by J. D. Robb
“What the hell do you want?”
“The answers to some very basic questions, such as your whereabouts at ten P.M. night before last.”
“More bullshit.” He made an ordeal of getting out his pocket calendar. “Bullshit from a couple of pussy cops.”
Eve heard Peabody’s distinct hiss, and simply gave Thane a flat-eyed stare. “Suspect demonstrates disrespect and animosity toward females, particularly females in authority.”
“Kiss my ass,” he repeated. “At ten night before last I was having drinks with friends.”
“Location and names of friends, as picturing you with friends strains credulity.”
“Fuck off, bitch.”
“Lieutenant Bitch,” Peabody snarled out before Eve could. “Location, names.”
“After Hours, it’s right across the damn street.” He reeled off three names—all male.
“Same question for yesterday, nine to nine-thirty A.M.”
“At my desk, right here. I had a meeting at nine-fifteen.”
“The last time you saw or spoke to Dr. Kent Abner.”
“I had nothing to say to that son of a bitch. He tried to ruin my life, cost me a job because he couldn’t keep his big nose out of my business.”
“That business being physically assaulting your three-year-old son and his mother?”
He kicked back in his chair, actually put one fancy shoe on his desk as a show of disrespect. “More bullshit. I had to discipline the kid because his mother wouldn’t, just let him run wild. Added to it, he was clumsy, always falling down.”
“Would that be the mother or child who was clumsy?” Peabody wondered. “Seeing as they both had injuries.”
“I don’t have to talk to you about that. I did the community service, the ridiculous probation period, completed the asshole anger management.”
“Which seems to have worked so well,” Eve commented.
He lifted his hands, spread his fingers. “I don’t even know where the bitch and the brat are, and don’t care. Both were more trouble than they were worth. Now I’ve got work to do.”
“It sounds as if you had hard feelings for Dr. Abner.”
“I figure he got what he deserved, and so what? Then again, he’s a good part of the reason I don’t have the bitch and the brat, both whiners, dragging me down.” He showed his teeth again in a big, exaggerated smile. “Maybe I should send flowers.”
Eve edged closer, watched Thane’s fists ball as he dropped his foot back to the floor, straightened in his chair. And something else. She saw the flicker of cowardice in his eyes.
“Just how many bitches and brats do you figure you’ve slapped, punched, shoved in your worthless life?”
“You’d better get the hell out before I file harassment charges.”
“You think this is harassment?” Just a little closer, close enough to see a thin line of fear sweat pop out above his upper lip as those fists balled tighter. “Not even close. But it could be, and soon. Watch yourself, Thane, and think twice before you use those fists on another woman or minor. Because the next time you do, it won’t be community service, probation, and anger management. I’ll make sure you go inside. It’ll be my mission.”
“Ours,” Peabody corrected. “And we’re really good at fulfilling missions.”
“I’m calling my lawyer.”
“You do that.”
Now Eve showed her teeth in a big, exaggerated smile before they walked out.
“I was waiting for you to kick his ass,” Peabody muttered as they worked their way around the cubes to the elevator. “I was actually hoping you would.”
“This way was better, and less paperwork. Now he’s shaken, pissed off, and worried.”
Peabody sucked in a breath, huffed it out as they rode down. “You have good men in your life, in your work, you mostly forget that type’s around. Damn it, I just thought of something. When he said kiss my ass, I should’ve said how he couldn’t get a woman to perform that act unless he paid for it.”
Because she could all but see the steam puffing out of her partner’s ears, Eve gave Peabody’s shoulder a pat. “There’s always next time.”
“He could’ve done it.” As they crossed the small, empty lobby, went back outside, Peabody glanced back. “He’s got the temperament to want serious payback. He may not know where his ex and kid are, but you can make book if he saw them, he’d want to hurt them. He knew where Abner was.”
“Agreed. And we can look at his attitude two ways: Why antagonize the cops, bring more attention to yourself if you’re guilty? Or make sure you do so they consider the blatant stupidity and think you couldn’t be guilty. Check out the names and location for the time of the drop.”
“Thane and three guys.” Peabody pulled out her PPC as they got into the car. “Probably their weekly meeting of Misogynists United. We’re talking to the maintenance guy next?”
“He’s up. Then I want to go by and talk to Rufty again, their children if they’re with him.”
* * *
Curtis Feingold had a craphole apartment in a craphole building on Avenue C. As the exterior had been thoroughly tagged—much of it anatomically impossible drawings or badly misspelled insults and/or sexual suggestions—and more than one window had boards instead of glass, Eve figured he didn’t maintain much.
The interior only cemented that opinion, with its grungy closet of a lobby, its out-of-order elevator (also tagged), and the broken door on the stairwell.
Fortunately, Feingold’s craphole squatted on ground level. Eve pressed the buzzer, but didn’t hear it sound. And since she could hear, clearly, voices raised in an argument inside, and somebody’s poorly played horn from across the hall, she judged it busted.
She hammered the door with the side of her fist.
“Fuck you want?” came the response through the closed door.
“NYPSD. Open the door, Mr. Feingold.”
“Screw you.”
“We can and will return with a warrant—and a representative of the Division of Building Standards and Codes, as this building appears to be in violation of too many of both to count.”
The door opened an inch on its security chain. A bleary eye peered out—and the sour smell of booze flooded through the crack. “Screw you,” he repeated. “Don’t have to talk to no cops.”
“Would you prefer a conversation or a few hours in the tank while the BSC reps inspect this building?”
“Not my fucking building,” he muttered, but released the chain.
In a white T-shirt that may have been clean in some forgotten past and a pair of brown pants that strained against his belly, he had the doughy look of a man who’d gone to fat but had once been big and muscular. His hair, sparse, thin, and dirty, barely covered his scalp. His eyes, bloodshot and angry, ticked from Eve to Peabody and back.
His breath was enormous.
“Fuck you want?”
“To speak to you about Dr. Kent Abner.”
“Doctors’re bullshit artists. Don’t believe in them.”
The apartment would have been called an efficiency, but there was nothing efficient about it. The screen—the source of the argument between a group of people on some sort of talk show—took up one short wall. The rest stood naked and dingy, as did the pair of windows facing the street.
The bed sort of sprawled in the middle of the room, covered with a jumble of sheets. Take-out cartons and empty bottles appeared to comprise the decor.
“Dr. Abner was murdered yesterday.”
“So the fuck what?”
“Dr. Abner was your daughter’s pediatrician and the one who filed the complaint, testified against you, which resulted in you doing two years for child abuse.”
“That fucker’s dead? Calls for a drink.”
He walked over to the bottle and glass on the table beside the bed, poured himself some cloudy brown liquid.
“Where were you at ten P.M. night before last?”
“Right here. Got nowh
ere I wanna go, nobody I wanna see.”
“So you saw and spoke to no one?”
“So the fuck what? You thinking I killed the asshole? What the fuck does that get me? System’s rigged against somebody like me ain’t got money to grease palms. Old lady took off with the kid, and good riddance there. Who the fuck needs them?”
“Yesterday morning, about nine-thirty. Where were you?”
“Right the fuck here. I got 3B bitching about roaches, and 2A screaming about seeing a damn mouse, and what does 2C do but skip out without paying the rent. Somebody’s always beating on the door, bitching about something.”
“You are in charge of building maintenance,” Peabody pointed out.
He just snorted, drank. “Place is a shithole. Always going to be a shithole. So the fuck what? People don’t like it, they can sidewalk sleep.”
“When’s the last time you saw or spoke to Dr. Abner?”
“In court when the fucker tried to make me out to be some kind of maniac because I gave that sniveling kid a few smacks. Kid’s my flesh and blood, ain’t she? I can do what I like with my own flesh and blood. But the system’s rigged, so they tossed me inside. You’re telling me somebody gave that fucker some good smacks, maybe beat him to hell for being all holier-than-thou? I say good for them.”
He poured another glass, plopped down on the nasty-looking bed in front of the arguing screen. “We done?”
“For now.”
“Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Fucking cops,” he muttered, and drank.
“Gee,” Peabody said when they walked outside. “He seemed so nice!”
Eve had to laugh. “A pillar of his community. Contact BSC.”
“Really?”
“Really. He could kill,” Eve said flatly. “His five-year-old daughter had a concussion, three broken fingers, and a dislocated shoulder because he thinks he can do what he wants to his own flesh and blood.”
It burned in her, burned because she’d seen hints of Richard Troy—who’d thought he could do what he wanted to his own flesh and blood—in Feingold.
“In a drunk,” Eve continued, “he could pound somebody to death, pick up a sticker, slice them. But he’s far too stupid to think of something as elaborate as shipping nerve agents. That doesn’t mean he deserves to squat in that filthy hole of his getting free rent from some slumlord who doesn’t give a shit how people live.”
“This makes me feel better,” Peabody decided as she pulled out her ’link.
* * *
The building in SoHo might have been a universe away from the one on Avenue C. Well maintained, it boasted a street-level restaurant where customers sat at sidewalk tables and waitstaff in fitted vests over white shirts hustled out with drinks and plates. The entrance door, painted a quiet beige, boasted solid security. Rather than mastering in, Eve pressed the buzzer for Victoria Abner-Rufty and Gregory Brickman’s loft.
A male voice—not computerized—answered.
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody.”
“Yes, come right up.”
The door released.
Though she found the entranceway well maintained, Eve still took the stairs.
A man stood at the open door of the second-level unit. He looked exhausted. A well-built, mixed-race man in his late thirties worked up a polite smile that didn’t reach his quiet brown eyes.
“Greg Brickman.” He offered his hand to both of them. “I’m Tori’s husband—Kent’s son-in-law. Please come in. Thanks for calling ahead,” he added. “It’s given Marty a little time to compose himself. He’s back in the kitchen with Tori. Ah, Marcus and Landa—that’s Tori’s brother and his wife—they’re upstairs. They’re working on the … the arrangements. We, ah, sent all the kids out to the park with the nanny. I hope that’s all right. We just felt it would be better if … if they were out while you talk to Marty.”
“That’s fine, Mr. Brickman.”
“Greg. It’s a horrible time. We’re, none of us, doing very well. If you’d wait, I’ll go get Marty.”
The living area, comfortable, cheerful, had its wide window overlooking the street and the artistic hustle of the area. Like her fathers’ home, the daughter’s displayed a lot of family pictures, some good art, a sense of color and style without being too fussy about it.
Greg brought his father-in-law out along with a woman who had her dead father’s athletic build, a messy tail of brown hair, a grief-stricken face devoid of enhancements.
“This is my daughter, Victoria.” Rufty clung to her hand. “I don’t … Marcus?”
“He and Landa are upstairs. Do you want me to get them?” Greg asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t seem to think more than a minute ahead.”
“I’ll get them.”
“Come on, Daddy, let’s sit.” Tori led him to the sofa, sat close by his side. “Do you have any news for us? I’m sorry,” she interrupted herself. “Please sit down. I should offer you something. Daddy, why don’t I make you some tea.”
“We’re fine. We’re sorry to intrude at this difficult time,” Eve began.
“You were kind yesterday. I remember you were kind. Everyone’s been kind. Seldine said you told her she could call, she could come. She’s family. We’re grateful.”
“Dr. Rufty,” Peabody said, “I’m sure you know, but I’d like to say that everyone we talked to in Dr. Abner’s office spoke so highly of him, and with such warmth.”
“Thank you for that.”
Greg came back with another man and a woman. The son took his build from his other father. Tall, gangly, with Rufty’s eyes blurry with fatigue, he moved to Rufty’s other side as his wife took a chair.
“This is my son, Marcus, and his wife, Landa.”
“Have you found who did this to my father?” Marcus demanded.
“We’re pursuing several lines of inquiry, and the investigation is active and ongoing.”
“That’s just cop talk.”
“It is cop talk,” Eve agreed. “It’s also true.”
“They aren’t the ones to be angry with, Marcus,” his wife murmured.
He opened his mouth, shut it again. Then took a moment to breathe. “You’re right. I apologize.”
“Not necessary. We have some follow-up questions, Dr. Rufty. Did your husband talk to you about a Ben Ringwold?”
“I … I’m not sure.”
“Fifteen years ago, Dr. Abner reported Ben Ringwold for child abuse.”
“Wait, yes, of course—”
“Is that who killed my father?” Tori asked.
“No, no, no.” Rufty spoke quickly, rubbing her hand in his. “I remember Ben very well now. He came to see Kent—several years ago now. He was doing the Twelve Steps. He came to apologize, and in fact, thanked Kent for helping to stop him.”
Nodding slowly, Rufty brought it all back. “He’d made peace with his ex-wife, had reached out to his son. Step Nine—he was doing what he could to make amends, and came to Kent. The three of us talked for some time, I remember.”
He smiled a little. “Ben said he’d started a business. A food truck. We went there once. Kent was so pleased. He said how it renewed his faith in people to see someone turn his life around. You don’t suspect him of hurting Kent?”
“No, not at this time. He has a solid alibi, and appears to have done just what your husband said. He’s turned his life around. He may contact you, Dr. Rufty, to offer his condolences. Did your husband speak of a Thomas Thane?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I know that name.” Marcus spoke up. “I know that name. Dad reported him. He beat his wife and child. We had a discussion about it after he got off—community service or some bullshit like that.”
“Did your father indicate Mr. Thane had made any threats?”
“No.”
“How about Curtis Feingold?”
“Yes, yes, I know that one.” Rufty nodded. “I remember because his wife was a teacher, and I helped her g
et a position at a school in Yonkers. I have some colleagues there. He—Feingold—was an abusive drunk. I know he went to prison.”
“Dr. Milo Ponti?”
“Yes, yes. We all know that name. We had a family dinner, and Kent was late because he’d checked on a patient in the ER at Unger. He gave this Ponti a talking-to because he’d berated a woman who’d brought her young boy in. Kent couldn’t abide seeing someone in pain or distress not being treated with compassion. But you don’t kill a man for giving you a talking-to.”
“We’re looking at every angle.”
When she gave Peabody the nod, Peabody took out her PPC, brought up the reproduction of the egg. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Rufty frowned over it. “A golden egg—like the goose? I suppose I have, in trinket shops, in drawings, that sort of thing. What does it mean?”
“We were able to reconstruct this from the broken pieces on your kitchen floor,” Eve told him. “In doing so, our forensic specialists were able to determine the inside of this … trinket had been painted with an airtight sealant, and a sealant had also been added to the edges of the open halves. When Dr. Abner opened this container, the toxin inside was released into the air. This caused his death.”
“But—but—that’s diabolical, isn’t it?” Rufty went very pale as his daughter put her arm tight around him. “We don’t know anyone like that. It had to have been meant for someone else.”
“Sir, the package was addressed specifically to your husband. I’m asking you now if Dr. Abner spoke of anyone in the last few weeks that concerned him, that he’d had an altercation with, or words with.”
“No one. I swear to you. I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I tell you?”
As his voice rose, shook, tears blurred his eyes, his daughter, trembling, held him tighter. “Daddy, don’t be upset. We want to know who hurt Dad. We have to know.”
“But she said how everyone loved him.” He pointed at Peabody. “She understands that. And now someone…” He squeezed his eyes shut as Landa rose and slipped from the room. “All right, all right. Someone … this took planning and resources and knowledge and—and terrible cruelty. We don’t know anyone who could do this.”
