Strangers In Death

9

EVE WALKED INTO THE HOUSE PREPARED FOR her daily snarkfest with Summerset, who would no doubt have something withering to say about the black eye she was brewing.

And he wasn’t there.

She stood for a moment in the empty foyer almost expecting him to materialize like smoke. Puzzled, she poked her head in the front parlor. Fresh flowers, nicely simmering fire-but no Bony Ass. Mild concern jabbed its way through the puzzlement. Maybe he’d caught something like what Feeney had-and there was no possible way she was playing nurse for the resident ghoul.

Still, if he was lying unconscious somewhere in a pool of fever sweat…Roarke would just have to get his ass home and deal with it.

She started to turn to the house comp to run a search for him, then the top cop bitch jumped like a rabbit when Summerset’s disembodied voice floated into the room.

“As I assume you might have some interest in your partner, you should be aware that Detective Peabody’s appearance on Now begins in approximately four minutes.”

“Fuck.” Eve breathed out the word, scowled at the intercom. “I know what time it is.” Or she did now. Annoyed, she started up the stairs, and his voice followed her.

“You’ll find cold bags in the top, far right drawer of your office kitchen.”

She hunched her shoulders-oh, she heard the smug satisfaction-and kept going. In her office she dumped the file bag on her desk, ordered the proper channel on screen. And because her cheek throbbed like a bitch in heat, retrieved and activated the stupid cold bag. With the blessed chill pressed against her face, she booted up her computer. Might as well deal with the next irritation on her list, she thought, and write up her report on the Times Square bust.

She’d barely begun when Now’s theme music boomed on. With half an ear, she listened to Nadine’s intro, spared a glance at the screen where the reporter’s cat’s eyes stared soberly back at her. Polished and powerful was the image, Eve supposed, with the streaky blonde hair, subtle jewelry, the good legs highlighted in a sleek copper suit. Of course, most of the viewing audience hadn’t seen Nadine dance half naked at a sex club after a pitcher of zombies.

She introduced Peabody as the dedicated, decorated police officer, and cited some of the more media-worthy cases she’d helped close. When the camera panned over to her partner, Eve pursed her lips.

Trina hadn’t gone freaky on her hair and face, Eve noted. She looked young, but not soft, so that was good. The suit, with its military cut, probably worked. And if you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t notice the utter terror in Peabody’s eyes.

“Don’t screw up,” Eve muttered.

Nadine led her in, softballing a few, and Eve could see Peabody begin to relax. Not too relaxed, Eve thought. She’s not your friend when you’re on air. Nobody’s your friend when you’re on air.

“Damn it, now I’m nervous.” And because of it, Eve rose and paced in front of the screen as she watched.

Handling it, handling it. Pursuing all leads, blah, blah, blah. Unable to comment on specifics, yada, yada. Peabody confirmed there had been no sign of forced entry-that was okay-and better, dropped in there were indications the security system had been compromised.

They circled around each other on the sexual nature of the murder. It was Nadine’s job to dig for details and Peabody’s duty to avoid giving them. Standing in front of the screen, Eve felt a quick little twist of pride. They both did nice work.

Enough got in, just enough to confirm the murder had sexual elements. But the tone, the message, transmitted clearly that Thomas A. Anders was the victim. A life had been taken.

Wrapping it up now, Eve realized. Thank Christ.

“Detective,” Nadine began, “Thomas Anders was a wealthy man, a strong, visible presence in social and business circles. His prominence must bring a certain pressure onto the investigation. How does that influence your work?”

“I…I guess I’d say murder equalizes. When a life’s taken, when one individual takes the life of another, there’s no class system, no prominence. Wealth, social standing, business, those might all go to motive. But they don’t change what was done, or what we as investigators do about it. We work the case the same way for Thomas Anders as we do for John Doe.”

“Still, some departmental pressure would be expected when the victim has prominence.”

“Actually, it’s the media that plays that kind of thing up. I don’t get it from my superiors. I wasn’t raised to judge a person’s worth by what he owns. And I was trained as a cop, as a detective, that our job is to stand for the dead-whoever they were in life.”

Eve nodded, dipped her hands into her pockets as Nadine cut away to end the segment and preview the next.

“Okay, Peabody, you can live.”

Ordering the screen off, Eve sat at her desk and got back to work.

There she was. Roarke stood in the office doorway, took a few enjoyable minutes to just watch her. She had such a sense of purpose, such a sense of focus on that purpose. It had appealed to him from the first instant he’d seen her, across a sea of people at a memorial for the dead. He found it compelling, the way those whiskey-colored eyes could go flat and cold as they were now. Cop’s eyes. His cop’s eyes.

She’d taken off her jacket, tossed it over a chair, and still wore her weapon harness. Which meant she’d come in the door and straight up. Armed and dangerous, he thought. It was a look, a fact of her, that continually aroused him. And her tireless and unwavering dedication to the dead-to the truth, to what was right-had, and always would, amaze him.

She’d set up her murder board, he noted, filling it with grisly photos, with reports, notes, names. And somewhere along the line in her day, she’d earned herself a black eye.

He’d long since resigned himself to finding the woman he loved bruised and bloody at any given time. Since she didn’t look exhausted or ill, a shiner was a relatively minor event.

She sensed him. He saw the moment she did, that slight change of body language. And when her eyes shifted from her comp screen to his, the cold focus became an easy, even casual warmth.

That, he thought, just that was worth coming home for.

“Lieutenant.” He crossed over, lifted her chin with his hand to study the bruising under her eye. “And so, who’d you piss off today then?”

“More like who pissed me off. He’s got more than one bruise.”

“Naturally. Who might that be?”

“Some mope named Clipper. I busted a snatch, switch, and drop.”

“Ah.” He cocked his head. “Why?”

“Good question. This kid named Tiko dragged me into it.”

“This sounds like a story. Do you want some wine to go with it?”

“Maybe.”

“Before you tell me the story, did you catch Peabody’s appearance?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

Across the room he contemplated the wine selection, made his choice for both of them. “I wouldn’t have missed it. I thought she did brilliantly.”

“She didn’t screw up.”

He laughed, opened the bottle. “High praise, Lieutenant. It’s you who trained her. The last thing she said. It’s you who trained her to stand for the dead, no matter who they were in life.”

“I trained her to work a case. She was already a cop.”

“As you were, when Feeney trained you. So it trickles down.” He walked back to hand her a glass of wine. “It’s a kind of inheritance, isn’t it?” With his own wine, he sat on the corner of her desk. “Now, about that eye.”

He listened, by turns amused and fascinated. “How old is this Tiko?”

“I don’t know. Seven, maybe eight. Short.”

“He must be very persuasive as well as short and seven.”

“He digs in, that’s for sure. It wasn’t much of a detour anyway.” She shrugged. “And you had to admire his logic, pretty much down the line. They’re stealing from potential customers, which cuts into his business. I’m a cop.”

“Top bitch cop.”

“Bet your ass. So as such I’m supposed to fix it.”

“As you did.” He brushed a finger over her cheek. “With minimal damage, I suppose.”

“Guy had skinny arms, but they were as long as a gorilla’s. Anyway, I figure the kid’s got a flop-he’s too clean and warmly dressed for street-probably with his gray market supplier. Couldn’t’ve been further off there. Little apartment off Times Square with a granny cooking his supper. Great-grandmother,” she added. “I ran them on the way home.”

“Of course you did.”

“Neither’s been in any trouble. The same can’t be said of Tiko’s mother. Illegals busts, solicitation without a license, shoplifting that upped to petty theft that upped to grand larceny. Last couple busts were down in Florida. The granny’s been guardian since he was about a year old.”

“The father?”

“Unknown. She was afraid I was going to call Child Services. Afraid I was going to call them in, and she could lose the kid.”

“Another cop might have.”

“Then another cop would’ve been wrong. Kid’s got a decent roof over his head, warm clothes on his back, food in his belly, and somebody who loves him. It’s…”

“More than we had,” Roarke finished.

“Yeah. I thought about that. There’s no fear in this kid, and that’s about all that was in me at his age. No meanness either, and you had plenty of that running your Dublin alleys. Had to have plenty of it. He’s got the chance of a good life ahead of him because someone cares enough.”

“From what you’ve said, he sounds like the kind who’ll make the most of that chance.”

“That’s my take. And I thought about Anders. He wasn’t afraid, and from everything I find, he wasn’t big on the mean. But his chance at life was taken. Because someone cared enough to end him.”

“Cared enough. Interesting choice of words.”

“Yeah.” She looked over at her murder board, looked at Ava Anders’s ID photo. “I think it fits. Listen, I couldn’t get by the lab to browbeat Dickhead into running a voice print. I’ve got a couple samples here. It probably wouldn’t take you long.”

“It probably wouldn’t.” He considered it over a sip of wine. “I might do that for you, if you fixed my supper.”

It seemed a fair trade. And if she went for one of her own personal faves-spaghetti and meatballs-he hadn’t specified a choice. She continued her run on Ava Anders first, left another message on Dirk Bronson’s-the first husband’s-voice mail. Then she wandered into the kitchen to program the meal.

She’d only set the plates on her desk when Roarke came back in. She wondered why she even bothered with the lab.

“Good news is, it didn’t take long. Bad news, from your standpoint anyway, they’re a match.”

“Shit. Could the St. Lucia transmission have been by remote?”

“It’s not reading that way. I ran it through several types of filters. As your expert consultant, civilian, I have to tell you Ava Anders received that transmission while in the room registered to her in St. Lucia.”

“She couldn’t have made it back there from New York in the time frame.”

“No. It’s a bit too tight for that.”

“Maybe the time frame’s off. Anders was still alive-unconscious, dying, but still alive when the security was booted back, the doors locked again. Maybe it didn’t take her as long as I calculated for the setup, and if she reactivated it all by remote, she might have been on her way back to St. Lucia earlier. It’d be tight, but maybe not too tight.”

“Ground time from the crime scene to a shuttle hangar, and the same from shuttle to hotel on the island have to be added in. You’re reaching, Eve.”

“Damn right I’m reaching.” Irritated, she scooped up some spaghetti. “I know she’s in it. Okay, the vic liked electronics. Could he have a security setup that could be turned off and on by long-distance remote?”

“Not impossible. What do your e-men say?”

“Cloning remote-good shit-short-range. But they weren’t looking for long. And Feeney’s dog sick with a cold.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I had to practically carry him down to transpo, send him off to a health center, call his wife.”

Roarke didn’t bother to hide his grin. “Haven’t you been the busy little scout today.”

“Bite me.”

“I rarely think of anything else but. I can take a look at the system. As for financials, I haven’t found anything off there. No suspicious withdrawals or transfers, no accounts tucked away. Not yet.”

Clean, covered, Eve thought. But her gut kept adding “calculated” to that. “If she didn’t do it herself and had it done, maybe she didn’t use money. There are other incentives. Sex, position, blackmail. Friendship. Isn’t there some saying about a real friend’s the one who helps you hide the body? She’s got a couple of women who strike me as real friends.”

“What is it about her, Eve?”

“Things.” She stabbed at a meatball. “Her clothes.”

“You don’t care for her fashion sense?”

“How would I know if she has any? You do.” She jabbed the fork with its bite of meatball at him. “Fashion king.”

“We do our best.”

“So, you’re dead asleep, and you get a call. Something terrible’s happened, and I’m dead. What do you do?”

It took him a moment to quell the terror, to ignore the small, dark place inside him that feared getting that call every day. “Before or after I fall prostrate with grief?”

“Before, during, and after. Do you peruse your wardrobe and select a coordinating outfit-down to the footwear? Do you deal with your hair so it’s perfectly groomed?”

“With my considerable skills and innate instincts that would take no time at all.”

“Keep it up and I’ll dump red sauce all over your fashionable smarty-pants.”

“That statement is one of the countless reasons why, under the circumstances you described, I’d be lucky to remember to dress at all. But then not everyone loves the same way, Eve, or to the same levels. Or reacts the same way to hard news.”

“The call for transpo went out from her hotel room six minutes after she ended the transmission with Greta. But, there’s nearly a fifty-minute lag between then and her leaving the hotel. She ordered coffee, juice, fresh berries, and a croissant from her in-room AutoChef-I had the hotel look up her record. She ordered her little continental breakfast before she called for transpo arrangements.”

“Ah. There’s cold blood.”

“Yeah. A little thing maybe-not evidence, but it’s a thing. A lawyer would argue it’s nothing. She was in shock. But it’s bullshit. She was wearing perfume when she got to the house, and earrings, and a bracelet that matched her wrist unit. She didn’t contact Forrest, not for hours after getting the news.

“Little things,” Eve repeated. “I believe she planned it out, studied every detail, covered every track. But she can’t cover who she is. She can’t quite cover up her self-interest, her vanity, or the calculation I see in her eyes every time I look at her.”

“She didn’t plan out everything. She didn’t plan on you.”

“I’m going to the memorial tomorrow. I’m going to talk to her again, to her friends again, to Forrest, track down this ex-husband of hers. To the housekeeper, to Charles, back to her. I’m going to annoy the living hell out of her, even if she is a friend of the chief’s wife.”

Idly, Roarke wound pasta on his fork. “She knows Tibble’s wife? Sticky.”

“Yeah.” Eve blew out a breath. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d sought out that connection as part of her outline. Get chummy with a high police official’s wife. Check.”

At Eve’s questioning glance, Roarke nodded. “I’d agree, yes. It would be very good planning on her part. How did she make the connection?”

“Committees, charities, the usual. Next financials in line are the charitable trusts and scholarships. Maybe she siphoned off some of the money, the vic found out. She comes out better a widow than in a divorce, especially if she had any part of siphoning funds meant for the less fortunate kiddies.”

“Ben would know. I should say I’d be very surprised if Ben wouldn’t know about any mishandling of funds. Possibly they could have been misappropriated and replaced quickly, books cooked in a way he would miss it. But, with his uncle dead, he’s majority stock holder, and acting chairman of the board. I’d imagine he’s having an internal audit done to make certain the house is in order, on every level.”

“She’s got him snowed. That’s how it looks to me. And she smears the victim with this sex dirt, automatically makes people look sideways. Could be if she played with funds, she’s thought of a way to twist it so it looks like the victim did the playing.”

“I can take a look.”

She twirled more spaghetti onto her fork, smirked. “Aren’t you going to be the busy little scout?”

“Cute. Should we go for a drive after dinner? Back to the scene of the crime?”

She studied him over a mouthful of pasta. “Here’s what I like about you. Almost everything.”

So,” Eve said as they stood in Anders’s bedroom, “the guy’s lying there, dead as Judas, and his wake-up system goes off. Good morning, Mr. Anders. Gives him the time, turns on the fireplace, starts the coffee, the shower, reminds him what he ordered for breakfast, and details his first appointment of the day.”

“Who needs a wife?”

Her response was a bland stare. “Anyway, it was kind of creepy. How come you don’t have a system like that, ace?”

“We do, I just don’t use it. It’s kind of creepy. Plus I rarely need an alarm, and why would I want to order breakfast the night before or have the shower going before I was ready to take one?”

“You have habits and routines, but you’re not a creature of habit and routine. He was. That was part of the weapon used against him. He was predictable. You could count on him being in bed at three in the morning, count on him programming his wake-up system, putting on his sensible pajamas. Door closed, drapes drawn. Night-night. He’d have been sleeping facing toward the door. From the angle and position of the pressure syringe mark, he’d have been sleeping on his side, facing the door. I bet he always did. She’d have known that. Checklist. Just another checklist.”

She shook her head. “Go ahead and take a look at the system. We’re going to have to clear the scene. I can’t keep her out of the house much longer. I want another look around while I’m here.”

She went through the room, this time focusing more narrowly on Ava’s things. The clothes, the shoes, the lingerie. Expensive, fashionable, but on the sedate side, Eve supposed. As fit the proper woman, of a conservative bent, of her social and financial level. Nothing too flashy, everything high-end.

Eve circled the bedroom with its surplus of gilt and shine. Maybe not exactly flashy, she mused, but certainly ornate. Ava’s Palace. Which was the truer reflection of the woman?

The dressing area held a salon’s worth of cosmetic enhancers. Creams, lotions, rejuvenators, skin boosters lived behind shining silver doors in the bath area. Bath salts and oils filled tall clear jars arranged like art on various shelves.

Liked to pamper herself, liked to sink into the deep jet tub or stand under the sprays of the silver-walled shower and luxuriate-in an area separate from her husband’s.

This is yours, this is mine.

Yet they shared a bed. Still, with a bed that size, if sex or companionship wasn’t on the menu, they might as well have been sleeping in separate counties. Walking back, Eve touched one of the gold rungs on the footboard.

“This was her room,” she said aloud. “Hers. He just happened to be in it. She tolerated that. Tolerated his presence, his fussy morning routine because it was hers. She allowed him here as long as he was useful.”

Stepping out, she sealed the door again, then went down to find Roarke.

He’d pulled his hair back with a twist of leather and sat at the controls in the security area. Besides the extensive equipment built in, Roarke had one of his own handheld devices on the counter.

“It’s an excellent system. One of mine,” he said with a casual glance over his shoulder. “So I know it quite well. It’s been extensively customized for this site. Every available option’s in here. I won’t say it’s absolutely impossible to breach or operate by long-distance remote, but I will say if the client had ordered such a thing, he would’ve been advised it could compromise his system. And, if he still wanted that ability, it would’ve been custom-made. We’d have a paper trail. I’ll check on that, but I sincerely doubt he authorized something like that.”

“And the short range?”

“Every security system can be breached, and I’ve breached most of them myself. In my misspent youth.”

“You were still misspending a couple of years ago, pal.”

“Only for…entertainment purposes. In any case, this system’s alarms and cameras were shut down by short range. But the code was keyed in before the backup went on. That was quick work, either by someone with an excellent clone or in possession of the code. Whoever it was needed only to stand out of camera range, shut them down, along with the alarms, then walk up to the keypad and do the rest. With the right equipment, a child could have done it.”

“But Ava Anders didn’t. Disappointing,” she admitted. “Now I have to find out who did her dirty work. Let’s close up here. I want to pay a call on the way home.”

“It seems to be our week for it.”

They found Sasha Bride-West at home-barely. She answered the door herself, wrapped in luxurious layers of white mink. But the interruption didn’t appear to trouble her in the least. Not when she leveled her gaze at Roarke and purred, “Well, hello.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” Eve said. “Can I have a minute?”

“You can have a minute.” She aimed a sultry smile at Roarke. “How long do you want?”

“He’s with me. Sasha Bride-West. Roarke.”

“Yes, I know.” She offered her hand, back up, as a woman does who hopes it’ll be kissed. “We met once, briefly. I’m devastated you don’t remember.”

“I’ll remember now.”

She laughed, stepped back. “Come in. I’m on my way out to meet some friends. I’m always late anyway.”

“On your way to see Mrs. Anders?” Eve asked.

“Dressed like this?” Sasha tossed the white coat aside. Under it she wore riotous red, thin and snug as a layer of skin. Sven did good work. “Hardly. Ava’s in seclusion until the memorial tomorrow. I do have other friends.” She sent Roarke that smile again. “I always have room for more.”

“For the moment, maybe we can stick to Ava.”

“All right.” She gestured, glided on silvery heels into a living area as bold and brash as she was. She slid into a chair. Eve wasn’t sure how she managed to sit in a dress that tight and cross her legs. “What about Ava?”

“I’m just confirming some time lines, for the report. Routine stuff.”

“Do you always drop by unannounced at night-and with such a gorgeous companion-for routine stuff?”

“We were out.” Roarke took a seat beside Sasha, kept his tone casual. “My wife rarely leaves the cop behind.”

“Poor you.”

“On the morning of Mr. Anders’s murder,” Eve continued, “what time did Mrs. Anders wake you to tell you what had happened?”

“She didn’t.”

“She didn’t wake you when she learned her husband was dead?”

“I don’t know if she believed he was, honestly. She left a message cube. It was Bridge who woke me. About eight-thirty. A bit before nine in any case. In a state. I remember being annoyed at first as I didn’t have my facial scheduled until eleven. She said Ava was gone, something had happened to Tommy. I…”

She let out a breath, and the brashness ebbed away. “I made some careless, callous remark, which I very much regret. Something like, ‘For Christ’s sake, unless he’s dropped dead on the sixth green, let me sleep.’ Then Bridge played the message, and it was awful. You could hear the panic and tears in Ava’s voice.”

“What did she say in the message?”

“I remember exactly. ‘Greta called. Something’s happened to Tommy. Something terrible’s happened. I have to go home.’ She left the message on the table in the parlor. We shared a three-bedroom suite, so she left it on the table.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, we called her right away, called her ’link. She was very shaken, as you can imagine. She told us Greta had said Tommy was dead. That he was dead in his bed, but she was sure that was a mistake. That he must be ill, so she needed to get right home. She’d call us as soon as she got there, and took care of things.”

“Thank you. That’s very helpful.” Eve waited until Sasha rose to lead them back to the door. “It’s a shame she didn’t wake you and Mrs. Plowder. She wouldn’t have had to make that difficult trip alone.”

“Brigit was furious about that, the kind of mad you get when you’re incredibly worried. I don’t know how many times that morning I said to her not to worry about that, how Ava must’ve been panicked. How she must not have been able to think of anything but getting home. It was an awful morning for all of us, Lieutenant. When Ava called to tell us Tommy was gone, we were already packed. I guess we knew she wasn’t coming back. That trip, it’s always the three of us, and…how do you mistake death? We knew she wouldn’t be able to come back.”

Outside Eve walked with Roarke through the crystal cold. “Panicked,” she repeated, “can’t think of anything but getting home. But you can think to leave a message cube. Not to wake your friends, sleeping right in the next rooms. But you can think of ordering a croissant and matching your wrist unit with a bracelet.”

“She didn’t want them to see her.” Roarke opened the passenger door, then stood looking at Eve over it. “She didn’t want them with her, didn’t want to have to put on the façade on the trip back.”

“No, she didn’t. She wanted a little alone time, so she could sit and wallow in how fucking clever she’d been.” Her eyes were flat again, cold again. “I’m going to nail her ass, Roarke. Then we’ll see how clever she is.”