by J. D. Robb
“Fuck you.”
“That’s your answer? Let me tell you why you’re going to take that back, and the time inside just went up to seven years. Right now, as we speak, Alva’s story, those photos and documents, pages from her books, they’re all over the media. Not just in New York, Wicker, all over. All the way out to Oklahoma. I expect your ’link’s going to start blowing up really soon now.”
“You’re lying.”
She just smiled again, made a gun out of her index finger and thumb. “Bang. Trigger pulled. How fast do you figure the cops who’ve worked under you will take to turn on you? The mayor of your little cop kingdom, the council members who are going to have the media beating down their doors?”
His ’link signaled.
“You wanna take that? I can wait.”
He yanked out his ’link, set his teeth when he read the display. He turned it off. “I can beat this. Then I’ll sue you for the skin off your ass.”
“Documentation, photographs, scientific data, and witnesses. Do you think nobody knew what you did to her? Do you think nobody ever noticed the black eyes, the splinted fingers? The county sheriff has men out right now, interviewing neighbors.”
His face flushed with rage. “I’m not doing seven years.”
Eve leaned forward. “Wanna bet?”
He punched out, but she was ready for it. She wanted to punch back, more than she could say, but she just shoved his bunched fist back. “Make that ten years.”
Reo opened the door.
“Cher Reo, assistant prosecuting attorney for New York, entering Interview.”
“And by ’link conference,” Reo said as she sat and set up a tablet, “Marvin Williams, prosecuting attorney for Beaver County, Oklahoma. Mr. Williams and I have observed this interview, have read over the file. At this time, Mr. Wicker, we are prepared to offer you a plea bargain. A full confession, your permanent resignation from your current position as chief of police, and your sworn agreement to never pursue or hold another position in law enforcement. Which includes prison guard, security guard, hell, crossing guard positions, or any position of authority.”
“Go to hell.”
“Jesus Christ, Garrett.” On-screen, the Oklahoma prosecutor dragged at his hair.
“And you go with her, you simpering fuck.”
“Ten years,” Reo said flatly. “Or we go to court, drag it all out—adding your second wife, from whom I have a statement—the attempt to assault an officer, every Tom, Dick, and Mary we find that you used excessive and/or unnecessary force on, and every other thing we can and will dig up. I’m betting it’s a lot. I’m betting it’s going to add up to fifty before we’re done with you.”
“Take the deal, Garrett. Take the ten, because I’m telling you as someone who’s known you—or thought he did—for eight years, you’ll do twice that or more if this goes to trial.”
“She’s fucking dead!” He shouted it, pounding the table. “Why do you give a shit about any of this? She’s dead.”
Eve pulled out her badge, slapped it on the table. “That’s why. Because it’s meant to protect and serve, not hurt and terrorize. Because she mattered.”
She rose. “Take the deal or don’t. I don’t care about that, because you’re done. You’re finished.” She picked up her badge. “And when you’re inside a cage where you belong, and they will put you there, I’ll still have this. Because it’s got to matter. Because of people like you. Dallas, exiting Interview.”
She stepped out, took a couple of breaths.
Garrett Wicker wasn’t her father, she reminded herself. But he and Richard Troy ran the same vicious, violent road.
And she’d beaten them both.
“Okay then.” She breathed out again. “Now it’s done.”
She saw Peabody come out of Observation, and recognized the cautious concern on her partner’s face.
To eliminate it, she held out a fist for a bump. “Good job as the whiny, stick-up-the-ass subordinate.”
“I thought so. You’re not staying in for the finale?”
“He’s finished. Sometimes you have to leave it to the lawyers. He’ll take the ten, figuring he’ll get out in maybe six. He figures he can do six.”
Eve shook her head as they walked back. “But he won’t get through the first year without screwing it up, going at one of the guards, getting into it with another inmate. He’ll do the full dime, and maybe more.”
“He never saw it coming.”
“He wouldn’t. He’s not wired to believe he’d pay any price—especially because of a woman.”
“Not just that, Dallas. You had it ultrafine. The timing, the media storm, the whole ball of ’tude. I thought you were going to punch him when he took that swing at you. But really, you did. Complete beatdown.”
“We did.” She pointed to her office so Peabody went with her. “Now it’s done, so we move on.”
“No hits on the missing persons search, citywide, statewide, nationally,” Peabody told her. “I started a global, but—”
“She went missing in New York, so there should be something. Still, it’s possible nobody but her killer knew she was here. Thin, but possible. Or any record’s been lost in the fog of time.
“Coffee,” she said, then walked over to look out her window.
“We can start a facial recognition for her ID,” Eve began. “The likeness isn’t complete, but we start it, it starts eliminating.”
She took the coffee Peabody held out.
“A young Middle Eastern woman, maybe Muslim—and during a period when there were still some loud echoes of bigotry—in New York. A woman college age or just beyond … Grad school? She’s got means—jewelry, shoes—superior health and all that, so higher education feels probable. Did she go to college in New York? It’s an angle. Pregnant, and the remains indicate good prenatal care, so a doctor, an experienced midwife.”
“The wedding ring,” Peabody put in. “So most likely married.”
“Most likely, but a young, attractive, pregnant woman might put on a ring to avoid questions or issues. If she had a purse—and her type would—it didn’t fall in with her. Or the killer got it out when they built the wall.
“The wall, the brick, the timing, that’s why we’re going to Hudson Valley.”
“Hot damn!”
“Start the facial recognition. We’ll update when we have the completed sketch. I’ll contact Roarke for the copter.”
“Double hot damn!” Peabody executed a butt and shoulder wiggle. “Like mega burning damn.”
“We just closed a two-pronged case. I don’t want to hate you right now.”
“When I contacted the Singer estate earlier, they said the Singers would meet with us. Briefly.”
“Tag them back. Tell her we’re coming. Make it all routine.”
“Isn’t it?”
“We won’t know until we get there. When we’re done there, we’ll drop in on Bardov.”
Peabody’s eyes went to big brown moons. “Really?”
“Routine follow-up. I want to see if his memory matches theirs. Get going. I’ll write up Wicker.”
“I can take care of it.”
“I want this one.”
Understanding, Peabody just nodded. As she started out, she gave a butt wiggle. “Jet-copter ride!”
* * *
Eve weighed two choices whenever she faced air travel. She could pretend she remained on the ground by concentrating on something else—anything else—for the duration. This required never looking out a window of any kind, and convincing herself any and all turbulence was just the rumbling of traffic over a pothole.
In the street.
On the ground.
Because the size and amount of glass in a two-passenger jet-copter took this option off the table, she had to count on Plan B and focus every cell in her body on keeping what she considered a flying insect aloft.
She didn’t like the constant, low-level buzz reminding her she rode in the belly of t
he insect. And insects often ended their short, annoying lives being swallowed up by a larger flying thing, or getting swatted flat.
As Peabody loved every minute of buzzing around in the air like a mosquito, when flying with her partner, Eve had to merge both options.
Eve hunched over her PPC, studiously reviewing data she’d already committed to memory. Peabody plastered her face to the porthole in the door Eve imagined could burst open any second and suck them out so they pinwheeled screaming over the scenery Peabody rhapsodized over.
“Oh, it’s so pretty! The hills! The trees! I bet it’s super-ult-mag in the fall. All kinds of vineyards and orchards!”
“Go sit up with the pilot.”
“Is it okay? I can see through here, but—”
“Go.”
Peabody hopped up and all but danced the short distance to do her rhapsodizing in front of the wide windscreen until they dropped, mercifully, on the helipad.
The minute Eve got behind the wheel of the waiting car, everything inside her settled. She put the return trip firmly out of her mind and programmed the Singer estate.
“That was so quick.” Still flushed with pleasure, Peabody strapped into the passenger seat. “McNab and I talked about taking a day trip up here, but decided we’d spend too much of the day getting here and back.”
Eve gave her the next ninety seconds to chatter—“The hills! The green! The river!”
“Since we’re not here to cozy up together in some quaint bed-and-breakfast, maybe you could focus on the people we’re about to interview.”
“I bet they have mag-o B and B’s up here. Anyway, J. Bolton and Marvinia Singer are in residence, as is Elinor Singer. That’s how they put it anyway. ‘In residence.’ So we can talk to all three of them in one place.”
“Bardov’s only a few miles from their estate, so we’ll see if he’s ‘in residence’ when we’re done at the Singers’. I want to get a better sense of that relationship. It goes back decades.”
“I can see why they all built up here. It’s peaceful, and you can really spread out. And the scenery’s the total. But it feels like, especially in Elinor Singer’s time at the helm, she had to spend more time in the city than here.”
“And it had to cost to maintain a country estate,” Eve added. “Tough going in the couple years before the Urbans, a lot tougher going during.”
“So you hook up—on a business level—with the deep pockets of a mob boss.”
“A calculated business decision,” Eve concluded. “But here you are, decades later and still hooked. And did that initial hook have anything to do with killing a pregnant woman and walling her up?”
“I gotta say, Dallas, it feels like Bardov would’ve been too smart for that. You don’t hide the body, you get rid of it.”
“Agreed. And I don’t see him condoning that kind of hit. But it’s time for these people to reach back in their memory banks.”
She drove along a wall of white brick to an arching white gate. And rolled down her window to speak into the security intercom.
Good morning. Rosehill is a private estate. If you have an appointment, please state your name.
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody.” Eve held up her badge for the scan. “We’re expected.”
Welcome to Rosehill. Please proceed through the gate and continue directly to the main house. You will be met. Enjoy your visit.
The gates swung soundlessly open.
The drive ran arrow straight to the house. They’d gone with white brick there, too, in a three-story structure that struck Eve as more big and sturdy than elegant.
Generous windows, yes, and plenty of plantings to soften those straight lines, but no balconies or terraces, no gracious front porch or veranda.
“It’s impressive,” Peabody commented. “But it’s not, you know, welcoming. It looks really stern and strict. Our house isn’t going to look stern and strict.”
“No chance of that.”
“The front garden’s nice, but there’s just the long, long lawn up to it. No trees or anything. You’ve got some over there, way to the side, and they probably have a garden in the back, but otherwise, there’s like this big blank green slate.”
She shot Eve a look. “I’m paying a lot of attention because I’ve got landscaping on the brain, but inside that, it kind of speaks to who lives here.”
“Agreed. It looks more like an institution than a home.”
“That’s it! And you get the feeling that everything inside runs on schedule. Or else.”
Eve pulled up at the end of the drive. Since she didn’t spot any other vehicles or a specified parking area, she left the car where it was.
The door, six feet across and twice that high in steel gray, opened as she and Peabody got out.
A man of about fifty, wearing Summerset black stood militarily straight. “Lieutenant, Detective. I’ll show you where you may wait.”
When she crossed the threshold, Eve’s sense of an institution didn’t fade. A well-endowed one, she thought as she scanned the grand foyer. A lot of dark, heavy furnishings, a lot of paintings of dour-looking people scowling out of dark, heavy frames.
A thick rug in red and gold tones spread over the floor to the straight-as-a-ruler staircase.
The man in black led them to a room off the right, where the generous window looked out over the foundation plantings and endless sea of green to the wall of white.
“May I take your coats?”
“No, we’re good.” Because it’s cold in here, she thought. Not temperature-wise, but in every other sense.
“Please make yourselves comfortable. The Singers will join you shortly, and you’ll have a tea and coffee service.”
More dark, heavy furniture, more—to her eye—depressing art. More white brick in a fireplace framed by dark wood. The white walls were done in stripes—one matte, one gloss, one matte, and so on—in a style she found disorienting.
“Antiques,” Peabody said, studying a deeply carved table. “Really valuable antiques, but too heavy for the room, you know? And you just want to strip off the decades of lacquer to get to the gorgeous wood under it.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“It just sort of feels like you’re expected to.”
“Got your dust catchers here and there, but no family photos. Not a single one. And what’s growing all over that couch?”
“Cabbage roses. It’s really old-fashioned and, again, just too much. And the millwork’s gorgeous, but with the white-on-white walls, it’s all wrong. I mean the walls are wrong. I’m taking mental pictures so I know what not to do.”
Eve heard the approaching footsteps—quick, female—and turned to the doorway.
Her first thought—though she’d studied Marvinia Singer’s ID shot—was the woman looked completely out of place in the cold, institutional air of the house.
Her hair swung in rich brown, chin-length curves around a pretty face warmed with a smile. She wore a bright blue shirt with a long tail over simple black leggings. Blue-and-silver twists dangled from her ears with a small diamond stud winking from the left cartilage.
Her voice rang like a bell. “Oh, I’m so sorry we’ve kept you waiting. I’m Marvinia Singer.” She stuck out a hand, gripped, and gave Eve’s a hearty shake before doing the same with Peabody’s. “My husband and his mother will be right along. Please, please, sit down. I’m delighted to meet you. How is Roarke, Lieutenant? I haven’t run into him in months.”
“He’s fine, thank you.”
“I’m sure he is. I’m hearing really wonderful things about An Didean. Such a brilliant and generous undertaking. I’m hoping to arrange a tour of it very soon.”
She gestured to two chairs of the same rusty red as the enormous couch roses, then settled in the corner of the couch.
“My son tells me you found the person who killed that poor woman. I know it’s a relief to him, to all of us, to know that man’s been caught.”
“Yuri Bardov
’s nephew.”
The smile left her eyes. “Yes, so I heard. I’m sorry to hear it. I’m very fond of Marta.”
“You’re friendly with Mrs. Bardova?”
“Yes. She’s been very generous to my foundation. And we’re neighbors, women with some common interests. I haven’t spoken with her since I heard. It feels wrong, even for a friend, to speak to her of this right now. I know she and Yuri treated Alexei as one of their own.”
“You know him?”
“Not well, no. His wife, Nadia, has again given some time to my foundation and I’m grateful. I can’t conceive she knew he was capable of doing what he did. I can’t believe Marta had any idea he was stealing from her husband, from us. Am I correct you’re here to ask us about all of that?”
“In part, yes.”
“It may seem biased for me to say, as a woman, a mother, that neither of these women, these mothers, were aware. But I believe it, absolutely. I’ve known Marta for—God—nearly fifty years.”
“And Yuri?”
“He’s less … knowable. I have talked to him more in the last few years than previously, as he’s actually a very skilled gardener, and I’ve asked his advice in that area.”
She glanced toward the doorway before she continued, “I’m not unaware of Yuri’s reputation, but can tell you I haven’t seen that side of him, if true, in the years I’ve known Marta. Alexei … the phrase is a lean and hungry look. I would have applied that to him.”
“He and your son are about the same age,” Peabody said.
“Yes. Different interests, different circles. And Bolt was a few years older when Alexei came to the country, and already had his established friends, and then was off to college. They never clicked.”
Eve heard more footsteps and noted Marvinia’s glance at the doorway. “And here we are.”
Eve turned her head to watch the entrance.
J. Bolton, trim, tanned, tall in his pearl-gray linen suit, his hair a shining wave of golden blond, had his mother’s hand tucked in his crooked arm.
