Indulgence in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Again, yay me. Woot! Sorry, just needed the moment.”

  “And the moment’s gone.”

  “Okay. So contest structure demands there be some connection between killer and vics. And maybe in both cases, it’s back a ways, and that’s why it’s unlikely the vics recognized their killer.”

  “Dudley killed Crampton,” Eve pointed out, “and while he probably fucked her that night, the connection’s with Moriarity. He hired her. His wife. His place.”

  “Another kind of switch-off.”

  “Yeah, or,” Eve considered as she kept moving, “another flag of friendship. Let me do that for you, pal.”

  “It’s not friendship, it’s . . . Mira would have a word for it. A fancy word.”

  “Whatever the word, there’s going to be some connection between Dudley and Houston. Maybe back a couple decades, too. Probably where you were going before, when Houston was getting in trouble. Illegals,” Eve said when she turned into Homicide. “Dudley and Moriarity used and I’m betting Dudley, at least, still does. They had to buy them somewhere. Houston used and sold, and they’re all of an age. They might have done a few deals before Houston straightened out.”

  She angled it, turned in. “Patrice said their families spent a lot of money greasing palms, keeping them out of jail, off the books. Houston maybe gets busted for a deal, and the deal’s with Dudley say. Dudley’s father has to pony up to keep his son out of it, but he was probably pissed, punished the son some other way.”

  “It plays for me. Another pay-it-back factor. Both the vics serviced them in some way,” Peabody proposed, and followed Eve into her office. “Then became successful, got the cache, but still offered services.”

  “It could be enough. Both vics played to what Delaughter called their underlayment.” Eve stood, studying the board. Saying nothing, Peabody moved to the AutoChef, programmed two coffees. “Who they are beneath the surface, and now what they can and do command. They bought them then, they buy them now.”

  Eve took the coffee, eased a hip onto her desk, continued to study the board. “Who’s going to put them together with an LC they booked in their twenties? That’s what they think. They’re not in her book. And who’d put them together with a limo driver who dealt illegals when they were all hardly more than kids?”

  “Even connecting them this way doesn’t lock it in.”

  “No, but it will. Another mistake of arrogance—their little private joke.”

  “And maybe, like you said, they still use.”

  “No maybe about it. Dudley’s got the whole toy store, and he’d never resist taking samples. And with this twisted relationship they have, I’d say Moriarity would share.”

  “The sex is another angle. They weren’t in the vic’s book, but they might be in someone else’s.”

  Again, Eve shook her head. “Too much ego to pay for sex or more to risk anyone finding out they did. They’re above that, too high on the food chain to have to pay at this stage. Women are supposed to be eager to give it to them. It’s not about sex anyway. It never was. It was, and is, about power, dominance, violence, privilege. Expensive thrills. A man drugs his wife so he can watch his best friend rape her? That’s not about sex. It’s about their own amusement, and still is. About their connection to each other. She was just another knot in the rope that ties them together. They’re fucking soul mates.”

  “If they drugged Delaughter so they could share, they could have done it again. If they use sex as a kind of bond.”

  “Yeah. They’d be a lot more careful since she found them out. What have you got on the travel?”

  “Enough to tell you they’re all over the damn place. They may be based in New York, but they’re not here half the time. Maybe less than half. I’m putting together trips they’ve either taken together or ended up in the same place but traveled separately. They’ve both got private transpo—multiple transpos—so it’s tricky. Added to it they’ve each got homes or villas or pieds-à-terre or however you say it all over. We’re going to have a lot to go through, even keeping it to a year.”

  “Send me a chunk of it, and I’ll start scrolling for missing persons or unsolveds.”

  She sat at her desk, considered her board. Then contacted Charles Monroe.

  “I just sent you an e-mail,” he told her. “We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on Saturday.”

  “Saturday . . . right.” What the hell had she done? “Good.”

  “And this isn’t about asking if we’d bring potato salad.”

  “No. It’s about Ava Crampton. Did she ever mention an incident from her early days. Hired for a threesome, husband and wife. Young, rich. During the book, the husband slips the wife a Whore/Rabbit combo, and adds a friend to the mix. Husband and pal take turns with the wife.”

  “No, and she wouldn’t have. She could’ve lost her license, or had it suspended for not reporting the illegals use, particularly if the wife wasn’t aware or in full prior agreement. That would’ve added rape, and Ava could’ve been charged. And that’s a career ender. Reporting it afterward would have covered her, as she’d have had a strong case for participating under duress or out of fear, but it would’ve gone in her file.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “If this happened, how did you find out about it?”

  “She told the wife.”

  On-screen, he smiled. “That sounds like her. Direct and clean.”

  “Give me a quick overview of the husband’s motives. Just a general opinion.”

  “Without having the background or dynamics I can’t be anything but general. The use of a rape drug indicates a need or desire to control and debase. By bringing another man into the event, without the wife’s prior knowledge or permission, he expands that control, deepens the debasement while at the same time demonstrating to the other male the female is his property. He can do as he pleases to or with her. Basically he’s saying use her, that’s what she’s here for. By sharing her they make her a kind of commodity, little more than a platter of meat they might split for dinner. It may also be a way of releasing latent homosexuality.”

  “By fucking her in tandem, they metaphorically fuck each other.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  “Interesting. Thanks.”

  “Anything I can do.”

  For a few moments she sat, letting pieces settle in her mind. After updating her notes she streamlined them into a report, including both interviews, her impressions, the generalized opinion from a sex therapist, and the directions she intended to pursue.

  She sent copies to Whitney and Mira.

  She updated her murder book, her board, then sat with her feet on her desk, another cup of coffee in her hand, and let it all settle again.

  Tonight, she thought, or tomorrow. Not much time before the next round. If the pattern she was seeing was a pattern, Moriarity would be up, which meant the vic would be connected most closely to Dudley’s past, and the lure would be through Dudley and Sons.

  “And it could be anyone,” she said aloud.

  No, not accurate. The anyone had to be in New York, as both Dudley and Moriarity were in New York. So the target lived here or worked here or was currently visiting here.

  The target was important in his or her field—some field of service most probably. Humble beginnings? she considered. Both vics had that in common, starting low on the ladder and climbing high.

  Did that play?

  Still active in their field. Someone who could be hired or called in, consulted, booked.

  Shit.

  Someone was going to die because a couple of arrogant whacked-out assholes wanted to bond over blood, and she couldn’t prove it.

  No point obsessing about what had yet to happen, she reminded herself. Better to dig into what already had. Opening the file Peabody had sent her, she began a slow, systematic search for death.

  She had grids of data on-screen when Peabody stepped back in.

  “Dallas.”
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  Eve looked over in time to catch the Power Bar Peabody tossed at her.

  “These are disgusting.”

  “Nah. A num-nummy treat. Vending says so. Besides if you’ve generated as many missings and unsolveds as I have, you need the boost.”

  “Maybe.” With some reluctance Eve tore the wrapping. Focus had smothered the low-grade headache that now made itself known behind her eyes. She took a bite, winced. “Jesus, what do they put in these things?”

  “It’s really better not to know. If we’re not going to clock any more field time, I’m going to take the files home and put some time in on them.”

  “Why are you going home?”

  “Because it’s already past end of shift, and I want my man and real food.”

  Eve scowled at her wrist unit. “Dammit.”

  “I can stay if you want to work it here.”

  “No. No, go. I lost track. Send whatever you’ve put together to my home unit, and I’ll . . .” She trailed off as she saw she’d lost Peabody’s attention. Her partner had shifted, was currently brushing at her hair and smiling a dopey smile.

  “What’s Roarke doing here?” Eve demanded even as she heard his voice.

  “Hello, Peabody. I like your hair. Cool, efficient, and feminine all together.”

  “Oh.” She fussed some more. “Thanks.”

  “The lieutenant working you late?”

  “She’s going,” Eve snapped. “Go.”

  “Have a nice evening,” Roarke said. “See you Saturday.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Do you have to do that?” Eve muttered when Peabody scurried away.

  “Which that is that?”

  “Make her go gooey-eyed and stupid.”

  “Apparently I have that power, though she didn’t look either to me.” He came in, sat on her desk. “You, however, look tired and cross.” He picked up the PowerBar. “And this is likely part of the reason.”

  “Why are you here instead of home?”

  “I took a calculated risk that my wife would still be at her desk. Now she can drive me home after we stop and get a meal.”

  “I really have to—”

  “Work, yes. It can be pizza.”

  “That’s fighting dirty.”

  “Fighting clean always seems like such a waste.” He two-pointed the PowerBar into her recycler. “Gather up what you need and we’ll eat while I tell you about the round of golf I played today.”

  “You hate golf.”

  “More than ever, so you owe me. You buy the pizza.”

  “Why do I owe you?” she asked as she organized her file bag.

  “Because I played eighteen holes with your suspects.”

  She stopped dead. “You did what?”

  “I arranged to take a golf-mad business associate to the club where Dudley and Moriarity play. We made a foursome.”

  She actually felt the temper spurt up from her center to her throat. “Damn it, Roarke, why did you—”

  He cut her off by poking a finger in her belly. “You don’t want to start on me after I spent a morning hitting a ball toward a hole in the ground with a club. Which admittedly I’d likely have done anyway, as David loves the bloody game, so it seemed efficient to maneuver it into a little field work. I do occasionally run into your suspects here and there.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” She thought about it, and had to admit the spurt ebbed. “Yeah. What did you—”

  “Walk and talk,” he interrupted. “I’ve put myself in the mood for that pizza now.”

  “Fine, fine, fine.” She grabbed the bag, shut down her computer. “You’ve never played golf with them before?”

  “And never will again,” he vowed as they started out. “Though we did end up beating them by three strokes, which didn’t put either of them in a cheery mood. Masked it well enough,” he added and with resignation squeezed into an elevator with Eve and a dozen cops.

  “They don’t like to lose.”

  “I’d say winning is a kind of religion for them. They cheat.”

  “Seriously?” She narrowed her eyes. “Not surprising really. You mean they work together—team cheating?”

  “They do. I can’t say how they compete with each other, one-on-one, but with others, they have a system.”

  The elevator doors opened. Two cops crowbarred out, three more muscled in. Summer sweat clogged the air like cooking oil.

  “How do you cheat at golf?”

  One of the cops, obviously a golfer, snorted. “Sister, it ain’t that tough.”

  She spared a glance over her shoulder. “Lieutenant Sister.”

  “Sir.”

  “They use signals, code words.”

  Roarke got a wise nod from the uniform. “Bribe a caddy, he’ll maybe shave a couple strokes off. I played a guy who carried balls in his pocket. Dropped them down his pants legs. Asshole.”

  “They were a bit more high-tech.” Roarke spoke directly to the uniform now. “They used doctored balls programmed to pocket directional devices.”

  “Fuckers. A man who’ll cheat at golf will scam his own mother outta the rent money.”

  “At the least,” Roarke agreed, amused enough to tolerate the rest of the ride down to the garage.

  “They know the course,” he continued as they walked to her car. “Have obviously mapped out each hole, programmed various lies. They signal each other as they study their positions, the angles and so on. One takes his turn; the other engages the device. They’re smooth about it. I’ll drive since you have a headache.”

  “I don’t have a headache. Exactly.” When he cocked his brow at her, she dropped into the passenger seat. “I have an eye ache. That’s different.”

  He walked around the hood, slid behind the wheel. “They’re careful not to play so well it causes undo attention. Solid players, is what they come off as. And having a very good game today, a few strokes under their handicap. Until the tenth hole.”

  “I don’t know what that means and don’t want to.”

  “Neither do I, particularly.”

  “Successful businesspeople are supposed to like golf. It’s some sort of rule.”

  “Well, by your rules I’m an abysmal failure.” He said it cheerfully, with a definite tenor of pride. “In any case, we started closing the gap on the tenth.”

  “How did you beat them?”

  “David’s a superior player, and you can say I got into the spirit of the thing, put myself into it more.”

  “They were cheating. It takes more than having a good game to beat a cheat.”

  “They’re not the only ones who know how to manipulate a game. I screwed up their devices with one of my own. Every time they used one, they sliced or hooked.”

  “What, like a fish?”

  “I adore you. I do.” Unable to resist, he leaned over and kissed her cheek. Noisily. “You make me feel like a duffer.”

  “Okay. If you want.”

  “Actually, not at all.” He streamed through traffic. “I’d send their ball far right or left, into a trap or the rough, which added strokes or points to their scores. In golf you want the lowest.”

  “I know that much.”

  “In any case, by the thirteenth hole, bad luck for them, we were even, and they couldn’t risk using the devices. So we played it straight.”

  “Really?”

  He turned his head to smile at her. “I was tempted to add an edge, just to rub their faces in it. But I had brought David in for the entertainment, and he got more pleasure out of beating them without it.” He paused a moment, nipped through an intersection. “And the truth of it, so did I.”

  “How’d they react to losing?”

  “Oh, they were well and truly pissed, masked under hearty laughter and gracious congratulations. Even bought us a round at the nineteenth hole. Dudley’s hands shook, and that was rage. He had to keep them in his pockets until he’d controlled it. And I believe he controlled it with whatever he snorted or swallowed on a
trip to the loo.”

  “Yeah, I’m betting he snorts, swallows, or smokes a lot. But I meant losing to you in particular.”

  Nothing got by his cop, he thought. “I’d say they’ve gone from disdain to loathing, which is also satisfying. If I were the sensitive type, I’d have scraped off their loathing with a putty knife, as it was thick and sticky, but the fact is I enjoyed it quite a lot.”

  “That’s because by drinking on their dime and joining their hearty laughter you were actually giving them the finger.”

  “And with a modest, just-had-a-run-of-luck smile.”

  “You milked it,” Eve concluded.

  “Like they were a couple of cows with engorged utters.”

  “Eeww.”

  “Maybe you had to be there. You’d be interested, I think, to know that Dudley had a bit of a rage in the locker room when we weren’t around and ordered his clubs destroyed.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I bribed the butler, naturally.”

  “Naturally, and naturally locker rooms in your world include butlers.”

  “He also smashed his transmitter. I found pieces of it on the floor of the dressing room he used.”

  “Temper, temper. That’s good. I can use that.”

  “I thought so. He mentioned you. Made a point of telling me he’d met you, and tried to find out how involved I am in your investigation. I made it seem as if this case wasn’t of any particular interest, just a driver and an LC, hardly worth my notice, and not all that important to you from my perspective. That didn’t please him either.”

  She said nothing for a moment as he maneuvered through the sluggish river of vehicles. “That was good. That was a pretty good play. It gives him an emotional investment, makes him want to create more importance, more notice. It can’t be ordinary, that’s the whole point. If you were right, and they wanted me in particular, and likely you, it’s no good if you aren’t interested, and it’s just another day of work for me.”

  “The Icove case was huge—investigatively, in the media, in the public’s attention. You said he mentioned the case, the book to you when you interviewed him. He did the same with me.”