Indulgence in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “He brought up the book. Dudley,” Eve remembered. “Nadine’s book, the Icove case. A lot of shimmer on that right now. Damn it, maybe I should tell Nadine to watch her back. She’s riding a big, shiny bestseller. And the bastard made a point of mentioning it.”

  “I can’t see her as a target, but you’d feel better if you contacted her.”

  “Why not a target?”

  “Both victims have been service providers. Some would even consider them a kind of servant.”

  “Maybe, yeah, maybe, but I’m going to tell her not to do anything stupid. Then, damn it all over again, she’s going to push me for a one-on-one on this, try to wheedle more out of me on the investigation.”

  “Friendship’s complex and layered.”

  “It’s a pain in the ass.” But she pushed away from the table and walked to her desk to contact her friend.

  She was pumped, Roarke thought as he lingered over his wine. Pumped and ready. It was more than the sleep, the meal, though God knew she’d needed both. It was the mission. She saw it now, and maybe that’s what Sinead had meant by Eve’s gift. She could see, and feel, both her victims and their killers.

  He rose now, walked to her murder board.

  He could hear her arguing with Nadine over making an appearance on Now to discuss the case, over giving a straight interview for Channel 75, but he paid little attention.

  That, too, was a kind of game, he supposed. They each played their parts, pushed their agendas, and respected each other’s skill. A fine trick between two hardheaded, strong-willed women who believed absolutely in their duty to their profession.

  When Eve broke transmission, muttered: “Coffee,” he said, “I’ll have some as well.”

  He waited until she came out, handed him a cup. “They look through you.”

  “What?”

  “People—some people—with this level of social and monetary privilege. Those who can have whatever they wish whenever they wish it, and have chosen not to care, or simply haven’t the base in them to care about those who can’t. They don’t see you, the ones sweating out a day’s pay to meet the rent, or those begging on a street corner with empty bellies. They don’t see those who provide the services they use as they’re no more than droids in the world of that tunnel-vision privilege. I’ll wager they don’t know the names much less the situations of those who work for them outside their admins or PAs—and then only the names.”

  “You see, you know. And you could probably buy and sell both of them.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a different matter, not only in that base, but in the background. I’ve been the one looked through. It was one of the things I determined to change. And I’ve killed. There’s a weight in that for most of us. I can see, I think, how they might kill without that weight.”

  “Because the victims aren’t people to them. They’re like a chair or a pair of shoes, just something they buy. They pay for the kill, that keeps coming around for me. They bought them, then own them.”

  “And it’s a new thrill, the killing.”

  He could, now that she’d opened the window to it, see them sitting in their fine homes over fine brandy, discussing that new thrill.

  “It’s fresh and fascinating,” he went on. “When you can have anything you like, there can be little that feels fresh and fascinating.”

  “Do you feel that way?”

  “Not a bit.” He smiled a little as he turned to her. “But in my way, it’s the business itself, the angles, the strategies, the possibilities that are fresh and fascinating. And I have you. Who do they have? As you said, they keep nothing on display that connects them to family, to a loved one.”

  “It’s one of the things I’m going to look at. Their exes, their family connections, the people they hang with. What do they do with their leisure time?”

  “They don’t play polo or squash, but I had it right on golf. You’d made me curious,” he said when she frowned at him. “So I looked into it a bit. They both belong to the Oceanic Yacht Club, quite exclusive, as you’d expect, and have participated or sponsored quite a number of races and events. They both enjoy baccarat, high stakes. They each own majority shares in racehorses, which often compete.”

  “Compete,” she repeated. “Another pattern.”

  “When not in New York tending to their companies’ HQs—or in my opinion after a bit of digging, sitting in as the symbolic head—they tend to follow the seasons and trends. They sail, they ski, they gamble, attend parties and premieres.”

  “Together?”

  “Often, but not always. They do have separate interests as well. Dudley enjoys tennis, playing and attending the important matches. Moriarity prefers chess.”

  “Nonteam sports.”

  “So it seems.”

  “They compete with each other in several areas. That’s part of their dynamic. Separately they go for activities where you compete head to head rather than suit up with a team.” She nodded. “It’s good data. Now I need to get more. Do you want in on that?”

  “I have a little time I can squeeze in.” He traced a fingertip along the dent in her chin. “For a price.”

  “Nothing’s free.”

  “There’s my motto. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “You could go back further. See if these two went to school together at any point, or have any relatives in common. Basically I’d like to pin down when they met, how, that sort of thing.”

  “Easy enough.”

  “And keep it on the straight line.”

  “You do know how to spoil my fun. That may cost you double. You can start with the dishes,” he said and strolled away.

  She scowled, but she couldn’t bitch since he’d put the meal together.

  “I bet these guys don’t expect their bed partners to dump stupid dishes in the machine,” she called out.

  “Darling, you’re so much more to me than a bed partner.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, but gathered up the dishes, dumped them in the machine.

  She sat, input all the information Roarke had given her, added various elements of her own into the file.

  “Computer, run a probability on Dudley and Moriarity killing both victims while working as competitors and/or partners, considering these acts part of a game or sport.”

  Acknowledged. Working . . .

  “Yeah, take your time. Chew it over. Computer, simultaneous tasking. Background check on former spouses and cohabs of Dudley and Moriarity. Addition,” she thought quickly. “Search and find any official announcements of engagements for either subject, run background check.”

  Secondary task acknowledged. Working . . .

  “Computer relay the data on previous search regarding military service for ancestors of both subjects. Screen one display.

  Acknowledged. Data on screen one . . .

  She sat back, began to scan—and thanked God she’d limited the search to between 1945 and 1965, as there were dozens of names in each family.

  She sipped coffee as she read, and found another pattern.

  “Computer, separate commissioned officers, major and above, from current list. Display that data, screen two.”

  Acknowledged. Working . . . Primary task complete. Probability is fifty-four-point-two that subjects Dudley and Moriarity killed both victims as competitors or partners as a game or sport.

  “Not bad, but no cheers from the crowd.” She studied the remaining names on screen one. “Only five. Okay, computer, run a full background on the individuals on screen one, highlight military service.”

  While it worked, she rose to update her board, to circle it, to consider it until the computer announced her secondary task complete.

  She studied the composites Feeney had sent her from the partial image on the amusement security.

  Could be Dudley, she mused, sporting a fake goatee and long brown hair. Could be Urich. Could be an army of other men. Which is just what the defense team would point out.

&
nbsp; The shoe was a better bet. But she’d have the composites as weight, she’d have them to help tip those scales if she needed them, and when she was ready.

  She ordered the names on screen two saved and removed, and replaced with the new data.

  One ex-wife each, she noted, and each from prestigious, wealthy families. Same circle again. Barely two years for Dudley, shy of three for Moriarity. Just over two years prior to his marriage to one Annaleigh Babbington, Dudley’s engagement to a Felicity VanWitt had been announced and its dissolution announcement had come some seven months later.

  “I thought that was my job.”

  “Huh?” She glanced back, mind elsewhere, as Roarke came in.

  “The relations.”

  “This is something else. What?”

  “Felicity VanWitt, engaged to Dudley for slightly more than half a year, is first cousin to Patrice Delaughter.” He nodded toward the screen. “Moriarity’s ex-wife.”

  “Fucker.”

  “When I can, and only with you, darling.”

  “Not you.” But she laughed. “Delaughter married Moriarity right after Dudley and the cousin broke it off. Moriarity would’ve been twenty-six, Dudley twenty-five. They met through the women. I want to talk to the women. Hold on,” she snapped when the computer interrupted with another completed task.

  She took a breath, cleared her head again. “On-screen.”

  Pacing, she read the data on each name. “See this one? Joseph Dudley, good old Joe. Great-uncle to our current Dudley. Joe gets tossed out of Harvard, drops out of Princeton, gets a couple knocks for drunk and disorderly. Then he joins the regular Army as a grunt. He’s the only private, regular Army of the bunch, and he’s the closest relation. Not a cousin six times removed or whatever it is. But the great-granddaddy’s brother.”

  “He served during the Korean War,” Roarke added. “Earned a Purple Heart.”

  “I bet he had a bayonet. I bet you my ass he did.”

  “I already have your ass, or intend to.”

  “Cute. I raise that bet with Joe bringing that bayonet home as a memento, where it ended up being passed down to Winnie.”

  “Difficult to prove.”

  “We’ll see about that, but even if I can’t, it’s another strong probable. We’re loaded with them.”

  “By the way, they didn’t attend the same schools. But the fiancée and the ex-wife—the cousins—both attended Smith—as did a female cousin of Dudley’s at the same time.”

  “Okay, so they go back. They go back, ran in the same pack, at least in their twenties. And they’re still running in the same pack. Both had marriages that failed. Neither had offspring, and both remain unmarried and unpartnered. Lots of common ground. Like minds? Competitive.”

  She blew out a breath. “Murderous, that’s a different matter. Look at the fiancée. She’s married now, married for eleven years, two kids. Lives in Greenwich, that makes it easy. Worked as a psychologist until the first kid. Professional mother status until last year.”

  “The youngest would have started school.”

  “She’s the one I want to talk to first. Tomorrow. They’re not going to hold off the next round too long. Not too long.”

  She sat, went back to work.

  13

  EVE WOKE IN THE QUIET, IN THE STILLNESS, and for an instant thought the waking a dream. But she knew the arms around her, the legs tangled with hers. She knew the scent of him, and drifted into it as her mind waded through the thinning fog of sleep.

  She barely remembered going to bed. He’d carried her, as he often did when she conked out over her work. Reams of data, she thought, and nothing solid in that fluid stream to push the investigation beyond theory.

  She’d run it all again, picked at it and through it, re-angled it. Connections to connections always meant something, so they’d conduct more interviews.

  Swim in the stream long enough, she told herself, you’d rap up against something solid.

  “You’re thinking too loud.”

  She opened her eyes, looked at Roarke. It was rare to wake with him on a workday as he habitually rose well before she did. She often thought he conducted more business in the hours just before and after dawn than most did in a full day.

  Did they live their work or work their lives? And boy, her brain wasn’t ready to tackle that kind of question at this hour. Better just to know whichever it was—or maybe it was both—they did okay with it.

  In the normal course of things, by the time she got up he’d be checking the stock and other financial reports on-screen, drinking coffee, fully dressed in one of his six million perfectly fitted suits.

  And why did men wear suits? she wondered. How and why had it worked out so men wore suits and women wore dresses, unless you were talking about trannies? Who decided these things? And how come everybody just went along so guys said, “Sure, I’ll wear suits and tie a colorful noose around my neck,” and women said, “No problem, I’ll wear this thing that leaves my legs bare, then stick these shoes with stilts on the back on my feet”?

  That was something to think about, she decided. But some other time because right now it was nice to wake this way, all warm and soft and naked together, as they had on vacation.

  “Still too loud,” he murmured. “Mute your brain.”

  It made her smile, the slurry voice, the before-coffee irritability. That was usually her job. She tried to judge the time by the soft gray light sliding through the sky window, tried to calculate how much sleep they’d managed to catch.

  He opened his eyes. Like a blue bolt of lightning, she thought, in the soft gray.

  “Not going to shut up, are you then?”

  The hell with the time, she decided. If he was still in bed, it was pretty damn early.

  “I guess I could think about something else.” She stroked a hand down his flank. Watching his eyes as she glided it up again between their tangled legs. “Since you’re up anyway. It’s funny, isn’t it, how a guy’s dick wakes up before he does. Why is that?”

  “It doesn’t like to miss an opportunity. Such as now,” he added when she guided him inside her.

  “Nice.” She sighed, and when she began to move, it was just as slow and easy.

  Soft, sweet—this aspect of his cop, his warrior never failed to dazzle him. His mind and body woke to her, roused to her in a long, quiet rise while day took its first breath in the sky above them.

  Her whiskey-colored eyes intoxicated, but more, in them was the light he’d yearned for all of his life. She was his daybreak, his sunrise after the long, hard shadows of night.

  Wanting more, needing more, he shifted to bring her under him, pressed his lips to the curve of her neck. And with the taste broke his fast with her.

  She sighed again, but longer, deeper with a catch in her throat as pleasure saturated every pore. Her mind emptied so all those circling thoughts drifted away under the blissful hum of sensation. That steady beat that was heart and blood and breath belonged to them in this still and hazy moment before dawn. With it there were no questions, no cases, no sorrows, no regrets.

  She gave herself to it, and him, let herself open on that slow ride.

  When her breath quickened, when it all coalesced inside her, burgeoning on that thin line between need and release, she framed his face in her hands. She wanted his face in her eyes when the line dissolved.

  For a long, lovely moment the world slid away so the morning shimmered to life with quiet joy.

  With the jump start to the day, she didn’t feel guilty about loitering over a breakfast of berries and a bagel. While the morning reports scrolled on-screen, she indulged in a second cup of coffee.

  “Ninety-six.” She nodded toward the forecast. “And look at that humiture.”

  “The city’ll be a steambath.”

  “I like steam.” She bit into her bagel as the cat watched her with hope and resentment. “And we’ll be out of the city for a while anyway. Connecticut,” she reminded him. “I spent a
lot of time getting the skinny on Dudley’s former fiancée, and his ex-wife, and Moriarity’s ex. Nobody knows you like an ex, and generally, nobody’s happier to share the crappier sides of you.”

  “Then I’d better keep you.”

  “Be a fool not to. Neither of them’s been able, or maybe it’s willing, to maintain a serious long-term relationship. Except, the way it looks, with each other.” She plucked a fat black raspberry out of the bowl. “That’s telling. I burned my eyes reading society squibs, articles, gossip shit. They’ve dated a lot of the same women, and that’s interesting, too. Another kind of competition maybe.”

  She scooped up more berries. “And another thing I found interesting. There’s all these little bits about one or both of them being at some bullfight in Spain, some big premiere in Hollywood, or skiing the Matterhorn or whatever. Doing the shiny spots when other people in that strata do the shiny spots. Would we be doing that if I wasn’t such a bitch about it?”

  “Absolutely. Pass me that coffee, bitch.”

  She snorted out a laugh. “Remember your crappier side, ace, and my knowledge thereof. Anyway, what was interesting was none of the exes were in any of the shiny spots at the same time as they were. Not once that I could find a mention of. They still occupy that same strata, and the ex-wives in particular run the same kind of loop, but they never seem to hit the same spot at the same time. Running with that, I scraped a little more off. Ex-Moriarity has a second ex, but they do. Hit the same spot at the same time, often. I want to get her to tell me why that is.”

  She paused. “Did you know there are all kinds of write-ups and little features on us, on our vacation?”

  Roarke pointed a finger at Galahad who’d begun his crouch toward the berries. The cat turned his head toward the screen as if suddenly enraptured by the financial news.

  “I expect there would be.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “No, it’s just what is.” He watched her drink some of the orange juice he’d fortified with a vitamin supplement. “And none of those who write up that sort of thing have any idea I’m sitting here having breakfast with my bitch of a wife after some very pleasant morning sex.”