by J. D. Robb
“A number of them.” He noticed Vince’s avaricious glance at a pair of nineteenth-century dueling pistols. Obligingly, Roarke used the palm plate and his code to release the lock on the reinforced glass case. He drew a pistol from its slot, passed it to Magda’s son.
“Beautiful.”
“Oooh.” Liza gave a little shudder, but Eve caught the bright lust in her eyes. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Not in its present state.” Roarke spared her a smile and showed her another case. “The little one there, the one with the jeweled grip. Designed for a lady’s hand and her purse. It once belonged to a wealthy widow who, in the unsettled days of the early part of the century, carried it with her whenever she took her morning walk with her Pomeranian. She’s reputed to have shot an unlucky mugger, two looters, a discourteous doorman, and a Lhasa apso with carnal intentions regarding her Pom.”
“Goodness.” Gilt lashes fluttered over Liza’s violet eyes. “She shot a dog?”
“So they say.”
“A far different time.” Mick studied a semiautomatic in gleaming chrome. “Amazing, isn’t it,” he said to Eve, “that anyone with the price in his pocket and the desire in his heart could pick up one of these over the counter, or under it, before the Gun Ban?”
“I always thought more stupid than amazing.”
“You aren’t a defender of the right to bear arms, Lieutenant?” Vince asked, turning the dueling pistol in his hand. He imagined himself looking very dashing.
She glanced back at the mean little automatic. “That’s not designed to defend. It’s designed to kill.”
“Still.” With some reluctance, he replaced the pistol in its slot and wandered over to where she stood with Mick. “People continue to find a way. If they didn’t, you’d be out of a job.”
“Vincent, that’s rude.”
“No, it’s not.” Eve nodded. “You’re right, people find a way. But it’s been some years since we’ve had disturbed children slaughtering other children in school hallways, or half-asleep spouses shooting their partners when they stumble in the dark, or neighborhoods under siege from gangs who carelessly shoot bystanders while they try to shoot each other. I think the old slogan was, Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People. And it’s true enough. But a gun gives them a hell of a lot of help.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Mick put in. “Never did like the ugly, noisy things myself. Now a good sticker—” He strolled away a bit to a display of knives. “At least a man’s got to get close enough to look you in the eye before he tries you with one of these. Takes more courage to stand toe-to-toe and stick a man than it does to blast away at him from a distance. But me, I’ll stick with my fists.”
He turned away, grinned. “A good, sweaty brawl solves most disputes, and mostly everyone can limp away from it and have a pint. We broke some noses in our day, didn’t we, Roarke?”
“Probably more than our share.” He relocked the case. “Coffee?” he said smoothly.
chapter six
Eve strapped on her weapon and eyed her husband. He was enjoying a light breakfast in the sitting area of their bedroom. The morning news was playing on the wall screen and the stock reports skimmed by in a puzzling series of codes and figures on the tabletop unit.
The cat, Galahad, lounged beside him, with one of his dual-colored eyes aimed hopefully at a slice of Irish bacon neglected on Roarke’s plate.
“How can you look like you’ve just come home from a week’s vacation in some pamper spa?” she demanded.
“Clean living?”
“My ass. I know you were up till after three, drinking whiskey and telling lies with your pal. I heard his looney laugh as the pair of you stumbled upstairs.”
“He might have been a bit unsteady at the end of it.” He turned to her, his eyes blue and clear and rested. “A few fingers of whiskey’s never been known to set me under. I’m sorry we woke you.”
“It couldn’t have been for long. I never heard you come to bed.”
“I needed to pour Mick into his first.”
“What are you going to do with him today?”
“He has business of his own, and will make his way about well enough. Summerset can tell him where I’ll be if he wants to know.”
“I thought you’d probably work from here today.”
“No.” He watched her over his coffee cup. “Not today. Stop worrying about me, Lieutenant. You have enough on your plate.”
“You’re the main course.”
He laughed at that and rose to kiss her. “I’m very touched.”
“Don’t be touched.” She gripped his arms once, firmly, to make her point. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be both.”
“Will you at least use a driver? And the limo.” The limo, she knew, was reinforced and could withstand a hailstorm of boomers.
“Yes, to set your mind at ease.”
“Thanks. I’ve got to get going.”
“Lieutenant?”
“What?”
He cupped her face in his hands, gently touched his lips to her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “I love you.”
Everything inside her shifted, shimmered, settled. “I know. Even though I’m not a French redhead with a rich daddy. How much did you take her for?”
“In what area?”
She laughed, shook her head. “Never mind.” But at the door she stopped, looked back at him. “I love you, too. Oh, and Galahad just copped your bacon.”
She strode down the hall, but caught the mild exasperation in Roarke’s voice. “Haven’t we discussed that sort of behavior?” It made her smirk a little as she took the steps in a jog.
At the bottom, lurking as she thought of it, was Summerset. He held her leather jacket between one long thumb and one bony finger. “I will assume you’ll be home for the evening meal unless I hear to the contrary.”
“Assume all you want.” She took the jacket, but glanced back up the stairs as she shrugged into it. “I need you a minute.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stuff the attitude back up your pointy nose,” she suggested, but she kept her voice lowered. She aimed a finger at the front door, then swung it open. “Come on.”
“I have several tasks on this morning’s schedule,” he began.
“Quiet.” She shut the door behind him, drew in a breath of sweet spring air. “You’ve been with him for a long time, and you know all there is to know. First give me your take on Mick Connelly.”
“I’m not in the habit of gossiping about houseguests.”
“Goddamn it.” She rapped a fist on his chest, an impatient gesture that caused Summerset to show his teeth. “Do I look like I want a cozy gossip here? Somebody wants to shake Roarke. I don’t know why, I don’t know the bottom line, but someone’s looking to cause him trouble. Give me your take on Connelly.”
Summerset’s eyes, which had gone black as onyx at the fist to his chest, narrowed. Considered her. “He was wild as they all were. They were wild times. My understanding was he had a difficult home life, but then all of them did. Some worse than others. He came around when Roarke settled in with me. Polite enough, if rough around the edges. Hungry, but they were all hungry.”
“Did he ever square off with Roarke?”
“There were words and fists at one time or another between all of them. Mick would have cut off his fingers for Roarke. Any of them would. Mick looked up to him. Roarke took a beating for him once, from the cops,” Summerset added with a sneer. “When Mick fumbled a pass off after a pocket dip.”
“Okay. All right.” She relaxed a little.
“This is about the chambermaid.”
“Yeah. I want you to use that yard-long nose of yours for something other than looking down at inferiors. Sniff around, past and present. If you catch a whiff of anything, anything that’s off, contact me. You can monitor Roarke without putting his back up. He expects you to know where he is. Make sure you do.”
Summerset put a
hand on her arm to stop her from turning away. “Is he in any sort of physical jeopardy?”
“If I thought he was, he wouldn’t get out of the house even if I had to drug him and put him in restraints.”
Forced to be satisfied with that, Summerset watched her go down the steps to where her increasingly dilapidated city-issue vehicle was parked.
Eve imagined the steam gushing out of her ears as she marched through the detective’s bull pen and on to her office. Her ’link light was blinking busily from messages and her computer was beeping from fresh incoming data.
She ignored both and began riffling through her drawers.
“Sir? McNab—”
“I want a riot laser,” Eve snapped at Peabody. “Full body armor.” She yanked a six-inch combat knife from its leather sheath and watched, with glee, as its wicked serrated edge caught the sunlight through her little window.
Peabody’s eyes popped. “Sir?”
“I’m going down to Maintenance, and I’m going locked and loaded. I’m taking those piss-brain sons of bitches out, one by one. Then I’m going to haul what’s left of the bodies into my vehicle and set it on fire.”
“Jesus, Dallas, I thought we had a red flag.”
“I’ve got a red flag. I’ve got one.” Her eyes wheeled to Peabody. “I’ve got under fifty miles on my ride since those lying, cheating, sniveling shitheads said it was road ready. Road ready? Do you want me to tell you about road ready?”
“I would like that very much, Lieutenant. If you’d sheathe that knife first.”
With one last oath of disgust, Eve rammed the blade home. “It starts bucking on me while I’m sitting at a light. Just sitting and it’s kicking like a . . .”
“Mule?”
“Probably. I run the diagnostic, and you know what it does? It brings up the dash map with directions to the morgue. Is that some sick joke?”
Peabody’s lips quivered. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Then it coughs and stalls, and I get it going again. Two blocks and it’s lurching. You know, lurching like . . .”
“Frankenstein’s monster?”
Out of steam now, Eve dropped into her chair. “I’m a lieutenant. A ranked officer. Why can’t I get a decent vehicle?”
“It’s a sad state of affairs. Sir, if I might suggest, rather than going down with a riot laser, you could try a case of beer. Get on the good side of a couple of the crew down there. Make nice.”
“Make . . . nice? I’d rather swallow a live snake. You call down. Tell them I need my vehicle up and running within the hour.”
“Me?” Peabody’s eyes pricked with what might have been tears. “Oh, man. Before I go off to debase myself, I should tell you that we tightened the line on the wire, and the luggage.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Instantly Eve swung to her computer.
“I don’t know what got into me, Lieutenant. Standing here like a chatterbox.” When that didn’t get a rise, Peabody huffed out a sigh and went back to her cubicle to bargain with Maintenance.
“Okay, okay, what have we got.” Eve ordered the data on-screen. There were numerous sources for and purchases of the silver wire that matched the murder weapon. But when you filtered it down to two-foot lengths and two-foot multiples, that number narrowed to eighteen globally and six nationwide. With one single purchase of four lengths of two, cash payment, from a wholesaler right in Manhattan.
“Right here, what do we bet you bought it right here. Twenty blocks from the murder scene.”
As she read the data on the luggage, a grim smile tightened her lips. There were thousands of purchases of the black leather carry-on since January, but focusing on the last four weeks, she found less than a hundred. And of the dozen or so purchased in New York City, there were only two selected on the same day the wire had been bought. And only one paid for with cash.
“There are no coincidences,” she murmured. “You got your supplies right here. Now why would a man buy a transpo carry-on if he’d already done the trip? There was no trip. You were already here.”
Wigs, she thought, and switched to Peabody’s search and scan. “Jesus, why don’t people just grow their own hair?” Literally millions of wigs, hairpieces, extensions, fillers, and fluffers had walked out of salons and stores and suppliers over the last six months.
She more than tripled that amount if she included rentals.
Patient as a cat at a mouse hole now, she pulled up the image of Yost outside the door of the suite, highlighted head and shoulders, erased the face, ordered a computer image of three hundred and sixty degrees, then dumped the result into the data bank.
“Computer, list cash-only purchases of human hair wig matching current image.”
WORKING . . . FIVE-HUNDRED-TWENTY-SIX PURCHASES, CASH, OF IMAGED PRODUCT IN REQUESTED PERIOD. LISTING . . .
While her computer spewed out the supplier locations and dates of purchase, Eve followed on-screen.
PARADISE SALON, RETAIL, FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, MAY THREE.
“Hold. And we have a winner. Busy boy that day, weren’t you, shopping all over town. Computer, list any other purchases on this receipt.”
WORKING . . . IN ADDITION TO HUMAN HAIR WIG MODEL DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN, RECEIPT INCLUDES PURCHASE OF HUMAN HAIR WIG MODEL CAPTAIN STUD; TWO TWELVE-OUNCE BOTTLES OF WIG GROOMING PRODUCT, BRAND NAME SAMPSON; ONE SIX-OUNCE BOTTLE OF COLLAGEN ELIXIR FOR FACE, BRAND NAME YOUTH; ONE EACH OF TEMPORARY EYE TINT, BRAND NAME WINK, IN VIKING BLUE, SEA MIST, AND CARAMEL CREAM; ONE DIETARY PRODUCT, BRAND NAME FAT-ZAP FOR MEN; AND TWO THREE-BY-SIX-INCH SCENTED CANDLES, SANDLEWOOD. PURCHASES TOTAL EIGHT THOUSAND, FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX DOLLARS AND FIFTY-EIGHT CENTS, INCLUDING ALL APPLICABLE TAXES.
“A lot of cash,” Eve mused, “but why leave a paper trail, even a false one, if you don’t have to? Computer, add image of Captain Stud brand wig to file. Copy addresses of luggage store, salon, and jewelry supplier, my PPC.”
While her computer completed the tasks, Eve turned to her ’link. Thirty-two calls, she noted, since she’d logged out the day before. Odds were the bulk of them were from reporters hoping for a statement or sound bite.
It was tempting just to dump them, but until Peabody reported her vehicle was a go, she could spare a little time.
She started through them, automatically transferring the usual media pleas to NYPSD Media Relations. Until she was told differently, directly from her commander, she wasn’t talking to the press.
She paused on the transmission from Nadine Furst, the star of Channel 75, and a personal friend. “Not yet, pal,” she murmured, but answered the message with a time delay. That way, she’d be in the field before Nadine received it.
“No point in nagging me,” Eve said. “I don’t have anything you can use at this point. The investigation is ongoing, all leads are being pursued with diligence, and blah, blah. You know the routine. When and if I have something for you, I’ll be in touch. You tie up my ’link, I’m not going to feel very friendly.”
Satisfied with that, Eve programmed the message to transmit in sixty minutes. She took twenty of them to write an updated report, then transmitted it to her commander.
She’d no more than pushed away from her desk and reached for her jacket when the summons from Commander Whitney came through.
As a matter of course, she snagged Peabody on the way up. “Maintenance?”
“Well, you know they have the whole how-backed-up-and-put-upon-they-are routine down pretty pat.”
Eve stepped onto the people glide, scowled. “Did you mention riot weapons?”
“I thought it best to hold that possibility in reserve, sir.” Just as she thought it best not to mention the snide comments made about a certain lieutenant’s track record with city vehicles and equipment. “But I made the priority of your current investigation clear, and indicated that Commander Whitney frowned on having his ranked officers going out into the field in a piece of junk.”
> “That was good thinking.”
“As long as nobody down there calls him for verification. You know, Dallas, you could request that the commander put the arm on them.”
“I’m not whining to my superior, or pulling rank.”
“You don’t mind having me do it,” Peabody muttered.
“That’s right.” Slightly more cheerful, Eve switched from glide to elevator. “You’ll get your update on where we are in the case when I give the oral to Whitney. I think our man has a homey little hole right here in New York.”
“Here?”
“Yeah.” Geared up, Eve stepped off the elevator on Whitney’s level.
Since she was waved directly through, Eve knocked briefly on Whitney’s door, then stepped in.
He was seated behind his desk, and didn’t rise. He was a big man with dark, wide face and beefy shoulders, hair rapidly going gray and eyes that remained street-sharp.
There were two other people in the room, male and female. Neither of them rose either, but both studied her closely. As she did them.
The dull and boxy black suits with ties ruthlessly knotted at the neck, the good shoes with their military shine, and the cold survey tipped her off.
Feds. Shit.
“Lieutenant, Officer.” Whitney inclined his head and kept his big hands folded on his desk. “Special Agents James Jacoby and Karen Stowe. FBI. Lieutenant Dallas is primary on the Darlene French homicide investigation. Officer Peabody is her aide. The FBI has some interest in your case, Lieutenant.”
Eve said nothing, and stayed on her feet.
“The Bureau, in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, has been pursuing the individual Sylvester Yost for several years in connection with various crimes, including murder.”
Eve met Jacoby’s eyes. “I’m aware of that from my research.”
“The Bureau expects the cooperation of the NYPSD in this pursuit. Agent Stowe and myself will run the case from the New York field office.”
