by J. D. Robb
“He was great to look at, going places, terrific body. Looked to me like he’d be good in the sack. We might’ve made a good team, in and out of it.”
“Must have pissed you off he wasn’t biting.”
“He didn’t want to bang me, that was his problem, and his loss. If you think I killed him and his little sweetheart because of that, you should check with your detective. I’ve got two alibis. Twins. Six-two, two-twenty, and dumb as posts. I wore both of them out, but it took me until after three in the morning.”
“What was Bick’s top account?”
“Wendall James, LLC,” she said without a second’s hesitation.
“And who gets that account now that he’s dead?”
Lilah angled her head. “Officially? It hasn’t been decided. Unofficially? I’ll make sure I do. I don’t have to kill for accounts, honey. I just have to be good at what I do.”
“I bet you are,” Eve said, and leaving it at that went back to join Peabody downstairs.
She’s what my granny calls a tough cookie.”
“I don’t get that.” Eve whipped away from the curb and headed back to Central. “If a cookie’s tough, you throw it away. She’s the type that knows how to stick.”
“It just means…never mind. You think she’s in it?”
“Could be. But that kind doesn’t have to kill to get what she wants. She’d use her brains, her sex, cheat, maybe steal. She could seduce someone else into doing her dirty work, but what’s the point here? Byson’s out of the picture, maybe she cops some of his accounts, gets promoted quicker. But why Copperfield? And she was primary target. What did you get on the alibis?”
“Okay, on Jake Sloan it’s DeLay, Rochelle. Twenty-five, single, works in Catering at the Palace.”
“She’s one of Roarke’s?”
“Well, sort of. Her father’s DeLay, hot-shot head chef at the Palace. She’s been employed there for about two years. No criminal.”
Eve hung a left. “We’ll drop by, confirm the alibi face-to-face. Next?”
“On Randall Sloan. Sasha Zinka and Lola Warfield. Forty-eight and forty-two respectively. Married for twelve years. Big money—generational money on Zinka. They’re Femme.”
“Which is?”
“Extreme high-end enhancements. The company was founded by Zinka’s great-grandfather, and remains one of the few independent companies of its size and scope. They own designer spas, where their products are used and sold. Few little brushes here and there on Zinka. Assault, property damage. Punched a cop.”
“Really?”
“No time served. Lots of big fines, a number of civil suits. Nothing in the last decade on her.”
“Youthful hijinks. Got a temper.”
“More big money on Kraus’s alibis, Madeline Bullock and Winfield Chase. Mother and son. Bullock, Sam, was her second husband—no offspring from there. Bullock, Sam, died at the age of one-twelve. They’d been married five years. She was forty-six.”
“Isn’t that romantic?”
“Heart-tugging. First husband was younger, a callow seventy-three to her twenty-two.”
“Wealthy?”
“Was—not Sam Bullock wealthy, but well-stocked. Got eaten by a shark.”
“Step off.”
“Seriously. Scuba diving out in the Great Barrier Reef. He was eighty-eight. And this shark cruises along and chomp, chomp.”
She gave Eve a thoughtful look. “Ending as shark snacks is in my top-ten list of ways I don’t want to go out. How about you?”
“It may rank as number one, now that I’ve considered it a possibility. Any hint of foul play?”
“They weren’t able to interview the shark, but it was put down as death by misadventure.”
“Okay.”
“While Bullock, the company, is varied, it started out primarily with pharmaceuticals. The Foundation, which the widow heads since her husband’s death eight years ago, is a whopper, and annually disburses multiple millions to charities. Children’s health care is priority. Nothing criminal on the widow, sealed juvie on the son, who is now thirty-eight. No marriage or cohabs on record.”
“London-based, right?”
“Yep. They do have other homes, but none in the States. Mother and son share the same address. He’s VP of the Foundation.”
“Ought to be able to afford his own place.”
“Last from this: For Myers we have Karl and Elise Helbringer, Germany. Married thirty-five years, three offspring. Karl went into business with Elise when they were both in their twenties. Making boots, which led to shoes and skids and bags and all sorts of things. Including romance, apparently, as they married shortly afterward. Hit big in the fashion and the outdoorsy-type worlds and built a nice little German empire. So, as bootmakers, I wouldn’t say they’re rolling in it, but stomping in it.”
“Boots.”
“Their foundation, and the original Helbringer is still their top seller. You’re wearing a pair right now.”
“Of boots.”
“Helbringer boots. Very distinctive in their simplicity. Anyway, nothing on them or their offspring.”
“We’ll check for corroboration when we get back to Central.”
Eve pulled up in front of the grand front entrance of Roarke’s Palace. The doorman started over immediately. Eve saw recognition and then resignation flicker into his eyes as she climbed out of the car.
“Good morning, Lieutenant. Would you like me to have your vehicle parked?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you want it to stay exactly where it is.”
“There you go.” She jogged up the steps and into the glossy marble, the elaborate and enormous flowers, the sparkling fountains.
She wound her way under the waterfall of crystal chandeliers to the desk. When she saw another flicker of recognition on the face of one of the sleek, nattily uniformed desk clerks, she decided Roarke had called a staff meeting with her picture.
Regardless, she took out her badge. “I need to speak with Rochelle DeLay.”
“Certainly, Lieutenant. I’ll contact her immediately. If you’d care to have a seat.”
At the gesture, Eve considered. Since everyone was being so cooperative, she could take the same page. “Sure.”
Eve took one of the high-backed velvet chairs arranged in the elegant jungle of flowers.
“If my granny—the tough-cookie granny—ever gets out here, I’m going to take her to tea at the Palace.” Peabody drew deep of the floral-scented air as she sat. “I think she’d get a charge out of it. Anyway, so while we’re waiting it’s a good time to talk about Mavis’s shower.”
“It couldn’t possibly be.”
“Come on, Dallas. We’re on serious countdown now. Anyway, I got the theme. Thinking it’s Mavis, and then with that chair you bought, I went with rainbow. I hit this party store on the way home last night and got all kinds of mag stuff.”
“Great. Go you.”
“Then there’s the flowers. I figured on bopping by this place I know. But the thing is, um…I can’t really afford to you know, pay.”
Though she’d been trying to tune Peabody out, the last hit a chord. “Well, Jesus, Peabody, you don’t have to pay. You’re not supposed to pay.”
“I want to help and everything, but—”
“Not with the dough.” Eve forced herself to focus and deal with it. “Listen, you’re right. There should be stuff. The more stuff, the more of the large charge Mavis gets. You’re willing to get the stuff, I’ll pay for it.”
“That’s good, that’s great. Um, I never asked about, like, a budget.”
Eve just sighed. “I guess the sky’s the freaking limit.”
“Yay. It’s just completely ult. I mean, it’s a total event.”
“Put the squealy girl away,” Eve said as she got to her feet. “Be a cop.”
Eve spotted the pretty young thing headed toward them. Willowy build in a streamlined, almost military-style suit. The leafy green s
hade suited the coffee-and-cream complexion, and the hair—worn in a sleek updo—was dense brown.
Her lips curved in a polite, restrained welcome, but even that small smile didn’t reach the melting chocolate eyes.
“Lieutenant Dallas, and…”
“Peabody. Detective,” Peabody told her.
“I’m Rochelle DeLay. You must be here about Natalie. Is it all right if we sit out here? My office is a little box of a thing, and currently loaded with supplies for a party.”
“This is fine.”
“I just talked to Jake. I wish he’d go home. I don’t think he’s ready to be there, see everyone, not where he saw and talked to Nat almost every day.”
“You were friends.”
“We were. We got to be good friends when Jake and I started seeing each other. But Nat and Jake?” She looked away a moment, as people did when their composure wavered. “They were like family to each other.”
“It didn’t bother you that the guy you’re dating was so tight with another woman?”
“It might have if there’d ever been anything romantic between them, or maybe it would have if it had been anyone but Nat. She was so into Bick, and I liked her so much. We had a lot of fun together, the four of us. We just clicked. I don’t know what to do for Jake.”
“Ms. DeLay,” Peabody said, “sometimes women tell their women friends things they don’t tell a man, no matter how close they are. Did Natalie say anything to you about being worried, concerned?”
“I can’t think of anything. But…we were supposed to have lunch the day before she…the day before. She called and told me she wasn’t feeling very well, was staying home from work, just going to stay in, catch up with things. Chill. I was busy. I was busy,” Rochelle repeated in a voice that broke. “So I was kind of relieved. And now, when I think back, she sounded, I don’t know, a little shaky, maybe nervous. I didn’t think about it at the time. I could’ve gone over, taken her something to eat. It’s what I do, but I didn’t because I was busy. If there was something wrong, she might have told me. I keep thinking that.”
“Hindsight’s a choke chain,” Eve told her. “You need to let that go. Tell me where you were the night she and Bick died.”
“We had dinner at his grandparents’. We played bridge afterward. Well, they played,” she said with a weak smile. “They’re teaching me, and I blow at it. It was after midnight when we left, and we went back to Jake’s. We’re sort of cohabbing—unofficially. Sliding into it, I guess you could say. I was in the East Ballroom.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The next morning. I was in the East Ballroom helping to set up for a luncheon. Jake came in, came to find me. He was crying. I’d never seen him cry before. And he told me. We sat on the floor, right on the floor in the ballroom.”
7
EVE TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE BOXES COVERING the table in the conference room she’d ordered and felt a headache coming on.
“Okay, here comes the monkey work. We’re going to go through the discs and hard copies, memo, memo books, appointment books, everything, going back—for now—two weeks. From the wit statements it was two weeks, ten days, when people started noticing something off with Copperfield, and just under two weeks when the transmission went from Copperfield to Byson that she had something she needed to show him.”
“We’ll get through the names, the notes—eventually,” Peabody said. “But the accounts? We could probably use a numbers guy on this.”
“Probably could,” Eve agreed. “But for now, it’s you and me. We’ll look for repetition, a file or account she went back to repeatedly during the time frame. Any of them copied to her home unit, or any data she copied to Byson.”
Eve glanced unhappily at the conference room’s AutoChef, knowing it wasn’t loaded with her personal stash of coffee.
“Any mention of meetings or appointments with the higher-ups,” she continued. “Appointments with reps of accounts.”
“Going to be awhile,” Peabody commented. “Maybe I should order in some sandwiches.”
“Whatever. Her assistant said she logged in after hours a couple times recently. Let’s find what she accessed after business hours.”
She turned as the door opened.
“Anything?” Baxter asked her.
“It’s looking like she found something off at work, was pursuing it on her own, and shared her concerns with her fiancé. We’re digging there.”
“Want another shovel?”
Eve dipped her hands into her pockets. “What’s on your desk?”
“A few things, mostly leg and ’link work. Nothing the boy can’t handle,” he added, referring to his trainee, Trueheart. “Look, the kid’ll let me know if he needs me on anything active. I’ve got some personal time coming. I can take it to work this.”
“You work it, you work it on the clock. Anything of your own heats up, you’re on that.”
“No problem.”
When her communicator beeped, she glanced at the readout. “Peabody, fill Baxter in. It’s Whitney’s office. I need to update him.”
She was ordered up, and found Commander Whitney behind his desk. She thought he looked tired, maybe burdened was the better word. His big shoulders carried considerable weight.
Gray was sprinkled generously through the dark hair that was closely cut around his wide, coffee-colored face. He watched her, saying nothing, as she ran through the movements and details of the investigation.
“The data you confiscated is secured?”
“Yes, sir. Detectives Peabody and Baxter are starting the search. Captain Feeney is supervising the e-work, using Detective McNab.”
“Other avenues?”
“Sir?”
“Exploration of this being personal business. Jealous ex?”
“I haven’t eliminated the possibility, Commander, but nothing points to that. While everything points to this being a double murder motivated by something the female vic discovered at her place of employment.”
He nodded. “You understand the sensitivity of the data now in the possession of this department?”
“Yes, sir.”
His eyes stayed on hers. “Have you considered the sensitivity of you, personally, having access to that data?”
“Personally, Commander?”
“You’re married to a powerful businessman who has interests in many areas of industry and finance—interests that most certainly will be in competition or conflict with some of the parties whose data you now have in your possession.”
Something hot formed a tiny ball in Eve’s belly. “I have potential evidence in my possession.”
“Don’t be naive, Dallas.”
“I never was. I’m the primary investigator on two murders looking for evidence of motive and culpability. I’m not looking, and have no interest in, inside information on my husband’s business competition.”
“There’s concern that, should this data come into his hands, it might be used to his advantage against those competitors.”
The hot little ball expanded. “He doesn’t need my help to compete in business. And he wouldn’t walk over two dead bodies to make some extra bucks. Respectfully, sir”—though her tone had taken on an edge that had nothing to do with respect—“to imply otherwise is an insult to me and to him.”
“It’s not a matter of a few extra dollars, but the potential of millions. Perhaps more than millions. And yes, it’s insulting. It’s also necessary to be understood. If the information now at your disposal should be used in any way unrelated to your investigation, you, this office, this department, will be responsible.”
“My understanding of my responsibility to the victim, to the people of New York, and to this department is and always has been crystal.” It wasn’t a ball in her belly now, but a flood. Like lava. “If you have any doubts of my understanding of that responsibility or my ability to fulfill it, you’re not only obliged to remove me from this investigation, but you should be asking for my badge.”<
br />
“You want to be pissed, be pissed. Now, Lieutenant, go back to work.”
She turned on her heel, struggling to keep that fury down, hold it in. But she didn’t quite block all of it. She looked back as she yanked open the door. “I’m not Roarke’s goddamn stooge,” she snapped, and shut the door behind her.
She hauled the temper with her back down to Homicide and into the conference room. One look at Eve’s face made whatever bright comment Peabody was about to utter wither and die.
“Sir,” she said instead, “Baxter’s taking Byson’s data. So far we’ve found nothing transferred to his data records from Copperfield’s.”
“We keep looking.”
“On the e-front, McNab reports that files have been deleted from Copperfield’s office unit.”
“Is Detective McNab now reporting to you? Was there a change in command during the last twenty minutes?”
Knowing that tone, Peabody kept her own very even. “Detective McNab believed we were together, sir, either here or in the field. As I understood you were with the commander, I took his report, and am now reporting same.”
“I’m in EDD.”
Baxter and Peabody exchanged eye rolls behind her back. And fortunately for their welfare, had instincts quick enough to have those eyes focused on the work when she spun around.
“Nobody enters this room or approaches these files without my authority. Clear?”
“Yes, sir!”
When the door was slammed, Peabody let out a long, whistling breath. “Whitney put a really nasty bug up her butt.”
Eve stormed into EDD and through to the comp lab to find McNab. He was hunkered over Copperfield’s office unit. A handful of other detectives or techs worked on various comps in the same area.
“You’re to use a privacy cube at all times when working on this case.”
“Huh? What?” He dragged off a headset.
“This case is now flagged Blue. Privacy cube, verbal reports. Need-to-know basis.”
“Oooo-kay.” He stepped back, just a little, as if he felt the heat pumping off her and was afraid he’d get burned. “I’ve got some deletions. They were—”
“Privacy cube,” she snapped. “Now.”
