. Or maybe she’d found out about her sister, confronted Ziegler.

  Alibi reasonably tight, Eve mused. But all from staff of one kind or another, and staff often said or did what they were told to say and do.

  And physically she fit the bill.

  As for the husbands, she couldn’t see Schubert. Like Rock, he’d have used his hands, his fists.

  Now JJ Copley didn’t strike her as a guy who led with his fists. A blunt object seemed more his style. And the flourish, well, that fit, too. Payback without any chance of confrontation.

  She could see him stabbing a dead man. Yeah, she could see it.

  But maybe she could see it because she just didn’t like him.

  Regardless, he topped the list of this next group, with his wife running a close second.

  And still, not enough, Eve thought.

  So she got more coffee, sat again, put her feet up on the desk and let the entire business begin again inside her head.

  Roarke glanced up, distracted, by the jingle bells. Galahad slunk into his office just ahead of Eve.

  “I have some data for you,” he told her, “but I’m not altogether finished.”

  “Okay.”

  She set a fresh glass of wine beside him, knowing he cut off the caffeine intake a hell of a lot earlier than she did.

  “Thanks. And this is for?”

  “Interrupting. Go ahead and finish. I’m just taking my brain into a new space.”

  The cat gathered himself, leaped onto Roarke’s lap with a ringing of bells, kneaded and circled while Eve wandered to the wide window.

  His home office space was sleeker and snappier than hers, she thought—by design. He’d created hers to mirror her old apartment, and to lure her in with the familiar.

  Clever.

  Wasn’t it interesting how that single room was indeed just about as large as her former living space altogether? She hadn’t given that much thought before, had just found herself—initially—baffled and touched that he would go to the trouble, that he would understand her so well so quickly.

  She looked out the window, over the grounds, the holiday fantasy of them shining against the dark. He’d thought of that, too, built that, too. For both of them now.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the painting she’d given him on their first anniversary, one of the two of them under the blooming arbor on that summer day. Their wedding day.

  He’d placed it there, where he could see it from his workstation. She’d come to know him, too, hadn’t she? Enough to know he’d cherish that image of them in that moment of promise.

  He could see that when he worked, when he wheeled and dealed from this spot. When he bought and sold, ordered and cajoled, and did all the things she didn’t fully comprehend.

  He sat now, hair tied back in work mode, the sleeves of his sweater shoved up to the elbows, the cat curled in his lap, and his eyes—so brilliantly blue—focused on one of the three screens he utilized to do the slipping and sliding he’d talked about.

  “You have something inside the brain you brought in here,” Roarke said as he continued to work. “You might as well let it out. I’m just tying things up here.”

  “I have three people hovering at the top of my suspect list. The computer doesn’t completely agree, probability-wise, but they’re my three.”

  “Copley being one.”

  “Definitely. And his wife—Natasha Quigley. I’ve got a couple of theories that could put her in the mix.”

  “She developed actual feelings for Ziegler, no longer wanted to share. Killed him rather than watch him bed other women for fun and profit?”

  “Huh. That wasn’t one of them, but I’ll toss it in, roll it around.”

  “Who’s your third?”

  “Kira Robbins, the fashion writer.”

  Roarke’s brows lifted as he looked away from the screens. “Really?”

  “No alibi. Physically she fits the reconstruction. Add in former rape victim. I can’t positively confirm that, but it rang true. You . . . you get an ear for it when you’ve been through it.”

  He picked up his wine, sipped, said nothing.

  “There’s a part of me, I can admit, that hopes it’s not her because of that. But I have to consider it. If she was raped as she said, as a teenager, it left a mark. No amount of healing erases the mark, and what I didn’t pull in when I talked to her? If it had been done to her before, wouldn’t she have wondered, suspected it had been done again? For the second time in her life she experiences date rape, but could she, did she, just pass this one off as bad judgment, as personal weakness? The more I ask myself that, the more I call it bullshit.”

  “You believe she knew what had happened, what he’d done.”

  “I believe she had to wonder, and I know I have to talk to her again, and push that. And I’m sorry for it. If it turns out she’s the killer, I’m going to be sorrier.”

  He sat back. “There was a time I’d have questioned you on this. There’s a part of me that still does, even though I know the answer. Even though I understand it, and almost fully accept it.”

  “Can’t change what was,” she said with a shrug. “So you deal with what is.”

  “It leaves a mark.” Eyes on hers, he repeated her words. “No amount of healing fully erases it. She was a victim, and if she killed him she had reason. A reason you and I both understand far too well. He was an ugly sort, a vicious user of people, a rapist. But you’ll stand for him even over a woman he used so meanly. You have to. You have to.”

  He repeated it because that single reality lived in both of them now.

  “More than the job, it’s a duty, and your sense of right. Your line.”

  “My line and yours run only so far together before they fork off. Sometimes that’s a balance. Sometimes it’s a problem.”

  Considering, she ran a finger around the lip of one of the wobbly bowls Feeney’s wife had given them.

  He’d put that here, too, she thought—like the painting—in his space. Because he understood, he valued, connections, symbols of family—far better than she.

  “So. If it turns out to be her, I’ll push for Mira to evaluate her, the circumstances, her state of mind, the PTSD angle. Mira’s evals have weight.”

  “They do. As do yours.”

  “But that’s jumping forward, and jumping far. Where it is now, I’ll lean on her, push buttons, even knowing how it feels to have them pushed.”

  “You’ll stand for her, too, if she’s killed. Because it’s always more than the job, more than duty.”

  “It’s not about me.”

  “Bollocks.” He said it mildly, even smiled a little when she frowned, though her words stirred up memories of what he knew she’d survived. “Investigating objectively doesn’t remove you. Your experiences, your understanding of victimology from the viewpoint of the victim is as much a part of what you do, who you are, as your training and your instincts. You are, forever, all points of the triad, Lieutenant: victim, killer, cop. And you know each s
ection intimately.”

  “Because I’ve not only been a victim, I’m not only a cop, but I’ve killed.”

  “Yes. To save your own life, to save the lives of others, you’ve taken lives. It weighs on you every bit as much as what happened to you when you were a defenseless and innocent child. And it makes you who you are.”

  “Maybe it’s bollocks because I don’t want it to be her.” Because that weighed on her, too, she stuck her hands in her pockets, wandered his space. “Because, objectivity aside for the right here and now, I want it to be Copley because it would go down easier.”

  “I may be able to help you there.”

  “Yeah?” She stopped, turned back to him. “I’ll take it.”

  Roarke lifted the cat, giving him an apologetic stroke as he set him on the floor. Then he swiveled his chair toward Eve, smiled, and patted his knee.

  “Get serious. I’m not playing office whoopee.”

  “The price, and a fair one, for the data.” He patted his knee again.

  She rolled her eyes, but walked over, sat on his lap. “Satisfied?”

  “I hope to be, eventually. But for now.”

  He danced his fingers over keys, put data on the wall screen.

  “As you can see the Quigley money—and here Natasha Quigley’s share of it, which is quite comfortable.”

  “Ha. A paltry quarter billion?” She angled her face toward his, grinned. “Chump change from where I’m—literally—sitting.”

  “Be that as it may.”

  “Yeah, be it or may it, this part I knew. The sister’s got about the same. Investments, trusts, and whatnot, all down the same road until each hit twenty-five. Some divergence there, choices—different investments, expenses, big sister purchased the New York brownstone and a second home in Aruba, a flat in Paris—all in her own name. Little sis and her husband, who also has an even paltrier hundred and seventy-five-ish mil of his own. They bought the New York townhouse together. She also has a Paris flat—same building as big sis, bought on her own a couple years prior to her marriage. And as a couple they own a place on St. Lucia. Copley, on the other hand, has a pathetic six million in his own name.”