Imitation in Death (40 page)

"Marlene Cox has positively identified Niles Renquist as her assailant. I have a" statement from Sophia DiCarlo, employed as au pair in the Renquist household, which conflicts with his and Mrs. Renquist's claim that he was home during the time of one of the murders. He is in possession of the stationery used for the notes left at the murder scenes, and he fits the profile. At this time Captain Feeney and expert civilian consultant Roarke'are doing a search and scan on travel. I believe we will confirm that the subject was in London, Paris, Boston, and New L.A. at the time of previous murders, which match the methods of this case. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be enough for a search warrant and a-warrant to bring the subject in for questioning on suspicion."

"But these aren't ordinary circumstances."

"No, sir. The subject's diplomatic status and the political arena add a sensitivity and a level of bureaucracy. I request that you speak directly with the judge and the necessary parties to expedite the warrants. He will kill again, Commander, and soon."

"You want my head in the noose, Lieutenant?" He cocked his head. "You have the statement of a woman in severe physical and emotional distress. A woman with head trauma. You have a statement from a household employee, who in your report claims to have been sexually abused by the subject. Those are- both shaky. Owning or purchasing the brand of paper used in the notes isn't enough, and you know it, or Renquist would have been in a cage before this. And there are others who fit the profile. All of this will be argued by Renquist's representatives and attorneys, and the British government. You need to lock this down."

"If I get into his house, into his office, I'll lock it down. It's him, Commander. I know it's him."

He sat in silence, wide fingers tapping on the surface of the desk. "If you've got any doubt, if there's any room for doubt, it would be best to hold off on taking these steps. We can surveil, watch his every move until there is no doubt, and the case is a noose around his neck."

Good luck watching his every move if he gets back inside the U.N., Eve thought, but tried to put it more diplomatically.

"Renquist may already be in the wind. Without the search, he stays in control. He's the only one who knows the identity and whereabouts of his next target. If he beats me to her, she may not be as lucky as Marlene Cox."

"Once the calls are made and the ball starts rolling, it could flatten both of us. I can survive it. I've had more years wearing a badge than you've had breathing. I can live with retirement. The ramifications of this should you be wrong will damage your career, - perhaps irrevocably. Understand that."

"Understood, sir."

"You're a solid cop, Dallas, perhaps the best under my command. Is it worth pushing this forward now? Is it worth possible reassignment, losing your status in Homicide, and your credibility?"

She thought of the dream, of the dead and the victims yet to come. There's always another, her father had said. And damn him, he was right. "Yes, sir. If I weighed status more heavily than the job, I shouldn't be here. I.'m not wrong, but if I were, I'd take the hit."

"I'll make the calls. Get me a goddamn cup of coffee."

She blinked at the order, looked vaguely around his office. The little twinge of resentment she felt ass she walked to his AutoChef told her maybe status wasn't so far down on her list after all.

"How do you want it, sir?"

"Coffee regular. Get me Judge Womack," he said into the 'link. Then barked out a "Come" at the knock on his door.

Feeney hustled in, a grim smile on his face. Roarke strolled in behind him, grinned cheekily at Eve. "I wouldn't mind a cup, while you're at it."

"I don't serve civilians."

"Serve and protect, Lieutenant," he reminded her. "Protect and serve."

"Bite me," she mumbled under her breath and carried the coffee to Whitney's desk.

"We got 'em," Feeney said.

"Hold that call. What have you got?"

"Me and the civilian here did some E-finessing. If only the budget could afford this boy." With sincere affection, he slapped Roarke's shoulder. "Devious mind and magic fingers. Ah well:'

"Cut through the bullshit, Feeney, and give me some weight."

"Our suspect took diplomatic, public, and private shuttles-and the private transpo was buried deep-to Paris, to London, to Boston, and to New L.A. He was in those cities during the time of the unsolved murders preceding the ones here. He frequetlly travels to London, as you'd expect. Less frequently to Boston. For London he uses the diplomatic transpo. For Boston, public, though it's first-class and pricey all the way. But for the West Coast, he went private, and alone. Two trips by this method, the first, one month before the murder of Susie Mannery, the second, two days- before with a return the following day-the day after the murder. Same pattern on the 'other unsolveds." He turned to Eve. "Bull's-eye, kid."

Even with the added weight, it was almost midnight before Eve had the warrants in hand. Still, her earlier fatigue had burned away in a rush of adrenaline.

"How did you know?" Roarke asked as she drove uptown. "Walk the civilian through it."

"It had to be one of them. The stationery was too pointed, too much there for it not to be. He used it purposefully, to bring himself into it. The attention, the amusement, the excitement. He needs that."

She swung in behind a Rapid Cab, and let the cabbie plow the road for her. "But he'd have to know there'd be others, in New York, viable suspects. So he wouldn't have been the first to buy it. Smith was, and Smith would be easy to track. He's public, and he likes to make a splash."

"Go on," Roarke prompted.

"There's Elliot Hawthorne with his supply of the same paper. Speaking of him, he's divorcing his current wife. Something about a tennis pro."

She took time to smirk. "Figured Hawthorne would get around to it. He was a toss in, never seriously on my list. Too old for the profile, and nothing there. No pop."

"But you still had to take the time to check him out, had to have him in the general mix. That would've pleased Renquist."

"There you go. Then Breen, sending him the paper, just added a nice touch for Renquist. Breen was the expert, and someone Renquist probably admired. A month's pay says we find Breen's books in Renquist's office. He's studied Breen, the work and the man."

"You never thought it was Breen."

"Didn't fit. Arrogant enough, knowledgeable enough. But this isn't a guy who hates or fears women." She remembered his devastated face as she hammered at him, remembered the broken look in his eyes. She'd have to live with her part in putting it there. "He loves his wife, and that makes him a sap, not a murderer. He likes being at home with the kid. Probably he'd do it whatever the mother did. But I pushed him anyway, pushed. him hard."

He heard the regret in her voice, and`' brushed a hand over her arm. "Why?"

"In case I misjudged him. In case..." She blew out a breath and tried to let the guilt blow out with it. "In case I was wrong. I liked him, right off, the same way I didn't like Renquist."

"So you worried part of it was personal for you."

"Some. And Breen could've been involved, that was an angle I had to factor in. He could'vee provided the killer with data, pooled all of it to put into his next book. How he acted and reacted, answered, didn't answer, in interview mattered."

"He'll get through it, Eve, or he won't. It's his wife who betrayed him, not you."

"Yeah, all I did was shatter his nice fantasy shield. Anyway, anyway. Renquist's got a good line on Breen. I bet he knows about the wife's sidepiece. I'll double that bet and say we'll find unregistered equipment in his office, equipment he's used to research and track the other suspects. He lined them right up for me, the son of a bitch."

"I value my money too much to take that wager. Why not Carmichael Smith?'

"Because he's pitiful. He needs a-woman to adore him, and tend to him. He doesn't kill them or who'd rub his feet and stroke his head?"

"I appreciate a good foot rub myself."

"Yeah." She snorted. "Take a number."

He reached out to twist a lock of her shaggy hair around his finger, just to touch. And asked the next question just to keep her talking. "Fortney, then."

"Peabody's favorite. Mostly she leaned toward him because he offended her sensibilities. She's soft , yet you know."

"Yes. I know."

"She'll keep some of that, the soft." Eve tried not to think about the exam in the morning, and how much of Peabody's ego and esteem was wrapped up in it. "That's good," she added. "It's good she's got the makeup to keep some of it. You get too hard, you stop feeling, then the job's just being on. the clock."

You've never stopped feeling, he thought. You never will. "You're worried about her."

"I'm not." She shot the words out, then hissed when he chuckled. "Okay, maybe I am. A little. Maybe I'm worried she's so nervous and sweaty about this damn, stupid detective's exam that she'll blow it. Maybe I wish I'd waited another six months to put her up for it. If she blows it, it's going to set her back-inside. It's so fucking important to her."

"Wasn't it to you?" " That was different. It was," she said with conviction when he raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to blow it. I had more confidence in myself than she does. Had to. I didn't have anything else." She surprised, herself by smiling, looking over at him. "then."

It didn't surprise her to feel his hand brush her cheek. "Enough mush. Back to Fortney. He clouded Peabody's thinking.. He's a putz, and just not smart enough for this. Not an organized thinker, and not cold enough. Violent tendencies toward women, but a sock in the eye isn't mutilation. You gotta be cold to mutilate. And brave, in a screwed-up way. Fortney's not brave enough to go the whole route. For him, sex is his way of humiliating women. He bought the paper second, and I imagine that gave Renquist a smile-if he was following the- purchases."

"And you believe he was."

She gazed at-the rearview to make sure the team was still behind her. "Dead sure, and he likely did a search on Fortney and knew he'd be in New York during this period._ Takes time to put on- a show, months of lead time. Renquist didn't plan this overnight."

"Keep going."

Roarke was keeping her talking, she realized, so she wouldn't lose her temper and her patience with the traffic.

Which was hideous. She toyed briefly with hitting the sirens and punching it. -But that violated procedure. She'd do this straight, right down the line.

"He needed time to scope out his targets, so you've got several weeks between him sending the paper to Breen and the first murder. The first in New York," she amended. "We're going to find more bodies, or what's left of them, scattered over the planet, and possibly off. "

"He'll tell you," Roarke deduced.

"Oh yeah." Her face was grim as she threaded through a narrow break between bumpers. "Once we get him in, he'll tell us. He won't be able to stop himself. He wants his place in the history books."

"And you'll have yours. Care about it or not, Lieutenant, Roarke said when she scowled. "You'll have yours."

"Let's stick with Renquist. He's a perfectionist, and he's had years of practice. In his work, within the image he's built, he has to be discreet, diplomatic, often subservient. And this goes against the grain, day after day. At; heart, he's an exhibitionist, a man who finds himself above other seven as he's been hammered down by females all his life. Women are inferior, yet they have power over him, so they have to be punished. He hates us, and killing us is his greatest joy, his finest accomplishment."

"You were going to be his last."

She glanced over, saw him watching her. "Yeah, he'd have gotten around to me, later rather than sooner because he'd want to string this out. I saw it in his eyes the first time I met him. Just an instant. Couldn't stand the son of a bitch. I wanted it to be him."

She pulled up in front of the Renquist home, and the search team pulled up behind her. "This is going to be fun."

She waited for Feeney, let the team file in behind. Home security scanned her badge, then the warrant, before shifting to a holding pattern. Within two minutes, the housekeeper, in a long black robe, opened the door.

"I'm sorry," she began, "there must be some, mistake-" -

"This warrant authorizes me and my team to enter this residence and conduct a search thereof. I am also authorized to arrest Niles Renquist on multiple counts of suspicion of murder in the first degree, and a count of first-degree assault with intent. Is Mr. Renquist on the premises?"

"No, he's away on business." She looked more baffled than annoyed "I'll. need to ask you to wait here while I inform Mrs. Renquist of these... circumstances."

Eve held up the-warrants again. "These mean I don't have to wait. But go right ahead and tell her we're here. After you direct me to Mr. Renquist's home office."

"I'm not... I can hardly take the responsibility for"

"It's my responsibility." She signaled the team behind her to enter. "Split into groups of two. I want a complete and thorough room-by-room. All recorders on. The office?" she said to the housekeeper.

"It's on the second level, but---"

"You're going to want to lead the way, Stevens, then step back. You don't want, a part of this."

Without waiting for the housekeeper, Eve started up the staircase. Stevens came after her in a trot. "If you'd just let me wake Mrs.' Renquist and inform her-"

"As soon as you show me his office."

"It's the last door, on the right. But it's secured."

"You got the code?"

She pokered up then, struggling for dignity as she stood in her nightrobe surrounded by cops. "Only Mr. Renquist has the code. It's his personal office, and he handles sensitive material. As an official of the British government-"

"Yeah, yeah, blah blahs" Eve decided she'd been right. This 'was fun. "My warrant gives me the right to open this door, with or without the code." She pulled out her master. "I am employing that authorization at this time, and using a police master code. to disengage the subject's security on this door."