by J. D. Robb
“You want this prettied up for you?” Her voice was sharp, deliberately so to cut off any risk of hysteria. “You want pats and strokes, you’ve come to the wrong place, and you’ve come to the wrong person. I’m telling you that everything I’ve got is on this, is in this, just like every cop working it. If you think we don’t know who she is, you’re wrong. If you think her face isn’t in everyone’s head, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t know what to do.” His hands fisted on his thighs, pounded against them. “I can’t stand not knowing what to do, how to help. She must be so scared.”
“Yeah, she must be scared. I’m not going to bullshit you, Erik. She’s scared, and she’s probably hurting. But we’re going to find her. When we do, I’ll make sure you’re contacted. I’ll make sure you know we’ve got her safe.”
“I love her. I never told her. Never told me either,” he managed on a long, shaky breath. “I’m in love with her, and she doesn’t know.”
“You can tell her when we’ve got her back. Go home. Better, go be with a friend.”
When she’d nudged him along, she went back to the war room, straight to Roarke’s station. She picked up his bottle of water and guzzled.
“Help yourself,” he commented.
“Popped a buzz a couple hours ago. Always makes me thirsty. And…” She rolled her shoulders. “Wired. Location, location, location,” she added and made him smile.
“I have some others for you, and I’m working on trimming the number of them down. Any help on the opera connection?”
“Pieces, bits and pieces of him—and I’m getting a handle on the women he’s re-creating, we’ll say. Once we ID her, we’re going to have more data on him. I’ve got to go flap lips with the media.”
She started out, nearly ran headlong into Morris. “Sorry. Sorry.” The damn booster made her feel as if she were jumping out of her own skin. “What have you got? Tell me while we walk. I’ve got to get to the media room.”
“Energy pill?”
“It shows?”
“Generally, on you. He used dopamine and lorazepam on her. We haven’t detected those substances before.”
“What do they do?” She wished she’d copped Roarke’s water. “Would they have turned her off?”
“I’d say he was hoping for the opposite result. They’re sometimes used on catatonics.”
“Okay, so she turned off on him, and he tried to bring her around, keep the clock going.”
“I agree. Still, if she went into true and deep catatonia, he could have, potentially, kept that clock going for hours more. If not days.”
“But what fun is that?” Eve countered. “Not getting any reaction. She’s not participating.”
“Yes, again I agree. It holds with the fact she didn’t sustain as many injuries as the others. He couldn’t bring her around, so he gave up.”
“I don’t imagine you can pick up dopamine or whatzit?”
“Lorazepam.”
“Yeah, those. Probably didn’t pick them up at his local drug store.”
“No. And a doctor isn’t going to prescribe either for home use. It’s something that would be administered, by a licensed professional, under controlled conditions.”
“Maybe he’s a doctor, or some sort of medical. Or managed to pose as one.” Good at posing, she thought. Good at his roles. “Could be he scored it from a hospital or medical facility. But he’s never used it before, so why would he have had it on hand? Wouldn’t,” she said before Morris could speak. “If he scored it, he scored it over the weekend, and in New York.”
“Psychiatrics, primarily, would be the most logical source.”
“Give this to Peabody, okay? I want a search on facilities in New York that carry those meds. Tell her to use Mira if she needs grease or an expert. Meds like that have to be, by law, under lock and fully accounted for.”
“By law,” Morris agreed, “but not always strictly by practice.”
“We track it down. Start by getting full accountings from those facilities of these drugs. Any deviation, we take another push.”
“I can do this. A doctor for the dead’s still a doctor,” he added when she frowned at him. “I think I could help on this.”
“Take it to Peabody,” Eve repeated. “Work with her. I’ll check back with you when I’m done in here.”
In the war room Roarke saved, copied, and printed out the real estate list. Curious, he took out his PPC to access the last few minutes of Eve’s briefing while he wandered out for another bottle of water. She looked, he thought, rough and tough—and if you knew her as he did, a little ragged around the edges.
She’d make herself ill if this wasn’t over soon, he concluded. Push herself until she, very literally, collapsed.
There was absolutely no point in nagging or browbeating her this time as he was in it too deeply himself. He switched off as she was finishing up, then shifted to communications.
He thought if he ordered a dozen pizzas, she’d at least end up eating something. And he could damn well do with some food himself at this point.
After returning to his station, he took a fresh look at his list. Lowell’s Funeral Home, Lower East location, he mused. Sarifina York’s memorial was being held there. Today, he remembered. He should go, pay his respects.
He called up the funeral home on his comp to check the time of the service. If he couldn’t get away from the work—and the living took precedence over the dead—he could and would at least send flowers.
He noted down the time, the address, the specific room where the memorial was scheduled to be held. Cleverly, he thought, the page linked to a local florist. Handy and quick, he decided, but he preferred to trust Caro for the floral tribute.
Thoughtfully, he glanced at the link labeled “History,” and tapped it. It might tell him more than the standard data he’d already unearthed from the records.
Moments later his eyes went cool, his blood went hot. Roarke glanced over at Feeney, who was pushing at his own search.
“Feeney. I believe I have something.”
20
EVE STOOD, HANDS FISTED ON HER HIPS, STUDYING the data Roarke ordered on wall screen.
“The property didn’t pop in the initial searches as it’s been retitled a number of times, and not officially owned by the same person, persons, or company for the time period you asked I check. But with a deeper search, the ownership is—buried under some clever cover—held by the Lowell Family Trust.”
“Funeral parlor. Death house.”
“Indeed. As you see from the website history, the building first belonged to the Lowell family in the early nineteen-twenties, used both as a residence and as a funeral home. James Lowell established his business there, and lived in residence with his wife, two sons, and one daughter. The older son was killed in the Second World War, and the younger, Robert Lowell, joined the business, taking it over at his father’s death. He expanded, opening other locations in New York and New Jersey.”
“Death’s a profitable business,” Eve commented.
“So it is. And more so during wartime. Robert Lowell’s eldest son, another James, joined in the business, residing in their Lower West Side location—they had a second by that time. During the Urbans, this location, the original, was used as a clinic and base camp for the Home Force. Many of the dead were brought there, and tended to by the Lowells, who were reputed to be staunch supporters of the HF.”
“The second James Lowell is too old.” With her hands on her hips, Eve studied the data. “There are some spry centurians, but not spry enough for this.”
“Agreed. But he, in turn, had a son. Only one child, from his first marriage. He was widowed when his wife died from complications in childbirth. And he subsequently remarried six years later.”
“Pop,” Eve said quietly. “Have we got the second wife? The son?”
“There’s no record of the second wife that we’ve found as yet. A lot of records were destroyed during the Urbans. And the da
tabases were far from complete in any case.”
“It’s one of the reasons these clowns—the Lowells,” Feeney said, “were able to manipulate the records.”
“Likely for tax purposes at one time,” Roarke continued. “Changed the name from Lowell’s to Manhattan Mortuary during the Urbans—with a bogus sale of the building. Then to Sunset Bereavement Center, another sale, roughly twenty years ago, with a return—five years ago—to the original name, with another deed transfer in the officials.”
“Just kept switching.”
“With a bit of creative bookkeeping, I imagine,” Roarke confirmed. “It caught my interest when I read that a Lowell has been at the helm of the business for four generations. Interested enough, I scraped away a bit.”
“The man’s got a golden e-shovel,” Feeney commented, and gave Roarke a slap on the back.
“Well, digging in, it turns out that the Lowell Family Trust owned companies that owned companies, and so on, which included the ones who ostensibly purchased the building.”
“Meaning they’ve been there all along.”
“Exactly so. And on the last generation, Robert—named for his grandfather—we have this.”
He pulled up the ID shot and data. Eve stepped closer to the screen, frowned. “He doesn’t look like Yancy’s sketch. The eyes, yes, maybe the mouth, but he doesn’t look like the sketch. Age is right, professional data, okay. Address in London.”
“Which is the English National Opera,” Feeney put in. “We ran it.” He tapped the image on screen. “Could Yancy have been this far off?”
“Never known him to be. And we have two wits verifying. That’s not him.” Eve shoved her fingers through her hair. Time to move. “Print it out. I want a team of five: Feeney, Roarke, Peabody, McNab, Newkirk. We’ll pay a visit to a funeral home. I want the team ten minutes behind me.”
“Ten?” Roarke repeated.
“That’s right. It’s time to open that window a little wider. Time’s moving for Ariel Greenfeld. And this might be when he makes his move on me, either en route to this place or when I’m inside it.”
She held up a hand as Yancy came in. “Feeney, get us a warrant. I don’t want any trouble going through that building. Yancy, give me a face.”
“Here she is.”
A strong face, Eve thought. Strong and very feminine, almond-shaped eyes, slim nose, a wide, full mouth, and a cascade of dark hair. She was smiling, looking directly out. Her shoulders were bare but for two slim, sparkling straps. Around her neck was a glittering chain holding a pendant in the shape of a tree.
Tree of Life, Eve remembered. “Well, son of a bitch.” Another point for the Romanian psychic.
“Callendar, get a copy of this face. Find her. Run a data match for her picture. Search the newspapers, the magazines, the media reports from 1980 through 2015. Cross-check her with opera.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yancy.” Eve jerked her chin at the image still on screen. “That’s what his official ID has him looking like.”
“No.” Yancy just shook his head. “No way. Trina had him. This is a relative, maybe. Brother, cousin. But that’s not the guy Trina gave me, or the one Ms. Pruitt described from Tiffany’s.”
“Okay. Morris, you all right working on the meds alone?”
“I can handle it.”
“You get a hit, I get the buzz. Let’s move it, people. Ten minutes at my back. And nobody comes inside until I give the signal.”
“Sarifina York’s memorial is being held there,” Roarke reminded her. “It would be completely appropriate for me to pay my respects.”
Eve gave it a moment’s thought. “Ten minutes at my back,” she repeated. “Unless I signal sooner, you come on in to pay your respects. Get us that warrant, Feeney.”
“Vest and wire,” Roarke said, firmly.
“Yeah, yeah. In the garage. In five.” She strode out to prep.
When she pulled out of the garage, Eve’s instincts were tuned for a tail. And her mind was on Ariel.
She prayed to pass out, but the pain wouldn’t allow the escape. Even when he stopped, finally stopped, agony kept her above the surface. She tried to think of her friends, her family, of the life she’d led before, but it all seemed so distant, so separate. Nothing that had been would come clearly into focus.
There was only now, only the pain, only him.
And the time ticking away on the wall screen. Seven hours, twenty-three minutes, and the seconds clicking by.
So Ariel thought of how she would make him pay for taking away everything she had. Her life, her sense of order, her pleasures, her hopes. If only she could get free, she would make him pay for stripping her bare.
Talk, she reminded herself. Find a way to make him talk again.
Make him talk, and live.
Eve didn’t spot a tail, and found that it pissed her off. What if he’d changed his mind about trying for her? If she’d somehow scared him off, and even now he was moving in on another innocent woman?
“At location,” she said. “And heading in. Feeney, make me smile.”
“Warrant’s coming through.”
“All right. Keep the chatter down. Ten minutes, on the mark.”
Studying the building, she crossed the sidewalk. Three floors, including basement. Riot bars, solid security. Solid, if faded, red brick. Two entrances in the front, and two in the back, with emergency exits front and back, top floor.
If Ariel was inside, odds were on the basement. Main level was public, third level public and staff.
She climbed the steps, pressed the buzzer.
The door was opened moments later by a dark-skinned woman in dignified black. “Good afternoon. How can I help you?”
Eve held up her badge. “Sarifina York.”
“Yes, we’re gathering in the Tranquility Room. Please come in.”
Eve stepped in, scanned the area. The wide central hallway split the main floor in two parts. The air smelled of flowers and polish. She could see through the open double pocket doors to her left that several people had already arrived to memorialize Sarifina.
“I’ll need to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
“Of the service?”
“Of the business.”
“Oh. Of course. Mr. Travers is with a client just at the moment, but—”
“What about Mr. Lowell?”
“Mr. Lowell isn’t in residence. He lives in Europe. But Mr. Travers is head of operations.”
“When’s the last time Mr. Lowell’s been here?”
“I couldn’t really say. I’ve been with Lowell’s for two years, and haven’t met him. I believe you could say he’s essentially retired. Would you like to speak with Mr. Travers?”
“Yeah. You’ll have to interrupt him. This is official police business.”
“Of course.” As if she heard the phrase “official police business” every day, the woman smiled serenely as she gestured. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to one of the waiting rooms upstairs.”
Eve looked into the Tranquility Room as she passed. There were photographs of Sarifina, the flowers were plentiful, and the music was the retro big band sound the deceased had loved.
“What’s in the basement?” Eve asked as they went upstairs.
“It’s a work area. Preparation areas. Many of the bereaved request or require viewings of those they’ve lost.”
“Embalming? Cosmetics?”
“Yes.”
“How many work down there, routinely?”
“We have a mortician, a technician, and a stylist on staff.”
Stylist, Eve thought. No point in being unfashionably dead.
The woman led her to a small waiting room full of quiet, flowers, and soft-cushioned furniture. “I’ll tell Mr. Travers you’re waiting. Please be comfortable.”
Alone, Eve wandered the room. Not here, she thought. It didn’t make sense for him to have brought Ariel and the others here, where work went on throughout the bui
lding. Too many people. Too much business.
He wasn’t part of a troupe, but a solo act.
But this was a conduit, she was sure of it. Just as she was damn sure Robert Lowell, or whatever he was currently calling himself, wasn’t in London.
Travers came in. He was tall, reed thin, with a comfortable if somber face. If Eve had been casting funeral directors, he’d have been her top pick.
“Officer?”
“Lieutenant. Dallas.”
“Kenneth Travers.” Since he offered his hand as he crossed to her, Eve took it. “I’m director here. How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for Robert Lowell.”
“Yes, so Marlee indicated. Mr. Lowell lives in Europe, and has for some years now. While he retains ownership of the organization, he has very little actual involvement with the day-to-day operations.”
“How do you get in touch with him?”
“Through his solicitors in London.”
“I’ll need the name of the firm, and a contact number.”
“Yes, of course.” Travers folded his hands at his waist. “I’m sorry, may I ask what this is in reference to?”
“We believe he’s connected to an ongoing investigation.”
“You’re investigating the murders of the two women who were found recently. Is that correct?”
“That would be right.”
“But Mr. Lowell is in London.” He repeated the information slowly, and with what seemed to be a wealth of patience. “Or traveling. He travels quite extensively, I understand.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Five, perhaps six years ago. Yes, I believe it would be six.”
Eve pulled out the ID print. “Is this Robert Lowell?”
“Why yes, yes it is. I’m very confused, Lieutenant. This is Robert Lowell, the first. He’s been dead for, my goodness, nearly forty years. His portrait hangs in my office.”
“Is that so?” Smart, Eve decided. Some smart son of a bitch. “How about this man?” She took out Yancy’s sketch.
“Yes, that’s the current Mr. Lowell, or a close likeness.” His color receded a bit as he looked from the sketch to Eve. “I saw this displayed on screen, on media reports. I honestly never connected it. I—as I said—I haven’t seen Mr. Lowell in several years, and I never…I simply didn’t see him in this until you asked just now.
