by Nora Roberts
“It only works best with the current data,” Roarke pointed out. “Is there anything I can do to help with Morris?”
“No, there’s really not. I called, straight to his voice mail this morning. I didn’t want to… you know. Just said I wanted him to know we’re working on it, and he could tag me whenever he needed. I’ve got to ask him if he knew she’d been tangled up with Alex Ricker. I have to ask, and I don’t think he did. He’d have told me yesterday. However much shock he was in, he’d have told me that, given me the lead. So I’m going to be the one to kick him in the gut again.”
Harder for her, Roarke knew, than facing down an armed psychopath. “I can reschedule some things, go with you. We can go see him now.”
The offer made her throat burn. He would do that. He would always do that. She had that. “I can’t. I have to get back, get all this down in the book, get the stunner to the lab. I need to fill Peabody in. And other stuff. I’m hoping I’ll have something more solid when I talk to Morris.”
She got as close to the big black tower that housed Roarke Industries as the madness of New York allowed. “Thanks.”
“Actions speak louder.” He cupped her neck, and leaning to her took her mouth in a kiss that made her swear she could see little red hearts dancing over her head. “Take care of my cop.”
“I try to make a habit of it.”
“If only you did.” He stepped out, shot her a last look with those blue laser eyes, then strode down the sidewalk to the black spire he’d created.
She went by the lab first, hand-delivered the stunner. On her way to Homicide, she made a mental list of what had to be done. Get the Alex Ricker interview into the file, along with her impressions. Check, for her own curiosity, how often father and son communicated. Run probabilities on all the scenarios she’d run through with Roarke. Meet with Mira to get a solid profile on both vic and killer. Update Peabody, study EDD results.
Then, because it couldn’t be put off, she’d deal with the “other stuff” she hadn’t explained to Roarke.
She’d contact Don Webster in IAB.
Because, goddamn it, if anybody’d had a whiff of Coltraine and Max Ricker’s son, it would’ve been IAB. If they’d known, the info on that relationship would’ve been passed along from Atlanta to New York.
Webster would know.
The idea of having to wheedle information out of Internal Affairs-and out of a former one-night stand-just burned her ass. Stewing about it, she strode into the bullpen, annoyed.
“Dallas! Hey! Wait!”
Scowling, she waved off Peabody’s shout. “I need five.”
“But-”
“Five!” Eve shouted back, and stomped into her office.
Morris sat in her visitor’s chair.
“Oh, hey.” The next time Peabody told her to wait, Eve promised herself, she’d wait.
“I know better.” He got to his feet. She could see the long, sleepless night on him-the shadowed eyes, the pallor. “Better than to get in your way, better than to ask questions, to push at you when you push yourself harder than anyone could. I know better. But it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s okay.” She shut the door. “It’s okay.”
“I’m going to see her. I needed to come here first, needed you to tell me whatever you could before I went to see her.”
Eve’s ’link beeped, and she ignored it. “A little milk in your coffee, right?”
“Yes, a little. Thanks.”
She programmed coffee, using the time to organize her thoughts. “I spoke with her family.”
“I know. So have I now.”
She gave him the coffee, took her own seat, swiveling it to face him. “And I spoke with her lieutenant here and in Atlanta. With her partner there, with her squad here. She was very well liked.”
He nodded. “You’re trying to comfort me, and I’m grateful. I need more. I need facts. Theories if that’s all you have. I need to know what you think happened. And why. I need you to promise you’ll tell me the truth. If you give me your word, you won’t break it. Will you promise me the truth?”
“Okay.” She nodded. “The truth. I give you my word. I need the same from you. I have to ask you something, and I need the truth.”
“Lies won’t help her.”
“No, they won’t. Morris, did you know that Detective-that Amaryllis had had an intimate relationship with Max Ricker’s son, with Alex Ricker, before she transferred to New York?”
8
SHE KNEW THE ANSWER INSTANTLY. HIS EYES widened; his lips trembled open. He said nothing for a moment or two while she watched him drink coffee and compose himself. He sat, not in one of his sharp, stylish suits, but in a lightweight black sweater and jeans, with his hair pulled back in a simple tail with none of the usual ornamentation.
As he sat, in silence, she knew just as she’d told Roarke, she’d kicked a friend in the gut a second time.
“Morris-”
He held up a hand asking for another minute. “You’ve confirmed this?”
“Yes.”
“I knew there had been someone, that she’d been involved with someone before she left Atlanta.” He lifted a hand to rub at his temple. “They’d broken it off, and it left her upset, at loose ends. It was one of the reasons she decided to transfer. Just a fresh start, a clean slate-some distance between what had been and what could be. That’s how she put it. I should’ve told you yesterday. I didn’t think of it. I couldn’t think-”
“It’s okay.”
“She mentioned it, the way you do when you’re getting to know someone. She said… What did she say? I’m trying to remember. Just that they couldn’t make it work, couldn’t be what each other needed them to be. She never mentioned his name. I never asked. Why would I?”
“Can you tell me, did you get a sense she was worried about him, about how they’d ended it?”
“No. I only remember thinking what kind of fool had let her get away. She didn’t bring it up again, and neither did I. It was the past. We were both focused on now, on where we were going. On what could be, I suppose. Did he do this?”
“I don’t know. It’s a lead, and I’ll follow it. But I don’t know, Morris. I’ll tell you what I know, if you trust me to handle it.”
“There’s no one I trust more. That’s the truth.”
“Alex Ricker is in New York.”
The color that came into his face was rage, barely controlled. “Hear me out,” she demanded. “He contacted her, and she went to see him the day before she died. He volunteered this information to me this morning when I went to see him.”
Morris set his coffee aside and, rising, walked to Eve’s skinny window. “They weren’t still involved. I would have known.”
“He said they weren’t, and that they broke off their relationship amicably. They met as friends. They had a drink and a catch-up conversation during which she told him she’d met someone, was involved. He stated that she looked happy.”
“Did you believe him?”
Hell, she thought, how did she dance around her suspicions and keep her word? “I believe he might have been telling the truth, or part of the truth. If she’d felt threatened or worried, would she have told you?”
“I want to think so. I want to think even if she hadn’t I would have seen it, felt it. She didn’t tell me she was meeting him, and now I can’t ask her why she didn’t. What it means that she didn’t.”
She didn’t have to see his face to know there was pain. “It could be it meant so little to her she didn’t feel it was worth mentioning.”
He turned back. “But you don’t think so.”
“Morris, I know people in relationships do strange things. They say too much, don’t say enough.” Take me, she thought. Had she told Roarke she intended to contact Webster?
“Or it could be, especially since our relationship had become very serious, I might have asked questions. Ones she didn’t want to answer. It’s not that she’d been involved with someone
before, neither of us were children. But she’d been involved with Alex Ricker.”
“Yes.”
“The son of a known criminal, a known killer. One who, when they were involved, was still at large. Still in power. How likely is it that Alex Ricker is uninvolved, unconnected to his father’s activities? But she, a police official, became involved with him.”
“He’s never been arrested or charged with any crime.”
“Dallas.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s dicey, it’s tricky. It’s sticky. I’m a police official, Morris, and I not only got involved with a man cops all over the planet-and off it-gave the hard eye to, I married him.”
“One forgets,” he murmured. He came back to sit, to pick up his coffee again. “It would’ve caused some friction for her on the job. As it did for you.” When she said nothing, Morris lowered the mug. “Was she investigated?”
“I’m going to find that out. But…” Truth, she reminded herself. That was the deal here. “She kept it to herself. From Ricker’s statement, from what I’ve gotten out of Atlanta, and out of her squad here, nobody knew she’d had a personal relationship with him.”
“I see.”
Worse, Eve realized, worse for him that the relationship with Alex had been important enough for her to have kept it a secret.
“It could’ve been for a lot of reasons. The simplest is she wanted to keep her personal life off the job.”
“No, you’re trying to comfort me again, to spare me. I know how the grapevine works. Everyone in my house, in hers, I’d wager nearly every cop, clerk, drone, and tech in Central knows Ammy and I were involved. Keeping it quiet had to be deliberate, and because of who he was. And to keep it quiet for that long? That’s serious.”
He paused a moment, and his brows drew together. “You’re going to find out. You mean you’re going to talk to IAB?”
“It’s necessary.”
“If they didn’t know, they will now. After you talk to them.”
“I can’t go around it. I’ll be as careful as I can, but-”
“Give me a minute.” He stared down into his coffee. “Max Ricker carried cops in his pockets like other men carry loose credits. You’re wondering now if his son had Ammy in his.”
“I have to ask. I have to look at it. If I factor it out, push it off to spare her rep, maybe her killer slips through the gap. That’s not going to happen. Not even for you.”
“I knew her. I know how she thought, how she felt, how she slept and ate and lived. I’d have known if she was dirty. I know how she defined her work and how she felt about doing it.”
“You didn’t know about Alex Ricker.”
He stared. She watched the shutter come down, the one that shut her out as a friend, as a cop, as a colleague. “No, I didn’t.” He got back up onto his feet, spoke stiffly. “Thank you for keeping me informed.”
She got to hers before he could get to the door of her office. “Morris, I can’t and won’t apologize for doing my job, but I can be sorry that the way I need to do it causes you pain. Just like I’m sorry to have to say this. Stay away from Alex Ricker. If I don’t have your word you’ll keep clear, make no contact with him, I’ll put a tail on you. I won’t let you impede the investigation.”
“You have my word.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
Alone, Eve sat at her desk, dropped her head into her hands. Friendships, she thought, were so damn complicated, so bound with sharp edges that could jab a hole through you at any given point.
Why did people always get tangled up with other people? Why put ourselves through this shit?
She had to consider the possibility Coltraine had been dirty. Wasn’t that hard enough? Did she have to carry the guilt for hurting Morris along with it?
Crap. Yeah, she did. No way out of it.
She wanted to ignore the knock on her door, really wanted just to wallow for a while in a little stew of self-pity. But duty won.
“What? What the fuck do you want?”
The door eased open a few inches, and Peabody peered in. “Ah. Are you okay?”
There it was, Eve supposed. There was the answer to why people got tangled with people. Because when you were down, when you were wallowing, someone you mattered to would ask if you were okay.
“No. Really not. Come in. Shut the door.” When she had, Eve blew out a breath and shook it off. “EDD?”
“There’s nothing off on her home or work units. Nothing off on her house or office ’links. Nothing referencing an appointment or meet for the night she died. Her date books check out. The only one we haven’t been able to pin down, so far, is a notation for AR, the day before her murder. It’s listed under personal. No address, no number, with the additional notation of a-slash-s, which corresponds with ‘after shift’ in her other notes.”
“I’ve got that one. Sit down. AR is Alex Ricker.”
“Alex… as in Max Ricker?”
“As in his only son. Here’s the deal.”
Though she kept silent during Eve’s recap, various expressions raced over Peabody’s face, and Eve could read them perfectly. They ranged from Holy Shit to Poor Morris to What Now.
“You told him?”
“Yeah.”
Peabody nodded. “Well, you had to.”
“I didn’t tell him about Ricker’s lame alibi, because he didn’t ask. I didn’t tell him it was pretty damn clear to me Ricker still has feelings for Coltraine. Even without that, it was bad enough. I need you to get a warrant to search Alex Ricker’s penthouse, and to confiscate and search his electronics. He’ll be expecting it. He’ll have covered himself, if need be. But we’re pretty damn smart around here. We can see what’s under the covers if we look hard enough. We’ve got to check his idiot alibi. See who’s clear to sweep around Times Square with a picture. Sports bars are the focus. We’ll take over there once I’m finished up and able to get back out in the field.”
Eve rubbed her eyes. “Now I’ve got to twist Webster into meeting me somewhere away from here, where we’re not going to run into other cops or anybody else.”
“Lets you see how it was for her. I mean different reasons and all, but it’s stressful trying to arrange to see somebody on the down-low. I can’t imagine doing it for almost two years. Either she really loved him or the sex was, like, stupendously mag.”
“Or she liked the thrill, and the profit.”
“Oh, right.” Peabody’s face fell. “It’s hard to go there.”
“Tell me. But I’m going, and… I’ve just thought of the perfect place.” She swiveled to her ’link. “Shut the door on your way out. No point in advertising I’m calling the Rat Squad.”
The Down and Dirty was a sex and strip joint where the patrons downed the throat-searing, stomach-burning adult beverages, and liked it. For those who could pay the freight, private rooms offered a cot and a lock, and an area in which to perform whatever natural or unnatural acts they chose.
Privacy booths were often choked with smoke while illegals were passed around like candy corn. At night, the stage generally held a band of some sort, in various stages of undress and with questionable talents. Dancers with the same qualifications usually joined them-as did patrons who might be influenced by those adult beverages and/or illegals.
Violence was known to break out-suddenly and gleefully-which was part of the appeal to some. Odd and unattractive substances stuck to the floor, and the food was utter crap.
Eve’s bachelor party had been held there, during which she’d caught a murderer. Good times.
The man behind the bar towered up to about six and a half feet of muscle. His black skin gleamed against an open leather vest and body ink. His shaven head shone like a dark moon as he mopped the bartop and the holoband beat out a jungle rhythm for a trio of impressively built and talentless dancers.
Crowds didn’t pack into the club this time of day, but a few men huddled at tables sucking brews, apparently content to watch the clumsy footwork since it was
attached to naked tits.
Two of them scanned her as she strode by, then hunched down to make themselves, she supposed, disappear. The guy behind the bar gave her a good, long stare. Bared his teeth.
“Hey, skinny white girl.”
“Hey, big black guy.”
His wide, homely face broke into a grin. He reached across the bar with arms as long as Fifth Avenue, lifted her off her feet, and slapped his mouth noisily to hers.
“Come on” was all she could say.
“Can’t help it. I missed seeing your face, plus I thought about you just this morning. How about that?”
“Yeah, how about that. How’s it going, Crack?”
“Be up, be down. Mostly be up these days. I went by the park this morning, like I do once in a while, to take a look at the tree you had planted for my baby girl. My baby sister. It’s greening up. Makes me feel good to see how it’s getting green.”
His expression changed from pleasant to dangerous, like a flick of a switch, when someone dared to approach the bar for service while he was otherwise engaged.
The customer slunk away.
They called him Crack, it was well known, for his habit of cracking skulls together-be they employee or patron-if their behavior displeased him.
“Whatchu doing in my place?”
“I’ve got a meet, and I wanted to have it in private.”
“You want a room?”
“Not that kind of private.”
“Good to hear. I like your man. I hope he be up.”
“Roarke being up is never a problem.”
Crack’s laughter was like a thunderclap.
“Anyway, I thought I could take the meet here, and not run into another cop. If that’s not a problem for you.”
“You want, I’ll kick these assholes out of here, close the place down, and you can have it to yourself as long as you want.”
“Just a table, thanks.”
“Drink?”
“Do I look suicidal?”
“Got some bottled water in the back.” His gaze tracked away from her. “You don’t wanna see other cops, you got a problem, ’cause one of your kind just came in.”
