Strangers In Death

1

MURDER HARBORED NO BIGOTRY, NO BIAS. IT subscribed to no class system. In its gleeful, deadly, and terminally judicious way, murder turned a blind eye on race, creed, gender, and social stratum. As Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood in the sumptuous bedroom of the recently departed Thomas A. Anders, she considered that.

Only the night before she’d caught-and closed-a case dealing with the homicide of a twenty-year-old woman who’d been throttled, beaten, then chucked out the window of her nine-story flop.

The rent-by-the-week flop, Eve mused, where the victim’s boyfriend claimed to have slept through her demise, smelled of stale sex, stale zoner, and really bad Chinese food. Anders? His Park Avenue bedroom smelled of candy-colored tulips, cool, clean wealth, and dead body. Death had come to him on the luxurious sheets of his massive, silk-canopied bed. And to Tisha Brown it had come on the stained mattress tossed on the floor of a junkie’s flop. The header to the sidewalk had just been the flourish.

The point was, Eve supposed, no matter who you were-sex, race, tax bracket-death leveled it all out. As a murder cop going on a dozen years for the NYPSD, she’d seen it all before.

It was barely seven in the morning, and she was alone with the dead. She had the first officers on scene downstairs with the housekeeper who’d called in the nine-one-one. With her hands and boots sealed, she walked around the edges of the room while her recorder documented.

“Victim is identified as Anders, Thomas Aurelius, of this address. Male, Caucasian, age sixty-one. Vic is married. Spouse is reported to be out of town, and has been notified by Horowitz, Greta, domestic who discovered the body at approximately oh six hundred and placed the nine-one-one at oh six twelve.”

Eve cocked her head. Her hair was a short, somewhat shaggy brown around a face of angles and planes. Her eyes, a few shades lighter than her hair, were all cop-sharp, cynical, and cool as they studied the dead man in the big, fancy bed.

“Anders was reputed to be alone in the house. There are two domestic droids, both of which were shut down. On cursory exam, there are no signs of forced entry, no signs of burglary, no signs of struggle.”

On long legs, she crossed to the bed. Over her lean body she wore rough trousers, a plain cotton shirt, and a long coat of black leather. Behind her, over a gas fireplace where flames simmered gold and red, the view screen popped on.

Good morning, Mr. Anders!

Narrow-eyed, Eve turned to stare at the screen. The computerized female voice struck her as annoyingly perky, and the sunrise colors bleeding onto the screen wouldn’t have been her choice of wake-up call.

It’s now seven-fifteen on Tuesday, March eighteenth, twenty-sixty. You have a ten o’clock tee time at the club, with Edmond Luce.

As the computer chirpily reminded Anders what he’d ordered for breakfast, Eve thought: No egg-white omelette for you this morning, Tom.

Across the room in an ornate sitting area, a miniAutoChef with bright brass fittings beeped twice.

Your coffee’s ready! Enjoy your day!

“Not so much,” Eve murmured.

The screen flipped to the morning’s headline news, anchored by a woman only slightly less perky than the computer. Eve tuned her out.

The headboard gleamed brass, too-all of its sleek, shiny rungs. Black velvet ropes tied Anders’s wrists to two of them, while two more ropes bound his ankles by a length to the footboard. The four matching ropes were joined by the fifth that wrapped around Anders’s throat, pulling his head off the pillows. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open as if he was very surprised to find himself in his current position.

Several sex toys sat on the table beside the bed. Anal probe, vibrator, colorful cock rings, gliding and warming lotions, and lubricants. The usual suspects, Eve thought. Leaning down, she studied, sniffed Anders’s thin, bare chest. Kiwi, she thought, and angled her head to read labels on the lotions.

Definitely the kiwi. It took all kinds.

As she’d noticed something else, she lifted the duvet from where it pooled at Anders’s waist. Under it, three neon (possibly glow-in-the-dark) cock rings rode on an impressive erection.

“Not bad for a dead man.”

Eve eased open the drawer in the nightstand. Inside, as she’d suspected, was an economy pack of the top-selling erection enhancer, Stay-Up. “Hell of a product endorsement.”

She started to open her field kit, then stopped when she heard approaching footsteps. She recognized the clomp of boots as her partner’s shit-kickers. Whatever the calendar said about the approach of spring, in New York that was a big, fat lie. As if to prove the point, Detective Delia Peabody stepped through the door in an enormous-and puffy-purple coat, with a long, striped scarf that appeared to be wrapped around her neck three times. Between that and the cap pulled over her ears, only her eyes and the bridge of her nose were visible.

“It’s freaking five degrees,” somebody who might have been Peabody said against the muffle of scarf.

“I know.”

“With the windchill, they said it’s, like, freaking minus ten.”

“I heard that.”

“It’s freaking March, three days before spring. It’s not right.”

“Take it up with them.”

“Who?”

“The they who have to go mouthing off about it being freaking minus ten. You’re colder and pissier because they have to blabber about it. Take some of that shit off. You look ridiculous.”

“Even my teeth are frozen.”

But Peabody began to peel off the multiple layers covering her sturdy body. Scarf, coat, gloves, insulated zippy. Eve wondered how the hell she managed to walk with all of it weighing her down. With the hat discarded, Peabody ’s dark hair with its sassy little flip at the nape appeared to frame her square face. She still sported a pink-from-cold-tipped nose.

“Cop on the door said it looked like sex games gone bad.”

“Could be. Wife’s out of town.”

“Bad boy.” Down to her street clothes, sealed up, Peabody carted her field kit to the bed. Scanned the nightstand. “Very bad boy.”

“Let’s verify ID, get TOD.” Eve examined one of the limp hands. “Looks like he had a nice manicure recently. Nails are short, clean, and buffed.” She angled her head. “No scratches, no bruises, no apparent trauma other than the throat. And…” She lifted the duvet again.

Peabody ’s dark brown eyes popped. “Wowzer!”

“Yeah, fully loaded. Place like this has to have good security, so we’ll check that. Two domestic droids-we’ll check their replay. Take a look at his house ’links, pocket ’links, memo, date, address books. Tom had company. He didn’t hoist himself up like this.”

“Cherchez la femme. It’s French for-”

“I know it’s French. We could also be cherchezing the…whatever ‘guy’ is in French.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Finish with the body,” Eve ordered. “I’ll take the room.”

It was a hell of a room, if you went for a lot of gold accent, shiny bits, curlicues. Besides the big bed in which Anders had apparently died, a sofa, a couple of oversized scoop chairs, and a full-service sleep chair offered other places to stretch out. In addition to the AutoChef, the bedroom boasted a brass friggie, a wet bar, and an entertainment unit. The his and hers bathrooms both held jet tubs, showers, drying tubes, entertainment and communication centers within their impressive acreage. The space continued with two tri-level closets with attached dressing areas.

Eve wondered why they needed the rest of the house.

She should talk, she admitted. Living with Roarke meant living in enough space to house a small city with all the bells and whistles big, fat fists of money could buy. He had better taste-thank God-than the Anderses. She wasn’t entirely sure she could’ve fallen for him, much less married him, if he’d surrounded himself with gold and glitter and tassels, and Christ knew.

But as much stuff as there was jammed into the space, it all looked…in place, she decided. No sign or sense anything had been riffled through. She found a safe in each closet, concealed so a child of ten with dirt in both eyes could have found them. She’d check with the wife on those, but she wasn’t smelling theft or burglary.

Walking out into the main bedroom again, she took another, hard look around.

“Prints verify ID as Anders, Thomas A., of this address,” Peabody began. “Gauge gives me three thirty-two as time of death. That’s really late or really early to be playing tie-me-up, tie-me-down games.”

“If killer and vic came up here together, where are his clothes?”

Peabody turned toward her lieutenant, pursed her lips. “Considering you’re married to the hottest guy on or off the planet, I shouldn’t have to tell you that the point in the tie-me-wherever game is to be naked while you’re doing it.”

“One of the other points is to get each other naked. If they came in here together,” Eve considered, “if they came up here for games, is he going to strip down, then hang up his clothes or dump his shorts in the hamper? You got that on the menu”-she gestured to the sex toys-“you’re not thinking about tidy. Clothes get pulled, tugged, torn, yanked off-fall on the floor. Even if this is an old game with a usual playmate, wouldn’t you just toss your shirt over the chair?”

“I hang up my clothes. Sometimes.” Peabody shrugged now. She angled her head to study the scene again, absently tossed back the hair that fell over her cheek. “But, yeah, that’s going to be when I’m not thinking about jumping McNab, or he’s not already jumping me. Everything looks pretty tidy in here, and in the rest of the house I got a look at on the way up. Vic could’ve been a neat freak.”

“Could. The killer could’ve come in when he was already in bed. Three in the morning, surprise, surprise. Then things got out of hand-accidentally or on purpose. Killer comes in-the probability’s high the vic or another household member knew the killer. No sign of break-in, and there’s a high-end security system. Maybe this is another part of the game. Comes in after he’s asleep. Surprises him. Wakes him up. Trusses him up, works him up. Toys and games.”

“And went too far.”

Eve shook her head. “It went as far as he or she meant it to go. The erotic asphyxiation oops doesn’t play.”

“But…” Peabody studied the body again, the scene, and wished she could see whatever Eve could. “Why?”

“If it was all in fun, and went wrong, why did the killer leave the noose around Anders’s neck? An accident, but you don’t loosen it, try to revive when he starts choking, convulsing?”

“Maybe in the throes…Okay, that’s a stretch, but if it happened fast, and she or he panicked…”

“Either way, we’ve got a corpse, we’ve got a case. We’ll see what the ME thinks about accidental. We’ll go interview the housekeeper, let the sweepers in here.”

Greta Horowitz was a sturdy-looking woman with a long rectangle of a face and a no-nonsense ’tude Eve appreciated. She offered coffee in the big silver and black kitchen, then served it with steady hands and dry eyes. With her strong, German-accented voice, direct blue eyes, and Valkyrie build, Eve assumed Greta handled what came her way.

“How long have you been here, Ms. Horowitz?”

“I am nine years in this employment, and in this country.”

“You came to the U.S. from…”

“ Berlin.”

“How did you come to be employed by the Anderses?”

“Through an employment agency. You want to know how I came here and why. This is simple, and then we can speak of what is important. My husband was in the military. He was killed twelve years ago. We had no children. I am accomplished in running households, and to work I signed with an agency in Germany. I came to wish to come here. A soldier’s wife sees much of the world, but I had never seen New York. I applied for this position, and after several interviews via ’link and holo, was hired.”

“Thank you. Before we get to what’s important, do you know why the Anderses wanted a German housekeeper, particularly?”

“I am House Manager.”

“House Manager.”

“Mr. Anders’s grandmother was from Germany, and as a boy he had a German nanny.”

“Okay. What time did you arrive this morning?”

“Six. Precisely. I arrive at six precisely every morning but Sunday, which is my full day off. I leave at four, precisely, but for Tuesdays and Thursdays when I leave at one. My schedule can be adjusted as needed, and with sufficient notice.”

“When you arrived at precisely six this morning, what did you do? Precisely?”

Greta’s lips twitched, very slightly. It might have been humor. “Precisely, I removed my coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and stored them in the closet. Then I engaged the in-house security cameras. Mr. Anders disengages them every night prior to retiring. He dislikes the sensation of being watched, even if no one is in the house. My first duty in the morning is to turn them on again. After doing so, I came in here. I turned on the news, as is my habit, then checked the communication system. My employers most usually leave their breakfast orders the night before. They prefer I prepare them, rather than using the AutoChef. Mr. Anders ordered sliced melon, an egg-white omelette with dill, and two slices of wheat toast, with butter and orange marmalade. Coffee-he takes his with cream and one sugar-and a glass of tomato juice.”

“Do you know what time he put the order in?”

“Yes. At twenty-two seventeen.”

“So you started breakfast?”

“I did not. Mr. Anders would have breakfasted today at eight-fifteen. My next morning duty would have been to reengage the two domestic droids, as these are shut down every evening before Mr. and Mrs. Anders retire, and to give them the day’s work schedule. The droids are kept in the security room, there.” She gestured. “I went in to deal with them, but I noticed the security screens-the in-house. I saw Mr. Anders’s bedroom door was open. Mr. Anders never leaves his door open. If he’s inside the room, or has left the room, the door is closed. If I’m required to be in the room, I’m to leave the door open while I’m inside, then close it again when I leave. It’s the same for the domestics.”

“Why?”

“It’s not my place to ask.”

It’s my place, Eve thought. “You saw the door was open, but you didn’t notice the dead man in bed?”

“The bedroom camera screens only the sitting area. Mr. Anders programmed it that way.”

“A little phobic, maybe?”

“Perhaps. I will say he’s a very private man.”

“So his door was open.”

“Nine years,” Greta continued. “The door has never been open when I arrive in the morning, unless my employers are not in residence. I was concerned, so I went upstairs without booting up the droids. When I got to the bedroom, I saw the fire in the hearth. Mr. Anders will not allow the fire when he sleeps or when he is out of the room. I was more concerned, so I went into the room. I saw him immediately. I went to the bedside, and I saw that I couldn’t help him. I went downstairs again, very quickly, and called nine-one-one.”

“Why downstairs?”

Greta looked puzzled. “I thought, from books and plays and vids, that I was not to touch anything in the room. Is that wrong?”

“No, it’s exactly right. You did exactly the right thing.”

“Good.” Greta gave a brisk, self-congratulatory nod. “Then I contacted Mrs. Anders, and waited for the police to come. They came in, perhaps, five or six minutes. I took the two officers upstairs, then one brought me back down to the kitchen, and waited here with me until you stepped in.”

“I appreciate the details. Can you tell me who has the security codes to the house?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Anders and myself. The codes are changed every ten days.”

“No one else has the codes? A good friend, another employee, a relative?”

Greta shook her head, decisively. “No one else has the codes.”

“Mrs. Anders is away.”

“Yes. She left on Friday for a week in St. Lucia with some female friends. This is an annual trip, though they don’t go to the same place necessarily.”

“You contacted her.”

“Yes.” Greta shifted slightly. “I realize, after thinking more clearly, I should have waited, and the police would have notified Mrs. Anders. But…they’re my employers.”

“How did you contact her?”

“Through the resort. When she goes on holiday, she often shuts off her pocket ’link.”

“And her reaction?”

“I told her there had been an accident, that Mr. Anders was dead. I don’t think she believed me, or understood me initially. I had to repeat it twice, and I felt, under the circumstances, I couldn’t tell her when she asked what kind of accident. She said she would come home immediately.”

“Okay, Greta. You have a good relationship with the Anderses?”

“They are very good employers. Very fair, very correct.”

“How about their relationship, with each other? It’s not gossip,” Eve said, reading Greta perfectly. “It’s very fair, and it’s very ‘correct’ for you to tell me any and everything you can that may help me find out what happened to Mr. Anders.”

“They seemed very content to me, very well suited. It would be my impression that they enjoyed each other, and their life together.”

Enjoying each other wasn’t what the crime scene transmitted, Eve thought. “Did either, or both of them, have relationships outside the marriage?”

“You mean sexual. I couldn’t say. I manage the house. I’ve never seen anything in the house that would lead me to believe either, or both, engaged in adulterous affairs.”

“Can you think of anyone who’d want him dead?”

“No.” Greta eased back slowly. “I thought-I assumed-that someone had broken in to steal, and that Mr. Anders was killed by the thief.”

“Have you noticed anything missing or out of place?”

“No. No. But I haven’t looked.”

“I’m going to have you do that now. One of the officers will take you around.” She glanced over as Peabody came in. “ Peabody, get one of the uniforms. I want Mrs. Horowitz escorted while she looks around the house. You’re free to go afterward,” Eve told Greta. “If you’d give my partner or me the contact information where you’ll be.”

“I prefer to stay, until Mrs. Anders arrives, if this is allowed. She may need me.”

“All right then.” Eve rose, signaling the end to the initial interview. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

As Greta went out, Eve walked to the room off the kitchen. Inside two droids, disengaged, stood. One male, one female, both uniformed and dignified in appearance. The security screens Greta had spoken of ranged over a wall, and as she’d stated, the master bedroom camera showed only the sitting area.

“ Dallas?”

“Huh?”

“House security was disengaged at two twenty-eight, reengaged at three twenty-six.”

Eve turned to frown at Peabody. “Reengaged before TOD?”

“Yeah. All security discs for the twenty-four-hour period before the security was reset are gone.”

“Why, I’m shocked. We’ll get EDD in here to see if they can dig something out. So Anders’s night visitor left him hanging, and still alive. That doesn’t sound like sex games gone wrong.”

“No,” Peabody agreed. “Sounds like murder.”

Eve pulled out her communicator when it signaled. “ Dallas.”

“Sir, Mrs. Anders just got here. Should I bring her in?”

“Bring her straight back to the kitchen.” Eve switched off. “Okay, let’s see what the widow has to say.”

Turning back to the screens, she watched Ava Anders sweep through the front door, her sable coat swinging back from a slim body dressed in deep blue. Her hair, a delicate blond, was pulled severely back from a face of high planes. Fat pearl drops swung at her ears, shaded glasses masked her eyes as she crossed the wide, marble foyer, through ornate archways, in skinny-heeled boots with the uniform at her side.

Eve stepped back into the kitchen, took her seat at the sunny breakfast nook seconds before Ava strode in. “You’re in charge?” She pointed a finger at Eve. “You’re the one in charge? I demand to know what’s going on. Who the hell are you?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. Homicide.”

“Homicide? What do you mean ‘Homicide’?” She pulled off her sunglasses, revealing eyes as blue and deep as her suit, tossed them onto the counter. “Greta said there’d been an accident. Tommy was in an accident. Where’s my husband? Where’s Greta?”

Eve got to her feet. “Mrs. Anders, I’m sorry to tell you your husband was killed this morning.”

Ava stood where she was, her eyebrows drawing together, her breath coming in short little bursts. “Killed. Greta said…but I thought.” She braced a hand on the counter, then slowly walked over to sit. “How? Did he…did he fall? Did he get sick, or…”

Always best to stab quick and clean, Eve thought. “He was strangled in his bed.”

Ava lifted a hand, pressed it to her mouth. Lifted the other to cross it over the first. Those deep blue eyes filled, and the tears spilled as she shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but I need to ask you some questions.”

“Where’s Tommy?”

“We’re taking care of him now, Mrs. Anders.” Peabody stepped over, offered a glass of water.

She took the water, and when one hand shook, gripped the glass with both. “Someone broke in? I don’t see how that can be. We’re secure, we’re very secure here. Fifteen years. We’ve been here for fifteen years. We’ve never had a break-in.”

“There weren’t any signs of a break-in.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Whoever killed your husband either knew the security code, or was given access to the house.”

“That can’t be.” Ava waved a hand in quick dismissal. “No one other than Tommy and myself and Greta has the code. Surely you’re not suggesting Greta-”

“I’m not, no.” Though she’d be doing a thorough check on the house manager. “There wasn’t a break-in, Mrs. Anders. Thus far there’s no sign anything in the house was taken, or disturbed.”

Ava laid a hand between her breasts where a rope of luminous pearls rested. “You’re saying Tommy let someone in, and they killed him. But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Mrs. Anders, was your husband involved with someone, sexually or romantically?”

She turned away immediately, first her face, then her body. “I don’t want to talk about this now. I’m not going to talk about this now. My husband is dead.”

“If you know anyone who could gain access to the house, to his bedroom-while you were out of the country-it could tell us who killed your husband, and why.”

“I don’t know. I don’t. And I can’t think about something like that.” The anger slapped out at Eve. “I want you to leave me alone. I want you out of my house.”

“That’s not going to happen. Until we clear it, this house is part of a homicide investigation. Your husband’s bedroom is a crime scene. I suggest you make arrangements to stay elsewhere for the time being, and to stay available. If you don’t want to finish this now, we’ll finish it later.”

“I want to see my husband. I want to see Tommy.”

“We’ll arrange that as soon as possible. Do you want us to contact anyone for you?”

“No.” Ava looked out the sunny window. “I don’t want anyone. I don’t want anyone now.”

Outside, Eve climbed behind the wheel while Peabody sat shotgun. “Rough,” Peabody commented. “You’re soaking up tropical drinks and rays one minute, and the next, your husband’s dead.”

“She knows he was screwing around. She knows something about it.”

“I guess they probably always do. The spouse, I mean, of the screwing-arounder. And I think a lot of times they can just block it out, pretend it’s not happening hard enough so they start to believe it.”

“Would you be shedding tears for McNab’s dead body if he’d been screwing around on you?”

Peabody pursed her lips. “Well, since I’d’ve been the one who killed him, I’d probably be shedding tears for me because you’d be arresting me. And that would really make me sad. Easy enough to verify Ava Anders was out of the country when Anders died.”

“Yeah, do that. And we’ll check her financials. They’ve got plenty of dough to roll. Maybe she cut off some to hire somebody to kill him. Paid his playmate to do it.”

“Man, how cold would that be?”

“We’ll run friends, business associates, golf partners-”

“Golf?”

“He had a golf game scheduled this morning with an Edmond Luce. Maybe we’ll shake loose something on who he played other games with when the wife was off with the girls.”

“Wouldn’t you like to do that? Have a girl trip?”

“No.”

“Ah, come on, Dallas.” The very idea brightened Peabody ’s voice. “Go somewhere with girlfriends, hang, drink lots of wine or fussy drinks, get facials and spa treatments, or lie on the beach, and talk about stuff half the night.”

Eve glanced over. “I’d rather be dragged naked over jagged glass.”

“Well, I think we should do it some time. You, me, Mavis, maybe Nadine and Louise. And Trina-she could do our hair and-”

“If Trina comes on this mythical nightmare, I get to drag her naked over jagged glass. That’s my bottom line.”

“You’d have fun,” Peabody muttered.

“I would, I probably would. I’d feel bad about dragging her over jagged glass ten or twenty years later, but at the time, I’d have fun.”

Giving up, Peabody huffed out a breath, took out her PPC, and began to do the checks and runs.