Naked in Death (10 page)

She shook her head again, but this time there was weariness in the gesture. He heard the sigh escape, and taking advantage, he drew her closer. “You can’t tell me?”

“No.”

He nodded, but his eyes flashed with impatience. He knew better; it shouldn’t matter to him. She shouldn’t. But too much about her mattered.

“Someone else then,” he murmured.

“There’s no one else.” Then realizing how that might be construed, she pulled back. “I didn’t mean — “

“I know you didn’t.” His smile was wry and not terribly amused. “But there isn’t going to be anyone else, for either of us, not for some time.”

Her step back wasn’t a retreat, but a statement of distance. “You’re taking too much for granted, Roarke.”

“Not at all. Nothing for granted. You’re work, lieutenant. A great deal of work. Your dinner’s getting cold.”

She was too tired to make a stand, too tired to argue. She sat down, picked up her fork. “Have you been to Sharon DeBlass’s apartment during the last week?”

“No, why would I?”

She studied him carefully. “Why would anyone?”

He paused a moment, then realized the question wasn’t academic. “To relive the event,” he suggested. “To be certain nothing was left behind that would be incriminating.”

“And as owner of the building, you could get in as easily as you got in here.”

His mouth tightened briefly. Annoyance, she judged, the annoyance of a man who was weary of answering the same questions. It was a small thing, but a very good sign of his innocence. “Yes. I don’t believe I’d have a problem. My master code would get me in.”

No, she thought, his master code wouldn’t have broken the police security. That would require a different level, or an expert on security.

“I assume that you believe someone not in your department has been in that apartment since the murder.”

“You can assume that,” she agreed. “Who handles your security, Roarke?”

“I use Lorimar for both my business and my home.” He lifted his glass. “It’s simpler that way, as I own the company.”

“Of course you do. I suppose you know quite a bit about security yourself.”

“You could say I have a long-standing interest in security matters. That’s why I bought the company.” He scooped up the herbed pasta, held the fork to her lips, and was satisfied when she took the offered bite. “Eve, I’m tempted to confess all, just to wipe that unhappy look off your face and see you eat with the enthusiasm I’d enjoyed last time. But whatever my crimes, and they are undoubtedly legion, they don’t include murder.”

She looked down at her plate and began to eat. It frazzled her that he could see she was unhappy. “What did you mean when you said I was work?”

“You think things through very carefully, and you weigh the odds, the options. You’re not a creature of impulse, and though I believe you could be seduced, with the right timing, and the right touch, it wouldn’t be an ordinary occurrence.”

She lifted her gaze again. “That’s what you want to do, Roarke? Seduce me?”

“I will seduce you,” he returned. “Unfortunately, not tonight. Beyond that, I want to find out what it is that makes you what you are. And I want to help you get what you need. Right now, what you need is a murderer. You blame yourself,” he added. “That’s foolish and annoying.”

“I don’t blame myself.”

“Look in the mirror,” Roarke said quietly.

“There was nothing I could do,” Eve exploded. “Nothing I could do to stop it. Any of it.”

“Are you supposed to be able to stop it, any of it? All of it?”

“That’s exactly what I’m supposed to do.”

He tilted his head. “How?”

She pushed away from the table. “By being smart. By being in time. By doing my job.”

Something more here, he mused. Something deeper. He folded his hands on the table. “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?”

The images flooded back into her brain. All the death. All the blood. All the waste. “Now they’re dead.” And the taste of it was bitter in her mouth. “There should have been something I could have done to stop it.”

“To stop a murder before it happens, you’d have to be inside the head of a killer,” he said quietly. “Who could live with that?”

“I can live with that.” She hurled it back at him. And it was pure truth. She could live with anything but failure. “Serve and protect — it’s not just a phrase, it’s a promise. If I can’t keep my word, I’m nothing. And I didn’t protect them, any of them. I can only serve them after they’re dead. Goddamn it, she was hardly more than a baby. Just a baby, and he cut her into pieces. I wasn’t in time. I wasn’t in time, and I should have been.”

Her breath caught on a sob, shocking her. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she lowered herself onto the sofa. “God,” was all she could say. “God. God.”

He came to her. Instinct had him taking her arms firmly rather than gathering her close. “If you can’t or won’t talk to me, you have to talk to someone. You know that.”

“I can handle it. I — ” But the rest of the words slid down her throat when he shook her.

“What’s it costing you?” he demanded. “And how much would it matter to anyone if you let it go? For one minute just let it go.”

“I don’t know.” And maybe that was the fear, she realized. She wasn’t sure if she could pick up her badge, or her weapon, or her life, if she let herself think too deeply, or feel too much. “I see her,” Eve said on a deep breath. “I see her whenever I close my eyes or stop concentrating on what needs to be done.”

“Tell me.”

She rose, retrieved her wine and his, and then returned to the sofa. The long drink eased her dry throat and settled the worst of the nerves. It was fatigue, she warned herself, that weakened her enough that she couldn’t hold it in.

“The call came through when I was a half block away. I’d just closed another case, finished the data load. Dispatch called for the closest unit. Domestic violence — it’s always messy, but I was practically on the doorstep. So I took it. Some of the neighbors were outside, they were all talking at once.”

The scene came back to her, perfectly, like a video exactly cued. “A woman was in her nightgown, and she was crying. Her face was battered, and one of the neighbors was trying to bind up a gash on her arm. She was bleeding badly, so I told them to call the MTs. She kept saying, ‘He’s got her. He’s got my baby.’”

Eve took another drink. “She grabbed me, bleeding on me, screaming and crying and telling me I had to stop him, I had to save her baby. I should have called for backup, but I didn’t think I could wait. I took the stairs, and I could hear him before I got to the third floor where he was locked in. He was raging. I think I heard the little girl screaming, but I’m not sure.”

She closed her eyes then, praying she’d been wrong. She wanted to believe that the child had already been dead, already beyond pain. To have been that close, only steps away… No, she couldn’t live with that.

“When I got to the door, I used the standard. I’d gotten his name from one of the neighbors. I used his name, and the child’s name. It’s supposed to make it more personal, more real if you use names. I identified myself and said I was coming in. But he just kept raging. I could hear things breaking. I couldn’t hear the child now. I think I knew. Before I broke down the door, I knew. He’d used the kitchen knife to slice her to pieces.”

Her hand shook as she raised the glass again. “There was so much blood. She was so small, but there was so much blood. On the floor, on the wall, all over him. I could see it was still dripping off the knife. Her face was turned toward me. Her little face, with big blue eyes. Like a doll’s.”

She was silent for a moment, then set her glass aside. “He was too wired up to be stunned. He kept coming. There was blood dripping off the knife, and splattered all over him, and he kept coming. So I looked in his eyes, right in his eyes. And I killed him.”

“And the next day,” Roarke said quietly, “you dived straight into a murder investigation.”

“Testing’s postponed. I’ll get to it in another day or two.” She moved her shoulders. “The shrinks, they’ll think it’s the termination. I can make them think that if I have to. But it’s not. I had to kill him. I can accept that.” She looked straight into Roarke’s eyes and knew she could tell him what she hadn’t been able to say to herself. “I wanted to kill him. Maybe even needed to. When I watched him die, I thought, He’ll never do that to another child. And I was glad that I’d been the one to stop him.”

“You think that’s wrong.”

“I know it’s wrong. I know anytime a cop gets pleasure of any sort out of termination, she’s crossed a line.”

He leaned forward so that their faces were close. “What was the child’s name?”

“Mandy.” Her breath hitched once before she controlled it. “She was three.”

“Would you be torn up this way if you’d killed him before he’d gotten to her?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. “I guess I’ll never know, will I?”

“Yes, you do.” He laid a hand over hers, watched her frown and look down at the contact. “You know, I’ve spent most of my life with a basic dislike of police — for one reason or another. I find it very odd that I’ve met, under such extraordinary circumstances, one I can respect and be attracted to at the same time.”

She lifted her gaze again, and though the frown remained, she didn’t draw her hand free of his. “That’s a strange compliment.”

“Apparently we have a strange relationship.” He rose, drawing her to her feet. “Now you need to sleep.” He glanced toward the dinner she’d barely touched. “You can heat that up when you’ve gotten your appetite back.”

“Thanks. Next time I’d appreciate you waiting until I’m home before you come in.”

“Progress,” he murmured when they’d reached the door. “You accept there’ll be a next time.” With a hint of a smile, he brought the hand he still held to his lips. He caught bafflement, discomfort and, he thought, a trace of embarrassment in her eyes as he brushed a light kiss over her knuckles. “Until next time,” he said, and left.

Frowning, Eve rubbed her knuckles over her jeans as she headed to the bedroom. She stripped, letting her clothes lay wherever they dropped. She climbed into bed, shut her eyes, and willed herself to sleep.

She was just dozing off when she remembered Roarke had never told her who he’d called and what he’d discovered.

 CHAPTER EIGHT

In her office, with the door locked, Eve reviewed the disc of Lola Starr’s murder with Feeney. She didn’t flinch at the little popping sound of the silenced weapon. Her system no longer recoiled at the insult the bullet caused in flesh.

The screen held steady on the ending caption: Two of Six. Then it went blank. Without a word, Eve cued up the first murder, and they watched Sharon DeBlass die again.

“What can you tell me?” Eve asked when it was finished.

“Discs were made on a Trident MicroCam, the five thousand model. It’s only been available about six months, very pricey. Big seller last Christmas, though. More than ten thousand moved in Manhattan alone during the traditional shopping season, not to mention how many went through the gray market. Not as much of a flood like less expensive models, but still too many to trace.”

He looked over at Eve with his drooping camel eyes. “Guess who owns Trident?”

“Roarke Industries.”

“Give the lady a bouquet. I’d say the odds were pretty good the boss man owns one himself.”

“He’d certainly have access.” She made a note of it and resisted the memory of how his lips had felt brushing over her knuckles. “The killer uses a fairly exclusive piece of equipment he manufactures himself. Arrogance or stupidity?”

“Stupidity doesn’t fly with this boy.”

“No, it doesn’t. The weapon?”

“We’ve got a couple thousand out there in private collections,” Feeney began, nibbling on a cashew. “Three in the boroughs. Those are the ones that’ve been registered,” he added with a thin smile. “The silencer doesn’t have to be registered, as it doesn’t qualify as deadly on its own. No way of tracing it.”

He leaned back, tapped the monitor. “As far as the first disc, I’ve been running it. I came up with a couple of shadows. Makes me certain he recorded more than the murder. But I haven’t been able to enhance anything. Whoever edited that disc knew all the tricks or had access to equipment that knew them for him.”

“What about the sweepers?”

“Commander ordered them for this morning, per your request.” Feeney glanced at his watch. “Should be there now. I picked up the security discs on my way in, ran them. We’ve got a twenty-minute time lapse starting at three-ten, night before last.”

“Bastard waltzed right in,” she muttered. “It’s a shitty neighborhood, Feeney, but an upscale building. Nobody noticed him either time, which means he blends.”

“Or they’re used to seeing him.”

“Because he was one of Sharon’s regulars. Tell me why a man who was a regular client for an expensive, sophisticated, experienced prostitute, chose a green, low-scale what do you call it, ingenue like Lola Starr for his second hit?”

Feeney pursed his lips. “He likes variety?”

Eve shook her head. “Maybe he liked it so much the first time, he’s not going to be choosy now. Four more to go, Feeney. He told us right off the bat we had a serial killer. He announced it, letting us know Sharon wasn’t particularly important. Just one of six.”

She blew out a breath, unsatisfied. “So why’d he go back?” she said to herself. “What was he looking for?”

“Maybe the sweepers’ll tell us.”

“Maybe.” She picked up a list from her desk. “I’m going to check out Sharon’s client list again, then hit Lola’s.”

Feeney cleared his throat, chose another cashew from his little bag. “I hate to be the one to tell you, Dallas. The senator’s demanding an update.”

“I have nothing to tell him.”

“You’re going to have to tell him this afternoon. In East Washington.”

She stopped a pace in front of the door. “Bullshit.”

“Commander gave me the news. We’re on the two o’clock shuttle.” Feeney thought resignedly of how his stomach reacted to air travel. “I hate politics.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––—

Eve was still gritting her teeth over her briefing with Whitney when she ran headlong into DeBlass’s security outside his office in the New Senate Office Building, East Washington.

Their identification aside, both she and Feeney were scanned, and according to the revised Federal Property Act of 2022, were obliged to hand over their weapons.

“Like we’re going to zap the guy while he’s sitting at his desk,” Feeney muttered as they were escorted over red, white, and blue carpet.

“I wouldn’t mind giving several of these guys a quick buzz.” Flanked by suits and shined shoes, Eve slouched in front of the glossy door of the senator’s office, waiting for the internal camera to clear them.

“If you ask me, East Washington’s been paranoid since the terrorist hit.” Feeney sneered into the camera. “Couple dozen legislators get whacked, and they never forget it.”

The door opened, and Rockman, pristine in needle-thin pin stripes, nodded. “Long memories are an advantage in politics, Captain Feeney. Lieutenant Dallas,” he added with another nod. “We appreciate your promptness.”

“I had no idea the senator and my chief were so close,” Eve said as she stepped inside. “Or that both of them would be so anxious to waste the taxpayers’ money.”

“Perhaps they both consider justice priceless.” Rockman gestured them toward the gleaming desk of cherry wood — certainly priceless — where DeBlass waited.

He had, as far as Eve could see, benefited from the change of temperature in the country — too lukewarm in her opinion — and the repeal of the Two Term Bill. Under current law, a politician could now retain his seat for life. All he had to do was buffalo his constituents into electing him.

DeBlass certainly looked at home. His paneled office was as hushed as a cathedral and every bit as reverent with its altarlike desk, the visitor chairs as subservient as pews.

“Sit,” DeBlass barked, and folded his large-knuckled hands on the desk. “My latest information is that you are no closer to finding the monster who murdered my granddaughter than you were a week ago.” His dark brows beetled over his eyes. “I find this difficult to understand, considering the resources of the New York Police Department.”

“Senator.” Eve let Commander Whitney’s terse instructions play in her head: Be tactful, respectful, and tell him nothing he doesn’t already know. “We’re using those resources to investigate and gather evidence. While the department is not now prepared to make an arrest, every possible effort is being made to bring your granddaughter’s murderer to justice. Her case is my first priority, and you have my word it will continue to be until it can be satisfactorily closed.”

The senator listened to the little speech with all apparent interest. Then he leaned forward. “I’ve been in the business of bullshit for more than twice your life, lieutenant. So don’t pull out your tap dance with me. You have nothing.”

Fuck tact, Eve decided instantly. “What we have, Senator DeBlass, is a complicated and delicate investigation. Complicated, given the nature of the crime; delicate, due to the victim’s family tree. It’s my commander’s opinion that I’m the best choice to conduct the investigation. It’s your right to disagree. But pulling me off my job to come here to defend my work is a waste of time. My time.” She rose. “I have nothing new to tell you.”

With the vision of both their butts hanging in a sling, Feeney rose as well, all respect. “I’m sure you understand, senator, that the delicacy of an investigation of this nature often means progress is slow. It’s difficult to ask you to be objective when we’re talking of your granddaughter, but Lieutenant Dallas and I have no choice but to be objective.”

With an impatient gesture, DeBlass waved them to sit again. “Obviously my emotions are involved. Sharon was an important part of my life. Whatever she became, and however I was disappointed in her choices, she was blood.” He drew a deep breath, let it loose. “I cannot and will not be placated with bits and pieces of information.”

“There’s nothing else I can tell you,” Eve repeated.

“You can tell me about the prostitute who was murdered two nights ago.” His eyes flicked up to Rockman.

“Lola Starr,” he supplied.

“I imagine your sources of information on Lola Starr are as thorough as ours.” Eve chose to speak directly to Rockman. “Yes, we believe that there is a connection between the two murders.”

“My granddaughter might have been misguided,” DeBlass broke in, “but she did not socialize with people like Lola Starr.”

So, prostitutes had class systems, Eve thought wearily. What else was new? “We haven’t determined whether they knew each other. But there’s little doubt that they both knew the same man. And that man killed them. Each murder followed a specific pattern. We’ll use that pattern to find him. Before, we hope, he kills again.”

“You believe he will,” Rockman put in.

“I’m sure he will.”

“The murder weapon,” DeBlass demanded. “Was it the same type?”

“It’s part of the pattern,” Eve told him. She’d commit no more than that. “There are basic and undeniable similarities between the two homicides. There’s no doubt the same man is responsible.”

Calmer now, Eve stood again. “Senator, I never knew your granddaughter and have no personal tie to her, but I’m personally offended by murder. I’m going after him. That’s all I can tell you.”

He studied her for a moment, saw more than he’d expected to see. “Very well, lieutenant. Thank you for coming.”

Dismissed, Eve walked with Feeney to the door. In the mirror she saw DeBlass signal to Rockman, Rockman acknowledged. She waited until she was outside before she spoke.

“The son of a bitch is going to tail us.”

“Huh?”

“DeBlass’s guard dog. He’s going to shadow us.”

“What the hell for?”

“To see what we do, where we go. Why do you tail anyone? We’re going to lose him at the transport center,” she told Feeney as she flagged down a cab. “Keep your eyes out and see if he follows you to New York.”

“Follows me? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to follow my nose.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––—

It wasn’t a difficult maneuver. The west wing boarding terminal at National Transport was always bedlam. It was even worse at rush hour when all northbound passengers were jammed into the security line and herded along by computerized voices. Shuttles and runabouts were going to be jammed.

Eve simply lost herself in the crowd, crammed herself into a cross terminal transport to the south wing, and caught an underground to Virginia.

After settling in her tube, ignoring the four o’clocks who were heading to the suburban havens, she took out her pocket directory. She requested Elizabeth Barrister’s address, then asked for directions.

So far her nose was just fine. She was on the right tube and would have to make only one change in Richmond. If her luck held, she could finish the trip and be back in her apartment in time for dinner.

With her chin on her fist, she toyed with the controls of her video screen. She would have bypassed the news — something she made a habit of doing — but when an all-too-familiar face flashed on-screen, she stopped scanning.

Roarke, she thought, narrowing her eyes. The guy sure kept popping up. Lips pursed, she tuned in the audio, plugged in her ear receiver.

“… in this international, multibillion dollar project, Roarke Industries, Tokayamo, and Europa will join hands,” the announcer stated. “It’s taken three years, but it appears that the much debated, much anticipated Olympus Resort will begin construction.”

Olympus Resort, Eve mused, flipping through her mental files. Some high-class, high-dollar vacation paradise, she recalled. A proposed space station built for pleasure and entertainment.

She snorted. Wasn’t it just like him to spend his time and money on fripperies?

If he didn’t lose his tailored silk shirt, she imagined he’d make another fortune.

“Roarke — one question, sir.”

She watched Roarke pause on his way down a long flight of marble steps and lift a brow — exactly as she remembered he did — at the reporter’s interruption.

“Could you tell me why you’ve spent so much time and effort, and a considerable amount of your own capitol, on this project — one detractors say will never fly?”

“Fly is precisely what it will do,” Roarke replied. “In a manner of speaking. As to why, the Olympus Resort will be a haven for pleasure. I can’t think of anything more worthwhile on which to spend time, effort, and capital.”

You wouldn’t, Eve decided, and glanced up just in time to realize she was about to miss her stop. She dashed to the doors of the tube, cursed the computer voice for scolding her for running, and made the change to Fort Royal.

When she came above ground again, it was snowing. Soft, lazy flakes drifted over her hair and shoulders. Pedestrians were stomping it to mush on the sidewalks, but when she found a cab and gave her destination, she found the swirl of white more picturesque.

There was still countryside to be had, if you possessed the money or the prestige. Elizabeth Barrister and Richard DeBlass possessed both, and their home was a striking two stories of rosy brick set on a sloping hill and flanked by trees.

Snow was pristine on the expansive lawn, ermine draped on the bare branches of what Eve thought might be cherry trees. The security gate was an artful symphony of curling iron. However decorative it might have been, Eve was certain it was as practical as a vault.

She leaned out the cab window, flashed her badge at the scanner. “Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.”

“You are not listed in the appointment directory, Lieutenant Dallas.”

“I’m the officer in charge of the DeBlass case. I have some questions for Ms. Barrister or Richard DeBlass.”

There was a pause, during which time Eve began to shiver in the cold.

“Please step out of the cab, Lieutenant Dallas, and up to the scanner for further identification.”

“Tough joint,” the cabbie muttered, but Eve merely shrugged and complied.

“Identification verified. Dismiss your transport, Lieutenant Dallas. You will be met at the gate.”

“Heard the daughter got whacked up in New York,” the cabbie said as Eve paid the fare. “Guess they’re not taking any chances. Want I should pull back a ways and wait for you?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll ask for your number when I’m ready to go.”