by J. D. Robb
Mavis bared her teeth at Leonardo. “You want to switch places? Shit, shit, shit.” She reared up, grabbed the strap, and dug her free hand, nails first, into Roarke’s.
“Head’s out. What a great face!”
With one eye shut, Eve looked down, and saw the wet, slack face that was vaguely human poked out of Mavis’s crotch. “Is that even possible? Can that be right?”
“One more, Mavis, and you’ve got yourself a baby.”
“I’m so tired.”
Eve blew the hair out of her eyes, waited until Mavis’s glazed ones met hers. “One more time, for-the-money shot.”
“Okay, okay, here it comes.”
It slid out, slippery, wriggling as Mavis pushed with a vengeance. Its cry was raw and irritated, in counterpoint to Mavis’s weeping laugh. “My baby! Our baby! What is it? I can’t see that part. Does it have a dingle or not?”
Eve cocked her head as the midwife held up the now-wailing baby. “Dingle-free. It’s a girl. Got some serious lungs on her.”
Leonardo wept as he cut the cord, wept as the baby was laid on Mavis’s belly. “Look at my beautiful girls. Look at my girls.” He spoke it like a prayer. “Do you see them?”
“It all right, Daddy.” Mavis crooned, stroking his hair with one hand, the baby’s back with the other. “Hello, my baby. Hello, true love. I’m going to do everything I can so the world doesn’t suck for you.”
“We’ll need her for just a minute,” Randa told Mavis. “Just to clean her up, to weigh her. Dolly’s going to take her and bring her right back to you. She’s a real beauty, Mom.”
“Mom.” Mavis pressed her lips to the baby’s head before Dolly lifted her. “I’m a mom. Thank you.” She reached for Roarke’s hand, then smiled down at Eve. “Thank you.”
“She is beautiful.” Roarke leaned over to kiss Mavis’s cheek. “Like a perfectly beautiful doll.”
“She’ll suit her name.” Leonardo wiped tears from his eyes.
“We went all over the place on names, remember, Dallas?”
“I think Radish was the last you ran by me.”
“Apricot.” Mavis rolled her eyes, and simply glowed. “But we decided to go with something softer, if it was a girl. Something sweet. She’s Bella. Bella Eve. We’ll call her Belle.”
The beautiful Belle was wrapped in a pink blanket, her pretty bald head covered in a pink hat, and placed in her father’s big arms. “Now,” he whispered, “I have everything. I have the world.”
Hours later, Eve stood in the quiet of her own bedroom, and pulled off her boots. “Hell of a day.”
“Hell of several.”
“We did okay, didn’t we? Coach Roarke.”
“Some shaky moments, but I think, yes, we did just fine. And thank all the gods it’s done.”
“It kind of looked like that vid—the pod people vid, before they’re fully formed.”
Tunneling his fingers through his hair, Roarke frowned at her. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
“Yeah, that. It—I mean she—kind of looked like that when she came out, then she didn’t. She looked mostly real. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m glad Mavis cornered us into doing this. It meant a lot, to see this through with her.”
“It did.” He crossed to her, put his arms around her. “And you’ve two lives, two new beginnings, carrying your name. That’s quite a tribute, Lieutenant.”
“Hope I never have to arrest them.”
He laughed, swept her up. “I want you in bed.”
“I want to be there, too. Be glad if you came along.” She pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “I’ve got to clean up the mess tomorrow, on the job. Tie up the last of it. Might take two days, but no more than. Anyway, the new mother will sulk if we don’t come in and ga-ga over Belle. But then, it’s just you and me, pal. Dancing naked under the tropical sun.”
“Hallelujah.”
When she was wrapped around him, she let it all go, the questions, the answers, life and death. They’d all wait for her until the morning.
INNOCENT IN DEATH
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
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Copyright © 2007 by Nora Roberts
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robb, J. D., date.
Innocent in death / J. D. Robb.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0619-5
1. Dallas, Eve (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 4. Teachers—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O243I56 2007 2006025431
813'.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
—HENRY ADAMS
As innocent as a new-laid egg.
—W. S. GILBERT
INNOCENT IN DEATH
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
EPILOGUE
1
POP QUIZZES WERE KILLERS. LIKE AMBUSHING assassins they elicited fear and loathing in the prey, and a certain heady power in the hunter.
As Craig Foster prepared to take his lunch break and finish refining the quiz, he knew how his fifth-period U.S. history class would respond. Groans and gasps, winces of misery or panic. He understood completely. At twenty-six, he wasn’t so far removed from the student section of the classroom to have forgotten the pain or the anxiety.
He got out his insulated lunch sack. Being a creature of habit, he knew that his wife—and wasn’t it just mag being married—would have packed him a poultry pocket, an apple, some soy chips, and his favo
rite hot chocolate.
He never asked her to pack his lunch, or to make sure his socks were washed and folded in pairs and stacked in the right-hand side of his top drawer. But she said she liked doing things for him. The seven months they’d been married had been the best of his life. And it hadn’t sucked before that, either, he decided.
He had a job he loved, and was damn good at, he thought with a quick burst of pride. He and Lissette had a very decent apartment within reasonable walking distance of the school. His students were bright and interesting—and, bonus time, they liked him.
They’d grumble and sweat a bit over the pop quiz, but they’d do fine.
Before he got down to work, he shot his bride an e-mail.
Hey, Lissy! How about I pick up that soup you like, and the big salad on the way home from work tonight?
Miss you. Love every sweet inch of you!
You know who.
It made him smile thinking about how it would make her smile. Then he switched back to the quiz. He studied his comp screen as he poured out the first cup of hot chocolate and lifted the pocket bread filled with soy products masquerading as thinly sliced turkey.
There was so much to teach; so much to learn. The history of the country was rich and diversified and dramatic, full of tragedy, comedy, romance, heroism, cowardice. He wanted to pass all of it on to his students, to make them see how the country, and the world they lived in, had evolved into what they were in the early months of 2060.
He ate, added questions, deleted others. And he drank deep of his favorite chocolate as a soft snow fell outside the classroom window.
As the days of his own short history ticked minute by minute closer to their end.
Schools gave her the willies. It was a humbling thing for a tough-minded, kick-ass cop to admit, even to herself. But there it was. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, arguably New York City’s top murder cop, would rather have been stalking through an abandoned tenement in search of a psychotic chemi-head juiced on Zeus then striding down the pristine hallways of staunchly upper-middle-class Sarah Child Academy.
Despite the bright, primary colors along walls and floors, the sparkling glass of the windows, it was, for Eve, just another torture chamber.
Most of the doors along the maze were open, and the rooms beyond empty but for the desks, tables, counters, screens, boards.
Eve glanced over at Principal Arnette Mosebly, a sturdy, heading-toward-statuesque woman of about fifty. Her mixed-race heritage had given her skin the color of caramel cream and eyes of misty blue. Her hair was a glossy black worn in a ball of corkscrew curls. She wore a long black skirt with a short red jacket. The heels of her sensible shoes clicked and clacked on the floor as they walked along the second-floor corridor.
“Where are the kids?” Eve asked.
“I had them taken to the auditorium until their parents or guardians can pick them up. Most of the staff is there as well. I thought it best, and most respectful, to cancel afternoon classes.”
She paused a few feet away from where a uniformed cop stood in front of a closed door.
“Lieutenant, this is beyond tragic for us, and the children. Craig…” She pressed her lips together, looked away. “He was young and bright and enthusiastic. His whole life ahead of him, and—” She broke off, held up a hand as she struggled for composure. “I understand this sort of thing, I mean to say, having the police involved is routine in matters like this. But I hope you’ll be as discreet and efficient as it’s possible to be. And that it will be possible for us to wait to—to transport the body until after all the students have left the building.”
Now she straightened her shoulders. “I don’t know how that young man could have become so ill. Why would he have come in today if he was feeling unwell? His wife—he’s only been married a few months—I haven’t contacted her yet. I wasn’t sure—”
“You’re going to want to leave that to us. If you’ll give us a few moments.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Record on, Peabody,” Eve said to her partner. She nodded to the guard who stepped to the side.
Eve opened the door, stood at the threshold. She was a tall, lanky woman with a choppy cap of brown hair, with brown eyes that were flat and dispassionate now as she scanned the scene. Her movements were easy as she took a can of Seal-It from her field kit, coated her hands, her boots.
In nearly a dozen years on the force, she’d seen a lot worse than the doomed history teacher sprawled on the floor in pools of his own vomit and shit.
Eve noted the time and place for the record. “MTs responded to the nine-one-one, arriving at fourteen-sixteen. Pronounced victim, identified as Foster, Craig, at fourteen-nineteen.”
“Lucky we drew a couple MTs on the call who knew better than to move the body,” Peabody commented. “Poor bastard.”
“Having lunch at his desk? Place like this probably runs to a staff lounge, cafeteria, whatever.” Remaining at the threshold, Eve cocked her head. “Knocked over a jumbo insulated bottle, the chair.”
“Looks more like a seizure than a struggle.” Peabody skirted the edge of the room, her airboots squishing slightly. She checked the windows. “Locked.” She angled so she could study the desk, the body from that side of the room.
While her body was as sturdy as Arnette Mosebly’s, Peabody’s build would never be statuesque. Her dark hair had grown past the nape of her neck and curved up at the ends in a flirty little flip Eve had yet to resign herself to.
“Working lunch,” Peabody noted. “Lesson plans or grading papers. Allergic reaction to something he ate, maybe.”
“Oh, yeah, I’d say.” Eve crossed to the body, hunkered down. She’d run prints, do the standard gauge for TOD, all the rest, but for a moment she simply studied the dead.
Spider legs of broken vessels ran through the whites of his eyes. There were traces of foam as well as vomit clinging to his lips. “Tried to crawl after it hit him,” she murmured. “Tried to crawl for the door. Get the formal ID, Peabody, verify TOD.”
Rising, Eve moved carefully around the puddles of what Craig’s body had voided, and picked up the insulated cup she saw, which had his name engraved in silver over black. Sniffed.
“You think somebody poisoned this guy?” Peabody asked.
“Hot chocolate. And something else.” Eve bagged the cup into evidence. “Color of the vomit, signs indicating seizure, extreme distress. Yeah, I’m thinking poison. ME will verify. We’ll need to get clearance to access his medicals from the next of kin. Work the scene. I’m going to talk to Mosebly again, and pull in the witnesses.”
Eve stepped out again. Arnette Mosebly paced the hallway with a PPC in her hand. “Principal Mosebly? I’m going to have to ask you not to contact anyone, speak with anyone just yet.”
“Oh…I—actually, I was just—” She turned the PPC around so Eve could see the miniscreen. “Word game. Something to occupy my mind for a bit. Lieutenant, I’m worried about Lissette. Craig’s wife. She needs to be told.”
“She will be. Right now I’d like to speak with you, in private. And I need to interview the students who found the body.”
“Rayleen Straffo and Melodie Branch. The officer who responded said they couldn’t leave the building, and had to be separated.” Her lips thinned now in obvious disapproval. “Those girls were traumatized, Lieutenant. They were hysterical, as one would expect under these kinds of circumstances. I have Rayleen with the grief counselor, and Melodie with our nurse practitioner. Their parents should be with them by now.”
“You notified their parents.”
“You have your procedure, Lieutenant. I have mine.” She gave one of those regal nods Eve imagined were required in Principal Training 101. “My first priority is the health and safety of my students. These girls are ten years old, and they walk into that.” She nodded toward the door. “God knows what damage it’s done to them, emotionally.”
“Craig Foster isn’t feeling so well himself.”
�
��I have to do what needs to be done to protect my students. My school—”
“Right now, it’s not your school. It’s my crime scene.”
“Crime scene?” Color drained from Arnette’s face. “What do you mean? What crime?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out. I want the witnesses brought in, one at a time. Your office is probably the best place for the interviews. One parent or guardian per child during the interview.”
“Very well, then. Come with me.”
“Officer?” Eve looked over her shoulder. “Tell Detective Peabody I’m going to the principal’s office.”
His mouth twitched, very slightly. “Yes, sir.”
It was a different kettle altogether, Eve discovered, when you were the honcho instead of the one in the hot seat. Not that she’d particularly been a discipline problem in her day, she remembered. Mostly, she’d tried to be invisible, just get by, just get through and get out of the whole educational prison the day it was legal to do so.
But she hadn’t always managed it. A smart mouth and a bad attitude had surfaced often enough to earn her a few trips down to that hot seat.
She was supposed to be grateful the state was providing her, a ward thereof, with an education, with a home, with enough food to sustain life. She was supposed to be grateful to have clothes on her back, even if someone else had worn them first. She was supposed to want to better herself, which had been tough when she hadn’t remembered, not clearly, where she’d come from in the first place.
What she remembered most were the smug-toned lectures, the disappointed frowns that didn’t quite hide the superiority.
And the endless, the terminal, the all-pervasive boredom.
