Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  He trailed a hand down her arm, over the soft sleeve of her sweater. “Marriage Rules?”

  “That’s right. What’s the thing?”

  “I had to fire three people this afternoon. I hate firing people.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Basically for not doing what they’re paid to do. I’ll give some leeway there for a space. They could be having a rough patch, some personal problems, health problems. So some room, some time, a discussion can settle that down. But when the not doing what they’re paid to do comes with carelessness, and worse, arrogance, there’s no leeway.”

  “So you fired them for being assholes.”

  He laughed, and felt some of those dregs slide away. “You could say just that.”

  “I know something about it,” she said as he walked to the table she’d set—hopefully well enough—to uncork the champagne. “The guy responsible for the double homicide’s an asshole who can’t keep a job—arrogance, carelessness, and I think a warped sense of entitlement.”

  “It seems our stuff coincides.” After the elegant and muffled pop of cork from bottle, he poured champagne into two tall flutes.

  “Part of why you hate firing people is because it makes you feel like you made a mistake hiring them.”

  “And you know me well,” he agreed. He handed her a flute, tapped his to hers.

  “Did you?”

  “Obviously, yes. But at the time they suited the position well, on all the levels. Over time, however, some can become complacent, lazy, and, yes, entitled.”

  It never paid, he strongly believed, to take a single thing—the good, the bad, the mediocre—for granted.

  “And now these three people are out of work,” he added. “They won’t have an easy time gaining equal employment as their references won’t be stellar.”

  “And the other part you hate is now their lives are screwed up, and may stay that way at least for a while. It’s a tough break, but you wear what you sew—if you know how to sew anyway.”

  It took him a moment, then he just laughed again—and there went the rest of the dregs. “That’s reap what you sow—as in harvest what you plant.”

  “If you go around sewing something, you’re going to have to wear it. So?” She lifted her shoulders.

  “So,” he repeated. “You’re right. They sewed, or sowed, wore or reaped. And now they’re out in a damn fallow field wearing something that fits ill. And apparently that settles my stuff, so thanks for that.”

  “No problem. Hungry?”

  “I am now. What’s for dinner, darling Eve?”

  “We got this soup thing to start it off. Summerset picked the food, so you’re safe there.”

  “I was fully prepared for pizza in your office.” He skimmed a hand down her hair, then lightly over her cheek. “We’re not ones who need or want to push our stuff outside, or not very often. We do well with it. We do well with it together.”

  “Good to hear, because I’ve got a big pile of stuff.”

  “Let’s have some soup, and you can tell me about it.”

  “I’m doing the deal here.” She gestured to a chair.

  “What man doesn’t like coming home to a hot meal prepared by his adoring wife?”

  “Lap it up,” she muttered, and pulled the silver warming covers.

  “If it’s all the same, I’ll use a spoon. The reports I heard tell me you’re looking for a man—middle twenties—who murdered his parents.”

  “It’s more than that. He stabbed his mother over fifty times with a kitchen knife, beat his father to pieces—hours later—with a baseball bat.”

  “That’s considerable rage.” He studied her face carefully. “Were they abusive?”

  “No, there’s no indication there was anything like that. He’s a fuckup. Flunked out of college, can’t or won’t hold a job longer than a few months, including the one his father arranged for him at the father’s office. Decent work. I spoke with the supervisor there, some of the coworkers. The father’s been with the company for a couple decades—hardworking, good guy, responsible. The son’s none of the above. Same deal with other bosses I talked to.”

  “So a pattern of irresponsibility and failure.”

  “Yeah, on a personal level, too. Girlfriend—and from what I’ve been able to gather so far, the only woman he ever lived with, or had a relationship with for more than a couple weeks—booted him. He took the rent money, and her tip money savings—she’s a waitress—and blew it and more in Vegas. He had to move back in with the parents, and again according to what I’ve learned, hasn’t made any move toward finding a job. They’d decided to give him until December to get one, or get out.”

  He ate soup—warm, comforting with just a little bite—and considered. “He killed them because they wouldn’t allow him to continue to feed off the parental tit?”

  “That’s summing it up. He stabbed the mother around lunchtime,” Eve began, and took him through the time line, the financial transfers, the theft, and the selling.

  “Cold bastard, and now he has cash. More than he’s ever had at one time. It’s unlikely he’ll be careful with it. Besides being cold and vicious, he’s young and stupid. I can put out an alert to all my hotels in the city.”

  “It’s already done, and thanks. And fyi,” Eve added, “you sure didn’t make a mistake hiring Joleen Mortimer, or anyone else I dealt with at The Manor. She, especially, is a laser.”

  “I agree. In this case, the previous owners and her former manager were the arrogant ones. Their loss, my gain. I can run searches for accounts your man may open, and will, but it’s more likely he’ll keep the cash. It’s tangible. He can touch it, gloat over it. I don’t think you’ll track him through deposits and transfers on this one, not with—what is it—about a hundred seventy-five thousand. He’ll hoard, then he’ll squander.”

  “It’s not going to last him long.” Eve rose to clear and set the next course. “The sale of the watches and pearls at Ursa’s was a bonus—I doubt he’d expected that kind of a haul. And he’ll net a few more hawking the other stuff, but he’s living high.

  “And by the way, since I know you’ll be compelled to buy me shiny things for Christmas, you might try there. Ursa’s, on the Lower East Side. They’re nice people.”

  “So noted. Did you see something you liked?”

  “The owner. I wasn’t focused on shiny things. Nobody likes him,” she went on. “My man, Jerry, I mean. He’s got three friends, and two of them are reasonably steady types—and both of those aren’t as tight with him as they once were. The third’s another asshole, so they suit each other.”

  She decided Summerset had called it well with the salad. If you had to eat green leafy things, this was the way to get them down.

  “So he’d be most likely to reach out to the other asshole?”

  “If any of them, yeah, maybe.” And she’d need to give another good push there.

  “I think between me and Peabody we scared them enough so they’ll contact us. Wouldn’t he want to show off? Especially to friends? Maybe head back to Vegas, try to offset his losses and the humiliation of them?”

  “Did you run a probability?”

  “Yeah. Seventy-two percent. That’s high enough to up the alerts on transpo to Vegas, and to add them in to casinos in New York, Jersey. The thing is, he’d never gambled before that trip, so it’s not in his usual pattern.”

  “Having more than a hundred seventy-five thousand at his disposal isn’t pattern,” Roarke pointed out.

  “Yeah, so the alerts are out. I want to say I know him, and he’s gotten this far by sheer luck. But I’m not sure about that. He’s got some calculation mixed in there. Getting his hands on the money. That took some thought, some work, even some skill. Just like picking Ursa’s for the watches. It was smart.”

  “What about the girlfriend? Like showing off for his friends, he might want to show off to her, prove to her—or really himself—what she threw away.”

  “Yeah,
and I’m going to nail her down tomorrow. She must still be out.” Eve glanced at her wrist unit, unaware Lori Nuccio lay dead while Jerry shoveled in a smorgasbord of food from her kitchen.

  “You’re worried you missed something,” Roarke commented.

  “I wonder if I did. There’s nothing in this guy’s history that so much as whispers about this kind of capacity for violence. He’s got a couple a minor knuckle raps, and he may have—not confirmed yet—given the ex a slap or two. He didn’t retaliate against the employers who gave him the axe, or the girlfriend who gave him the boot. He mouthed off a little, then walked.”

  “The sleeping beast?”

  “Maybe. I’m going to talk to Mira about it. I think the mother was impulse. He snapped. The knife’s right there, and she’s complaining or advising or warning—whatever. He picks up the knife, jabs her with it. And …”

  She trailed off, picked up her champagne.

  “If you’re comparing this to what you did, at eight, I’m going to be very annoyed with you.”

  He saw inside her, Eve knew. He saw fast and deep.

  “I’m not, but I understand the moment, and what it can do. I was being raped, my arm broken, and I was in fear of my life, so when my fingers closed around that knife, I used it to stop the pain, to survive. He used it to strike out at someone who posed no physical threat, who provided him with a home, a family. But I know the moment, and it can go a couple of ways. Most people with a healthy control switch can and do lose it in that moment. The reaction would be, ‘Holy shit, what did I do?’”

  She took a slow sip, knowing it. Seeing it. “He, and those like him, react with a … a jubilant, ‘Holy shit, look what I can do.’ And the thrill, the revelation of that, however twisted, pushes them on.”

  “We both know those, yes. We’ve looked in their eyes.”

  “Too many of them,” Eve agreed. “Still, even most of those won’t do what he did. But in that moment, you can just lose your mind. You don’t stop, can’t stop, whether it’s the thrill or it’s the fear driving you.”

  This is what she’d needed, she realized as she rose to clear again, and to serve the main. “All that blood, it’s powerful, and it’s horrible. With me, the shock, the pain, the blood, the reality of what I’d done sent me into a fugue state, right? That’s what it was, just wandering around—outside alone for the first time in my life, my arm busted, and the pain from that and the last rape so overwhelming, I blocked it out. The pain, what happened, everything. And I kept blocking it, all that I could, most of my life.

  “It was him or me, and I was eight and terrorized. I did what I had to do, but I’m still horrified to know I couldn’t stop. I was switched off, and couldn’t stop. Maybe he couldn’t, or when we get him, his lawyer will try that one. But then he didn’t run. And nearly everyone would. Just run, or try to cover it up. Somebody broke in and killed my mother. He didn’t run because he wasn’t horrified. He, I think, he embraced what he’d done, and so was able to wait—to plan and gather and work—until his father came home. Then he did it again.”

  “And still he didn’t run.”

  “No.” In her mind she brought back the image of him on the bank security discs. Smug.

  “I don’t think there’s something broken in him so much as dead. And maybe it was that moment, the moment when he picked up the knife and put it in her, that it died.”

  “Will that help you catch him?”

  “Everything helps. I’ll go back to the scene tomorrow, walk it through again. Tonight I’ll do another reconstruct. And if you can do that search for accounts, it would cover it. He hasn’t used his ’link, so he probably ditched it, bought another. He hasn’t been stupid enough to use any debit or credit cards in his name or his parents, but the cash won’t last forever. We’ve got his name and face plastered everywhere.”

  “You think he’ll try to run now?”

  “I don’t see what else he can do. New York’s too hot for him, and he has what he’s always wanted. He’s got money, and his parents can’t bitch at him anymore.”

  “What about other family?”

  “He’s got the full complement of grandparents, and they’ve been notified. He’s got an uncle on his father’s side, an aunt on his mother’s, and five cousins. They’ve all been notified. I can’t guarantee they’d call it in if he contacts any of them, but it’s tough to believe they’d help the man who killed their child, their sister, their brother.”

  “Blood ties run deep,” Roarke commented.

  “Yeah, maybe. I can’t cover them all on what we’ve got. Some of them live in and around New York, some don’t. All we can do there is keep in contact, keep pushing.”

  His hand brushed hers on the table. “You’re worried he’ll hurt someone else.”

  “I think if somebody gets in his way, or doesn’t give him what he wants, yeah. If he goes looking for safe haven or more money, and doesn’t get it, has the opportunity, he’d kill again. But …”

  “But?”

  “I just don’t think he’ll hit on family, or not until the money runs dry or the heat’s too hot. He doesn’t think of family, that’s my gut feeling anyway. He thinks of obstacles to his happiness or success. People holding him back or giving him orders. If and when, I think the grandparents first. I think he’d consider them weaker, more apt to help him. The out-of-town set’s coming into New York, and he doesn’t have any way to know that. So he won’t find them at home, not for the next few days.”

  “My observation’s been much of police work is grunt work, drudgery, covering the same ground again and again, countless hours in interviews, writing or generating reports—and terrifying times of extreme risk, furious action, split-second decisions, and finite planning. You’ve been dealing primarily with the first today.”

  “They should give me a medal for that,” she muttered. When he just smiled, poured more champagne, she shifted. “I’m getting one. A medal.”

  “That’s lovely. Congratulations.”

  “It’s a big one. I don’t mean …” She held her hands out to indicate big size. “It’s a big deal one. Medal of Honor. That’s for—”

  “I know what it’s for, what it means.” He reached for her hand, held it and her eyes. “There is no higher honor in your world. It’s more than deserved, more than earned.”

  “They could keep the medal and give me a bigger budget.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips. “I’m so proud of you, and so amused at your discomfort in being recognized for your dedication and skill.”

  “Amused? Here’s another funny for you. You’re getting a medal, too.”

  He dropped her hand. “What? I’m a civilian, as you continually remind me.”

  “The Civilian Medal of Merit, and they don’t give them out like candy, pal, especially to shady characters.”

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

  She loved it, just loved when he turned all dignified.

  “Oh, it is, and now I get to be amused. You’re the one who started sticking his nose in, then his whole body. Now you’re going to have to stand up there on Wednesday afternoon—fourteen hundred, so put that in your book—and take what you get. And I’m pretty damn proud of you, too, so suck it up.”

  “Aren’t we a pair? Christ, the abuse I’ll take over this by old mates. A bloody medal.”

  “The department values you, and it should. So we’re having champagne and this really tasty lobster before I get back in gear.” She took another drink. “And there’s this other thing.”

  “More? More than double murders, assholes, and medals?”

  “Yeah, more than that. Whitney called me in to tell me about the medals, and to ask me if I wanted captain.”

  “Eve!” This time his hand vised on hers. “That’s called burying the lead, and burying it deep. Eve,” he said again, and started to rise.

  “I said I didn’t.”

  “Sorry?” He sat again. “What?”

  “I said I
didn’t want the bars.”

  “Are you gone in the head?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Is that Irish for stupid?”

  “Crazy’s more accurate.” Baffled annoyance rode over his face. “Why in bloody hell wouldn’t you want it? It’s a major promotion, an accomplishment. I understand the discomfort over the medal. You see yourself as doing your job, and you neither need nor want some fancy piece pinned on you for it. But a captaincy? Christ Jesus, Eve, it’s your career, it’s what you are, more than that. And we both know he’d have offered it to you before this but for me.”

  “No, not because of you. Because of me. I made my choice. Whatever you think, it was my choice. I chose you, and if the brass played politics with that, that was their choice.”

  “Now they’ll give me a medal, and they’ve opened a door for you. Why aren’t you walking through it? Bloody dancing through it.”

  “No reason for you to be pissed about it.”

  “I’m not pissed so much as gobsmacked. Why did you turn it down?”

  “I can’t give up what I have,” she said simply. “I’m not ready. Maybe I’ll never be. I’m a cop. I have to be a cop.”

  “How do captain’s bars change that?”

  “They’d take me out of the field. Right now someone else would be looking for Jerry Reinhold, not me. They’d put distance and space between me and my men because I wouldn’t be their direct supervisor. I’d spend more time, most of the time, in meetings, with paperwork, making administrative decisions, and only what I could eke out actually doing the job I’m good at.”

  She took a long breath when he said nothing. “I need to be a cop, a good cop, more than I need the rank. And I knew that today, without any question at all, when offered the bars.”

  When he still didn’t speak, she shrugged. “I probably broke a Marriage Rule not talking with you about this first, but—”

  “It’s yours,” he interrupted. “It’s your work. I don’t talk with you about the deals I make, what I buy, sell, develop.”

  “What you deal and wheel doesn’t—usually anyway—put you on the line. I understand it would be easier on you if I took this.”