Eve Dallas 02 - Glory in Death (31 page)

"God help us." She leaned against Roarke's car. "Do you think he knows more than he's put on air?"

"I think it's possible. Highly possible. He's enjoying stringing this out, particularly now that he's in charge of the story. And he hates your guts."

"Oh, now I'm hurt." She started to open the door, then turned back. "Hates me?"

"He'll ruin you if he can. Watch yourself."

"He can make me look foolish, but he can't ruin me." She wrenched the door open. "Where the hell is Nadine? It's not like her, Roarke. I understand how she feels about Louise, but it's not like her to take off, not to tell me, to hand a story this size to that bastard."

"People react in different ways to shock and grief."

"It's stupid. She was a target. She could still be a target. We have to find her."

"Is that your way of squirming out of the opera?"

Eve got in the car, stretched out her legs. "No, that's just a little side benefit. Let's run by her place, okay? She's on Eightieth between Second and Third."

"All right. But you have no excuse to squirm out of the cocktail party tomorrow night."

"Cocktail party? What cocktail party?"

"The one I arranged fully a month ago," he reminded her as he slipped in beside her. "To kick off the fund-raiser for the Art Institute on Station Grimaldi. Which you agreed to attend and to help host."

She remembered, all right. He'd brought home some fancy dress she was supposed to wear. "Wasn't I drunk when I agreed? The word of a drunk is worthless."

"No, you weren't." He smiled as he skimmed from the visitors' lot. "You were, however, naked, panting, and I believe very close to begging."

"Bull." Actually, she thought, folding her arms, he may have been right. The details were hazy. "Okay, okay, I'll be there, I'll be there with a stupid smile in some fancy dress that cost you too much money for too little material. Unless... something comes up."

"Something?"

She sighed. He only asked her to do one of his silly gigs when it was important to him. "Police business. Only if it's urgent police business. Barring that, I'll stick for the whole fussy mess."

"I don't suppose you could try to enjoy it?"

"Maybe I could." She turned her head and on impulse lifted a hand to his cheek. "A little."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

No one answered the buzzer at Nadine's door. The recording requested simply that the caller leave a message, which would be returned at the earliest possible time.

"She could be in there brooding," Eve mused, rocking on her heels as she considered. "Or she could be at some tony resort. She slipped her guard plenty over the past few days. She's a slick one, our Nadine."

"And you'll feel better if you know."

"Yeah." Brow furrowed, Eve considered using her police emergency code to bypass security. She didn't have enough cause, and she balled her hands in her pockets.

"Ethics," Roarke said. "It's always an education to watch you struggle with them. Let me help you out." He took out a small pocket knife and pried open the handplate.

"Jesus, Roarke, tampering with security will get you six months house arrest."

"Um-hmm." Calmly, he studied the circuits. "I'm a bit out of practice. We make this model, you know."

"Put that damn thing back together, and don't -- "

But he was already bypassing the main board, working with a speed and efficiency that made her wince.

"Out of practice, my butt," she mumbled when the lock light went from red to green.

"I always had a knack." The door slid open, and he tugged her inside.

"Security tampering, breaking and entering, private property trespass. Oh, it's just mounting up."

"But you'll wait for me, won't you?" With one hand still on Eve's arm, he studied the living area. It was clean, cool, spare in furnishings, but with an expensive minimalistic style.

"She lives well," he commented, noting the gleam on the tile floor, the few objects d'art on spearing clear pedestals. "But she doesn't come here often."

Eve knew he had a good eye, and nodded. "No, she doesn't really live here, just sleeps here sometimes. There's nothing out of place, no dents in the cushions." She walked past him toward the adjoining kitchen, punched the available menu on the AutoChef. "Doesn't keep a lot of food on hand, either. Mostly cheese and fruit."

Eve thought about her empty stomach, was tempted, but resisted. She headed out across the wide living space toward a bedroom. "Office," she stated, studying the equipment, the console, the wide screen it faced. "She lives here some. Shoes under the console, single earring by the link, empty cup, probably coffee."

The second bedroom was larger, the sheets on the unmade bed twisted as if someone had wrapped and unwrapped themselves through a particularly long night.

Eve spotted the suit Nadine had been wearing on the night of Louise's murder on the floor, kicked under a table where a vase of daisies wilted.

They were signs of pain, and they made her sorry. She walked to the closet and hit the button to open it. "Christ, how could you tell if she packed anything? She's got enough clothes for a ten-woman model troupe." Still, she looked through them while Roarke moved to the bedside 'link and ran the record disc back to the beginning. Eve glanced over her shoulder, saw what he was up to. She only moved her shoulders.

"Might as well completely invade her privacy."

Eve continued to search for some sign that Nadine had gone off on a trip while the calls and messages played back.

She listened with some amusement to some frank sexual byplay between Nadine and some man named Ralph. There were a lot of innuendoes, overt suggestions, and laughter before the transmission ended with a promise to get together when he got into town.

Other calls breezed by: work-oriented, a call to a nearby restaurant for delivery. Ordinary, everyday calls. Then it changed.

Nadine was speaking to the Kirskis the day after the last murder. All of them were weeping. Maybe there was comfort in it, Eve thought as she walked toward the viewer. Maybe sharing tears and shock helped.

I don't know if it matters right now, but the primary investigator, Dallas -- Lieutenant Dallas -- she won't stop until she finds out who did this to Louise. She won't stop.

"Oh, man." Eve closed her eyes as the transmission ended. There was nothing more, just blank disc, and she opened her eyes again. "Where's the call to the station?" she demanded. "Where's the call? Morse said she called in and requested time off."

"Could have done it from her car, from a portable. In person."

"Let's find out." She whipped out her communicator. "Feeney. I need make, model, and ID number on Nadine Furst's vehicle."

It didn't take long to access the data or to read the garage inventory and discover her car had been logged out the day before and hadn't been returned.

"I don't like it." Eve fretted as she sat back in Roarke's car. "She'd have left me a message. She'd have left word. I need to talk to some brass at the station, find out who took her call." She started to key it into Roarke's car 'link, then stopped. "One other thing." Taking out her log, she requested a different number. "Kirski, Deborah and James, Portland, Maine." The number beeped on, and she transferred it to the 'link. It was answered quickly by a pale-haired woman with exhausted eyes.

"Mrs. Kirski, this is Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD."

"Yes, Lieutenant, I remember you. Is there any news?"

"There's nothing I can tell you right now. I'm sorry." Damn it, she had to give the woman something. "We're pursuing some new information. We're hopeful, Mrs. Kirski."

"We said good-bye to Louise today." She struggled to smile. "It was a comfort to see how many people cared for her. So many of her friends from school, and there were flowers, messages from everyone she worked with in New York."

"She won't be forgotten, Mrs. Kirski. Could you tell me if Nadine Furst attended the memorial today?"

"We expected her." The swollen eyes looked lost a moment. "I'd spoken with her at her office only a few days ago to give her the date and time of the services. She said she would be here, but something must have come up."

"She didn't make it." A sour feeling spread in Eve's stomach. "You haven't heard from her?"

"No, not for a few days. She's a very busy woman, I know. She has to get on with her life, of course. What else can she do?"

Eve could offer no comfort without adding worry. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Kirski. If you have any questions or need to speak with me, please call. Anytime."

"You're very kind. Nadine said you wouldn't stop until you'd found the man who did this to my girl. You won't stop, will you, Lieutenant Dallas?"

"No, ma'am, I won't." She broke transmission, let her head fall back, closed her eyes. "I'm not kind. I didn't call her to say I was sorry, but because she might have given me an answer."

"But you were sorry." Roarke closed his hand gently over hers. "And you were kind."

"I can count the people who mean something to me without coming close to double digits. The same with the people I mean something to. If he'd have come after me, like the bastard was supposed to, I would have dealt with him. And if I hadn't -- "

"Shut up." His hand vised over hers with a force that had her muffling a yelp, and his eyes were fierce and angry. "Just shut up."

Absently, she nursed her hand as he raced along the street. "You're right, I'm doing it wrong. I'm taking it in, and that doesn't help anything. Too much emotion on the case," she murmured, remembering the chief's warning. "I started out today thinking clean, and that's what I've got to keep doing. Next step is to find Nadine."

She called Dispatch and ordered an all points on the woman and her vehicle.

Calmer, with the twist of her earlier words unraveling in his gut, he slowed, glanced at her. "How many homicide victims have you stood for in your illustrious career, Lieutenant?"

"Stood for? That's an odd way of putting it." She moved her shoulders, trying to focus her mind on a man in a long, dark coat with a shiny new car. "I don't know. Hundreds. Murder never goes out of style."

"Then I'd say you're well past the double digits, on both sides. You need to eat."

She was too hungry to argue with him.

"The trouble with the cross-check is Metcalf's diary," Feeney explained. "It's full of cutesy little codes and symbols. And she changes them, so we can't work a pattern. We've got names like Sweet Face, Hot Buns, Dumb Ass. We got initials, we got stars, hearts, little smiley faces or scowly faces. It'll take time, and lots of it, to cross it with the copy of Nadine's or the prosecutor's."

"So what you're telling me is you can't do it."

"I didn't say can't." He looked insulted.

"Okay, sorry. I know you're busting your computer chips on this, but I don't know how much time we've got. He's got to go for somebody else. Until we find Nadine..."

"You think he snatched her." Feeney scratched his nose, his chin, reached for his bag of little candied nuts. "That breaks pattern, Dallas. And all three bodies he hit he left where someone was going to stumble over them pretty quick."

"So he's got a new pattern." She sat on the edge of the desk and immediately shifted off, too edgy for stillness. "Listen, he's pissed. He missed his target. It was all going his way, then he fucks up, downloads the wrong woman. If we go with Mira, he got plenty of attention, hours of airtime, but he failed. It's a power thing."

She wandered to her stingy window, stared out, watched as an airbus rumbled past at eye level like an awkward, overweight bird. Below, people were scattered like ants, rushing on the sidewalks, the ramps, the handy-glides to wherever their pressing business took them.

There were so many of them, Eve thought. So many targets.

"It's a power thing," Eve repeated, frowning down at the pedestrian traffic. "This woman's been getting all the attention, all the glory. His attention, his glory. When he takes them out, he gets the kick of the kill, all the publicity. The woman's gone, and that's good. She was trying to run everything her way. Now the public is focused on him. Who is he, what is he, where is he?"

"You're sounding like Mira," Feeney commented. "Without the thousand-credit words."

"Maybe she's nailed him. The what is he, anyway. She thinks male, she thinks unattached. Because women are a problem for him. Can't let them get the upper hand, like his mother did. Or the prominent female figure in his life. He's had some success, but not enough. He can't quite get to the top. Maybe because a woman's in the way. Or women."

She narrowed her eyes, closed them. "Women who speak," she murmured. "Women who use words to wield power."

"That's a new one."

"That's mine," she said, turning back. "He cuts their throats. He doesn't rough them up, doesn't sexually assault or mutilate. It's not about sexual power, though it's about sex. If you term it as gender. There's all sorts of ways to kill, Feeney."

"Tell me about it. Somebody's always finding some new, inventive way to ditch somebody else."

"He uses a knife, and that's an extension of the body. A personal weapon. He could stab them in the heart, rip them in the gut, disembowel -- "

"Okay, okay." He swallowed a nut manfully and waved a hand. "You don't have to draw a picture."

"Towers made her mark in court, her voice a powerful tool. Metcalf, the actress, dialogue. Furst, talking to viewers. Maybe that's why he didn't go after me," she murmured. "Talking isn't my source of power."

"You're doing all right now, kid."

"It doesn't really matter," she said with a shake of the head. "What we've got is an unattached male, in a career where he's unable to make a deep mark, one who had a strong, successful female influence."

"Fits David Angelini."

"Yeah, and his father if we add in the fact that his business is in trouble. Slade, too. Mirina Angelini isn't the fragile flower I thought she was. There's Hammett. He was in love with Towers but she wasn't taking him quite as seriously. That's a squeeze on the balls."