Connections in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Do you have pictures of anything that was taken?”

  “I— God.” Rochelle framed her face with her hands, pushed in with them. “My mind’s just drained out. I took a selfie on Valentine’s Day, wearing the earrings. One of me and Wilson together. It’s on my ’link.”

  Because her hand shook, Walter took her ’link when she pulled it from her pocket. “I’ll find it, Ro. You should sit down.”

  “I just need to move a minute.” She paced the little room, struggled to regulate her breathing. “I never wore the brooch. It was cheap and gaudy, but it was my mother’s so I kept it.”

  “Gram has a picture of her wearing it.”

  She stopped, looked at Walter. “Of course she does. I forgot.”

  “Can you get that to me?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Walter said, and held out the ’link to his sister. “Is this the one?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it. They’re so pretty.”

  And shiny, Eve thought as she studied the photo on-screen. Gold dangles glittering with heart-shaped red and clear drops.

  “Peabody.”

  Peabody moved to Walter, gave him the codes to send a copy of the photo.

  “I don’t think I have one of the bangle.”

  “Describe it.”

  “It’s about an inch wide, I guess, three circles of colored stones. Like cabochons, in ah, purple and green and amber. It’s not worth the stealing, but I liked it.”

  “Check the rest.”

  Once she had, Rochelle shook her head. “I don’t see anything else.”

  “Let’s check Lyle’s room.”

  Rochelle gripped Walter’s hand before they crossed the hall.

  “His Save It jar. I know that was at least half-full.” She moved to his closet. Her voice had thickened, but she managed to keep it steady. “His good high-tops are gone. He didn’t wear them to work—grease and spills. He only wore them when he went out, over to Martin’s, or sometimes when he went to church with Gram.”

  “Earned his points,” Walter murmured and shared a smile with his sister.

  “That’s right. Grammy points. Black Lightning high-tops, with the white lightning bolt down the back. Size … I think size ten.”

  She walked to the dresser. “I don’t know what he had, I mean, what he might’ve kept in his dresser.”

  “Is there anything you know he had that might be missing? Something shiny, say, like your jewelry, or eye-catching like your purse. Or usable like the shoes?”

  “I don’t really—”

  “Did he have his earbuds on him?” Walter asked. “He’d have had them in his pocket, or if he was going to shower and change like he told Ro, he’d have put them on the dresser.”

  “We don’t have earbuds in his effects.”

  “They’re good ones. Martin and Clara gave them to him for Christmas. Bodell buds. Black. The Exec level. He prized them. And they’re worth something.”

  Eve had them search, but already knew they were gone.

  “We’ll follow up on the missing items,” Eve told them. “If they try to pawn anything, we’ll trace it back. This is very helpful.”

  “I just don’t understand.” Rochelle ran a hand over her face, over her thick wedge of hair, down to the back of her neck. “If they tried to make it look like Lyle was using again and overdosed, why did they take anything? We’d have known somebody stole those things.”

  “If you’d believed Lyle was using again, what would you think when you found your jewelry missing?”

  As she lowered her restless hand, Rochelle sighed. “That he’d taken it to get money for illegals. If I’d believed the first, I’d believe the second. But neither’s true.”

  “Exactly, and now we have more lines to tug. The apartment’s clear for you to stay.”

  “Actually, I’m going to pack some things. I’m going to stay at Wilson’s for a few days, and spend time with my family. We’re going to see Lyle later today.”

  “You can go ahead and pack what you need. Walter, why don’t we talk out in the other room?”

  “Are you okay, Ro?”

  “Yes. You go ahead, Walt.”

  He hugged her first, held on a minute, then walked out to leave her alone to pack.

  9

  “I’m going to see if Ro has anything cold. You want?”

  “Sure.”

  He walked into the kitchen—needed composing time himself, Eve thought, though he’d held up well for his sister.

  “She’s got that bug juice—health crap. I wouldn’t go there. A few Cokes because that was Lyle’s … That was Lyle’s poison, especially since he gave up drinking.”

  “I wouldn’t mind the bug juice,” Peabody told him.

  “Okay, that’s on you. I’m going for a hit of one of the Cokes.”

  “I’ll go with that.” Eve watched him from the doorway. He knew where everything was, didn’t have to hunt. “You ever bunk here?”

  “I lived here before college. Ro got the place after she got the job, and we went in on this two-bedroom. I live on campus now, but sometimes I flop on the couch since Lyle…”

  He stopped pouring, braced his hands on the counter. “Rochelle, she needs to cry for a few minutes, then she’ll steady it up. She’s a goddamn rock.”

  “You’re doing pretty well yourself.”

  “She’s never going to feel okay living here again. That’s okay, she should find a better, safer place. With the new job, she can do that. Shine’s off that, right now, but it’ll come back.”

  He finished pouring. “I wasn’t sure about her letting him move in, not at first, even after he got the clear from the halfway house.”

  “It takes time to rebuild trust.”

  “It was just that Ro would be here alone with him, and if he slipped back?”

  He looked over his shoulder at Eve with the eyes he shared with his sister. “I believed he was clean, you could see it, but I thought he should stay in the halfway longer first. Rochelle wouldn’t have it, and she was right. Being here, with her, it helped him with that next transition. He told me that himself. Having Ro be here for him, having her to talk to, knowing she believed he could do it, it helped him.”

  He handed Eve a glass, and with a shake of his head, offered Peabody another filled with army-green liquid. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He went in, sat down. “You want to know the last time I talked to him, so I’ll just start there. He tagged me the night he died. He said he was heading home from work, had the night off and was planning to go see Gram, in case I could make it. I had to study, so I passed.”

  “How often did you see or talk to each other?”

  “We talked or texted every couple of days. He liked to know how things were going. Sometimes he’d come by if I had free time, and we’d hang or go catch a vid. Now and again, he’d flop in my dorm if we stayed up late talking.”

  “You were close.” Peabody gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’ve got sibs. I know how it is.”

  Walter stared at his drink. “We hadn’t been, but we worked on it. We got there. I guess I’d say he could tell me things he didn’t want to tell Martin, maybe even Ro. Martin can be a little it’s black or it’s white.”

  “What kind of things?” Eve prompted. “Dinnie Duff?”

  “Yeah. He felt sort of responsible for her. She was into all that shit before they hooked up, but after they did, he made it easier for her to get the junk, to work the streets—or not work. He took care of her, and he saw that as helping push her down. And under it? He cared about her. They had this common ground, since her father used to smack her around, even raped her when she was like sixteen, so—”

  He broke off when Eve held up a hand. “Duff’s father left long before she turned sixteen. He’d have been in prison when she was sixteen.”

  “But she told him…”

  “Addicts lie.”

  “I know that.” Obviously shaken, Walter dragged a hand over his hair.
“I know it, but she told him all this, and he believed her. She told him her mother was a drunk who turned tricks and was in lockup half the time so she had nobody, had to live on the streets half the time.”

  “Her mother’s a domestic worker, with no criminal record or any indication of alcohol abuse. Duff has an older brother in Atlanta living a decent life.”

  “Jesus, she played him. He believed her. He wasn’t lying to me, Lieutenant. He believed her and felt sorry for her.”

  “I know it.”

  “It made her seem vulnerable, even helpless,” Peabody added. “It made her a victim, gave them that common ground. Could he have found out the truth?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t. I know he finally decided he had to stop giving her money, listening to her bitching. He seemed a little pissed, I guess, but he didn’t say he found out it was all bullshit. I was just glad he’d decided to stop with her, so I didn’t ask too many questions.”

  He rubbed both hands over his face. “Clean break, he said. Screw that shit. Is that why she killed him?”

  “We’re looking at all the angles.”

  “He missed her—not just the sex, but her. Having somebody to be with. He missed sex, too.” Walter smiled a little. “He said he missed having a woman, but he wasn’t going to go there yet. I knew it wasn’t easy for him to keep turning Dinnie away. He could’ve had the bang and walked away—but he didn’t want to risk it.”

  “Did he talk to you about the gang?”

  “Some, when he first got out, not so much in the last few months. He and Slice, they go back, so that was another hard one for him. I think the gang was easier to step back from, because he had family. But the individuals in it were harder. Slice, he was more of a brother to Lyle than Martin was, than I was, for a long time. And Slice wanted him back, told Lyle he’d make him his next in command.”

  “Did he?” Eve asked.

  “Yeah, right after Lyle got out, and again a few weeks later when he had the job. He asked me not to say anything to Ro, so I didn’t. But it was hard for him to say no. He was somebody in the gang before he got busted. And after, he was still somebody because he kept his mouth shut and did the time. He knew he could walk back in there, especially with Slice backing him, and be important, be in charge. Have all the junk and women he wanted, walk down the street and see respect and fear. But he said no.”

  Walter lifted his glass, drank deep. “He took being a short-order cook in an all-night diner, living with his sister, going to meetings instead of hitting a club. Saving his pay instead of pocketing his share from the gang business.”

  Finally, Walter’s voice broke, his eyes swam. “He was a goddamn hero. You find who did this, because Duff didn’t do it alone. You find who shot my brother up with what he’d battled back every damn day. You make it matter.”

  “It does matter. He matters.”

  With effort, he pulled himself together before Rochelle came back, rose to take the small suitcase she carried.

  “We can give you a lift,” Eve offered.

  “No, but thanks. I’m just going to drop this off at Wilson’s, then we’re going to pick up our family, and go see Lyle.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Eve promised, and left them alone.

  “I’ll have the pictures of the two pieces we have sent out,” Peabody said as they walked down and out to the car. “And descriptions of the rest. Big, stupid mistake to steal.”

  “Sloppy again. Crappy planning. The wit gave me more on one of the killers.”

  As Eve passed it on, Peabody noted it down. “Probably jonesing.”

  “Maybe. We’re going to swing by and talk to Crack. Red purse, shiny jewelry. Catches the eye.”

  “Like magpies.”

  “Like what?”

  “Magpies. You know, the bird that’s attracted to shiny objects, uses them in its nest.”

  Eve knew—sort of—what a magpie was because Roarke had pointed them out to her in Ireland. “Magpies,” she murmured. “Yeah, at least one’s like a magpie. The other stuff—the shoes, the buds? That’s somebody who can use them, or knows who can. You can pawn the buds, sell the shoes, but more likely you use them or trade them. Send the beat cops—Zutter and Norton—the descriptions, the pictures. I want to know if they spot any of it.”

  She had to hunt for parking near the Down and Dirty. It did the bulk of its business after dark, but parking didn’t get easier in the daylight.

  When she found a slot two blocks down, she grabbed it.

  “Feel that.” On the sidewalk, Peabody lifted her face. “That’s what sixty degrees feels like. And sun. Winter’s done! It is over!”

  “You say that and just ask for it to dump a round of wet snow on your sixty degrees.”

  But damn if it didn’t feel good to walk without getting slapped in the face by the wind or slogging through the last round of wet whatever decided to fall.

  “How about a soy dog? My treat.”

  Eve knew the street dogs were disgusting, but even Roarke’s amazing menus had never killed her taste for them. “Loaded.”

  “Is there another way?” Peabody almost danced on her pink boots to the cart. “I’m getting a fizzy water. The bug juice was pretty good, but I can’t get rid of the spinach aftertaste.”

  “Fizzy water’s good.” Because cart coffee? That, she had lost her taste for.

  Chowing on loaded dogs, they walked toward the sex club.

  “So, how serious do you figure Crack is about Rochelle?”

  “Because that’s really what’s on my mind right now?”

  Peabody took another bite, talked around it. “There’s always room in the brain for romance. And, you know, spring.”

  “What’s spring got to do with it?”

  “It’s romantic.” Seriously beaming, Peabody licked a little mustard off her thumb. “People get romantic in springtime.”

  “I thought they got romantic in winter for the body heat.”

  “Not sex, romance. Although in spring you could have sex in a meadow, because romantic.”

  “Bugs, bees, possibly snakebites on bare asses.”

  Undeterred—because spring—Peabody pushed on. “He gave her pretty earrings for V-Day. That says serious.”

  “Right now he’s connected through the earrings and the woman whose lobes they dangled from to a couple of pretty serious murders.” Eve polished off the dog. “Let’s stick with that.”

  The Down and Dirty was, as its owner stated, a joint, and that’s just what it wanted to be. It did a solid, sordid business with a mixed clientele of shady characters, wide-eyed tourists who wanted a risky and risqué experience before they went back to humdrum, the horny who’d pay to get lucky in one of the private rooms, and the broody type who seemed content to drink the swill as long as the server was mostly naked.

  She’d had her bachelorette party (stupid term) at the D&D, watched her friends get stupid drunk, and had foiled—barely—an attempt on her life by a wrong cop.

  Good times.

  When she walked in, a holo band had the stage. The lead singer, female, wore elaborate body paint with the fangs of some sort of jungle cat impaling her tits. A large bird—maybe a hawk—flew above her crotch, talons at the ready. Various other predators stalked, fought, and prowled over the rest of her.

  Her bandmates wore G-strings and crotch-high boots while a couple of dancers—live and wearing strategically placed glitter—gyrated.

  Since the dancers worked up a sweat, glitter ran in sparkly streams while the band banged out the chorus: “Gonna pump you like a well, gonna drill you down to hell.”

  Romance, Eve thought, and headed to the bar.

  The single tender, a brute with arms like cut steel, sat on a stool playing with his PPC. Idly, Eve wondered if monsters fought on his screen. Whatever he played, he had the time, as only a scatter of customers drank the swill or watched the show.

  “Is Crack around?”

  “Busy.” The bartender didn’t bother
to look up. “Drink or blow.”

  Since it was precisely the level of charming service Eve expected at the D&D on a spring afternoon, she palmed her badge rather than flashing it.

  “Tell him Dallas and Peabody want a word.”

  He looked up, gave her one hard study, then nodded. “Shoulda said.”

  “I’m saying now.”

  “Back in the office. Hold it.”

  He got up, all rippling cut steel, a single blue braid spilling out from an otherwise shaved head, and went through a door behind the bar.

  “How do they get bodies like that?” Peabody wondered. “Do they pump iron twenty hours a day? Eat some special protein? Sacrifice goats to some primeval god?”

  The last got a snicker out of Eve.

  “It’s scary and exciting at the same time. I’m glad McNab’s not built like that. I don’t think I could handle being scared and excited every day.”

  Crack came out—more rippling cut steel. He wore a deep blue shirt, one that actually buttoned and made him almost look like a businessman.

  “You get them?”

  “Not yet. Can we talk?”

  “Yeah.” He gestured as he came around the bar, led the way to one of the privacy booths. Though it made Eve’s back twitch a little when he lowered the dome, she didn’t object. Especially when he hit Mute on the control, and the band noise dropped to a faint murmur.

  “Dinnie Duff was killed last night.”

  “Son of a bitch. How?”

  “Beaten to death, multiple rapes, some choking. Morris will confirm. He’s my next stop. They left her in the neutral zone between Banger and Dragon turf.”

  “I heard a report on a body found there, but they didn’t give a name or much else.”

  “They will now, since we’ve notified her next of kin.”

  “They killed her so she couldn’t talk. Don’t have to be no skinny-ass cop to figure it. How you gonna find those three motherfuckers now?”

  “By doing the job. If being a skinny-ass cop was easy, everybody would do it.”

  “It’s the job even when the cop doesn’t have a skinny ass.”

  Crack managed a smile at Peabody. “You’ve got a fine ass, girl. I’m just worried about Rochelle, her family, too. Miss Deborah took it hard, real hard.”