Big Jack

by J. D. Robb

  He would be, as his grandfather had been, unique.

  Stretching out, he called up another program and watched the series of interviews he’d recorded. In each, Samantha was articulate, bright, attractive. For that precise reason he hadn’t attempted to contact her directly.

  No, the dim-witted, stars-in-her-eyes Tina had been a much safer, much smarter move.

  Still, he was really looking forward to getting to know Samantha better. Much more intimately.

  Chapter 7

  Eve woke, as usual, to find Roarke up before her, already dressed and settled into the sitting area of the bedroom with coffee, the cat and the morning stock reports on screen.

  He was, she saw through one bleary eye, eating what looked like fresh melon and manually keying in codes, figures or state secrets, for all she knew, on a ’link pad.

  She gave a grunt as way of good morning and stumbled off to the bathroom.

  As she closed the door, she heard Roarke address the cat. “Not at her best before coffee, is she?”

  By the time she came out, he’d switched the screen to news, added the audio and was doctoring up a bagel. She nipped it out of his hand, stole his coffee and carried them both to her closet.

  “You’re as bad as the cat,” he complained.

  “But faster. I’ve got a morning briefing. Did you catch a weather report?”

  “Hot.”

  “Bitching hot or just regular hot?”

  “It’s September in New York, Eve. Guess.”

  Resigned, she pulled out whatever looked less likely to plaster itself against her skin after five minutes outside.

  “Oh, I’ve a bit of information on the diamonds for you. I did some poking around yesterday.”

  “You did?” She glanced around, half expecting him to tell her the shirt didn’t go with the pants, or the jacket didn’t suit the shirt. But it seemed she’d lucked out and grabbed pieces that met his standards. “I didn’t think you’d have time with all that ass-kicking.”

  “That did eat up considerable time and effort. But I carved out a little time between bloodbaths. I’ve just put it together for you this morning, while you were getting a little more beauty sleep.”

  “Is that a dig?”

  “Darling, how is telling you you’re beautiful a dig?”

  Her answer was a snort as she strapped on her weapon.

  “That jacket looks well on you.”

  She eyed him warily as she adjusted her weapon harness under the shoulder. “But?”

  “No buts.”

  It was tan, though she imagined he’d call it something else. Like pumpernickel. She never understood why people had to assign strange names to colors.

  “My lovely urban warrior.”

  “Cut it out. What did you get?”

  “Precious little, really.” He tapped the disk he’d set on the table. “The insurance company paid out for the quarter of them and the investigator’s fee of five percent on the rest. So it was a heavy loss. Could’ve been considerably worse, but insurance companies tend to take a dim view on multimillion-dollar payouts.”

  “It’s their gamble,” she said with a shrug. “Don’t play if you don’t wanna pay.”

  “Indeed. They did a hard press on O’Hara’s daughter, but couldn’t squeeze anything out. Added to that, she was the one to find or help the investigator find what there was to recover, and she was instrumental in nailing Crew for the police.”

  “Yeah, I got that far. Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “They pushed at the inside man’s family, associates, at his coworkers. Came up empty there, but watched them for years. Any one of them had upped their lifestyle without having, say, won the lottery, they’d have been hauled in. But they could never find Crew’s ex-wife or his son.”

  “He had a kid?” And she kicked herself for not going back in and checking the runs after they’d returned home the night before.

  “He did, apparently. Though it’s not in Gannon’s book. He was married, divorced and had a son who’d have been just shy of seven when the heist went down. I couldn’t find anything on her with a standard starting six months after the divorce.”

  Interest piqued, she walked back to the sitting area. “She went under?”

  “She went under, the way it looks, and stayed there.”

  He’d gotten another bagel while he spoke, and more coffee. Now he sat again. “I could track her, if you like. It’d take a bit more than a standard, and some time as we’re going back half a century. I wouldn’t mind it. It’s the sort of thing I find entertaining.”

  “Why isn’t it in the book?”

  “I imagine you’ll ask Samantha just that.”

  “Damn right. It’s a thread.” She considered it as she disbursed her equipment in various pockets: communicator, memo book, ’link, restraints. “If you’ve got time, great. I’ll pass it to Feeney. EDD ought to be able to sniff out a woman and a kid. We’ve got better toys for that than they did fifty years ago.”

  She thought of the Electronic Detective Division’s captain, her former partner. “I bet it’s the sort of thing that gets him off, too. Peabody’s picking me up.” She checked her wrist unit. “Pretty much now. I’ll tag Feeney, see if he’s got some time.”

  She scooped up the disk. “The ex-Mrs. Crew’s data on here?”

  “Naturally.” He heard the signal from the gate and, after a quick check, cleared Peabody through. “I’ll walk you down.”

  “You going to be in the city today?”

  “That’s my plan.” He skimmed a hand over her hair as they started down the steps, then stopped when she turned her head and smiled at him. “What’s that about?”

  “Maybe I just think you’re pretty. Or it could be I’m remembering other uses for stairs. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because I know there’s no bony-assed, droid-brained puss face waiting down there to curl his lip at me on my way out.”

  “You miss him.”

  The sound she made was the vocal equivalent of a sneer. “Please. You must need a pill.”

  “You do. You miss the little routine, the dance of it.”

  “Oh ick. Now you’ve got this picture in my head of Summerset dancing. It’s horrible. He’s wearing one of those . . . ” She made brushing motions at her hips.

  “Tutus?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Thanks very much for putting that in my head.”

  “Love to share. Know what? You really are pretty.” She stopped at the bottom of the steps, grabbed two handfuls of his hair and jerked his head toward hers for a long, smoldering kiss.

  “Well, that put other images entirely in my head,” he managed when she released him.

  “Me too. Good for us.” Satisfied, she strode to the door, pulled it open.

  Her brow knit when she saw Peabody along with the young EDD ace McNab climbing out of opposite sides of her pea-green police unit. They looked like . . . She didn’t know what the hell they looked like.

  She was used to seeing McNab, Central’s top fashion plate, in something eye-searing and strange, so the shiny chili-pepper pants with their dozen pockets and the electric-blue tank shirt covered with—ha-ha—pictures of chili peppers didn’t give her more than a moment’s pause. Neither did the hip-length vest in hot red, or the blue air boots that climbed up to his knobby knees.

  That was just McNab, with his shiny gold hair slicked back in a long, sleek tail, his narrow and oddly attractive face half covered by red sunshades with mirrored blue lenses and a dozen or so silver spikes glinting at his ears.

  But her aide—no, partner now, she had to remember that—was a different story. She wore skinpants that stopped abruptly mid-calf and were the color of . . . mold, Eve decided. The mold that grew on cheese you’d forgotten you stuck in the back of the fridge. She wore some sort of drapey, blousy number of the same color that looked like it had been slept in for a couple of weeks, and a shit-colored jacket that hung to her knees. Rather than the fancy sh
oes she’d suffered through the day before, she’d opted for some sort of sandal deal that seemed to be made of rope tied into knots by a crazed Youth Scout. There were a lot of chains and pendants and strange-colored stones hanging around her neck and from her ears.

  “What are you supposed to be, some upscale street peddler from a Third World country and her pet monkey?”

  “This is a nod to my Free-Ager upbringing. And it’s comfortable. All natural fabrics.” Peabody adjusted her sunshades with their tiny round lenses. “Mostly.”

  “I think she looks hot,” McNab said, giving Peabody a quick squeeze. “Sort of medieval.”

  “You think tree bark looks hot,” Eve tossed back.

  “Yeah. Makes me think of the forest. She-body running naked through the forest.”

  Peabody elbowed him, but she chuckled. “I’m searching for my detective look,” she told Roarke. “It’s a work in progress.”

  “I think you look charming.”

  “Oh shut up” was Eve’s response as Peabody’s cheeks pinked in pleasure. “You fix that heap?” she asked McNab.

  “There’s good news and bad news. Bad news is that’s a piece of crap with a faulty comp system, which makes it about the same as every other police-issue on the streets. Good news is I’m a fricking genius and got her up and running with some spare parts I keep around. She’ll hold until you get lucky and wreck it or some asshole who doesn’t know better boosts it.”

  “Thanks. Backseat,” she ordered. “Behind the driver. I’m afraid if I keep catching sight of you in the rearview I’ll go blind.” She turned to Roarke. “Later.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Hey.” He caught her chin in his hand before she could walk away, then, ignoring her wince, brushed his lips lightly over hers. “Be careful with my cop.”

  Peabody sighed as she slid into the car. “I just love the way he says that. ‘My cop.’ ” She scooted around to face McNab. “You never call me that.”

  “It doesn’t work when you’re a cop, too.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t have the accent anyway. But you’re cute.” She pursed her lips at him.

  “And you’re my absolutely female She-body.”

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it! The neurons in my head are popping.” Eve slapped her safety harness in place. “There will be no gooey talk in this vehicle. There will be no gooey talk within ten yards of my person. This is my official ban on gooey talk, and violators will be beaten unconscious with a lead pipe.”

  “You don’t have a lead pipe,” Peabody pointed out.

  “I’ll get one.” She slid her eyes over as she drove toward the gates. “Why do you wear something that’s wrinkled all to shit?”

  “It’s the natural state of the natural fabric. My sister wove this material.”

  “Well, why didn’t she smooth it out or something while she was at it? And I can’t believe how much time I waste these days discussing your wardrobe.”

  “Yeah. It’s kind of frosty.” Her smile turned to a frown as she looked down at her legs. “Do you think these pants make my calves look fat?”

  “I can’t hear you because something just burst in my brain and my ears are filled with blood.”

  “In that case, McNab and I will return to our rudely interrupted gooey talk.” She yipped when Eve snaked out a hand and twisted her earlobe. “Jeez. Just checking.”

  Eve considered it a testament to her astounding self-control that she didn’t kill either one of them on the way to Central. To keep her record clean, she strode away from them in the garage, nabbing the elevator alone. She had no doubt they’d have to exchange sloppy words or kisses before each separated to check in with their squad.

  And judging by the sleepy, satisfied look in Peabody’s eye when she strolled in, Eve assumed there’d been some groping added to the lip locks.

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Briefing in fifteen,” Eve said briskly. “I have some new data and need to skim over it. I want to bring Feeney in, if he can manage it. To pursue one angle, we’re going to need a person search that goes back over fifty years.”

  Peabody sobered. “The diamonds. We’re looking for one of the thieves? Aren’t they all dead?”

  “Records would indicate. We’re looking for the ex-wife and son of Alex Crew. They went into the wind shortly after the divorce and weren’t mentioned in Gannon’s book. I want to know why.”

  “Do you want me to contact Feeney?”

  “I’ll do that. You contact Gannon, schedule a meeting with her.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After loading the disk Roarke had given her and getting coffee, Eve called Feeney’s office in EDD.

  His familiar, droopy face came on screen. “Seventy-two,” he said before she could speak, “and I’m outta here.”

  She’d forgotten he had vacation coming up and juggled the time factor in with her other internal data. “Got time for a person search before you clock out with your sunscreen and party hat?”

  “Didn’t say I wasn’t on the job until. Besides, you need a person search, I can put one of my boys on it.” All his department were boys to Feeney, regardless of chromosomes.

  “I’m looking for brilliance on this one, so I’m asking you to see to it personally.”

  “How much butter you got to slather on me to grease me up for it? I’ve got a lot of i’s to dot before I take off.”

  “It involves multiple homicides, a shitload of diamonds and a vanishing act going back over half a century. But if you’re too busy packing your hula skirt, I can order up a couple of drones.”

  “Hula skirt’s the wife’s.” He drew air in and out his nose. “Fifty years?”

  “Plus a few. I’ve got a briefing down here in about ten.”

  “The one you hooked McNab for?”

  “That’s the one.”

  He pulled on his lips, scratched his chin. “I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks.” She cut off, then opened Roarke’s file to familiarize herself with the data. While it played, she made copies, added them to the packs she’d already put together for the team, made up another for Feeney.

  And thought fondly of the days when Peabody would’ve done all the grunt work.

  As a result, she was the last one in the conference room.

  “Detective Peabody, brief Captain Feeney on the investigation to date.”

  Peabody blinked. “Huh?”

  “All those things in your ears clogging your hearing? Summarize the case, Detective, and bring Captain Feeney up to speed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Her voice squeaked a bit, and she stumbled over the initial data, but Eve was pleased Peabody found her rhythm. It would be a while yet before she had the stones to lead a team, but she had a good, agile mind and, once she got past the nerves, a straightforward and cohesive method of relaying data.

  “Thank you, Detective.” Eve waited while Feeney finished up making notes. “Baxter, anything from the club on Jacobs?”

  “No leads. She was a regular. Came in solo or with a date, with a group. Night in question it was solo, and that’s how she left. Hit the dance floor, had some drinks, chatted up a couple guys. Bartender knows she left alone because she talked to him over the last drink. Told him she was in a dry spell. Nobody she met lately did it for her. We got some names, and we’ll check them out today, but it looks like a bust.”

  “Well, tie it up. Pursuant to the information gathered re Cobb, I flashed her picture around the restaurant Ciprioni’s, where it’s believed she had a date with the man we know as Bobby Smith.”

  “You went to Ciprioni’s?” Peabody exclaimed.

  “I needed to eat, I needed to follow up the lead. Two birds.”

  “Other people like Italian food,” Peabody whined.

  Eve ignored her. “I found the waitress who had their table in July. She remembers Cobb, and I’ve set her up with a police artist to try to jog her memory a little more on her description of Cobb’s date. We can
check the museums, galleries, theaters we believe they visited. Somebody might remember them.”

  “We’ll take it,” Baxter told her. “We’ve knocked down a few already.”

  “Good. Now that the media’s announced the possible connection between these murders, our quarry is aware, almost certainly aware, we’ve made the link and are investigating concurrently. I don’t see this as a deterrent to the investigation.”

  She waited a beat. “In your packs you’ll find data relating to Alex Crew, one of the diamond thieves, and the only one of the four who demonstrated violent behavior. My source related that Crew had an ex-wife and a son. Both of these individuals vanished between the divorce and the heist. I want to find them.”

  “Crew might have killed them,” Peabody suggested.

  “Yes, I’ve considered that. He didn’t have any problem killing one of his partners, or attempting murder on another partner’s daughter. He’d done some time previously and was suspected of other crimes. He was into the life. Killing an ex wouldn’t have been beyond his pathology. Neither would harming or killing a child. His child.”

  Fathers did, she thought. Fathers could be monsters as easily as anyone else.

  “Dead or alive, I want to find them. We have their birth names, and their locations prior to their disappearance. Peabody and I will talk to Gannon this morning.” She cocked a brow at Peabody.

  “Eleven hundred at the Rembrandt.”

  “It’s possible she has more information on them gathered through her family or her research for her book. I also want her reasoning for leaving them out of that book when others are named. Feeney, you’re on the search?”

  “On it.”

  “Ah . . . Roarke has offered to assist, if necessary, as civilian consultant. As he gathered the current data for me, he has an interest in following through.”

  “Never a problem for me to use the boy. I’ll tag him.”

  “McNab, I want anything you can get me off Cobb’s d and c, her ’links. Gannon’s and Jacobs’s communications equipment are already in-house. Check with the officer assigned to clearing those units.”

  “You got it.”