Time of Death

by Robb, J. D.

  “Good thing I don’t have to chase down any psycho killers. I’d fall off these stupid shoes and embarrass myself.” She curled her toes in them—or attempted to while she flicked a hand at the short, choppy crop of brown hair she’d recently taken the scissors to herself. Old priceless diamonds dripped from her ears. “I don’t get parties like this. People standing around. Talk, talk, talk. Why do they have to get all dressed up to do that?”

  “To show off.”

  She thought about that over another sip of wine. “I guess that’s it. At least I don’t have to gear up like this for the shower deal for Louise. Still, another party. More talk, talk, talk.”

  “It’s a ritual, after all. When a friend’s about to marry, her friends gather together, with gifts, and . . . well, I have no idea what happens then.”

  “If it’s anything like mine, some of them drink till they puke, and others strip it off and dance.”

  “Sorry I’ll miss it.”

  “Liar.” But she grinned at him.

  “Here we are!” Maxia came back, towing a portly, mustachioed man somewhere on the shady side of sixty. On his arm like a whippy vine twined a woman well shy of thirty with full, pouty lips, a bored expression, and a short red dress that covered very little of her expansive breasts.

  “You simply must meet A nton and his lovely companion. It’s Satin, isn’t it?”

  “Silk,” the bored blonde corrected.

  “Of course it is.”

  Eve caught the quick glint in Maxia’s eyes and understood she’d mistaken the name deliberately. And liked her better for it.

  “Actually we met a few years ago.” A nton stuck out a wide, pudgy hand. “At Wimbledon.”

  “It’s nice to see you again. My wife, Eve.”

  “Yes, the American cop. A pleasure, Detective.”

  “Lieutenant.” Eve glanced down at Silk’s sky-high heels. Just heels, she noted, with the feet arched into them bare on top. “I heard about those.” She pointed. “People are actually wearing invisible shoes.”

  “They’re not available to the public for another three weeks.” Silk tossed her long mane of hair. “Sookie pulled some strings.” She plastered herself against Anton/Sookie.

  “Anton’s produced several films about crime and police and so on,” Maxia commented. “So I thought he’d enjoy meeting one of New York’s Finest.”

  “British-style procedurals.” Anton patted Silk’s hand as she tugged at him like a petulant child. “What we like to think of as crackling whodunits—with plenty of sex and violence,” he added with a laugh. “And a slight connection with reality, as you’d know. I have been thinking about using an American setting, so I—”

  “I don’t see why a girl would want to be a cop.” Silk frowned at Eve. “It’s not very feminine.”

  “Really? It’s funny because I don’t see why a girl would want to be a bimb—”

  “What is it you do?” Roarke cut Eve off, smoothly—giving her only the slightest pinch on the ass.

  “I’m an actress. I just finished shooting a major role in Sookie’s next vid.”

  “Victim, right?” Eve asked.

  “I get to die dramatically. It’s going to make me a star, isn’t it, Sookie?”

  “Absolutely, sweetheart.”

  “I want to go. There’s nothing happening here. I want to go dancing, go some place with some action.” She tugged hard enough to pull Anton back a few steps.

  “He used to be such a sensible man,” Maxia murmured.

  “Guys of a certain age are especially vulnerable to bimboitis.”

  Maxia laughed. “I’m so glad I like you. I wish I wasn’t due in Prague in a couple of days so I could get to know you better. I should mingle, make sure everyone isn’t as bored as Linen over there.”

  “I think that’s Polyester. Definitely man-made fibers.”

  Laughing again, Maxia shook her head. “Yes, I really like you. And you.” She rose to her toes to kiss Roarke’s cheek. “You look awfully happy.”

  “I am. And awfully glad to see you again, Maxi.”

  As Maxia started to turn, Silk’s strident voice whined out. “But I want to go now. I want to have fun. This party is dead.”

  Someone screamed. Something crashed. As people stumbled back, as some turned, shoving through small packs of others, Eve pushed forward.

  The man staggered like a drunk, and wore nothing but spatters and smears of blood. The knife clutched in his hand gleamed with it.

  A woman in his path fainted, and managed to take out a waiter holding a full tray of canapés with her. As shrimp balls and quail eggs rained, Silk shrieked, turned, and in a sprint for the terrace bowled over guests like pins in an alley.

  Eve flipped open the next-to-useless bag she carried, tossed it to Roarke as she pulled out her weapon.

  “Drop it. Drop it now.” She sized him up quickly. About five feet, ten inches, roughly one-sixty-five. Caucasian, brown and brown. And the eyes were glazed and glassy. Shock or drugs—maybe both.

  “Drop it,” she repeated when he took another staggering step forward. “Or I drop you.”

  “What?” His gaze skidded around the room. “What? What is it?”

  She considered and rejected just stunning him in a matter of seconds. Instead she moved to him, gripped the wrist of his knife hand, twisted. “Drop the goddamn knife.”

  His eyes stared into hers as his fingers went limp. She heard the knife hit the floor. “Nobody touch it. Stay back. I’m the police, do you get that? I’m a cop. What are you on?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. The police? Can you help me? I think I killed someone. Can you help me?”

  “Yeah. You bet. Roarke, I need a field kit ASAP, and for you to call this in. I need everyone else upstairs for now. I need you people to clear this room until the situation is contained. Move it!” she snapped when people stood, gaping. “And somebody check on that woman lying in the shrimp balls over there.”

  Roarke stepped up beside her. “I’ve sent one of the hotel staff down to the garage to get the field kit out of the boot of the car,” he told her. “I’ve notified your Dispatch.”

  “Thanks.” She stood where she was as the naked party crasher sat on the floor and began to shudder. “Just remember, you’re the one who wanted to come tonight.”

  With a nod, Roarke planted a foot on the hilt of the knife to secure it. “No one to blame but myself.”

  “Can you get my recorder out of that stupid purse?”

  “You brought a recorder?”

  “If you need the weapon, you’re going to need the recorder.”

  When he handed it to her, Eve pinned it to the frothy material over her breasts, engaged it. After reciting the basics, she crouched down. “Who do you think you killed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “It’s . . .” He lifted a blood-smeared hand, rubbed it over his face. “I can’t think. I can’t remember. I can’t think.”

  “Tell me what you took.”

  “Took?”

  “Drugs. Illegals.”

  “I . . . I don’t do illegals. Do I? There’s so much blood.” He lifted his hands, stared at them. “Do you see all this blood?”

  “Yeah.” She looked up at Roarke. “It’s fresh. I’m going to need to do a room-to-room, starting with this floor. He couldn’t have walked around for long like this. We start with this floor.”

  “I can arrange that. Do you want security to start on that, or sit on him while you do the room-to-room?”

  “Sit on him. I don’t want them to talk to him, touch him. What’s that room over there?”

  “It would be a maid’s room.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “Eve,” Roarke said as she straightened. “I don’t see any wounds on him. If that blood’s someone else’s—that much blood—they can’t possibly still be alive.”

  “No, but we push the room-to-room first.”

  C
HAPTER TWO

  She needed to move fast. The amount of blood on her naked guy made it doubtful she’d find anyone alive—if she found anyone at all—so she couldn’t putz around. While she didn’t much like leaving her suspect with hotel security, even once she’d clapped on the restraints from her field kit, she couldn’t afford to wait for her uniformed backup, or her partner.

  For lack of better, she set her suspect on the floor of the maid’s room, ran his prints.

  “Jackson Pike.” She crouched down on his level, looked into the glazed brown eyes. “Jack?”

  “What?”

  “What happened, Jack?”

  “I don’t . . .” He looked around the room, dazed and stoned. “I don’t . . .” Then he moaned in pain and clutched his head.

  “Uniformed officers are on their way,” she said to the pair from security as she straightened. “I want him exactly where I’ve left him, and those people upstairs contained until I get back. Nobody comes in except NYPSD officials. Nobody goes out. Let’s move,” she said to Roarke.

  “Guy’s a doctor,” she continued as they started out the door. “Thirty-three years old. Single.”

  “He didn’t walk in off the street like that.”

  “No. Your hotel. Find out if a Jackson Pike, or anyone with a variation of that name’s registered. How’s this floor set up?”

  Roarke pulled out his ’link as he gestured. “Four triplexes, one on each corner. One minute.”

  While he spoke to the hotel manager, Eve turned left. “Well, he left a trail. That’s handy.” Moving quickly, she followed bloody footprints over the lush carpet.

  “No Jackson Pike, or any Pikes for that matter,” Roarke told her. “There’s a Jackson, Carl, on thirty-two. They’re checking. On this floor Maxia has 600. Six-oh-two is occupied by Domingo Fellini—actor—I saw him at the party.”

  “Pike didn’t come from there, trail’s down this way.” She picked up the pace as they started down the long corridor. “It’s the sixtieth floor. Why isn’t it 6002?”

  “The sixth floor is the health club, the pool, and so on. No guest rooms. The triplexes cater to those who can afford the freight, and we bill them as penthouses, or apartments. So it’s Suite 600. Perception.”

  “Yeah, your perception’s pretty screwed with all this blood on your carpet. Anyone in 604?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Empty suite’s a nice spot for bloody murder, but the trail heads off.” She kept moving, her weapon in her hand, her eyes scanning. “Does every suite have the private elevator like Suite 600?”

  “They do, yes. Those elevators in the center of the floor are also private, in that you need a key card or clearance for the trip up.”

  Emergency exits, all four corners, she noted, via stairs. But Jackson Pike hadn’t used them. His trail led straight to the carved double doors of Suite 606.

  Eve saw the faint smear of blood over the ornate zero.

  Suite 666, she thought. Wasn’t that just perfect?

  She signaled for Roarke to stay back, then tried the knob.

  “Locked. I don’t have my master.”

  “Lucky for you, you have me.” He drew a slim tool out of his pocket.

  “Handy, but have you ever considered how a cop’s supposed to explain—should it come up—why her husband’s got burglary tools in his pockets?”

  “For bloody emergencies?” He straightened. “Lock’s off.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re carrying.”

  He flicked her a look, his eyes very cool. “While I didn’t think it necessary to bring a weapon to a cocktail party, I got this from security.” He drew out a stunner. “Civilian issue. Perfectly legal.”

  “Hmm. On three.”

  It wasn’t their first time through a door. She went low, he went high into a large living area lit by hundreds of candles. In the flickering light blood gleamed as it pooled over the black pentagram drawn on the polished marble floor.

  A body floated on that pool, the arms and legs spread to form an X at the center of the sign.

  Gone, Eve thought, bled out. Throat slashed, multiple body wounds. She shook her head at Roarke, gestured to the left.

  She moved right, in a suite the mirror image of Maxia’s. Sweeping her weapon, she cleared a dining room, a short hallway, a kitchen, a powder room, making the circle that brought her back to Roarke.

  “Bed and bath clear, this level,” he told her. “Both were used. There’s considerable blood—smears not spatters. Hers, I expect.”

  He wasn’t a cop, she mused, but he could think like one. “We’re going up.” She did a chin point toward the elevator and tried to ignore the stench—not just death, but a kind of burning on the air. “Can you block that? Shut it down?”

  Saying nothing, he walked to it, took out his tool again. While he worked, Eve circled the pentagram to clear the terrace.

  “Done.”

  “What’s the layout on the second floor?”

  “Bed and bath, small sitting room to the left. Master suite—living area, powder room, dressing area, bed and bath to the right.”

  “I’ll take the right.”

  The place felt empty, she thought. It felt dead. The metallic reek of the blood, the sickly sweet overlay of death mixed with candle wax smeared the air. And something more, that burning and a kind of . . . pulsing, she thought. Spent energy, the shadows of it still beating.

  Together they cleared the second level, then the third.

  She found evidence of sexual frenzy, of food, of drink, of murder. “The sweepers are going to be hours in here, if not days.”

  Roarke studied the glasses, plates, half-eaten food. “What kind of people do murder, and leave so much of themselves behind?”

  “The kind who think they’re beyond or above the law. The worst kind. I need to seal this place off, all three levels, until Crime Scene gets here. Who was registered in this suite?”

  “The Asant Group.” On the steps, he stared down at the body posed on the pentagram. “Jumble the letters, and you’ve got—”

  “Satan. God, I hate this kind of shit. People want to worship the devil, be my guest. Hell, they can have horns surgically implanted on their forehead. But then they’ve just got to slice somebody up for their human sacrifice and drag me into it.”

  “Damned cheeky of them.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Naked Jack didn’t do this on his own.”

  “Nope. Let’s go see if his memory’s a little clearer.”

  The uniforms had taken over. Eve directed them to take names and contact info from the guests, then clear them out.

  She sat on the floor with Jackson. “I need a sample of the blood you’re wearing, Jack.”

  “There’s so much of it.” His body jerked every few seconds, as if in surprise. “It’s not mine.”

  “No.” She took several samples—face, arms, chest, back, feet. “What were you doing in 606?”

  “What?”

  “Suite 606. You were in there.”

  “I don’t know. Was I?”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “There were a lot of women, weren’t there?” Again he shuddered in pain. “Were you there? Do you know what happened?”

  “Look at me, goddamn it.” Her voice was like a slap, shocked him back to her. “There’s a woman in 606. Her throat’s slashed.”

  “Did I do it? Did I hurt somebody?” He pressed his forehead to his knees. “My head. My head. Somebody’s screaming in my head.”

  “Do you belong to the Asant Group?”

  “I don’t know. What is it? I don’t know. Who are you? What’s happening?”

  With a shake of her head, Eve rose as the med-techs she’d ordered stepped in. “I want him examined. I want a blood sample. I need to know what he’s on. When you’re done, he’ll be transported to Cop Central.”

  “Whose blood is it?”

  “You’re too late for her.” She walked back into the living area to leave
them to it just as her partner came in the main door.

  Peabody’s hair was pulled back in a stubby little tail that left her square face unframed and seemed to enlarge her brown eyes. She wore baggy dark pants and a white tee with a red jacket tossed over it. She carried a field kit.

  “Who died?”

  “An as yet unidentified female. Prime suspect is in there.” Eve jerked her head. “Naked and covered with what is most likely her blood.”

  “Wow. Must’ve been a hell of a party.”

  “It happened on the other side. Let’s go work the scene.”

  Outside the doors of 606 they coated hands and feet with Seal-It while Eve gave Peabody the rundown.

  “He just walked into the cocktail party? And doesn’t remember anything?”

  “Yes, and so it seems. He doesn’t come off as faking it. Both pupils are big as the moon. He’s disoriented, motor skills are off, and he appears to have one major headache.”

  “Stoned?”

  “Be my first guess, but we’ll see what the MTs have to say about it.” Eve unsealed the door, and now used the key Roarke had acquired for her.

  When she stepped in, the sturdy Peabody blanched. “Man. Oh crap.” She bent over at the waist, pressed her hands to her thighs and took long, slow breaths.

  “Don’t you boot on my crime scene.”

  “Just need a minute. Okay.” She kept breathing. “Okay. Black magic. Bad juju.”

  “Don’t start that shit. We’ve got a bunch of assholes who had an orgy, topped it off with ritual murder using Satan as an excuse. Used the private elevator,” Eve added, gesturing toward it, “most likely, coming and going. We’ll want the security discs for that. Cleaned up after they did her. Evidence of that in the bathrooms, of which there are six in this place. Beds show signs of being used, and food and drink were consumed. Since I doubt the pentagram is part of the room’s original decor, somebody drew it on the floor. A question might be ‘Why?’ Why use a fancy, high-dollar hotel suite for your annual satanic meeting?

  “Let’s get her prints, get an ID and a time of death.” Since Peabody still looked pale, Eve opted to take the body herself. “Do a run on Pike, Jackson. His prints came up with age thirty-three, and an addy on West Eighty-eighth. He’s a doctor. See if he’s got a sheet.”