Strangers in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Best you can do is throw me a bone?” He honked again. “I’ll take it.”

  “It’s a big bone, Feeney, and I need somebody to dig out the meat.”

  “All right. You tell the wife.”

  “What? Wait!”

  “You convince her you need me on this. Make it life and death.”

  “No! Feeney, don’t—”

  “Sheila!” He honked the name out, and in the lingering chill of March, Eve’s hands went damp with sweat.

  What people did for friendship, Eve thought, as she paid off the cab. Now she was responsible, according to Mrs. Feeney, if the work set back his recovery. Should’ve left him hacking up a lung at his desk in the first place, she told herself as she buzzed Greta Horowitz’s apartment from street level.

  She angled toward the view screen.

  “Lieutenant Dallas?”

  “Yes. Can I come up?”

  “I’ll open the locks.”

  The doors beeped clear, opened smoothly. Inside, the entryway was small, and absolutely pristine. Eve imagined Greta would tolerate no less. The elevator hummed cooperatively to the fourth floor where Greta stood in the doorway of her unit.

  “Has something happened?”

  “Just some follow-up questions.”

  “Oh. I was hoping you’d found who killed Mr. Anders. Please come in.”

  The apartment was as unpretentious and efficient as its occupant. Sturdy furniture, no frills, a scent of…clean, was the only way Eve could describe it.

  “Can I get you something hot to drink?”

  “No, thanks. If we could sit down for a few minutes.”

  “Please.” Greta sat, planted her shoes on the floor and her knees together. Smoothed down the skirt of her dignified black suit.

  “You’re attending the memorial,” Eve began.

  “Yes. It’s a very sad day. After, I’ll go to Mrs. Plowder’s, to help with the bereavement supper. Tomorrow…” She let out a little sigh. “Tomorrow, I am back to work. I will prepare the house so Mrs. Anders can return home.”

  “Prepare it?”

  “It must be freshened, of course, and some marketing must be done. The bed linens…you understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll supervise having Mr. Anders’s clothes packed.”

  Don’t waste time, do you, Ava? “Packed?”

  “Mrs. Anders feels it will distress her to see them. She prefers they be removed before her return, and donated, of course, to charity.”

  “Of course. Mrs. Horowitz, how long did it take you to put away, give away, your husband’s clothes?”

  “I still have his dress uniform.” She glanced over, and following, Eve saw the framed photo of the soldier Greta had loved. “People grieve in their own way.”

  “Mrs. Horowitz, you strike me as the sort of woman who not only knows her job, but does it very well. Who not only meets her employers’ needs, but would anticipate them. To anticipate, you’d have to understand them.”

  “I take pride in my work. I will be glad to get back to it. I dislike being idle.”

  “Did you anticipate Mrs. Anders instructing you to pack away her husband’s clothes?”

  “No. No,” she said again, more carefully. “But I was not surprised by the instructions. Mrs. Anders isn’t sentimental.”

  “I doubt anyone would describe either of us that way, either. As sentimental. If I lost my husband…I’d need his things around me. I’d need to touch them, to smell them, to have them. I’d need those tangible pieces of him to get me through the pain, the shock, the sadness. You understand me?”

  Gaze level on Eve’s, Greta nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “Would you have been surprised, if the situation were reversed, and Mr. Anders instructed you to pack up his wife’s clothing?”

  “Very. I would have been very surprised.”

  “Mrs. Horowitz, I haven’t turned on my recorder. I’m just asking you for your opinions. Your opinions are very helpful to me. Did she love him?”

  “I managed their house, Lieutenant, not their marriage.”

  “Greta,” Eve said in a tone that had Greta sighing again.

  “It’s a difficult position. I believe honesty and cooperation with the police is an essential matter. And I believe loyalty to and discretion about an employer is not a choice, it’s duty. You would understand duty, Lieutenant.”

  “Mr. Anders was your employer, too. Yes, I understand duty. We both have a duty to Thomas Anders.”

  “Yes.” Greta looked at her husband’s photograph again. “Yes, we do. You asked me before about their relationship, and I told you the truth. Perhaps not all shades of the truth, perhaps not my feelings on that truth.”

  “Will you tell me now?”

  “Will you tell me first if you believe Mrs. Anders had anything to do with her husband’s murder?”

  “I do believe it.”

  Greta closed her eyes. “I had that terrible thought, not when I found him that morning, you understand. Not then. Not even that night, or the next morning. But…with so much time on my hands, so much time to think instead of work, I began to have those thoughts. Those terrible thoughts. To wonder.”

  “Why?”

  “There was affection, gestures—on both sides. An indulgence on both sides. You would see this and think they are nicely married. Comfortably married, you understand?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If she encouraged him to go out, play his golf, or attend his games, how could you fault her? If she encouraged him to take his trips, even to extend them, it would be natural enough. Women come to prize their solitude, especially when they’re long married. A little time without the man underfoot.”

  “The reasonable, loving, indulgent wife.”

  “Yes. Yes, exactly what it would seem. But, in fact, she was happier when he was gone than she was when he was home, and the longer he was gone, the happier she would be. This is my opinion,” Greta hastened to add. “My sense only.”

  “That’s what I’m after.”

  “I would sense an annoyance in her on the day he was scheduled to return. I could sense it even as she fussed about what meal to serve him to welcome him home. When he was gone, she would have dinner parties or cocktails with her friends. Friends of hers, you understand, that were not so much friends of his. And never with Mr. Benedict.”

  Greta paused, pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment, then folded her hands neatly in her lap again. “I might not be saying this to you if she hadn’t instructed me to clear his clothes out of his dressing room, as she might instruct me to see that the floors were polished. Just another household task. I might not be telling you this if I didn’t know she saw the disapproval I didn’t hide quickly enough. And seeing it, Lieutenant, her manner changed. Her voice thickened with the tears that came into her eyes. But it was too late. I’d seen the other, heard the other, so it was too late. It was then she asked me to help at Mrs. Plowder’s, and told me what she would pay for my time, which is more than it should be. It was then she told me I would have a raise in salary when I returned to work tomorrow, and that she depended on me to help her through this difficult time.”

  Greta looked down at the hands folded in her lap, nodded. “It was then, Lieutenant, I decided I would begin to look for other employment. Only this morning, I contacted an agency for this purpose.”

  “She miscalculated with you, Greta. Will you be able to go to the memorial, to the Plowders, to go back to work, for the time being, without letting her see what you think or feel?”

  The faintest smile touched Greta’s mouth. “I’m a domestic, Lieutenant. I’m very skilled at keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself.”

  “I appreciate you sharing them with me.” Eve rose, held out a hand.

  Getting to her feet, Greta took it, then held it. And held Eve’s eyes. “We may be unfair to Mrs. Anders. But if we aren’t, I trust you, Lieutenant, to make justice for Mrs. Anders.”

  “I�
��m good at my job, too.”

  “Yes, I believe you are.”

  Rather than cab it all the way back to Roarke’s office, Eve flipped out her ’link as she hit the street again. The transmission bounced straight to his admin. “Hey, Caro, could—”

  “Hello, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah.” Was she supposed to make small talk? Hadn’t she done that enough already? “Well…sorry to interrupt. Maybe you could tell Roarke I’ll meet him at the memorial.”

  “If you’d hold a moment, I’ll put you right through to him.”

  “But—” Too late, she thought with a roll of her eyes as the calming blue wait screen came on her screen.

  And, as advertised, a moment later Roarke’s vivid blue eyes replaced the calm. “Just called to chat?”

  “Yeah, it’s just talk, talk, talk with me. Listen, I just wanted to leave a message that I’ll meet you at the memorial. It’s still too early, so I’m going to duck into a cyber-café or something, get a little work done, then cab it over.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m over on Third, heading down to Fifty-fourth. So—”

  “Wait there.”

  “Listen—” Too late, she thought again, as this time her screen went blank. “Wait there,” she mumbled and jammed the ’link back in her pocket. Wait so he could drive across town to pick her up when she was perfectly capable of getting herself where she needed to go.

  She could hardly call any of the women on the list Linny Luce had given her while she stood on the damn street. Those conversations would involve considerable delicacy, she imagined. And privacy.

  At loose ends, she strode to the corner, swung wide of the throng waiting for the light, and studied them for a while.

  Briefcases, shopping bags, baby carts—strollers, she corrected. Three people at the curb tried to out-jockey each other for position while they held up their arms to signal a cab. And the fleet of yellow streamed by, already hauling fares. Up the block a maxibus farted as it lumbered to a stop to disgorge passengers, take on more.

  Some guy bopped by eating a slice, and as the scent reached out and beckoned like a lover, Eve remembered she’d not only given her ride to Peabody, but left the crullers in it.

  Damn it.

  She leaned back against the corner of the building while sky trams cruised overhead, traffic clogged the street, and the subway rumbled under it. Everybody going somewhere, or coming back from somewhere else.

  While she waited, a couple of women already loaded like pack mules with shopping bags stopped by the display window beside her. And cooed, Eve thought, with the same over-the-top, slightly lame-brained adoration as Mavis cooing over Belle.

  “Those shoes! They’re absolutely beyond.”

  “Oh God! And the bag. Do you see the bag, Nellie? It looks positively gooshy!”

  Eve tracked her gaze over. They looked like a couple of perfectly normal, perfectly sane women, she noted. And they were about to drool on the display glass over a pair of shoes and a purse. They continued to rhapsodize as they pulled the shop door open. Where, Eve assumed, they would shortly drop many hundreds of dollars for something to cart their junk around in, and many hundreds more for something that made their feet cry like babies.

  She glanced away in time to spot some guy in a green army coat come flying across the street, dodging vehicles, clambering over others with a wild, happy grin plastered on his face. Happy, she assumed, because the beat cops in pursuit huffed half a block back, losing ground.

  People scattered as people tended to do. Eve continued to lean back against the building, but she rolled to her toes and back as she gauged the timing. Green Coat bugled a hooting call of triumph when his combat-booted feet smacked the pavement. And flicking a glance—and his middle finger—behind him, kicked in for the dash down Fifty-fourth.

  Eve simply shot out her foot.

  He flew, the green coat rising like wings, and landed with what had to be a skin-scraping slide over the sidewalk. He groaned, grunted, managed a half roll. She helped him the rest of the way to his back with a shove of her boot, which she then planted on his sternum.

  “Nice takeoff, bad landing.” She pulled out her badge as much for the people rubbernecking as the guy under her boot.

  “Shit, shit! I had it cooked and in the pan.”

  “Yeah? Well, now it’s burnt, and so are you.”

  He held his hands out to show his cooperation, then used the back of one to swipe blood off his face. “What the hell’re you doing standing around the damn corner?”

  “Just waiting for my ride.” She saw it cruise up, the mile-long black limo that actually made her stomach hurt with embarrassment. When Roarke lowered the back window, cocked his head, grinned, all she could do was scowl.

  The beat cops huffed and puffed their way up to her. “We appreciate the assistance, ma’am. If you’d just—Lieutenant,” the cop panted when she badged him in turn. “Lieutenant. Sir. We were in pursuit of this individual as—”

  “This individual made your pursuit look like a couple of old ladies hobbling back to their rocking chairs.”

  “Fucking-A right,” said the individual.

  “Shut up. You’re winded, sweating,” she continued. “And this guy was fresh as a daisy until his face met the sidewalk. This embarrasses me. Now if you’ve got your breath back, wrap him up.”

  “Yes, sir. For the report, Lieutenant, the individual—”

  “I don’t care. He’s all yours.” She strode toward the limo. “Lay off the crullers,” she called back, then climbed inside the shining black car.

  12

  “I WONDER,” ROARKE SAID CONVERSATIONALLY, “how the city of New York and its population manage without you personally patrolling its streets.”

  She’d have come up with a smart remark, but he distracted her by handing her a cup of coffee. She reminded herself as she settled back that the windows were tinted. Nobody could actually see her stretched out in a limo with white rosebuds in crystal tubes while she drank coffee out of a porcelain cup.

  So she did. “Why?” she asked. “Why did you pick me up in this ostentatious street yacht?”

  “First, I don’t find it ostentatious, but convenient. And very comfortable. Second, I had a bit of work to polish off on the way over and didn’t want to drive myself. Third, you mentioned work, so if you need to do any, this is more comfortable than a cyber-café.”

  “Maybe that’s logical.” She drank more coffee, closed her eyes a moment. And Roarke’s fingers brushed her cheek.

  “Did the man sprawled on the sidewalk and under your boot get any licks in?”

  “No. He never saw it coming. I’ve just got a lot in my head.”

  Now he brought her hand to his lips. “Why don’t you let some of it out.”

  She eyed him. “Was there a fourth reason we’re in this boat, and was that so you could put moves on me?”

  “Darling, that would be the underlying reason for all my decisions.”

  Because she could, she grabbed his lapel, yanked him over, and took his mouth in a kiss full of heat and promise. Then pushed him away again. “That’s all you get.”

  “I’d prove differently, but it seems a little crass as we’re biding some time before attending a memorial.”

  He could prove differently, she knew. And the hell of it was, she enjoyed when he did. She sat a moment, trying to put her thoughts back in order. “You got any crullers on tap?”

  “You want a cruller?”

  “No. Damn that Peabody. Anyway—”

  Roarke held up a finger, pressed the intercom. “Russ, swing by a bakery, will you, and pick up a half a dozen crullers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  No wonder her head was screwed up, Eve thought. A couple of minutes before she’d had her boot on some idiot’s chest while she dressed down a couple of lead-footed uniforms. Now she was gliding around New York drinking outrageously good coffee and getting crullers.

  “You were saying?
” Roarke prompted.

  Might as well go with the flow. She crossed her booted ankles. “I spent the morning conducting interviews. So yeah, it’s been a chatty day.”

  She ran it through for him, which never failed to organize her thoughts for herself. She paused only when the driver passed Roarke a bakery box, shiny white this time. She wrapped it up snacking on sugar and fat.

  “It appears,” Roarke said, offering her a napkin, “that when people scrape the veneer away, as you’ve prompted them to do, Ava Anders doesn’t appear quite so smooth and glossy.”

  “They don’t like her. What they liked, with the exception of Leopold who liked nothing about her, ever, was filtered through Anders. Tommy. With him not there as filter, the smudges are coming through. She doesn’t care about being liked. Or cares only because being liked is a stepping-stone to being admired. Being admired, now that’s important, and it’s a stepping-stone to being influential.”

  “And Tommy. Another stepping-stone.”

  “Yeah. People have been sleeping and/or marrying their way to the top since the first cavewoman said: ‘Ugh, that one’s the strongest and has the biggest club. I’ll shake my mastodon-skin-covered ass at him.’”

  “Ugh?”

  “Or whatever cave people said. And it’s not just women who do it. Cave guy goes: ‘Ugh, that one catches the most fish, I’ll be dragging her off to my cave now.’ Ava sees Tommy and—”

  “Says ugh.”

  “Or today’s equivalent thereof. There’s a rich guy, a guy people like, who has good press. A nice, easygoing sort. You can bet your ass she researched him inside out before she settled on him. Worked the transfer to New York, made sure to put herself in front of him as often as possible. Four-walls him, too. But subtly. Too aggressive, you could scare him off, too delicate he might not pick up on it. You put on the suit, the ‘what Tommy likes and how Tommy likes it’ suit, and you wear it like skin. And after you reel him in, you keep the suit on. Maybe a few adjustments here and there, but you keep it on. You get some power, you get the big houses, fancy life. You get some prominence, some position. And nudge him out of the house every chance you get so you can take the suit off and fucking breathe.”