Rapture in Death

CHAPTER FOUR

Eve awoke with the cat stretched over her chest and the bedside 'link beeping. Dawn was just breaking. The light through the sky window was thin and gray from the storm rolling in with morning. With her eyes half closed, she reached out to answer.

"Block video," she ordered, clearing sleep from her voice. " Dallas."

"Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Suspicious death, Five oh oh two Madison Avenue, Unit Thirty-eight hundred. See resident Foxx, Arthur. Code four."

"Dispatch, received. Contact Peabody, Officer Delia, to assist. My authorization."

"Confirmed. Transmission terminated."

"Code four?" Roarke had shifted the cat and was sitting up in bed, lazily stroking Galahad into feline ecstasy.

"It means I have time for a shower and coffee." Eve didn't spot a robe handy, so she walked toward the bathroom naked. "There's a uniform on the scene," she called out. She stepped into the shower unit, rubbing her gritty eyes. "Full power all jets, one hundred two degrees."

"You'll boil."

"I like to boil." She let out an enormous sigh of pleasure as pulsing jets of steamy water battered her from all sides. Tapping a glass block, she dispensed a palm full of dark green liquid soap. By the time she stepped out of the shower, she was awake.

Her brow lifted as she saw Roarke standing in the doorway, holding a cup of coffee. "For me?"

"Part of the service."

"Thanks." She took the cup into the drying tube, sipping while warm air swirled around her. "What were you doing, watching me shower?"

"I like to watch you. Something about long, lean women when they're wet and naked." He stepped into the shower himself and called for sixty-eight degrees.

It made Eve shiver. She couldn't understand why a man with all the luxuries in the world at his fingertips would actually choose cold showers. She opened the drying tube and combed her fingers through her unstyled cap of hair. She used some of the face glop that Mavis was always pushing at her, brushed her teeth.

"You don't have to get up because I am."

"I'm up," Roarke said simply and chose a heated towel rather than the drying tube. "Do you have time for breakfast?"

Eve watched his reflection in the mirror: gleaming hair, gleaming skin. "I'll catch something later."

He hooked the towel around his waist, shook back his dripping mane of hair, cocked his head. "Yeah?"

"I guess I like looking at you, too," she muttered and went into the bedroom to dress for death.

Street traffic was light. Airbuses rumbled overhead through the sizzling rain, carting night shift workers home, dragging day shifters to work. Billboards were quiet and the ubiquitous glida grills and carts with their offerings of food and drink were already setting up for the day. Smoke billowed through the vents in streets and sidewalks from the underground world of transportation and retail. The air steamed.

Eve headed across town, making good time.

The section of Madison where a body waited for her was pocked with exclusive boutiques and silvery spears of buildings fashioned to house those who could afford to shop there. The skywalks were glassed in to separate the clientele from the elements and from the noise that would begin to boom within an hour or two.

Eve passed a taxi with a lone passenger. The elegant blonde wore a glittery jacket, a sparkling rainbow of color in the dingy light. Licensed companion, Eve mused, heading home after an all-nighter. The wealthy could afford to buy fancy sex along with their fancy clothes.

Eve swung into an underground garage at the scene, flashed her badge for the security post. It scanned it, scanned her, then the light blinked from red to green and flashed the number of the empty space assigned to her.

It was, of course, at the far end of the facility from the elevator. Cops, she thought with resignation as she hoofed it, aren't given optimum spaces.

Eve recited the number of the unit into the speaker box and was whisked up.

There had been a time, not so long before, when she would have been impressed with the sumptuous foyer on the thirty-eighth floor, with its pool of scarlet hibiscus and bronze statuary. That was before she'd entered Roarke's world. She scanned the small, tinkling fountains flanking the entrance and realized that it was highly possible that her husband owned the building.

She spotted the uniform guarding the door of 3800, flipped up her badge.

"Lieutenant." The cop shifted subtly to attention, sucking in her stomach. "My partner's inside with the deceased's housemate. Mr. Foxx, on discovering his companion's body, called for an ambulance. We responded in addition, as per procedure. The ambulance is on hold, sir, until you clear the scene."

"Is it secured?"

"It is now." Her gaze flicked toward the door. "We weren't able to get much out of Foxx, sir. He's a bit hysterical. I can't be sure what he might have disturbed – other than the body."

"He moved the body?"

"No, sir. That is, it's still in the tub, but he attempted to, ah, revive the deceased. Had to be in shock to attempt it. There's enough blood in there to swim in. Slashed wrists," she explained. "From a visual confirmation, he'd been dead at least an hour before his housemate discovered the body."

Eve took a firmer grip on her field kit. "Has the ME been notified?"

"On the way, sir."

"Fine. Clear Officer Peabody in when she arrives, and continue to stand. Open it," she added and waited for the uniform to slide her master key in the slot. The door slid open into the wall. Eve immediately heard the hard, ragged sobs of terrible grief.

"He's been like that since we arrived," the uniform murmured. "Hope you can tranq him soon."

Saying nothing, Eve walked in, letting the door slide shut and lock at her back. The entranceway was elaborate in black and white marble. Spiraling columns were draped in some sort of flowering vine, and overhead, a black glass chandelier dripped in five ornate tiers.

Through the portico was a living area that followed the theme. Black leather sofas, white floors, ebony wood tables, white lamps. Drapes striped in black and white were drawn shut, but lights showered from the ceiling, spotlighted up from the floor.

An amusement screen was switched off but hadn't been slipped back into its recess. Glossy white stairs angled up to a second floor, which was ringed with white banisters, atrium style. Lush green ferns hung in enameled pots from the lofted ceiling.

Money might drip, she mused, but death had no respect for it. It was a club without a class system.

The sounds of grief echoed and drew her into a small den lined with antique books and cushy with deep chairs the color of good burgundy.

Sunk into one was a man. His handsome face was pale gold and ravaged from tears. His hair was gold as well, the glint of new coin, and was tufted in spikes from his hands. He wore a white silk robe that was spotted and smeared with drying blood. His feet were bare, and his hands were studded with rings that sparkled as his fingers trembled. There was a tattoo of a black swan on his left ankle.

The uniform who was sitting miserably beside the man glanced over at Eve, started to speak.

Eve shook her head quickly, keeping her badge in plain sight. She gestured toward the ceiling, cocking her head in question.

He nodded, jerked his thumb up, then shook his head.

Eve slipped back out. She wanted to see the body, view the scene before she dealt with the witness.

There were several rooms off the second floor. Still, it was simple enough to find her way. She simply followed the trail of blood. She stepped into a bedroom. Here the scheme was soft greens and blues, so that it felt like floating underwater. The bed was an oblong of blue satin sheets, mountained with pillows.

There was statuary here as well, of the classic nude variety. Drawers were built into the walls, giving it an uncluttered – and to Eve – an unlived-in appearance. The ocean blue carpet was soft as a cloud and spotted with blood.

She followed the trail into the master bath. Death didn't shock her, but it appalled her, and she knew it always would: the waste of it, the violence and cruelty of it. But she lived with it too much to be shocked, even by this.

Blood had spurted, showered, streamed on gleaming tiles of ivory and seafoam green. It had fountained over glass, pooled over the mirrored floor from the gaping wound in the wrist of the hand that hung limply over the lip of a huge clear-sided tub.

The water inside was a dark, nasty pink, and the metallic smell of blood hung in the air. Music was playing, something with strings – perhaps a harp. Fat white candles had been lighted and still burned at both the foot and the head of the long oval tub.

The body that lay in that cloudy pink water had its head resting on a gilt-edged bath pillow, its gaze lifted and fixed on the feathery tails of a fern that hung from the mirrored ceiling. He was smiling, as if he'd been desperately amused to watch himself die.

It didn't shock her, but she sighed as she coated her hands and feet with clear seal, engaged her recorder, and carried her kit inside to stand over the body.

Eve had recognized him. Naked, bled almost dry, and smiling up at his own reflection was the renowned defense attorney S. T. Fitzhugh.

"Salvatori's going to be very disappointed in you, Counselor," she murmured as she got to work.

Eve had taken a sample of the bloody bathwater, done her initial scan to estimate time of death, bagged the deceased's hands, and recorded the scene when Peabody appeared, slightly out of breath at the doorway.

"I'm sorry, sir. I had some trouble getting uptown.

"It's all right." She passed Peabody the ivory-handled buck knife she'd secured in clear plastic. "Looks like he did it with this. It's an antique, I'd guess. Collector's item. We'll run it for prints."

Peabody tucked the knife in her evidence kit, then narrowed her eyes. "Lieutenant, isn't that – "

"Yeah, it's Fitzhugh."

"Why would he kill himself?"

"We haven't determined that he did. Never make assumptions, Officer," she said mildly. "First rule. Call in the sweepers, Peabody, and let's get the scene tagged. We can release the body to the ME. I'm done with it for now." Eve stepped back with blood smearing her sealed hands. "I want you to take a prelim from the two uniforms who responded while I talk to Foxx."

Eve glanced back at the body, shook her head. "That's just the way he'd grin at you in court when he figured he'd tripped you up. The son of a bitch." Still studying the body, she used the cleaner from her kit to remove the blood, tucked the soiled wipe into a bag as well. "Tell the ME I want toxicology ASAP."

She left Peabody and followed the blood trail back downstairs.

Foxx was down to choking, whimpering sobs now. The uniform looked ridiculously relieved when Eve reappeared. "Wait for the ME and my adjutant outside, Officer. Give Officer Peabody your report. I'll speak with Mr. Foxx now."

"Yes, sir." With almost unseemly delight, he fled the room.

"Mr. Foxx, I'm Lieutenant Dallas. I'm sorry for your loss." Eve located the button that released the drapes, pushed it to let watery light into the room. "You need to talk to me. You need to tell me what happened here."

"He's dead." Foxx's voice was faintly musical, accented. Lovely. "Fitz is dead. I don't know how that can be. I don't know how I can go on."

Everyone goes on. Eve thought. There's little choice. She sat and put her recorder on the table in plain sight. "Mr. Foxx, it would help us both if you talked to me now. I'm going to give you the standard caution. It's just a matter of procedure."

She recited the revised Miranda while his sobs trickled off, he lifted his head, and aimed swollen, red-rimmed golden eyes at her.

"Do you think I killed him? Do you think I could hurt him?"

"Mr. Foxx – "

"I loved him. We've been together for twelve years. He was my life."

You still have your life, she thought. You just don't know it yet. "Then you'll want to help me do my job. Tell me what happened."

"He – he's been having trouble sleeping lately. Doesn't like to take tranqs. He can usually read, listen to music, spend an hour with VR or one of his games, whatever, to relax. This case he's working on worried him."

"The Salvatori case."

"Yes, I believe, yes." Foxx wiped at his eyes with a damp and bloodied sleeve. "We didn't discuss his cases in any depth. There was privilege, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm a nutritionist. That's how we met. Fitz came to me twelve years ago for help with his diet. We became friends, we became lovers, then we simply became."

She would need to know all of that, but for the moment, she wanted to see the events leading up to that last bath. "He's been having trouble sleeping," she prompted.

"Yes. He's often plagued with insomnia. He gives so much to his clients. They prey on his mind. I'm accustomed to him getting up in the middle of the night and going into another room to program a game or doze in front of the view screen. Sometimes he'd take a warm bath." Foxx's already ravaged face blanched. "Oh God."

The tears started again, flowing hotly down his cheeks. Eve took a quick look around and spotted a small serving droid in the corner of the room. "Bring Mr. Foxx some water," she ordered, and the little droid scooted away to comply.

"Is that what happened?" she continued. "Did he get up in the middle of the night?"

"I don't even remember." Foxx lifted his hands, let them fall. "I sleep soundly, never have a bit of trouble. We'd gone to bed just before midnight, watched some of the late news, had a brandy. I woke early. I tend to."

"What time was that?"

"Perhaps five, five fifteen. We both like early starts, and it's my habit to program the morning meal personally. I saw that Fitz wasn't in bed, assumed he'd had a bad night and that I'd find him downstairs or in one of the spare bedrooms. Then I went into the bath, and I saw him. Oh God. Oh God, Fitz. All the blood. It was like a nightmare."

His hand pressed against his mouth, all glittering rings and trembles. "I ran over, I beat on his chest, tried to revive him. I suppose I went a little mad. He was dead. I could see he was dead; still, I tried to pull him out of the water, but he's a very big man, and I was shaking. Sick." He dropped his hand from mouth to stomach, pressed. "I called for an ambulance."

She'd lose him if she couldn't manage to rein him in. Tranquing him wasn't an option until she had the facts. "I know this is difficult for you, Mr. Foxx. I'm sorry we have to do this now, but it's easier, believe me, if we can."

"I'm all right." He reached for the glass of water atop the droid. "I want to get it over."

"Can you tell me his frame of mind last night? You said he was worried about a case."

"Worried, yes, but not depressed. There was a cop he couldn't shake on the stand, and it irritated him." He took a gulp of water, then another.

Eve decided it was best not to mention she was the cop who had irritated him.

"And there were a couple of other cases pending that he was plotting out the defense for. His mind was often too busy for sleep, you see."

"Did he receive any calls, make any calls?"

"Certainly, both. He often brought work home with him. Last night he spent a couple of hours in his office upstairs. He arrived home about five thirty, worked until nearly eight. We had dinner."

"Did he mention anything that was troubling him besides the Salvatori case?"

"His weight." Foxx smiled a little. "Fitz hated to put on an extra pound. We discussed him increasing his exercise program, perhaps having some body adjustment work done when he had the time. We watched a comedy on screen in the living room, then went to bed, as I told you."

"Did you argue?"

"Argue?"

"You have bruises on your arm, Mr. Foxx. Did you and Mr. Fitzhugh fight last night?"

"No." He paled even more, and his eyes glittered with the threat of another bout of weeping. "We never fought physically. Certainly we argued from time to time. People do. I – I suppose I might have gotten the bruises on the tub when I was – when I tried to – "

"Did Mr. Fitzhugh have a relationship with anyone else other than yourself?"

Now those swollen eyes went cool. "If you mean did he have outside lovers, he did not. We were committed to each other."

"Who owns this unit?"

Foxx's face went rigid, and his voice was cold. "It was put in our joint names ten years ago. It belonged to Fitz."

And now it belongs to you, Eve thought. "I would assume Mr. Fitzhugh was a wealthy man. Do you know who inherits?"

"Other than charitable bequests, I would inherit. Do you think I would kill him for money?" There was disgust in his tone now, rather than horror. "What right do you have to come into my home at such a time and ask me such horrible questions?"

"I need to know the answers, Mr. Foxx. If I don't ask them here, I'll have to ask them at the station house. I believe this is more comfortable for you. Did Mr. Fitzhugh collect knives?"

"No." Foxx blinked, then went pasty. "I do. I have a large collection of antique blades. Registered," he added quickly. "They're duly registered."

"Do you have an ivory-handled knife, straight blade, about six inches long in your collection?"

"Yes, it's nineteenth century, from England." His breath began to hitch. "Is that what he used? He used one of my knives to -? I didn't see. I only saw him. Did he use one of my knives?"

"I've taken a knife into evidence, Mr. Foxx. We'll run tests. I'll give you a receipt for it."

"I don't want it. I don't want to see it." He buried his face in his hands. "Fitz. How could he have used one of my knives?"

He fell to weeping again. Eve heard the voices and hums from the next room and knew the sweepers had arrived. "Mr. Foxx." She rose. "I'm going to have one of the officers bring you some clothes. I'm going to ask that you stay here for a little while longer. Is there someone I can call for you?"

"No. No one. Nothing."

"I don't like it, Peabody," Eve muttered as they rode down to her car. "Fitzhugh gets up in the middle of an ordinary night, gets an antique knife, runs himself a bath. He lights the candles, puts on the music, then carves up his wrists. For no particular reason. Here's a man at the height of his career with a shit load of money, plush digs, clients beating down his door, and he just decides, 'What the hell, I think I'll die'?"

"I don't understand suicide. I guess I don't have the personality for big highs and lows."

Eve understood it. She'd even considered it briefly during her stint in state-run homes – and before that, in the dark time before that, when death had seemed a release from hell.

That was why she couldn't accept it for Fitzhugh. "There's no motivation here, at least none that shows yet. But we have a lover who collected knives, who was covered with blood, and who will inherit a sizable fortune."

"You're thinking maybe Foxx killed him." Peabody mulled it over when they reached garage level. "Fitzhugh's nearly twice his size. He wouldn't have gone without a fight, and there wasn't any sign of struggle."

"Signs can be erased," Eve muttered. "He had bruises. And if Fitzhugh was drugged or chemically impaired, he wouldn't have put up too much of a struggle. We'll see the tox report."

"Why do you want it to be a homicide?"

"I don't. I just want it to make sense, and the self-termination doesn't fit. Maybe Fitzhugh couldn't sleep; maybe he got up. Someone was using the relaxation room. Or it was made to seem so."

"I've never seen anything like that," Peabody mused, thinking back. "All those toys in one place. That big chair with all the controls, the wall screen, the autobar, the VR station, the mood tube. Ever use a mood tube, Lieutenant?"

"Roarke's got one. I don't like it. I'd rather have my moods come and go naturally than program them." Eve spotted the figure sitting on the hood of her car and hissed, "Like now, for example. I can feel my mood shifting. I think I'm about to be pissed off."

"Well, Dallas and Peabody, together again." Nadine Furst, top on-air reporter for Channel 75, slid gracefully from the car. "How was the honeymoon?"

"Private," Eve snapped.

"Hey, I thought we were pals." Nadine winked at Peabody.

"You didn't waste any time putting our little get-together on the air, pal."

" Dallas." Nadine spread her pretty hands. "You bag a killer and close a very public and intense case at your own bachelor party celebration, to which I was invited, it's news. The public not only has the right to know, they eat it up with a spoon. Ratings rocketed. Now look at this, you're barely back and right in the middle of something else big. What's the deal with Fitzhugh?"

"He's a dead man. I've got work to do, Nadine."

"Come on, Eve." Nadine plucked at Eve's sleeve. "After all we've been through together? Give me a nibble."

"Fitzhugh's clients had better start looking for another lawyer. That's all I've got to give you."

"Come on. Accident, homicide, what?"

"We're investigating," Eve said shortly and coded open her locks.

" Peabody?" But Peabody just grinned and shrugged her shoulders. "You know, Dallas, it's common knowledge that you and the dearly departed weren't fans of each other. The top sound bite after court yesterday was him referring to you as a violent cop who used her badge as a blunt instrument."

"It's a shame he won't be able to give you and your associates such catchy quotes anymore."

As Eve slammed the car door, Nadine leaned doggedly in the window. "So you give me one."

"S. T. Fitzhugh is dead. Police are investigating. Back off." Eve started the engine, torpedoed out of the slot so that Nadine had to dance back to save her toes. At Peabody 's chuckle, Eve slid a stony glance in her direction. "Something funny?"

"I like her." Peabody couldn't resist looking back, and she noted that Nadine was grinning. "So do you."

Eve smothered a chuckle. "There's no accounting for taste," she said and drove out into the rainy morning.

It had gone perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. It was an exciting, powerful feeling to know that you had the controls. The reports coming from various news agencies were all duly logged and recorded. Such matters required careful organization and were added to the small but satisfactorily growing pile of data discs.

It was such fun, and that was a surprise. Fun had certainly not been the prime motivator of the operation. But it was a delightful side effect.

Who would succumb next?

At the flick of a switch, Eve's face flashed onto a monitor, all pertinent data split-screened beside her. A fascinating woman. Birthplace and parents unknown. The abused child discovered hiding in an alley in Dallas, Texas, body battered, mind blanked. A woman who couldn't remember the early years of her own life. The years that formed the soul. Years when she had been beaten and raped and tormented.

What did that sort of life do to the mind? To the heart? To the person?

It had made the girl a social worker and had made Eve Dallas into a woman who had become a cop. The cop with the reputation for digging deep, and who had come into some notoriety the previous winter during the investigation of a sensitive and ugly case.

That was when she had met Roarke.

The computer hummed, sliced Roarke's face onto the screen. Such an intriguing couple. His background was no prettier than the cop's had been. But he'd chosen, at least initially, the other side of the law to make his mark. And his fortune.

Now they were a set. A set that could be destroyed on a whim.

But not yet. Not for some little time yet.

After all, the game had just begun.