by J. D. Robb
His eyes, baggy as a hound’s, met hers. “You know better. You know how it is.”
She did, of course she did. He’d taught her the responsibility and weight of command. “Yeah.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I know.”
“This time it’s on you. You’re going to take some hits because we both know there’s going to be another name, another face on the board before we get him. You’ll live with that; can’t do anything else but live with it. It bugs me,” he repeated. “It would bug me a hell of a lot more if anyone else was standing as primary on this. We clear?”
“Yeah, we’re clear.”
“I’ll start the Missing Person’s run.” He cocked his head toward Roarke. “Our civilian would be a good one to handle the real estate search.”
“He would. Why don’t you get him on that? I’m going to swing over to the lab, bribe and/or threaten Dickhead to push on reports.” She glanced over, saw that Roarke was already working with McNab to set up data and communication centers. “I’m just going to have a word with the civilian first.”
She crossed to Roarke, tapped his shoulder. He’d tied his hair back as he often did before getting down to serious e-business, and still wore the sweater and jeans he’d put on—had it only been that morning?—when they’d left the house for the crime scene.
She realized he looked more like a member of the team than the emperor of the business world.
“Need a minute,” she told him, then stepped a few feet away.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Feeney’s got work for you. He’ll fill you in. I’m heading out with Peabody. I just want…look, don’t go buying stuff.”
He lifted his eyebrows, and the amusement showed clearly on his face. “Such as?”
“E-toys, new furniture, catered lunches, dancing girls. Whatever,” she said with a distracted wave of her hand. “You’re not here to supply the NYPSD.”
“What if I get hungry, then feel the urge to dance?”
“Suppress it.” She gave him a little poke in the chest that he interpreted—correctly—as both affection and warning. “And don’t expect me to kiss you good-bye, hello, and like that when we’re on the clock. It makes us look—”
“Married?” At her stony stare he grinned. “Very well, Lieutenant, I’ll try my best to suppress all my urges.”
Fat chance of that, she thought, but had to be satisfied. “Peabody,” she called out, “with me.”
On the way out, Peabody hit Vending for a Diet Pepsi for herself, a regular tube for Eve. “Gotta keep the caffeine pumping. I’ve never been on something like this, not when you catch a case and a few hours later you’ve got a task force, a war room, and a pep talk from the chief.”
“We work the case.”
“Well, it’s this case, and the ones from nine years ago, and even the ones between that went down elsewhere. That’s a lot of balls in the air.”
“It’s all one,” Eve said as they got into the car. “One case with a lot of pieces.”
“Arms,” Peabody said after a minute. “It’s more like arms. It’s like an octopus.”
“The case is an octopus.”
“It’s got all these tentacles, all these arms, but there’s only one head. You get the head, you get it all.”
“Okay,” Eve decided, “that’s not bad. The case is an octopus.”
“And say, okay, maybe you can’t get to the head, not at first, but you get a good hold on one of those tentacles, then—”
“I get it, Peabody.” Because she now had an image of a giant octopus swimming in her head, Eve was relieved when her dash ’link signaled. “Dallas.”
“So, what’s up?”
“Nadine.” Eve let her glance shift down to the screen where Nadine Furst, a very hot property in media circles, beamed out at her.
“Media conference, you as the department’s spokesperson—I know you love that one.”
“I’m primary.”
“I got that.” On screen, Nadine’s cat eyes were sharp and searching. “But what gives this one enough juice? A dead woman in the park, identity yet to be given.”
“We’ll give her name at the conference.”
“Give me a hint. Celebrity?”
“No hints.”
“Come on, be a pal.”
The trouble was, they were pals. Moreover, Nadine could be trusted. And at the moment, Nadine had plenty of juice of her own. She could, Eve mused, be useful.
“You’re going to want to come to the media conference, Nadine.”
“I’ve got a conflict. Just—”
“You’re going to want to be there, and when it wraps, you’re going to want to find your way to my office.”
“Offering me a one-on-one after a media announcement takes off the shine, Dallas.”
“You’re not getting a one-on-one. Just you, just me. No camera. You’re going to want to do this, Nadine.”
“I’ll be there.”
“That was smart,” Peabody said when Eve clicked off. “That was really smart. Bring her in, bargain, and get her resources and contacts.”
“She’ll keep a lid on what I ask her to keep a lid on,” Eve agreed. “And she’s the perfect funnel for any departmentally sanctioned leaks.” She parked, rolled her shoulders. “Let’s go harass Dickhead.”
Dick Berenski had earned his nickname. Not only did he have a head like an egg covered with slick black hair, his personality was oilier than a tin of sardines. He was slippery, sleazy, and not just open to bribes—he expected them.
But despite being a dickhead, he ran a top-flight lab and knew his business as well as he knew the exact location of the dimples on the ass of this month’s centerfold.
Eve strode in, moving by the long white counters and stations, the clear-walled cubes. She spotted Berenski scooting back and forth on his stool in front of his counter, tapping his spider-leg fingers on keyboards or tapping them to screens.
For a dickhead, she thought, he was hell at multitasking.
“Where’s my report?” she demanded.
He didn’t bother to look up. “Back up, Dallas. You want it fast or you want it right?”
“I want it fast and right. Don’t fuck with me on this one…Dick.”
“I said, ‘Back up.’”
She narrowed her eyes because when he swung around on the stool, there was fury on his face. Not his usual reaction to anything.
“You think I’m screwing with this?” he snapped out. “You think I’m jerking off here?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“This isn’t the first time either, is it?”
She flipped back through her memory. “You weren’t chief nine years back.”
“Senior tech. I did the skin and hair on those four vics. Harte took the bows for it, but I did the work. Goddamn it.”
Harte, Eve remembered, had also had a nickname: Blowharte.
“So you did the work. Applause, applause. I need an analysis of this vic’s hair and skin.”
“I did the work,” he repeated, bitterly now. “I analyzed and researched and identified what was barely any trace. I gave you the damn brand names of the soap, the shampoo. You’re the one who didn’t catch the bastard.”
“You did your job, I didn’t do mine?” She leaned down, nose-to-nose. “You’d better back up, Dick.”
“Ah, excuse me. Don’t clock the referee.” Courageously—from her point of view—Peabody eased between the chief tech and the primary. “Everyone who was involved nine years ago feels this one more now.”
“How would you know?” Dick rounded on Peabody. “You were in some Free Ager commune sitting in a circle chanting at the frigging moon nine years ago.”
“Hey.”
“That’s it.” Eve kept her voice low, and the tone stinging. “You can’t handle this one, Berenski, I’ll request another tech.”
“I’m chief here. This isn’t your shop. I say who works what.” Then he held
up his hand. “Just back off a minute, back off a minute. Goddamn it.”
Because it wasn’t his usual style, Eve kept silent while he stared down at his own long, mobile fingers.
“Some of them stick with you, you know? They stick in your gut. Other shit comes in and you work that, and it seems like you put it away. Then it comes back and kicks you in the balls.”
He drew a breath, looked up at Eve. It wasn’t just fury, she saw now, but the bitter frustration that on the job could push perilously close to grief.
“You know how when it stopped, just stopped cold, everybody figured he got dead, or he got tossed in a cage for something else? We didn’t get him, and that was a bitch, but it stopped.” Berenski heaved out a breath. “But it didn’t. He didn’t get dead or tossed in a cage. He was just bopping around Planet Earth having his high old time. Now he’s back on my desk, and it pisses me off.”
“I’m serving as President of the Pissed-off Club. I’ll take your application for membership under advisement.”
He snorted out a laugh, and the crisis passed.
“I got the results. I was just rerunning the data. Triple check. It’s not the same brands as before.”
“The old brands still available?”
“Yeah, yeah, here’s the thing. He used shea butter soap with olive and palm oils, oils of rose and chamomile on the four prior vics. Handmade soap, imported from France. Brand name L’Essence or however the frogs say that. Cake style, about fifteen bucks a pop nine years back. Shampoo, same manufacturer, same name, caviar and fennel extracts.”
“They put caviar in shampoo?” Peabody demanded. “What a waste.”
“Just fish eggs, and disgusting if you ask me. Tech in Wales was good enough to work the trace, got the same deal as me. Same for Florida. They didn’t get anything in Romania or in Bolivia. But now he’s switched brands.”
“To?”
“Okay, what we got is still handmade soap, got your shea butter—cocoa butter addition, olive oil, and oil from grapefruit and apricot. Specifically—and this took a little finessing—your pink grapefruit. It’s made in Italy, exclusively, and get this, it’s going to run you fifty smacks a bar.”
“So he upgraded.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. I took a look at the Internet site, check these out.” He brought the images of the soaps up. Each was a deep almost jewel-like color, with various flowers or herbs studding the edges. “Only one store in the city carries them. The shampoo’s from the same place. White truffle oil, running one-fifty for an eight-ounce bottle.”
He sniffed, he snorted. “I wouldn’t pay that for a bottle of prime liquor.”
“You don’t have to pay,” Eve said absently. “You get your booze in bribes.”
“Yeah, but just the same.”
Pricey, exclusive products. Prestige, Eve thought. The best of the best? “What’s the outlet in the city?”
“Place called Scentual. Got a store midtown on Madison and Fifty-third, and one down in the West Village on Christopher.”
“Good. How about the sheet?”
“Irish linen, thread count of seven hundred. That’s another change. First time he used Egyptian cotton, five hundred thread count. Manufacturer’s in Ireland and Scotland. Buncha outlets around. Your higher-end department stores and bedding places carry the brand. Fáilte.”
He massacred the Irish, Eve knew, as she’d heard the word before.
“Okay, send copies to me, to Whitney, to Tibble, and to Feeney. You finish with the water?”
“Still working it. At a guess, and I mean guess, it’s city water, but filtered. May be out of the tap, but with a filtration system that purifies. We got good water in New York. This guy, I’m thinking, is a fanatic for pure.”
“For something. Okay, thanks. Peabody, let’s go shopping.”
“Hot dog!”
“Dallas.” Berenski swiveled on his stool again. “Bring me something more this time. Get me something.”
“Working on it.”
She hit the downtown boutique first, and was assaulted with fragrance the moment they walked in. Like falling into some big-ass bouquet, Eve thought.
The clerks all wore strong colors. To mirror the products, Eve supposed, and the products were displayed as if they were priceless pieces of art in a small, intimate museum.
There were a number of customers, browsing, buying, which, given the price tag on a bar of soap, made Eve wonder what the hell was wrong with them.
She and Peabody were approached by a blonde who must have hit six-two in her heeled boots. The boots, like the skinny skirt and rib-bruising jacket, were the color of unripe bananas.
“Welcome to Scentual. How can I help you today?”
“Information.” Eve pulled out her badge.
“Of what sort?”
“Soap with cocoa and shea butter, olive oil, pink grapefruit—”
“From our citrus line. Yes, please, this way.”
“I don’t want the soap, I want your customer list for sales of that soap, and for the truffle oil shampoo. Customers who purchased both products.”
“That’s a little difficult as—”
“I’ll make it easy. Customer data or warrant for same, which will tie up the shop for a number of hours. Maybe days.”
The blonde cleared her throat. “You should probably speak to the manager.”
“Fine.”
She glanced around as the blonde hurried off, and saw Peabody sniffing at minute slivers of soap that were set out as samples. “Cut it out.”
“I’ll never be able to afford so much as a scraping of this kind of thing. I’m just smelling. I like this one—gardenia. Old-fashioned, but sexy. ‘Female,’ as my guy would say. Did you see the bottles? The bath oil?”
Her dazzled eyes tracked along the jewel-toned and delicate pastels of fancy bottles in display shelves. “They’re so mag.”
“So you pay a couple hundred for packaging for stuff that eventually goes down the drain. Anything in a bottle costs that much, I want to be able to drink it.”
She turned back as another woman came over, this one petite and redheaded in a sapphire suit. “I’m Chessie, the manager. There’s a problem?”
“Not for me. I need your customer list for purchases of two specific products as said products are related to a police investigation.”
“So I understand. Could I see some identification, please?”
Eve pulled out her badge again. Chessie took it, studied it, then lifted her gaze to Eve’s. “Lieutenant Dallas?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll be happy to help you in any way I can. The specific products?”
Eve told her, nodded as the woman asked for a moment, then watched her walk away. “Peabody—” When she looked around, her partner was testing out an elf-sized sample bottle of body cream on her hands.
“It’s like silk,” Peabody said, reverently. “Like liquid silk. I’ve got a cousin who makes soaps and body creams and all, and they’re really nice. But this…”
“Stop rubbing stuff all over yourself. I have to ride with you, and you’re going to make the ride smell like some big, creepy meadow.”
“Meadows are pastoral.”
“Exactly. Creepy. He could’ve bought the stuff here,” she said, thinking out loud. “Or at the midtown store, off the Net. Hell, he could’ve bought the stuff in Italy or wherever the hell else it’s sold and brought it with him. But it’s something.”
Chessie came back with some printouts. “We haven’t had any sales—cash or credit—of both products at the same time. Nor has our Madison Avenue store. I contacted them. As a precaution, I’ve generated all the sales for each product, from each of our stores. Obviously, we don’t have customer names for the cash sales. I went back thirty days. I can go back further if that would be helpful.”
“This should do for now. Thanks.” Eve took the printouts. “Did you get a memo about me?”
“Yes, certainly. Is there anyt
hing more I can do for you?”
“Not right now.”
“If she got the ‘Cooperate with Lieutenant Dallas’ memo, Roarke owns that place,” Peabody said when they were back on the street. “You can swim in that bath oil if you want. How come you—”
“Hold on.” She flipped out her ’link, contacted Roarke.
“Lieutenant.”
“Do you manufacture bedding—sheets and linens—under the brand name Fáilte?”
“I do. Why?”
“I’ll let you know.” She ended transmission. “I’m not buying coincidence here, Peabody.”
“Oh. Just caught up. First vic worked for him, was washed down in products from a store he owns, was laid out on a sheet he manufactures. No, I’m not buying that today either, thanks. But I don’t know what the hell it means.”
“Let’s go. You drive.” Eve pulled out her ’link again, and tagged Feeney. “Missing persons, add in a new piece of data. Look for a woman who’s employed by Roarke. Don’t say anything to him as yet. Just look for anyone reported missing in the last few days who fits our vic profile and who works for one of Roarke’s interests in the city.”
“Got that. I’ve got three potentials from MP from the tristate. Give me a minute on this. Aren’t you due at the media blather?”
“I’m on my way there.”
“Okay, okay,” he grumbled, “takes time. He’s got a lot of layers on some of his…son of a bitch. Rossi, Gia, age thirty-one, works as a personal trainer and instructor at BodyWorks, a subsidiary of Health Conscience, which is a division of Roarke Enterprises. She was reported missing last night.”
“Take one of the uniforms, get to her place of employment, her residence, talk to the person who reported her missing, to—”
“I know the drill, Dallas.”
“Right. Move on it, Feeney.” She clicked off. “Goddamn media.”
“You have to tell him, Dallas. You’ve got to tell Roarke about this.”
“I know, I know. I’ve got to get through this media crap first, and think. I have to think. Roarke will deal. He’ll have to deal with it.”
She’d think about that part later. At the moment, she could only think that it might be too late for Gia Rossi. She could only wonder what might have been done to her already.