Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  He helped himself to a snack after he’d tied and gagged the old bitch to a chair in her home office. They’d work there, so he’d ordered the rebooted droid to haul her fat ass up the stairs, then shut down again.

  Then Reinhold took his tour.

  The place smelled like old lady, and of the dog currently quivering and glassy-eyed in the corner. Probably broke something inside the little turdhead with the kick, he decided and stuffed more salt and vinegar chips into his mouth. A treat he washed down with Coke.

  Now and again he wiped his salty hands on some of her fussy curtains or the back of a chair.

  He poked through her bedroom. Big-ass screen there, the old bitch was loaded. Not the sort of thing he could get down and out by himself. Maybe use the droid for that, he considered. And he could send the droid out to hock some of the e-stuff. Not too close to the house though. Not where the old bitch shopped.

  He’d have to think about that one. But for the meantime, he’d enjoy the big screen while he was “in residence.”

  He cackled over his good luck when he discovered she not only had a jet tub, but a big, fancy shower, multijets.

  Now, this was living.

  He didn’t know dick about art or give a shit, but he thought, maybe, he could take a couple of the paintings to a gallery, spin a tale about his dead aunt Martha, and see if he could get some cash.

  But his biggest discovery, and thrill, was the safe.

  A good-sized one, built into the wall behind a painting of a dumbass farmhouse and a field of some farming shit.

  An old safe, at least it looked old, with its classic combo lock. Probably been in the house for decades. Maybe more. And whatever was inside, now belonged to him.

  Back in her bedroom, he dumped all her fat old lady clothes out of the closet and into bags. Maybe he could get something for them, but mostly he wanted them out. He dragged them, the stupid dog bed, the smelly basket of dog toys into another bedroom. Guest room, he imagined with its fussy lacy things and pictures of flowers.

  She had an unexpected guest now.

  He went back, changed out of his suit into new jeans, a designer T-shirt, and new skids. Work clothes, he thought, checking himself out in the mirror. He set out his things in the bathroom for later. The hair color, the trimmer, the face and body bronzer.

  He’d wanted to go to a fancy salon, but he wasn’t an idiot. Anyway, he’d read instructions on the ’Net on how to do this makeover deal. He could pull it off, and later, he’d try that fancy salon to polish it all up. He just needed to look different, and to have that look for the new ID the old bat would help him create.

  He knew just how to convince her.

  He took out the pair of metal cutters, the meat cleaver he’d found in her kitchen—handy and full of potential—and a little, battery-operated hand drill.

  That should do it for now, he thought, and strolled back into the office.

  He smiled brilliantly when he saw her eyes open, terrified, confused. Bumped up the smile when those eyes landed on him, when he watched recognition—and then horror—bloom in them.

  “Hi, Ms. Farnsworth! Remember me? You flunked me out of Comp Science—screwed up my life. We’re going to have ourselves a teacher-student conference.” For effect, he thwacked the meat cleaver into the desk. “Starting now.”

  9

  HE PULLED A CHAIR OVER SO THEY FACED each other, braced an ankle on his knee. “I had to take your stinking class over because you had it in for me. I got in-home detention for a month, stuck in there with my bitching, carping parents. You fed them lies when they came in for your student crisis meeting. You told them I was lazy and careless, how all I wanted to do was play comp games instead of learning the lame, stupid, worthless science. You cost me my fucking summer, all those weeks taking that class over when my friends were hanging. I couldn’t go to the shore.”

  He lifted the nippers, studied them, smelled her fear sweat. “It was the worse summer of my life. My friends ragged on me every damn day, and I was stuck in class with losers just because you wanted to screw with me.”

  He leaned forward, and though she tried to curl her fingers, keep them balled in a fist, he pried one out, fit the nippers over it. Smiled at her.

  “I’m going to take the tape off so you can explain all this to me. Give me your side of it. If you scream, I’m going to snip this finger off at the knuckle. You got that?”

  She nodded, her eyes glued to his as he pulled at one corner of the tape.

  “One scream, one finger,” he warned and yanked the tape free.

  She hissed in a breath at the rip on her skin, let it out in a tremble. “I won’t scream, Jerry.”

  “Nobody’s going to hear you anyway, the way you’ve got this place closed up, but I don’t want to hear it.” He really wanted to tighten his hold on those nippers, feel the snip, watch her face when he did. But it occurred to him she might need her fingers to make the ID he wanted.

  Still, she wouldn’t need her toes if it came to that. Slowly, he drew the nippers away, set them down.

  “So, what’s your side of it, Ms. Farnsworth?” He put on an attentive face, and still couldn’t conceal the ugly glee in his eyes. “I’m really interested.”

  “I wanted to help you. I did,” she insisted, when he picked up the nippers again. “I went about it the wrong way. I made a mistake.” She had to fight back tears of relief when he took his hand off the nippers, gave herself a moment, just a moment to gather herself. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

  “You were on my case from day one.”

  “You had such potential.” She wasn’t entirely sure that was a lie. She had seen potential. And utter laziness. But she’d tried so hard with him, had given him so many chances. For God’s sake, she’d worked with him one-on-one, assigned one of her best students as his lab partner.

  “I couldn’t figure out how to mine that potential, how to reach you.” That was a lie, she thought. She’d been a good teacher, and she’d tried everything in her arsenal with Jerald Reinhold. He’d been one of her few failures because he hadn’t cared, he’d been consistently lazy, obviously ungrateful. “That was my failure. My fault.”

  “You marked down my work.”

  Part of her wanted to rise up, to take him down to size with her outraged teacher’s voice because she’d done no such thing. If anything she’d given him slightly higher marks initially in hopes to build his confidence, inspire him to try harder.

  So she used that. “I sensed great things in you, Jerry, so I pushed you hard. Too hard. I didn’t see that until it was too late. I regret that. I’m sorry for that. I wish I could go back and do it all over.”

  “Do-over.” He snorted the term, but she’d confused him. He’d never expected her to admit all of it. Never expected her to see she’d been the one at fault.

  Didn’t matter, he thought. The plan was the plan.

  “Give me the combination to your safe.”

  He snapped it out so fast, she jolted, and though her stomach clenched, she told him, slowly and clearly.

  “If that’s not it, you lose a finger.”

  He slapped the tape back in place, walked out.

  Alone, she tried to shift, to turn and twist. She couldn’t see the cords around her wrists, her ankles, but she could feel them cutting into her. He’d taped over the cords, taped around and around her and the chair so she was all but glued in it.

  But maybe with repetitive motion she could loosen it all, just enough. Or maybe she could find a way to coax him into freeing her hands.

  Where was Snuffy? What had he done to the poor little thing? Harmless as a lamb, she thought, and fought tears again.

  He’d killed his parents, she’d heard all about it on the media reports. Killed them and stolen their money.

  He’d kill her, too, unless she found a way to talk him out of it. Or get away.

  When she heard him coming back, she went very still.

  Cooperate, she ordered
herself. Agree with him. Be contrite.

  She’d spent more than half her life teaching, and primarily teens, which could often be a frustrating, thankless job—until they bloomed a bit, turned the corner off that avenue of self-involvement. Watching them bloom had been one of her greatest joys.

  With Jerry Reinhold? She’d never seen the first tiny bud.

  “You got a hoard in there, don’t you, Ms. Farnsworth? Cash, jewelry. Heirloom shit, right? That’s worth a lot. Bunch of discs—you’re going to explain the ones to me marked ‘insurance.’ I bet some of the shit you’ve got sitting around here’s worth plenty. You owe me plenty, so we’ll get started on that. We may just have to pull an all-nighter.”

  He shoved her chair to the side a bit, brought himself up to the computer. “First thing? I’m going to need your passcodes. Let’s start with your bank accounts.”

  Because he wanted to, he gave her a hard, careless backhand. “I said, I need your passcodes. Oh, sorry!” He laughed. “I guess you can’t talk with your mouth taped up.”

  He yanked the tape free, watched tears form in the corners of her eyes. “It’s payback time, Ms. Farnsworth.”

  At her desk Eve expanded her notes into a detailed report. She focused on it, setting aside the dregs of the emotional upheaval she’d caused, witnessed when she’d knocked on the door of Lori Nuccio’s parents to tell them their daughter was dead.

  She couldn’t stop their grief, and knew she couldn’t take it on.

  What she could do, would do, was pursue and catch the man who’d taken their daughter and forever changed their lives.

  Lori’s face had its spot on her board now. As she’d been, and as Reinhold had left her. The media would have that face by morning—the before—and would run it over and over. But she’d make damn sure they never got their hands on how Lori had looked when she died.

  Who else was on his list? Who would he target next?

  She got up for more coffee, drank it standing at her window, looking out at New York.

  All those lights—windows, sidewalks, the beams from traffic cutting through the dark. All those people going, coming, settling down, partying, having sex, looking for action, looking for quiet.

  How many of them had somehow offended or pissed off Reinhold in his twenty-six years? And how many might he get to in his payback spree before she stopped him?

  She turned to her board.

  Mother, father, ex-lover. Personal, intimate.

  Would he stick with that? Grandparents? Did they make the grade? Cousins? Would it be family first—payback for childhood slights, for lack of support, for criticisms?

  Friends would come next, wouldn’t they, if he followed that sort of pattern. Would it be the one who won big in Vegas while he lost? The one who kicked him out for not paying the rent?

  He’d need opportunity, a way to get to them.

  She sat again, ran probabilities.

  Then sat back, frowning, drumming her fingers over the results.

  The computer liked the Brooklyn grandparents. Highest probability. Out-of-town set, very low. Friends got an even split.

  She wouldn’t chance it. She’d have the grandparents under protection.

  But it didn’t fit well in her gut, not yet. Weren’t grandparents typically or generally more indulgent than parents? And wouldn’t Reinhold see the pattern, too?

  Then again, the Brooklyn set had some money, from what she’d dug up. Not roll-in-it and sing-happy-songs money, but a solid foundation. He’d need and want more money.

  Offsetting it? Traveling to Brooklyn. Getting out of Manhattan, taking that time, making those plans.

  “Not your next stop. I just don’t feel it.”

  The friends didn’t have real money. But Asshole Joe, as Peabody dubbed him, had hit it in Vegas. He could get two birds with one stone, couldn’t he? Payback, and the money he’d lost and his friend won.

  Maybe three birds, she considered, as he’d be happy to brag to Asshole Joe about killing Lori. Someone who’d known her, a friend who’d probably agreed after the breakup that she’d been a bitch.

  Of friends and family—though she needed to dig deeper into the cousins—Asshole Joe topped her list for targets.

  But even he didn’t sit quite perfectly.

  “Dallas,” Peabody began as she started into the office. “McNab—”

  “Isn’t he going to want to circle back to his friends at some point?”

  “What?”

  “Reinhold. He’s not a loner. Everything we’ve got on him indicates he likes to hang with his friends, go to bars, clubs. He wants somebody—and somebody familiar—to drink with, to bitch to. He’s pumped right now. Adrenaline’s flowing. Everything’s gone his way. He’s having his personal little celebration, but eventually, he’s going to need to bump fists with his buds, right?”

  “I … I don’t know. He’s killed three people. His friends probably aren’t going to want to bump fists.”

  “You’re not thinking like him. He’s rich—on his scale. He’s famous. He’s got power and glory. If you can’t rub that in the faces of your friends, then who? Right now, it’s fancy hotels and food, new clothes. But he’s got to see already that takes more money than he’s got to maintain for long.”

  “Maybe, but … We’re about the same age. If, say, I had a hundred and seventy-five-odd grand fall into my lap, my initial reaction would be ‘Holy shit, I’m rich.’ And I’d celebrate, too. I’d buy new stuff, toss some of it around. I couldn’t help it.”

  “Then you’d stop because you’re not an asshole.”

  “Yeah, but he is.” Considering, Peabody stepped closer to the board. “He’s not going to be thinking of investing for the future or paying his bills off or whatever things mature people do with windfalls.”

  “I get that. I get it.” Eve pointed at Peabody, then because she saw her partner’s gaze shift to the AutoChef, pointed at it. “But he’s found an ambition,” she continued while Peabody scurried over to program coffee. “He’s never had one before. That’s something I got from Mira. Something broke free inside him, and released this killer from the lazy asshole. Now he’s got ambition, and I think, on some level, he is thinking about the future.”

  “Like an investment fund?”

  “No, like how he’s going to keep doing what he’s discovered he really likes doing, and how to make enough money at it to keep up a high-life style. Fucker probably sees himself becoming some sort of big-ticket paid assassin, a hit man. But before that, he has to even the scales, pay back everyone who crossed him, one way or the other. He can’t keep moving from hotel to hotel. He needs a base, a hive … an HQ.”

  Though she knew its miseries, Peabody sat in the visitor’s chair with her coffee. “Okay. I see where you’re going. He needs to score while he evens the score so he can get a place of his own. An iced place. He’d have to score mega to buy one, but—”

  “Not as mega to rent. But to rent, he’ll need more cash, or better a safe account because cash throws up flags. He’ll need that ID, and enough change in his looks so he can move around the city.”

  “The grandparents in Brooklyn are pretty well set.”

  “Yeah, the comp likes them for it. Did your grandparents ever piss you off?”

  “Not really.” As she thought of it—of them—an easy smile bloomed on Peabody’s face. “I guess they’ve kind of spoiled me. Well, all of us.”

  “That’s how it goes, right? Still, considering his meter for offenses, and the fact he’s been a major screwup all or most of his life, there’s probably enough there. I’m having them covered. It seems he’s at least smart enough to figure we would.”

  “Asshole Joe hit big in Vegas.”

  Eve nodded, rubbing at the tension in the back of her neck. “Could go for him, especially since that’s pretty fresh. But odds are Joe’s already burned through a chunk of the big. He needs more than that, another major infusion. In his place I’d start on former employers. Even if they’re
not well set, wouldn’t he see them that way? They own or run a business, they had authority over him—like his parents.”

  “It’s a good angle.”

  “I think we push that one. And we start taking a look at high-end apartments, condos, townhomes currently for rent.”

  “Hell of a lot of those, Dallas.”

  “He only needs one—and so do we.”

  Hoping to jog her brain, she angled toward the board, propped her boots on the desk in think mode.

  “He can’t stay deep in his old neighborhood, not if he’s got half a brain cell working. Too big a chance even if he alters his looks somebody will make him. Not the ex’s neighborhood either,” she decided. “But somewhere close. He’d want the familiar, the comfort of it, at least while he’s still developing. And it’s more satisfying to lord it over everyone. To have a fancy, expensive place close to where his friends have their cheap ones.

  “Run some probabilities on that.”

  “Okay. Meanwhile, McNab let me know they’ve just about got the street cam angle worked out. They’re up in the EDD lab.”

  “I’ll head up. Run the probabilities, send them to me. Then go home and get some sleep, or catch some in the crib. We’ll start back on this in the morning.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Eve dropped her foot to the floor. “That depends on what McNab and Roarke have.”

  “I’ll stick here, in case you get something hot. I’ve got a change of clothes in my locker. Maybe just tell McNab I’ll be in the crib.”

  Satisfied, Eve headed out and up.

  She avoided the EDD bullpen. Even in the middle of the night it jumped and hopped and jiggled with wild colors and constant movement. She steered away, but made a mental note to carve out some one-on-one time with Feeney—her former trainer, partner, and captain of the geek squad.

  She spotted Roarke and McNab through the glass walls of the lab, and stepping in almost staggered from the punch of clashing, crashing music.