Brotherhood in Death

18

“I’m not going back downtown,” Eve told Reo.

“Just take me as far as you’re going, and I’ll get a cab.” Reo made quick notes as they sped away from the bank. “Forty-nine, Dallas. Do they all have souvenirs?”

“Can’t say. Not yet.”

“I need to see what’s on that old disc.”

“When I get it transferred, I’ll send it to you. Reo, I’m taking it home, the money, too. I’ll count it on record, seal and log. But I’m not getting it into Evidence until tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow morning.”

After finishing her notes, Reo tucked her PPC away. “Dallas, not only am I not worried about you preserving the chain of evidence, that fortress you live in is at least as secure as Central.”

“Great, but I’m going to ask you to get the hair to the lab. To Harvo. That can’t wait. We need to start IDing these women.”

“I can do that. I’ll take care of that. Are you okay?”

“Forty-nine. You always think you just can’t be surprised anymore by what people do to each other. Then you are.”

“If they started that long ago, the first victim is in her sixties, most likely her late sixties. Nearly fifty years. The statute of limitations . . . She’s put it behind her. Or I hope she has.”

She’d have put it behind her, Eve thought, but it was always behind you. In a corner, in the dark. Squatting there behind you and chuckling in its throat.

“I’m trying Easterday first. With what we found, I might shake more out of him.” Eve set her teeth. “I’ll use his wife if I have to. Then I need to speak to Mr. Mira before I go home and work on this.”

“I can catch a cab from there. Do you want me to go in with you, press some prosecutor buttons before I drop the samples with Harvo?”

Eve considered. “Yeah, why not?”

She double-parked again, just didn’t give a shit, and went straight to the door.

The same woman opened it. “It’s Lieutenant . . . Dallas, correct?”

“That’s right, and APA Reo. We need to speak with Mr. Easterday.”

“Please come in. Let me get Mrs. Easterday. She’s just in the sitting room. Mr. Easterday’s resting upstairs. Can I offer you coffee or tea?” she asked as she led them into the front parlor.

“No, thanks.”

“Beautiful home,” Reo said when the woman left them. “Cheerful elegance, I guess. The fire’s nice on a day like this. So . . .” Reo pulled off her gloves. “Do you want grim or consolatory?”

“Grim works. It’s all fucking grim.”

She turned as Petra Easterday came in. “Lieutenant, do you have news? Have you found the person who killed Edward and Jonas?”

“We’re pursuing new leads. This is APA Reo.”

“Of course, please sit. How can I help?”

“We need to talk to your husband.”

“I know it’s important. He’s just so upset, as you can imagine.”

Oh yeah, Eve thought. She could imagine.

“I put my foot down about him going over to help Mandy with the arrangements for Edward, and he’s unhappy with me. But I took your warning to heart.”

“He should thank you for that. But we need to speak to him. Now.”

“All right. All right. I’ll go up and tell him. Give me a few minutes, will you? As I said, he’s unhappy with me, and I’ve left him alone to rest.”

She hurried out. Eve watched her go up the sweep of stairs, worry in every step.

“When you said you didn’t think she knew, I didn’t really buy it.” Reo took a chair. “Now I do. She’s not scared, not bitter. She’s worried for him.”

“She loves him, and she trusts him. When she finds out what he’s part of, it’s going to cut her in half. She’s another victim. You can make her number fifty.”

Eve prowled, needed to move, move, move. She glanced toward the stairs twice, was on the point of going to them, maybe up them, when Petra ran down.

“He’s gone. He’s not upstairs. I tried to reach Mandy, but she doesn’t answer. He left me a note.”

Her hand trembled as she held it out. It said only:

Forgive me.

“I don’t understand. What was he thinking? Can you look for him? If this crazy person is killing his friends—”

Slipped by the unit she had sitting on the house, Eve thought, furious with herself. She should’ve put them in the house, front and back.

“I want to look upstairs.”

“I— You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you, Mrs. Easterday. I’d like to look upstairs, have you come with me. I want you to look around, tell me if he took anything.”

“All right, whatever helps. Please hurry. I asked the house computer where he was, and it said he wasn’t in residence, and had left more than two hours ago. I know he wanted to help—his friends,” she continued as they went upstairs. “But he should be here, safe. He should be resting.”

She rushed by other rooms—guest rooms, another sort of parlor—and into a large suite.

The rich cream duvet was mussed, and the chocolate-brown throw tangled on it, as if someone had tried to rest there. A fire crackled low.

“I should have sat with him. I should have checked on him.”

“Would you check now, see if he packed anything?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Would you check?” Eve repeated.

Annoyance layered over the worry as Petra marched to a closet, flung its double doors open. Eve moved behind her, watched her open a panel in the back of the space.

“He’d have no reason to . . .”

“That’s where you keep the luggage.” Eve moved in further. “What did he take?”

“His—his Pullman. I don’t understand.” Frantic now, she pulled open one of the drawers in a cabinet. “God. The sweater his granddaughter gave him for Christmas. She made it. He loved it. And— God, I’m not sure. Some shirts. I think. I think some trousers. He packed clothes and left. I don’t understand.”

“Does he keep cash?”

“What? Yes, yes, we both do. There’s a safe . . .”

She swiveled the dresser out by a mechanism, revealed a wall safe behind it. Unlocked.

Petra pulled the door open. “It’s empty. I . . . I know he kept some cash in here, as I do in mine. The jewelry’s in another area.”

“Did you have the combination to his safe? Did you know the contents?”

“No. It’s his. I have my own. We respect each other’s— Oh God, he packed and left because he was afraid they might come here, hurt me.” Her face white with worry, she pressed fisted hands between her breasts. “You have to find him, please.”

“Home office?”

“Yes, yes, this way. Please, can’t you put out an alert? Whatever it is you do? Do I need to file a report, a request?”

“We’ll look for him,” Eve assured her. “I want your permission to bring in a search team, and your permission for our Electronic Detectives Division to take his electronics, search through them.”

“Anything that will help. I’m a lawyer’s wife, and I know I shouldn’t, but anything that helps you get him home safe. I’m going to try Jonas’s family. Maybe—”

She dashed out, left Eve and Reo alone in the office.

“He’s running.”

“He’s going to try to.”

Eve pulled out her communicator. “Dispatch. This is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Put out a BOLO on Easterday, Marshall,” she began.

It took nearly an hour for her to set up a search team and ream out the team watching the house. She arranged for the transfer of electronics, questioned Petra, the household staff.

She watched on house security as Easterday slipped out the rear of the house with his suitcase, his face a mask of fear and guilt.

He’d been too smart to take a cab—she’d already checked. Maybe he’d caught one a few blocks away, or ordered a private car service—not his usual, as she’d checked that as well. Or maybe he’d just walked as far as he could walk and lost himself on the streets of the city.

“He doesn’t have that much of a lead,” Reo said as she waited for her cab. “You’ve got transpo stations, public and private, on alert.”

“What I’d do is hire a car from New Jersey, have it take me out of the city. Maybe back to New Jersey, or upstate, or to Pennsylvania. Then I’d hire another one to take me somewhere else. Put miles on, and then with the passport I sure as hell have with me, I’d get on a shuttle to anywhere that doesn’t have extradition with the U.S. I’d change my name, my hair, my face, and poof.”

“You’re a cop, and you could probably get away with it. He’s not thinking that clear. Here’s my cab. If you need me, just tag me.”

Eve got into her own car, and with a heavy heart drove off to question Dennis Mira again.

She didn’t expect him to open the door himself—even half expected he’d still be at the university and spare her the duty. But there he was, with his cardigan buttoned wrong and his kind green eyes smiling at her.

“Isn’t this nice. Gilly just went out to spend some time with friends, and now I have company. Come in out of the cold.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Mira.”

“You aren’t. I only had morning classes today, and was letting my thoughts circle around in difficult places.”

He took her coat before she could stop him, then just stood holding it, as if he’d forgotten what he’d meant to do.

“I won’t be long. Maybe we can just put it over the chair or something.”

“Of course, like family. Now, what can I get you?”

“Nothing. Please. Mr. Mira, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take you into those difficult places.”

“Of course,” he said easily, and nudged her gently toward a chair. “It’s better to go straight into them than to circle around. You’ve learned something.”

“You know Frederick Betz.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so, yet. They have him, I’m sure of it. And in the course of investigating we— I found some keys. Two old standard keys and two swipes. One swipe led me to a bank box. There was a great deal of money in it.”

“Yes, I can see that with Fred. He’d squirrel cash away.”

“I also found forty-nine small sealed bags.”

“Illegals.” Now those kind eyes widened. “I would never have thought so. And being a chemist, he could simply, well, mix what he wanted when he wanted it, couldn’t he?”

“Not drugs. Inside each was a lock of hair, and each bag was labeled with a different name. A woman’s first name.”

Something sagged in him—she saw it. And it broke her heart a little.

“You don’t think they’re from women who gave them willingly.”

“Mr. Mira, I believe Betz, along with Wymann, your cousin, Marshall Easterday, Ethan MacNamee, and William Stevenson formed a kind of club. What they called the Brotherhood. And I believe starting back in college they selected women, and raped them.”

“Edward,” he murmured, and stared into the fire. “I knew these men. Not well. Not very well—and I think now not at all. William Stevenson . . . Willy? Did they call him Willy?”

“Billy.”

“Yes, of course. Billy. He died, didn’t he, some time ago? I can’t quite recall.”

“Yes.”

“And Ethan—I liked him more than the others, back all those years ago. We played soccer. We played soccer for Yale, so I knew him a little better than the others. He lives in Europe, I believe.”

His gaze, full of grief, came back to hers. “You want to ask me if I knew about this?”

“No. I know you didn’t.”

“Shouldn’t I have? I knew they had secrets, and I thought . . . I honestly don’t know or remember what I thought but that I was excluded. It bruised my feelings at first when Edward would brush me off. No time for me. I rarely saw him.”

“They had a house, a private home.”

“Yes, they lived together, a kind of fraternity of their own making. Ah,” he murmured, and the sound was sorrowful. “Brotherhood.”

“Do you know where? The house, do you know where it was?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Edward . . . He made it clear I wasn’t part of that, and while I believe they often had gatherings, parties, I wasn’t included. It was such a large campus, even then, and very strictly secured due to the Urbans, but I never visited him there.”

He looked away again, into the fire. “You believe they began this there, in that house. I see. I see why he was so cruel about it now. Why he made it clear I wasn’t part of that . . . fraternity. That brotherhood. I wish I could believe he’d been protecting me from it, but he was only protecting himself. I loved him, but I would have stopped him. I would’ve found a way.”

“He’d have known that.”

“How many did you say? How many names?”

“Forty-nine.” She hesitated. “Some are clearly a great deal older, some are . . . not.”

His gaze came back to her, horrified. “You think they were still . . . They continued, all this time?”

“Why would they stop when they got away with it?”

“Not because they were drunk or high and lost control. Not to excuse that, you see, but this is . . . calculated. What you’re telling me. Planned and done as—as a pack. Like rabid animals. No. No. No. Not like animals.”

He pressed his fingers to his eyes a moment, then dropped his hands in his lap. The devastation on his face cut Eve to the bone.

“Like men who thought they had the right. Worse, so much worse than animals.”

In the next moment, anger burned through the devastation. “Edward had a daughter. How could he do this and not think how he would feel if someone did the same to his own child? His daughter has a daughter. Merciful God. And he died for it, for his own brutality, his own arrogance.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not going to be able to save Betz, Mr. Mira. I swear to you, I’ve tried, but I don’t think we’ll find him in time. Easterday’s in the wind. I’m going to do everything I can to find him, not just to see he pays for his part of this, but if they find him first, he’s dead. Killing them isn’t justice. What was done to your cousin wasn’t just. I get you might think because of what happened to me I might see it that way, but—”

She saw his eyes change from sad and angry to shocked, then sorrowful, then so desperately sympathetic her insides trembled.

“I—I figured Dr. Mira would have told you.”

“No. Oh, no, Charlotte would never betray a confidence. My sweet girl,” he comforted. “I’m so sorry. What you do, every day, is so courageous, and so dangerous.”

“It didn’t happen on the job.” She wanted to push to her feet, get out, get away from that quiet sympathy. But her legs had gone to water. “I was a kid,” she heard herself say. “It was my father.”

It was he who moved. He rose, came to her, took her cold hands in his. Without a word, he simply drew her to her feet and into his arms where he held her so gently she felt she would break.

“I’m okay. I’m all right,” she managed even as she began to shake.

“There now. There. You’re safe here. You’re safe now.”

“It was a long time ago. I—”

“Time doesn’t heal, whatever they say. It’s how we use the time that can heal.” He stroked her back, as Roarke often did, and tears burned like embers in her throat.

“You sit now, sit right here, and wait. I’ll only be a minute.”

“I should go.”

He eased her back into the chair, touched a hand briefly to her cheek. “Sit right there.”

She did what he told her, struggled to find her balance again when he left the room. She had believed Mira would have told him. She understood the confidentiality, but they’d been married forever. Didn’t that outweigh . . . ? Of course it didn’t.

She closed her eyes, forced herself to take slow breaths.

And both the Miras would understand and respect that.

Now she’d unloaded more of a burden on a man who was already grieving. She needed to get things back on course, then get back to work.

He came back—misbuttoned sweater, house skids, and carrying two delicate cups in their delicate saucers. Tears pressed viciously at the back of her eyes just from looking at him.

“We’ll have this very nice tea, with a healthy dollop of brandy. It helps.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t like tea, or brandy, so took the cup.

“Drink now.”

She obeyed, and discovered whatever magic he’d put into the cup was like a warm stroke on the spirit. She drank some more.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mira. This isn’t about me. I only wanted to reassure you I’ll do everything I can to find the women who killed your cousin.”

“I never doubted that. There’s no need to explain, and you don’t have to tell me anything that makes you uncomfortable. I’d like to ask, if you can answer. Where was your mother?”

“She was as bad as he was. Maybe worse. She hated me. She left. She’s dead. I didn’t kill her. I killed him, but I didn’t kill her.” She closed her eyes. “Christ.”

“Do you think I’d judge you? My brave girl, I think you judge yourself far too harshly.”

“No—I—I did what I had to do. I know that.”

“But this investigation brings it back, and still you don’t set it aside. You could.”

“If I did that, he wins. If I did that, I don’t deserve the badge.”

“Far too harshly,” Dennis said quietly. “Will you tell me how old you were?”

“They said I was eight. When they found me, after, they said I was eight. They didn’t know who’d raped me or broken my arm, they didn’t know I killed him. Well, Homeland did—it’s complicated—but the police, the doctors, they didn’t know. And I didn’t—wouldn’t remember. I shut it all away.”

Those kind, kind eyes never left her face.

“A healthy response, I think. Just a child. A child should never have to defend herself from her father. A father should never prey on his own child. Biology, that’s simply science, isn’t it? There’s more in the world than science, more inside the human heart than DNA and genes. He was never your father in the true sense. I hope you can understand that.”

The simple heart of it all, she thought. Of course he would find the simple heart of it all.

“Been working on that for a while.” Finish it, she told herself, and move on. “He always locked me up—they didn’t give me a name, I was a thing. He kept me locked up whenever he went out. I don’t remember the first time he raped me. They’re all blurred together, except the last time. He came home—we were in Dallas, that’s where Child Services got my name. And he was drunk, but not enough. He hit me, knocked me down. I fought him, and it made it worse. He broke my arm. I could see the pain, the blinding white flash of it. There was a little knife I’d dropped. I’d been sneaking something to eat while he was gone. I was so hungry. And my fingers found the knife. I used it, and I kept using it until I was covered in his blood. Until he was dead. It was just a little knife. I guess I got lucky, hit some arteries.

“Anyway.” She took a breath, drank more tea. “They found me in an alley. I’d gotten out, wandered off. I didn’t remember any of it.”

“But you remember now?”

“It came back a few years ago. I’d have flashes, some nightmares, some memories—but I could shut them down. And a few years ago it all came back. Dr. Mira . . . she’s helped me. Even when I didn’t want her to.”

“Of course. She’s brilliant and beautiful, and cares deeply for you. And Roarke? Have you told him?”

“I guess he was the trigger, or the finger on it. Yeah, I told him everything.”

“Good, that’s good. He’s a fine young man, and one who loves you without restrictions. Finding a mate, a true one, is a rare and precious thing.”

And the heart of the heart, she thought. Yes, he’d found that, too.

“I don’t even know how it happened, but even when he pisses me off, I’m grateful every day it did.”

“The best possible description for a good marriage.”

“I didn’t intend to come here and talk about all of this, I just— You matter, Mr. Mira. I understand whatever he did, you lost family in a terrible way. I’ll do everything I can to identify, find, and stop those who took his life. I swear it to you.”

“You took an oath when you became a police officer. How long have you been with the police? I don’t recall.”

“About a dozen years now.”

“And so young.” He smiled at her now, that sweet, slightly dreamy smile that melted her heart. “You took an oath long before this, and from all I know, all I’ve seen, you’ve kept it. Look at the woman you’ve made yourself. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, strong and smart and brave. You’ll forgive me if, at this moment, I feel Edward doesn’t deserve you. If in my heart I can’t feel he deserves you. But his children do, and so for their sake I’m grateful you’ll keep your oath.”

“A cop protects and serves, and everybody deserves it. But I don’t think he deserved you. I’ve got to get back to work.”

He got to his feet when she did, stepped to her again, enfolded her again. “I’m proud of you.”

“Oh God, Mr. Mira.” Tears flooded her throat, her eyes. At that moment it seemed her whole being was tears.

“There now.” He let her go to pat the pockets of his sweater, his trousers. “I never have a handkerchief where I think I do.”

“It’s okay.” She swiped at the tears with her hands. “Thanks. Thank you. For everything.” She grabbed her coat, afraid she’d fall to pieces. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes. Charlie will be home soon. I’ll be fine.”

But when she left, he sat by the fire and mourned the death—in every way there was to die—of the man he had thought he’d known. And grieved for the little girl he’d never known, and no one had protected.

—

Eve got crime scene blotters out of her field kit, used them as tissues, found some sunshades in the glove box. They wouldn’t fool Roarke if he’d beaten her home, but they might get her past Summerset.

She wanted to get home, stick her face in a bowl of ice water, then get to work.

She’d been honest when she’d told Dennis Mira the odds of her saving Frederick Betz were next to zero. Unless she misjudged this . . . sisterhood, they wouldn’t finish him in his own house, not this time. Not when they knew she was looking for them.

She needed to ID the house in the painting, if her hunch held and it was, or had been, real. She needed to find the residence that opened with Betz’s key swipe.

And she needed to watch the recording.

She shuffled that to the side for now.

Easterday, she thought as she drove. He’d be panicked, desperate, looking to both survive and escape.

Forgive me

His last message to his wife told Eve he knew what he’d done, what they’d all done, would come to light.

Where would he run?

Reo had it right—he hadn’t had much of a lead. Unless he’d run straight out of the city, he’d have a hard time getting out, and with only whatever cash he’d taken from the safe. He couldn’t use credit or debit or it would throw up a flag.

And he hadn’t used a card to book a shuttle, a train, a car, or any other mode of transpo.

He didn’t seem the type to hole up in a flop. A hotel, possibly, but that didn’t ensure privacy. She had every property owned by any of the men under watch. If he had a property she didn’t know about, Eve felt certain Petra would have told her.

The woman was terrified, only wanted her husband back and safe.

Would she forgive when she learned why he’d run?

Not your problem, Eve told herself and nearly wept again from the relief of driving through the gates of her home.

She ordered herself to pull it together. She had to get through Summerset and upstairs. And she didn’t want to break down on Roarke.

She didn’t have time to lose it again.

She got out of the car, took the bank bag out of the back—asked herself again if she should’ve made the trip downtown to take the hair to the lab rather than give that task to Reo.

Quicker this way, quicker was best.

She strode to the door, told herself to just keep walking.

The relief she felt when the foyer was Summerset-free dried up any threatening tears. She took the stairs two at a time, heading straight for her office.

Then slowed, stopped, when she heard Summerset’s voice.

“I haven’t seen one of those for thirty years or more.”

“I boosted one like it when I was a boy—before you. It was old even then, but you never knew what might bring in a few punts. So I lifted it and a stack of discs with it. Turned out to be very old porn, which gave the lads and myself quite an education. I traded it off to Mick—no, no, I’m wrong, it was Brian I traded it off to, years later. He may still have it, as far as I know.”

“I take it this one came without the porn.”

“Sadly, it did.”

“How did you come by it?”

“One of my R & R men is known for hoarding everything,” Roarke told him. “He swears it will work, good as new. But the problem, as you see, is the hookup.”

“You’ll jury-rig it there to the comp, and then program it to screen.”

“That’s the plan. Bugger it. Hand me the small spanner there. It’s the wrong size plug, but I can swap it out, I’m thinking.”

She considered backtracking to the bedroom, doing that bowl of ice water. But she’d taken too much time on herself already.

She squared her shoulders, strode straight in to see Roarke at her desk, hunkered over her comp and some black box thing with Summerset peering over his shoulder.

“There you are,” Roarke said without looking up. “I’m just working out how to merge the antique with the contemporary. Nearly there.”

“Great.”

When Summerset glanced over, she realized the shades fooled no one. She saw him lay a hand on Roarke’s shoulder, give it a small squeeze as he himself straightened.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as Roarke lifted his head, looked at Eve.

She supposed she owed him for leaving the room rather than mortifying her.

“What happened?” Roarke asked.

“A whole bunch of stuff.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“A little meltdown, I guess. Look, what you’re doing there’s really important. I’ll bring you up to date, meltdown included, but I need you to keep doing whatever that is. I’ll get coffee.”

“What you need is sleep.”

“Maybe, but it’s not what I’m going to get. The ground’s still a little shaky under my feet, okay? Give me a chance to steady up.”

“All right.”

He reached for another tool as she went to the kitchen to program a pot of black coffee.