Devoted in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “What kind of vehicle?”

  “Ah… I barely registered it. Dark, yes, it wasn’t white or cream, but a dark color. Not a car,” he considered, “bigger. Maybe one of those burly all-terrains. Or a van. Maybe a van.”

  “Did you see anyone around it?”

  “I barely glanced out the window, just as I was pacing around. I do think I saw someone. I can’t tell you if it was a man or a woman. Bundled up. I think they had a chair. I must be imagining that, mixing it up. Why would anyone stand out on the street with an armchair? I’m very likely mixing it up, I’m sorry.”

  “What was this person doing with the chair?”

  “I can’t say – there probably wasn’t a chair. My wife is always saying I live in my head more than out of it. I get the impression they were putting it in the back of the van, or maybe they’d taken it out.”

  “Do you remember the time, the time you saw this?”

  “I have no idea. It would’ve been after ten, when it started rolling. Probably well after ten, as I’d written right up to the kill. And it would’ve been before two, when I stopped and went to bed – well before two as I decided on the disemboweling, and wrote right through to the sacrificial rite before I tapped out.

  “I wish I could be of more help. I appreciate all you do – the police. I especially appreciate police who read my books.”

  “We appreciate the time, Mr. Havers,” Eve told him. “If you remember anything else, please contact us. Peabody, give Mr. Havers one of your cards.”

  They knocked on a few more doors, but got nothing to match Havers.

  “He’s responsible for most of my nightmares,” Peabody said as they got back into the car.

  “Why would you read something that gives you nightmares?” Life and the job, Eve thought, gave her plenty of her own.

  “I don’t know. Irresistible. He’s really good. Mostly I like stories that have happy endings – and his do. I mean good overcomes evil – after a lot of blood, terror, death. Sort of like us,” Peabody concluded. “Maybe that’s why.”

  “Dark colored A-T or van. He was leaning van. It’s not much, but more than we had. And the woman with the chair.”

  “He didn’t say woman.”

  “It’s going to be the woman. The woman trying to get the chair into the back of the vehicle.”

  “Classic ploy,” Peabody added.

  “Because it often works. Kuper comes along, sees her struggling, steps over to offer a hand.”

  Just as she’d seen it, Eve thought. It had been the most logical because it was the most true.

  “It all works, including the timing. Let’s hit the club since we’re here.”

  After Midnight was a moody little place with a scatter of patrons, and an ancient piano player noodling the keys as a woman with the face and body of a siren swayed and sang about love gone the wrong way around.

  She could see Morris here, clearly see him adding the mournful song of his sax. And with the picture formed in the last hours, she could see Dorian Kuper, adding those down-low notes of the cello.

  An intimate place, she thought, with tables crowded together and huddled close to the stage. A single bar and the man who tended it, and the lighting dim and faintly blue.

  She talked to the bartender, the lone waitress, the old man and the young siren. She got fresh grief and shock, but no new information.

  “They really liked him,” Peabody commented when they walked from the blue warmth to the gray cold.

  “He seemed to have that effect on most people. What did we learn?”

  “Well, that he went there at least three or four times a month, and they liked him.”

  “That, and his killers never went in there. It’s small, it’s intimate, and while they get people who just go in, a tourist who’s heard of it, they mostly have regulars. A couple who’d been in there around the time the vic went missing, they’d be noticed. And that leads more weight to random. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Okay, yeah. Yeah, I see that. Everybody remembered Earnestina – in detail.”

  “And speaking of.” Eve checked the time. “I’m going to drop you back at Central. Any progress Baxter and Trueheart have made, I want to know. Check in with EDD in case they found something on the vic’s electronics we missed. Unless something else pops, go home after that. I’ll go by and talk to Earnestina on my way home – both her work and residence are on the way. She doesn’t play in, but we’ll cross her off anyway.”

  “She should be home. I checked her schedule.” Peabody climbed in the car. “Her last class should have ended about a half hour ago. Even if she hangs around the school for whatever, she should be home by the time you get uptown. You might want to check there first. Traffic’s going to be a bitch.”

  6

  Traffic was a bitch, but, then again, Eve thought, so was she. She shoved, bullied and smashed her way uptown. In her own way, she enjoyed snarling at a lumbering maxibus or thinking bitter thoughts about the driver of a single-passenger Mini who wove through the narrow spaces between vehicles like a needle and thread.

  She could sneer at the ad blimps cheerfully blasting out news about NEW SPRING LINES! at the fricking SkyMall when the temperature hovered at twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

  In the time it took her to travel north, she updated her notes, reviewed Trueheart’s on three interviews conducted and contacted Juilliard.

  Tina R. Denton had indeed left for the day.

  She found the building easily enough – a whitewashed row house she could see had been converted into four units.

  Finding parking was another matter. She considered double-parking, but recalling her own traffic fight couldn’t justify it. Some of the drivers and passengers out there were innocents.

  But when she spotted a space on the other side of the street, she had no compunction against hitting the sirens, boosting into vertical and crossing over above car roofs to drop into the opening.

  The blast of horns didn’t bother her in the least.

  She walked down to the corner, crossed over, walked up, and with a glance at the numbers on the doors, pushed the buzzer on Earnestina’s apartment.

  “What do you want?”

  At the impatient voice, Eve held up her badge for scanning. “Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. I need to speak with Tina R. Denton.”

  “This isn’t a convenient time. I’m working.”

  “Hey, me too. If this isn’t convenient we’ll arrange to have you brought down to Central in the morning for questioning.”

  “You can’t make me do that!”

  Eve just smiled. “Watch me.”

  There was an angry hiss, then the clunk of locks being disengaged.

  Earnestina showed more flatteringly in her ID shot. In person, at the moment, her brown hair was scraped back from her long, edging toward horsey, face. She hadn’t bothered with facial enhancement, but obviously had enhancements of another sort.

  Eve could smell the Zoner, could see its effects in the just-going-glassy look of her pale and narrow blue eyes.

  “This is harassment.”

  “File a complaint. Then I won’t feel obliged to ignore the illegals I can smell – along with the faint haze of Zoner smoke that’s not yet dissipated. Or you can let me in, we’ll have a conversation, then we can both go about our business.”

  “A person is entitled to do as she likes in her own home.”

  “No, a person isn’t entitled to engage in illegal activities, anywhere.” Feet planted, Eve met those just-getting-high eyes with cool contempt. “You want to push this one, Ms. Denton?”

  “Oh, come in, then. Believe me, I’ve made a note of your name and badge number.”

  “And I’ve made a note you’re uncooperative.”

  The living area in the apartment showed a tendency for compulsive neatness. Nothing out of place, and a minimalist style that included no personal photos, no flowers or plants. A single sofa in dark gray faced a wall screen. A single chair in the s
ame tone angled under a floor lamp.

  Earnestina – as Eve would forever think of her – didn’t suggest they sit down, and Eve didn’t ask.

  “You were acquainted with Dorian Kuper, and in fact, had an argument with him at a club called After Midnight.”

  “I knew Dorian, yes. I heard today he’d been killed. That’s a great loss for opera, but has nothing else to do with me.”

  “You were pretty angry with him.”

  “Disgusted is a more accurate term, that a man of his considerable talents would waste them on the lowbrow.”

  “He won’t be doing that anymore.”

  “Nor will he transport those who value true music with his skills and comprehension.”

  “Let’s move on to whereabouts. Where were you Sunday night between eleven p.m. and one a.m.”

  “I was here, and would have been in bed by eleven.”

  “Alone?”

  “My personal life is none —”

  “Alone?” Eve repeated, her tone hard as brick.

  “Yes, alone. I attended an afternoon musicale, and was home by six. I had a meal, and worked until ten. You can’t possibly believe I had anything to do with Dorian’s death.”

  “Last night, between ten p.m. and one a.m.”

  “I attended a rehearsal of La Bohème, at Juilliard. I was there from seven until after ten. Two colleagues and I went for a drink afterward to discuss areas that required improvement or change. We met until a little after midnight, then we shared a cab, and I came home.”

  “Names.”

  “You’re insulting.”

  “Yeah, add that to your notes. Names.”

  She reeled them off, chin jutted high. “I want you to leave now.”

  “Heading that way. Do you own a vehicle?”

  “I do not. I live in a city with excellent mass transit, and my work is a five-minute walk from my residence.”

  More to needle the woman than anything else, Eve threw out one more. “Have you ever been to Nashville, Tennessee?”

  “Certainly not, why would I? That’s the land of Opry, isn’t it?” She said the word as if it was the vilest expletive. “For that reason alone, I will never step foot anywhere in the state.”

  “I’m sure they’ll manage without you. Thanks for your time.”

  “If you harass me again, I’ll have a lawyer.”

  “The only way I’ll come back is if you lied to me about any of this. If that turns out to be the case, you’ll need a lawyer.”

  And now, Eve thought as she stepped out into what felt like beautifully fresh air – and Earnestina slammed the door behind her – she needed a drink.

  At least the traffic fight comprised a much shorter distance, and she drove through the gates of home not long after the sky went to indigo and the streetlights spread pools of white.

  The deeper silhouette of the house that Roarke built, the house that had become hers, rose and spread castle-like with its fanciful turrets and towers. Lights glowed in too many windows to count.

  She wanted home more than she wanted that drink. Home, where she would find peace, space, time to clear her head. A place to set up fresh for murder.

  She left her car out front, pushed her way through the wind that had decided to kick up its heels again, and went in the front door.

  She knew he’d be there, the skeletal build in funereal black with the pudge of a cat at his feet.

  Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, raised his eyebrows. “A completed first day back with no apparent injury or damage. How long can it last?”

  “It could end right now if I decide to kick that stick you’re so fond of any farther up your ass.”

  “And the day wouldn’t be complete without such an observation.”

  She tossed her coat over the newel post because it was handy – and because it annoyed him. And with the cat now rubbing a feline welcome at her leg, started up the stairs.

  Stopped.

  “I bet you’re a big fan of the opera. That would be right up your alley.”

  “I enjoy many of the arts, including opera. I’ve heard Dorian Kuper play, at the Met, at After Midnight, and other venues. I heard of his death shortly ago. To lose someone who’s young and so vibrantly talented is tragic.”

  “All murder’s tragic.”

  “And some felt more keenly than others. He’s in your hands now? The report didn’t name the primary.”

  “He’s mine now,” Eve said and continued upstairs.

  She went straight for the bedroom and the locator.

  “Where is Roarke?”

  Roarke is not in residence at this time.

  Not home yet, she thought, and remembered to check her ’link. Sure enough, she found a text from him.

  Lieutenant, I hope your day’s going well. She stripped off her jacket as she listened to his voice, to the Irish whispering through it. I’ve a need to make an unscheduled trip to Detroit, but it shouldn’t take long. I’ll be home by half-seven if not before. Until then, take care of my cop.

  That gave her some time, she thought. She could get her board set up in her office here, start reviewing notes and reports.

  Or, she considered while Galahad wound through her legs like a furry snake, she could clear her head first.

  She sat, removed her boots, rubbed the cat who jumped up beside her. Then she changed into workout gear.

  When she started for the elevator the cat sat, stared at the opening doors with his suspicious bicolored eyes.

  “I’m not a big fan of the moving box, either, but… I’ll be back,” she said as the door closed.

  She hadn’t had time, not really, to fully appreciate Roarke’s Christmas gift as the dojo had been completed while they were away.

  Now she stepped out into it and took one long, relaxed breath.

  The floors, soft gold, gleamed. The space boasted its own little garden where white flowers fanned over the stones of a quietly bubbling water feature in the far corner. Sliding panels concealed a small kitchen area, fully stocked with bottles of spring water and energy drinks.

  Coffee was banned, which didn’t seem right in any world, but she’d had to accept the edict.

  More panels opened to a dressing area fully stocked with white towels, with mats, with gis of black or white. And the door within would lead to the shower, and through that she could access the gym if that space was more to her taste.

  He’d even thought of art – but, then, the man thought of everything. Serene gardens, arching cherry blossoms, green hills misted with morning.

  The space spoke of peace and discipline, and simplicity.

  And was a fully operational holoroom.

  The gift had been twofold. The dojo, and Master Lu. When time allowed she could go to the master for instruction, or schedule a session in her own dojo.

  And when it didn’t, she could call him up holographically.

  She did so now, eager for a good, strong workout with a master of martial arts.

  His image shimmered on in the center of the room. He wore his hair in a long queue, and a plain black gi over his sinewy body.

  He clasped one hand over the other, bowed. “Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Master Lu. Thank you for this honor.”

  “I am pleased to have a worthy student.”

  “I only have thirty minutes, but —”

  “Then we must make each count.”

  “Your flying spin kick is, well, almost unbelievable. I’ve never been able to get that height, or that form. If —”

  “You are very kind. This will come. For this our first lesson, you will learn to breathe.”

  “To… ‘breathe.’  ”

  “Breath is the beginning of all. Breath,” he said as he approached her, “then breath and movement. Hands.”

  He took her hands, pressed one palm to her belly, the other to her heart with his dark eyes locked on hers. “Breath is life. You are not the pebble washed to shore by the wave, but the fish that swims in the wa
ve. Breathe in to fill, to draw in the light. Slow,” he told her, “with awareness. Breathe out to empty. And pause, hold in that space between. Now in to fill.”

  She breathed.

  When she took the elevator back up, she had to admit her brain had cleared out. Who knew there were so many ways to breathe?

  When the elevator opened to the bedroom, and Roarke stood there unbuttoning his shirt, well, she lost her breath.

  His hair fell nearly to his shoulders, a black silk frame for a face created to steal the breath, to weaken the knees, to capture the heart. It had done all to her, and more.

  There were times like this when he looked at her, just looked, and those perfectly sculpted lips curved, those eyes – wilder, bluer than any sea – lit with what she knew was love, it wasn’t just more. It was all.

  “A session with Master Lu?”

  “Yeah.” She stepped in so the door could close behind her. “I’ve been learning how to breathe. I thought I already knew, being alive and all, but apparently not. Did you know you can breathe into your toes? I think I did it. It sounds like bullshit, but I think I breathed into my toes.”

  He laughed and, putting his hands on her hips, drew her to him. “You were the fish, not the pebble. I reviewed the first couple of lessons.” His hands slid around her waist. “Here’s what I missed today.” He pulled back, kissed her – slow and deep, like breathing. “I got used to being able to do that at any time of the day or night.”

  “Back to reality. Detroit?”

  “Just a few bolts that needed tightening, and my hand on the spanner – wrench,” he corrected. “And you, I hear, a murder already?”

  “They probably had a few while I was gone, too.”