Vengeance in Death

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Eve could hear the low murmur of an international news report from the parlor screen when she awoke. Her body clock was a mass of confusion. She figured it was still the middle of the night according to her system, and a nice, rainy dawn where her body happened to be.

She didn't think Roarke had slept long, but accepted that he needed less sleep than anyone she'd ever known. He hadn't been talkative when they'd gotten back from the Penny Pig the night before, but he had been… hungry.

He'd made love like a man desperate to find something, or to lose it, and she had little choice but to grab hold and join the ride.

Now he'd already been up and working, she imagined. Scanning the news reports, the stock reports, making calls, pushing buttons. She decided it was best to leave him to it until her mind cleared.

She eyed the bathroom shower dubiously. It was a three-sided affair of white tile that left the user's butt exposed to the room. Search as she might, she found no mechanism that would close her in and protect her privacy.

It was nearly six feet in length, with ceiling heads angled down to soak or spray. She went for spray, hot, and struggled to ignore the opening behind her as she soaped and rinsed.

Brian had been little help, she mused, though he had promised to put out the word, discreetly, and try to gather any information on the families of the men who'd killed Marlena. A few of them he knew personally and had laughed off the idea of any of them having the skill, the brains, or the nerve to choreograph a series of murders in New York.

Eve preferred to look at police records and solicit the opinion of a professional colleague. All she had to do was nudge Roarke in a different direction so that she would have the morning free to brainstorm with Inspector Farrell.

Confident that would only take a bit of maneuvering, she ordered the spray off, turned to step out of the shower, then yelped as if scalded.

Roarke was standing behind her, leaning back against the wall, hands dipped casually in his pockets.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting you a towel." Smiling, he reached for one on the warming rack. Then held it out of reach. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, well enough."

"I ordered breakfast when I heard the shower running. Full Irish. You'll like it."

She dragged her dripping hair out of her eyes. "Okay. Are you going to give me that towel?"

"I'm thinking about it. What time is your appointment with the guarda?"

She'd started to make a grab for the towel, then pulled back, wary. "Who?"

"The police, darling Eve. The Dublin cops. This morning, I imagine. Early. By, what, nine?"

She shifted, crossed her arms over her breasts, but it didn't help. "I never said I was meeting anyone." When he only lifted a brow, she swore. "Know-it-alls are very irritating to mortals. Give me that damn towel."

"I don't know it all, but I know you. Are you meeting someone in particular?"

"Listen, I can't have this conversation naked."

"I like having conversations when you're naked."

"That's because you're a sick man, Roarke. Give me that towel."

He held it up by two fingers, and his eyes gleamed. "Come and get it."

"You're just going to try to get me back into bed."

Now his smile spread and he moved toward her. "I wasn't thinking of the bed."

"Step back." She held up a hand, feinted to the right. "I'll hurt you."

"God, I love when you threaten me. It excites me."

"I'll give you excitement," she promised. She'd just judged her chances of getting past him and out the door, found them passable, when he tossed the towel in her direction. When she grabbed for it, he caught her around the waist and had her pinned against the wall before she could decide whether to laugh or swear.

"I'm not fighting with you in here." She blew at her wet hair. "Everybody knows the majority of home accidents involving personal injuries happen in the bathroom. It's a death trap."

"We'll have to risk it." Slowly he lifted her hands over her head then scraped his teeth along her throat. "You're wet, and you're warm, and you're tasty."

Her blood fired, her muscles went lax. What the hell, she thought, she had at least two hours to spare. She turned her head and caught his mouth with hers. "You're dressed," she murmured. In a lightning move she tipped her weight, shifted, and reversed their positions. Hers eyes laughed into his. "Just let me fix that for you."

Wild vertical sex was a pretty good way to start the day, Eve decided, and when it was followed by what the Irish called breakfast, it was nirvana.

Eggs creamily scrambled, potatoes fried with onions, sausage and bacon and thick slabs of bread smothered with fresh butter, all topped off with coffee by the gallon.

"Um," she managed, plowing her way through. "Can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't eat like this every day. Whole country'd waddle to their death."

It continually satisfied him to watch her eat, to see her stoke up that slim body that burned off fuel with nerves and energy. "It's a now-and-again sort of thing. A weekend indulgence."

"Good. Mmm. What's in this meat stuff here?"

Roarke eyed the blood pudding she shoveled in and shook his head. "You'll thank me for not telling you. Just enjoy it."

"Okay." She paused for breath, flicked a glance at him. Sighed. "I'm meeting Inspector Farrell at nine. I guess I should have told you."

"You're telling me now," he pointed out and glanced at his wrist unit for the time. "That'll give me enough time to clean up a few details before we go."

"We?" Eve set down her fork before she ate another bite and did permanent damage. "Farrell is meeting with me – as in me – as a professional courtesy. And you know what? I bet she doesn't bring her husband along."

He had his datebook out, checking appointments, and glanced up with an easy smile. "Was that an attempt to put me in my place?"

"Figure it out."

"All right, and you figure this." Taking his time, he topped off both their coffee cups. "You can pursue this investigation your way." His gaze flicked up to hers, glimmered there. "And I can pursue my interests in the matter in my way. Are you willing to risk my finding him first?"

He could be hard, she knew. And ruthless. He was undeniably clever. "You've got twenty minutes to handle your details before we leave."

"I'll be ready."

Inspector Katherine Farrell was a striking woman. Perhaps forty-five, she had hair of blazing red neatly coiled at the nape of a long, slim neck. Her eyes were moss green, her skin the color of Irish cream. She wore a trim and tailored gray suit military in style that showcased lovely legs. She offered both Eve and Roarke her hand and a cup of tea.

"This would be your first trip to Ireland then, Lieutenant Dallas?"

"Yes."

Though her tidy office was equipped with an AutoChef, Farrell poured the tea out of a white china pot. It was one of her small pleasures. And it gave her time to measure and judge the Yank cop and the man known only as Roarke. "I hope you'll have time to see some of the country while you're here."

"Not on this trip."

"Pity." She turned, teacups in hand, a smile on her lips. She found Eve both less and more than she'd expected. Less brittle than she chose to think of American police. And more tough than she expected to find a woman who had married a man with Roarke's reputation. "And you're from Dublin originally," she said to Roarke.

He recognized the speculation in her eyes, and the knowledge. He might not have a criminal record – officially – but he did have a reputation. And memories were long. "I grew up in the shanties in South Dublin."

"A difficult area, even now." She sat, crossed her spectacular legs. "And you have businesses – ah, enterprises so to speak, here still."

"Several."

"It's good for the economy. You've brought the body of Jennie O'Leary back to be waked and buried."

"I have. We'll wake her tonight."

Farrell nodded, sipped delicately at her tea. "I've a cousin who once stayed at the B and B she ran in Wexford. I'm told it was a lovely place. Have you been there?"

"No." He inclined his head, understanding the question between the questions. "I hadn't seen Jennie in over twelve years."

"But you did contact her just before she went to New York and was killed."

Eve set her cup aside with a click of china on wood. "Inspector Farrell, this homicide and the others are under my jurisdiction. You don't have the authority to interview Roarke in this matter."

Tough, Farrell thought again. And territorial. Well, so am I. "All three of your dead were Irish citizens. We have an interest, a keen one, in your investigation."

"It's simple enough to answer," Roarke put in before Eve could fire up again. "I contacted Jenny after Shawn Conroy was murdered. I was concerned for her safety."

"Hers in particular?"

"Hers, and several others I'd been close to when I lived in Dublin."

"Let's just put this on the table." Eve drew Farrell's attention back to her, where she wanted to keep it. "I received a transmission, expertly jammed and so far untraceable, from an individual who claimed his game was vengeance sanctioned by God, and he'd chosen me for his opponent. He gave me a Bible quote, and a riddle, and upon following them I discovered the mutilated body of Thomas Brennen in his New York residence. Subsequently I learned that Roarke had known Thomas Brennen when they had both lived in Dublin."

"I've spoken with his widow myself," Farrell put in. "She said you were kind to her."

Eve lifted her brows. "We hardly ever kick widows around in the morgue anymore. It's bad for public relations."

Farrell drew a breath and watched two tourist trams, bright in their green and white paint, pass her windows. "Point taken, Lieutenant."

"Good. The following day I received another transmission, another set of clues, and found the body of Shawn Conroy. This pattern, and the fact that the second murder took place in one of Roarke's empty rental units, indicated that there was a connection to Roarke."

"And following that you followed the path from yet another transmission and discovered the body of Jennie O'Leary in a hotel which Roarke also owns."

"That's correct. A detective from our electronics division subsequently followed the transmission bounce, covering several points, one of which initially indicated that the transmission originated in our home. However, there was an echo which proved this to be false. At this time we are analyzing the echo and are confident that we will pinpoint the exact origin."

"And at this time your prime suspect is a man in Roarke's employ, a man who also lived in Dublin at one time. Summerset," she continued, smiling thinly at Roarke. "We've been able to access very little background information on him."

"You're a bit behind, Inspector," Eve said dryly. "Upon further investigation and personality testing, Summerset is no longer prime. Indications are that he was being used to mislead the investigation."

"Yet the direction of all points back to Dublin, which is why you're here."

"I received the cooperation of Roarke and Summerset. I believe that the motives for these crimes have their roots in the rape/murder of Summerset's minor daughter, Marlena, nearly twenty years ago. She was abducted and held by a group of men who threatened to harm her if Roarke didn't agree to their demands. However, his agreement was ignored and her body was dumped at the front door of the residence where Roarke, Summerset, and Marlena lived."

"This happened here, in Dublin?"

"Blood was and is shed," Roarke said coolly, "even in your tidy streets, Inspector."

Farrell's eyes hardened as she swiveled to her computer. "When?"

It was Roarke who gave her the year, the month, the day, and then the hour.

"Marlena Summerset."

"No. Kolchek. Her name was Marlena Kolchek." As Summerset's had been during that period, Roarke thought, but no records of Basil Kolchek exist. Not any longer. Summerset had come into existence only weeks after Marlena's death. "Not all children use their father's last name."

Farrell sent him one quiet look, then called for the file.

"This matter was investigated and ruled death by misadventure. Investigating officer…" She trailed off, sighed. "Inspector Maguire. You knew him?'' she asked Roarke.

"Yes, I knew him."

"I did not, not personally. But his reputation is not one this department has pride in. You knew the men who murdered this girl."

"I knew them. They're dead."

"I see." Her gaze flickered. "Their names, please."

As Roarke listed each, Farrell pulled files, scanned them.

"They were not sterling citizens of our city," she murmured. "And they died badly. One could say… vengefully."

"One could," Roarke agreed.

"Men who choose that lifestyle often die badly," Eve put in. "It's my belief that due to the link to Marlena's murder, this killer has set out to avenge one or more of their deaths in the mistaken belief that Roarke was responsible. Those who died in New York also knew Marlena and the true circumstances of her death. Summerset was her father and maintains a close personal relationship with Roarke. I've distracted him for the moment, but we have another day or two at best before he kills the next."

"Do you have any idea who will be next?"

"Nineteen years, Inspector," Roarke said. "I've contacted everyone I can think of who might be a target. But even that didn't help Jennie."

"I can access official data on the families of these men," Eve began, "but it's not enough. I need a personal take from a professional eye. I need a cop's view, a cop who knows them, their styles, their minds. I need a workable list of suspects."

"Do you have a profile on your man?"

"I do."

Farrell nodded. "Then let's get to work."

"Career criminals," Farrell commented, tapping a slim black pointer against her palm. They'd moved into a small, windowless conference room with a trio of wall screens. She gestured toward the first image. "Ryan here, a bad one, I put him in the nick myself five years back on armed robbery and assault. He's vicious, but more a bully than a leader. He's been out for six months – but it's doubtful he'll stay that way. He doesn't fit your profile." Across the room Eve had tacked stills to a wide board, victims on one side, possible suspects on the other. Taking Farrell's word, she removed Ryan.

"O'Malley, Michael."

"He was in the system the night Conroy was murdered." Eve frowned at the data beside the image. "Drunk driving."

"He has a problem with the bottle it seems." Farrell scrolled down, noted the dozens of violations for drunk and disorderly, driving while intoxicated, disturbing the peace. "And a wife beater as well. A darling man."

"He used to get pissed-faced then knock around the girl he was courting. Annie, I think her name was."

"Annie Murphy. And she married him and gets knocked around even today." Farrell sighed.

"A creep but not the killer." Eve pulled down his still. "How about charmer number three."

"Now here's a likely one. I've had dealings with Jamie Rowan, and he's not a bonehead. Smart, smug. His mother's family came from money that bought him a fine education. He has a taste for the high life."

"Handsome son of a bitch," Eve commented.

"That he is, and well aware of his charms. A gambling man is Jamie, and when those who lose don't pay quick enough, he has one of his spine crackers pay a visit. We questioned our boy here for accessory to murder just last year. It was one of his men right enough who did the deed on his orders. But we couldn't stick it."

"Does he ever crack spines himself?"

"Not that we've ever proved."

"We'll keep him up, but he looks too cool to me, more of a button pusher. Did you know him, Roarke?"

"Well enough to bloody his eye and loosen a few of his teeth." Roarke smiled and lighted a cigarette. "We would have been about twelve. He tried to shake me down. Didn't work."

"Those are the last three of your main possibles. So now we're down to – what?" Farrell took a quick count of the stills. "An even dozen. I'm inclined toward Rowan here, or Black Riley. The smartest of the lot."

"Then we'll put them at the top. But it's not just brains," Eve continued, walking around the conference table. "It's temperament, and it's patience. And ego. And it's certainly his personal religion."

"Odds are for Catholic if he's from one of these families. Most are churchgoers, attending Mass like the pious of a Sunday morning, after doing as they please on a Saturday night."

"I don't know a lot about religion, Catholic or otherwise, but one of the transmissions he sent was identified as a Catholic Requiem Mass, and the statues he leaves at the scene are of Mary, so that's my take." Absently Eve fingered the token in her pocket, pulled it out. "This means something to him."

"Luck," Farrell said. "Bad or good. We've a local artist who uses the shamrock as her signature on her paintings." Farrell frowned when she turned it over. "And a Christian symbol. The fish. Well, there I'd say you have a man who thinks Irish. Pray to God and hope for luck."

Eve slipped the token back in her pocket. "How much luck will you have pulling these twelve in on something for questioning?"

Farrell laughed shortly. "With this lot, if they're not brought in once a month or so they feel neglected. If you like, you can go have a bit of lunch, and we'll start a gathering."

"I'd appreciate it. You'll let me observe the interviews?"

"Observe, Lieutenant, but not participate in."

"Fair enough."

"I can't stretch that to include civilians," she said to Roarke. "You might find the afternoon more profitable by looking up some of your old friends and standing them to a pint."

"Understood. Thank you for your time."

She took the hand Roarke offered, held it a moment while she looked into his eyes. "I pinched your father once when I was a rookie. He took great exception to being arrested by a female – which was the mildest term he used for me. I was green, and he managed to split my lip before I restrained him."

Roarke's eyes went cool and blank. He drew his hand free. "I'm sorry for that."

"You weren't there as I recall," Farrell said mildly. "Rookies rarely forget their first mistakes, so I remember him quite well. I expected to see some of him in you. But I don't. Not a bit. Good day to you, Roarke."

"Good day to you, Inspector."

By the time Eve got back to the hotel, lunch had worn off and jet lag was fuzzing her mind. She found the suite empty, but there were a half dozen coded faxes waiting on the machine. She added more coffee to her overburdened system while she scanned them.

She yawned until her jaw cracked, then put through a call to Peabody's palm 'link.

"Peabody."

"Dallas. I just got in. Have the sweepers finished with the white van found abandoned downtown?"

"Yes, sir. Wrong trail. That van was used in a robbery in Jersey and dumped down on Canal. I'm still pursuing that lead, but it's going to take more time to eliminate vehicles. The cabdriver was a wash. He didn't even know his tags had been lifted."

"McNab make any progress on the jammer?"

Peabody snorted, then sobered. "He claims to be making some headway, though he phrases all of it in electro-ese and I can't make it out. He had a great time with some e-jockey of Roarke's. I think they're in love."

"Your snotty side's showing, Peabody."

"Not nearly as much as it could be. No transmissions have come through, so our boy's taking a break from mayhem. McNab is staying here at your home office tonight in case there's a send. I'm staying, too."

"You and McNab are staying in my office tonight?"

Her mouth moved perilously close to a pout. "If he's staying, I'm staying. Besides, the food's superior."

"Try not to kill each other."

"I'm showing admirable restraint in that particular area, sir."

"Right. Is Summerset behaving himself?"

"He went to some art class, then out for coffee and brandy with his lady friend. I had him shadowed. It was all very dignified according to the report. He got back about twenty minutes ago."

"See that he stays in."

"I've got it covered. Any progress there?"

"That's debatable. We have a list of potentials, which was shorted by half during interviews. I'm going to take a closer look at six," she said, rubbing her tired eyes. "One's in New York, and one's supposed to be in Boston. I'll run them when I get in tomorrow. We should be back by noon."

"We'll keep the home fires burning, Lieutenant."

"Find that damn van, Peabody." She disengaged the 'link and ordered herself not to wonder, or worry, about where Roarke could be.

He knew better than to go home. It was foolish and fruitless and irresistible. The shanties had changed little since he'd been a boy trying to crawl his way out of them. The buildings were cheaply constructed, with roofs sagging, windows broken. It was rare to see a flower bloom here, but a few hopeful souls had scratched out a stamp-sized garden at the doorstep of the six-flat building where he'd lived once.

But the flowers, however bright, couldn't overcome the odor of piss and vomit. And they couldn't lighten the air that lay thick with despair.

He didn't know why he went in, but he found himself standing inside the dim lobby with its sticky floors and peeling paint. And there were the stairs his father had once kicked him down because he hadn't made his quota lifting wallets.

Oh, but I had, Roarke thought now. What was a kick and tumble compared to the pounds he'd secreted away? The old man had been too drunk, and often too stupid, to have suspected his whipping boy of holding back any of the take.

Roarke had always held back. A pound here, a pound there could make a tidy sum for a determined boy willing to take his licks.

"He'd have given me his fist in my face in any case," he murmured and gazed up those battered stairs.

He could hear someone cursing, someone else weeping. You would always hear cursing and weeping in such places. The odor of boiled cabbage was strong and turned his stomach so he sought the thick air outside again.

He saw a teenage boy in tight black pants and a mop of fair hair watching him coolly from the curb. Across the street a couple of girls chalking the cracked sidewalk for hopscotch stopped to watch. He walked passed them, aware there were other eyes following him, peering out of windows and doorways.

A stranger in good shoes was both curiosity and insult.

The boy called out something vile in Gaelic. Roarke turned, met the boy's sneering eyes. "I'm going back in the alley," he said, using the same tongue, found it came more easily to his lips than he'd expected, "if you've a mind to try your luck on me. I'm in the mood to hurt someone. Might as well be you as another."

"Men have died in that alley. Might as well be you as another."

"Come on then." And Roarke smiled. "Some say I killed my father there when I was half your age, sticking a knife in his throat the way you'd slaughter a pig."

The boy shifted his weight, and his eyes changed. The sneering defiance turned to respect. "You'd be Roarke then."

"I would. Steer clear of me today and live to see your children."

"I'll get out," the boy shouted after him. "I'll get out the way you did, and one day I'll walk in fine shoes. Damned if I'll come back."

"That's what I thought," Roarke sighed and stepped into the stinking alley between the narrow buildings.

The recycler was broken. Had been broken as long as he could remember. Trash and garbage were strewn, as always, over the pitted asphalt. The wind whipped his coat, his hair, as he stood, staring down at the ground, at the place where his father had been found, dead.

He hadn't put the knife in him. Oh, he'd dreamed of killing the man; every time he'd taken a beating by those vicious hands he'd thought of pounding back. But he'd only been twelve or so when his father had met the knife, and he'd yet to kill a man.

He'd crawled out of this place, out of this pit. He'd survived, even triumphed. And now, perhaps for the first time, he realized he'd changed.

He'd never again be like the mirror image of himself who had challenged him from the curb. He was a man grown into what he had chosen to be. He enjoyed the life he'd built for itself now, not simply for its opposition to what had been.

He had love in his heart, the hot-blooded love for a woman that could never have rooted if the ground had remained stony.

After all these years he discovered that coming back hadn't stirred the ghosts, but had put them to rest.

"Fuck you, bloody bastard," he murmured, but with outrageous relief. "You couldn't do me after all."

He turned away from what had been, set his direction on what was, and what would come. He walked, content now, through the rain that began to fall as soft as tears.