J D Robb - Dallas 15 - Purity in Death

by Purity in Death(lit)

  Physical symptoms evident several days before incident, as indicated through witness statements.

  ME reports intercranial pressure, abnormal and massive swelling, damaged tissues. Terminal. Physical symptoms: headache, bleeding from nose and ears, sweating.

  Halloway, Detective Kevin. EDD detective assigned to search and scan Cogburn unit. Check how many hours logged on subject unit.

  Sudden violence displayed in deployment of police issue. Targets most specifically McNab and Feeney. Associate and direct superior.

  Methods of violence suited to personality types? Consult Mira for profile verification.

  No prior VT reported.

  ME reports same results on prelim as Cogburn. Symptoms displayed match.

  Death ensued without outside trauma or force.

  Murder weapon=data unit.

  It was murder, she thought. Technology was the instrument. But what was the motive?

  "Dallas?"

  "Huh?" She looked up, scooped her hair back, and stared blankly at Feeney until her mind cleared. "I figured you'd be at home by now."

  "Rode over from the hospital with the boy."

  His face had a few new sags, Eve noticed, and he looked exhausted. "Go home, Feeney. Give yourself a break."

  "You're one to talk." He gestured toward her notes. "Just wanted to see McNab settled. It was a good thing you did, having him come here. He seems pretty chipper." He dropped into a chair. "Shit, Dallas. Shit. He's half-paralyzed."

  "That's temporary. You know it can happen if you take a hit wrong."

  "Yeah, yeah. Take it wrong enough, it's permanent. He's twenty-fucking-six years old. You know that?"

  It curdled in her belly. "No. I guess I didn't."

  "His parents are in Scotland. Spend most summers there. They were set to head back, but he talked them out of it. I think part of him's afraid to have them see him like this. Part of him's afraid he's not going to come all the way back."

  "We let him think like that-wethink like that-we're not helping him."

  "I know it. I keep seeing Halloway, the way he looked when he went down." He let out a deep breath. "I had to talk to his family, too. Didn't know what the hell to say to them. And the goddamn reporters, and my squad-my kids."

  "Feeney. You've been through a bad one. It's different than when it happens in the field. You should talk to the department shrink." She winced at the look he shot her. "I know how that sounds coming from me, too. But, damn it, you were a hostage, you had a weapon jammed at your throat by one of your own men. You watched him die. If that hasn't screwed with your head, what would? So you should talk to the shrink or... Mira. If it were me, I'd go to Mira. She'd keep it off the record if you asked her."

  "I don't want to open my head or spill my guts." His voice went tight, wrapped with bands of insult and temper. "I need to work."

  "Okay." Recognizing the signs as she'd seen them often enough in her own mirror, she backed off. "We're going to have plenty. I'd as soon work from here for the time being, if it's okay with you. But the first order of business is to rig some sort of shield or filter on that unit. Nobody touches it until we have it shielded."

  "From what? How are we supposed to design the right shield when we don't know what it's supposed to block?"

  "That's a problem. I expect you and the expert consultant, civilian, you've already requested will figure out something."

  He nearly smiled. "Thought that might burn you a little. But you know damn well he's the best."

  "Then put him to work, and get me a shield." She got to her feet. It felt awkward, but it also felt right to cross over to his chair, crouch down until their eyes were level.

  "Go home, Feeney. Have a beer, be with your wife. She's a cop's wife, but she's not going to feel easy till she sees you. And you're not going to feel steady until you see her. I need you on this. I need you steady."

  There was a lot more said between them that didn't take words. "Kids today," he said at length, "think they know every damn thing."

  His hand closed over hers, squeezed once. Then he got up, walked out. Went home.

  She sat where he'd sat for a moment, laid her hands where his had laid. Then she got up, walked to her desk. Went back to work.

  She brought up Cogburn's data, then Halloway's personal file. She was halfway through a search for any connections when her 'link beeped.

  "Dallas."

  "Got one you're going to want to see." Baxter's face filled most of the screen, but she could see the movements, hear the sounds of a crime scene behind him.

  "I'm on a priority, Baxter. I can't take another case. Handle it."

  "You're going to want this. Vic's a fifty-three-year-old male. First glance it looks like somebody got in, attacked him. But you look closer, he did all the damage in here himself. Including slitting his own throat."

  "I don't have time for-"

  "A lot of premortem bleeding. Ears and nose. And take a look at this."

  He turned. She caught glimpses of a spacious room, thoroughly trashed. Then the desk unit that lay screen-up on the floor.

  ABSOLUTE PURITY ACHIEVED

  "Don't let anyone touch that unit. I'm on my way."

  She was halfway out the door when she swore, strode back to the desk to hunt up a memo.

  "Listen," she spoke into it as she crossed into Roarke's office. "I got tagged. Related death. I'll be back... when I get back. Sorry."

  She tossed the memo on his console, then bolted.

  ***

  Chadwick Fitzhugh had lived, and lived well, in a two-level condominium on the Upper East Side. His profession was, primarily, being the solitary male of the fourth-generation Fitzhughs, which meant he socialized smoothly, looked snappy in a dinner suit, played a mean game of polo, and could, if pressed, discuss stock options.

  The family business was money, in all its many forms. And the Fitzhughs had plenty of it.

  His hobbies were travel, fashion, gambling, and seducing young boys.

  Baxter filled her in on the basic data while Eve studied the bloody mess that was now Chadwick Fitzhugh.

  "Name popped on the data search. Known pedophile. Trolled the clubs, surfed the chat rooms," Baxter stated.

  "He liked them between fourteen and sixteen. Pattern was to buy them alcohol, Zoner, whatever worked, lure them up here, with the promise of more. Then he'd pull out the toys. Into bondage. He'd do them, whether they were willing or not. Looks like he took vids if his homemade stash is any indication. Then he'd give them some cash, pat them on the head, and tell them if they squawked about it, they'd be in more trouble than he would."

  Baxter looked down at the body. "Mostly they believed him."

  "If we know this, have record of this, at least one of the kids squawked."

  "Yeah, he got reported four times over the last two years." Baxter pulled out a pack of gum from the pocket of his on-duty suit, offered it. "In New York anyway," he continued while he and Eve chewed spearmint contemplatively. "Got charged. Family money and lots of high-dollar lawyers stepped in and made it all go away. Nothing stuck to this creep. World's a better place without him."

  Eve grunted and fitting on microgoggles, examined the throat wound. It gaped like a wide, screaming mouth. "No visible hesitation marks."

  "When you gotta go, you gotta go."

  With a sealed finger, she turned Fitzhugh's head. His ear canal was thick with blood. "Surfed the chat rooms?"

  "I got the statement here in the file from one of the complaints. That's how he roped this one kid anyway. Looked for young boys going through a sexual identity crisis, or those just playing around. Got a playpen upstairs. Room's done in black leather. You got your cuffs, your whips, your ball gags, butt plugs, and various mechanical devices. First-class vid setup."

  He tucked his notebook away. "How it looked was he had some kid in here who went bonkers on him. Place is pretty smashed up, and he's got quite the potpourri of illegals around here. But security discs don't show anyone
coming in here or going out for the last three days. Not even the dead guy."

  "Who called it in?"

  "Sister. Lives down on St. Thomas. Guess you've been to the islands plenty now," he added. "Blue water, white sand, mostly naked women. Wouldn't mind trading this heat for some of that."

  He gave a wistful sigh, then crouched down beside Eve, careful to keep his cuffs out of the blood. "So anyway, bro here was supposed to fly down today. Big family party or some shit. Doesn't show, she gets worried, gives him a call. He answered-screaming at her, cursing, nose bleeding like a tap. She figured he was hurt, being attacked, and called it in."

  "I'm going to need to talk to her, get a formal statement." With her hands braced on her thighs, Eve looked over at Baxter. "I have to take this one away from you."

  "Yeah." He huffed out a breath, pushed to his feet. "Figured. Everybody knows what went down in EDD today." He looked around, frowned at the computer screen. "What the hell's going on?"

  "I'm putting together a team to find out." She straightened. "You want in on that?"

  He looked back at her. "I want in."

  "Then you're in. I need copies of the security discs, Fitzhugh's file, sister's name and location. We talk to neighbors, family, known associates. See if we can determine when Fitzhugh got... infected." She scratched her head. "We need to review his personal vid collection."

  "Oh yeah, that's my idea of a good time. Watching some creep pork little boys."

  "Maybe one of those little boys has been playing with computer programs. This unit needs to be transported to my home office."

  "We working this out of your digs?" He brightened immediately. "Solid."

  "Nobody messes with it. No search, no scan. It gets shut down and stays shut down until I say otherwise. Same goes for any of the data centers in this place." She looked around. "We're going through this place top to bottom. See if he put anything on hard copy. He gets bagged, sent to Morris, with a red flag."

  "Got it. Hey, where's your shadow?"

  "My shadow?"

  "The inestimable Peabody. She's looking pretty good these days."

  "A knothole in an oak tree looks good to you, Baxter."

  "Only after a very long, very hard day. How come you didn't bring her in on this?"

  "She's in, she's just... She's with McNab."

  His humor faded. "How's he doing?"

  "He's okay. Awake, coherent, good attitude. He's..." She shoved her hands in her pockets. "He's having a little trouble with his right side."

  "What do you mean, trouble?" But he knew. Every cop knew. "Ah, shit, Dallas. Goddamn it. Temporary, right? It's just temporary."

  "Yeah, they're saying that."

  They stood for a moment, in silence. "Let's get to work here," she ordered.

  Chapter 7

  She found Roarke in his office when she got home. Since it was there, she picked up the coffee at his elbow and drank it straight down like water.

  "Dead pedophile. Slit his own throat. Went nuts first, broke up his own fancy apartment. Morris is going to find severe intercranial pressure. The Purity message was on his machine."

  "Just the one unit?"

  "I don't know yet. I'm having all of them sent here. I've got to find out how those units were compromised. How that causes a human brain to essentially blow up."

  "You don't say you have to find out why."

  "Purity," she said and sat. "Clean out the dirt and make absolute purity. The world would be better off without them," she said aloud, thinking of Baxter's comment.

  "A vigilante group with superior tech knowledge." He nodded. "Halloway was simply a casualty of war. Both of your victims preyed on children."

  "Yeah, they were scum, of a particularly disgusting sort."

  "But they're your scum now."

  "You got it. I'm going to need to go through the known victims of my victims. Kids who might have strong tech skills. More likely, family members who do. Could be we'll find somebody who had a kid messed with by both Cogburn and Fitzhugh."

  "Chadwick Fitzhugh?" Roarke picked up his coffee mug, scowled into it, then strode to the AutoChef. "Slimy puddle of piss."

  "Hey, just because I drank your coffee, that's no reason for calling me names."

  "Fitzhugh. Bloody smug bastard, buggering young boys. Someone ought to've taken a knife to his throat long before this."

  "I take it you knew him."

  "Well enough to find him revolting in every possible way."

  There was a different tone, a different look than when Baxter had described Fitzhugh. A far more dangerous one in that icy control, that musical lilt.

  "His family's old money," Roarke continued. "Very uppercrust and pedigreed. Too fine to do business with the likes of me. Though they have done," he added as he turned back. His face was cold now. Warrior cold. "Until this sneaking badger's favored form of entertainment got out and about. Then it was me who wouldn't do business with them. Even a Dublin alley rat's got to have standards."

  "Not doing business with him is one thing. And three cheers for you there. Killing him's another."

  "Cut his own throat, didn't he?" He took a swig of coffee. "More fitting to my mind if he'd cut off his own balls first. But life isn't always willing to be poetical."

  She went cold now, too. As cold as the ice that settled in the pit of her stomach. "No one has the right to stand in judgment, to pull on an executioner's hood without due process."

  "There are times, Lieutenant, I'm not so fond of that line of the law as you are. In fact, have the coffee. I think I'll have a drink to toast buggering Fitzhugh's demise."

  She rose when he went to a cabinet, opened it, and perused wine bottles in the rack. "If that's your stand, you can't help me on this."

  "That's my stand." He selected a good cabernet. An exceptionally good one. "But it doesn't mean I can't and won't help you. Don't ask me to be sorry he's dead, and I won't ask you to be glad of it."

  They'd been on opposite sides before, she thought. But this was opposite sides on very, very shaky ground. "Whatever he did, whatever he was, someone murdered him. It's no different from lynching a man or standing him against the wall and blasting him to pieces. The law determines guilt and punishment."

  "We're not going to march in file on this one, Eve. And consider this: With all those fine words you've just spoken, aren't you standing there right now, judging me?"

  "I don't know." But her belly was beginning to churn. "But I do know I don't want to get this messed up with a personal thing between us."

  "We can agree on that." He spoke briskly, as if they were debating differing views on what color to paint the parlor. "I'll do whatever I can to help you find who or what is doing this. Let that be enough."

  Watching him drink, she worried it wouldn't be enough. "Do you think murdering him was right?"

  "I think it's right he's dead. Is that enough differentiation for you, Lieutenant?"

  She didn't know, and felt the ground tremble under her feet. "I've got to put reports together for the morning briefing."

  So, he thought, they'd leave it there. For now. "You might call Peabody up to help you. She could use a distraction."

  "How's McNab?"

  "Settled in. A bit sulky as Summerset put him on light food rather than the steak dinner of his dreams. His attitude's cheerful, but straining around the edges. There's no feeling yet."

  "It can take up to twenty-four hours. Usually it's back within one to three, but it... Hell."

  "We'll look into specialists if need be. There's a clinic in Switzerland that's had great success in this area."

  She nodded. Here, she thought, was a man who believed murder was, given the right circumstances, a viable option. Or, at least, the result of it something worthy of a personal toast. And he could, would, take the time, use his own money without hesitation, to help a friend.

  "I'll see if Peabody wants to put some hours in."

  ***

  It was closing in on two a.m.
when she sent Peabody off to bed, and thought about heading toward her own. The door between her office and Roarke's was closed now. And the light over it indicated he was still in there.

  Working, she thought. Very likely carving away at business he'd had scheduled for the next day. So he could clear his time for her.

  She paced back and forth in front of the door. She wished she could tap someone else. Wished she had another source with half his skill and half his resources she could call on so that they could avoid picking their way over this boggy ground of opposing beliefs.