by Nora Roberts
“I can’t hear this.” Eve clamped her hands over her ears. “My head will explode.”
“What? I have grandchildren so I don’t have sex?” Mira asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. That’s the point.”
Mira poked a finger at Eve’s arm. “You have such a charming streak of prude. As I was saying, Dennis, given the right stimulation, can still go for two. When you’ve been married as long as we have, there are often stretches where warmth, comfort, the life rhythm stand in for sex. I wish that for you, Louise. The warmth and the comfort of a long life together, with the two rounds to surprise you both. Dennis is The Owl. Wise and quiet.”
“What’s Charles?” Nadine demanded. “The suave licensed companion turned sexual therapist. The sex has to be amazing.”
“Isn’t it just?” Louise gave a slow, satisfied smile that put a glow in her gray eyes. “He’s The Leopard. Elegant, graceful, strong-and believe me, he can travel across the mesa. And back again.”
“Leopards, puppies, owls-even snakes are sexy,” Nadine complained. “I get a limp turtle. Your turn,” she said to Eve, then wagged a finger when Eve shook her head. “Then I’ll project. Panther. Sleek, mysterious, coiled, with an elegance and purpose of movement.”
“Okay.”
“Not fair! Okay, what’s the record? How many times?”
“If you can count them, he didn’t drop you out.”
Nadine groaned, shuddered, grinned. “Bitch.”
Amid the laughter, Louise opened the next gift. Eve sipped her coffee. “Wolf,” she murmured, without thinking.
“Yes.” Beside her, Mira patted her hand. “They mate for life.”
When the last present was sighed over, Trina got to her feet. “Okay, girls, back to your stations. Next round of treatments.” She turned, bared her teeth at Eve. “I pulled you.”
“No. I’m not-”
“Yeah, you are. Everybody plays. Somebody get this woman a drink. The hair. It’s mine.”
She could handle a haircut. Probably. Particularly since there was no escape. “I don’t want a body treatment,” Eve began. “I don’t want a face treatment. I don’t want-”
“Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. Sit.” Someone passed Trina a Bellini, which she pushed into Eve’s hand. “I saved you for last, first round anyway. We’re here for the duration if anybody wants to go again. It’s nice what you’re doing here.”
Eve narrowed her eyes suspiciously as Trina arranged her torture tools. “What am I doing here?”
“Having everybody here like this. Louise is okay. Real okay. Got a solid base. Me, I don’t have a lot of no-fucking-ways, but I couldn’t’ve fallen for an LC and stuck. Not the big fall, you know? But she did, because he was the guy. And now she’s got the whole pinata and all the candy inside. It’s nice to have everybody here to get a bang out of it.”
Just as Eve relaxed, as she considered there might be some skinny patch of common ground here, Trina turned, and her eyes went to slits. “Now what the fuck have you done to my hair? Hacked at it didn’t you? Just couldn’t let it alone or call me in to deal?”
“I didn’t-I only. It’s my hair.”
“Not once I put the scissors to it, sister. You’re lucky I’m a genius, and a humanitarian. I’ll fix it, and I won’t shave it bald down the center to make my point.”
Trina grabbed a bottle and began to spray a mist on Eve’s hair while she worked it with her fingers. “Plus you need a facial and an eye boost. You got some fatigue.”
“It’s not fatigue, it’s alcohol. I’ve been drinking.”
“I say you got fatigue, you got fatigue. I know about Morris’s lady. Sick about it because that’s one prime man-on all counts. You’re going to get the bastard, but you’re not going to do it with hacked-up hair and tired skin. I got standards.”
“You want the hair? Take the hair, but leave the rest of me alone. I’ve got-”
Her ’link beeped. Eve struggled to get her hand under the miles of cape, into the pocket of her dress. Trina just nipped in, pulled it out. “She’s busy,” she snapped even as Eve cursed her.
“Unrecognized voice print. Transmission for Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”
“Give me that, goddamn it.” Eve grabbed, shoved. “Dallas.”
“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to 509 Pearl Street. Officers on-scene. Body on second floor visually identified as Sandy, Rod, subject of your APB.”
“Is the scene secured?”
“Affirmative.”
“I’m on my way.”
Before Eve finished the statement, Trina had the cape whipped away and the chair back in an upright position. “Should I find Peabody?”
“No, she can stay here. I can handle it. If anyone asks, just say I went to bed.”
“You got it.”
Eve slipped out of the room, started to make a dash.
“Hey, hey!” Spotting her, Peabody set off in staggering pursuit.
“You can’t run away. We’re going to start the vids. You-you’ve got something,” she said when she managed to focus.
“I’ve got it. Go on back. Go handle… whatever the hell it is down there.”
“No, sir. I’m with you. I’ve got some Sober-Up with me. I can be level pretty quick. It’s about Coltraine, so I’m with you.”
“All right, but make it quick. I’ve got to go change. And so, by all that’s holy, do you.”
As Eve called for the elevator, Mira hurried over. “What’s wrong?”
“DB ID’d as Sandy. I’ve got to go. She’s got to sober up if she wants in.”
“I want in.”
“Go change,” Mira ordered, and put an arm around Peabody’s waist. “I’ll take care of it. She’ll meet you upstairs.”
“Ten minutes,” Eve snapped. She jumped on the elevator, thinking there was no way in hell her partner would be clean and sober in ten.
And, she thought as she rode up, no matter how hard she’d pushed that day, she’d never had a chance of taking Rod Sandy alive.
18
EVE PEELED OFF THE DRESS, YANKED ON PANTS, shirt, her weapon. She hunted up a short leather jacket and shrugged into it as she jogged downstairs. She realized she’d underestimated Peabody when her partner stepped off the foyer elevator with Mira and Mavis.
“I’m about halfway there,” Peabody told her.
“You’re all the way there when we get to the scene, or you stay in the car. Ah, do whatever you think works downstairs,” she said to Mira.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s under control here.”
“We’re totally on top of it,” Mavis assured her. “I told Summerset the what, so he brought your car around.”
“Good thinking. We’ll be back when we’re back. Peabody.”
Peabody went a little pale when the fresh air slapped her, but got into the car with the minimum of groans.
“If you even think about booting in here-”
“No, I’m past that. Where’s the scene?”
“Building down on Pearl.”
“I’ll be leveled out by the time we… Where did you get this vehicle?”
“It’s mine. We’ll be using it from now on.”
“Yours, like yours?” Peabody studied the dash. “Very frosty gadgetry.”
“Use the very frosty gadgetry to map the fastest route to 509 Pearl and to ID the kind of building it is.”
Peabody made the requests. “Three-level, multi-tenant, currently vacant. Rehab pending permits. Do you want the route in-dash or on audio?”
“In-dash. I hate when it talks to you. Inside a vacant building, second floor of. It sounds like the killer didn’t want the body found so fast this time. That building’s outside the Eighteenth’s turf, but not far out. Coltraine’s squad would know the terrain.”
“How about Callendar and Sisto? I need to catch up.”
Eve filled in the blanks, speeding her way downtown.
The building sat squat and sad, a gray slab generously coated
with the indignity of graffiti. Windows gaped-mouths with the jagged edges of broken glass like bad teeth. A few were boarded, and more than a few of the boards tipped drunkenly. The bolt and chain on the front door had amused someone enough to take the time to hack it to pieces.
Had it been in perfect repair, it would still have been a joke.
Two black-and-whites nosed together at the curb. A couple of uniforms stood on the shallow concrete platform in front of the entrance, jawing. They broke it off when Peabody and Eve climbed out.
“Homicide,” Eve said, taking out her badge and hooking it on her belt while Peabody got field kits out of the trunk.
“DB’s on the second floor. We’re backup. First-on-scene’s inside. Place is empty-we did a sweep. Brought a coupla lights in, ’cause it’s pitch in there.”
Eve nodded, studied the chain and bolt. “These weren’t compromised tonight.”
“No, sir. We patrol here. It’s been like that a couple months anyway. Funky-junkies flopped here. Owner complained, so we ran ’em off. They just find another hole.”
It stank. Old piss, old vomit, a decade’s worth of dust and grime.
The uniforms had set one of their field lights on the first level, so shadows danced over the piles of rags, papers, and assorted debris the junkies had left behind. She imagined the missing floorboards had been fed into the rusted metal can to burn for warmth. Same with the few missing stair treads, she thought as she stepped over the gaps on her way up.
The light from her field kit shone over a nest of mice in one of the holes, the babies like skinned blobs sucking on their mother’s engorged belly. Behind her, Peabody said, “Eeuuww.”
“Don’t say ‘eeuuww,’ for God’s sake. We’re murder cops.”
“I don’t like mice. Or maybe they were rats. They could be rats. And Daddy wasn’t in there, so he’s somewhere else.” Peabody flashed her light left, right, up, down. “Waiting for a chance to run up my pants’ legs and bite me on the ass.”
“Should that occur, don’t say eeuuww. Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody,” Eve called out. “Homicide.”
On the second floor, in the glare of the field light, one of the uniforms moved toward the stairs. “Officer Guilder, Lieutenant. My partner’s got the nine-one-one callers secured. You want them or the body first?”
“Body.”
“He’s over here. Couple of scavengers called it in. Nothing to scavenge in here. Whatever’s left even the junkies didn’t want, but they came in to pick through. Stated they found him when they were checking out a pile of old blankets. Thought he was sleeping at first, then figured out he was dead. Called it in.”
“Civic-minded scavengers?”
“Yeah, what’re the odds? But they come off straight to me. No weapons on them. Not even a sticker. When we responded, they directed us to the body. We recognized him from the APB, called it in.”
Guilder gestured. “There he is.”
Eve stood in the doorway of what in some dim past might have been an efficiency apartment. “Yeah, there he is.”
He sat on the filthy floor, his back to the wall. He’d been stripped, leaving the small hole and dribble of heart blood on his naked chest exposed.
Nothing left to scavenge, Eve thought. That’s the way the killer hoped it would read. She crouched down as much to study the angle of the body as what surrounded it.
“Got some prints in the dust here, probably from the scavengers. These? The smears? The killer sealed up, wore crime-scene booties from the look of it. Things had gone another way, few days, a week passes, more dust. You don’t see the smears. Heart shot, dead-on. One blow, thin blade. Up close and personal. Verify ID and TOD, Peabody.”
Eve sealed up, took out a pair of microgoggles and approached the body. “Probably a stiletto,” Eve said as she examined the wound. “Don’t want any spatter, any mess. Want it quick and done. Toss rags and useless tarps over him. You might walk right by this pile in the dark. Window’s boarded. Somebody finds him, junkie, sidewalk sleeper, scavenger, most of them aren’t going to report it.”
“Prints verify. Rod Sandy,” Peabody said. “TOD one-fifteen this morning.”
“Smart. Smart. Give him time to panic, to sweat, run him around some. Then lure him here when he’s so knotted up he’s not thinking straight. You need to take him somewhere inside, covered, off the track. You’d get here first, lure him up. He’s got to be sweating. He doesn’t want to stay in a place like this. He needs to get out, you have to help me get out. I can’t stay in this rathole. And it’s like, take it easy, it’s all worked out. You might even put your hand on his shoulder. Holds him steady, gives you a target while you look in his eyes and stick him.”
She pulled off the goggles. “Strip him down so it looks like he was killed for his clothes, what’s in his pockets. But it’s not so smart to cover him up. That’s too much. Just like the single heart shot’s too much. That’s not mugging MO. Overthought it, that’s what you did. Some showing off here, too.”
“The killer should’ve messed him up some,” Peabody put in. “Then left him on top of the rags instead of under them.”
“That’s right. The kill shot indicates skill. There’s pride there. No postmortem wounds, like you’d see if he’d been flopped around while someone was yanking his clothes off. But he had to be careful, avoid leaving trace. All a waste of time anyway, because we’re not idiots.”
She straightened. “Let’s get the sweepers in, and the morgue. I’ll take the scavengers.”
They looked typical, Eve mused. Two humanlike lumps so layered in clothing and grime it was next to impossible to judge gender or age. They sat on the floor, a wheeled basket between them. It held more clothes, shoes, what might have been broken toys and any number of damaged electronics.
They identified themselves as Kip and Bop.
“Legal names would be appreciated.”
“We didn’t keep them,” Kip said. “We only keep what we want.”
Bop clutched an enormous bag. “We keep it and we use it and we sell it. It doesn’t hurt anybody.”
“Okay. You came in here to look for things you could keep or use or sell?”
“Nobody else wants them.” Kip shrugged. “Nobody lives here. Nobody cares.”
“Did you see anyone else in here?”
“The man who’s dead.”
“Maybe you came in here last night, too.”
“No. Last night we were on Bleecker. Lady there leaves stuff out every Friday night, and it’s good pickings if you get there quick.”
“Okay. What time did you get in here tonight?”
Kip lifted his arm, tapped the broken face of his wrist unit. “It’s always the same time. Here’s what. We come in, go up to the top floor so’s we can work it down. Not much up there, so we come on down, and work it. Maybe we’ll find a good blanket or some socks in the pile. But we found the man who’s dead.”
“Did you take anything from him, or from the pile?”
“We found him pretty quick. Don’t take from the dead.”
“You go to hell other,” Bop said with a wise nod.
“What did you do then?”
“We call the nine the one and the one. It’s the right.”
“Yeah, it’s the right. You’ve got a ’link?” At Eve’s question Bop clutched the bag tighter.
“It’s mine!”
“That’s right. It’s yours. Thanks for using it. We can get you to a shelter if you want.”
“Don’t like shelters. Somebody’ll take your stuff for sure.”
Eve scratched her ear. “Okay. How about a flop for a couple of nights. A room, a bed. No shelter.”
Kip and Bob exchanged looks. “Where at?” Kip demanded.
“Officer Guilder, is there a hotel nearby that will take them for a couple of nights? On the city.”
“Sure. I know a place on Broad. The Metro Arms.”
Another look passed between the scavengers. “We don’t pay?”
“Don’t need to kill for stuff,” Kip said.
“People leave it all over anyway,” Bop added.
Out on the street, Eve studied the building and those surrounding it while sweepers moved in and out. “If you live or work around here, you know buildings like this. Killer’s turf, with the advantage of being way, way off the vic’s.”
“And without Kip and Bop, we’re chasing our tails for Sandy for days, maybe more. All the arrows point to him for Coltraine. When we find him, it looks like he’d gone to ground, got rolled, got killed. You could construe he took off to avoid arrest-and that being tight with Alex, Alex remains a suspect on Coltraine.”
“You could construe.”
“Except for our motto.” Peabody put on a serious look. “We’re not idiots.”
“Too bad for Sandy, he was. Let’s go write it up.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
There was plenty of action in Central in the dark hours. The whines of street LCs, the moans or giggles of junkies, the weeping of victims. Eve closed herself into her office to translate her record into a report.
When her ’link signaled, she pounced on it. “Callendar. Gimme.”
Callendar grinned. “I got gimmes. Let me start with a big, juicy belch. Two, in fact. Transmissions from Omega to New York, confirmed. Both sending and receiving on unregistered ’links. And yeah, baby, that would be the same ’link used on the home planet. They match.”
“Oh yeah, baby,” Eve echoed.
“Encrypted transmissions from here to there were not logged. Big no-nos on the party palace of Omega.”
“Can you break them?”
“No encryption defeats me. But it’s going to take a little time, and a couple hours’ sleep. Meanwhile, Sisto had a little chat with our old friend Cecil Rouche’s drinking buddy, who also just happened to be on communications at the time in question. Guy named Art Zeban. Zeban played it dumb at the jump, but smartened up when Sisto leaned on him. Which Sisto reports he enjoyed bunches. Zeban claims Rouche gave him a thousand a pop to keep the transes off log. Just a favor for a pal, with compensation.”
