Calculated in Death (12 page)

“Is that a compliment?”

“It is, actually. And they understand time-budgeting. The vic didn’t have time to get that far in the files. Killing her was inefficient. Okay, I can’t take them off the list, but I can keep my focus elsewhere. It saves me time. Thanks.”

“I’ll let you know what I think after I look at your interview reports.”

“Good enough.” Eve rose, surprised to find her cup nearly empty. She didn’t remember drinking the damn stuff. “So . . . I thought I should tell you I had this dream last night.”

Concern clouded Mira’s eyes. “Dream?”

“Yeah. Not a nightmare. You could call it a kind of review of the day, sort of going over the murder, at the scene. Sometimes I get a different aspect of the vic that way, or the killer, or some line, some angle. Anyway, she was there. Stella.”

“I see.”

“It didn’t bother me, in the dream. It didn’t upset me or twist me up. I just told her to fuck off.”

Mira beamed at her as if she’d won a gold medal. “Perfect. Progress.”

“I guess. The thing is, her being there, it gave me that angle. I don’t know why exactly, except for the fact she never thought of me, never put me first—or anywhere. She not only didn’t protect me, she was one of the monsters under the bed. Mothers are supposed to think of their kids. You don’t have to say she wasn’t my mother in any sense but the DNA,” Eve said before Mira could. “I get that. I’m dealing with that. But it turned it on Marta. And I realized she thought of her kids, of her family. She’d copied the files to her home unit, but she didn’t tell her killers. They’d have gone after the husband, at least they’d have gone after the files. She knew that. I don’t know if she believed they’d kill her anyway or not. But I believe she’d have died before she put her family in the crosshairs.

“Anyway, it made a difference to me, when I woke up, when I came out of it. Thinking how Stella would have killed me herself if she risked so much as a paper cut. And how this woman would’ve died to protect her family. I slept easier, I think, knowing that.”

“You’re a resilient woman, Eve. Nothing Stella did will ever break you.”

“Dented me some. But I’m doing okay. I wanted you to know I’m doing okay.”

“I’m here when you are, and I’m here when you’re not.”

“I know. That helps me do okay. I’ve got to get back. Thanks for the time.”

Mira rose to walk her to the door. “I’m looking forward to the premiere.”

“Oh, man.”

With a laugh, Mira patted Eve’s shoulder. “I’m prepared to be absolutely dazzled by the celebrities, the fashion, the glamour. I made Dennis buy a new tux. He’s going to look so handsome.”

“He always looks good.” Eve’s soft spot for Dennis Mira smoothed out some of the anxiety over the event. “If I don’t close this before, you can get an up-front look at my suspects. Plenty of them are going to be there.”

“More excitement.”

“I guess.” A little surprised at Mira’s attitude, Eve headed out.

She decided to swing into EDD, check on McNab’s progress, and spitball it with Feeney if he had the time. She braced herself for the noise, the constant movement, the saturation of colors that looked as though they’d soaked in neon then baked on the rings of Saturn.

She found McNab chair-dancing in his cube, his bony butt bouncing, narrow shoulders jiggling as he talked to the vic’s office comp in the incomprehensible language of geek.

She tapped those rocking shoulders, half expecting him to jump as he was so obviously in his own world. But he only swiveled around.

“Hey, Dallas.”

“How’s it going here?”

“It’s up. I’m getting the same buried code as I did on the building security. Same guy hacked it, the same method. It’s like a fingerprint.”

“So you said. How can I use the fingerprint?”

“When I get done here, I figured I’d do some research, see if I can find out who wrote the code. It’s a style, you know. Like shoes.”

Shoes and fingerprints, she thought. E-style.

“Okay.”

“Here’s the thing. I’m not seeing any access of her outgoings. Me, if I’m hacking in, I’m hacking all, and looking through. But it’s like the job was get the files, compromise the unit, move on. I don’t think whoever did this bothered to find out she’d copied them. She did it from a disc, see?”

He gestured to the screen where she understood nothing at all.

“If you say so.”

“I totally do. It’s right there. I figure accountant types are anal types, right? Back up your backups, then make a spare copy in case the world blows up. So she backed up the files on the discs, then went ahead and copied to her home unit from the discs, one disc for each file. Me, I’d’ve put it all on one, just separate docs, but the one for each is careful to analyze.”

“Okay.”

“She probably had the backup with her in the briefcase. In fact, she pretty much had to have them with her with the analysis factor. So when they got them, they figured they were covered. You have to be anal to deal with analysis.”

That she got. “So, it’s reading to you like someone got an assignment, did exactly what that entailed. Nothing more. No ‘let’s just be thorough.’”

“That’s the zip. Most hackers are going to play around some, scoot around. Hey, you’re in there anyway. This one didn’t. Straight through, no detours.” McNab zoomed his arm through the air. “At least nothing I’ve found yet.”

“Good, it fits.”

She left him to his bouncing and rocking, wove her way through the prancing and dancing traffic of other e-geeks to poke her head in the door of Feeney’s mercifully calm, dull-colored, and motionless office.

He sat at his desk in a beige shirt. As he still wore a shit-brown jacket over it she assumed he’d come in from the field. He’d loosened his shit-brown tie but hadn’t pulled it off, so he might have planned to go back out again. His hair, a combination of ginger and salt sprang untidily around his sleepy basset hound face.

He worked a touch screen and keyboard simultaneously.

He might’ve dressed like a cop, thought like a cop, walked like a cop, but he could outgeek McNab and the rest of his department combined.

She gave the doorjamb a quick rap. “Got five?”

Feeney held up a finger, continued to do whatever the hell he was doing, then gave a satisfied grunt.

“Now I got five. Son of a bitching cyberstalker. Thinks he can terrorize women, slide in through their security, rape and rob them, then stroll away whistling a tune? He’s going to be whistling in a cage before much longer.”

“You got him?”

“Got his signature, got his location, and now the primary has them. If he can’t bust the asshole now,
he
should be whistling in a cage.”

“Who’s on it?”

“Schumer.”

“He’s good. He’ll close it.”

“Yeah.” Feeney scrubbed his hands over his face. “Long couple days. You, too.”

“Yeah. Looks like yours is wrapping up. I can’t say the same.”

“The boy’s working on it.”

“Yeah, he’s pushing through. I appreciate you letting me have him on this, especially when you’ve been in a stranglehold.”

“No problem.” He reached into his bowl of candied nuts when Eve eased a hip on his desk.

“I got bad guys who get the job done, but don’t go an inch further to do it right. They kill a woman because that’s the job, but the woman doesn’t have to be killed to reach the objective. They come in after the fact to clean up, and don’t check all the corners. They use a location for the kill that rings bells. Vic’s an auditor—big money. Crime scene’s the property of financial advisers—big money. And the two firms have some overlaps.”

“Sloppy.”

“Yeah, but like half sloppy. Like if I were doing an eval report, I’d put down ‘Does the job, but doesn’t think outside the box, isn’t able to access the situation as it evolves and adjust accordingly.’ Trueheart’s going for the detective’s exam after the first of the year.”

Feeney swiveled back and smiled. “He’s come along.”

“He has. See, he’s not green anymore, but he’s still fresh. He’s always going to be fresh because that’s who he is. But I know if I sent him out on assignment, he wouldn’t just get the job done. He’d tie up the details, he’d adjust as the situation called for it. He might make a mistake, he doesn’t have much time on him, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”

“No argument.”

“Trueheart gets credit for that, because, yeah, it’s who he is. Baxter gets credit for that because he’s trained him and trained him well. I get credit because I saw there was something to be trained and brought him over. And I get credit because I’m the boss of both of them.”

“And you get the blame when they fuck up or do something half-assed.”

“Exactly. So you’ve got a couple goons, that’s how I see it. The killing wasn’t slick, it wasn’t messy. It was down, dirty, done—with little screwups.”

“Broke her neck, right?”

“Yeah, which Mira says was showing off, and that rings true. You’ve got the brute for that. Then you’ve got a hacker who knows his business and gets through decent but not stellar security, through more security into the vic’s comp, into her supervisor’s safe. He got the job done, but he doesn’t run it through and see that the vic made copies of the goddamn files he’s gone to all that trouble to steal. He did his job. The goon or goons did theirs. But—”

“Bad management.”

“Yes!” She lifted her arms to punch her fists lightly in the air. “Bad fucking management. Now you’re all pissed off because the cops are coming in the door when you practically put out the welcome mat for them. And still I can’t be sure who it is.”

“Do you have any who it isn’t?”

“Yeah, I got some of those.”

“It’s a start.”

“They’re all various kinds of assholes, and looking at them, I can see any one of them doing this, ordering this. Even if I figure out who, it’s likely to be circumstantial right now. And I haven’t figured out the why, not altogether. It’s money. It’s got to be money. It’s greed, or Roarke used avarice. That’s classier greed, right?”

Feeney poked out his bottom lip with a nod. “Sounds classier.”

“Avarice. You’ve got it so you’re wading through it, but you want more. You’ll cheat, steal, and kill for more, and to protect yourself.”

“Have you got your rich guy looking at the financials?”

“Yeah.”

“If anybody can find the why. Look at the spouses.”

“They don’t all have one.”

“I bet they all get sex somewhere. The spouse either knows or just spends the money without giving a rat’s ass. If they’re not banging anyone specific regularly, then you find out who they pick up, hook up with, or pay. Greedy people like to talk about money, how much they have.”

“He doesn’t see the people who work for him,” she continued. “I don’t know if that includes a spouse, but it would be a licensed companion, a hookup, a sidepiece. Sex and money, always a winning combo.”

She took a handful of his almonds, popped one as she rose. “Thanks. Something to poke around in.”

“Greedy bastards who kill women deserve a cage just like sons of bitches who cyberstalk and rape them.”

“Fucking A.”

“Hey,” he called as she started out. “The wife says I have to rent a monkey suit for the premiere thing.”

“I don’t know, Feeney. Mira just told me she made her husband buy a new one.”

“What kind of crazy shit is this? Who needs to wear a monkey suit to watch a damn vid?”

“I’ve got to wear a dress, and stilts,
and
put crap all over my face. Don’t cry to me because you have to wear a tux.”

“Crazy shit,” he complained.

“Fucking A,” she agreed and went on her way.

BACK IN HER OFFICE, EVE RAN A SEARCH
through gossip and society sites, hoping to mine a couple of gems. While it worked she contacted Vegas PD, and did the dance necessary to score a copy of the police report on the accident that had injured Arnold and Parzarri. Another contact garnered the information that both men would be cleared to travel the following day.

She intended to hit both of them for interviews as soon as possible.

While she waded through gossip—clothes, hair, hookups, breakups, tune-ups—she ran yet another search on Alexander’s wife, Pope’s wife, Tuva Gunnarsson, and Newton’s fiancée.

Enough, she decided, enough to start. Gathering her things, she walked out to the bullpen.

“Peabody, with me.”

“I can’t find anyone on the list who owns the Cargo van.” Peabody said, stuffing her arms into her coat as she caught up with Eve.

“Relatives, friends, rentals.”

“Nothing that’s hit, yet, but I’m still digging. Did you know, for instance, Chaz Parzarri has fourteen first cousins, and eleven of them live in New York or New Jersey?”

“I did not have that information.” Eve squeezed onto the elevator wondering why the hell it was always so crowded when she needed to use it. “Unless one of them owns a Maxima Cargo I don’t need that information.”

“Well, just saying that’s a lot of first cousins and none of them owns a Maxima Cargo. But I’m digging on the people as well as their potential vehicles. Just looking for any red flags. Gambling, whoring, unusual travel.”

Good management, Eve thought and gave herself a mental pat on the back. Good management contributed to good work.

“And?”

“So far your sort of expected gambling, whoring, and travel. Except for the married guys and the engaged guy on the whoring thing. If they’re tapping LCs, they’re doing it with cash, and with care.”

The woman wedged in the front corner wearing a skirt the size of a dinner napkin, high-laced boots, pink foaming hair Eve hoped was a wig, and a whopper of a black eye snapped an impressive wad of gum.

“You gotta report the cash,” she said conversationally. “You can give a credit discount if you want ’cause you don’t have to pay the credit fee, but you gotta report it.”

“Is that so? Note that down, Peabody. How’d you get the mouse?” Eve asked her.

“An associate and me had a difference of opinion about a client. Bitch popped me. I just filed a complaint ’cause you gotta have it on record, right? Officer Mills was real nice about it. He didn’t even want a free BJ.”

“That’s . . . nice.”

“I’m all about giving freebies to cops, and firefighters, when I can. To show my support.”

“And the city of New York thanks you.”

The woman beamed, snapped her gum, then sailed off the elevator when the doors opened on the main floor. Grateful nearly everyone else in the car exited along with the LC, Eve shifted for some breathing room.

“Okay, Peabody, pick it up.”

“I guess she hasn’t figured out offering a free blow job to a cop’s considered a bribe.”

“Just trying to do her civic duty.”

“Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. The Young-Biden team likes gambling. Win some, lose some—and I say that as if winning and or losing more than I make in a year at the tables or on a horse is no big deal. They, Alexander, and Ingersol, travel a lot. Bunches, to really frosty places, including some I’ve never heard of. Newton does some traveling, and likes sports betting—minor league stuff on the betting. Just friendly amounts. Whitestone travels mostly for business, but does it up right. He also likes to scuba, and he’s taking some trips with that at the center.”

“They all live within their considerable means, or so it appears,” Eve said as they got off on her level of the garage. “And live according to what we’d call their privileged or semi-privileged lifestyle. And that lifestyle includes spouses, fiancées, lovers, exes, LCs—and, you bet your ass, sidepieces.”

“You don’t really think that mouse bait Pope has a sidepiece.”

“That type can surprise you and bang like a drum.”

“Have you ever been banged by mouse bait?”

“No.” Their footsteps echoed. Somewhere on a higher level, someone gunned an engine. “But Mavis dated this guy for a while back in the day who looked like one of those garden gnomes. She said he went at it like a rabid mink. Don’t trust appearances.”

“That’s true.” Peabody jumped in the car. “Take McNab. He’s adorable, but he’s got that skinny frame. But he can go like a turbo thruster.”

“Jesus, Peabody, I don’t want to hear about McNab’s thrusting abilities.”

“They’re exceptional. Just the other night, he—”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t.” Eve slapped a hand at the corner of her eye when it twitched, then bared her teeth at Peabody’s muffled chuckle.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I just wanted to see if it still worked.”

“It’ll always work. Just like my boot will always fit up your ass.”

“They’re nice boots,” Peabody said cheerfully. “But Angie at Your Space liked mine.”

“You must be proud. We’re going to start with exes,” Eve continued before Peabody could brag on her boots—again. “Young-Sachs has one who runs a fancy boutique in the Meat Packing District.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re not the only one who can troll for gossip.”

•   •   •

T
he fancy boutique offered screens scrolling a constant shift of outfits highlighting one feature. The leopard knee boots with the short black dress, the short black dress with silver heels and a complicated silver scarf, the silver scarf with jeans, a red top, and a vest.

Little beams of light spotlighted each piece at its place on rack or shelf as they appeared on screen.

It made Eve mildly dizzy.

Compact and curvy, Brandy Dyson stood on heeled boots and moved like a lightning bolt until Eve managed to corner her.

“Sorry.” With a bright smile and lashes so thick and heavy Eve wondered how she managed to keep her eyes open, Brandy pulled a small blue bottle from the jeweled holster on her belt, took a gulp. “Energy drink—legal. You wanted to ask me something about Carter. Is he in trouble?”

“Should he be?”

Brandy laughed. “That’s a loaded question to ask an ex. Being a dick isn’t illegal, right? If it were, half the guys I’ve dated would be doing time.”

“What kind of a dick is Carter Young-Sachs?”

“And that’s a strange question for a cop to ask, but the selfish, self-absorbed, lying, cheating kind.”

Understanding where Eve was heading, Peabody put on her just-us-girls tone. “Maybe you could give us an anecdote or example.”

“Standing me up on my damn birthday, without so much as a text, and claiming later he’d been called into an emergency meeting—when what he did was zip off to Capri with another woman. That was the last time he lied and cheated on me. Not the first, but sometimes it takes awhile to cut through the sparkle and see the dark.”

“That’s harsh,” Peabody said. “Your birthday.”

“Yeah, it was. He started out so attentive, really went after me, you know? The whole pursuit thing, and it just swept me up. I’d just started dating this other guy, a really nice guy, and I broke it off for Carter.”

Her shoulders lifted with her sigh before she turned to make a minute adjustment of the position of a mammoth handbag in zebra stripes.

“I was stupid, and I walked away from a sweetheart. And once Carter had me wrapped up, the dick came out—metaphorically as his anatomic dick had already made a few appearances.”

Enjoying the woman’s style, Eve had to grin. “How did the metaphorical dick rear its head?”

Brandy shook back her own head and laughed. “Good one. Well, to start, I was supposed to drop whatever I had going for what he had going. He made fun of my shop, subtly at first, just kidding, you know? But it got old, and it got clear he didn’t respect what I’m doing. You know, just because my family’s got money doesn’t mean I should sit on my butt and not try to make something.”

She let out a breath. “Whew. I’m still pissed. What did he do?”

“I don’t know if he did anything, other than being a dick,” Eve told her.

Under her impossible lashes, Brandy’s eyes hardened. “Well, if he did, you can bet his conjoined twin’s in on it.”

“Tyler Biden?”

“That one doesn’t even pretend not to be a dick. He
likes
being one. His dickhood’s like his mission in life, and he’s really good at it. Smirking, sneering, superior-assed fuck. Sorry,” she added. “I really am still pissed.”

“No need to apologize,” Eve told her. “My impression of him runs parallel.”

“Good, because I’ll tell you something else, they don’t know half as much about business as I do. They wouldn’t be in charge of cleaning the floors at Young-Biden if they hadn’t been born into it. Carter especially. Just try to have a conversation with him about supply and demand, or marketing, or net returns, customer base and growing same, and it’s clear he’s clueless. He’s kind of an idiot really. An idiot dick, which makes me an idiot for giving him eight and a half months of my life.”

“So he didn’t like to talk about business, his work, his company?”

“More like he couldn’t. He liked to talk about the company, but only to brag. About his money, and how he liked to spend it, or the trips. He’d bitch about his mother now and then when he’d had a couple drinks or . . .”

“I’ve already figured out he uses,” Eve told her.

“Well . . . He’d complain that his mother pushed him too hard, or expected too much, how she wanted him to live and breathe the company. I don’t know, she didn’t strike me as bitchy the few times I met her. But in my family we’re expected to make something, to be involved. Maybe we don’t have the Young kind of money, but if we did, I can tell you it’d be the same. You want something, work for it. I’ve got three years in this place, and I’ve worked my ass off. I figured out before long that Carter mostly sits on his.”

She sighed again, adjusted the bag again. “But there was that sparkle. He’s great-looking, he’s charming when he wants to be, and he can make you feel really special. For a little while.”

“Did you ever meet his financial adviser?”

“No. But now that you mention it, early on, when he was really going after me, he’d talk about how I should hook up with his guy if I really wanted to see my portfolio zoom. How his guy knew all the ins, all the outs, all the little corners. My family has a firm they’ve worked with for years. I stuck with them. I trust them. I didn’t know anything about his guy, and maybe I was dazzled by the sparkle, but when it comes to my bottom line, I’m careful.”

•   •   •

A
nd what did we learn, Peabody?”

Peabody pulled her gloves on as they walked to the car. “Other than I really want that snakeskin belt with the sapphire blue buckle I can’t afford? That Carter Young-Sachs is a dick who, if she’s any judge—and I think she is—doesn’t know squat about his own company. And could care less. He’d cheat on his girlfriend on her own birthday, then lie about it. A stupid lie because she’s going to find out. He resents his mother expecting him to actually work, and Biden’s smarter and meaner.”

“All that. And.”

She sidestepped a couple of women loaded down with shopping bags, bubbling over with excitement over some sale, and not watching where the hell they were going.

“He likes going after what’s not his, then doesn’t appreciate it once he’s got it,” Eve added. “He’s tight enough with his financial guy to push him on someone else, and does it in such a way that indicates said money guy isn’t above skirting around the edges.”

“That, too.”

“Which doesn’t mean he’d kill or arrange for a killing. But it does confirm he’s stupid enough to do it, and do it half-assed. I want you to go talk to a few more exes, feel them out.”

“Good times.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d see it that way.”

People hustled or breezed or wandered by. Some talked on ’links like the guy pleading into his for Michelle to give him five minutes, just five minutes, baby. Some took vids, like the group of Asian tourists in I Heart New York ski caps posing in front of a storefront. Others ate on the run, like the man chomping down on a loaded soy dog.

The buzz of voices and varied languages, the movement and pace typified New York to Eve.

But right now she wished they’d all just get the hell out of the way so she didn’t have to weave through them.

“I’m going to do another run at the WIN Group. Then I’m going to my home office, see what I can put together,” she told Peabody. “We’re going to push at Arnold and Parzarri tomorrow, as soon as they’re back. It’s one of them, one of the WIN Group, and one of the four dicks we talked to today. Or two of the four. We’ll whittle it down. If we can pin any one of them, we’ve got all of them.”

She heard the faint whine, felt the pressure thump into her back, just between her shoulder blades. Instinct kicked in, had her driving at Peabody and knocking her partner to the ground.

“What the—”

“Stunner!” Eve rolled, coming up with her weapon as she surged to her feet. Through the crowds—New Yorkers who barely flicked a lash, tourists who stopped to gape, she spotted the big man—six four, two-fifty, Caucasian, ski cap, sunshades, black scarf and coat—execute a quick pivot and run.