by J. D. Robb
“Charity dinner dance,” he prompted when she stared blankly. “Philadelphia. We need to make an appearance.” He sipped his wine and smiled at her. “Not to worry, darling. It won’t hurt very much, and we won’t have to leave until after seven. If you’re running late, you can change on the shuttle.”
She poked sulkily at chilled crab. “Did I know about this?”
“You did. And if you ever glanced at your personal calendar, you wouldn’t so often be surprised and appalled by these little obligations.”
“I’m not appalled.” Dinner, dancing. Fancy outfit, fancy people. God. “It’s just that if something breaks at work—”
“Understood.”
She bit back a sigh because it was true. He understood. She heard enough comments from other cops about spouses or lovers who didn’t, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t, to appreciate it.
And she knew she wasn’t nearly as flexible and understanding about the role she had to play as the wife of one of the richest and most influential men on or off planet.
She stabbed more crab and made an effort to pull her marital weight. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“It might actually be fun. Sunday promises to be.”
“Sunday?”
“Mmm.” He topped off her wine, figuring she’d need it. “The cookout at Dr. Mira’s. It’s been a very long time since I attended something I suppose would be termed a kind of family picnic. I hope there’s potato salad.”
She picked up her wine, drank deep. “She talked to you. You said yes.”
“Of course. We should take a bottle of wine or I wonder if beer’s more appropriate.” Enjoying himself, he lifted an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“I can’t think. I don’t know about this stuff. I’ve never been to a cookout. I don’t understand the ritual. If we’re both off on Sunday, we could just stay home, in bed. Have sweaty sex all day.”
“Hmm. Sex or potato salad. You’ve hit me at two basic levels.” Then he laughed at her, and passed her half a roll he’d already buttered. “Eve, it’s a simple family gathering. She wants you there because you’re important to her. We’ll sit around and talk about, I don’t know, baseball or some such thing. We’ll eat too much and enjoy ourselves. And you’ll have the chance to meet her family. Then we’ll come home and have sweaty sex.”
She scowled at the roll. “It just makes me nervous, that’s all. You like having conversations with strangers. I don’t get that about you.”
“You have conversations with strangers all the time,” he pointed out. “You just call them suspects.”
Defeated, she filled her mouth with bread.
“Now, why don’t we talk about something that won’t make you nervous? Tell me about the case.”
There was a lovely twilight outside the windows, and candles flickering prettily on the table. Wine sparkled in crystal and silver gleamed. And her mind, she realized, kept slipping back to a hacked body in a cold drawer at the morgue. “It’s not exactly dinner conversation.”
“Not for normal people. But it works for us. The media reports were sketchy.”
“I’m not going to be able to keep them that way if and when he hits again. I ducked reporters all day, but I’m going to have to give them something tomorrow to stem the appetite. She was an LC, bumped down to street level because of some illegals busts. She seemed to be clean now, though I’d still like to find her supplier just to knot that thread.”
“A down-on-her-luck LC shouldn’t have the media slathering very long.”
“No, it won’t be who, it’ll be how that gets them drooling. He took her in an alley. The way it looked, she went in to do the job. He faced her to the wall, slit her throat. Even from behind, he couldn’t have avoided all the blood spatter.”
She picked up her wine again, staring into it rather than drinking. “Then he laid her out, across the alley floor. Morris thinks a laser scalpel. He cut her pelvis out, took the whole works. You could all but swim in the blood.”
She drank now, let out a breath. There was something about blood, she thought, the scent of death blood. Once you smelled it, you never completely got it out of your system.
“Clean job, though, almost surgical. Had to have a bag to take it away in, had to work fairly quickly, had to clean himself up before he walked back out again. Even down there, that time of night, somebody’s going to notice a guy covered in blood.”
“And no one did.”
“No.” They’d check again, she thought. And again. But odds were they’d come up zero. “See no evil, hear no evil, speak all you want as long as it doesn’t put you in the mix. He didn’t know her, I’m almost sure. Otherwise, he’d have gone for the face some. That’s what they do. Thrill crime, lust driven. Woman hater. Peabody got dog sick, and spent a good part of the day kicking herself about it.”
He thought of what the victim, what the alley must have looked like and rubbed a hand over Eve’s. “Have you ever? Gotten sick?”
“Not on scene. It’s like saying you did more than I can take, more than I can handle, and I can’t stand over this body and look at what you did. But sometimes, later, it comes back on you. Middle of the night mostly. Then you get sick.”
She drank now. “Anyway . . . he left a note, addressed to me. Don’t freak,” she said when she felt his fingers tighten over her hand. “It’s professional rather than personal. He’s admired my work, wanted to give me a chance to see his. He wanted me on this one, an ego thing. I’ve had two very hot cases this summer, with wall-to-wall media attention. He wants that sort of buzz.”
His fingers stayed over hers. “What did it say?”
“Just that—cocky. He signed it Jack.”
“Emulating the Ripper then.”
“You save me a lot of steps when you get it. Yeah, the choice of victim, the location, the method, even the note to a cop. Too much of it’s already leaked to the media, and if they get their teeth in it, it’s going to be a frenzy. I want to shut him down fast, before the panic. Been working with the note—the paper.”
“What’s unique about it?”
“Unrecycled, very pricey, manufactured in England, sold exclusively in Europe. Do you manufacture unrecycled paper products?”
“Roarke Industries is green. Just our little contribution to environmental responsibility, which also earns a healthy tax break in most markets.” He ignored the server droid who came to clear the plates and bring out small dessert parfaits and coffee.
“Where’s the paper taking you?”
“I’m focusing on London outlets first, playing the Ripper angle. I’ve got a couple of celebs, a politician type, a retired financier, and the asshole lover of some actress named Pepper.”
“Pepper Franklin?”
“Yeah, she strikes me as straight up, but the guy . . .” She trailed off, narrowing her eyes as Roarke scooped up a spoonful of parfait. “You know her.”
“Mmm. This is very nice, refreshing.”
“You banged her.”
Though his lips twitched he managed to maintain a sober expression as he sampled more parfait. “That’s a very unattractive term. I prefer saying we had a brief and mature relationship, which included the occasional banging.”
“I should’ve known. She’s just your type.”
“Is she?” he queried.
“Gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated sex.”
“Darling.” He sat back to sip his coffee. “How conceited of you. Not that you aren’t all those things, and more.”
“I’m not talking about me.” She scowled at him a moment, then went to work on the parfait. “I should have figured her for one of your formers the minute I saw the portrait.”
“Ah, she still has that, does she? The Titania portrait?”
She shoveled parfait in her mouth. “You’re going to tell me you gave it to her.”
“As what you might call a parting gift.”
“What, like on a game show?”
His laughter was ric
h and full of fun. “If you like. How is she? I haven’t seen her in, Christ, seven or eight years, I suppose.”
“She’s dandy.” Watching him, she licked her spoon. “But her taste in men has seriously declined.”
“Why, thank you.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it. “While mine, in women, has seriously improved.”
She wouldn’t have minded working up a good head of jealousy steam, to see what it felt like. But it just didn’t work for her. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s hooked up with a guy named Leo Fortney. Operator. He’s got operator all over him, and a couple of pops, including sexual assault.”
“Doesn’t sound like Pepper’s usual fare. Is he your prime suspect?”
“He’s number one right now, though he was home in bed during the time involved. She’s corroborating, but since she was sleeping, I’m not putting much weight there. Plus, he lied, said they went nighty-night together, and she said different before she realized she’d be blowing it for him. Still, she struck me as a straight shooter.” She paused, waited.
“She is, yes.”
“So whether or not he was there, she thinks he was. We’ll see where it goes. Meanwhile, I’ve got informals set up tomorrow with Carmichael Smith to start.”
“Pop music king. Irritatingly saccharin lyrics, over-orchestrated melodies.”
“So I’m told.”
“You may not have been told, as I’ve been, that Smith enjoys young women, preferably more than one at a time. And makes considerable use of groupies, as well as professionals, to help him . . . relax between recording sessions and gigs.”
“Minors?”
“There’ve been rumblings that there might have been an underage fan now and again, though he’s usually more careful. No violence that I’ve heard of. Though he likes bondage games, he prefers being the one bound.”
“He one of yours?”
“No, he’s still with his original label. I could probably poach him, but his music just annoys me.”
“Okay, moving on. There Niles Renquist, works for U.N. Delegate Marshall Evans.”
“I know Renquist, slightly. So do you.”
“I do?”
“You met him, I think it was last spring, at another appalling obligation.” He watched her eyebrows draw together as she tried to place it—the place, the meet, the man. “More a quick introduction than a meet, actually. A silent auction benefiting, well, there you have me,” he murmured. “I’d need my book for that. But it was a few months ago, here in New York. You’d have been introduced to him and his wife at some point.”
Because she couldn’t bring it in, she let it go. “Did I have an impression?”
“Apparently not. He’s, let’s see . . . conservative, leaning toward stuffy. Late thirties, I’d say, well-spoken, well-educated. What you might call a bit prissy. His wife’s quite pretty in the British tea party style. They have homes here and in England, I know, as I recall his wife telling me she enjoyed New York, but much preferred their home outside London where she could garden properly.”
“Did you have an impression?”
“Can’t say I liked either of them overmuch.” He lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug. “A bit on the pompous side, and very aware of class distinctions and levels of society. The sort I’d find tedious if not downright annoying with regular exposure.”
“You know a lot of people who fit that box.”
His lip twitched. “I do. Yes, I do.”
“Elliot P. Hawthorne?”
“Yes, I’ve had dealings with him. Seventies, sharp, lives for golf. Apparently dotes on his third, considerably younger wife, and travels quite a lot now that he’s retired. I like him quite a bit. Is that helpful at all?”
“Anybody you don’t know?”
“Not worth mentioning.”
The evening at home with Roarke had helped clear her mind, Eve decided as she rode up in the jammed elevator to the Homicide Division. Not only did she feel rested, well-fed, and tuned up, but his informal rundown of some of the names on her list gave her a different insight. It was more personal and certainly more informative than the dry facts from a standard ID run.
She could shuffle his data around in her head as she questioned each party, and angle those questions around the more personal information. But first, she needed to check for any updates on lab and ME reports, round up Peabody, and face the media music.
She elbowed her way out of the elevator and turned toward her sector.
And all but ran into Nadine Furst.
The on-air reporter had a new short and sleek hairdo. What was it, Eve thought, with new hair on everybody? It was blonder, swingier, and swept back from Nadine’s perfect, angular face.
She was wearing a short, fitted jacket over slim, fitted pants, both in power red, which told Eve she was camera-ready.
And she carried a huge white bakery box that smelled gloriously of fat and sugar.
“Doughnuts.” There was no mistaking that scent, and Eve homed in on it like a hound on a fox. “You’ve got doughnuts in there.” She tapped a finger to the box. “That’s how you get through the bull pen, avoid the civilian and media lounges, and end up in my office. You bribe my men.”
Nadine fluttered her lashes. “And your point is?”
“My point is, how come I never get a damn doughnut?”
“Because generally I time it better, dump my offering in the bull pen, sometimes it’s brownies, and while every cop in Homicide descends like a pack of coyotes, I settle down in your office and wait for your arrival.”
Eve waited a beat. “Bring the doughnuts, leave the camera.”
“I need my camera,” Nadine said, gesturing to the woman beside her.
“I need a sunny Sunday at the beach where I can romp naked as a puppy in the surf, but I’m not going to get it anytime soon either. Doughnuts in, camera out.”
To ensure obedience, and to prevent her men from rioting, she snatched the bakery box herself before striding into the bull pen.
Several heads lifted, noses sniffed the air. “Don’t even think about it,” Eve ordered and kept right on walking through choruses of protests and complaints.
“There are three dozen in there,” Nadine told her as she followed Eve into her office. “You can’t possibly eat them all.”
“I could, just to teach those greedy hogs a lesson. However, this is a lesson in discipline and authority.” She opened the box, sighed deep as she perused her choices, all glossy, all hers. “I’ll let them think I’m keeping them all, and have my fill, then have them weeping with gratitude when I take out the leftovers to share.”
She plucked one out, brought up coffee on the AutoChef, then bit in. “Cream filled. Yum.” Chewing, she checked her wrist unit, then counted back from ten as she crossed to the door. Peabody rushed to the doorway as Eve hit one.
“Dallas! Hey! I was just—”
Taking another enormous bite, Eve closed the door in her aide’s sorrowful face.
“That was really cold,” Nadine commented and did what she could to swallow the laugh.
“Yeah, but fun.”
“Now that we’ve had our fun, I need an update on the Wooton murder, and a one-on-one. It would’ve been easier to set this up if you’d bothered to return any of my calls.”
Eve sat on the corner of the desk. “Can’t do it, Nadine.”
“I need to verify if there was, as rumored, some sort of communication left at the crime scene, and the contents therein. Also what progress has or has not been made since—”
“Nadine, I can’t.”
Undaunted, Nadine helped herself to coffee, sat in Eve’s battered visitor’s chair, crossed her legs. “The public has a right to know, and I, as media representative, have a responsibility to—”
“Save it. We can go through the dance, but you’ve brought me these nice doughnuts and I don’t want to waste your time.” Giving Nadine a moment to stew, Eve licked sugar off her thumb. “I’m going to issue a press release, give a stateme
nt, and you’ll have it along with the other media reps within the hour. But I can’t give you a head start, or agree to a one-on-one. I need to pull back a little—”
Nadine was finished stewing and ready to cut to the core. “What makes this case different? If there’s to be some sort of media shutdown—”
“Stop. Shift out of reporter mode for one goddamn minute. You’re a friend of mine. I like you, and beyond that I think you do a good job, a responsible one.”
“Great, fine, and right back at you, but—”
“I’m not shutting you out. The fact is, I’m treating you as I would any other media rep.”
Except, Eve thought, for the doughnut gorging and private chat. “My tendency to show favoritism toward you is one of the reasons you were pulled into the Stevenson case last month.”
“That was—”
“Nadine.” It was the quiet patience in Eve’s tone—something rarely heard—that had Nadine subsiding again. “There were complaints. And there’s speculation of the sort that could bring us both grief if I don’t throttle back on the cop/ reporter relationship a bit. So I can’t feed you this time. I need the rumbles to quiet down before I start to be known as Furst’s pet, or you as mine. Enough reporters get together and start crying foul and favoritism, it’s not going to be good for either of us.”
Nadine hissed through her teeth. She’d heard the complaints, and the speculation, and had already weathered some resentment among her own rank and file. “You’re right, and that’s a pisser. Doesn’t mean I won’t hound you, Dallas.”
“Goes without saying.”
The battle light shone in her eyes again, and matched the sharp little smile. “Or bribe your men.”
“I like brownies, especially the ones with those chunks of chocolate in them.”
Nadine set the coffee down, got up. “Listen, if you need to leak something, give Quinton Post a try. He’s young yet, but he’s good, and the work matters to him as much, maybe even a little more, than the ratings. That won’t last,” she added cheerfully. “But you might as well get him while he’s fresh.”
