by J. D. Robb
“You’re not saying anything I want to hear. Lights, thirty percent.”
“Turn them on, turn them on! I don’t like the dark. Don’t leave me in the dark. I didn’t mean to see!”
His tone had gone high. A boy’s voice in panic and plea. It touched something in her, but she tamped it down. “See what? Tell me, John. Tell me, and I’ll turn the lights up again.”
“Whore, naked in bed. Letting him touch her, touching him. I didn’t mean to see.”
“What did she do to you?”
“Put the cloth over your eyes. Tie it tight. Little prick, got no business spying on me when I’m working. Lock you in again. Lock you in the dark. Maybe I’ll poke your eyes out next time, then you won’t see what you’re not supposed to see.”
Chains rattled as he struggled in the chair. “I don’t want to be in the dark. I’m not weak and puny and stupid.”
“What happened in the park?”
“Just playing, that’s all. Just playing, me and Shelley. I just let her touch it. It hurts, it hurts when Mommy hits it with a stick. Burns, burns when she scrubs it with the powder. Pour acid on it next time and see how you like it. In the dark, can’t see, can’t get out.”
He fell against the table, weeping.
“You got strong, didn’t you, John? You got strong and paid her back for it.”
“She shouldn’t have said those things to me. She shouldn’t laugh at me and call me names. I’m not a freak. I’m not good-for-nothing. I’m a man.”
“And you showed her you were a man. A man who can rape whores when he wants to. You shut her up.”
“Shut her right up.” He lifted his head, and madness rolled in his eyes even as tears streamed out of them. “How do you like it now? She only sees what I tell her to see now. That’s what. I’m in charge now. And when I see her again, I know what to do.”
“Tell me where she is now, John. Where the rest of her is.”
“It’s dark. Too dark in here.”
“Tell me so I can turn the lights back up.”
“Buried. Decent burial, but she kept coming back! It’s dark in the ground. Maybe she doesn’t like it there. Put her outside, put her in the park. Make her remember! Make her sorry.”
“Where did you bury her?”
“Little farm. Granny’s farm. She liked the farm. Maybe she’ll live there one day.”
“Where’s the farm?”
“Upstate. Not a farm anymore. Just an old house. Ugly old house, locks on the doors. She’ll lock you in there, too. Maybe leave you there for the rats to eat you don’t do what she says, when she damn well says it. Granny locked her in plenty, and that’ll teach you to mind your p’s and q’s.”
He was jerking on the chains as he spoke, rocking back and forth in the chair, teeth bared, skin shining with sweat.
“But she won’t sell it. Greedy bitch won’t sell it and give me my share. She won’t give me anything. Not giving her hard-earned to some freak. Time to take it, take it all. Bitch.”
“Lights on full.”
He blinked against them, like a man coming out of a trance. “I don’t have to say anything to you.”
“No, you’ve said enough.”
Chapter 22
She ordered droids and dogs, a search unit, and the equipment necessary for multiple-remains location, identification, and removal.
And knew it would be a very long, very difficult procedure.
She requested Morris personally, and asked that he select a team. She expected and was unsurprised when Whitney and Tibble arranged to make the trip upstate.
For the moment, for a small window of time, they would keep the media at bay. But it would leak soon enough, she knew, and the ugly carnival would begin.
Because she wanted time to prepare, to think, without the distraction of cop chatter or questions, she traveled upstate in one of Roarke’s jet-copters, with him in the pilot seat.
They flew through a steady, dreary rain. Nature’s way of weighing in, she thought, to make a hideous job more so. She saw a little burst of lightning bloom on the horizon, far to the north, and hoped it stayed there.
Roarke didn’t ask questions, and his silence throughout the flight helped steady her for what was to come. This sort of procedure would never be routine. Never could be routine.
“Nearly there.” Roarke glanced at the comp map highlighting their destination, then nodded toward the windscreen. “At two o’clock.”
It wasn’t much of a house. She could see that from the air as they started the descent. Small, ill-kept, poorly maintained, if she was any judge. It looked to her as if the roof sagged—probably leaked, and the lawn fronting the steep, narrow road was weedy and littered with trash.
But the back was blocked in with trees, and in front of them ranged a high fence. The lawn, such as it was, spread up, dipped down, following the rise and fall of land.
There were other houses, and the curious would come out of them before long. None of those houses were close, not to the bumpy land back of the house. A man with a mission, she thought, a man with a job to do, could carry it out in relative privacy in such a place.
Uniforms would knock on doors and ask about the Blues, and a dark van, and any odd activities.
They set down. Roarke killed the engines.
“You feel some sympathy for him. John Blue.”
Through the rain, she stared at the house, the dark, dirty windows, the scabs of paint puckering its skin. “I feel some sympathy for a defenseless child tortured by a parent, by a woman who most certainly was vicious and cruel. We know what that’s like.”
She turned her head, looked at him. “We know how it can twist and scar. What it can drive you to. And I feel a twinge, maybe more than a twinge, at the way I played the child in Interview. You saw how I went after him.”
“I saw you doing what needed to be done, even when it hurt you. Hurt you, Eve, as much as him. Maybe more.”
“Needed to be done,” she agreed, and would live with that. “Because a child didn’t kill these women. A child didn’t rape and beat and strangle them, mutilate their bodies. A child didn’t put Peabody in the hospital. So no, when it comes down to the line, I don’t feel for John Blue. We had as bad.”
“You had worse.”
“Maybe.” She breathed deep. “Maybe. And like him, I killed my tormentor.”
“Not like him, Eve. Nothing like him.” It was that point, that vital point, he’d wanted to make to her. “You were a child, in desperate terror and pain. Defending yourself, doing whatever you could to make it stop. He was a man, and had the choice of walking away. However she twisted him, he was a man when he committed these acts.”
“The child lives inside. I know that’s shrink pap, but it’s true enough. We’ve both got that lost child in us.”
“And?”
“And we don’t allow that lost, damaged child to strike the innocent. I know. You don’t have to soothe me. I know. We use, I guess, that child to stand for the innocent. Me with my badge, you with places like Dochas. We could’ve gone the other way, but we didn’t.”
“Well, I had a few detours.”
It made her smile, and thank God for him. “And we haven’t finished the trip yet. Roarke.” She touched a hand to his. “You don’t know how hard this is going to be.”
“I have some idea.”
She shook her head, and her face was already bleak. “No, you don’t. I’ve done this before. It’s worse than you can imagine. I’m not going to ask you to go back or hang around the edges, because you won’t. But I’m saying, if you need a break from it, take it. Walk away for a while. Others will, believe me. There’s no shame in it.”
She, he thought, would never walk away. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
She had the back of the house cordoned off. While the dogs and droids were sent in, she took a team into the house. It was dank and foul inside, dark as a cave, but when she called for lights, the place illuminated like a torch.
No dark rooms for John Blue, she thought.
He’d killed them in the bedroom, the smaller of the two. His room, Eve assumed, whenever they’d made the trip here. There were locks on the outside of the door—old locks. Locks she’d undoubtedly installed to keep the boy inside. Lock him in the dark, as her mother had locked her.
So he’d killed her there, on the stained mattress, lying naked on the floor. Killed others there, in her image.
She saw lengths of red cord, remnants of women’s clothing, and the smears and stains of blood that had dried on the mattress, on the floor.
“Everything bagged and tagged,” she ordered. “I want a full sweep. Personal items of some of the vic’s may include their identification. When it’s done, I want the porta-lab and tech in here to get samples of the blood. We’re going to ID every victim he brought here.”
“Lieutenant?” One of the team stepped up. He wore his full protective suit, but had yet to attach the mask and filter. “We’re locating them.”
“How many so far?”
“Dogs just found number seven, and it doesn’t look like they’re done.”
“On my way.”
Feeney hustled over to join her. His Mrs. Feeney suit was smeared with cobwebs and muck. “Found a Robo-dig in the basement. Looks fairly new. Been used.”
“Why use a shovel when you can use a machine? And one that makes a manly hum. Neighbors could’ve heard that.”
“I’ll dispatch some uniforms, start the knock on doors.”
“Get it started.” She pulled on her protective suit, carried her mask out into the rain.
Found seven, she thought. No, they hadn’t finished yet. She knew exactly how many more would be found.
Droids scooted along the uneven ground. One of the dogs barked, and his body went into a shiver of wagging as he snuffed along the ground. At his handler’s signal, he sat, waited.
He’d done his job. And they put up the marker for number eight.
Eve walked to Whitney who stood under a wide, black umbrella. “Sir. Do you want me to begin evacuation?”
“Eight.” His face was set like granite as he stared out at the scene. “This is your procedure, Lieutenant.”
“Evac can confuse the dogs. It would be my choice to leave that until we believe all remains are located and marked.”
“Do so. There’s nine,” he murmured.
They worked, inside the house, outside in the rain. Dozens of cops moving like ghosts in their gray gear. Dogs barked, droids signaled, and flags were marked on the ground.
“Call them off,” she ordered when thirty minutes passed without an alert. “Move in the evac team. Let’s have some lights,” she called out as she started across the spongy ground. “Two evac teams, one far west, one far east. Morris.”
“I’m with you.”
“I need IDs as soon as possible. Sooner.”
“I’ve got dental for the missings on the city list, and those we’ve culled from this area. It doesn’t come up to this number.” He scanned the ground where the evac units were beginning to dig. “But I’ve got equipment in the portable that will match the dentals for what we have. Others are going to take a little longer.”
“Ground’s rocky under this sponge,” Roarke commented. “Muddy now as well. It’ll take awhile for the robot diggers to get through this muck.”
“Can you operate one?”
“I can, yes.”
“Get this man a machine,” Eve shouted out, and turned to Roarke. “Start due south. Morris, assign one of your guys to Roarke. Let’s get this done.”
She shoved on the mask, engaged the filter, and strode toward the first marker. She stood, much as the search dog had, and waited.
“Got remains,” the operator announced. The robot was shut down. It was handwork now, a careful excavation with sensors beeping, reading out hair, flesh, bone, beneath the thin layer of dirt.
She saw hands first, fingers laced—or what was left of them. The filter couldn’t mask the full impact of what death slowly does to flesh. But still she crouched, came closer, as the shell of a woman was unearthed.
Her hair was long. Longer than it had been at death, Eve thought. In one of those mysteries, hair continued to grow after life winked out. It was dark with dirt, but it would be light brown.
You’re found now, Eve thought. We’ll give you back your name. The one who did this to you is boxed and caged. That’s all I can do.
“How long she been in there?” Eve asked Morris.
“Few months, maybe six, I’d say. I’ll tell you more when we get her in.”
“Get her out,” Eve said, and, straightening, moved to the next marker.
The false twilight the rain brought deepened toward night. The air was cold, damp, and carried the pitiful stench of death. Tagged bodies lay bagged beside gaping holes in the earth until they could be transported. Remains lay on tarps shielded by tents while the ME’s team worked to identify.
The yard took on the look of a mass grave.
Overhead, the media copters circled, spun out their lights. Word was more reporters were camped on neighbors’ lawns. It hadn’t taken them long. Even now, she assumed, the scene where she stood, the misery and horror of it was being relayed to screens all over the state—the country. The damn world.
And people sat in their homes and watched. Grateful to be warm and dry and alive.
Someone brought her coffee, and she drank it without tasting it, without thought. Snagging another, she walked to Roarke.
“This is the third I’ve done.” Absently, he wiped rain from his face. He shut down the machine, boosted it aside so the hand team could work. “And you were right. It’s worse than anything I could imagine.”
“Take a break.” She handed him the coffee.
He stepped back and shoved up the mask as she had done. It barely helped now in any case. Beneath it his face was pale, damp with sweat. And grim as a grave.
“I won’t be put in the ground when my time comes,” he said, quietly. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, whatever the hell, I won’t make that transition in the bloody dirt. I’ll take the fire, quick and clean.”
“Maybe you can bribe God and live forever. You’ve got more money than He does.”
He managed a small smile to please her. “It’s worth a try in any case.” He drank coffee, and looked, was unable not to look at the horror surrounding him. “Sweet Jesus, Eve.”
“I know. His personal cemetery.”
“I was thinking his private holocaust.”
And she stood with him for a moment, in silence, listening to the mournful sound of rain pattering on the bags.
“Morris has ID’d a few, through dental. Marjorie Kates, Breen Merriweather—from the city. Lena Greenspan—thirty-year-old mother of two from three miles away. Sarie Parker, twenty-eight, adult ed instructor, worked at the local school. Some of them are going to be street people, or LC’s. But we’ll ID them all. However long it takes, we’ll ID them all.”
“It matters, who they were, where they came from, who loved them. You have to make it matter or they’re just rotting flesh and bone after all. They’re only what he made them. Isn’t that so?”
“Yeah.” She watched as another was bagged. “And they’re more. Much more than he made them.”
When it was done, as much as could be done then and there, Eve stripped off her gear, tossed it into the pile for sanitizing and disposal. She wanted a shower. She wanted hours in hot water, as hot as she could stand, then more hours in oblivion.
But she wasn’t finished. Not yet.
She dug in her pocket for another Stay-Up, dry-swallowing it as she walked to the copter where Roarke waited.
“I’m going to ask you for one thing,” he began.
“You’re entitled to more than one after the night you put in. Above and beyond, Roarke.”
“We see that differently, but I will ask for one thing from you. When this is done, when you’ve closed it down
, I want two days. Two days away from this, from all of it. We can stay at home, or go anywhere you like, but I want that time—for both of us. To—I’d say to get this out of our system, but we never will. Not really.”
He pulled off the leather strap he’d used to tie back his hair. “To rebalance ourselves, I’ll say.”
“It’s going to take some time yet. I need to be around until Peabody’s on her feet.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Yeah.” Because she understood it did, she pointed, then walked to the other side of the copter. Maybe it was silly to need it as a shield, but there were still a lot of cops on scene. She’d given her official statement to the media, though a few lingered, hoping for more.
They’d get no more from her tonight, and she wanted private moments to stay private.
She slid her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek to his. “Let’s just hold on here a minute.”
“Gratefully.”
“It shakes me. You can never get yourself ready for something like this. No matter what. And you know they’ll never be enough payment made for it. There can’t be. I’m sick. I’m sick in every part of myself.”
She turned her head so it rested on his shoulder. “So yeah, I’ll give you two days—and take them. Somewhere away, Roarke. Away, where it’s just us. Let’s go to the island.”
She tightened her grip, tried to envision the sugary sand, the blue water, and erase the vision of the muddy ground and body bags. “We don’t even have to take any clothes.”
With a small sigh, he rested his head on top of hers. “I can’t think of anything more perfect.”
“I got to finish up tonight’s work. A couple days more, maybe after that. Then we’ll get the hell out.”
He gave her a boost into the copter. “You sure you’re up to the rest of this tonight? You’re running on chemicals.”
“I sleep better when I tie off the ends.” She strapped in, then used the ’link to check on Peabody while the copter rose into the rain.
Celina opened the gate to the elevator in her loft. “Dallas, Roarke. You both look exhausted.”
“You’re not wrong. I know it’s late. I’m sorry.”
