Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  It amazed him to see just how many dates and appointments ran through her calendar. Lunches, dinners, more salons, groomers for the little rat-dog, currently half dead in the hallway.

  Maybe he should finish him off, but then again …

  Helping himself to a post-breakfast cappuccino, Reinhold walked upstairs.

  He wrinkled his nose at the smell as he walked into the office and found Ms. Farnsworth slumped in the chair, urine dripping down her legs, blood staining the tape around her wrists and ankles.

  “Jesus, you pissed yourself. You stink.” He held his nose with one hand, waved the other in front of his face, his eyes gleaming bright as her head rolled up.

  “Now I have to get Asshole—I renamed the droid—I have to get Asshole in here to clean this up. Oh, by the way, I canceled your salon appointment. Saved you money, because no amount of it could make you less ugly, fat, and disgusting.”

  He walked back out, called downstairs. “Hey, Asshole! Ms. Farnsworth pissed all over the place, get up here and clean this mess up.”

  Stepping back in he did what he thought of as a manly pose, one arm cocked up, the other across his body. “So, what do you think of the new look? Frosty, huh?”

  He’d spent considerable time with the hair product, lightening his color by degrees, using the tools supplied to streak it through so he now sported a sun-washed, streaky blond. He’d trimmed it, though he thought he needed some pro help there. But it lay slick over his head. He’d mated that with layers of bronzing product. He thought he looked as though he’d spent a month at some fancy tropical resort.

  The eyes had been trickier, and he’d go pro there next time, too. But now they were electric blue. Using some of the hair he’d trimmed off, he’d added a soul patch to the center of his chin. and though it had hurt like fucking hell, he’d used the kit he’d bought to pierce his left ear, which now sported a small gold hoop.

  “I look successful, right? Young, rocking, rich? I’ve got an appointment with a realtor to look at a couple apartments today. Gotta look good.”

  He barely glanced over when the droid came in with cleaning tools.

  “He’s mine now.” He gave the formerly named Richard, dignified in his dark uniform and silver-templed hair, a pat on the back. “Just like everything else that was yours. So don’t even think about giving him orders. Oh that’s right. Still can’t talk. I’ll fix that as soon as Asshole’s done here. Be right back.”

  When he strolled out, Ms. Farnsworth rolled her eyes toward the droid. She screamed: Help me! but all that sounded was a weak moan. It went about its business efficiently, as she’d programmed its domestic duties herself. She tried rocking and bucking in the chair, but her limbs were numb, the only sensation was the burning where she’d rubbed her flesh raw in her attempts to get free.

  She’d loosened the tape a little in places, or maybe that was just desperate hope. But she thought if she could regain a little strength, she could loosen it more. If she just had a few sips of water for her burning throat, anything, anything to ease the pain.

  Even the humiliation barely touched her now, though when she’d no longer been able to control her bladder, she’d wept.

  It didn’t matter, didn’t matter, didn’t matter. Just pee. Just a normal human function. If she peed, she lived. And as long as she lived she had a chance to survive and pay the bastard back.

  She’d kill him if she could. She’d never harmed another human being in her life, but she would cheerfully end his by any means possible.

  She tried to speak again, slowly, clearly. If she could only get the droid to understand a few words. But the garbled mumbles meant nothing, and he continued his task, then gathered up the cleaning supplies.

  Reinhold walked in as the droid walked out, as if he’d been waiting.

  “You still stink, but it’s a little better, and sometimes we have to work under unpleasant conditions.”

  He’d brought the nippers with him, waved them at her as he crossed to her. “Scream, lose a finger.”

  He ripped the tape away. She let out a gasp as much in shock as grabbing air.

  “You—” Her voice croaked out, barely audible. “You have the money.”

  “I sure do, but we’re going to hide it, really, really good. You know how, and you’re going to show me. And I need a few other things.”

  “I need water. Please.”

  “You’ll just piss yourself again.”

  “I’m dehydrated.”

  Bitch and complain, he thought, his jaw tightening. Just like his mother. Just like Bald Lori.

  “Too fucking bad. Now, what we’re going to do this morning is make me a nice new ID, and get the data up. I’ve worked out everything I want. Your job is to walk me through making it happen. Got that?”

  “No.”

  He pressed the nippers against her cheek. “Need me to repeat it?”

  “Go ahead, use them.” She coughed as the words scored her throat like hot needles. “I’m done helping you.”

  “Helping me? Is that what you think you’re doing? Helping me?” He swung back, bashed the back of his fist in her face. “You’re following orders, bitch. I don’t need your fucking help. You do what you’re told.”

  She made herself look him in the eye, even as she felt blood slide out of her nose. And shook her head.

  He turned around, walked out.

  She gathered herself, digging for breath, digging for strength. She’d scream, however much it hurt, however much he hurt her for it. She’d scream and someone would hear.

  Please, God.

  Before she could, he came back, holding her little dog. Snuffy whimpered when he saw her, and she could see from his eyes he was hurt. And still he wagged his tail.

  Fear came back, raw as the skin on her wrists. “Don’t hurt him. He’s just a little dog.”

  “Too late for that. He’s already hurt. Probably needs the vet. Maybe I’ll take him to a vet if you do what you’re told.”

  “You won’t.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But if you don’t.” He turned the nippers, pushed Snuffy’s paw out. “I’ll just start snipping away.”

  Tears stung her eyes, ached in her burning throat. “Don’t. Please, Jerry.”

  “Wouldn’t take many snips with a rat-dog like this.” To motivate her—and because it was fun—he pinched the dog, hard, so it yelped. “But I’d start small. This paw, that paw, maybe his tongue so he can’t yap.”

  “I’ll do it. Don’t hurt him, and I’ll do it.”

  Smiling, he closed the snips a little more. “Maybe I’ll snip just one paw because you said no first.”

  “Please. Please.” The tears rolled now. She couldn’t stop them. He was a sweet old dog, he was family. He was defenseless. “I’m sorry. I’ll make the ID for you, and upload all the data you want. I’ll make it perfect. I’ll hide the money. I’ll bury it so nobody can trace it.”

  “Damn right you will. And one mistake? Just one? He loses a paw, you lose a finger.”

  He dumped the dog in her lap where Snuffy whimpered at her.

  Reinhold sat at the desk, cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get started!”

  11

  EVE WENT STRAIGHT TO THE MORGUE. NO need that she could see to pull Peabody in, not for this. The investigation was better served with her partner checking out the shops they knew Reinhold had visited, and at her desk, tracking down pawnbrokers who might be slow—or reluctant—to report the purchase of items sold by a murderer.

  She traveled the white tunnel as she had the day before, and thought, yeah, it was past time for luck to turn.

  She found Morris with Lori Nuccio. As he often did, he’d chosen music to suit either his mood or the victim. This was light, kind of breezy, with a high, clear female voice singing hopefully about what lay behind the bend in the road.

  He looked up from his work when Eve entered, ordered the music to low volume. “I’d hoped not to see you again quite so soon.”

/>   “Same here,” she said as she joined him.

  “Young. Very pretty.”

  “Hard to tell now, after he messed her up.”

  Morris shook his head. “No, not really. Her bone structure, coloring. There’s an ugliness to what he did here, but she shows through it.”

  “She’d like to know that.” Eve lifted her shoulders, let them fall at Morris’s arched brows. “You know how it is. They get in your head, and you feel like you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “She mattered to him, in his own twisted way. He hated her for that. He didn’t rape her.”

  “No,” Morris confirmed. “There was no sexual activity, consensual or forced.”

  “He might go there with another, if he gets the chance. He orgasmed during the kill, so now he has a sexual connection—a bonus round.”

  “This one’s difficult for you.”

  “I don’t know why this one, especially, except we kept missing her. It’s like everything was weighted on his side. We’re trying to contact her, her neighbor’s looking out for her, and still, he gets in, does this, walks away.”

  Studying the body as he did, Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “She was living cheap, you know? Padded crates, stringed beads for curtains in this little box apartment. But she kept it nice, kept herself nice, worked hard, had friends, had family. He took it all because she wouldn’t let him sponge off her anymore, do nothing anymore. Her parents are wrecked.”

  She paused, pinched the bridge of her nose as if to release tension. “They told me her older sister and her spouse, their baby were all in from Ohio for Thanksgiving. They were having a big family dinner, and this one here was getting some fancy dish from the restaurant where she works.

  “I don’t know why they told me all that. Sometimes they tell you things because they don’t have anything else.”

  “Death’s cruel. Crueler yet at times when family traditionally gathers.”

  “Yeah. And about that. They’re going to want to come in, see her. I don’t know how much you can do, considering, but they shouldn’t see her like this.”

  “Don’t worry.” He touched a hand briefly to Eve’s arm. “We’ll take care of her, and them.”

  “Okay. Good. So.” She had to put it away, out of her head, and do her job. “The way it pieces together, he had keys, or he’d made copies. He went in when the neighbor went out. We have him sitting in a café across the street where he had a good view of the building. It was the vic’s regular day off, and from statements she usually went out, ran errands, shopped, hooked up with a friend. When he saw the chance he went in. He’d been shopping. We’ve got him coming and going on his hotel security cams. He bought the tape, the cord. And I’m thinking another baseball bat.”

  “I’d agree with that. The head injury’s consistent with a bat. It would have knocked her unconscious, but it wasn’t a killing blow.”

  “Or meant to be,” Eve added.

  “He used good quality cord. Strong and pliable. As you see from the ligature marks, he tied it as tightly as possible, much more than necessary to restrain her. She struggled, but it didn’t help her. The tape, also good quality. She left teeth marks and blood inside. Some of that would be from the lip, opened from a blow. He struck her with his fist.”

  Morris balled his own. “In the face, in the abdomen, in the right side. There’s slight bruising around her nose, and a deeper bruising on the nipple. From pinching.”

  “I missed the nose.”

  “Very slight. You’d need the microgoggles. This slight cut here, thin, sharp blade with a serrated edge. I can’t tell you what sort. It’s just a nick.”

  “A warning. Just showing what he could do.”

  “Most likely, yes.” As if to comfort, he laid a hand on Lori’s shoulder. “But the lab may be able to identify the type of knife from the shorn hair.”

  “I’ve got Harpo on the hair.”

  “You couldn’t do better. He cut it before killing her.”

  “Yeah, part of the torture.”

  Shifting, Morris turned his attention, and Eve’s, to the throat wounds. “Considerable force was used in the strangulation. He put his back into that. You can see how deeply the cord cut into her. From the angles, and the crime scene record, he would’ve straddled her, looped it around her neck, twisting the lines in front.” He pulled his fisted hands apart sharply to demonstrate. “Leaving this pattern of bruising here where the lines of cord crossed.”

  She could see it perfectly, the positioning, the movements, the joy and the terror. “It’s what got him off. That connection. Being on top of her, cutting off her air, feeling her body convulse under him. Being able to see her face while she fought for air, while she lost the fight.

  “Then he raided her kitchen for snack food.”

  “He thinks he’s outwitting you.”

  She brought herself back to the moment. “What?”

  “He thinks he’s smarter than you, than the police. He has no idea how well you already know him, and how deeply you can go.”

  “I know him,” she agreed. “But if I don’t find him today, I’ll be back in here tomorrow, and we’ll have this conversation over another body. He’s got a long list, Morris, and he’s not going to wait to feel what he felt with her again. This is the biggest rush of his life, and now he’s a man who loves his work.”

  Rather than wait for the report, Eve swung by the lab next. She didn’t need to consult with Dickhead—Berenski, the chief lab tech—so wound her way through the maze of glass-walled rooms to Harpo’s domain.

  Harpo had changed her hair. She’d gone for the short, straight bowl, almost identical to what Peabody used to wear. But Harpo had opted for shimmering ice blue.

  For reasons Eve would never be able to articulate or comprehend, it worked.

  Harpo had tossed a white lab coat over a purple skin-suit, added a trio of dangling silver earrings to one ear and a series of tiny purple studs to run up the other.

  She wore clear knee boots, which Eve assumed was a newly breaking style that showed off toes polished the same color as her hair and a foot tattoo—temp or permanent, who knew—in the shape of a long-legged bird.

  Whatever her wardrobe choices, Eve had reason to know when it came to hair and fiber, Harpo ranked genius.

  And right now, Harpo sat at her work counter, a sample of auburn hair in her scope, and its microscopic counterpart enhanced on her screen.

  “Is that my vic’s?”

  “Yo, Dallas.”

  “Yo.”

  “Recently color treated. I can give you the brand, the color name, and the products used to style if you need them.”

  “Never hurts, but I don’t think it’s relevant. Dr. Mira thinks the killer took some.”

  “Yeah, so you said on the command—request,” she amended with a toothy grin. “And props to Mira. Good eye. He took a hank five and a quarter inches in length, one-point-one inches in width. I can give you the exact number of hairs in the trophy, but it’s probably not relevant either.”

  Maybe it was Harpo’s sass, or her smarts, but Eve felt her own lips curve. “No, but impressive.”

  “I so totally am. It’s really nice hair. Healthy, clean. She didn’t overproduct or heat. Natural color’s brown, but she made a nice choice with this new hue.”

  “She didn’t get to wear it very long.”

  “Too bad, because it’s uptown. He didn’t snip, by the way. Hacked, sliced, sawed. Not scissors, not a razor.”

  She did something that had the screen image revolving, and different colors popping out. “Sharp, jagged-edged blade. I’m still analyzing and reconstructing, but it’s looking like a one-sided blade about three and a half to three and three-quarters in length, about an inch across, an eighth of an inch deep. I think I can nail it down before I’m finished.”

  “Just under legal limit for a pocket sticker.”

  “It’s looking,” Harpo said with a head bob. “I’m not going to be
able to tell you the brand. I can probably give you a list of possibles. Now if he’d stuck it in flesh, Morris could probably get close, or Birdman would punch it. He’s the master of sharps around here.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Sweepers sent in some fibers from the body, but you said no rush on them.”

  “We know what he was wearing, and where he bought it. I needed to know if he took the trophy.”

  “Definitely. My money-back guarantee on it.”

  “And I could use the list of knives when you have it.”

  “No prob. I’ll have Birdman take a look. He may be able to cut it down some.”

  “Speaking of birds.” Eve glanced down at the one visible through the boot.

  “You like? I crush on flamingos, but I’m not sure this is it. It’s a temp ’cause you gotta be sure.”

  Eve couldn’t argue with that. “Thanks, Harpo. Good, quick work.”

  “Our house specialty.”

  She went back to it as Eve walked out.

  Two steps into her bullpen, she stopped dead, pinned to the spot by Sanchez’s tie. She looked away from it, fearing, like staring at the sun, she might go blind.

  It was the virulent color of an orange repeatedly exposed to excess radiation. On it floated searing yellow dots—unless they just floated in front of her eyes due to the five seconds she’d exposed her corneas.

  “For God’s sake, Sanchez. What is that thing?”

  “Retribution.” He glanced behind him, checked Jenkinson’s currently empty desk. “Don’t worry, boss, I’m not going to wear it out in the field. I mean, come on. I could blind people.”

  “We’re people, too,” Baxter said behind the safety of his sunshades.

  With a shake of her head she started toward Peabody’s desk, then changed her mind, signaled her partner to follow her. Maybe you didn’t have to actually look at it to go blind or start bleeding from the ears.