Strangers in Death

by J. D. Robb

  There was no point denying it. “To her eventual disappointment…and fat lip. I’m not hanging on to that, if that’s worrying you.” When he stepped in, those blue eyes level on hers, and traced a fingertip along the shallow dent in her chin, she sighed, then shrugged. “Okay, maybe a little. But I’m not pissed at you about that, about her.”

  He leaned down, kissed her very softly.

  “Much. You didn’t see her, at least not until what she was doing was shoved in your face. Must be a guy thing when it comes to a certain kind of female. Thomas Anders didn’t see it in Ava, for years and years. He lived with her, and he didn’t see her. Not who she really is. I’m not pissed at him about it. He loved her. I’m pissed she used that, and him. Used anyone who came to hand, with absolutely no conscience. For game and profit. She killed him for that. For game and profit.”

  “And you imagine, if I hadn’t had certain things shoved in my face, hadn’t seen, if some circumstances had been different, Maggie would have eventually done for me.”

  “Why share the majority of the known universe if you can have it all for yourself?”

  “Right you are. And, yes, she would have tried to end me at some point. Fortunately, I’m married to the top bitch cop in the city, and well-protected.”

  “Fortunately, you can take care of yourself. Tommy Anders couldn’t.” She turned back to the board, to the ID photo of Anders’s smiling, easygoing face.

  “It hits me. Some of them do, and it hits me because he was a nice man who loved his wife and used his money and position to do good things. He’s dead, lives are ruined or at best forever changed, all because she wanted all the marbles. So…I’m going to squash her like the ugly spider she is.”

  “Lieutenant.” Peabody poked in. “She’s just pulled into the lot.”

  “Curtain up,” Roarke said.

  23

  TO ROARKE’S MIND, COP SHOPS TENDED TOWARD the loud, the confused, and the crowded. One such as Cop Central twisted and twined, rose and fell, in a serpentine labyrinth where cops, suspects, victims, lawyers, techs all bumped and burrowed amid constant clatter and movement.

  And still, through all that, the choreography Eve had staged moved seamlessly. Perhaps as so many of the players were unaware of their role, their actions and reactions fell as natural as rainwater.

  He watched on screens in an observation room with Feeney and the director herself as Trueheart and his fellow uniform—both looking as wholesome and harmless as apple pie—escorted Ava onto the elevator, then off again.

  “It’ll be quicker and less crowded,” Trueheart explained in his polite tone, “if we take the glides from here, Mrs. Anders.”

  As they rode up, others rode down. On the down, a man in a stained T-shirt and dingy dreads who Roarke would have made for a cop at six blocks, swiveled, pointed. “Hey, hey! That’s the one there. That’s the broad left with Cuss. Hey!”

  Ava angled away toward Trueheart’s agreeable face. “Sorry,” he said. “We get all kinds through here.”

  He led her off the glide, across a short span of floor, just as a female officer walked Bebe Petrelli toward the down. The reaction of both civilians struck Roarke as priceless. Shock on both faces, distress following on Petrelli’s, fury darkening Ava’s, even as the cop quickly hustled Petrelli to the left and away.

  Little fissures in the mask, Roarke noted. And up the next glide they went. This time Baxter brought Cassie Gordon on just below. Cassie’s gaze tracked up, latched. “Well, hey. Hey, Ava!” A sharp and deadly amusement colored Cassie’s voice. “What’re you doing here?”

  Ava glanced back, skimmed her cold eyes over Cassie. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

  “Sure, but then I’m just one of the horde. How’s it going?”

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m pressed for time. Can we get this done?” she demanded of Trueheart.

  “Yes, ma’am, we’re nearly there. This way.” Deliberately, he walked her by Homicide where the night clerk from the sex flop sat on a bench outside, flanked by two cops. He stared at her as she approached. The fissures widened as color flooded Ava’s face.

  “Right in here.” Trueheart opened the door of Interview A. “I’ll make sure the lieutenant knows you’re here. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee maybe.”

  “I’d prefer something sweet and cold. Ginger ale in a glass.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  In Observation, Eve hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “Putting her game face on. Knows we’re watching. Anybody with a brain, and brains she’s got, knows how Interview works.”

  “Spooked her some.”

  “Yeah, but pissed her off more. That’s what’s going to hang her. Well, time to go kick her ass.”

  “Want me to kiss your head?”

  “Want me to mention your sick day pajamas?”

  “That’s mean. You make me proud. Go skin your fish.”

  Eve didn’t want to keep Ava waiting long. Keep the temper up, those little edges of fear. She walked into Interview carrying plenty of files and attitude. “Mrs. Anders.”

  “Lieutenant. I’ve had about enough of your incompetence, and your callousness. I demand to see your chief.”

  “We’ll get to that. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Anders, Ava, regarding case number HA-32003, Anders, Thomas A., and all related events and crimes.” Eve dropped into a chair. “We’ve got a lot to clear up, Ava.”

  “Mrs. Anders. I’d like to clear up the way you and this department have handled the media.”

  Eve only smiled. “It’s been an interesting couple of days for me. How about you?” At Ava’s stony stare, Eve’s smile widened. “I don’t catch many like these, and I’ve got to hand it to you: You damn near pulled it off. I bet you’re wondering how I’m going to get you for murder.”

  “What a hideous thing to say to me! A slanderous thing to say. I didn’t kill Tommy. I loved my husband. I was out of the country when he died, and you know that very well.”

  “Save the shiny eyes and tear-choked voice. I know you.” Eve leaned forward. “I knew you the minute I saw you. You’re a grasping, greedy, self-important excuse for a human being. But you’ve got brains, Ava, and you’ve got patience. So what it comes down to is how you want to play this part of it. Let me give you something to think about. Suzanne Custer.”

  “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

  “Think about it. Think about the fact that when we bring her in, we’ll give her a chance to slip and slide. She’ll have the opportunity to wheel and deal. Personally, I think she’s going to grab it like a lifeline.”

  “Lieutenant Dallas, I have no idea what you’re trying to do here, unless it’s generate more media frenzy than you’ve already managed. And that you’re somehow blaming me for that, and the fact you’ve been reprimanded for mishandling it. It’s been established, without any doubt, that I was in St. Lucia when my Tommy was killed.”

  “You weren’t in St. Lucia when Ned Custer’s throat was slit.”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name. What does that have to do with me?”

  “Are you going to deny you know Suzanne Custer?”

  “I know a great many people.” She paused, offered a considering frown. “Suzanne? Yes, of course. I know her slightly. She’s one of our mothers.”

  “The same Suzanne Custer whose husband was murdered in a sex flop in Alphabet City a couple of months ago.”

  “How horrible.” Ava pressed a hand to her own throat. “Poor Suzanne. I try not to follow media reports on violence. I’m so terribly sorry to hear about this, but I don’t know what it has to do with me, or with my Tommy.”

  “Makes you wonder what Suzanne might say if she gets a chance to address that.”

  Peabody entered with a red wig inside an evidence bag. She nodded at Eve, slipped out. “Lookie here. Pretty.” Eve held up the bag. “Familiar?”

  “I assume it’s one of mine, as I have one like it. Or did. I atten
d costume galas from time to time. I’d like to know how it came to be in your possession.”

  “By duly executed warrant. Let me just mention Ned Custer again, a bar pickup and sex flop. Give you another shot here, Ava. You’re a striking woman. Tall and well-turned-out.” Opening the file, she withdrew a photo she’d had the police artist compose. It appeared dim, even dingy, just as she’d ordered.

  “You even turn out pretty well as a cheap redhead in a crappy security cam still. Maybe not suitable for framing,” she added as Ava stared down at it. “But a picture tells a story. Here’s a story I like. You pick up Custer in the bar, take him to the flop, slit his throat, carve off his works, and boogie on. Why? You’re just going to have to help me out there. Why does a woman like you slum it with a man like Custer, and end up killing him?”

  “I can hardly help you as there is no why. It’s insane.”

  “Maybe things didn’t go the way you figured. He’s not a smoothie like Charles Monroe. Maybe you were trying to get your kicks on, seeing as your husband leaned that way. Help me out here. Gotcha, Ava.” Eve tapped the photo. “I’ve got you in the bar, with Custer. In the flop, with Custer. You can help me, and help yourself, or I let Suzanne pick up the story from here.”

  “It’s not what you think. Not at all what you think.”

  Trueheart came in with a plastic glass filled with ice and ginger ale. “Excuse me. I’m sorry it took so long.”

  Eve waited while Trueheart stepped out, while Ava sipped. Yeah, you think, Eve mused. Think how to play it. Bet I know how you will.

  “Suzanne…I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help her.”

  “By offing her lousy husband? Man, who couldn’t use a pal like you?”

  “Good God, no.” Ava pressed a hand to her heart. In lieu of the not-currently-in-fashion wedding ring, a bloodred ruby glowed. “I took an interest in her, and it was frustrating that she refused to help herself. I know it was foolish of me, I know that, but to prove a point, I arranged a kind of intervention between her and her husband.”

  “What kind of intervention would that be? The kind that involves castration?”

  “Don’t be so horrible and crude! I wanted to help. Why would I conceive the mothers’ programs unless I wanted to help these women?”

  “What did you do? To help?”

  “I went to the bar that he frequented and lured him—you could say I lured him—to that horrible hotel room. Suzanne was there. It was a way to catch him in the act, to make him face what he was doing. I left immediately after she came in, to give them privacy.”

  She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I haven’t spoken to her since. She hasn’t contacted me, and didn’t take my few attempts to reach her. I assumed things didn’t work out as we’d hoped. But I had no idea…If she killed him, Lieutenant, if that’s what happened, it had to be in self-defense. It had to be.”

  “Let me just compact all this. You dressed up like a hooker, went to the bar, to the flop with Ned Custer, as a favor to his wife?”

  Ava lifted her chin. “I don’t appreciate your implications, or your attitude.”

  “Gee, pardon the hell right out of me.”

  “Lieutenant, it’s so easy to become involved with the lives of these women, to feel for them. Suzanne was desperate to save her marriage, her family. She was so certain that if he was caught that way, he’d agree to counseling. And, well, I admit, it seemed exciting. We’re very hands-on at Anders. Tommy and I believed in involvement. I made a terrible mistake. And now a man’s dead.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Okay, let’s clarify for the record. You state that you met Ned Custer in the bar on the night of January twenty of this year, that you went with him to the flop.”

  “Yes, yes, to meet Suzanne. He was angry, of course, but she asked me to go. To leave them alone so they could talk it out. I should never have left. I see that now.” As if in a plea for understanding, Ava held out her hands to Eve. “How could I know she’d kill him? She said she wanted to save her marriage, how could I know she’d kill him?”

  “That’s a tough one. You couldn’t know.”

  “I feel terrible about it. Sick about it. But Suzanne, my God, she must’ve been—”

  This time it was Baxter who stepped in, carrying several evidence bags. He murmured as he leaned down to Eve. “Custer’s en route.”

  “Thanks. And look what we have now. Black market bypass remote. And these security discs taken from your home.” Eve lifted the disposable ’link. “Cheap-ass piece of crap. Pressure syringes, cock thickener, tranq. All confiscated from Suzanne Custer’s apartment.”

  “My God, my God, is that…is that the device used to circumvent our security?” Ava’s voice dropped down to a strained whisper. “When Tommy…Suzanne? Oh my God, did Suzanne kill Tommy?”

  “Bet she did.”

  “But, but why? Why? Her children were in the program. Tommy and I…No. No. No.” With her hands pressed to her temples, Ava shook her head from side to side in what Eve considered overacting. “Not because of what happened with her husband. Not because of what I did that night! Please, not because of that.”

  “Yeah, because of that.”

  “How can I ever forgive myself?” She wept then, harsh, angry sobs. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Oh, Tommy. Tommy.”

  “Do you need a minute, Ava?” Eve reached over, patted her hand. “This is rough. I’m sorry I was so hard on you at the start of the interview. I had to get the motive.”

  “It doesn’t matter, none of it matters. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t agreed to that foolish business with Suzanne’s husband, if I’d never gone to that horrible room with him, Tommy would be alive.”

  “You’re right about that. But here’s the thing. You listening, Ava? Can you compose yourself? Okay?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll try, I’ll try. This is all such a shock.”

  “Here’s another. Suzanne Custer was never in that flop with you and her husband.”

  “Of course she was. I saw her. I spoke with her.”

  “She was in her apartment, blocks away, leaving messages on her husband’s ’link while you were slitting his throat. While you came out of the bathroom, sealed up with a six-inch serrated blade and raked it across his throat, she was home, pacing the floor, trying to reach him while you watched him bleed out, while you hacked off his dick, then climbed out the window. While you practically flew ten blocks to the auto lot where you had parked your Mercedes, New York plate A AVA, in the slot you’d reserved.”

  It was tingly, Eve realized. It was downright tingly to watch Ava’s face.

  “I got the time in, I got the time out. Time out comes twenty-one minutes after time of death. Here’s something else. You sealed up, but you didn’t think about how dirty the windows are in those flops, how nasty the sills are, how that crud might latch on to the bottom of your fuck-me shoes. We’ll be processing your shoes, Ava, and I’m betting on them.”

  Eve shrugged. “Not really important though, since you’ve admitted—on record—that you were there.”

  “And I told you why, and that the man was alive when I left. What possible reason would I have to kill him? To-to mutilate him afterward? I didn’t even know him.”

  “You’ve already said why. If Custer hadn’t been killed, Tommy would be alive. See this?” She tapped the ’link. “Piece of crap, as I said. Most people think these crappy disposables can’t hold transmission history. But those EDD geeks? They’re freaking magicians.”

  Eve leaned forward, smiled brilliantly. “Good girl. Do you remember saying that to Suzanne—from the balmy shores of St. Lucia, when she reported she’d done the job? Wanna hear for yourself?” Eve pressed a button on the link, and Ava’s voice buzzed out.

  Good girl.

  “They’ll clean that up some, but I wanted you to hear it as soon as it was ready. Nice of you to give Suzanne that little pat on the head.”

  “This is ridiculous, and you’re pathet
ic. It’s obvious Suzanne killed her husband and mine. She must be horribly sick. As far as that ’link goes, I spoke with her any number of times over the last months.”

  “From St. Lucia? They triangulate these transmissions really well.”

  “I don’t recall. I might have.”

  And more tingles, Eve thought, as she saw the pulse in Ava’s throat start to pound. “Previous statement: You haven’t spoken or had contact with Suzanne Custer since the night her husband was murdered.”

  “I might have been mistaken about that.”

  “No, you lied about that. It’s the lies that tripped you up. It was a pretty solid plan, I’ll give that to you. But you couldn’t keep it simple. You had to elaborate, make yourself more of a stoic, loyal, and loving wife by painting your husband as so much less than he was. You had to make him pay for all those years you played the loving wife. He never hired LCs, never had affairs, never demanded kink from you.”

  “You can’t prove or disprove what happens between people in the privacy of their bedroom.”

  “Yeah, that was your thinking on it. It’s not bad. But I can prove no one who ever knew him or had business with him can corroborate your claim. I can prove you substituted a sleep aid for his nightly vitamin the morning before you left for St. Lucia. I can prove you conspired with Suzanne Custer in a scheme where each of you agreed to murder the other’s spouse. I can prove you approached at least two other women, fishing the idea before you settled on Suzanne.”

  “It means nothing, none of it means—”

  “Not done,” Eve commented. “I can prove your father-in-law—whose murder I’m also going to hang on you given a little more time—was annoyed with the way you were allocating funds earmarked for the program.”

  “Ridiculous.” But her body jumped. “Insane.”

  “You keep thinking that,” Eve invited. “Reginald Anders’s murder opened the door to your long-term plans. I can prove you not only spoke with, not only contacted Suzanne after Custer’s murder, but drove to a lot several blocks from her home—reserved slot again—and met her on the street where you were seen by witnesses. Black coat, fur trim. We’ve got that in evidence now, too. I can prove you drove her to a rest stop off the Turnpike, where you were seen by witnesses.”