Big Jack

by J. D. Robb

  “Does it sit right with you if Peabody and I go through your vic’s things? Peabody’s got an eye for that kind of thing.”

  “All right.”

  “You want to take the club where my vic was last seen?”

  “Can do.”

  “Then we’ll have a briefing in the morning. Nine hundred.”

  “Make my world complete and tell me we’re having it at your home office. Where the AutoChef has real pig meat and eggs from chickens that cluck.”

  “Here—unless I let you know different.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  Eve headed back uptown in irritable traffic. A breakdown on Eighth clogged the road for blocks and had what seemed like half of New York breaking the noise pollution codes in order to blast their horns in pitiful and useless protest.

  Her own solution was a bit more direct. She hit the sirens, punched into vertical and skimmed the corner to take the crosstown to Tenth.

  They were fifteen blocks away when her climate control sputtered and died.

  “I hate technology. I hate Maintenance. I hate the goddamn stupid NYPSD budget that sticks me with these pieces-of-shit vehicles.”

  “There, there, sir,” Peabody crooned as she hunkered down to work on the controls manually. “There, there.”

  After the sweat began to run into her eyes, Peabody gave up. “You know, I could call Maintenance. Yes, we hate them like poison, like rat poison on a cracker,” she said quickly. “So I was thinking, I could ask McNab to take a whack at it. He’s good with this kind of thing.”

  “Great, good, fine.” Eve rolled down the windows before they suffocated. The stinking, steamy air outside wasn’t much of an improvement. “When we finish at Cobb’s, you drop me home, take this rolling disaster with you. You can pick me up in the morning.”

  When she reached the apartment building she considered, actively, the rewards of giving one of the stoop-sitters twenty to steal the damn car. Instead, she decided to hope somebody boosted it while they were inside.

  As they started inside, she heard Peabody’s quiet whimper. “What?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s those shoes, isn’t it? You’re limping. Goddamn it, what if we have to pursue some asshole on foot?”

  “Maybe they weren’t the best choice, but I’m still finding my personal look. There may be some miscues along the way.”

  “Tomorrow you’d better be in something normal. Something you can walk in.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Peabody hunched her shoulders at Eve’s glare. “I don’t have to say ‘sir’ all the time because, hey, look, detective now. And we’re partners and all.”

  “Not when you’re wearing those shoes.”

  “I was going to burn them when I got home. But now I’m thinking of getting a hatchet and chopping them into tiny, tiny pieces.”

  Eve knocked on the apartment door. Essie answered. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face splotchy from tears. She simply stared at Eve, saying nothing.

  “We appreciate your coming back from your parents to let us go through your sister’s things,” Eve began. “We’re very sorry for your loss and regret having to intrude at this time.”

  “I’m going to go back and stay with them tonight. I needed to come and get some of my things anyway. I don’t want to stay here tonight. I don’t know if I’ll ever stay here again. I should’ve called the police right away. As soon as she didn’t come home, I should’ve called.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “The other cops, the ones who came to tell me? They said I shouldn’t go down to see her.”

  “They’re right.”

  “Why don’t you sit down, Essie.” Peabody moved in, took her arm and led her to a chair. “You know why we need to go through her things?”

  “In case you find something that tells you who did this to her. I don’t care what you have to do, as long as you find who did this to her. She never hurt anybody in her whole life. Sometimes she used to piss me off, but your sister’s supposed to, right?”

  Peabody left her hand on Essie’s shoulder another moment. “Mine sure does.”

  “She never hurt anybody.”

  “Do you want to stay here while we do this? Or maybe you have a friend in the building. You could go there until we’re done.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anybody. Just do what you have to do. I’ll be right here.”

  Eve took the closet, Peabody the dresser. In various pockets, Eve found a tiny bottle of breath freshener, a sample-size tube of lipdye and a mini pocket organizer that turned out to belong to Essie.

  “I got something.”

  “What?”

  “They give these little buttons out at the Met.” Peabody held up a little red tab. “It’s a tradition. You put it on your collar or lapel, and they know you paid for the exhibit. He probably took her there. It’s the kind of thing you keep if it’s a date.”

  “The odds of anybody remembering her at the Metropolitan Museum are slim to none, but it’s a start.”

  “She’s got a little memento box here. Bus token, candle stub.”

  “Bag the candle stub. We’ll run for prints. Maybe it’s from his place.”

  “Here’s a pocket guide for the Guggenheim, and a theater directory. Looks like she printed it out from online. She’s circled the Chelsea Playhouse in a little heart. It’s from last month,” she said as she turned to Eve. “A limited run of Chips Are Down. He took her there, Dallas. This is her ‘I love Bobby’ box.”

  “Take it in. Take it all in.” She moved over to the dented metal stand by the bed, yanked on the single drawer. Inside she found a stash of gummy candy, a small emergency flashlight, sample tubes and packs of hand cream, lotion, perfume, all tucked into a box. And sealed in a protective bag was a carefully folded napkin. On the cheap recycled material, written in sentimental red, was:

  Bobby

  First Date

  July 26, 2059

  Ciprioni’s

  Peabody joined Eve and read over her shoulder. “She must’ve taken it out to look at every night,” she murmured. “Sealed it up so it didn’t get dirty or torn.”

  “Do a run on Ciprioni’s.”

  “I don’t have to. It’s a restaurant. Italian place down in Little Italy. Inexpensive, good food. Noisy, usually crowded, slow service, terrific pasta.”

  “He didn’t know she was keeping tabs, little tabs like this. He didn’t understand her. He didn’t get her. He thought he was safe. None of the places we’re finding are anywhere near here. Get her away from where she lives, where people she knows might see them. See him. Take her to places where there are lots of people. Who’s going to notice them? But she’s picking up souvenirs to mark their dates. She left us a nice trail, Peabody.”

  Chapter 6

  After dropping Eve at home, Peabody drove off in the sauna on wheels. And Eve let herself into the blessed cool. The cat thumped down the steps, greeting her with a series of irritated feline growls.

  “What, are you standing in for Summerset? Bitch, bitch, bitch.” But she squatted down to scrub a hand over his fur. “What the hell do the two of you do around here all day anyway? Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

  She checked with the in-house and was told Roarke was not on the premises.

  “Jeez.” She looked back down at the cat, who was doing his best to claw up her leg. “Kinda weird. Nobody home but you and me. Well . . . I got stuff. You should come.” She scooped him up and carted him up the stairs.

  It wasn’t that she minded being home alone. She just wasn’t used to it. And it was pretty damn quiet, if you bothered to listen.

  But she’d fix that. She’d download an audio of Samantha Gannon’s book. She could get in a solid workout while she listened to it. Take a swim, loosen up. Grab a shower, take care of some details.

  “There’s a lot you can get done when nobody’s around to distract you,” she told Galahad. “I spent
most of my life with nobody around anyway, so, you know, no problem.”

  No problem, she thought. Before Roarke she’d come home to an empty apartment every night. Maybe she’d connect with her pal Mavis, but even if she’d had time to blow off a little steam after the job with the woman who was the blowing-off-steam expert, she’d still come home alone.

  She liked alone.

  When had she stopped liking alone?

  God, it was irritating.

  She dumped the cat on her desk, but he complained and bumped his head against her arm. “Okay, okay, give me a minute, will you?” Brushing the bulk of him aside, she picked up the memo cube.

  “Hello, Lieutenant.” Roarke’s voice drifted out. “I thought this would be your first stop. I downloaded an audio of Gannon’s book as I couldn’t visualize you curling up with the paper version. See you when I get home. I believe there are fresh peaches around. Why don’t you have one instead of the candy bar you’re thinking about?”

  “Think you know me inside out, don’t you, smart guy? Thinks he knows me back and forth,” she said to the cat. “The annoying part is he does.” She put the memo down, picked up the headset. Even as she started to slip it into place, she noted the message light blinking on her desk unit.

  She nudged the cat aside again. “Just wait, for God’s sake.” She ordered up the message and listened once again to Roarke’s voice.

  “Eve, I’m running late. A few problems that need to be dealt with.”

  She cocked her head, studied his face on the screen. A little annoyed, she noted. A little rushed. He wasn’t the only one who knew his partner.

  “If I get through them I’ll be home before you get to this in any case. If not, well, soon as possible. You can reach me if you need to. Don’t work too hard.”

  She touched the screen as his image faded. “You either.”

  She put on the headset, engaged, then much to the cat’s relief, headed into the kitchen. The minute she filled his bowl with tuna and set it down for him, he pounced.

  Listening to the narrative of the diamond heist, she grabbed a bottle of water, took a peach as an afterthought, then walked through the quiet, empty house and down to the gym.

  She stripped down, hanging her weapon harness on a hook, then pulled on a short skinsuit.

  She started with stretches, concentrating on the audio and her form. Then she moved to the machine, programming in an obstacle course that pushed her to run, climb, row, cycle on and over various objects and surfaces.

  By the time she started on free weights, she’d been introduced to the main players in the book and had a sense of New York and small-town America in the dawn of the century.

  Gossip, crime, bad guys, good guys, sex and murder.

  The more things changed, she thought, the more they didn’t.

  She activated the sparring droid for a ten-minute bout and felt limber, energized and virtuous by the time she’d kicked his ass.

  She snagged a second bottle of water out of the mini-fridge and, to give herself more time with the book, added a session for flexibility and balance.

  She peeled off the skinsuit, tossed it in the laundry chute, then walked naked into the pool house. With the audio still playing in her ear, she dove into the cool blue water. After some lazy laps, she floated her way over to the corner and called for jets.

  Her long, blissful sigh echoed off the ceiling.

  There was home alone, she thought, and there was home alone.

  When her eyes started to droop, she boosted herself out. She pulled on a robe, gathered up her street clothes, her weapon, and took the elevator up to the bedroom before she thought of missed opportunity.

  She could have run naked through the house. She could have danced naked through the house.

  She’d have to hold that little pleasure in reserve.

  After a shower and fresh clothes, she went back to her office. She turned off the audio long enough to handle some details, to make new notes.

  Top of her list were: Jack O’Hara, Alex Crew, William Young and Jerome Myers. Young and Myers had been dead for more than half a century, with their lives ending before the first act of the drama.

  Crew had died in prison, and O’Hara had been in and out of the wind until his death fifteen years ago. So the four men who’d stolen the diamonds were dead. But people rarely got through life without connections. Family, associates, enemies.

  A connection to a thief might consider himself entitled to the booty. A kind of reward, an inheritance, a payback. A connection to a thief might know how to gain access to a secured residence.

  Blood tells, she thought. People often said that. She, for one, had reason to hope it wasn’t true. If it was true, what did that make her, the daughter of a monster and a junkie whore? If it was all a matter of genes, DNA, inherited traits, what chance was there for a child created by two people for the purpose of using her for profit? For whoring her. For raising her like an animal. Worse than an animal.

  Locking her in the dark. Alone, nameless. Beating her. Raping her. Twisting her until at the age of eight she would kill to escape.

  Blood on her hands. So much blood on her hands.

  “Damn it. Damn it, damn it.” Eve squeezed her eyes shut and willed the images away before their ghosts could solidify into another waking nightmare.

  Blood didn’t tell. DNA didn’t make us. We made ourselves, if we had any guts we made ourselves.

  She pulled her badge out of her pocket, held it like a talisman, like an anchor. We made ourselves, she thought again. And that was that.

  She laid her badge on the desk where she could see it if she needed to, then, reengaging the audio, she listened as she ordered runs on the names of her four thieves.

  Thinking about coffee, she rose to wander into the kitchen. She toyed with programming a pot, then cut it back to a single cup. One of the candy bars she’d stashed began to call her name. And after all, she’d eaten the damn peach.

  She dug it out from under the ice in the freezer bin. With coffee in one hand, frozen chocolate in the other, she walked back into the office. And nearly into Roarke.

  He took one look, raised an eyebrow. “Dinner?”

  “Not exactly.” He made her feel like a kid stealing treats. And she’d never been a kid with treats to steal. “I was just . . . shit.” She pulled off the headset. “Working. Taking a little break. What’s it to you?”

  He laughed, pulled her in for a kiss. “Hello, Lieutenant.”

  “Hello back. Ignore him,” she said when Galahad slithered up to meow and beg. “I fed him already.”

  “Better, no doubt, than you fed yourself.”

  “Did you eat?”

  “Not yet.” He slid a hand around her throat, squeezed lightly. “Give me half that candy.”

  “It’s frozen. You gotta wait it out.”

  “This then.” He took her coffee, smirked at her scowl. “You smell . . . delicious.”

  When the hand at her throat slid around to cup the nape of her neck, she realized he meant her, not the coffee. “Back up, pal.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’ve got agendas here. Since you haven’t eaten, why don’t we go try this Italian place I heard about downtown.”

  When he said nothing, just sipped her coffee, studied her over the rim, she frowned. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just making certain you really are my wife. You want to go out to dinner, sit in a restaurant where there are other people.”

  “We’ve been out to dinner before. Millions of times. What’s the bfd?”

  “Mmm-hmm. What does an Italian restaurant downtown have to do with your case?”

  “Smarty-pants. Maybe I just heard they have really good lasagna. And maybe I’ll tell you the rest on the way because I sort of made reservations. I made them before I realized you’d be this late and might not want to go out. I can check it out tomorrow.”

  “Is there time for me to have a shower and change out of this bloody suit? It feels as though I
was born in it.”

  “Sure. But I can cancel if you just want to kick back.”

  “I could use some lasagna, as long as it comes with a great deal of wine.”

  “Long one, huh?”

  “More annoying than long, actually,” he told her as she walked with him to the bedroom. “A couple of systemic problems. One in Baltimore, one in Chicago, and both required my personal attention.”

  She pursed her lips as he undressed for the shower. “You’ve been to Baltimore and Chicago today?”

  “With a quick stop in Philadelphia, since it was handy.”

  “Did you get a cheese steak?”

  “I didn’t, no. Time didn’t allow for such indulgences. Jets full,” he ordered when he stepped into the shower. “Seventy-two degrees.”

  Even the thought of a shower at that temperature made her shiver. But, somehow, she could still enjoy standing there watching him drench himself in the cold water. “Did you get them fixed? The systemic problems?”

  “Bet your gorgeous ass. An engineer, an office manager and two VPs will be seeking other employment. An overworked admin just copped herself a corner office and a new title—along with a nice salary boost—and a young man out of R and D is out celebrating his promotion to project head about now.”

  “Wow, you’ve been pretty busy out there, changing lives.”

  He slicked back that wonderful and wet mane of black hair. “A little padding of the expense account, that’s a time-honored tradition, corporately speaking. I don’t mind it. But you don’t want to get greedy, and sloppy, and fucking arrogant about it. Or next you know, you’re out on your ear and wondering how the hell you’re going to afford that condo on Maui and the side dish who likes trinkets that come in Tiffany’s little blue boxes.”

  “Hold it.” She stepped back as he walked out of the shower. “Embezzlement? Are you talking embezzlement?”

  “That would be Chicago. Baltimore was just ineptitude, which is, somehow, even more annoying.”