The In Death Collection, Books 11-15

by J. D. Robb

She pushed away, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.

  Low-key, she thought, letting the image of his face, his eyes, his mouth, form in her head. Nothing to grab attention. You’re a loner. Nice quiet homes in nice neighborhoods. Gotta have more than one. You’re a traveling man. Personal transpo? Probably, probably. But nothing flashy. Solid, dependable, discreet. Classic. Like the music you kill by.

  But if you drove into New York, you didn’t use the garage facilities at the hotel.

  Meat and potatoes, she thought, remembering his hotel meal. Basic, expensive. The clothes he’d worn, in and out, had met the same criteria. As had his luggage.

  Luggage.

  She sat up, ordered the file disc that contained his check-in.

  “Yeah, yeah, one business traveler’s wheel-on. Basic and expensive. And new. Looks brand-spanking-new to me. Computer, enlarge sector twelve through twenty-eight, magnify twenty percent.”

  WORKING . . .

  The portion of the image that showed the suitcase standing tidily at Yost’s feet popped. She could see no sign of wear on the heavy-duty black leather, none of the flaws that showed after even minimal trips through the rigors of handling or security checks.

  “Enlarge sector six through ten, this image.”

  WORKING . . .

  And when the image popped this time, she read clearly the fancy brass tag of the manufacturer. “Cachet. Okay, what does that give us? Computer, identify model of baggage on screen, manufactured through Cachet.”

  WORKING . . . UNIT IDENTIFIED AS MODEL NUMBER 345/92-C, MARKETED AS BUSINESS ELITE AND AVAILABLE IN LEATHER OR CLOTHUNIT MEASURES FOURTEENBY EIGHT BY SIX AND PASSES FAA AND PAA CARRY-ON REQUIREMENTS FOR ALL AIR AND SPACE TRANSPORTATION. 345/92-C IS A NEW MODEL, AVAILABLE SINCE JANUARY OF THE CURRENT YEAR. CACHET IS THE TRADENAME OF A DIVISION OF SOLAR LIGHTS, A ROARKE INDUSTRIES CORPORATION.

  “Who didn’t know that,” Eve muttered. “Out since January. There’s a nice little break. Computer . . . No, never mind.” She shifted to her interdepartment ’link and snagged McNab.

  “Cachet, luggage. Their model 345/92-C, called Business Elite. Get me a list of where that model was sold, in black leather, since its intro in January of this year. I want locations, and from those locations, I want names. Who bought the bag?”

  “That’s going to take—”

  “Time,” she finished. “Did you run out of that substance?”

  “No, sir. I’m on it.”

  “So am I,” she murmured, then rose. She grabbed her jacket, her files, then strode out to Peabody’s cubicle in the bull pen. “I’m heading home to run some data. I want you to check on the hair.”

  “Hair, sir?”

  “Yost’s hair. No way that was his. Just doesn’t fit his face, and it’s too damn fussy for his style. So it’s a rug, a good one. And my hunch is he has a collection. Start off with the one he’s wearing on the security tapes, check salons and beauty suppliers, top-level ones, major cities. He doesn’t fool around with second line. And start with stuff that’s natural fiber and nonallergic or whatever it’s called. He likes things clean. He carries a leather suitcase rather than the lighter, manmade cloth.”

  Peabody opened her mouth, but Eve was already striding away so she didn’t get to ask what a leather suitcase had to do with a wig.

  Eve walked in the front door of the house just as Roarke came down the stairs. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and frowned at him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I live here.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, and I might ask the same. You’re not off-shift as yet.”

  “I’ve got stuff I want to run here instead of at Central.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah, ah. And since you’re here, I should be able to cut some time. I’ve got some questions you could—”

  She started up as she spoke, breaking off when he laid a hand on her arm. “I was just upstairs, settling Mick into one of the guest rooms.”

  “Mick? Oh.” She paused. “Oh.”

  “Do you have a problem with him staying here for a few days?”

  “No.” The timing sucks, she thought. Seriously sucks. “Like you said, you live here.”

  “As do you. I realize he comes from a time in my life that isn’t entirely comfortable for you.” He ran a finger over the strap of her shoulder harness. “Lieutenant. But it is, in fact, a time in my life.”

  “I met a few of your friends from Dublin before. I like Brian.”

  “I know.” He laid his hands on her shoulders now, ran them down her back, moving closer until his brow rested on hers. “Mick was important to me, Eve. As close, likely closer than a brother might have been through some very ugly times, and some good ones. I thought he was dead, and I’d adjusted to that.”

  “And now you know he isn’t.” She understood friendship, its pulls and tugs and its puzzles. “Would you mind asking him not to do anything I’d have to arrest him for while he’s staying in one of the guest rooms?”

  He shifted just enough to press his lips to hers. “I think you’ll like him.”

  “Yeah.” And they both knew he hadn’t agreed to her request. “You Irish guys are pretty likable. Listen, I just want to say you don’t need any trouble right now, with the way this homicide investigation is heading.”

  He nodded. “It was never her, was it? That poor little maid.”

  “I don’t think so. We need to sit down and figure who would go after you this way, and why.”

  “All right, when I can. I’ve some arrangements to put into motion just now. We’re having some people over for dinner.”

  “Tonight? Roarke—”

  “I can make your excuses if it’s not convenient for you. Magda and her son, and a few key people will be here. It’s important to smooth out feathers ruffled by the incident last night, and to reassure everyone involved in the upcoming auction that security and publicity are under control.”

  “No point in asking you to postpone the whole deal.”

  “None at all,” he said cheerfully. “I can hardly put the hotel, or any of my projects or my life for that matter, on hold because it’s believed that someone’s hoping to upset me.”

  “The next move might be on you.”

  His smile never dimmed. In fact, it sharpened. “I’d prefer it. I don’t want another innocent life on my conscience. In any case, I have the most reliable of bodyguards very close at hand.”

  And she intended to be closer. “What time’s the dinner thing?”

  “Eight.”

  “Then I’d better get some work done. I guess I have to put on some fancy deal.”

  “Leave that to me.” He took her hand, kissed it. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, save it. I want some of your time before tomorrow,” she added, jogging up the stairs.

  “Darling Eve, I want a great deal of yours.”

  She snorted, kept going, and when she reached the second floor paused as Mick came out of one of the countless guest rooms. He’d removed his suit jacket and looked, to her eye, casual and at home.

  He gave her a quick, crooked smile. “Ah, Lieutenant. Nothing more annoying than an unexpected houseguest, is there? And add on to that an old boyhood friend of your husband’s who’s a stranger to you, and you have tedium on top of it. I hope you’re not too inconvenienced by my staying.”

  “It’s a big house,” she said, then realized that was probably not the most polite of responses. But he received it with such a huge, rollicking laugh she had to grin back at him. “Sorry, I’m a little distracted. Roarke wants you here, so that’s fine with me.”

  “Thanks for that. I’ll try not to bore the ears off your head with stories of our youthful escapades.”

  “Actually, I like hearing that kind of thing.”

  “Well now, that’s opening the worm can.” He winked at her. “Some house,” he said, letting his gaze wander the generous hall and stairs. “House i
sn’t the word, I suppose, not near to grand enough for this palace. How do you find your way about?”

  “I don’t always.” She noticed his gaze shifting again, resting contemplatively on her weapon harness. “Problem?” she said, coolly now.

  “No, indeed, though I’m not shamed to say I’m not one to care for that sort of weapon.”

  “Really.” Idly, she laid her hand on it. “What kind of weapon do you prefer?”

  He lifted his arm, cocked it at the elbow, and bunched his fist. “This always did fine enough for me. But in your line of work, well . . . And speaking of that, I was just thinking this is one of the rare pleasant conversations I’ve experienced with a person in your profession. Roarke and a cop. Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, there’s a brain rattler. Maybe you’d sit and tell me the story of how that came to be one of these days. God knows I’d love to hear it.”

  “Ask Roarke. He’s better at stories than I am.”

  “I’d like your version all the same.” He hesitated, then appeared to come to a decision as he approached her. “Roarke wouldn’t have settled for less than smart, so I figure you for a smart cop, Lieutenant. And as one, you’d know the likes of me when you look. But maybe you don’t know that Roarke’s my oldest friend in this world. I hope I can work a truce, if nothing better than that, with the woman my friend married.”

  When he held out a hand, Eve came to a decision of her own. “I’ll take a truce with a friend of the man I married.” She clasped his hand. “Keep it clean in New York, Mick. I don’t want any trouble for him.”

  “Nor do I.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Or for meself for that matter. You work in the homicide part of things, don’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can say, looking you in the eye, that I’ve never had occasion to kill anyone, and have no plans to begin. That might help things along here.”

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  chapter five

  Leaving the houseguest for Roarke and Summerset to deal with, Eve buried herself in her home office to study the case files on the long list of murders tagging Yost as the primary suspect.

  She picked them apart, put them back together, searching for holes in the investigative process, for pieces that had been mislaid or ignored.

  Whenever she found something she set it aside in what she began to think of as her Screwup File. There’d been a number of definite screwups, to her way of thinking. Witnesses who hadn’t been thoroughly interviewed, or pushed during an interview. Trace evidence that had been logged, but not tracked down to its root source.

  In a smattering of the cases she found there had been some small, personal item taken from the body of the victim. A ring, a hair ribbon, a wrist unit. All inexpensive items that held consistent with the lack of robbery as motive.

  But that didn’t, Eve felt, hold consistent with pattern.

  “If he took something from one, he took something from all,” she muttered.

  He was anal, tidy, habitual.

  Souvenirs, she thought. He takes a token. What had he taken from Darlene French?

  She brought up the security video, keyed it into the section where Darlene had wheeled her cart to the door of 4602, froze the image, magnified it.

  “Earrings.” In the image Darlene wore tiny gold hoops at her ears, all but hidden by her dark, curling hair. Though Eve was certain no such jewelry had been on the body, she checked the record, split-screening images so that she could examine Darlene, battered and broken on the bed. “He took your little earrings.”

  A collector, she decided, sitting back. Because he enjoys the work? she wondered. Wants to be able to look back on various jobs, remember them, revisit them.

  So it wasn’t just the money. No, not just the money. Are they thrill kills after all?

  Her desk ’link signaled, and still studying the two images of Darlene, she answered.

  “Dallas.”

  “Got a line on the wire,” McNab began. “It’s sold by length or by weight, primarily to jewelers—professional and hobbyists—or artists. You can get it retail but it’s a hell of a lot pricier that way than going to a wholesale source. Most of the retail suppliers sell small lengths, and my information is most of that’s to consumers who buy it for hairdos or a quick wrap around the wrist or ankle. Impulse stuff.”

  “Wholesalers,” Eve said. “He’s not an impulse guy, and he doesn’t like to overpay,” she added, thinking of the hotel amenities.

  “Figured. We got way over a hundred wholesalers globally, and another twenty or so off planet. You need an artist or craftsman license, or a retail ID number to purchase at wholesale level. You got that, you can get it from the source or order electronically.”

  “Okay, run them all.” She brought up her evidence list as she spoke, checked the length of the wire removed from the crime scene. “He used a two-foot length, exactly two feet, on French.” She made a quick scan of other case files, nodded. “Yeah, he likes that length. Check on orders of that length, and lengths with two-foot multiples.” She shut her eyes a minute. “Silver tarnishes, doesn’t it? Gets spotty or something with age.”

  “You gotta keep it polished unless it’s coated. Lab said this was uncoated sterling. I got the report right here, and there’s no mention of any chemical, any polish on the metal. He could’ve wiped it pretty clean, I guess. I don’t know how much might stay on, or what the hell it does to the metal.”

  “Highlight the two-foot purchases,” Eve decided. “List them chronologically, going back from the date of the murder. My guess is he’d want a nice, shiny new tool for each job.”

  She cut transmission, pondered a bit over the properties of sterling silver, then picked through the files yet again, following the wire.

  Other investigators had followed it as well, but in less than half the cases they had done full scans on specific lengths. And in half of those, the primary had focused on suppliers in the city and environs of the murder only.

  Sloppy. Goddamn sloppy.

  She glanced up, still scowling, as Roarke came in. “What happens to silver when you polish it?”

  “It gets shiny.”

  “Ha-ha. I mean, does the polish stuff leave a coat on it, or what?”

  He sat on the edge of her desk, smiled at her. “Why, I wonder, would you suppose I’d know the answer to that?”

  “You know every damn thing.”

  “That’s flattering, Lieutenant, but domestic activities such as silver polishing are just slightly out of my aegis. Ask Summerset.”

  “I don’t want to. That would require speaking to him on a voluntary basis. I’ll tag somebody in the lab.”

  But when she started to reach for her ’link, Roarke simply waved her away, and contacted his majordomo on the house ’link. “Summerset, does silver polish leave a coating of any sort on the metal?”

  Thin-faced, pale of complexion, and dark of eye, Summerset filled the ’link screen. “On the contrary, if properly done the polish is buffed away or the silver would be cloudy, and the process removes a minute layer of the metal.”

  “Thank you. Helpful?” he asked Eve when he’d ended transmission.

  “Just plugging holes. Do you sell silver wire?”

  “Oh, I imagine.”

  “Yeah, so did I.”

  “If you’d like help tracing the murder weapon—”

  “McNab’s on it. We’ll see how far we can fumble without you in that area.”

  “Of course. But you did want to discuss something with me.”

  “Yeah. Where’s your pal?”

  “Mick’s enjoying the pool. And we’ve a couple of hours before our guests begin to arrive.”

  “Okay.” But she rose, walked across the room, and closed her office door. And standing there, looked back, studying the man she loved, had married, and lived with. “The hit, if we accept the theory that this was a hired job, cost two million plus expenses, at the minimum. Who would spend that much to inconvenience or embarrass
or upset you?”

  “I can’t tell you. There are certainly a number of competitors, professional rivals, or foes, those who have a personal dislike for me who have the financial resources to invest that much money to disturb me.”

  “How many of that number wouldn’t see murder as too high a price?”

  “In business?” He lifted his hands. “I’ve made a lot of enemies, certainly, but the battles are generally waged in meeting rooms, over ledgers. While it’s not unthinkable that one of them might reach flash point and decide eliminating me is a worthwhile business move, I can’t think of a reason, logically, why killing a maid in one of my hotels would answer.”

  “Not all your battles used to be waged in meeting rooms, or over ledgers.”

  “No. But even they were direct. If we’re dealing with an old grudge, it would still be me or mine targeted. I didn’t even know that girl.”

  “There.” She stepped forward now, moving in on him, her eyes on his face. “That’s the point I keep circling back to. It hurts you, it preys on your mind. And it pisses you off.”

  “There are other ways to accomplish all of that without killing an innocent girl.”

  “Who wouldn’t care?” she insisted. “Past or present. What major deals do you have going on right now where the balance could be shifted if you’re not focused, not on top of it. Olympus? When we took those few days last week you spent a lot of time fixing stuff.”

  “The sort of thing that’s expected to arise in a project of that size and scope. It’s under control.”

  “Would it be if you weren’t at the helm?”

  He considered. “There might be some added delays, costs, some complications, but, yes, I have a strong team in every area of that project. As I do on all major holdings. I’m not indispensable, Eve.”

  “Bullshit.” She said it with such force, it startled him. “You have your finger on every button in every deal or organization. The whole damn mess you’ve built would spin without you, fine, but it wouldn’t spin the same way. There’s only one you. Who’ve you bumped up against who doesn’t want to play it your way?”