Portrait in Death (4 page)

Alone, she sat back down at her desk. She did need to get moving, and her first stop would be the ME. But right now she had another duty to perform.

She called Roarke's private 'link, got the bland message he was unavailable at this location, and was bounced to his admin before she could cut the transmission.

"Oh. Hi, Caro. I guess he's busy."

"Hello, Lieutenant." The pleasant face smiled. "He was just finishing a meeting. Ah, he should be free now. Just let me transfer you."

"I don't want to bother-damn." She was bouncing again. She shifted uncomfortably as she heard the quick series of beeps. Then it was Roarke's face on-screen. Though he, too, smiled, she could see he was distracted.

"Lieutenant. You just caught me."

"Sorry I didn't call in earlier. I haven't had much breathing room. Is he, um, doing okay?"

"It's a bad break, and he's irritable. The shoulder and knee-and other assorted bumps and bruises-complicate it. He took a hard fall."

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry. Really."

"Mmm. They'll keep him until tomorrow. If he's recovered enough to be released, I'm bringing him home. He won't be able to get around on his own initially, so he'll need care. I've arranged it."

"Should I, you know, do something?"

This time the smile seemed more at ease. "Such as?"

"I have absolutely no idea. You okay?"

"Shook me up, considerably. I tend to overreact when someone I care for is injured. Or so I'm told. He's almost as annoyed with me for dumping him in the hospital-as he called it-as you are under similar circumstances."

"He'll get over it." She wanted to touch him, brush those lines of worry away that were haunting his eyes. "I mostly do."

"He's been the only constant in my life, until you. Scared me brainless to see him hurt that way."

"He's too mean to stay down for long. I've got to go. I don't know when I'll be home."

"That makes two of us. Thanks for calling."

She ended the transmission, and after one more pass, loaded the printouts in her bag. Heading out, she swung by Peabody's cube. "Peabody, we're moving."

"I got the victim's class schedule." Peabody jogged to keep up with Eve's ground-eating stride. "And a list of her instructors. Also the names of her coworkers at the 24/7. I haven't started to run them yet."

"Do it on the way to the morgue. Plug in photography and imaging. See if any of them have an interest."

"I can tell you that straight off. One of her electives was Imaging. She was acing it, too. Hell, she was acing everything. She was really smart." She dragged out her PPC as they headed down to the garage. "She had the Imaging course Tuesday evenings."

"Last evening."

"Yes, sir. Her instructor was Leeanne Browning."

"Run her first." She sniffed the air as they crossed the garage. "What's that smell?"

"As your aide and boon companion, I must inform you, that smell is you."

"Oh hell."

"Here." Digging in her bag, Peabody came out with a little spray bottle.

Instinctively Eve stepped back. "What is that? Keep it away from me."

"Dallas, when we get in our vehicle, even with the air on full, it's going to be tough to breathe. You are rank. You're probably going to have to burn that jacket, and it's too bad, because it's mag."

Before Eve could dodge, she aimed and fired, and kept firing even as her courageous lieutenant yelped.

"It smells like... rotten flowers."

"The rotten part is you." Peabody leaned closer, sniffed. "But it's much better. You'll hardly notice it from ten, fifteen feet away. They probably have really strong disinfectant at the morgue," Peabody said cheerfully. "You could wash up, and maybe they've got something for your clothes."

"Just button it, Peabody."

"Buttoning, sir." Peabody scooted into the car and began her run on Leeanne Browning. "Professor Browning is fifty-six. Affiliated with Columbia for twenty-three years. Married, same-sex style, to Angela Brightstar, fifty-four. Upper West Side address. No criminal record. Also second residence, the Hamptons. One sib, brother, Upper East Side, also married, one child, son. Twenty-eight years of age. Parents still living, retired, with residences Upper East Side and Florida."

"Run criminals on Brightstar and the family."

"Brightstar's got a little pop," Peabody said after a moment. "Illegals possession twelve years back. Personal stash of Exotica. Pled guilty, did three months community service. Brightstar is a freelance artist, with a studio in residence. Brother's clean, so are the parents, but the nephew's got two tags. One illegals possession at age twenty-three, and one assault last spring. His current residence is Boston."

"He may be worth talking to. Bump him up on the list, and we'll see if he's been visiting our fair city. Get Professor Browning's class schedule. I want to work her in today."

In the morgue, Eve strode down the white corridor. Yeah, they used strong disinfectant, she thought. But you could never quite hide it. The business of the place snuck into all the cracks and crept into the air.

As directed, she found Rachel Howard already on a slab, and ME Morris working on her. He wore a long green cover over his lemon yellow suit. His hair was pulled into a trio of ponytails that waterfalled, one over the other down his back. And somehow didn't look ridiculous spilling out from his protective cap.

Eve stepped up to the body. She could see Morris's work, and she could see the cause of death. The autopsy wouldn't have put the tiny, neat puncture through the skin and into the heart.

"What can you tell me?"

"That the toast will always fall jelly-side down."

"I'll put that in my file. The heart wound do the trick?"

"It did indeed. Very quick, very neat. A stiletto, an old-fashioned ice pick or similar weapon. He wanted no muss, no fuss."

"He? Was she sexually assaulted?"

"Using he in the general sense. No sexual assault. A few minor bruises, which may have been caused during transport. No muss, no fuss," he repeated. "He bandaged the wound. I've got traces of adhesive around it. A nice, neat circle. Probably NuSkin, which he removed when he was done. And this." He turned Rachel's hand, palm up. "Small round abrasion. Most likely from a pressure syringe."

"She doesn't look like the sort to pop illegals, and that'd be a strange place to skin pop. He injected her with something. Tranq, maybe."

"We'll see when we get the tox screen. No violence to the body but for the puncture. There are, however, very mild ligatures at the wrists, at the left knee, on the right elbow. See here."

He picked up a second pair of microgoggles.

"Restraints?" she asked as she took the goggles. "It's a funny way to restrain someone."

"We'll discuss the fun and games of bondage another time. Take a look first."

She fit on the goggles, bent over the body. She could see them now, the faint and thin lines that showed blue through the light.

"Wires of some kind," Morris said. "Not rope."

"To pose her. He used the wires to pose her. You can see the way the wire wrapped over one wrist, under the other. He folded her hands on her knee. Yeah, crossed her legs, wired her to the chair. You can't see them in the photograph, but he'd have taken that out during imaging."

She straightened, took one of the printouts from her bag. "This jibe for you with that theory?"

Morris pushed up his goggles, scanned the image. "The positioning works. So he takes pictures of the dead. That was a custom a couple of centuries ago, and it came back into fashion early this century."

"What kind of custom?"

"To pose the dead in an attitude of peace, then take their picture. People kept them in books designed for the purpose."

"It never fails to amaze me just how sick people are."

"Oh, I don't know. It was meant to comfort and remember."

"Maybe he wants to remember her," Eve mused, "but I think more, he wants to be remembered. I want her tox screen."

"Soon, my pretty. Soon."

"She didn't fight, or wasn't able to fight. So she knew him and trusted him, or she was incapacitated. Then he transported her to wherever he took this." She slid the image back in her bag. "She was either dead already, or he killed her there-I'm betting he did it there-bandaged her so she didn't bleed through the shirt, then he posed her, took his shots. He transports her again and dumps her in a recycler across the street from where she worked."

She began to pace. "So maybe her killer's from the neighborhood. Somebody who sees her every day, develops an obsession. Not sexual, but an obsession. He takes pictures of her, follows her around. He comes into the store, and she doesn't think anything of it. She's friendly. Probably knows him by name. Either that or someone from college. Familiar face, trusted face. Maybe he offers her a ride home, or a ride to school. Either way, he's got her.

"She knew his face," she murmured, looking down at Rachel, "just as well as he knew hers."

***

Mildly refreshed by a spin in the detox tube at the morgue, Eve pulled up at the curb in front of Professor Browning's high-dollar building.

"I thought teachers got paid worse than cops," she commented.

"I can do a standard run on her financials."

Eve stepped out of the car, then cocked her head and her hip as the doorman rushed over.

"I'm afraid you can't leave... that here."

"That is an official vehicle. This," she added, flipping it out, "is a badge. Since I'm going in there, on police business, that stays out here."

"There's a parking facility very nearby. I'd be happy to direct you."

"What you're going to do is open the door, go inside with me, and inform Professor Browning that Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD, is here to speak with her. After that, you can come out here and direct people to Morocco for all I care. Clear?"

It appeared to be as he scuttled to the door, coded through security. "If Professor Browning was expecting you, I should've been informed."

He was so prim and pompous about it Eve gave him a fierce grin. "You know, I've got one just like you at home. Do you guys have a club?"

He merely sniffed, and danced his fingers over a keyboard. "It's Monty, Professor. I'm sorry to disturb you, but there's a Lieutenant Dallas at the desk. She'd like clearance to come up. Yes, ma'am," he said into his earpiece. "I've seen her identification. She is accompanied by a uniformed officer. Of course, Professor."

He turned to Eve, lips so thin they could have sliced paper. "Professor Browning will see you. Please take the elevator to the fifteenth floor. You will be met."

"Thanks, Monty. How come doormen always hate me?" she asked Peabody as they moved to the elevator.

"I think they sense your disdain, like pheromones. Of course, if you told them you were married to Roarke, they'd immediately fall to their knees and worship you."

"I'd rather be feared and hated." She stepped inside. "Fifteenth floor," she ordered.

Chapter 3

The elevator opened on fifteen where a domestic droid was waiting. He had black hair slicked back over a round head, and a thin mustache over his top lip. He was dressed in a formal suit, the kind Eve had seen characters wear in some of Roarke's old videos. It had a jacket with a short front and long tails at the back, and the shirt beneath looked stiff and impossibly white.

"Lieutenant Dallas, Officer," he said in a fruity voice, heavy on the Brit. "Might I trouble you for identification?"

"Sure." Eve pulled out her badge, watched a thin red line shoot through the droid's eyes as he scanned it. "You're top-line security?"

"I am a multifunction unit, Lieutenant." With a slight bow, he offered the badge back to her. "Please follow me."

He stepped back to let them exit the elevator. There was a kind of lobby, or entrance area with white marble floor tiles, glossy antiques topped with urns that were elegant with flowers.

There was a tall white statue of a nude woman, with her head tipped back and her hands in her hair as if she were washing it. There were artfully arranged flowers at her feet.

On the walls were framed images-photographic and multi-media. Additional nudes, Eve noticed, that were more romantic than erotic. Lights of filmy draper and diffused light.

He opened another set of doors and bowed them into the apartment.

Though apartment. Eve mused, was a poor word for it. The living area was enormous, full of color and flowers and soft, soft fabrics. More art decorated the walls here as well.

She noted wide doorways right and left, another leading down the side of the room and calculated that Browning and Brightstar didn't live on the fifteenth floor. They were the fifteenth floor.

"Please be seated," the droid told them. "Professor Browning will be right with you. And might I offer you some refreshment?"

"We're fine, thanks."

"Family money," Peabody said out of the side of her mouth when they were left alone. "Both of them, but Brightstar's seriously loaded. Not Roarke loaded, but she can roll naked in it without worrying. Angela Brightstar's the Brightstar of Brightstar Gallery on Madison. Swank artsy joint. I went to a showing there once with Charles."

Eve stepped up to a painting that was slashes of color, lumps of texture. "How come people don't paint houses or something? You know, stuff that's real?"

"Reality is all perception."

Leeanne Browning entered. You couldn't say she came in, Eve thought. When a woman was a good six feet tall, lushly built, and draped in a glistening robe of silver, she entered.

Her hair was a long fall of sunlight to her waist, her face equally striking with its wide mouth and deeply indented top lip. Her long nose tipped up at the end, and her wide eyes were a vivid shade of purple.

Eve recognized her as the model for the white statue in the entrance area.

"Excuse my appearance." She smiled in the way a woman smiled when she knew she made an impression. "I was posing for my companion. Why don't we sit, have something cool, and you can tell me what brings the police to my door."

"You have a student. Rachel Howard?"