Holiday in Death (14 page)

Eve said nothing, let Peabody wind down. Her aide was still sheet-pale, but her hands were steady, her shoulders straight. “I don’t believe I mentioned any plans to remove you from the undercover op, Officer. But I did tell you to sit down. Sit down, Peabody,” she said more gently, then turned away to dig up a bottle of wine.

“I understand that when you’re under you have to keep to your cover, to handle any curves without breaking.”

“I didn’t see you break your cover, just that asshole’s nose.”

“I didn’t think, I just reacted. I understand during that kind of op you have to think at all times.”

“Peabody, even an LC has the right to protest if some jerk grabs her crotch in a public place. Here, have a drink.”

“He stuck his fingers in me.” Her hand did shake now as Eve pressed the glass into it. “We were just sitting there talking and all of a sudden I feel him jam his fingers in me. I know I was flirting, and I let him get a good look at my boobs so maybe I deserved — “

“Stop it.” Eve’s control wavered enough for her to put her hands on Peabody’s shoulders and shove her into a chair. “You didn’t deserve it, and it pisses me off to hear you think it. The son of a bitch didn’t have any right to touch you that way. Nobody has a right to push themselves on you that way.”

To hold you down, to tie your hands, to hammer himself into you when you’re begging him to stop. And it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

The sickness rose up, all but gagging her, until she turned, laid her hands on her desk, and ordered herself to breathe.

“Not now,” she murmured. “For Christ’s sake.”

“Dallas?”

“It’s nothing.” But she had to stay as she was, hands braced, for another moment. “I’m sorry you were put in that kind of position. I knew something was off about him.”

Peabody lifted her glass with both hands. She could still feel the sudden sharp shock of Holloway’s fingers digging into her. “He passed their screening.”

“And now we know their screening isn’t as good as they claim.” She drew a deep breath and, steadier, turned back. “I want you to hit Piper with this in the morning, in person. Go in, demand to see her. A little hysteria wouldn’t hurt; you can threaten to sue or go to the press. I want her to get it full in the face. Let’s see what shakes. Can you do it?”

“Yeah.” Appalled that tears were perilously close, Peabody sniffed. “Yeah, the way I’m feeling, it’ll be easy.”

“Keep your communicator open. We can’t use anything you get on the inside, but I want you in constant contact. You can delay your report on tonight until tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to have Feeney take you home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Eve waited a beat. “Peabody?”

“Sir?”

“Damn good punch. Next time, though, follow it through with a groin shot. You want to completely disable, not just annoy.”

Peabody let out a long sigh, then managed a half smile. “Yes, sir.”

Because she wanted the position of command, Eve sat behind her desk and waited for Roarke. She knew he’d walk Feeney and Peabody out, probably add a few comfort strokes for Peabody. Which would set the poor woman up for sweaty, erotic dreams if Eve knew her aide.

Better, she thought, than ugly nightmares about groping hands and helplessness.

And that, she realized, was part of her problem with this case. Sexual homicides, bondage, the gleeful cruelty in the name of love. Too close to home. Too close to the past she’d spent most of her life running from.

Now it was hitting her in the face. Each time she looked at a victim, she saw herself.

And she hated it.

“Get past it,” she ordered herself. “And find him.”

She looked over as Roarke walked in, kept her eyes on him as he crossed the room. He poured two glasses of the wine she’d gotten out for Peabody, set one on her desk, then took the other with him and sat in the chair facing her.

He sipped, took out one of his increasingly rare cigarettes, lighted it. “Well,” he said and left it at that.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?”

He drew in smoke, blew it out in a thin, fragrant stream. “At which point?”

“Don’t get cute with me, Roarke.”

“But I do it so well. Easy, Lieutenant.” He lifted his glass in salute as she growled low in her throat. “I didn’t infringe on your operation.”

“The point is you had no business being near the scene.”

“Pardon me, but I own the scene.” There was arrogance in his tone now, and a dare. “I often drop in on my properties. Keeps the employees on their toes.”

“Roarke — “

“Eve, this case is choking you. Do you think I can’t see it?” His composure cracked just enough to have him rising to pace.

Feeney was right, she thought fleetingly, the Irish came out when he was pissed.

“It disturbs your sleep — what little you allow yourself. It haunts your eyes. I know what you go through.” He turned back, temper alive in those wonderfully blue eyes. “Christ, I admire you. But you can’t expect me to stand back and pretend I don’t see, don’t understand, and not do whatever it is I can do to ease what’s inside you.”

“It isn’t about me. It can’t be about me. It’s about three dead people.”

“They haunt you, too.” He crossed to the desk and sat on the edge close to her. “That’s why you’re the best cop I’ve ever run up against. They’re not names and numbers to you. They’re people. And you have the gift — or curse — of being able to imagine too well what they saw and felt and prayed for in those last minutes of life. I won’t back away.”

He leaned forward, a quick move that caught her unguarded, and gripped her chin. “Damn it. I won’t back away from what you are or what you do. You’ll take me, Eve, every bit as fully as I take you.”

She sat very still, absorbing his words, searching his eyes. She could never resist the things she found in his eyes. “Last winter,” she began slowly, “you pushed yourself into my life. I didn’t ask for you. I didn’t want you.,”

His brow cocked, an irritated challenge. “Thank God you didn’t give a damn what I asked for or what I thought I wanted,” she murmured and watched the dare slide into a smile.

“I didn’t ask for you either. Aghra.”

My love. She knew what it meant, in the tongue of his birth, and couldn’t stop her heart from opening to it. To him. “Since then I’ve rarely had a case that hasn’t tangled you into it. I didn’t want it to be that way. I’ve used you when it was expedient. That bothers me.”

“It pleases me.”

“I know it.” She sighed and, lifting a hand, curled her fingers briefly around his wrist. His pulse beat there, strong and steady. “You get too close to pieces of me I don’t like to look at, then I don’t have any choice but to look at them.”

“You look at them with or without me, Eve. But maybe with me they won’t hurt you so much. I look back,” he said and surprised her enough to have her eyes flicking up to his, holding there. “And it’s easier, those moments are easier to stand since you. You can’t ask me, can’t expect me not to stand with you when your moments close in.”

She stood now, taking her wine and moving away from him. He was right, she thought. What she too often saw as dependence should have been accepted as unity.

And she could tell him.

“I know what they felt. I know what went through them — the fear, the pain, the humiliation. Each one of them when they were helpless and naked and he was raping them. I know what their bodies felt, what their minds felt. I don’t want to remember what it’s like to be torn into that way. Ripped, invaded. But I do. Then you touch me.”

She turned back, realizing she’d never really given him this. “Then you touch me, Roarke, and I don’t. I don’t feel that. I don’t remember that. It’s that simple. It’s just… you.”

“I love you,” he murmured. “Outrageously.”

“So you’re here when you should be off planet seeing to your business.” She shook her head before he could speak, could slide some smooth excuse by her when she knew better. “You were there tonight, knowing I’d be pissed off, because you thought there might be a chance I’d need you. You’re here right now ready to argue with me just to take my mind off what’s ripping at it. I know you, damn it. I’m a cop. I’m good at knowing people.”

He only smiled. “Busted. So what?”

“So… thanks. But I’ve been on the job eleven years now and I can handle myself. On the other hand…” She studied her wine, then took a long swallow. “It sure gave me a nice feeling to watch you beat the puss out of that creep who jumped Peabody. I had to sit there in the fucking van. Couldn’t risk getting out to smear him onto the pavement myself and blow cover. So it felt pretty good to watch you do it for me.”

“Oh, it was absolutely my pleasure. Is she all right?”

“She will be. He shook her — that’s the human part. She’ll take a hot shower, a tranq if she’s smart, and sleep it off. The cop part will maintain. She’s a good cop.”

“She’s a better one because of you.”

“No, don’t put that on me. She’s what she is.” Uncomfortable with that topic, she shot him a cool stare. “I bet you hugged her, stroked her hair, and gave her a kiss good night.”

That gorgeous eyebrow lifted again. “And if I did?”

“Her little heart’s still pitty-patting over it, which is just fine. She’s got a thing for you.”

“Really?” He grinned widely. “How… interesting.”

“Don’t play with my aide. I need her focused.”

“How about you unfocus for just a little while, and I see if I can make your heart pitty-pat?”

She ran her tongue around her teeth. “I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on my mind. It’d be a lot of work.”

“I enjoy my work.” With his eyes on hers, he stubbed out his cigarette, set down his glass. “And I’m damned good at it.”

She was facedown on the bed, naked and still vibrating, when the call came in. She grunted, blocked video, and answered. Thirty seconds later, she was rolling over and looking for her clothes. The call had been for her response to an anonymous tip on a domestic dispute. The address was all too familiar.

“That’s Holloway’s place. It’s not a 1222. He’s dead. It followed pattern.”

“I’ll go with you.” Roarke was already out of bed and reaching for his trousers.

She started to protest, then shrugged. “Okay. I have to tag Peabody for this, and she might not handle it well. I’m counting on you to give her the strokes because I’m going to have to be hard on her to keep her in line.”

“I don’t envy your job, Lieutenant,” Roarke said as he dressed in the dark.

“Right now, neither do I.” She dug out her communicator and called Peabody.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Brent Holloway had lived well, and died badly. The furnishing of his town house spoke of a man who was ruled by both trends and comfort. A lake-sized sofa dominated the living area and was pooled with triangular black pillows that appeared wet to the touch. A view screen was recessed in the ceiling above. In a cabinet, shaped like a well-endowed female from neck to knee, was an expansive collection of porn discs, some legal, some bootlegged.

A silver serving bar stretched across one wall and was stocked with expensive liquor and cheap illegal drugs.

The kitchen was fully automated, soulless, and appeared to have been used rarely. There was an office with a high-end computer system and holophone and a playroom equipped with VR and a mood tube. A servant droid stood in the corner, shut down and blank-eyed.

Holloway was in the master suite, stretched over a water-to-air mattress, trussed in sparkly silver garland and staring blindly at his own reflection in the mirrored canopy. The tattoo had been painted low on his belly, and four plump birds flew on the silver choke chain around his neck.

“Looks like he’d been to a health center,” Eve commented. His nose was only slightly swollen. Whatever bruising there might have been was expertly concealed with cosmetics.

Roarke stood back, knowing he wasn’t permitted in the room. He’d seen her work before. Competent, thorough, with a gentleness under the professional moves as she tended the dead.

He watched her run the standard field test to establish time of death, recording it herself until Peabody and the Crime Scene techs arrived.

“Ligature marks, both wrists, both ankles indicate victim was restrained prior to death. Death occurred twenty-three fifteen. Bruising on throat indicates cause of death to be strangulation.”

She glanced up as the buzzer sounded.

“I’ll let her in,” Roarke said.

“Okay. Roarke?” She hesitated only a moment. He was here, after all, and he was able. “Can you reactivate the droid? Bypass the programmed commands?”

“I think I could handle that.”

“Yeah.” There was very little he couldn’t do to bypass security systems. She tossed him a can of Seal-It. “Coat your hands. I can’t have your prints on it.”

He gave the can a mild look of distaste, but carried it with him.

She turned back to the body, continuing her work. She could hear the muted conversation in the other room as Roarke spoke to Peabody. Moving to the doorway, she waited.

Peabody was back in uniform, her recorder pinned to her lapel, her hair ruthlessly slicked down in its usual straight bowl around her face. And her face was pale, her eyes horrified.

“Oh shit, Dallas.”

“Tell me if you can’t deal with it. I have to know now before you go in.”

She’d asked herself the same question over and over since she’d received the call. Because she still wasn’t sure of the answer, she kept her eyes on Eve’s. “It’s my job to handle it. I know that.”

“I tell you what your job is. There’s a droid. You can work that. You can check the ‘links, the security discs. You can start the door-to-doors.”

It was an out. She hated herself for wanting to take it. Wanting to do anything but step inside the room. “I prefer to work the scene. Sir.”

Eve studied her another moment, then nodded. “Engage your recorder.” She turned and walked back to the side of the bed. “The victim is Holloway, Brent, ID established by investigating officer. Preliminary on body recorded by Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Subsequent record by Peabody, Officer Delia. Time and apparent cause of death established.”

Peabody’s stomach jittered when she forced herself to study the body. “It’s just like the others.”

“Apparently. Sexual molestation has not yet been established, nor has the victim been tested for drugs. The exposed skin shows signs of disinfectant. I can still smell it.”

She took a visor out of her field kit, fit it over her head, adjusted the power on the eyepieces. “Crime Scene techs are late,” she muttered. “Lights out,” she commanded, and the spotlight beams trained on the bed went dark.

“Yeah, he’s been sprayed down. The brushstrokes on the tattoo coincide with those on previous victims. It’s damn good freehand,” she added, with her nose all but pressing on Holloway’s belly. “What have we got here? Give me the tweezers, Peabody. I got hair or fiber here.”

Without looking back, Eve held out a hand, felt the small metal tool when Peabody passed it. “It’s white, doesn’t look man-made.” Holding up the thin strand, she studied it through the magnified visor. “He’s got several of these on him. I need a bag.” Even as she said it, Peabody was holding one out. “I’d guess Santa’s beard is shedding, and he wasn’t as careful cleaning up after himself this time.”

Carefully Eve plucked white strands from the body, bagged them. “He just made his first mistake. Take the visor.” Eve pulled it off. “Check the bathroom, every corner. Pull the drains and bag the contents. I want everything. Lights on,” she added. “Missing Cissy last night shook him, Peabody. He’s getting sloppy.”

By the time Eve turned the room over to the Crime Scene team, she’d found more than a dozen hairs, and minute traces of fiber. Her eyes were dark with purpose when she found Roarke with the droid in the playroom.

“Did you get it on?”

“Of course.” Staying comfortably in the body-mold chair, he gestured toward the droid. “Rodney, this is Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Lieutenant.” The droid was short and squat, with a homely face and a clipped voice. Obviously Holloway hadn’t wanted any competition, even in his electronics.

“What time were you disengaged tonight?”

“At ten oh three, shortly after Mr. Holloway returned for the evening. He prefers that I remain off unless he requires my services.”

“He didn’t require them tonight.”

“Apparently not.”

“Did he have any visitors from the time he returned and you were disengaged?”

“No. If I may say, Mr. Holloway didn’t appear to be in the mood for companionship this evening.”

“How so?”

“He appeared upset,” the droid claimed, then folded his lips.

“Rodney, this is a police investigation. You’re required to answer my questions fully.”

“I don’t understand. Has there been a burglary?”

“No, your employer is dead. Did anyone come to the door before Holloway returned?”

“I see.” Rodney took a moment, as if adjusting his circuits to the news. “No, there were no visitors this evening. Mr. Holloway had an outside engagement. He returned home at nine fifty. He was angry. He swore at me. I noticed he had some facial bruises and I asked if I could be of assistance. He suggested that I fuck myself, which is a function I am not programmed to perform. He ordered me to go to hell, which was not possible, then countermanded that order with one to come into this room and shut down for the night. I was programmed to reengage at seven a.m.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Eve could see Roarke grinning. She ignored him. “Your employer has illegal drugs and pornographic materials on the premises.”

“I am not programmed to comment on those matters.”

“Did he entertain sexual partners here?”

“Yes.”

“Male or female?”

“Both, occasionally at the same time.”

“I’m looking for a man, approximately six feet tall. I believe he has long hands, long fingers. He’s likely Caucasian. Over thirty years of age, but probably not more than fifty. He has some artistic talent, and interest in theater.”

“I’m sorry.” Rodney inclined his head politely. “That is insufficient data.”

“You’re telling me,” Eve muttered.

Eve waited until the body was bagged and removed. “There’s more to this guy than we have on record,” she said to Roarke. “Look around here, you can see. He had money, and liked to spend it on his face and body. He liked to look at himself.” Her gaze scanned the room, noting mirrors on nearly every surface. “He uses a dating service, claiming to be straight hetero, but his droid says he was bi. The dating service screens better than the Candidate Control Division out of East Washington, but he slips all this by them. He finger rapes Peabody on their first meet. If he did it once, he did it before, but he gets by with it.”

She paced the living room while Roarke said nothing. Nothing was required, he knew. She was using him as a bounce for her thoughts. “Maybe he’s connected to either Rudy or Piper. A lover. Or he’s helping to fund the place, or he’s got something on them so they let it all slide. This guy wasn’t a lonely heart, he was a pervert. They had to know it. At least one of them had to know it.”

She paused by the cabinet, empty now of the discs already taken into evidence. “Some of those were homemade jobs. I wonder who we’ll find doing nasty things with Holloway.”

She looked back at Roarke. They were alone for the moment, but Peabody would be back shortly. She struggled with the decision, then thought of four body bags. “I have to go in with this. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

He knew her very well. He moved close, touched a hand to her cheek. “Do you want to ask, or do you want me to just do it and tell you after it’s done?”

She blew out a breath. “I’ll ask.” She jammed her hands in her pockets as she did. “You can dig beneath the surface of what Holloway put on record. You can find out in hours what it would take Feeney days. He can’t cut the corners you can. I don’t have days. I don’t want this bastard to give me another body to be bagged.”

“I’ll call you when I have something.”

He was making it simple, and that only made it worse. “I’ll transmit his file when I get into Central,” she began, then shut her mouth firmly when he grinned.

“No point in wasting time when I can get it myself.” Leaning down, he kissed her. “I enjoy helping you.”

“You just like screwing CompuGuard and running illegal programs.”

“There is that added benefit.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed briefly at the tension there. “If you work until you fall on your face, I’m going to be annoyed.”

“I’m still standing. I need the car and I don’t have time to take you back home.”

“I think I can manage to get there.” He kissed her again before starting toward the door. “Oh, by the way, Lieutenant, you have an appointment with Trina at six tonight. She and Mavis will come to the house.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ll entertain them if you’re running a bit late.” Ignoring her next curse, he slipped outside.

She ended with a hiss, then gathered her field kit, called to Peabody, and sealed the scene. “I want to run the hair and fiber to the lab and light a fire under Dickhead,” she said as they climbed into her vehicle. “We’ll push the ME, too, though I don’t think we’re going to find out anything from the postmortem that we don’t already know.”

She slid a sidelong glance at her aide as she drove. “It’s going to be a long day, Peabody. You might want to take some approved ups to get through. You can requisition some Alert-All.”

“I’m okay.”

“I need you sharp. I want you transformed and under by nine. You have to pull off your bit with Piper. We’ll hold the release of Holloway’s name as long as possible.”

“I know what to do.” Peabody stared out the window, watching the night sweep by. There was a lone glide-cart on the corner at Ninth, the operator warming himself in the steam from his grill.

“I’m not sorry I broke his goddamn nose,” she said abruptly. “I thought I would be. I thought when I saw him there, saw what had been done to him, that I’d be sorry.”

“One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

“I thought it would. I thought it should. I was afraid to go in that room. But once I was in there, doing the job, I didn’t feel all the stuff I thought I would.”

“You’re a cop. A good one.”

“I don’t want to be the kind who stops feeling.” She turned her head, studied Eve’s profile. “You’re not. They’re not just slabs to you, they’re people. I don’t want to stop remembering they’re people.”

Eve glanced right and left as she approached a red light, then seeing her way clear, breezed through it. “You wouldn’t be working with me if I thought you would.”

Peabody took a long, slow breath and felt her stomach settle. “Thanks.”

“Since you’re grateful, contact Dickhead. Tell him I want his skinny ass in the lab within the hour.”

Peabody grimaced, shifted in her seat. “I don’t know if I’m that grateful.”

“Make the call, Peabody. If he balks, I’ll take over and bribe him with a case of Roarke’s Irish beer. Dickie’s got a weakness for it.”

It took two cases and a threat to tie his tongue around his neck, but at three a.m. Dickie was in his labcoat and testing hair and fiber.

Eve paced the lab, barking into her communicator as the assistant ME claimed a holiday backup on autopsies. “Look, you little drone, I can call Commander Whitney and fry your ass. This is Priority One. You want me to let it drop to the media that my investigation was delayed because some AME wanted to read his Christmas cards instead of doing a cut?”

“Come on, Dallas, I’m working a double. I got stiffs stacked like bricks in the drawers here.”

“Put my brick on the table and have the report to me by oh six hundred or I’m coming over there and I’m going to show you what a Y cut feels like.”

She cut transmission and turned around. “Gimme, Dickie.”

“Don’t crowd me, Dallas. You don’t scare me. I don’t see no Priority One tab on this evidence.”

“There will be by nine.” She walked over and gave his hair a hard quick yank. “I haven’t had my fucking coffee, Dickie. You don’t want to mess with me here.”

“Jeez, get some then.” Behind his microgoggles, his eyes were as big as an owl’s. “I’m running the damn stuff, aren’t I? You want it quick or you want it right?”

“I want it both.” Because she was desperate, she walked over and ordered a cup of the lab sludge pretending to be coffee and forced down a swallow.

“Hair’s human,” he called out. “Treated with a salon fixer and an herbal disinfectant.”

That perked Eve up enough to have her drinking more coffee as she crossed to him. “What kind of fixer, what’s it for?”

“To preserve color and texture. It’ll keep the white from yellowing or getting stiff. Two of your samples have some adhesive on one end. These hairs likely came from a wig. A good, expensive one. This is real human hair, and that puts it high-end. I’ll have to run more to tag the adhesive. Might be able to get you a brand name on the fixer after some more tests.”