Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Thanks for coming down.”

  “It wasn’t a problem. Roarke.”

  Apparently Mira didn’t consider the cheek kiss she and Roarke exchanged before he helped her off with her coat unprofessional behavior at a crime scene.

  Mira wasn’t in one of her pretty, stylish suits and ankle-breakers. Instead she wore slim dark pants with a steel-blue sweater and short gray boots that looked soft as melting butter.

  Her mink brown hair fluffed around her attractive face, and her lovely blue eyes stayed cool and assessing as they scanned the scene.

  “I saw Peabody downstairs and she helped me seal up. Am I cleared to examine the body?”

  “Yeah, you’re clear.”

  Eve went with her, rattling off basic information. Age, name, TOD, COD. “I haven’t found whatever he used to knock her out. He may have taken it with him, may have brought it with him. He likes a baseball bat, and the injury may indicate that. Morris will know.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. He brought the tape, the cord, you said.”

  “Yeah, he prepped for it.”

  “Planned rather than impulse. More like his father than his mother. But different than that, too. He didn’t just want to kill her, destroy her. He wanted to hurt her, terrorize her, humiliate her. And I imagine you’ve concluded the same.”

  “Yeah, but it’s good to have the opinion. Cutting her hair this way. There’s a meanness there, a small-minded one, from one who understands what a woman’s hair means to her.”

  “Yes. I agree.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’d just gotten it done, changed the color and style.”

  “Ah, even more so. She isn’t allowed to look attractive. I see no overt signs of sexual abuse—but for this bruise on her right nipple.”

  “He came in his pants, left his boxers in the bathroom after he cleaned up.”

  Mira nodded. “The killing aroused him, or the torture. Both would have. He left evidence of that, as well as his DNA behind. He wants you to know he’s a man—not gender, but a man. You understand me?”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  “He struck her, primarily the face. To hurt her, to mark her, to feel the power of it. Shopping bags. She’d been shopping?”

  “Yeah. I figure he dumped the stuff out, tore it up.”

  “She can’t have anything, and he’d have done that before he killed her. Hurting her again. New shoes … wearing them so she looks pornographic perhaps.”

  “That’s my take.

  “The strangulation, face-to-face. That’s intimacy. The bow he’s tied there, that’s small-minded again, mean again. Eve, I think he took some of her hair.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I don’t want to touch anything, but you see the length of some of these hanks he cut off? I think there should be more hair. Your sweepers will confirm that if I’m right.”

  “So he took something of her, a trophy. I didn’t see anything like that at the first scene. Maybe I missed it.”

  “I doubt it. She meant more to him than they did. They were just in the way, an annoyance, and dead a means to an end.”

  “That’s how I saw it,” Eve agreed.

  “She was more important than that. He slept with her in this bed, had sex with her in this bed. And she denied him, rejected him, sent him, like a little boy, back to his parents. And she shops for new things, gets new hair? No, that would never do.

  “So young,” Mira said quietly, and moved back to the living room.

  “If you’re done in there, I want to let the sweepers get started, and bring the morgue team in.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen enough there. Did he do this?” She gestured to the little kitchen area.

  “Yeah, he ate after. At least some of it after. He used the AutoChef after TOD.” Eve signaled the sweepers.

  “Junk food. Fun food. Party food. His little celebration, all the more enjoyable as she’s dead so close by. Did he take anything else?”

  “Her wallet, her tip money, her comp, her new ’link. That’s all I’m sure of for now. Probably some jewelry. I think, out shopping with a girl pal, getting new hair and stuff, she’d’ve had on some earrings, maybe a couple of other pieces.”

  “I agree. She’s a young woman, a waitress, so it’s doubtful unless she had a family piece, she had anything particularly valuable.”

  Watching Mira wander, Eve felt it build up. “I screwed up.”

  Calm and assessing, Mira looked back. “Why do you think that?”

  “I never figured he’d go after anyone else—and not this fast—unless in flight or for survival, or possibly if they refused to help him. But I never saw this.”

  “I don’t know how you could have or why you would have. Coming here, doing this? It’s risky and it’s calculated. His other killings weren’t. They were, first, impulse, then opportunity. Even with that, you tried to reach her, several times. Circumstances prevented it.”

  “I had the wrong handle on him. He’d never shown particularly violent behavior before, or ambition or calculation. Killing his mother, that was impulse, then blind rage.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then his father, hours later. Rage again, but some glee in there, and the cold-blooded ability to stay in that apartment, first waiting for his father, making plans, then with both of them dead by his hand while he completed the plans. He ate, slept, plotted, with their bodies only a few feet away.”

  “He felt nothing,” Mira said. “He’s a sociopath, a narcissist. He believes everything revolves around him, and his needs—or that it should. He uses projection bias to shift blame and responsibility to others. He believes this, and feels no guilt or remorse for his behavior, nor any need to change.”

  “He did change,” Eve argued. “When he picked up the knife and put it into his mother.”

  “Escalated,” Mira corrected. “Broke through the restraints. And it was her own fault.”

  Eve shoved a hand through her hair, nodded. “Okay. And I saw it as they’re out of his way, he has a conduit to the money, a way to live like a king for the short term. Just what he wanted. No guilt or remorse, I got that. It was more like glee. But … Killing his parents, did it kill something in him, that tiny spark of conscience, humanity, the need to be a part of the whole?”

  “I think seeing what he did here, what he enjoyed doing here, no, it didn’t kill a part of him, it freed a part of him he’d suppressed. And likely suppressed out of fear of punishment. A part of him he may not have been truly or fully aware of until freed. He’s found himself.”

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Peabody walked in, holding a take-out tray. “Roarke sent this in. That’s tea for you, Dr. Mira, on the front corner. Coffee for you, Dallas, back corner, and coffee regular for me. Roarke’s down with McNab, at this twenty-four/seven café across the street. The waiter recognized the suspect. They’re checking out street-level security discs.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “As is this.” Mira sipped her tea. “It’s my favorite. How does he do that?”

  Eve shrugged. “I’ve stopped asking that question.”

  “Is it all right to sit a moment?”

  “Go ahead,” Eve told her. “I can’t yet.”

  “I can, two minutes,” Peabody said quickly, and lowered onto one of the padded crates.

  “He’s validated,” Mira went on as she sat. “All those menial jobs he was pushed or forced into? Never meant to be—he always knew it, now he’s proven it. All the bosses who demanded he work by their rules? Shortsighted, stupid, or out to make him less because they saw he was so much more. He’s killed three people, and he’s walking free. You know who he is, but you can’t stop him—he just proved that with this last kill. He has money now, true freedom now, true self now.”

  “He’ll need to kill again.”

  “Definitely. His sexual reaction to this kill adds yet another level of that need. Killing rewards him.”

  “Someone he knows? A stranger won’t give him
that same rush, at least not this soon.”

  “Agreed, and knowing his victim, knowing that victim has always underestimated him, considered him less, has even hurt or insulted him in some way is only part of it.”

  Yes, she could see into him now, into the dark corners of him. “Payback’s the other. His parents held him back, shoved him, nagged him, threatened him, and were on the point of booting him. She already had. He’s got plenty of others he’d see the same way.”

  “A long list of slights, opportunities to prove himself, opportunities for the thrill and release, and the gain. The reward.”

  “We’ve contacted everyone we know at this point.” Eve glanced at Peabody.

  “Former employers,” Peabody confirmed, “coworkers, family members, friends.”

  “There’ll be more,” Eve said. “Some neighbor who gave him lip or grief, a teacher or instructor, even a fricking waitress, a clerk.”

  Mira enjoyed her tea. “I absolutely agree. He’ll attempt to work his way through anyone who made him feel less of a man, who slighted him or rejected him.”

  “We’ve got his name and face plastered everywhere now. He has to know that. He has to change his look.”

  “He was wearing a suit,” Peabody said. “I asked the wit what Reinhold was wearing. At first he said he didn’t notice, but I worked on him a little, and he remembered, because he said he’d never seen Reinhold in one before, that he was wearing a suit.”

  “Interesting,” Mira murmured. “He wanted to look professional.”

  “Spruced himself up for this kill,” Eve added. “Slicked up for the ex. Look at me, bitch. I’m high-end now. Salons,” she told Peabody. “Anywhere he can get a hair job, a treatment, new eye color. He changes his method. Knife to bat to strangulation. Experimenting?” she asked Mira.

  “It could be, yes. Or tailoring.”

  “Method to fit the kill, and the sin against him. Yeah. More that, I’ll bet. That would make him feel … skilled and smart. He has to stay somewhere, sleep somewhere, live somewhere. He won’t settle for a flop.”

  “That would be beneath him,” Mira concurred.

  “Maybe in the very short term if he was on the run, but I don’t see it. Not now that he’s tasted the big-time.”

  “A lot of hotels in New York,” Peabody commented.

  “We cover them.”

  “He’ll spend a lot of time watching and reading the reports on him,” Mira added. “It’s another validation. People know his name now, respect and fear him now. They know he’s a man. A dangerous one.”

  “The way he’s spending the money he has, he’ll need more soon.”

  He’d figured out how to get it, and more. He’d forgotten to get Bald Lori—he’d always think of her that way now—to transfer her savings to an account for him.

  He got caught up, Reinhold thought. She had a few thousand tucked away, he knew, and she’d distracted him with all that crying and shaking so he’d killed her stupid ass before he’d taken the money.

  Stupid, selfish bitch.

  Didn’t matter—what did he care? He didn’t need her pathetic waitress money.

  He thought he’d be tired by now, but found instead he was revving, like he’d scored really good drugs. Which, he thought, might go on his shopping list.

  But for now, he needed a nice place to stay, another infusion of money into his Fuck-You Fund, and a stellar fake ID to go with the new look he had planned.

  All of those, and again more, should be available in the tidy brownstone in Tribeca.

  No he didn’t need Bald Lori’s pitiful savings. He’d do a lot better than that.

  He just had to wait for the bitch Ms. Farnsworth to take her dog, the little shitpile, Snuffy, out for his last walk of the night.

  Or should we say his last walk ever.

  God, this was fun!

  He couldn’t keep the place in view from a café the way he had for Bald Lori so he had to stay out of sight, in shadows, or pretend to talk on his ’link.

  Just after eleven, he saw the door open, and fat-ass Ms. Farnsworth come waddling out with the ugly little mutt on a leash. She talked to the dog in that high, annoying voice of hers, the same voice she’d ragged on him with when she’d screwed him over in Computer Science in high school.

  They’d made a big deal of her when she’d retired. He’d even gotten a damn e-vite to her retirement party. Hell of a nerve, after she’d flunked him out of spite.

  When she’d made it half a block away, stopped for the dog to take a shit on the square of ground around some tree, he slipped through the gate of her narrow front yard, and back into the shadows near her front door.

  Nice house, he thought. He’d be happy here for a couple days. Bitch inherited the place when her real estate daddy died. Lived alone since her stupid husband croaked. No wonder she lived alone, considering she was fat, ugly, and mean as an alley rat.

  He slipped the baseball bat out of his bag, enjoyed the feel of it in his hands, knowing what he’d do with it.

  He thought how he could’ve been an assassin. One of those special operatives—licensed to kill—the government ran. Maybe he still could, after he’d finished what he needed to do.

  It might be fun to kill people he didn’t even know. But he knew so many who really needed to die.

  He was going to be really busy for a while. A career opportunity would just have to wait.

  He watched her come back, ugly dog prancing. When they clanked through the gate, his heart picked up its beat in anticipation.

  The dog stopped, quivered, barked.

  Shit! He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Oh now, Snuffy! Is it that bad cat again? That nasty bad old cat?”

  Yeah, Jerry thought, grinning. I’m a bad cat.

  “Come on now. Don’t be such a baby.” She scooped up the barking dog, cradling him, hushing him, and walked to the door.

  Turned the key. Opening the door.

  He was on her like a leech. One swing to send her pitching forward. Slamming the door behind him, breathing fast, fast as he fought the urge to just whale away.

  Instead he gave the barking, quivering dog one hard kick that sent Snuffy smashing against the wall, then dropping, just like its mistress.

  He had to slow his breath, force himself to slow it down, slow everything down until the tornado roar of blood storming in his head died so he could just think again.

  Then with a self-satisfied nod, he propped his trusty bat against the wall. And rubbed his hands together in anticipation of all to come.

  In Chelsea, Eve spoke briefly to the waiter who had served Reinhold.

  “He came in about four, four-fifteen maybe, ordered a Maxima latte, double-shot caramel and a grande chunky-chunk cookie. He worked his ’link and PPC, but lots of people do.”

  “Did you hear him talking to anyone?”

  The waiter scratched his ear as if it would help him think. “Now that you mention it, I guess not. He was just sitting there, watching out the window, and he’d try his ’link off and on, poke around on his handheld. I figured he was maybe waiting for someone, and they were late, but I asked him if he was, like, expecting someone, and he said no, he was just killing time before an appointment. He paid cash. I mean, after all that hang time, he got up all of a sudden, and fast, left cash on the table, grabbed his bag, and bugged out. Kinda trotting. I went to make sure he covered the tab—he did, not much tip, but covered—and I spotted him cutting across the street, zipping around cars stopped for the light. That’s about it.”

  “What kind of bag?”

  “What kind of what?”

  “Bag,” Eve repeated. “You said he grabbed his bag before he left.”

  “Oh yeah, right. Pretty nice bag. Looked new, I guess. Black, big. I guess it was like a duffel, but classier. I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Good enough. If you think of anything else, or see him again, get in touch.”

  “No sweat on it.”

  She
went outside where McNab and Roarke stood on the sidewalk in geek conversation. She held up a hand to cut that off. “Security visuals?”

  “We were just talking about that.”

  “Not in English.”

  McNab just grinned at her. “We’ve got him off a few street cams, and we can put that together. What we were figuring is how we backtrack, see if we can catch him farther back to where he came from.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “We did, or were,” Roarke corrected. “Since the Privacy Laws put paid to use of satellite observation, we’re dependent primarily on building cams, where they exist. We were working out the best probabilities to tailing him back to his source or mode of transportation.”

  “Okay, keep doing that. Let me know when you’ve got anything we can use. A minute,” she said to Roarke and moved a few paces away. “You’re not going home, are you?”

  “I want to play with my friends awhile. I may miss curfew.”

  She glanced back at McNab, currently talking to Peabody and doing what she thought of as the EDD shuffle. His colorfully clad body just couldn’t stand still while he was in e-mode.

  And here was Roarke, cat-quiet in his perfect black trousers and leather jacket.

  Yet they were friends, she thought, with all that entailed.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “My preferred method. So.” He grabbed her, kissed her hard before she could evade. “On duty and in public. But you did say suit myself, Lieutenant.”

  She punched him, lightly, in the stomach. “Me, too. Peabody! With me.”

  She walked across the street to where her car—as promised—waited.

  While Eve worked, so did the man she hunted. Here, he could take his time, and enjoy the excitement of wandering through a house without permission. He could do whatever he liked, have whatever appealed to him.

  Plenty of electronics here to sell or trade and add to his Fuck-You Fund. An obvious e-geek at heart, Ms. Farnsworth liked her gadgets, including a house droid duded up in a black suit and luckily in sleep mode.

  He knew enough about programming from the courses he’d taken—that his dead, tight-wad parents had whined about paying for—to wipe the droid’s memory chips. Reprogramming was more of a head-scratcher, but he could handle the basics. And he’d get Fat-Fuck-Farnsworth to walk him through the fancy stuff later if he needed it.