Kindred in Death (4 page)

“I’m going to start with her friends. We may get lucky there, get a name, a description. I’m having the glass Peabody bagged sent straight to the lab. I’ve requested Morris as ME. Feeney, McNab, and whoever Feeney assigns out of EDD will handle the electronics. We’ll also do a sweep of the park where she jogged. If she met her killer there, someone might have seen them together. We will check out Garcia, though I tend to agree with the captain on that.”

“Keep me informed,” Whitney told her, then glanced over as his wife came in.

“I wanted to give them a few moments in private. And to give this to you, Lieutenant.” Anna offered Eve a memo cube. “The names and contacts of the friends Carol told you about.”

“Thank you.”

“I know you need to get started on what comes next, but I’d like to say something. Carol and Jonah are dear friends, and Deena was . . . lovely in every way. I don’t always like your style, Lieutenant. Jack,” she said with an impatient glance when he started to interrupt. “Please. I often find you abrasive and difficult to understand. But Carol and Jonah are dear friends, and Deena lovely in every way. If Jonah hadn’t requested you to lead this investigation, I’d have used every influence I had with your commander to get you so assigned. Get the bastard. You get the bastard.”

She broke down, walked straight into her husband’s arms, and wept.

3

EVE ESCAPED. SHE WALKED OUTSIDE WHERE she could breathe without drawing in the misery and grief. And where she could reestablish the locks on her own memories and emotions.

She spotted the two uniforms she sent out on the knock-on-doors crossing back toward the victim’s home.

“Officers. Report.”

“Sir, we covered the block, and were able to speak to all but four residents. Others confirmed the family two doors east is out of town, and has been for three days. Two others are reportedly attending a Peace Day rally this morning, and the whereabouts of the remaining resident is unknown at this time.”

“I want the name of the question mark. We track him down and interview. The same with the rally attendants. Everyone on this block in residence for the last twenty-four hours is to give a statement.”

“Yes, sir. Those we spoke with noticed nothing out of the ordinary yesterday or last night. No one saw anyone but the victim enter or leave the scene.” The female officer taking the lead flipped out her memo book. “A Hester Privet both saw and spoke to the victim yesterday morning at approximately ten-fifteen. The victim was, at that time, watering the plants at the entrance to the house. They spoke briefly. The victim mentioned she had a few errands to run that day as her parents were due back the following afternoon. Privet states she then jokingly asked if the victim had a big party planned for the evening. The victim seemed slightly flustered, but laughed and stated she thought she’d just have a quiet evening instead. Privet then continued east on foot.”

Over the uniform’s shoulder Eve watched a big orange dog lead its young couple into the park, spotted a jogger in bright red shorts heading out.

“The witness passed by the house later in the day, she believes about three in the afternoon when she took her children to the park, and again at approximately five when she took them home. She is certain the security was engaged at those times as she deliberately walked by to check as she was aware the parents were out of town. She did not, however, see the victim at either time.”

“Good. Let me know as soon as you’ve located and gotten statements from the others.”

After dismissing the uniforms, she stood where she was and watched the morgue attendants bring Deena out in the anonymous black body bag. Then she moved to intercept a woman, blond hair flying, who rushed toward the house.

“Ma’am. This is a crime scene, you can’t enter at this time.”

“It’s Deena, isn’t it? They wouldn’t say what happened, the police. Just that there’d been an incident. I couldn’t believe. . . Is it Deena? What happened?”

“I’m unable to give you any information at this time. Are you a friend of the family?”

“Yes. A neighbor. Hester Privet. I spoke with two officers earlier this morning, but—”

“Yes. I’m Lieutenant Dallas. You spoke with Deena yesterday.”

“Yes, right here, right out front. Is she—God—is she in that bag?”

No point in evading. It would all hit soon enough. “Deena MacMasters was killed last night.”

The woman stumbled back a step, then wrapped both arms around her torso. “But how? How?” Tears gathered in eyes gone wide with shock. “Was there a break-in? She’s so vigilant with the alarms and locks. She babysits my twins, my boys—and she lectures me about making sure the house is secure. Oh God, my God. My boys adore her. What will I tell them? Can I do something, anything? Jonah and Carol. They’re away. I have the contact information. I can—”

“They returned this morning. They’re inside.”

Hester closed her eyes a moment, took several breaths. “I—I almost went over and knocked. To check? To make sure she didn’t want to come over and hang, have dinner. But I talked myself out of it. I wish I’d . . . Is there anything I can do? Anything?”

“Did Deena ever have anyone over when she watched your children? A friend?”

“Sometimes Jo came with her. Jo Jennings, her best friend.”

“Any boys?”

“No. God.” She used the backs of her hands to wipe her wet cheeks. “Against the rules, and Deena didn’t really date.”

“Did she always follow the rules?”

“Yes, from what I could tell. I often wished she’d break one.” Hester swiped at another tear. “She seemed, to me, so young and innocent for her age, and on the other hand so mature. Responsible. I trusted her absolutely with my sons. I should have checked on her more while her parents were gone, kept a closer eye. I should’ve insisted she come over for dinner. But it was only a couple of days, and I didn’t think. Just didn’t think.”

“Did she ever talk to you about a boy?”

“No one specific. We did talk about boys now and then, in general. She has—had—such a good relationship with her mother, but sometimes a girl can’t say things to her mom. And we were closer in age. Plus, I pried,” Hester admitted with a twisted smile. “I think she had a crush on someone because I’d noticed she was taking more care with her wardrobe, her hair. And . . . well, there was just a look in her eye. You know?”

“Yeah.”

“I commented on it, and she just said she was trying some new things. But there was this look in her eye. This I’ve-got-a-secret look. Did some boy hurt her? Did some . . .” Realization and horror struck her face. “Oh God.”

“I can’t give you details at this time. I’m going to give you my card. If you think of anything you saw, anything she may have said to you, I want you to contact me. I don’t care how inconsequential it may seem, I want to hear it.” Eve passed over a card. “One thing. Did you happen to notice when you saw her yesterday morning if she had her nails done? Painted fingers and toes?”

“She didn’t. I would’ve noticed as she rarely did. And she was bare-foot. Watering the plants there, in her bare feet, so I’d have noticed.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“I have to tell my husband, and our boys. They’re only four. I don’t know how to tell them.”

Peabody came out as Hester walked away. “EDD’s on the way, and the sweepers are on it. Mrs. Whitney’s packing a few things up for Mrs. MacMasters. They’ll stay at the Whitneys’ for a day or two, depending.”

“We’ll leave them to it then. We need to interview the friends. It’s too late in the day to scope the park, the jogging trails. Her habit was to run there between eight and nine on weekends, the same weekdays when she didn’t have school. We’ll hit that tomorrow. We’ll take Jamie first.”

“Jamie? Our Jamie?”

“Lingstrom. He was a friend.”

“It’s a damn small world when it sucks.”

Couldn’t argue.

She knew Jamie was home for the summer, and staying with his mother. She kept tabs—loosely. He was the grandson of a dead cop—a damn good cop, and a boy who’d lost his sister to murder when he’d been sixteen.

He was no stranger to death.

And at sixteen, he’d intrigued her husband by using a homemade jam mer to bypass Roarke’s home security enough to gain access to the estate.

She knew Jamie had a job in one of Roarke’s R&D departments for the summer—just as she knew Roarke harbored a bit of frustration that the boy’s goals were toward the Electronic Detective Division and cops rather than the private sector.

“Since they were friends, and knowing Jamie, he’s going to want in.”

Eve picked her way through the holiday traffic. Gathering crowds, souvenir and snack stands prepared for the afternoon parade.

“That’ll be up to Feeney.” There was a connection there, too, as Feeney and Jamie’s grandfather had been tight back in the day. “More to the point, he is in. He’s on the short list of the vic’s friends, and the only male on it.”

“You think they were involved, romantically?”

“The parents don’t think so—but according to one of the neighbors, and the mother—there was somebody. Somebody fairly recent that the vic was keeping to herself.”

Peabody pondered a moment. “If she had a thing for Jamie—and he had one back—I don’t think she’d have kept it to herself. He’s just the type the parents would approve of. He’s smart, responsible, has the cop connection. He’s on scholarship to Columbia, and had plenty of other offers from top-level colleges. He took Columbia so he could stay close to home, not leave his mother too much alone.”

At Eve’s sidelong stare, Peabody shrugged. “He chats up with McNab, which is also how I know Jamie’s been dating the field the last few months. No one girl, nothing serious. I don’t think he’s even mentioned Deena. I’d’ve remembered, since I knew her. Plus most college guys don’t go for high school girls, or not for long.”

“What do high school girls go for?”

“Boys. A college boy would be a big status coup. But . . . Deena wasn’t the type. She was kind of sweet and serious and shy.”

“Vulnerable. A guy pays attention, knew how to play it. She got her nails done.”

“Huh?”

“Sometime Saturday, she did her nails or had them done. She dressed up—skirt, nice shirt, jewelry, put on makeup. If you’re hanging at home for the evening, alone, what’re you wearing?”

“My pajamas or sweats, probably my rattiest.”

“She didn’t just let him in. She was expecting him.” Eve pulled over to the curb of the modest town house.

She’d done all this before, walked this same path to tell Brenda Lingstrom her daughter was dead.

This time Jamie answered the door.

When had he gotten taller? She had to shift her gaze up to meet his, an odd sensation. He’d let his hair grow a little longer so it tumbled around his face in blond disarray. His jeans were full of holes, his T-shirt baggy with the faded faces of what she recognized as a popular trash rock group sneering out.

His face had fined down since she’d last seen him, and had gone handsome on her. Another mild shock. She wasn’t looking at a boy anymore, she realized, but a man.

His sleepy eyes brightened in friendly pleasure, then immediately went blank. He said, “Oh shit.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“Who’s dead? You’re not at the door because you were passing by. Who’s—my mother.”

Panic leaped, even as his hand shot out and gripped her arm hard enough to bruise.

“No. She’s not here?”

“She and Grandma left Friday to hook up with some friends for a girl week, take advantage of the holiday. They’re okay?”

“As far as I know. We need to come in, Jamie.”

“Who is it? Tell me who it is.”

No point trying to soften the blow. “Deena MacMasters.”

“What? No. No. Deena? Oh God. Oh, goddamn!”

He turned away, strode into the living area that had changed little since she’d brought death into it almost two years before. He paced it, veering around tables, chairs, circling like a cat in a cage. “Give me a minute, okay? Give me a minute.”

Eve gestured Peabody to a chair herself, and remained standing while Jamie took his minute.

He stopped, turned, with an air of weary resignation at odds with his youth. “When?”

“Early this morning.”

“How?”

“We’re going to talk about that. When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Ah.” He rubbed the space between his eyebrows. The gesture seemed to steady him a little. “A couple weeks ago. Wait.” He lowered to the arm of a chair, then stared hard into space for a few minutes.

And Eve watched him pull control and composure back. If he decided to pursue law enforcement, he had the spine to make a cop, she thought.

“Tuesday, two weeks ago this coming Tuesday. A bunch of us went to see this new group—Crusher—play at Club Zero. I asked her to come along because we hadn’t seen much of each other in a while, and she’s into music. All kinds, even the old stuff. It’s an underage club, so she could get in, no prob. They sucked extra large, so she and I split off after the first set and went for pizza, caught up some. I took her home, got her home before midnight. She’s got a curfew.”

“What did you talk about?”

“All kinds of shit. School, music, vids, e-bits. She’s not much into the e-scene, but she liked to hear me talk about it. We’ve known each other forever. Grandpa knew her dad, and she was looking hard at Columbia for next year. We talked about that since I’ve done two semesters.”

“Did she talk about her boyfriend?”

“What boyfriend?” His eyes went on alert. “She wasn’t tuned into anybody I knew about. She wasn’t hooked up. She got all spazmotic when it came to guys, hardly ever did the one-on-one.”

“One-on-one?”

“Dating, you know? She didn’t think she was pretty, but she was. And she said she couldn’t think of what to say or how to say it. Mom said how she was just self-conscious and shy, and she’d grow out of it. Now she won’t.” Bitterness coated the words. “What happened to her, Dallas?”

“Her parents were away for the weekend.” Eve kept her tone brisk and neutral. “Sometime yesterday, she let someone into the house. It appears she expected him, and given what we know of her at this point, we conclude she knew him and trusted him.”

He’d get the details soon enough, Eve knew. Better to hear them now, and from her. “He restrained her. He raped her. He killed her.”

His gaze didn’t waver from hers. Fury snapped into it as he got to his feet, then his eyes went cold. Yeah, he’d be a good cop, she decided.

“She was harmless. I want to say she was the kind of person who’d go out of her way not to hurt anyone. But she was strong and fast, and smart. She knew self-defense. She took me down a few times when we practiced. He wouldn’t have been able to restrain her without a fight. You’ve got to have some trace.”

“It may be he slipped her a drug to incapacitate her so he was able to restrain her and prevent her from causing him any harm. She fought, Jamie, and hard, but it was too late.”

“If she let someone in, she knew him. You’re right there. We haven’t been as tight since I started college, so I don’t know everyone she might have . . .”

“What?”

“When we peeled off from the group, were hanging out over pizza, she asked me what college guys looked at in a girl. I made some crack like the same thing every guy looks for. But she wanted to know, like, if it was looks or common ground, and if we all really expected sex. We could talk like that because we didn’t have that kind of thing.”

He eased back down on the arm of the chair. “I think I said it wasn’t expected, it was hoped for. Pretty much always. But I didn’t score with every girl I went out with. I said how she could worry about college guys when she was a college girl. She smiled. I didn’t think anything of it, the way she smiled and bounced off topic. She wasn’t just talking about guys. There was a guy. Son of a bitch.”