Strangers in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Yes, it’s something else I’ve found rewarding. Tommy went beyond providing children with equipment, or even a place to use it. His idea of bringing them together, in training, in competitions, encouraging them to work and play together does so much more than put a ball glove in a child’s hand. It gives them pride, friendships, an understanding of teamwork and sportsmanship. Ava’s vision for the adjunct program is to give exactly that to the mothers. And to put a personal face on it, as Tommy does—did—with his active participation in the camps, in the fathers’ programs, the parent-child competitions.

  “And I’m going to start campaigning for funds any minute,” Karla said with a laugh. “But yes, involvement is key, I think. Charity can be difficult, Lieutenant, to give or receive. These programs are designed to instill pride and self-worth.”

  “Outlining and executing the programs you’ve done with Ava must take incredible planning, an eye for details, a skill for delegation.”

  “Absolutely. Ava’s a master at all of that.”

  Eve smiled. “I believe it. I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me.”

  “And I’m dismissed. I should get back in, say my good-byes. I hope there are no hard feelings between us.”

  “None on my side.”

  “Then I’ll wish you luck with the investigation.” She offered her hand again. “Oh, and, Lieutenant, a little concealer would cover up that bruise under your eye.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  In the limo, Eve stretched out her legs and said, “Huh.”

  “As neither of you limped back inside bloody, I assume you and your chief’s wife came to terms.”

  “Yeah, you could say. And it’s funny what people say and how they say it. She’s friendly with Ava. She liked Tommy very much. She admires Ava’s energy and creative thinking. Tommy was generous and unpretentious. Mrs. Tibble’s a smart woman, but she doesn’t get what she just told me. That, and more.” Eve shifted to Roarke.

  “The other day, you gave a few bucks to a sidewalk sleeper.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Very possibly.”

  “No, I saw it. Outside the morgue.”

  “All right. And?”

  “A lot of people probably tossed that guy a few that day, and a lot of other days. They don’t remember him after, he doesn’t remember them. But you crouched down and spoke to him eye-to-eye. Made it personal, made the connection. He’ll remember you.”

  “He’s likely to remember the twenty more.”

  “No, don’t get cynical on me. Back when you were running the streets in Dublin, when your father beat down on you until you were half dead. Summerset took you in, fixed you up. He offered you something—a chance, a sanctuary, an opportunity. What would you have done to pay him back? Cut out the years between then and now, and what developed between you,” she added. “Then, right then, what would you have done to pay him back?”

  “Whatever he’d asked.”

  “Yeah. Because then, he was the one with the power, with the control, with the…largesse. However much of a badass you were, you were vulnerable. Smaller, weaker. And he’d given you something you’d never had.”

  “He never asked,” Roarke said.

  “Because despite being a tight-assed fuckface, taking advantage of the vulnerable isn’t his style. But it’s Ava’s.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “To work. I need to see what Peabody’s got so far, see if I can wheedle a quick meet with Mira. I have to get some of this organized in my head, get it down. I’ll fill you in at home, then take advantage of your vulnerability of being crazy about me and curious about the case so I can put you to work.”

  “I’ll accept that, particularly if you take advantage of me otherwise afterward.”

  “I’ll schedule that in. I want—whoa, whoa. Wait!” She fumbled for the intercom. “Pull over. Pull over here.”

  “Why?” Roarke demanded as the limo swept to the curb. “We’re two blocks from Central yet.”

  “Exactly. Do you think I want to pull up in front of my house in this thing? Jeez. I’ll walk from here.”

  “Want the crullers?”

  “Keep ’em.” She grabbed the door handle with one hand, his hair with the other. One hard kiss and she was out the door. “See you.”

  And he watched as her long stride ate up the sidewalk, her coat billowing. Watched until she was swallowed up by distance and people.

  13

  WITH HER MIND TAPPING OUT DETAILS, EVE headed toward Homicide with the same ground-eating stride Roarke had admired outside. Not a break in the case, she thought, not yet, but damn if she didn’t think she had a crack. And she was going to chisel and hammer away at that crack until it busted wide open.

  Another part of her brain registered a need for caffeine, debated between supplying it hot or cold. When cold won, she stopped in front of Vending and eyed the machine with suspicion and dislike.

  “Don’t fuck with me,” she mumbled, and plugged in credits. “Tube of Pepsi.”

  The machine seemed to consider, to ponder—she all but heard it whistling a taunting tune. And just as she reared back to give it a good kick, it spat out the tube along with its tedious content data. Eve snatched the tube out before it changed its mind, and turning, saw Abigail Johnson sitting on the same bench Tiko had used the day before.

  Tension tightened at the back of Eve’s neck as she approached the woman. “Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Oh, Lieutenant Dallas. I was daydreaming, didn’t see you there.” Shifting the box on her lap, Abigail got to her feet.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No. No, indeed. The fact is, Tiko’s about nagged the skin off my bones about that reward. I felt like he should understand doing what’s right is enough, then, well, I started thinking it’s good for a boy to get something back for doing right. And don’t I punish him for doing wrong, and maybe give him some extra screen time or bake his favorite cookies when he does something especially good?”

  “Works for me.”

  “So I contacted that number you gave me, to see about it. It was all taken care of already, they said how you’d seen to that.” The bright green eyes stared into Eve’s. “Why it was a thousand dollars, Lieutenant.”

  “Early estimates hit about ten thousand a day that ring was pulling in. Tiko was key in shutting it down.”

  “I can’t get over it, that’s God’s truth. Fact is, I had to sit down fanning myself for a good ten minutes after that Sergeant Whittles told me how much.” Abigail tipped back her head and laughed, and the sound was bright as birdsong. “Then, well, I baked you a pie.” She thrust the box at a puzzled Eve.

  “You baked me a pie?”

  “A lemon meringue pie. I hope you like lemon meringue.”

  “I’d be a fool not to. Thanks.”

  “When they told me you weren’t here, I was going to leave it for you. But I got the strong feeling there wouldn’t have been anything left of it time you got back.”

  “You’d be right about that.”

  “They said how you’d be back shortly, so I just sat down to wait. They put that right through security downstairs, so they could see I wasn’t bringing in anything dangerous. ’Course I’ve been told my baking’s dangerous to the waistline, but you don’t have to fret about that.”

  Because it seemed to be expected, Eve opened the lid, peeked inside. The meringue looked frothy as a snowcap, with golden beads scattered over its peaks and planes. “Wow. It looks like edible art.”

  “Isn’t that a thing to say. I know it’s not much, but I wanted to give you something for what you did for my boy, for my Tiko. He told me all about it, well, about a half a dozen times he told me all about it. I wanted to say to you how it seems to me somebody like you could’ve brushed him off, or could’ve called Child Services, or a lot of other things but what you did. I’ve taught him to have respect for the law, and for right over wrong. But you showed him why, and you put a face on
the law and on what’s right that he won’t forget. He won’t be forgetting the reward either, but it’s you he’ll remember first. And so will I.”

  “And it seems to me, Mrs. Johnson, that a lot of boys in Tiko’s position could’ve looked the other way—or more, tried to angle their way into a piece of what was going on. But I’ll take the pie.”

  “I hope you enjoy it.”

  “I may have to knock a few of my men unconscious to get it into my office, but believe me, I will.”

  Eve got a good grip on the box, and put blood in her eye as she walked into the bullpen. She swore a dozen noses lifted up, at the very same instant, to scent the air. “Not a chance in hell. Peabody, my office.”

  After shooting a smug and evil smile at her sorrowful colleagues, Peabody breezed in behind Eve. “What kind of pie is it?”

  “It’s my kind of pie.”

  “You can’t eat a whole pie by yourself. You’ll get sick.”

  “We’ll find out.”

  “But…I brought you crullers.”

  “Where are they?”

  Peabody’s mouth opened, closed on a pout as she shifted her eyes away. “Um…”

  “Exactly.” Eve set the pie box out of reach on top of her AutoChef. “What have you got besides cruller breath?”

  “It’s not like I ate them all personally, and you left them behind so—Okay.” She deflated under Eve’s icy stare. “I’ve got the duplicate names, and I’ve started running them. FYI, Mrs. Tibble’s on there. She’s worked on multiple projects with Ava Anders.”

  “I think we can take her off the list.”

  “Yeah. Also the mayor’s wife and a number of other prominents.”

  “We won’t discount them. Staff and volunteers go into the mix, but we’re going to focus on the participants. The women Ava played Lady Bountiful with.”

  “I’ve got some with criminal, got some who were or are LCs.”

  “Keep them at the top. Trying to figure her. Would she go for somebody with experience, with tendencies, or somebody blank, somebody who’d run below the radar?”

  She paced to the window, stared out. “She wouldn’t expect us to get here, to look where we’re going to look. But somebody who plans as meticulously as she does would have to consider all the possibilities. How did she weigh it?”

  “Another question would be how do you convince somebody to kill for you.”

  “Some people bake pies. Copy all the files, shoot them here and to my home unit. And keep working it, Peabody. If somebody in there was her trigger, I bet she has plans for them, too. I just bet she has plans.”

  She worked it as well, formulating notes from her conversations that day, pushing through the repeated names Peabody had culled out. And she considered the logistics and man hours of interviewing literally hundreds of potential suspects.

  Needle in the haystack. But sooner or later.

  She pushed back, circled her head around her shoulders to loosen knots. Her incoming beeped, and it pleased her to see Nadine had sent her a file. “Copy to my home unit,” she ordered.

  She rubbed her tired eyes. Time to go home herself, she admitted. Take it home, pick it up again, bounce it off Roarke.

  She shut down, loaded her bag, shrugged into her coat. She picked up the pie box as Mira stepped to the doorway.

  “On your way out?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got time. They told me you were booked solid today.”

  “I was. And I’m late heading home. If you’re leaving, why don’t we walk out together, and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “That’d be good. I’ve got this theory,” Eve began.

  She briefed Mira as they took glides down to the main level, then switched to the elevator for the garage.

  “The dominant personality, the benefactor, or employer, convinces, pressures, or cajoles the subordinate or submissive to execute her will.”

  “Execute being the operative term,” Eve commented. “But I think cajole is a passive term for getting someone to do murder.”

  “Passivity can be a weapon if used correctly. And such methods have certainly been used for gain. Anything from lying to protect the superior’s mistake or misconduct, to providing sexual favors and yes, all the way up to murder. To insure continued cooperation after the fact, the dominant would need to continue the relationship, offer and supply reward, or threaten with exposure or harm.”

  To finish, Eve got off on Mira’s garage level. “We’re running the ones with jackets, and any LCs—currently or previously—first.”

  “The most logical place to start.”

  “The nature of the crime. You’d have to have that in you, or be so completely under Ava’s thumb you couldn’t so much as wiggle to see that through.”

  “Or utterly enthralled,” Mira added. “Love comes in a lot of forms.”

  “Yeah, so does gratitude. And fear. I need to figure out which one of those levels she pulled. I let her see today. I let her see I know. Maybe that was a mistake, but I wanted her to sweat a little.”

  “It’s good strategy. It gives the opponent something to worry about, and worried people make more mistakes.”

  “If I had a little more, just enough to bring her in, to get her in the box, I think I could trip her up. But I need to push her out of her comfort zone, isolate her from…” Realizing they were standing beside Mira’s car, and she was down to talking out loud, Eve shrugged. “Anyway.”

  “If and when, I’d like to observe. I think it would be fascinating.”

  “I’ll let you know. So…say hi to Mr. Mira.”

  “I will. Eve, don’t go straight to work when you get home. Take an hour. Recharge.” In a gesture that never failed to fluster Eve, Mira leaned over, kissed her cheek.

  “Well. Good night.”

  She’d planned to go straight back to work, Mira had her there. More, she’d planned to drag Roarke into it with her. How was she supposed to hammer that crack open if she sat around for an hour doing nothing? She walked into the house with the notion of recharging later.

  Summerset loomed; the cat sat and stared.

  “I haven’t got time for you, Flat Ass.”

  “Or little else, apparently, as you arrive late. Again. And have used your face as a punching bag. Again.”

  “That was yesterday. I offered yours, but they judged it too high on the ugly scale.”

  “Roarke is in the pool house, if you have any interest in your husband’s whereabouts.”

  “I got interest.” She tossed her coat over the newel post, dropped her file case at the foot of the stairs, then shoved the box she held into Summerset’s hands. “I brought dessert.”

  That, she thought as she strolled to the elevator, confused him speechless, and was almost as satisfying as her best insult. As she rode down, she rubbed at the back of her neck. Maybe she could take time for a quick swim, stretch out some of these damn kinks she’d earned from too many hours at the comp.

  Fifteen minutes, that would set her, then a big, fat burger while she played some of the data and speculations off Roarke. The man sure as hell knew about being the dominant personality.

  She stepped out into the moist, fragrant warmth, into the lush green foliage and bright blooms of the tropical gardens of the pool house. Music came from the sparkling waterfall flowing down the wall—and the smooth, rhythmic strokes of the man cutting through the bold blue water of the pool.

  He swam like a seal, she thought, sleek and fast, and looked like—well, if she couldn’t think it, who could? He looked like a damn Irish god, with that rangy body, the ripple of muscle, the streaming black hair. When he changed up strokes, executed a surface dive, she grinned. With an ass like that, who wouldn’t want to sink their teeth into it?

  Maybe she could take more than fifteen minutes.

  She stripped where she was, took position on the edge, and dove in. When she surfaced, he was treading water, and watching her with eyes that made the bold blue of the pool seem pale.<
br />
  “It seems I’ve caught a mermaid.”

  “You haven’t caught anything yet, pal. How many laps have you got in?”

  “Twenty-two. I’m after thirty.”

  “Then I’ll catch up.”

  She pushed off the side. He paced her awhile, which made her kick in to up the speed. Still, they hit the wall together, rolled into the turn and push. She lost him after eight, but moments later heard the rumble that told her he’d settled into the grotto corner, and its jets.

  So she lost herself in the rhythm, in the water, in the effort, and somewhere in the twelfth lap, her crowded mind cleared. When she hit thirty, her muscles were loose to the point of limp, her breathing shallow, and her mind utterly relaxed.

  She skimmed under the water, surfaced in the grotto beside him.

  “God! That was a good idea.”

  “I have any number of them.”

  She let her head fall back, her eyes close. Under the water her fingers linked with his until she had her breath back. “I’ve got one of those coming on. Oh yeah, there it is.”

  She ducked under, rolled, then skimmed her way up to take him into her mouth. The water churned around her as she gripped his hips, as she felt the muscles she’d admired quiver for her. She surfaced, letting her lips run up his belly, his chest, his throat to where his mouth waited to mate with hers.

  “I like your idea better than mine.”

  “Thought you might.” She scraped her teeth over his throat. “Mira said I should recharge.” Tossing her head back, she shot him a look of pure challenge. “So, recharge me.”

  He pulled her under with him, into that breathless, beating blue.

  He’d thought himself prepared. Relaxed, comfortably aroused watching his wife burn off the day as he had. He’d imagined persuading her into wet, lazy love once she had. Instead the need for her had simply leaped into him, torn through him as a hungry animal who wanted feast and conquest.

  It burned through him, a fever in the blood as he devoured her mouth, as his hands sought and took. Her gasp for air when they surfaced ended on a cry of shocked pleasure that only stoked the flames.