Imitation in Death

Chapter11

WhenEve walked into the break room,Baxter was chowing down on an enormous sandwich that smelled too good and looked too fresh to have come out of the facility’s AutoChef, any of the vending machines, or the take-out counter at the Eatery.

It looked civilian and delicious.

Beside him at the square table, the sweet-faced Trueheart was making neat work of a leafy salad topped with chunks of chicken. Across from them, a woman who looked to have seen the dawn and dusk of a couple of centuries beamed goodwill over them.

“There now,” she said in a reedy voice, “isn’t that better than anything you can get out of a machine?”

“Glump,”Baxter responded over bread and meat in what was obviously delirious agreement.

Trueheart, who was younger, nearly as green as his salad, and whose mouth wasn’t quite as full at the time, scraped back his chair when he spottedEve. “Lieutenant.” He shot to attention asBaxter rolled his eyes in amusement over the rookie, and adoration over his sandwich.

He swallowed. “Jeez, Trueheart, save the brownnosing until after I digest.Dallas, this is the amazing and wonderfulMrs.ElsaParksy. Mrs. Parksy, ma’am, this isLieutenantDallas, the primary investigator you wanted to see.”

“Thanks for coming in,Mrs.Parksy.”

“My duty, isn’t it? As a citizen, not to mention as a friend and neighbor.Lois looked after me when I needed it, now I’ll look after her, best I can. Sit down, dearie. Have you had your lunch?”

Eveeyed the sandwich, the salad, and ignored the envy that swirled in her mostly empty stomach. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I told these boys I’d fix extra. Can’t abide food out of a machine. It’s not natural. DetectiveBaxter, you offer some of that sandwich to this girl. She’s too skinny.”

“I’m fine, really. DetectiveBaxter told me you saw a man leavingMrs.Gregg ’s apartment building on Sunday morning.”

“Did. I didn’t talk to the police before as I went straight on to my grandson’s after church and stayed overnight. Didn’t get back home until this morning. Heard aboutLois on the news yesterday, of course.”

The countless wrinkles in her withered raisin of a face shifted in whatEve took for sorrow.

“I’ve never been so shocked and sad, even when myFred, God rest him, fell under the Number Three train back in2035. She was a good woman, and a good neighbor.”

“Yes, I know she was. What can you tell us about the man you saw?”

“Hardly paid him any attention. My eyes are pretty good yet. Got them fixed up again last March, but I wasn’t paying him much mind.”

Absently, she pulled a pack of nap-wipes out of a cavernous handbag, and passed them toBaxter.

“Thank you,Mrs.Parksy,” he said in a humbled, respectful voice.

“You’re a good boy.” She patted his hand, then turned her attention back toEve. “Where was I? Oh yes. I was just coming out to wait for my grandson. He comes by every Sunday at nine-fifteen, to take me to church. You go to church?”

There was a quick and beady gleam inMrs. Parksy’s eyes, causingEve to hesitate between the truth and a convenient lie.

“Yes, ma’am,” Trueheart spoke up, his face solemn. “I like to go to Mass atSt. Pat’s when I can get into Midtown on Sunday. Otherwise, I go to Our Lady of the Sorrows, downtown.”

“Catholic, are you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, that’s all right.” She patted his hand in turn, as if it wasn’t his fault.

“You saw the man come out fromMrs. Gregg’s building,”Eve prompted.

“Said I did, didn’t I? He came out just a minute after I stepped out my own front door across the street. Had on a gray uniform and carried a black toolbox. Had a blue plastic basket in his other hand, like the kind they have down at the market. Couldn’t see what was in it, ‘cause it was a ways, and I wasn’t staring at the man.”

“What can you tell me about how he looked?”

“Looked like a repairman, is all. White man, or maybe mixed. Hard to tell as the sun was blasting. Don’t know how old. Not as old as me. Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, that’s all the same when you hit your century mark, and I hit mine seventeen years ago last March. But I’d say thirty or forty as a best guess.”

“Congratulations,Mrs.Parksy,” Trueheart said and she smiled at him.

“You’re a very nice young man. This other, he had a cap on, uniform cap, and sunglasses. Dark ones. Had mine on, myself. Sun was blazing even though it was early. He saw me. Couldn’t see his eyes, of course, but he saw me, as he sent me a big-as-life grin and gave me this little bow. Sassy’s what I call it, and I just sniffed and looked the other way, as I don’t hold with sass. Sorry about that now. Wish I’d watched after him more.”

“Which direction did he go?”

“Oh, he headed east. Spring in his step, like a man pleased with his morning’s work. Bad business, bad business when a man can all but skip out the door and onto the sidewalk when he’s killed a woman.Lois went to the market for me more than once when I was feeling poorly, and she brought me flowers to cheer me up. Always had a minute to chat. I wish I’d known what he’d done when I saw him. My grandson drove up just a minute or two later. He’s always prompt. I’d’ve told him to run that murdering bastard down on the street. As God is my witness, I would’ve.”

She workedMrs.Parksy until she was sure she had everything the woman could give her, then passed her to Trueheart, asking him to escort her to a uniform for transport home.

“Baxter, another minute here.” She dug in her pocket and discovered she’d givenPeabody all her credits earlier. “Got enough on you for a Pepsi?”

“What’s wrong with using your badge number? You over your limit?”

She gave him a disgusted look, with a sulk right on the edges. “I plug in my badge number, the machine will give me grief. The one up by our squad hates me, has a personal vendetta. And they talk to each other,Baxter. Don’t think they don’t communicate.”

He studied her for one long minute. “You need a vacation.”

“I need a friggin’ Pepsi. You want an IOU?”

He walked to the machine, keyed in his badge number, ordered the tube.

GOOD AFTERNOON. YOU HAVE ORDERED ONE EIGHT-OUNCE TUBE OF PEPSI. IT’S ICED! HAVE A SAFE AND PRODUCTIVE DAY, AND DON’T FORGET TO RECYCLE.

He tugged it out of the slot, walked back, and handed it to her. “My treat.”

“Thanks. Listen I know you’ve got backlog. I appreciate you taking the time for the canvass.”

“Just put it in your report. I could use the shine.”

She gave a head nod toward the door, so they’d walk and talk. “Trueheart looks good. He steady enough?”

“Doc cleared him physically. Kid’s healthy as a horse. Shrink gave him thumbs-up, too.”

“I read the evals,Baxter. I’m asking you.”

“Truth is, I think what happened to him-nearly happened-a couple weeks ago shook me more than him. He’s solid,Dallas. He’s gold. Gotta tell you, I never figured on taking on a rookie, or putting on a trainer’s hat, but he’s a gift.”

Baxtershook his head as they caught a glide. “Kid loves the job. Hell, he is the job, like nobody I know except you. He bounces in each shift, raring. I tell you, he makes my fucking day.”

Satisfied,Eve headed down the hall with him.

“Speaking of trainees,”Baxter continued, “I hear Peabody’s going to take the detectives’ exam in a few days.”

“Nothing wrong with your hearing.”

“Nervous, Mom?”

She shot him a narrow look. “Funny. Why should I be nervous?”

He started to grin, then they both turned at the high-pitched howl. A skinny guy in restraints broke away from the uniform escorting him, sent another to his knees with a well-placed groin kick, then came flying toward the glide, eyes wild, spittle flying.

Since her Pepsi was in her weapon hand, Eve winged it. It caught him between the eyes with an audible thud. It surprised more than hurt him, so that he stumbled, righted himself, then lowered his head and charged her like a battering ram.

She had just enough time to pivot. She brought her knee up sharply, connecting with his chin. There was a nasty crunching sound that she figured was either his jaw snapping or the cartilage in her knee shifting.

In either case, he went down hard on his ass, and was immediately tackled by two uniforms and one passing plainclothes cop.

Baxter reholstered his weapon, scratched his head at the melee on the floor. “Want another Pepsi, Dallas?” What was left of hers was making a brown puddle on the floor.

“Goddamn it. Who’s in charge of this asshole?”

“Me, sir.” One of the uniforms staggered up. He was winded, and bleeding from the bottom lip. “I was taking him to holding for-”

“Officer, why didn’t you have control of your prisoner?”

“I thought he was controlled, Lieutenant. He-”

“Obviously, you thought incorrectly. It appears you need to refresh yourself on proper procedure.”

The prisoner bucked and kicked, and began to scream like a woman. To demonstrate proper procedure for controlling prisoners, Eve crouched, ignoring the twinge in her knee. She grabbed the screamer by a hank of his long, dark hair, jerked his head until his crazed eyes met hers.

“Shut up. If you don’t shut up, if you don’t cease resisting immediately, I will pull your tongue out of your mouth, drag it around your neck, and strangle you with it.”

She saw from his eyes that he’d been enjoying some chemicals, but the threat got through, or maybe it was the tone that warned him she meant it, literally.

When he sagged, Eve rose and gave the uniform the same cold glare. “Add resisting and assaulting an officer to our guest’s prize package today. I want to see a copy of your report before you file it, Officer…” She deliberately scraped her gaze down and scanned his name tag. “Cullin.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lose him again, and I’ll use his tongue to strangle you. Move.”

There was a scramble as a couple of uniforms moved in, a show of solidarity, to drag the prisoner up and haul him away.

Baxter handed Eve a fresh tube of Pepsi. “Figured you’d earned this.”

“Goddamn right,” she shot back, and limped into Homicide.

– -«»--«»--«»--

She wrote her own report, and hand-carried it to Commander Whitney. He gestured her to a chair, which she took, grateful to get off her aching knee.

When she’d finished her oral briefing, he nodded. “Is your block on the media going to fuel him or frustrate him?”

“With or without the media, he’s hunting again. While his victims are random, they are deliberate, and the deliberation takes time. As for the media, I’ve fed a few statements through the department liaison. They’re concentrating on the first murder. It’s flashier than the rape and murder of a sixty-one-year-old woman in her apartment. We’re not going to be pressed too hard on that end until one of them gets the connection. They will eventually, especially if he hits again, but we’ve got some room.”

“You’re misleading the media?”

“No, sir. I’m just not leading them. I’ve given my statement to Quinton Post at75, rather than Nadine Furst, as I felt that would cool any mumbling about favoritism. He’s sharp, but still a bit green. Once Nadine gets her teeth into this, she’ll make the connection. Until then, I don’t have to answer what isn’t asked.”

“Good enough.”

“On another front, sir, I don’t think, despite his claims, he cares overmuch about the media attention. Not at this time. He wants my attention, and he has it. Dr. Mira’s profile confirms his need to dominate and destroy women. The female authority figure is his nemesis. That’s me, that’s why he picked me.”

“Are you a target?”

“I don’t believe so, not as long as he sticks to pattern.”

Whitney grunted, then steepled his fingers. “You should be aware that I’ve had complaints.”

“Sir?”

“One from Leo Fortney, who’s crying harassment, and threatening a suit against you and the department. A second from the offices of Niles Renquist, intimating… displeasure at having the wife of a diplomatic figure interrogated by a member of the New York Police and Security Department. And a third from the representative of Carmichael Smith, who ranted vigorously about the possibility of damaging publicity due to the hounding of his client by a… what was it? An insensitive, abrasive hotshot with a badge.”

“That would be me. Leo Fortney gave false information during initial questioning. He’s changed his story, somewhat, during subsequent questioning by my aide, but it still reeks. Both Niles Renquist and his wife have been questioned, not interrogated. And while both were cooperative, neither was forthcoming. As for Carmichael, if anyone leaks his involvement in my investigation to the media, it would be him.”

“You intend to pursue each of these individuals as suspects in this investigation.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“All right.” Satisfied, he nodded. “I have no problem fielding the complaints, but walk softly here, Dallas. Each of these people has considerable power in his own way, and all of them know how to spin the media.”

“If one of them is a murderer, I’ll make the case. They can spin until they revolve to Saturn and back, but they’ll do it from a cage.”

“Wrap them up then, carefully.”

Dismissed, she got to her feet. Whitney lifted an eyebrow as she started out. “What’s wrong with the leg?”

“It’s just the knee,” she said, annoyed she hadn’t remembered to control the limp on the way out. So she smiled, a little. “I ran into something stupid,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

She left later than she’d intended, and got stuck in some bad traffic. Instead of fighting it, Eve waited it out, using the time to think, to review her notes, to think some more.

She had suspects, though she was thin on evidence. She had threads that wove through both murders. The notes, the tone of them, the imitation.

She had no DNA, no trace evidence, and no evidence that led her to believe the killer had known his victims. Witness reports described a white or possibly mixed-race male, of indeterminate age and coloring. He used accents, she thought. Because his voice was distinctive?

Renquist, with his British tones. Carmichael, with his famous ones.

Possible.

Then again, Fortney ran his mouth to the media and the public often enough. He might assume someone would recognize his voice.

Or it could just be ego again, and any one of them. I’m so important, everyone will recognize me if I don’t disguise myself.

Look for the female authority figure, she told herself. That’s the core and that’s the key. What was the phrase? Cherchez la femme. She thought that was right.

She stripped off her jacket on the way from the car to the house. The air felt close, heavy, and just a bit electric. Maybe a storm coming. Rain couldn’t hurt, she thought, and tossed the jacket over the newel. A good bitch of a storm might keep her man inside, and off the hunt.

Before she went back to work, back to her own hunt, she’d track down another man.

The home locator told her Roarke was on the rear patio, off the kitchen. She couldn’t figure out why he’d be out in the nasty air when the house was blissfully fresh and cool, and provided a room for any possible activity.

But she walked the long stretch of it, and out the kitchen to find him. Then simply stood, struck speechless.

“Ah, good, you’re here. We can get started.”

He was wearing jeans-not his usual around-the-house attire-and a white T-shirt. He was barefoot, and a little sweaty, which appealed to her. The fact was, he would have appealed to her, or any woman, regardless of his attire, or the fact that he was standing on a sun-baked patio on a September evening where the air-quality index had simply waved the white flag and surrendered the field.

But at the moment, she was more interested in the enormous, shiny silver contraption beside him.

“What is that thing?”

“It’s an outdoor cooking system.”

Warily, relieved she was still wearing her weapon just in case, she approached. “Like a barbecue deal?”

“That, and more.” He stroked one of his beautiful hands over the lid, as a man might stroke a woman who bewitched him. “Gorgeous, isn’t she? Just arrived an hour ago.”

It was massive, and the glare of the sun off its surface nearly blinding. There was, she noted, more than one lid as it had extensions on either side, and some doored compartment beneath the main unit.

There were countless buttons, controls, dials. She wet her lips. “Um. It doesn’t look exactly like the one the Miras used.”

“Newer model.” He opened the main lid and revealed another gleaming surface, this one full of shiny bars, with a bunch of silver cubes beneath, and a side surface of solid metal. “No reason not to have the latest.”

“It’s really big. You could almost live in it.”

“After a couple of practice runs, I thought we might have a barbecue of our own. In a few weekends perhaps.”

“By practice run, I don’t guess you mean you’re going to drive it somewhere.” She gave one of its big, sturdy wheels a quick, testing kick.

“Totally under control.” He crouched, opened one of the doors. “Refrigerator unit. We’ve got steaks, potatoes, some vegetables we’ll put on these skewers.”

“We will?”

“It’s just a matter of shoving them on.” He assumed. “And a bottle of champagne, to christen it. Though I thought we’d drink it rather than whack the unit with the bottle.”

“I can get behind that part. Have you ever cooked a steak?”

He sent her a mild look as he opened the champagne. “I read the tutorial and I watched how it was done at the Miras’. It’s hardly rocket science, Eve. Meat, heat.”

“Okay.” She took the glass he’d poured for her. “What happens first?”

“I turn it on, then according to the timetable in the tutorial, the potatoes would go first. They take the longest. While they’re cooking, we’ll sit in the shade.”

The idea of him turning on the monster unit had her taking a cautious step back. “Yeah, well, I’ll just get started on the sitting-in-the-shade part.” Several buffering feet away.

Still, she loved him, so she prepared to leap to his defense if the machine got testy. She watched Roarke arrange two potatoes on some of the smaller sections of grill, fiddle with controls.

Whatever he did had a red light, like a single, unfriendly eye, beam on. Apparently this pleased him, as he closed the lid, patted it, then pulled a little tray of crackers and cheese out of the lower compartment.

He looked pretty cute, she had to admit, carrying the tray, crossing the sunny patio in his bare feet, with his hair tied back as he often did for serious work.

She grinned at him, popped a cube of cheese in her mouth. “You put all this together.”

“I did. Very gratifying, too.” He stretched out his legs, sipped champagne. “I don’t know why I haven’t fiddled about in the kitchen before this.”

The umbrella over the table broke the blast of the sun, and the champagne was ice-cold. Not, she decided, such a bad deal after a long day. “So, how do you know when the potatoes are done?”

“There’s a timer. It also suggested we might want to jab them with a fork.”

“Why?”

“Something to do with doneness. I assume it’ll be self-evident. What did you do to your knee?”

Never missed a trick, she thought. “Some jerk in uniform let an asshole get away from him. I used my knee to discourage said asshole from ramming me down the glide. Now he’s crying because his jaw was dislocated, and he has a mild concussion.”

“Knee to jaw. Sensible. How’d he get the concussion?”

“He says it was from the tube of Pepsi I pitched at him, but that’s bogus. I figure he got it when a bunch of cops landed on him.”

“You threw your Pepsi at him.”

“It was handy.”

“Darling Eve.” He picked up her free hand, kissed it. “Ever resourceful.”

“That may be, but I had to waste time on more paperwork. Officer Cullin is going to rue this day.”

“No doubt.”

He poured more champagne, and they drank it in the shade. When she heard the distant rumble of thunder, she lifted her eyebrows, glanced toward the grill. “You may be rained out.”

“There’s time yet. I’ll just turn it up a bit, and put on the steaks.”

Fifteen minutes later,Eve sipped champagne and watched a little burst of flame erupt from one end of the grill. Since it wasn’t the first, she was no longer alarmed by it.

Instead, she watched Roarke fight his new toy, curse it in two languages, and eye it with frustration.

When jabbed, the potatoes proved to be hard as stone inside their blackened skin. The skewered vegetables were burned to a crisp, and had been on fire twice.

The steaks were a sickly gray on one side, and black on the other.

“This isn’t right,” he muttered. “It must be defective.”

He stabbed one of the steaks, lifting it off the grill to scowl at it. “This doesn’t appear to be medium rare.”

When the juice dripping from it sparked another pocket of flame, he tossed it back on the bars.

More fire spurted, and the machine, as it had a number of times before, issued a dour warning:

ACTIVE FIRE IS NEITHER ADVISABLE NOR RECOMMENDED. PLEASE REPROGRAM WITHIN THIRTY SECONDS, OR THIS UNIT WILL GO INTO SAFETY MODE AS EXPLAINED IN THE TUTORIAL, AND SHUT DOWN.

“Bugger it, you bloody bitch, how many times do you need to be reprogrammed?”

Evetook another hit of champagne, and decided not to point out that bitch was inappropriate as the unit’s voice mode was distinctly male.

Men, she’d observed, habitually termed the inanimate objects they cursed by uncomplimentary female names. Hell, she did the same herself.

A couple of lightning bolts popped in the sky, and the thunder rolled closer in one long, menacing growl.Eve felt the first splat of rain in the rising wind.

She walked over to rescue the bottle of champagne while Roarke stared at the grill.

“I’m thinking pizza,” she said and started into the house.

“It’s just a glitch.” Roarke scraped what was left of the food into the unit’s garbage disposal feature. “This isn’t finished,” he grumbled to it, and followedEve into the house. “I’ll have another look at it tomorrow,” he told her.

“You know…” She crossed to the AutoChef, which was, in her opinion, the sensible way to cook. “… it’s sort of nice to see that you can screw up like the rest of us mortals. Get all sweaty and frustrated and curse out inanimate objects. Though I’m not convinced that thing outside is inanimate.”

“A factory defect, no doubt.” But he was grinning now. “I’ll see to it tomorrow.”

“Bet you will. You want to eat in here?”

“That’s fine. We won’t likely eat in the kitchen much after tonight, with Summerset due home tomorrow.”

She stopped dead, the glass halfway to her lips. “Tomorrow? That can’t be right. He just left five minutes ago.”

“Tomorrow,noon.” He walked over to flick a finger over the dent in her chin. “It’s been considerably longer than five minutes.”

“Make him extend it. Tell him to… he should take a trip around the world. In a boat. One of those boats you row by hand. It’ll be good for him.”

“I offered him more time. He’s ready to come home.”

“Well, I’m not ready.” She threw up her hands.

He only smiled, leaned in, and kissed her forehead as he might a child’s.

She huffed out a breath. “Okay then. Okay. But now we have to have sex on the kitchen floor.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s on my to-do list, and we didn’t get to it yet, so we’ll have to go for it now. Pizza can wait.”

“You have a to-do list?”

“It was supposed to be spontaneous, and uncontrolled, but we’ll have to go with what we’ve got.”

She drained the glass of champagne, set it down, then released her weapon harness. “Go on, strip it off, pal.”

“A sexual to-do list?” Amused, fascinated, he watched her dump her harness on the counter, then start on her boots. “Was that bout we had last week on the dining room table, and the floor, on your list?”

“That’s right.” She pried off a boot, kicked it aside.

“Let me see the list.” He held out a hand, wiggled his fingers.

Bent over for the second boot, she lifted her head. “It’s what you’d call a mental list.” She tapped her head. “All up here. You’re not stripping.”

“I love your mind.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just get this little chore ticked off, then we can-”

She broke off when he swooped her up, then dumped her butt-first on the kitchen counter. Taking her hair in two fists, he yanked her mouth to his, and ravished.

“Spontaneous enough for you?” he asked when she sucked in a breath.

“It might be-” The words tumbled back down her throat when he ripped her shirt open.

“How’s that for uncontrolled?”

It was a little hard to comment when her mouth was being assaulted again. He yanked what was left of her shirt down to her wrists. Her hands were trapped, tripping an instinctive panic that tangled messily with a spurt of excitement as he tugged the tattered material like a rope.

Her hands were behind her back now, and the blood was buzzing in her ears. She couldn’t seem to draw a full breath. The champagne she’d drank began to spin giddily in her head, and her thigh muscles quivered.

“My hands,” she managed.

“Not yet.” He was mad for her. It seemed he spent his life mad for her. The shape and the scent of her, the taste and the feel of her. And now the sound she made as his hand raced over her.

He feasted on her skin, the lovely rise of her breast with her heart raging under his mouth. She moaned again, trembled, losing herself, he knew, as he used his tongue, his teeth.

Let go. There was nothing more arousing to him than when she let go.

She still couldn’t breathe, but no longer cared. Sensations were storming her, too brutal, too dark, to be called something as mild as pleasure.

She let him take, would have begged him to take more if she’d had the words. When he yanked her pants down her hips, she opened for him. And those hands, those wonderful hands, drove her over.

She cried out as she came, as the orgasm flashed through her with such intense heat.

Her head dropped weakly on his shoulder, and she managed one word. “More.”

“Always.” His lips were on her hair, her cheek, then on hers again. “Always.”

His arms came around her, and once freed, hers around him. She locked her legs around his waist and struggled to speak as her breath came in short, strained pants. “We’re not on the floor.”

“We’ll get there.” He nipped at her shoulder, her throat, wondered how he could stop himself from simply eating her whole.

He hitched her off the counter, taking her weight as their mouths fused again, as heartbeat slammed against heartbeat. Her hands had worked their way under his shirt, her short nails scraping over his damp skin.

Then she tugged it up, tugged it off, and fixed her teeth on his shoulder. “God, your body. Mine, mine, mine.”

They were on the floor, pulling at clothes, pulling in air as lungs threatened to burst. And this time when her legs locked around him, he buried himself inside her.

Hot, so viciously hot, she trapped him there, rising up to take more of him, dragging him down to follow her. His hands slid off her slick skin, then found purchase on her hips. They dug in while he plunged.