Obsession in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Eve pulled up at the lofty dual towers spearing over the Hudson. Since she wasn’t in the mood for snotty, superior doormen, she flipped on her On Duty light and got out of the car, badge in hand.

  The doorman, decked in ruby-red jacket with silver braiding, silver pants with a red tuxedo stripe, scowled at it, at her, at the dead ordinary vehicle.

  “We only let prime rides sit out here. We got an ambience to uphold.”

  “Ambience? Is that why you’re decked out like something that should be on some weird little girl’s doll shelf?”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched. “We got an underground lot,” he began.

  “This is my badge, that’s my vehicle—and it stays where I put it.”

  “Look, look, I’m not trying to give you trouble. My brother-in-law’s on the job in Queens.”

  “Good for him. Carmine Atelli.”

  The doorman heaved a long, windy sigh. “Penthouse West. Badge or not, you’re going to have to log in, and they’re going to buzz up to Mr. Atelli, ask if he’ll receive. He works nights, so he mostly sleeps days.”

  “I’m his wake-up call.”

  With Peabody, Eve walked into the slick, shiny lobby with its glossy red walls, silver floors. Huge black vases flanked a seating area, filled with flowers that looked like they’d been plucked from a garden on Venus.

  Ambience, she thought. It took all kinds.

  A table held a bowl of glossy red apples, and a sleek black computer.

  “You’ve got to log in there,” the doorman told her. “You can’t access the elevators unless you have a swipe or you log in and get cleared.”

  Eve held her badge up for scanning. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, NYPSD.”

  One moment, please, for verification . . .

  “You could cut through this bullshit,” she said to the doorman.

  He pokered up in a way that made Eve think he didn’t much like his brother-in-law in Queens.

  “I’m not supposed to clear anybody up without the resident’s say-so.”

  Identification verified for Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia. Please state the nature of your business and/or the resident you wish to visit.

  “Carmine Atelli, Penthouse West.”

  One moment please while Mr. Atelli is notified. Would you like to state the nature of your visit?

  “You got two cops in the lobby. Guess.”

  Unable to comply.

  “Underground business must be good,” Peabody commented to the doorman. “For Atelli to rate a place like this.”

  “Couldn’t say. I haven’t been down there since I was sixteen and lost a bet.” The doorman hustled over to open the door for a woman wrapped in a blue coat, with a mile of multicolored scarf wrapped around her neck, an earflap hat pulled low over her head, and thick mittens on her hands.

  She had three yappy little dogs, all in plaid sweaters—and, to Eve’s amazement, tiny boots—on leashes.

  “Thanks, Chester.”

  She led the yapping, booted dogs to the elevators, hauling and clucking when they tried to drag her to Eve and Peabody.

  “Sorry!” She trilled out a laugh. “They don’t bite!”

  She pulled a swipe out of her pocket, then made kissing noises and herded the trio into the elevator.

  “Those dogs had boots.”

  “I guess their paws get cold,” Peabody said.

  “Huh. Who makes tiny dog boots? Who thinks to make tiny dog boots? How do you know what size to buy? This is an area with many, many questions.”

  Mr. Atelli will receive you. Please use Elevator C. Enjoy your visit, and the rest of your day.

  The elevator rode swiftly and silently to the penthouse level, then opened into a private foyer painted dove-wing gray and holding a pair of black lacquer benches. A large white orchid bowed between them from a pedestal in the form of an elongated, naked woman.

  Niches ranged on the opposing walls, all filled with jewel-toned bottles and statues—all women in various states of undress.

  Even as she stepped up to press the button on the inner door, Carmine opened it.

  He wore black lounging pants in a silky hue, and some sort of short black robe, open over a snug white tank. Gilded blond hair fell in tousled waves around a sharply handsome face. He smiled, gestured them in. A large stone winked on his finger—the same silvery blue as his eyes.

  “Ladies, an unexpected pleasure.”

  “Not ladies, not a pleasure. Cops and police business.”

  “Different perspectives. Please, come in, sit.”

  Windows backed the living area, with dwarf lemon trees, heavy with fruit, bathing in the pale winter sun that slipped through them.

  Low-slung gel sofas in navy, double-wide chairs in navy and gray stripes ranged with tables with a dull nickel finish. Splashes of color came from the art—the female form again, in every hue, sinuous or robust, sensual or pastoral.

  As he gestured for them to sit, a woman wandered down a curve of steps. Her hair tumbled, flame-red, down the back of a short, white robe that gapped open enough to showcase impressive breasts—and the fact that she was a natural redhead, or had her hair colored above and below.

  Her voice, sleepy as her cat-green eyes, purred. “You want coffee, baby?”

  “Sure do. I wake you up?”

  “The ringer did, but that’s okay. Josie’s out though.”

  “Maybe we’ll both wake her up when I’m done here.” He sent her a grin and a wink, got a husky laugh as she kept wandering out of sight.

  “So, Lieutenant, Detective.” He spread his hands as he sat. “What can I do for you?”

  “What time did you get home this morning, Carmine?” Eve asked him.

  “About five-thirty, I think. I took off a little early this morning as Josie’s in town. A good friend,” he added, “who’s been in Europe for a few months. She and Vivi and I had a drink—here—then went to bed. Is there a problem with my place?”

  “None I know of. Was Ledo in your place last night?”

  “Playing pool. Maybe a round of Sexcapades. His eyes are about shot, and he can’t keep his hands steady, but he’s still got an instinct with a cue. If he ditched the junk, he could ride the cue to a good life.”

  He paused when the redhead—Vivi, Eve assumed—wheeled out a silver coffee cart.

  “At your service, baby.”

  “Vivi here services private shuttles.”

  “On and off planet,” Vivi added, and handed Carmine a big white cup with a brown sugar stirrer. “How would you like yours?” She smiled easily at Eve and Peabody.

  “Just black,” Eve told her.

  “I take coffee regular,” Peabody said. “Thanks.”

  Vivi poured, doctored Peabody’s. “You need me to go?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Eve said before Carmine spoke. “Did Ledo have any trouble at your place—last night, or recently?”

  “Ledo works hard to avoid trouble. If he smells it coming, he runs. It’s the funk and the junk that’ll kill him.”

  “Actually, it was a pool cue.”

  “What?” Carmine looked over the rim of his wide cup as Eve took hers from Vivi. “Ledo? Dead?”

  “Since shortly after six this morning.”

  “Did somebody go after him on his way from my place to his flop? He couldn’t have had that much on him. I have to check the feed.”

  “I want a copy of your feed.”

  Carmine looked back at Eve—she saw the protest in his eyes. Then he swore under his breath, pushed up. He crossed over to a house ’link.

  “Who’s Ledo?” Vivi asked Eve.

  “Small-time illegals dealer with a talent for pool currently on a slab at the morgue.”

  Vivi shook her head. “I don’t know why peo
ple go around killing people. Life’s short enough, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Carmine,” she added as he came back over. “He was a friend of yours?”

  “Not really, no. Just a Gametown regular. I’m having a copy of last night’s security feed sent to you at Central.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “If you’re looking at me for it, I’ve got one alibi here.” He sat again, ran a hand over Vivi’s bare leg when she sat on the low arm beside him. “And another still warming the bed. Security here will show me coming in this morning—right around five-thirty.”

  “Okay. Do you know if anyone’s been hanging around, asking about him? Anybody new getting tight with him?”

  “Nobody was tight with Ledo. He had some regulars who played with him, and he did his business—most of that in the tunnels, to keep it off the feed in case of a sweep. I never heard anybody get riled at him. Not seriously. Some of the female gamers might tell him to piss off when he’d try to do a come-on—but nothing ugly. I can’t see anybody beating him to death with a pool cue, and I know for a fact it didn’t happen in my place.”

  Eve let his assumption of beaten to death ride. “Do you know where he lived?”

  “A couple blocks from Gametown—and above. I’m not sure exactly, just it was close. He said something about it, or I heard. He lived in the Square.”

  “Okay.” Eve set her cup down. “We appreciate the cooperation.”

  “Did he have family?”

  Surprised by the question, Eve, on the point of rising, sat again. “Why?”

  “I’ll take care of the arrangements for him.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “He was a regular, and he brought in business. He still had a rep with a cue, and gamers came in to play against him. People come in, they buy drinks, sex, play other games. He was a screwed-up junkie, but I never knew of him hurting anybody but himself. He doesn’t deserve to get shoved in the state furnace. If he doesn’t have somebody, I’ll take care of it.”

  “He has a mother,” Peabody told him, glancing at her PPC. “In Trenton.”

  Carmine nodded. “If she can’t afford to take care of him, I will. If you can let me know.”

  “I can do that.”

  “He was just a screwed-up, harmless asshole,” Carmine murmured.

  And that, Eve thought, was the perfect epitaph for Ledo.

  • • •

  Back at Central Eve booked a conference room, sent out a division-wide memo. Anyone not active in the field or obliged to be in court would be required to attend the briefing.

  She wrote her report on Ledo, copied Whitney, Mira—and included her notes on her visit to Hilly Decker.

  She updated her board, spent some time staring at it.

  An incoming from Mira contained another five names—two New York residents this time.

  She read all the letters—got the same queasy feeling at the idea of being the center of someone’s intense attention and need.

  After adding the letters, the ID shots to her growing file, she opted to hunt down Yancy. Maybe Misty Polinsky had come through with something—anything—they could use.

  She found Yancy at his desk, working at his comp with his artist pad at his elbow. His mass of hair curled around an appealing face—she’d seen him use his looks to distract a wit from nerves.

  “Hey, Dallas, I was just getting this ready for you. You just missed Misty. Ah, Roarke sent her transpo—I figured you knew.”

  “Yeah. How’d she do?”

  “Pretty good once we got rolling. She actually drew this.”

  He picked up the sketch pad, tossed back a page. “She’s got some raw talent.”

  Eve frowned down at the image of someone who looked to be wearing a combination of sweeper cover and a hazmat suit.

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s close. Working with her, we got more like this.”

  He turned over his own sketch.

  “Burly build.”

  “Maybe. But working with her, again, she said she thought, was nearly sure, the bug guy—she calls him—was wearing his coat under the suit. White coverall—but she remembered seeing boots, which she covered up in her initial sketch. She thinks brown work boots. Brown gloves like you see here. She remembered that—the brown against the white cover. Work boots, work gloves. And the white hood, pulled up, pretty sure again attached to the cover. And you see, she’s got this brown ski cap under it. Then the mask, and safety glasses. Her impression was the bug guy was white, but she’s not sure.”

  “Never got a look at his face,” Eve stated flatly.

  “Nope. Goggles, hood, mask. And when she peeked out, talked to him, he turned away. Her impression was he was pretty strong as he hauled the tank easily. But we don’t know how full or heavy it was.”

  “You can buy coveralls like this at any hardware, paint store, uniform shop. Same with the mask, the glasses. Nothing stood out? No logo, company name?”

  “What stood out when we got into it was the lack of any. The sprayer? You can buy that at any hardware, et cetera. My granddad has one for spraying deer repellent on his flowers.”

  “Okay. It was worth a shot. You’ll send me a copy of the finished sketch?”

  “I was just doing that. She really did try, Dallas. But she only saw what was there, and what was there was covered top to bottom.”

  Who looks at a bug exterminator? Eve thought as she headed back to Homicide. Or a delivery person? People saw the outfit, the tools, but not the person—not particularly.

  Smart.

  Smarter yet to kill in winter when being covered up didn’t raise any suspicion.

  She checked the time, decided to go straight to the conference room, but Peabody headed her off.

  “I finally dug up the super in Ledo’s building. No exterminator ordered for nearly two years.”

  “I think we’d already gotten there.”

  “Well, it goes in the checked-off column. I did notification on Ledo, spoke with the mother. Basically, she wanted to know why it was her problem. She hasn’t seen him in fifteen years, give or take. We didn’t talk long—what’s the point? Should I contact Atelli on it?”

  Eve hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not? If he’s willing to give Ledo a decent send-off, who are we to say no?” She checked her wrist unit for time. “The sweeper report hasn’t come in yet, and I want to go by the morgue. But we’ll do this briefing first.”

  “Is there anything you want me to set up?”

  “There’s nothing to set up. We can’t issue a BOLO for an individual dressed like an exterminator or a delivery person.”

  On second thought, her people deserved the whole shot, so she went to her office, pulled her files, her book, did her own setting up in the conference room.

  By the time they started straggling in, she had the board set. Photos of the two victims, the crime scenes, the timelines on both, along with Yancy’s sketch and a still of the killer as delivery person.

  Jenkinson approached the board. He wore a tie with blue and yellow polka dots on a red background—his neckwear was becoming infamous—and looked tired around the eyes.

  Eve cast her mind back to his caseload, remembered he and Reineke were working a double homicide. A couple of teenagers sliced up for the airboards they’d gotten for Christmas.

  “Any progress on your case?” she asked him.

  “Got feed from Transit on the subway stop where the kids got off. Three other kids got off behind them, looks like they followed them out. We’re working on face recognition. We’ll get the fuckers.”

  He nodded to the board. “Facial recognition’s not going to do squat on this one. Can’t say I thought much of Bastwick. Seemed like she got off trying to twist cops up on the stand. Then again, you knew you were going up against her, you made sure you were prepared.
No harm in that.”

  No, Eve thought as he wandered off for a seat. But not every cop was a Jenkinson. Not every cop prepared well enough not to get twisted up.

  “Let’s get this done,” she said to the room at large, “so all of us can get back to taking down some bad guys. First vic, Bastwick, Leanore. Most of you know who she was, had some sort of brush with her. But for those who don’t.”

  She went through it, gave the background, gave details of the murder, the crime scene. Then brought the message up on screen.

  That brought on some mumbles, some chair scraping. Most of them, she noted, studying faces, had heard something about it already. But the lid had stayed on tight enough that the full details of the message came as a surprise.

  “We expect this to leak, and soon, but I don’t want the leak coming out of this room, coming out of my division. Peabody and I have followed through with this investigation on two levels. The first looking for someone who had motive, means, and opportunity to kill Bastwick. The second, someone with motive, means, and opportunity connected to me in some way. This connection is, by high probability, a delusion. The UNSUB is, according to Dr. Mira’s profile, organized, controlled, efficient. The killer left no trace at the scene, took great care to prevent any possible chance of identification, and, we believe, studied and stalked Bastwick long enough to know her routines.”

  “Somebody like Bastwick made plenty of enemies,” Baxter commented. “And somebody who figured her for an enemy could decide they’re your friend.”

  “Following that line, correspondence sent to me is being analyzed. Again, Peabody and I have followed up on individuals Mira has flagged as potentials. We’re also studying the vic’s own threat file, looking for suspects, and cross-referencing them with mine.”

  She turned, expanding the board to include Ledo. “Second victim, Ledo, Wendall, low-level illegals dealer with a fondness for his own products.”

  “Shit. Ledo.” Reineke leaned forward, nearly dipped his wrinkled tie in his coffee mug. “I busted him when he was still a minor. He was an asshole then, grew up an asshole. Guess he died as one. Can’t see a connection to Bastwick. She wouldn’t take somebody like him as a client.”