Vengeance in Death

CHAPTER FIVE

She didn't bother to knock, but simply shoved open his door. Her blood was hot, her mind cold.

Roarke could clearly see both temperatures in her eyes. Deliberately and without haste, he flipped his computer manually to hold, closing off his work.

"You're overdoing again," he said easily, remaining seated as she stalked – a single posse closing in on her man – to his desk. "Fatigue always steals the color from your face. I don't like seeing you pale."

"I don't feel pale." She wasn't sure what she felt. All she could be certain of was that the man she loved, a man she'd taught herself to trust, knew something. And he wasn't telling her. "You said you hadn't had any contact with Brennen or Conroy. Any contact, Roarke? Not even through a liaison?"

He angled his head. This wasn't the track he'd expected. "No, I haven't. Tommy because he preferred to sever ties, and Shawn because…" He looked down at his hands, spread his fingers, closed them. "I didn't bother to keep in touch. I'm sorry for that."

"Look at me," she demanded, her voice sharp and keen. "Look me in the face, damn it." He did, rising now so their gazes were nearly level. "I believe you." She whirled away from him as she said it. "And I don't know if it's because it's the truth, or because I need it to be."

He felt the nick of her distrust at the edge of his heart. "I can't help you with that. Would you prefer to do this in Interview?"

"I'd prefer not to do it at all. And don't climb on your golden horse with me, Roarke. Don't you even start."

He opened the japanned box on his desk, carefully selected a cigarette. "That would be 'high horse,' Lieutenant."

She clenched her fists, prayed for control, and turned back. "What was Summerset doing at the Luxury Towers on the day of Thomas Brennen's murder?"

For perhaps the first time since she'd met him, she saw Roarke completely staggered. The hand that had just flicked on a silver lighter froze in midair. His just beginning to be annoyed blue eyes went blank. He shook his head once, as if to clear it, then carefully set down both the lighter and the unlit cigarette.

"What?" was all he managed.

"You didn't know." Her limbs went limp with it. It wasn't always possible to read him, she knew. He was too controlled, too clever, too skilled. But there was no mistaking the simple shock on his face. "You weren't prepared for that. You had no idea at all." She took a step closer. "What were you prepared for? What did you expect me to ask you?"

"Let's just stick with the initial question." Outwardly his recovery was smooth and quick. His stomach muscles, though, were tightening into oily knots. "You believe Summerset visited Tommy on the day of the murder. That's just not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because he would have told me."

"He tells you everything, does he?" She jammed her hands in her pockets, took a fast, impatient turn around the room. "How well did he know Brennen?"

"Not well at all. Why do you think he was there that day?"

"Because I have the security discs." She stood still now, facing him with the desk between. "I have Summerset in the lobby of the Luxury Towers at noon. I have him getting into an elevator. I don't have him coming back out. The ME puts Brennen's time of death at four-fifty p.m. But the initial injury, the amputation of the hand, is clocked at between twelve-fifteen and twelve-thirty p.m."

Because he needed something to do with his hands, Roarke walked over, poured a brandy. He stood for a moment, swirling it. "He may irritate you, Eve. You may find him… unpleasant." He only arched his brows when Eve snorted. "But you can't seriously believe Summerset is capable of murder, of spending a number of hours torturing another human being." Roarke lifted the snifter, sipped. "I can tell you, without a single doubt, that he isn't capable of it, and never has been."

She wouldn't be swayed by sentiment. "Then where was your man, Roarke, from noon to five p.m. on the date in question?''

"You'd do better to ask him." He reached up, pressed a button on a monitor without glancing at it. "Summerset, would you come up to my office, please? My wife has a question for you."

"Very well."

"I've known the man since I was a boy," Roarke said to Eve. "I've told you most of it, trusted you with that. Now I'm trusting you with him."

She felt a fist squeeze around her heart. "I can't let this be personal. You can't ask that of me."

"You can't let it be anything else. Because that's exactly what it is. Personal," he continued, walking to her. "Intimate." With fingertips only, he skimmed her cheek. "Mine."

He dropped his hand as the door opened.

Summerset stepped inside. His silver hair was perfectly groomed, his black suit ruthlessly pressed, his shoes shone with a mirror gleam.

"Lieutenant," he said, as if the word was ever so slightly distasteful to his palette. "Can I help you?"

"Why were you at the Luxury Towers yesterday at noon?"

He stared at her, through her, and his mouth thinned to a line sharp as a blade. "That is certainly none of your business."

"Wrong, it's exactly my business. Why did you go see Thomas Brennen?"

"Thomas Brennen? I haven't seen Thomas Brennen since we left Ireland."

"Then what were you doing at the Luxury Towers?"

"I fail to see what one has to do with the other. My free time is…" He trailed off, and his eyes darted to Roarke, went wide. "Is that where – Tommy lived at the Luxury Towers?"

"You're talking to me." Eve stepped between them so that Summerset focused on her face. "I'll ask you again, what were you doing at the Luxury Towers yesterday at noon?''

"I have an acquaintance who lives there. We had an engagement, for lunch and a matinee."

"All right." Relieved, Eve pulled out her recorder. "Give me her name."

"Audrey, Audrey Morrell."

"Apartment number?"

"Twelve eighteen."

"And Ms. Morrell will verify that you met at noon and spent the day together?''

His already pale face was slowly going whiter. "No."

"No?" Eve looked up, and said nothing when Roarke brought Summerset a glass of brandy.

"Audrey – Ms. Morrell wasn't in when I arrived. I waited for a time, then realized she'd… Something must have come up."

"How long did you wait?"

"Thirty or forty minutes." Some color seeped back into his cheeks now, of the embarrassed sort. "Then I left."

"By the lobby exit."

"Of course."

"I don't have you on the security discs coming out. Maybe you left by another exit."

"I certainly did not."

Eve bit her tongue. She'd tossed him a rope, she thought, and he hadn't grabbed for it. "Fine, you stick to that. What did you do then?"

"I decided against the matinee. I went to the park."

"The park. Great." She leaned back on Roarke's desk. "What park?"

"Central Park. There was an outdoor art exhibit. I browsed for a time."

"It was raining."

"There were inclement weather domes."

"How did you get from the apartment complex to the park? What kind of transpo?"

"I walked."

Her head began to throb. "In the rain?"

"Yes." He said it stiffly and sipped his brandy.

"Did you speak to anyone, meet someone you know?"

"No."

"Shit." She sighed it, then rubbed absently at her temple. "Where were you at midnight last night?"

"Eve – "

She cut Roarke off with a look. "This is what I do. What I have to do. Were you at the Green Shamrock last night at midnight?"

"I was in bed with a book."

"What was your relationship with Shawn Conroy?"

Summerset set the brandy down, stared at Roarke over Eve's shoulder. "Shawn Conroy was a boy in Dublin years ago. He's dead, then?"

"Someone claiming to represent Roarke lured him to one of Roarke's rental units, nailed him to the floor, and opened up pieces of him. Let him bleed to death." There was shock on his face, she noted. Good, she wanted him to be shocked. "And you're going to have to give me a solid alibi, something I can confirm, or I'm going to have to take you in for a formal interview."

"I don't have one."

"Find one," she suggested, "before eight a.m. tomorrow. That's when I want you at Cop Central."

His eyes were cold and bitter when they met Eve's. "You'll enjoy interrogating me, won't you, Lieutenant?"

"Hauling you in on suspicion of a couple of torture murders is just the chance I've been waiting for. The fact that the media will be screaming the news of your connection to Roarke by midday is only a minor inconvenience." Disgusted, she stalked toward the door that connected her office with Roarke's.

"Eve." Roarke's voice was quiet. "I need to speak with you."

"Not now" was all she said as she closed the door between them. Roarke heard the bad-tempered snick of locks engaging.

"She's already decided I'm guilty." Summerset drank brandy now, deeply.

"No." While regret warred with irritation, Roarke studied the panel that closed him off from his wife. "She's decided she has no choice but to gather the facts." His gaze shifted to Summerset's, held it. "She needs to know all of them."

"That would only worsen the situation."

"She's entitled to know."

Summerset set the snifter down, and his voice was as stiff as his spine. "I see where your loyalties lie, Roarke."

"Do you?" Roarke murmured as Summerset left him alone. "Do you really?"

Eve slept in her office suite, and slept poorly. She didn't care that her deliberate avoidance of Roarke was petty. She needed the distance. Well before eight she was at Cop Central. After toying with a bagel the consistency of cardboard and coffee that bore too close a relationship with raw sewage, she shot off a transmission to Peabody with orders to report to Interview Room C.

Prompt as a palace guard, Peabody was already in the small tiled and mirror-walled room checking the recording equipment when Eve came in. "We've got a suspect?"

"Yeah, we've got one." Eve filled a pitcher from the water distiller herself. "Let's try to keep a cork in it until the interview's wrapped."

"Sure, but who…" Peabody trailed off when a uniform brought Summerset and Roarke to the door. Her eyes darted to Eve's, rounded. "Oh."

"Officer." Eve nodded to the uniform. "You're dismissed. Roarke, you can wait outside, or in my office."

"Summerset is entitled to representation."

"You're not a lawyer."

"His representative isn't required to be."

She had to consciously unclench her jaw. "You're making this worse."

"Perhaps." He sat, folding his hands on the scarred table, an elegant presence in an unfriendly room.

Eve turned to Summerset. "You want a lawyer," she said, spacing her words carefully. "Not a friend."

"I dislike lawyers. Nearly as much as I dislike cops." He sat as well, his bony fingers hitching the knees of his trousers to preserve the knife-edge pleats.

Eve thrust her hands into her pockets before she could pull at her hair. "Secure the door, Peabody. Recorder, engage." Taking a deep breath, she began. "Interview with Summerset – Please state your full name for the record."

"Lawrence Charles Summerset."

"Interview with Summerset, Lawrence Charles re case number 44591-H, Thomas X. Brennen and case number 44599-H, Shawn Conroy. Homicides. The date is November seventeen, twenty fifty-eight, time is oh eight hundred point three hours. Present are subject; his chosen representative, Roarke; Peabody, Officer Delia; and Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, conducting interview. Subject has come into Interview voluntarily."

Still standing, she recited the revised Miranda. "Do you understand your rights and obligations, Summerset?"

"Perfectly."

"And you waive legal representation at this time?"

"That's correct."

"What was your connection with Thomas Brennen and Shawn Conroy?"

Summerset blinked once, surprised she'd shot straight to the heart. "I knew them, casually, when I lived in Dublin."

"When was that?"

"Over a dozen years ago."

"And when was the last time you saw or spoke with Brennen?''

"I couldn't say precisely, but at least a dozen years ago."

"Yet you were in the Luxury Towers only days ago, the day of Brennen's murder."

"Coincidence," Summerset stated with a quick and belligerent lift of his shoulder. "I had no knowledge that he resided there."

"What were you doing there?"

"I've already told you that."

"Tell me again. For the record."

He hissed out a breath, poured water from pitcher to glass with a steady hand. In flat tones he repeated everything he'd told Eve the night before.

"Will Ms. Morrell verify your appointment with her?"

"I have no reason to believe otherwise."

"Maybe you can explain to me why the security cameras caught you in the lobby, walking to the elevators, getting in, and yet there is no visual record of you exiting the building by that route at the time you claim to have left. Or, for that matter, any other time that day."

"I can't explain it." He folded his perfectly manicured hands again and stared her down. "Perhaps you didn't look carefully enough."

Eve had reviewed the tape six times through the night. Now, she pulled up a chair and sat. "How often have you visited the Luxury Towers?"

"It was my first visit there."

"Your first," she said with a nod. "You've had no occasion to visit Brennen there before?"

"I had no occasion to visit Brennen there at any time, as I was unaware he lived there."

He answered well, she thought, carefully, like a man who'd skimmed his way through Interview before. She spared a glance at Roarke, who sat silently. Summerset's official record would be clear as a baby's, she imagined. Roarke would have seen to it.

"Why would you leave by an unsecured exit on the day of his death?"

"I did not leave by an unsecured exit. I left the way I came in."

"The record shows otherwise. It clearly shows you coming in. There is no record of you exiting the elevator on the level where you claim Ms. Morrell lives."

Summerset waved one of his thin hands. "That's ridiculous."

"Peabody, please engage and display evidence disc one-BH, section twelve for subject's examination."

"Yes, sir." Peabody slipped the disc into a Play slot. The monitor in the wall flickered on.

"Note the time display at the bottom right of the recording," Eve continued as she watched Summerset walk in and through the attractive lobby of the Luxury Tower. "Stop disc," she ordered when the elevator doors shut behind him. "Continue play, section twenty-two. Note time display," she repeated, "and the security label that identifies this area as the twelfth floor of the Luxury Towers. That is the floor in question?"

"Yes." Summerset's brows drew together as he watched the recording. The elevator doors did not open, he did not walk out. A cool line of sweat dribbled down his spine as time passed. "You've doctored the disc. You tampered with it to implicate me."

Insulting son of a bitch. "Oh, sure. Peabody'll tell you I spend half my time on a case screwing with the evidence to suit myself." Temper just beginning to brew, Eve rose again, leaned on the table. "Trouble with that theory, pal, is this is the original, straight out of the security room. I worked with a copy. I've never had my hands on the original. Peabody collected the security discs."

"She's a cop." Summerset sneered it. "She'd do what you ordered her to do."

"So now it's a conspiracy. Peabody, hear that? You and I tampered with the evidence just to make Summerset's life tough for him."

"You'd like nothing better than to put me in a cage."

"At this particular moment, you couldn't be more right." She turned away then, until she was certain her rapidly rising temper wouldn't rule her head. "Peabody, disengage disc. You knew Thomas Brennen in Dublin. What was your relationship?"

"He was simply one of many young men and women I knew."

"And Shawn Conroy?"

"Again, he was one of many young people I knew in Dublin."

"When was the last time you were in the Green Shamrock?"

"I have never, to my knowledge, patronized that establishment."

"And I suppose you weren't aware that Shawn Conroy worked there."

"I was not. I wasn't aware that Shawn had left Ireland."

She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, waited a beat. "And naturally, you haven't seen or spoken to Shawn Conroy in a dozen years."

"That's correct, Lieutenant."

"You knew both victims, you were on the site of the first murder on the day of Brennen's death, you have, thus far, offered no alibi that can be substantiated for the time of either murder, yet you want me to believe there is no connection?''

His eyes locked coldly on hers. "I don't expect you to believe anything but what you choose to believe."

"You're not helping yourself." Furious, she snagged the token she'd found on Shawn Conroy's nightstand from her pocket, tossed it on the table. "What's the significance of this?"

"I have no idea."

"Are you Catholic?"

"What? No." Pure bafflement replaced the chill in his eyes. "Unitarian. Mildly."

"How much do you know about electronics?"

"I beg your pardon?''

No choice was all she could think, and refused to look at Roarke. "What are your duties for your employer?"

"They're varied."

"And in these various duties, do you have occasion to send and receive transmissions?"

"Naturally."

"And you're aware that your employer has very sophisticated communication equipment."

"The finest communication equipment on- or off-planet." There was a lilt of pride in his voice.

"And you're very familiar with it."

"I am."

"Familiar enough, knowledgeable enough, to cloak or jam in- or outgoing transmissions?"

"Of course I -" He caught himself, set his teeth. "However, I would have no reason to do so."

"Do you like riddles, Summerset?"

"On occasion."

"And would you consider yourself a patient man?"

He lifted his eyebrows. "I would."

She nodded and, as her stomach fisted, turned away. Here was the thought, the worry, the grief that had kept her wakeful most of the night. "Your daughter was murdered when she was a teenager."

She heard no sound behind her now, not even breath. But if pain had weight, the air grew heavy with it. "Your current employer was indirectly responsible for her death."

"He was -" Summerset cleared his throat. Beneath the table his hands had fisted on his knees. "He was not responsible."

"She was tortured, she was raped, she was murdered to teach Roarke a lesson, to hurt him. She was no more than a tool, is that correct?"

He couldn't speak for a moment, simply couldn't squeeze the words past the grief that had so suddenly dug claws into his throat. "She was murdered by monsters who preyed on innocence." He took one breath, long and deep. "You, Lieutenant, should understand such things."

When she turned back her eyes were blank. But she was cold, horribly cold, because she did understand such things all too well. "Are you patient enough, Summerset, are you clever enough and patient enough to have waited all these years? To have established the relationship, the trust, with your employer, to have gained unconditional access to his personal and professional dealings, and then, using that relationship, that trust, that access, attempt to connect him to murder?''

Summerset's chair dug into the aged linoleum as he shoved back from the table and sprang to his feet. "You dare speak to me of using. You dare? When you'd use an innocent young girl in this filthy business? And you would stand there and point your finger at the man whose ring you wear and say that he was responsible for the horrors she endured? They were children. Children. I'd gladly spend the rest of my life in a cage if it makes him see you for what you are."

"Summerset." Roarke stayed seated, but laid a hand on Summerset's arm. His eyes were flat and cool as they met Eve's. "He needs a moment."

"Fine. This interview is broken at this time at the request of the subject's representative. Record off."

"Sit down," Roarke murmured, keeping his hand on Summerset's arm. "Please."

"They're the same, you see." Summerset's voice trembled with emotion as he lowered himself into a chair. "With their badges and their bullying and their empty hearts. Cops are all the same."

"We'll have to see," Roarke said, watching his wife. "Lieutenant, I'd like to speak with you, off the record, and without your aide."

"I won't have it," Summerset fired up.

"It's my choice. If you'd excuse us, Peabody." Roarke smiled politely, gestured toward the door.

Eve stood where she was, kept her eyes on Roarke's. "Wait outside, Peabody. Secure the door."

"Yes, sir."

"Engage soundproofing." When she was alone with Roarke and Summerset, Eve kept her balled hands in her pockets. "You've decided to tell me," she said coldly. "Did you think I didn't realize you knew more than you were saying? Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?"

Roarke read the hurt behind the temper and bit back a sigh. "I'm sorry."

"You would apologize to her?" Summerset snapped. "After what she – "

"Just shut the hell up," Eve ordered, turning on him with teeth bared. "How do I know I didn't have it just right? The equipment to jam transmissions, to bypass CompuGuard, is right there in the house. Who knows about it but the three of us? The first victim was an old personal friend of Roarke's, the second another old friend who was killed in one of Roarke's properties. You know everything he owns, everything he does and how he does it. It's been almost twenty years, but that isn't so long for you to wait for payback, to avenge your daughter. How do I know you're not willing to sacrifice everything to destroy him?"

"Because he's what I have left. Because he loved her. Because he's mine." This time when Summerset picked up his glass, water sloshed to the rim and over onto the table.

"Eve." Roarke spoke softly even as he felt his heart, and his loyalties, dragged in opposite directions by angry hands. "Please sit down, and listen."

"I can listen fine standing."

"Suit yourself." Wearily Roarke pressed his fingers to his eyes. The woman fate had handed his heart to was rarely easy. "I told you about Marlena. She was like a sister to me after Summerset took me in. But I wasn't a child," he continued, eyeing Summerset with amused affection. "Or innocent."

"Beaten half to death," Summerset muttered.

"I'd been careless." Roarke shrugged. "In any case, I stayed with them, worked with them."

"Running grifts," she said tightly. "Picking pockets."

"Surviving." Roarke nearly smiled again. "I won't apologize for that. I told you that Marlena… she was still a child, really, but she had feelings for me I'd been unaware of. And she came to my room one night, full of love and generosity. I was cruel to her. I didn't know how to handle the situation so I was clumsy and cruel. I thought I was doing the right thing, the decent thing. I couldn't touch her in the way she thought she wanted. She was so innocent and so… sweet. I hurt her, and instead of going back to her own room and hating me for a while as I'd hoped – as I'd thought she would – she went out. Men who were looking for me, men I was arrogant enough to believe I could deal with on my own ground, found her, took her."

Because a part of him still mourned, and always would, he paused a moment. When he continued his voice was quieter, his eyes darker. "I would have traded my life for hers. I would have done anything they asked to spare her one moment's fear or pain. But there was nothing to be done. Nothing I was allowed to do. They tossed her on the doorstep after they'd done with her."

"She was so small." Summerset's voice was barely a whisper. "She looked like a doll, all broken and torn. They killed my baby. Butchered her." Now his eyes, bright and bitter, met Eve's. "The cops did nothing. They turned their backs. Marlena was the daughter of an undesirable. There were no witnesses, they said, no evidence. They knew who had done it, because the word was everywhere on the street. But they did nothing."

"The men who had killed her were powerful," Roarke continued. "In that area of Dublin, cops turned a blind eye and deaf ear to certain activities. It took me a great deal of time to gain enough power and enough skill to go up against them. It took me more time to track down the six men who had had a part in Marlena's death."

"But you did track them down, and you killed them. I know that." And she'd found it possible to live with that. "What does this have to do with Brennen and Conroy?" Her heart stuttered a moment. "They were involved? They were involved with Marlena's death?"

"No. But each of them fed me information at different times. Information that helped me find a certain man in a certain place. And when I found the men, two of the men who had raped and tortured and murdered Marlena, I killed them. Slowly. Painfully. The first," he said with his eyes locked on Eve's, "I gutted."

The color drained out of her face. "You disemboweled him."

"It seemed fitting. It took a gutless bastard to do what was done to a young helpless girl. I found the second man through some data I bought from Shawn. When I had him I opened him up, one vein at a time, and let him bleed to death."

She sat now, pressed her fingers to her eyes. "Who else helped you?"

"It's difficult to say. I talked to dozens of people, gathered data and rumor, and went on. There was Robbie Browning, but I've checked on him already. He's still in Ireland, a guest of the government for another three to five. Jennie O'Leary, she's in Wexford running a bed and breakfast of all things. I contacted her yesterday so she would be on the alert. Jack – "

"Goddamn it." Eve thumped both fists on the table. "You should have given me a list the minute I told you about Brennen. You should have trusted me."

"It wasn't a matter of trust."

"Wasn't it?"

"No." He grabbed her hand before she could shove away. "No, it wasn't. It was a matter of hoping I was wrong. And a matter of trying not to put you in the very position I've just put you in."

"You thought you could handle it without me."

"I'd hoped I could. But as Summerset's being set up, that's no longer an option. We need your help."

"You need my help." She said it slowly as she tugged her hand free of his. "You need my help. That's great, that's fine." She rose. "Do you think anything you've just told me takes the heat off of him? If I use it, you'll both go into a cage. Murder, first degree, multiple charges."

"Summerset didn't murder anyone," Roarke said with characteristic cool. "I did."

"That hardly takes the pressure off."

"You believe him then?"

He's what I have left. She let Summerset's words, the passion behind them, play back in her head. "I believe him. He'd never involve you. He loves you."

Roarke started to speak, closed his mouth, and stared thoughtfully at his own hands. The simple statement, the simple truth behind it rocked him.

"I don't know what I'm going to do." She said it more to herself, just to hear the words out loud. "I have to pursue the evidence, and I have to go carefully by the book. Officially. If that comes down to me charging you," she aimed a level look at Summerset, "then that's what I'm going to do. The only way you're going to help yourself is to give me everything. You hold back, it works against you. I'm going into this with both hands tied behind my back. I'm going to need yours," she said to Roarke.

"You have them. Always."

"Do I?" She smiled humorlessly. "The evidence points to the contrary. And I'm hell on evidence, Roarke." She walked to the door but didn't yet disengage the locks. "I'll clear your bony ass, Summerset. Because that's my job. Because not all cops turn their backs. And because this cop keeps her eyes and ears open." She shot one last fulminating look at Roarke. "Always."

She opened the locks and stalked out.