Born In Death

2

IT WAS A GOOD-SIZED BEDROOM WITH A COZY little sitting area on the street side. She imagined Natalie had sat there to watch the world go by.

The bed looked female and fussy. Lots of pillows scattered around the room – some of them bloody now – that had likely been piled on the lacy pink-and-white spread, as some women loved to do.

There was a small wall screen angled to be seen from either bed or sitting area, framed pictures of flowers, a long dresser. There were bottles and whatnots on the floor – several broken – that had probably sat in some girlie arrangement on the dresser.

A couple of fluffy rugs graced the floor. Natalie was sprawled over one of them, legs twisted and bound at the ankles, her hands bound in front and clenched together as if in desperate prayer. She wore pajamas, blue-and-white checked. They were spotted and streaked with blood. A robe, also blue, was tossed in a corner. The matching tie was wrapped around the woman’s throat. Blood stained both fluffy rugs, and a splotch of vomit pooled near the door. The room reeked of both, and of urine.

Eve moved to the body, crouched to do the standard ID test and gauge for time of death.

“Victim is Caucasian female, age twenty-six, identified as Copperfield, Natalie, residing this location. Facial bruising indicates trauma perimortem. Nose looks broken. Two fingers of the right hand also appear broken. There are burns visible on the shoulder where the pajama top is torn. More burns on the bottoms of both feet. Skin has a blue-gray cast consistent with strangulation. Eyes are bloodshot and bulging. Wit touched the body upon discovery, some scene contamination. TOD, one forty-five A.M., approximately two hours before discovery.”

She shifted as Peabody started in. “Watch the puke,” she warned.

“Thanks. I’ve got two uniforms and a departmental counselor picking up the sister.”

“Good. Vic’s still wearing her pj’s. Sexual assault isn’t likely. Look here, around the mouth. See, was gagged at one time. Got some of the tape adhesive on her face. See the right pinky and ring fingers?”

“Ouch. Snapped them.”

“Broke her fingers, broke her nose. Burned her. Lot of damage to her things that could have been caused in a fight, or by the killer to make a point.”

Peabody crossed to a doorway. “ Bath through here. No ’link in place by the bed, and one on the floor here.”

“What does that tell you?”

“It looks like the vic grabbed the ’link, made a run for the bathroom. Maybe hoping to lock herself in, call for help. She didn’t make it.”

“Looks like. Wakes up, hears somebody in the apartment. Probably figures it’s the sister. Maybe she calls out, or just starts to roll back over. Door opens. Not the sister. Grabs for the ’link, tries to run. Could be. New lock on the door – a good one, with a security peep. Maybe somebody’s been bothering her. Run her, see if she’s made any complaints in the last couple months.”

She rose, walked to the hall door. “Killer comes in this way, she’d see him from the bed. Smart to grab the ’link, sprint off in the opposite direction toward a room with a lock. Pretty smart – quick thinking, too, if you’ve just woken from a sound sleep.”

She moved back to the bed, walked around it, judging the distance toward the bath, and saw something glint just under the bed. She crouched down, then lifted a kitchen knife with her sealed fingers. “Now why would she have a carving knife in the bedroom?”

“Big-ass knife,” Peabody returned. “Killer’s?”

“Then why not use it? I bet it’s from her kitchen. New locks,” Eve continued, “and a knife by the bed. She was worried about someone.”

“No complaints on file. If she was worried, she didn’t report it.”

Eve searched the bed, under the mattress, shook the pillows. Then walked into the bath. Small, tidy, girlie again. Nothing to indicate the killer had been in it. But Eve pursed her lips when she went through the cabinet and found men’s deodorant, Beard-B-Gone, and men’s cologne.

“She had a guy,” Eve said, moving back in to riffle through the nightstand drawers. “Condoms here, edible body oil.”

“Bad breakup, maybe. New lock’s a given if you’d given an ex access prior to. Could be he didn’t like being dumped.”

“Could be,” Eve repeated. “That sort of deal usually includes sexual assault. Check her ’link for the incomings and outgoings last couple of days. I want to see the rest of the place.”

She stepped out, reexamined the living area. Bad breakup, she’d expect the ex to bang on the door awhile. Come on, Nat, goddamn it! Let me in. We gotta talk. Guy’s pissed enough, and the door’s flimsy enough, most likely kick it down. But you never knew. She went into the kitchen. Good-sized, and from the looks of it, a place the vic had used. A knife block, with one missing, sat on the spotless white counter.

She worked her way into the second bedroom, set up as a home office. Lifted her brows. The place had been thoroughly tossed. The data- and-communication center Eve imagined had sat on the glossy steel desk was missing.

“No d-and-c unit in the office,” she told Peabody.

“What kind of office is that?”

“Exactly. Not a single disc in there, either. As other electronics, just as easily lifted and hocked, are still on-scene, the comp was the target. The comp and the vic. So what did Natalie have that someone else wanted?”

“Not only enough to kill her, but to make sure she hurt first.” Pity edged Peabody ’s voice as she glanced back toward the body. “Nothing on this ’link but the call from the sister, ten this morning, and a call out, at seven-thirty A.M., to Sloan, Myers, and Kraus. She called in sick. It’s an accounting firm, offices on Hudson. Entries prior to this – actually yesterday morning – were deleted. EDD can dig them out. You want to listen to what there is?”

“Yeah, but let’s take them in. I want a run at the sister again.”

On the way to Central, Peabody read off background data on the victim from her PPC. “Born, Cleveland, Ohio. Parents – both teachers – still married. One sib – the sister, three years younger. No criminal. Accountant with Sloan, Myers, and Kraus the past four years. No marriages, no cohabs on record. Resided the Jane Street address past eighteen months. Previously on Sixteenth in Chelsea. Previous to that was Cleveland, parents’ addy. She worked for an accounting firm there, part-time. Looks like a kind of internship while she was in college.”

“Numbers cruncher, moves to New York. What’s the lowdown on the firm here?”

“Hold on. Okay, big-deal firm,” Peabody began, reading the data from her PPC. “High-dollar clients, several corporations. Three floors at the Hudson Street addy, employing about two hundred. Been around for over forty years. Oh, the vic was a senior account exec.”

Eve chewed on it as she angled into the underground parking at Cop Central. “Guess she could get the skinny on some of those high-dollar clients. If somebody was running a second book, laundering. Tax evasion. Mobbed up. Another employee skimming. Blackmail, extortion, embezzlement.”

“Firm’s got a good rep.”

“Doesn’t mean all their clients or employees do. It’s an angle.”

They parked, headed toward the elevators. “We need the name of the boyfriend – past or present. Do the knock-on-doors at her building. See what she may have mentioned to her sister about work, or personal troubles. Way it looks, the vic was expecting or prepared for a problem – and one she didn’t want to report, or hadn’t decided to report. To the cops, anyway.”

“Maybe to a coworker, though, or a superior, if it was work-related.”

“Or a pal.”

The higher they rose in the elevator, the more people jammed on. Eve could smell minty soap from someone coming on tour, and old sweat from someone going off a long one. She muscled her way off on her level.

“Let’s set up an interview room,” Eve began. “I don’t want to talk to her in the lounge. Too many distractions. She needs the grief counselor, she can have him with her.”

Eve swung through the bull pen, and on into her office first. Ditched her coat, then did a check on the witness’s alibi. Palma Copperfield had worked the shuttle in from Las Vegas, and had been touching down in the downtown flight center just about the time her sister was strangled.

“ Dallas.”

Eve glanced over at Baxter, one of the detectives in her squad. “I haven’t had coffee in two hours,” she warned. “Or maybe three.”

“I heard you had a Palma Copperfield up in the crib.”

“Yeah, witness. Sister was strangled early this morning.”

“Ah, shit.” He scooped a hand back through his hair. “I was hoping I got it wrong.”

“You know them?”

“ Palma, a little. Not the vic. Met Palma a few months back – friend of a friend of a friend – at a party. We went out a couple times.”

“She’s twenty-three.”

He scowled. “I’m not filing for frigging retirement any time soon. Anyway, it was nothing major. Nice woman. A real nice woman. Was she hurt?”

“No. Found her sister dead in the sister’s apartment.”

“Rough. Damn it. They were tight, I think. Palma said how she stayed with her sister when she came to New York. I dropped her off at the building – Jane Street – after we had dinner once.”

“You still involved?”

“No – we weren’t. Went out a couple of times, that’s all.” As if he didn’t know quite what to do with them, Baxter slid his hands into his pockets. “Listen, if a familiar face would help, I can talk to her.”

“Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Peabody ’s setting up an interview room. Lounge is too public for this. She was in bad shape when I took her initial statement. She mention if her sister was involved with anyone?”

“Ah, yeah. Had a guy – money manager, broker, something like that. Serious, I think, maybe engaged. Can’t say that I paid much attention to that. I wasn’t after the sister, you know?”

“You catch the wit, Baxter?”

“Nah.” He smiled a little. “Like I said, she’s a nice woman.”

Which translated to they hadn’t slept together, and made it less sticky to have him in on the interview. “Okay, let me get Peabody working the ’link. We’ll take the wit.”

Eve let Baxter walk into Interview ahead of her, studied Palma ’s tear-splotched face when the woman looked over. She blinked a few times as if trying to process new information, then a series of emotions streaked over her face. Recognition, relief, dismay, and finally the grief settled on it again.

“Bax. Oh, God.” She held out both her hands, so when he crossed to the table, he took them in his.

“ Palma, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what to do. Nat. My sister, somebody killed her. I don’t know what to do.”

“We’re going to help you.”

“She never hurt anybody. Bax, she never hurt anybody in her whole life. Her face…”

“This is hard. The hardest thing. But you can help us help her.”

“Okay. Okay, but you can stay, right? He can stay?” she asked Eve.

“Sure. What I’m going to do is turn the recorder on, and ask you some questions.”

“You don’t think that I…You don’t think that I hurt her?”

“Nobody thinks that, Palma.” Baxter gave her hand a quick squeeze. “We have to ask questions. The more we know, the faster we can find the person who did this.”

“You’re going to find them.” She said it slowly, as if that, too, had to process. Then she closed her eyes for a moment. “You’ll find them. I’ll tell you everything I can.”

Eve engaged the recorder, read in the necessary data. “You landed in New York early this morning, is that correct?”

“Yes, on the Vegas run. We got in around two, clocked out, I don’t know, about twenty minutes later maybe. That’s about right. Then Mae – she had the run with me – we stopped at the bar in the airport for a glass of wine. Unwind a little. We shared a cab into the city. I dropped her first. She keeps a place with a couple other attendants, over on the East Side. Then I went on to Nat’s.”

She stopped, took a breath, then a sip from the plastic cup of water on the table. “I paid off the cab, and started in. Had my key out, and I know Nat’s code. But the lock was broken. It happens sometimes, so I didn’t think that much about it. Not then. But when I got to her apartment, her lock – she told me she’d put in a new lock – that was broken, too. I had this little jump in my belly. But I thought, I don’t know, I told myself she hadn’t gotten the lock installed right.”

“Did you notice anything off when you went inside – the living area’s first,” Eve said.

“I didn’t really pay attention. I put the security chain on – she’d have left that off for me. And I left my overnight bag there by the door because I thought I’d just peek in, make sure everything was okay. But it wasn’t.”

Tears trembled, spilled again, but she kept going. “She was on the floor, and there was blood, and the room was – it was like there’d been a fight. Broken glass from her perfume bottles and the little bowls she liked to collect. She was on the floor. The pink rugs. I was with her when she bought them. They were soft, like a cat. She couldn’t have pets. The rugs were soft. I’m sorry.”

“You’re doing fine,” Baxter told her. “You’re doing just fine.”

“I ran. I think – it’s all blurry. Did I scream? I think I screamed her name and I ran and I tried to lift her up, to shake her awake, even though I knew…I didn’t want her to be dead. Her face was bruised and bloody, and her eyes. I knew she was dead. There was tape around her hands.”

As if she’d just remembered, she sent Eve a shocked look. “Oh, God, her hands, her ankles. They were taped.” Palma pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “I needed to call for help, but I got sick before I could get out, get my ’link out of my bag, I got sick. Then I ran out. I couldn’t stay in there, so I ran out and called nine-one-one, and I sat down on the steps. I should’ve gone back in, stayed with her. I shouldn’t have left her alone like that.”

“You did exactly the right thing.” Baxter picked up the water cup, handed it to her again. “Exactly the right thing.”

“Did she tell you anyone was bothering her?” Eve asked.

“No, but some thing was bothering her. I could tell. She looked upset when I talked to her earlier, but when I asked what was wrong, she said it was nothing to worry about. She just had a lot on her mind.”

“She was seeing someone? A man?”

“Bick! Oh, my God, Bick. I didn’t even think of him.” Eyes flooded again; she pressed both hands to her mouth. “They’re engaged. They’re going to be married next May. Oh, my God, I have to tell him.”

“What’s his full name?”

“Bick, Bick Byson. They work together – well, for the same company. Different departments. Nat’s a senior account executive at Sloan, Myers, and Kraus – accounting. Bick’s a money manager there. They’ve been together almost two years now. How can I tell him?”

“It’d be better if we did that.”

“And my parents.” She began to rock, back and forth, back and forth. “I have to tell them. I don’t want to do it over the ’link. Do I have to stay here? I need to go home, to Cleveland, and tell them Nat’s gone. Nat.”

“We can talk about that after we’re done here,” Eve told her. “Were your sister and her fiancé having any problems?”

“No. I don’t know of any. They’re crazy about each other. I guess I thought maybe they’d had a fight and that’s why she was upset earlier. All the wedding plans, you get stressed out. But they’re really happy together. They’re great together.”

“Did she have an engagement ring?”

“No.” Palma took another long breath. “They decided against one – saving their money. Bick’s great, but he’s pretty frugal. Nat didn’t mind. Well, Nat’s the same way, you know? Save it for a rainy day.”

“He didn’t live with her? Save money paying rent.”

“She wouldn’t let him.” For the first time Palma smiled again, and Eve could see how Baxter had been attracted. “She said they were going to wait for that until they were married. We’re pretty old-fashioned in my family. I think my parents like to believe Nat wasn’t even having sex with Bick. They loved each other,” she murmured. “They were good together.”

“Were there any problems at work?”

“She never said. I haven’t seen her for about three weeks. I had a chance to take the New L.A. to Hawaii run for ten days, then I took a vacation out there with a couple of girlfriends. I’d just gotten back on the Vegas to New York run. I talked to her a couple of times, but…We were going to catch up, go shopping, go over wedding plans. She never said anything about a problem, work or otherwise, but I know something was wrong. I just wasn’t paying enough attention.”

Eve stepped out with Baxter. “You know anything about this fiancé of the vic’s?”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “ Palma said something about her sister getting engaged. She was lit up about it, which is why… I backed off. Those things can be catching.”

“Your commitment issues don’t enter in, so set them aside. It helped you being in there with her, familiar face leveled her out some. Why don’t you get her to a shuttle – stay on the clock. See she gets off to her parents.”

“Appreciate that, Lieutenant. I can take lost time to do it.”

“Stay on the clock,” she repeated. “Make sure she understands I need her available. I want to know where she is, when she comes back. The usual routine.”

“No problem. Feel so damn sorry for her. You’re going to look at the boyfriend.”

“Next stop.”

Byson didn’t show at the office.” Peabody hoofed it onto a glide behind Eve. “Which, according to his assistant, isn’t the norm. Hardly ever misses, and always checks in if he’s going to take off or be late. She tried him at home, and on his pocket ’link, being concerned, and couldn’t reach him.”

“Got his home addy?”

“Yeah, he’s on Broome in Tribeca. According to his chatty assistant, he and the vic just bought the loft, and he’s staying there while they’re having some reno done before the wedding.”

“We’ll try him there.”

“Could have rabbited,” Peabody said as she hustled off one glide and hotfooted to the garage elevator. “Fights with fiancé, goes off on her, runs home. Runs away.”

“It wasn’t personal.”

Peabody ’s eyebrows knitted as they clipped off the elevator and across the garage. “Those kind of facial injuries, and face-to-face strangulation often are.”

“We find any tools on the crime scene?”

“Tools?”

“Screwdriver, hammer, laser scope?”

“No. What does…Oh.” Nodding now, Peabody slid into the passenger seat. “The duct tape. If she didn’t have any basic tools, why would she have duct tape? Killer brought it with him, which lessens the possibility of crime of passion.”

“No sexual assault added to that. Broken locks. When the vic’s sister talked to her hours before the murder, she got no indication of trouble in paradise. It wasn’t personal,” Eve repeated. “It was business.”

The loft was in an old, well-preserved building in a neighborhood where people painted their stoops and sat out on them on warm summer evenings. The windows facing the street were wide, to afford the tenants a view of the traffic, and the shops ran from the mom-and-pop bakery/deli to the snazzy little boutiques where a pair of shoes cost the equivalent of a quick trip to Paris and would turn your feet into a study in misery. Some of the units sported the luxury of balconies where, Eve imagined, people stuck plants and chairs in the good weather so they could sit and sip something cold while they watched their world go by. From the looks of the exterior, it was a major step up from the Jane Street address, and one suited to the combined incomes of a couple of young, urban professionals on the rise.

Byson didn’t respond to the buzzer, but before Eve could use her master, a woman’s voice piped through the speaker. “You looking for Mr. Byson?”

“That’s right.” There was a security screen, and Eve held up her badge. “Police. You want to buzz us in?”

“Hold on.”

The door buzzed; the locks clicked. They stepped into a tiny communal lobby where someone had gone to the trouble to set a leafy green plant in a colorful pot. Because she heard the elevator clanging its way down, Eve waited.

The woman who stepped off was dressed in a red sweater and gray pants, with her brown hair pulled back in a stubby tail from a pretty face. She had a baby of indeterminant age and sex perched on her hip.

“I buzzed you in,” she said. “I’m Mr. Byson’s neighbor. What’s the problem?”

“That’s something we need to discuss with him.”

“I don’t know if he’s home.” She jiggled the baby as she spoke. The kid stared owlishly at Eve, then plugged its thumb in its mouth and sucked as if it contained opium. “He should be at work this time of day.”

“He’s not.”

“It’s weird, because I usually hear him leave. We’re on the same floor, and I hear the elevator. Didn’t catch it today. And he had the plumber scheduled, turns out. When they’re having one of the crews in – they’re rehabbing – he stops by, asks me if I can let them in, you know? He didn’t do that today, so I didn’t. You can’t be sure. Might be somebody with a pipe wrench just going in to rob the place.”

“So you’ve got the key to his place?”

“Yeah, key and code. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? You want me to let you in? You’ve got to give me some idea. I wouldn’t feel right letting you in if I don’t know something’s up.”

“Something’s up.” Eve held up her badge again. “Mr. Byson’s fiancée was killed.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “No. Come on. Not Nat.”

Her voice rose and cracked. In response, the baby unplugged its mouth and wailed.

“You knew her.” Eve took a subtle side step away from the baby.

“Sure. She was here a lot. They’re getting married in a few months.” The woman’s eyes filled as she shifted to hold her baby closer. “I liked her a lot. We’re all looking forward to being neighbors. Bick and Nat, me and my husband. We…I can’t believe it. What happened? What happened to Nat?”

“We need to talk to Mr. Byson.”

“God. God. Okay, okay.” Obviously shaken, she turned to call for the elevator. “It’s going to kill him. Ssh, Crissy, ssh.” She bounced and jiggled and patted the baby as they jammed into the elevator. “They were nuts about each other – but not sickening about it, if you get me. I liked her so much. Maybe there’s a mistake.”

“I’m sorry” was all Eve said. “Did she mention any problems? Anything, anyone bothering her?”

“No, not really. Some wedding jitters, just typical stuff. They were getting married up in Cleveland, where she’s from. Hunt and I were going – our first trip since Crissy came. Hunt’s my husband. Look, I’ll go get the key,” she added when the doors opened into a hallway. “That’s his place, there. We share the floor.”

“Just the two units up here?”

“Yeah. Nice space. Good light. Hunt and I bought our apartment when I got pregnant. It’s a nice neighborhood, and we’ve got three bedrooms.”

She unlocked her own door, tirelessly jiggling the baby who now had the slack-jawed, glaze-eyed look of a satisfied junkie. Holding the door open with one hip, she snatched a set of keys from a bowl on a table by the door.

“We didn’t get your name,” Eve told her.

“Oh, sorry. Gracie, Gracie York.” She turned the key in the lock, typed a code in on a minipad over it. “Maybe Bick had errands to run or something. I didn’t hear him go out before, so he must’ve left early. Crissy’s been fussy so I slept in a little this morning. She’s teething.” Gracie started to open the door, but Eve held up a hand to block her.

“Just a minute.” Eve knocked. “Mr. Byson,” she called out. “This is the police. Open the door, please.”

“I really don’t think he’s home,” Gracie began.

“Even so, we’ll wait a minute before going in.” Eve knocked again. “Mr. Byson, this is Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. We’re coming in.”

The minute she opened the door, Eve knew Byson was home, and that his neighbor’s earlier words had been right on the mark. Natalie Copperfield’s murder had killed him. Or, Eve was banking, her murderer certainly had.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” Gracie babbled the words so that they came out in a single high-pitched hysterical stream as she pressed her baby’s face to her shoulder and stumbled back from the doorway.

“Ms. York, go back inside your apartment,” Eve ordered. “Go back in, lock your door. Either my partner or I will be over in just a minute.”

“It’s Bick. Is it Bick? Right across the hall. We’re right across the hall.”

At a wordless signal from Eve, Peabody took the woman’s arm. “Take Crissy back home,” Peabody said gently. “Take her on in. Nothing’s going to happen to her. Just go inside and wait.”

“I don’t understand. He must be dead. Right across the hall.”

Peabody got the neighbor inside, turned back to Eve with a resigned look on her face. “I guess you want me to take her.”

“You’re damn right. Call it in first, Peabody, then go in, get a formal statement from the neighbor. I’ll get the field kits and start on the scene.”