Innocent In Death

17

WHEN THE ITEMS FROM THE STRAFFO RESIDENCE were logged, Eve commandeered a conference room. There, she and Peabody spread everything out, grouping according to area, subgrouping by person or persons who owned or used the item.

She dragged in her murder board, clipping up pictures of various items or groupings.

She studied, she circled, she paced.

“Please, sir, I must have food.”

Distracted, Eve glanced over. “What?”

“Food, Dallas. I gotta eat something or I’m going to start gnawing on my own tongue. I can order something in or run down to the Eatery.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mag-o. What do you want?”

“To nail this bastard down.”

“To eat, Dallas. Food.”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as it comes with caffeine. She had a box full of pictures.”

“Sorry?”

“Allika, in her sitting room. A big pretty box, up in her closet, not quite hidden, but not out in the open. It was full of pictures of the dead kid, had a lock of his hair, some of his toys, a piece of his blanket.”

“Jeez.” Peabody’s tender heart ached a little. “Poor woman. It must be awful.”

“Not one picture of the kid anywhere in the open, but bunches of them in her box. Hers.” Eve moved around the groupings again, stopped by the section taken or copied from Oliver Straffo’s office. “Nothing like that in Straffo’s office or in the bedroom or any of the family areas.”

Peabody moved over to stand by Eve, tried to see what her lieutenant might be seeing. “I had a second cousin who drowned when he was a kid. His mother got rid of all his things. All of them except this one shirt. She kept it in her sewing basket. I guess you can’t predict how anyone’s going to handle the death of their kid. I’ll bring food and caffeine.”

She zipped out before Eve could delay her.

Alone, Eve circled the table, the board. And thought about the dead.

The boy had been good-looking, fun-looking, she added. Big, goofy grin on his face in most of the pictures that weren’t taken in infancy. Happy, healthy family, she mused, studying the picture she’d copied of one in Allika’s box-the four Straffos grinning at the camera. Kids in the middle, parents flanking them.

Everyone touching some part of someone else. An attractive unit. Somehow complete.

She compared it to the one she’d copied from Rayleen’s room. One kid now framed by mom and dad. And yeah, even though Allika grinned into the camera there was a hollowness around her eyes, a hint of strain around her mouth.

Something missing.

Did she try to fill that void with social functions, routines, appointments, structure? Medications and men?

Don’t be sad, Mommy!

Bright kid, that Rayleen. Smart, perceptive, pissy. Eve couldn’t hold the pissy against her. So Rayleen had looked up her data, her service record, her cases. Easy enough to do, Eve mused, but interesting work for a ten-year-old.

Nixie, she remembered. Nixie had been another bright, perceptive kid. Courageous kid. One who’d lost a brother, too-and her entire family, her entire world, in one horrible night.

Nixie’d been full of questions, as Rayleen seemed to be. Maybe they just popped out smarter and more full of curiosity now.

At their age, Eve had barely started real school. Had she been curious? she wondered. Maybe, maybe, but she hadn’t been one to ask questions. Not then, not for quite a while. For the first eight years of her life asking too many questions meant a fist in the face. Maybe worse.

Better to stay quiet, watch, figure it out than to ask and end up bloody.

Something was going on in that house, Eve thought. Something was just a little tilted in that perfect space. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions anymore. But she needed to figure out the right ones to ask.

She ate something that might have once wished to be chicken inside cardboard pretending to be bread. And ran a series of probabilities.

She was fishing and knew it, following various lines of logic-and one knotted string of pure instinct.

The computer told her that her instinct was crap, but that didn’t surprise her. Then she ran a hypothetical, omitting certain details, and the computer called her a genius.

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?”

She sat back. It was, of course, bullshit to run a hypothetical or probability without including known details or evidence. But she’d satisfied her curiosity.

Intrigued, she copied it all to Mira and asked for an opinion. She sent copies to her home unit, then gathered what she wanted to take home before she headed out to the bull pen and Peabody’s desk.

“I’m going to work from home.”

“It’s nearly end of shift.”

“And your point is?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I’m swinging by the school on the way. Just want another feel of the place. Tell McNab I want individual D-and-C’s from the Straffos’ dug deep. Any shadow, any smudges, I want to know.”

“Um, day off tomorrow. Yours, mine, and ours. Valentine’s Day, too.”

“Jesus. Consider yourself on call, Detective. So be prepared to throw something over whatever embarrassing outfit you’re going to put yourself into for McNab’s perverted delight if and when I tag you.”

Peabody gave a sober nod. “I have a trench coat reserved for that purpose, sir.”

Eve considered it. “I’m forced to say: Ick. You don’t head out until you get your report written and copied to my unit here and at home. I want your notes, too. Impressions, opinions.”

“You’ve got something.”

“Dunno. Between bouts of physical expression I can’t bear thinking about, take another look at both vic’s student files-grades, discussions, parental meetings, the works.”

“And I’d be looking for?”

“Let me know when you find it,” Eve said as she strode out.

She took the glides down to the main level, cast a couple of wistful glances at the vending machine. She wanted a Pepsi, but didn’t want to interact with the damn machines.

They hated her.

Rather than squeeze onto the elevator, she jogged down the steps to the garage, pulling out her ’link as she went.

She hit Caro first, and Roarke’s ever-efficient admin sent out a warm smile. “Lieutenant, how are you?”

“Good enough. Can-” She stopped herself from shooting right to the point. How-are-yous required a how-are-you-doing back. She kept forgetting those sort of details. “How’re you doing?”

“Just fine. I want to thank you for the use of your house in Mexico. Reva and I had a lovely mother and daughter weekend there. It’s just beautiful, and the weather couldn’t have been better. It was a perfect break from the winter for both of us.”

“Ah.” She didn’t know Roarke had given Caro and her daughter a couple of days in Mexico. “That’s good.” Now she had to ask about Reva, didn’t she? “So, how’s Reva doing?”

“Really well, thank you. She’s dating again-casually. It’s nice to see her enjoying herself again. I’m sure you’d like to speak to Roarke.”

Whew, she thought, navigated the chatty session of the program with no casualties. “If he’s tied up, you could just pass him a message whenever.”

“I’ll check.”

Just a little worn out by the ’link socializing, Eve got into her vehicle as Caro switched her to blue screen hold. Moments later, it was Roarke’s blue eyes that blazed on screen.

“Lieutenant.”

God, he was pretty. “Sorry to interrupt any world domination meeting.”

“That was this morning. We’re finishing up satellite and planetoid dominations just now.”

“Okay, then. I’m just heading out, going to swing by the school.”

“For?”

“Not sure. I just want another run-through on scene.”

His smile was easy and still made her insides curl. “Would you like some company?”

“What about satellite and planetoid domination?”

“I believe we have that under control. I’ll meet you there.”

“Good. Great.” In fact, it was perfect. “See you.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Damn stupid traffic,” she muttered as she fought her way into it. “What?”

“I love you.”

Okay, that was perfect. “I heard that somewhere. There’s a rumor going around I love you, too. Goddamn maxibus. Gotta go.”

She stuffed her ’link back in her pocket and enjoyed the armed combat of driving uptown. Once there, she scouted out then fought for a parking spot, another type of warfare, then walked the block and a half to the school.

He was getting out of a car when she was half a block away. Tall and rangy, long black coat billowing in the wind. As the car cruised off-he’d have arranged that so they could drive home together-he turned. Just as he’d done the very first time. Turned as if he sensed her, knew she was there, and latched those wild blue eyes on her face.

Just like the first time, the very first time, something inside her leaped.

It wasn’t her style, it wasn’t her way, but there were times, she thought, you just went with the moment. She strode right up to him, gripped the front of his coat in her fists and took his mouth with hers. Strong and hot and real.

He drew her in. He always drew her in. So they stood, drenched in the heat of the kiss while the cold blew around them, and New York’s irritable traffic bitched and complained.

“There she is,” he murmured.

“Yeah, here I am.” She drew back. “You’ve got a great mouth, ace. I happen to know your hands are pretty damn good, too. Get us in.”

He lifted his brow. “Are you suggesting I break into the school, Lieutenant?”

“I’m ordering it, if you’re standing as expert consultant, civilian.”

“I love when you pull rank. Stirs me up.”

“A wink and a smile stirs you up, pal. Give it a shot.”

He strolled up to the door, removing a small palm device from his inside coat pocket. After keying in a code, he aimed it at the security plate, engaged.

The locks gave up without a whimper of protest.

“Showoff.”

“Well, I did have a minute or so to look over the system last night. And in anticipation of orders, programmed a little bypass.” He opened the door, gestured smoothly. “After you.”

“Security?”

“Please.”

She shrugged, stepped in. “Interior security? Log-in scan?”

He glanced up at the scanner, keyed another code into his palm unit. “There you go. As you could have done the same with your master, I assume you wanted to test how simple it might be to slide into the place without authorization or detection.”

“Something like that. Say someone didn’t have your sort of education. How much trouble would it be to do what you just did?”

“More, certainly, as I was top of my class, so to speak. But it’s not a complicated system. Your average going-out-of-business-endlessly sale shop on Fifth would have better.”

He tapped her side and her sidearm under the coat. “However, the fact that you’re carrying is a bit more problematic. I’ll need a minute to shut down the weapon scan.”

“Go ahead.” That was just for convenience, she thought. It wasn’t smuggling in a stunner or blaster that concerned her.

“Scanner wouldn’t detect poison. Why should it?” she mused. “Pressure syringe, same thing. Killer or killers could have walked right in, at any time, with both.”

“You’re clear.” He stood a moment, scanning the area. “So what are we doing here?”

“Not sure.”

“Not, I imagine-unfortunately-to play teacher-keeps-the-naughty-student-after-school.”

“No,” she agreed. “Empty schools are even creepier than when they’re otherwise.” She slid her hands into her pockets as she walked.

“The ghosts of students past. Bloody prisons, really.”

She laughed, gave him a friendly elbow bump. “Yes!”

“Not that I spent a great deal of time inside places like this. At least not until Summerset took charge of me. He was rather insistent about attendance.”

“The state-run schools I was stuck in weren’t like this. None of this air of privilege, and the security was a hell of a lot tighter. I hated them.”

She stopped by an open classroom door. One of the cells-or so it had seemed to her-of the prison. “First few years I just felt scared and stupid, then later it was ‘Okay I get all this. When can I get out?’”

“And once you did, you jumped right into the police academy.”

“That was different.”

“Because it was a choice.” He touched her arm, just a brush of understanding. “And a need.”

“Yeah. And nobody in the academy gave a shit if you recognized a dangling participle or could write a brilliant essay on the sociopolitical ramifications of the Urban Wars. Then there was geometry. That’s sort of the thing, though.”

“Geometry’s the thing?”

“Lines and spaces and crap. Area, radius, blah, blah. It gave me a headache. But I’m thinking geometry. The distance, the angles, the shortest route between two points.” She started up the stairs.

“First vic’s classroom. That’s the-Shit, what’s the middle of the thing.”

“Which thing?”

“The middle of the space.” She lifted her hand, fashioned a space in the air.

“Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it? If you’re meaning a circle, it might be simply the center. Or, staying with a circle as the space, you may mean the central angle, and that’s the angle whose vertex is at the center.”

She stopped walking atvertex to stare at him.

“Then, as every central angle cuts the circle in two arcs, there’d be the minor arc-the smaller, which would be less than one hundred and eighty degrees, and the major, the larger, which is always more.”

“Jesus.”

He grinned, shrugged. “I always liked geometry.”

“Geek.” She scowled down the hallway. “Now I forgot what I was doing.”

“Or you may be after the tangent,” he said, unconcerned. “The point of tangency would be the point where a line intersects the circle at precisely one point, and one only.”

“Shut up.”

“You asked. Of course, your shape might be a triangle, say, and in that case-”

“I’m going to draw down on you in five flat seconds and stun you senseless.”

“You know what I liked even more than geometry? Finding the blind spots on the security cams,” he said. “Which, in fact, geometry helped me with. Then snagging some sweet young thing, and-”

He snagged her, whipped her around, back to the wall, and, grinning, kissed her lavishly.

His mouth managed just what geometry did. It fuzzed her mind.

“Work now, tonsil hockey later.”

“You romantic fool. Now then, I think I understand what you’re trying to figure out, and it’s more to do with intersections and betweenness.”

She actually had to press her fingers under her eye to still a twitch. “‘Betweenness’ can’t possibly be an actual word.”

“It is, in fact, in math language. And I think it would be your first victim’s classroom. That’s the point between the others. And also, I’d think, where your lines intersect, in the first theorem.”

“Let’s just leave the higher math out of it because it’s going to separate my mind from my body, and I’d rather save that for sex. Foster’s classroom.” She gestured. “Which was empty for at least fifty minutes, twice that day-before class and during his fourth period, giving the killer ample opportunity to doctor the go-cup, or simply replace it. I’m going to push on the replacement angle tonight. Maybe get lucky there. It was inscribed with his name. Anyway…”

She walked over, uncoded the seal, opened the door. “Other classes are in session, including the second vic’s. Here.” She walked over, opened the door on Williams’s classroom. During the second fifty-minute segment when Foster’s classroom was unoccupied, Williams leaves his classroom for about ten minutes. Used the bathroom, he claimed.”

“Which gives you a segment line, from point to point. Opportunity and motive.”

“Yeah. Means is yet to be proven. I can’t tie the poison to Williams. How’d he get it, why would he choose it? Meanwhile, there’s some foot traffic. There’s a janitor in the students’ bathroom-male. He’s clean and clear. No record, no motive, excellent work record, married, father of three, and two grandkids who attend this school.”

“But he’s another intersection.”

“Yeah, yeah. He sees, and is seen by Mosebly, Hallywell, Williams, and Dawson. Then by Rayleen Straffo and Melodie Branch. Each pass by at some point, with Dawson, um, intersecting again with the two students. On the lower level, Hallywell intersects with two other students.”

“There’s also your unknown.” Following her equation, Roarke added to the data. “The possibility someone not identified ran a parallel line. A segment that didn’t intersect with another segment, but arrived at your center.”

“The outsider. Allika or Oliver Straffo, for instance, both of whom could-with forethought and planning-have bypassed the security check, arrived at the center when Foster was out-known information-doctored or replaced, and left. Under six minutes to come in, walk up, go in, do it, walk out. I’ve timed it.”

She stopped again, turned a circle. Puffed out a breath. “It’s possible it could have been done by one of them without being seen. Low risk, as if they had been seen, their kid goes here. Any handy excuse or reason to be on site would have passed without a blink.”

“But they weren’t seen.”

“No, they weren’t. Straffo was in his office off and on that morning, door closed. Did he slip out, get over here, and do it? Possibly-very tight, but possibly. Allika was shopping. Same deal. However, Allikawas seen on the day Williams was killed. Signed in, hung around.”

Again, he followed her reasoning. “If she decided to eliminate teachers, why run the parallel line with one and intersect on the other?”

“Exactly. I’ve got other reasons for and against, but that one sticks on me. Nobody’d have thought anything about it if she’d come into the school the day Foster was killed. Any excuse would’ve worked.”

She crossed to Foster’s classroom. Saw him again, lying on the floor in pools of his own waste. “These killings aren’t passionate and impulsive, and they’re pretty damn smart. Smarter for her-Allika-to have come in clean. I don’t like her for it, and she’s too emotional to have pulled this off. Straffo, now, he’s got the control and the focus, but not his wife. And still…”

“Something bothers you about her.”

“A few things. But I need to turn it around in my head some before I lay it out. Meanwhile, Foster comes back, goes in, closes his door for his daily lunch/lesson-planning deal. Drinks really bad hot chocolate. If he’d got medical attention in the first few minutes, he might have made it. But the killer’s banking on it going as it did.”

She stepped in for a moment, and again saw Foster. Alive now, going through his habitual routine. “He sits. Shoots off a cheerful little e-mail to his wife, gets working on the pop quiz he has planned. He drinks, he dies.”

“Painfully,” Roarke murmured, knowing what she was seeing.

“Painfully. Then the two kids, sprung from their study session on the main level, come up, see the janitor, speak with Dawson, show their passes, go to the classroom.”

“Question? Why is it Dawson doesn’t seem to blip on your radar?”

“No motive, no sense, no buzz. Teacher for twenty-odd years, fifteen right here. No current around him. He’s the…What is it? He’s the tortoise type.”

“Slow and steady.”

“Yeah.”

“Follow-up. You’re veering well away from Principal Mosebly, though you’ve shown she had motive.”

“Yeah.” Raking her fingers through her hair, Eve walked out of the classroom again. “I could be way off on her, but I can’t see her for it either. Murders on her sanctified ground, under her watch? It’s a nightmare for her, worse than having her sexual indiscretion revealed. She’s hemorrhaging students out of here, getting slammed with unpleasant media. Maybe she did it, maybe she thought she could spin it all and weather the damage. But it doesn’t ring. Still like to fry her for crying rape. Bitch.”

She frowned. “Where was I?”

“The two girls go to the classroom.”

“Right. If they’d come up fifteen minutes earlier, Foster’s got a chance. Instead, he’s gone and they run out screaming. Dawson runs over, sees what’s happened, calls the principal.”

“A fairly predictable series of events.”

“It is, isn’t it? Now we’ll take Williams.”

She led the way downstairs, through the fitness center, into the pool area.

“Not bad,” Roarke commented.

“Yeah, a pretty sweet setup for a kid or a teacher. In here, Williams intersects with Mosebly. Allika Straffo is on premises-no intersections reported-then, according to her statement, she went looking for Williams, and-using your terms-ran a parallel line with him and Mosebly, overhearing their argument.”

From where she stood, Eve could see the exits, entrances into the pool area. Staff. Students.

“She leaves, Mosebly leaves, more intersections with her and Hallywell, Dawson. Dawson comes in to see Williams, and for the second time in a week finds himself a dead body.”

“Quite the coincidence.”

“Yeah, yeah. But he and the nurse, who was also called to both scenes, they’re peripheral. Someone else reached the center of both these circles, undetected.” Eve stared down at the surface of the water. “Both times.”

“You’re sure it was the same killer?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. Pretty sure I know who the killer is, but I don’t have the why. I have to have the why on this one.”

“Well now, share.”

She nearly did, then shook her head. “Not yet, okay? I’d like to see what a geek like you comes up with without prejudicing the, ah, theorem. Want to talk it over with Mira, too. But that’s all gut right now. I’m going to look at the solid first, and track the go-cup angle.”

“Are we going shopping?”

“Just going to check a few of the places that sell that make and model, in a ten-block radius.”

“You said radius. Does that make you a geek?”

“Smart-ass.”

He took her hand. “That’s more like it.”

It didn’t blow the investigation open for her. Like the majority of cop work it was routine-repetitious and tedious.

She spoke to clerks, to managers, to the clueless and the chirpy. The item in question was a popular model, not the cheapest or the priciest. A good value, she was told endlessly. Practical, attractive, and hard-wearing.

“We had to order in another shipment two weeks before Christmas,” Eve was told by an eager-to-help assistant manager. “Great stocking stuffer or emergency gift, and we had them on sale. Couldn’t keep them on the shelf. We’re still selling them briskly. Valentine’s Day. Free inscription inside a heart, or with heart motif.”

“Adorable. You’ve got records. I’m interested in one of these models inscribed to ‘Craig.’” She spelled it out.

“Sure, I’ll look it up. If they went credit or debit, we’d have a record. Cash, we wouldn’t. Most people don’t do cash because once they come in, they end up buying multiple items.”

“Uh-huh.” Eve glanced around, noticed that Roarke was roaming, browsing, examining. All the things that people who actually liked to shop ended up doing.

“I’m really sorry.” And the guy actually looked it. “We don’t have a sale of that model-or any other-with an inscription added that says ‘Craig’-any spelling-during the last thirty days.”

“Go back another thirty.”

“Oh. Um.” He looked distressed now. “That’ll take me a few minutes, and on the main unit in the back, since I’d have to go back into last year. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Done. I’ll wait.” She turned now and saw that Roarke wasn’t just shopping, he was buying. She crossed the store, winding around displays. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making a purchase.”

“How? Why?” It must be a kind of sickness, she decided. “You already own six of everything.”

He only smiled, and took the bag from the clerk. “Thank you. And now,” he said to Eve, “it appears I have more of everything. Any luck?”

“No. Still checking. It was always going to come down to cash. Killer thinks clearly. Not going to leave a paper trail. It’s easy to breeze into one of these places, buy something, add the fee for inscription, pass some paper money, and walk out. Nobody’s going to remember you.”

The clerk came back, dripping apology. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t find what you’re looking for. I can ask around, see if any of the clerks remember.”

“Yeah, great. Thanks. You can contact me if you find out anything.” She dug out a card, passed it over.

“That’s one to cross off,” she said when they were outside. “Had to be done, though.”

“Here.” He took out a pair of gloves from the shopping bag. “To replace the ones you’ve lost since Christmas.”

“I haven’t lost them.” Why was she always losing them? “They’re just somewhere else.”

“Of course. These can go on your hands. And these”-he tapped the bag-“will go in your vehicle to replace the ones on your hands once you lose those.”

“And when I lose those?”

“Back to square one. Now, should we go out to dinner, or go back to work?”

“We could eat dinner while we work.”

“How strangely that sort of thing suits us.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll drive.”

Since she’d picked the place for takeout, she let him pick the meal. She should’ve known it would be fish. Maybe it came from being born on an island, though she knew it was more likely he picked it because it was good for her.

Still, it was tasty, as was the bed of spicy rice that almost disguised the vegetables mixed in it. Besides, it washed down just fine with a crisp glass of white.

She told him about the search at the Straffos’ penthouse. This was what she wanted from him now, impressions, comments, insights. Telling him what she knew, what she’d seen, heard, observed. And for now, leaving out the seed of certainty planted dead center of her gut.

“Sad,” he said.

“What is?”

“Who. Straffo’s wife. That’s how she strikes me. Keeping everyone’s records and schedules with her own-needs to know, doesn’t she, where everyone is, what they’re doing. Wouldn’t want to have her own schedule, interests, impulses conflict with theirs. Then there’s her memorial box.”

“Memorial. I thought memory.”

“It’s both, isn’t it? To keep his memory fresh for her, and to memorialize him. For herself. Just for her. That’s sad. It must be a terrible thing for a mother. Then you said she hid some of her meds. Doesn’t want her husband to know she’s taking them. Doesn’t want to-what, upset, disappoint, worry him? So she keeps her little secrets.”

“Yeah, she does,” Eve agreed. “She’s got secrets.”

“And you think they apply to these murders? How?”

“Keeping the status quo is vital to her.” Because visuals helped, Eve brought Allika’s photo ID onto the wall screen. “She broke it off with Williams. Betrayed her husband, sure.” Split-screened Allika’s image with Oliver Straffo’s. “But in addition she rocked her own boat. That spooked her. She needs those waters calm again. Still, I don’t think they ever are. Not inside her anyway. It’s pretense. So she needs her chemical boosts.”

“I don’t see how that connects to your investigation.”

“Everything connects. She loses a kid.” Now, Eve added a third image, the innocent and doomed little boy.

“He’s charming, isn’t he?” Roarke commented.

“Yeah. He’s got a look. So does Allika. Hers is like before and after, and that’s how it strikes me in that house. You can see it in the pictures. In their eyes. They’re wounded, walking wounded, but they get through it. His way, her way. Now she stumbles, has this affair. He knows it, or close enough. I think he knew she ended it, and he doesn’t confront her. Keep up the pretense, the status quo. Already lost a kid, can’t put themselves or their surviving child through a divorce.”

She added Rayleen’s photo so the screen held four images. “Now there are two murders, slapped back to back and right in their faces. She’s shaking and scared. He’s closed up and angry.”

“And the girl?”

Eve looked at the screen. “She’s fascinated.”

“Ah. Children can be cold-blooded. Death’s other for them. They’re so far from it. Innocent enough to believe it can’t touch them, so it’s compelling.”

“Is it innocence?”

“It’s childhood, I suppose.” He topped off her wine, then his own. “So very different from yours or mine.”

“Yeah. Different by a long shot. Roarke?”

“Hmm.”

She started to speak, then changed her mind. “I wonder if either of us can really be objective about a family unit like that.” She gestured toward the screen. “But I know there are answers in that house. I’m going to find them. Each one of them, each segment of that square that became a triangle. Mother, father, daughter.” She drew a triangle in the air. “Each knows something. Something that connects them and keeps them separate at the same time. I’m going to have to take each segment separately to figure it out.”