Strangers in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “She was blackmailing me.”

  “Oh please.”

  “After she killed her husband, she blackmailed me. She said she’d call the police, that she’d tell them I was having an affair with her husband, and that she knew he was meeting me that night. I was terrified. I met her that day, outside her building, to give her the last payment. I drove out of the city to that rest area, and I gave her the last payment. I told her it had to be the last, and she was angry. That must be why she killed Tommy.”

  “How much she sting you for? Quick, quick,” Eve said when Ava hesitated. “How much?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “See, you should’ve lowballed it. That’s too much for her to hide, too much for you to skim without leaving crumbs.”

  “I sold some jewelry.”

  “No, Ava, no.” Heaving a sigh, Eve leaned in. “Now you’re disappointing me. I gave you more credit. We can check that. First, going back, Suzanne doesn’t have the brains or the balls to blackmail anyone. Going further back, not only wasn’t she in the room when Ned bought it, but she’s too short to have executed the killing blow. This is basic forensics, and juries are pretty savvy there. Got you cold on that one. Witnesses, forensics, your own statement putting you there.”

  “She didn’t come. She didn’t come as arranged, and he attacked me.”

  “Who? Let’s be specific since we’ve got such a winding road here.”

  Ava picked up her cup again, drank. “Suzanne’s husband.”

  “Ned Custer attacked you?”

  “Yes. He wanted sex, and I told him Suzanne was coming, and he was furious, and attacked me. I was terrified; you have to understand. He was going to rape me, so I grabbed the knife.”

  “From where?”

  “From…”

  “Quick!” Eve snapped and had Ava jolting again. “Where’d you get the knife?”

  “From him. He had the knife. He threatened me with it, and we struggled. I lashed out, in fear for my life.”

  “You killed Ned Custer.”

  “Yes, yes, but in self-defense. He was a mad man, waving the knife, shouting. He tore at my clothes. I was terrified.”

  “I’ll take the admission of guilt, but not the plea. And neither will a jury. Basic forensics again, Ava. You took him out from behind.”

  “We were struggling.”

  “With one, clean slice. No defensive wounds, no signs of struggle on him or in the room. You did a damn good job of it.”

  “I want a lawyer. Now.”

  “Sure. While we’re taking care of that,” Eve said as she began to gather the evidence bags and files, “I’ll go have a little chat with Suzanne. She should be here by now.”

  “It was her idea.”

  “I’m sorry, Ava, you’ve invoked your right to counsel. I can’t take any further statements from you until such time as—”

  “Fuck the lawyer. I don’t want a damn lawyer. I need your help. Aren’t you a public servant? Isn’t it your duty to help someone in trouble? Isn’t that what I pay you for?”

  “So I’m told. For the record, you’re again waiving your right to counsel?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. It was her idea. I was upset with Tommy for some silly thing, and I’d been drinking. She came to my room, at the retreat, and we started to talk.”

  Ava’s breath came fast. Eve imagined her thoughts came even faster.

  “She said we’d both be better off without our husbands. I was in a mood, I agreed. Then she hatched this idea about how each of us would kill the other’s. It was foolishness, or so I believed. We talked and talked, plotting it out. Laughing about it. It was just a joke. I was awfully drunk, just feeling blue and ridiculous, and it made me laugh to speculate on how we’d do it.

  “But then weeks later, she came to me and told me it was time. I was horrified, of course. I told her she had to be out of her mind to think I’d do such a thing. Out of her mind to believe I actually wanted my Tommy dead. She was…fierce. If I didn’t do what we’d agreed, she would kill Tommy. I wouldn’t know when or how, but she would kill him. She meant it. The more I argued, pleaded, protested, the more vicious she became. I did it to save my husband, I did it to save his life.”

  “You’re scraping bottom now, but thanks for the ‘I did it.’ And the confession of the initial plot.”

  “Hers! Hers! It was her plot.”

  “She couldn’t plot her way out of her own apartment. Look at this.” Eve tapped the evidence bags. “Didn’t you tell her to get rid of this stuff? But no, she hauls it home and stuffs it in her closet. You picked a moron for a partner, Ava—or a patsy, depending on your view of it. But you screwed up plenty. Both of your husbands killed in sex-related murders? I’m not the moron here. You’re too stupid to pull it off, too hyped on giving your own statement enough juice to put you into media spotlight. It’s that PR training. Any story’s a good story. You fucked this up, all the way back to your father-in-law.”

  “You’ll never prove it. None of it. Everything you have is speculation.”

  “Oh, lots more than. And there’s the little matter of your confessions.”

  “You twisted my words around. You tricked me, put words in my mouth. And you didn’t advise me of my rights before the interview.”

  “Officer Trueheart did—on record. Covers us both, Ava.” Eve smiled broadly. “Oh, and you may not have recognized the guy talking to Roarke outside. But he’s the kind of businessman who takes precautions. You had one of your volunteers pick up the remote—but I’ve got a solid witness who followed her all the way to your house, where it was delivered. It’s just icing on my cake. But, upside for you? You’re going to get hours and hours of screen time over this.”

  Eve shook her head, picked up her files and bags. “You stupid, pitiful murderer.”

  Ava came up like a tidal wave, heaving the table aside. That tight skin she’d worn for years was split into shreds now, Eve noted.

  “Stupid? We’ll see who’s stupid at the end of the day, you bitch. Nobody’s going to believe any of this. I have friends. Powerful friends and between us we’ll eat you and your ridiculous interview to bits.”

  “Lady, you’ve got no one. You did have. You had a good, decent man who loved you.”

  “What do you know about it? What do you know? Sixteen years of my life invested in a man who obsessed about golf and box scores, and children that weren’t his own. I earned everything I have.”

  “Marrying it isn’t earning it.”

  “You married money. Who are you to talk?”

  “I married a man. The man. You’ll never get that. Your kind isn’t capable of it. On the door.”

  When it opened, she passed out the files and bags to the officer outside, then turned back. “Ava Anders, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ned Custer, and for conspiracy to murder Thomas A. Anders. Other charges include—”

  “Get me a fucking lawyer. Get the Prosecuting Attorney in here. Now, goddamn it. He’ll make a deal for my testimony against that twit.”

  “You can have the lawyer, but the PA already made a deal with Suzanne Custer this morning.” Eve grinned. “Psych.”

  She saw it coming. God, she’d been praying for it all through the interview. Anticipating it so that the cop on the door, and those in Observation stayed back, as she’d ordered, when Ava charged her.

  She turned away from the nail swipe so those long, pretty nails barely broke the skin under her jaw. And she took the first shove that bashed her into the wall.

  The rest would look better on the record that way. Eve stomped on Ava’s instep, plowed an elbow into her gut, then finished with a solid uppercut.

  She studied the woman sprawled unconscious at her feet. “Guess we’ll get into those other charges when you wake up. On the door.” Eve stepped over Ava. “You and another officer take her down through Booking when she regains consciousness. She wants a lawyer, see that she’s allowed to contact one.”

  “Yes, sir
. Lieutenant, you’re bleeding some.”

  “Yeah.” Eve brushed her fingertips over the nail marks. “All in a day’s. Interview end.”

  Reo was the first out of Observation. “Good enough for you?” Eve asked her.

  “And then some. I’m going to make her lawyers cry like babies. Fun for me now. You’ve had yours.”

  “Showed?”

  “To those of us who know and love you. You should’ve decked her before she scratched you.”

  Eve angled her head, tapped just below the marks. “Jury’s going to love it, if it goes that far. Wrap her up, Reo. I want to take a moment out of my day now and then to think about her rotting in a cement cage off-planet.”

  “Anything for a pal. I’d better get to it.”

  “Peabody, get the paperwork on this, will you?”

  “Sure, it was fun to watch, so writing it up’s fair as the price of admission.”

  She started by, but Baxter stepped in her path. And held out a hand. A bit baffled she took it, shook. “It’s a good day,” he said, and she nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s a good day. You’re back off the roll until Monday.”

  “I’ll see this through, then I’m off.”

  She cut through to her office for a quick boost of coffee. Thinking of Tibble—and more important, his wife—she decided she’d contact Commander Whitney, give her oral. And let him pass it on. Just in case.

  “Sit,” Roarke ordered as he walked in with a small first-aid kit.

  “Look Nurse Studly—”

  “We’ll play Nurse Studly and Patient Sexy later. Now sit so I can doctor those scratches. Nasty cats like that have nasty germs.”

  “She is pretty nasty.” Eve sat, tipped up her head. “I should’ve just knocked her back. If I get slapped for knocking her out, I’ve got it coming.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “The instep was for Suzanne’s kids, the elbow in the gut was for me. The knockout, that was for Tommy Anders.”

  As he cleaned and medicated the scratches, Roarke met her eyes. “She deserved each, and the rest you’ve seen to she’ll get. You strung it out quite a bit.”

  “Yeah, that was indulgent. But I liked how she kept twisting herself up, changing her story. And all the tinglies were tough to resist. She’s good at planning, but she’s crappy at thinking on her feet. Makes it tougher for her lawyers when she gives so many conflicting statements in one interview. Plus, she’s not going to be able to afford a bunch of fat lawyers now.”

  “Oh?”

  “She can’t use anything coming from the death of her spouse, as she’s charged with conspiring to murder same. That cuts it back. And if I can pin down the Hampton case, she’ll lose what she got from the father-in-law’s death. She’s going to have a lot less to spend on fancy lawyers. Anyway.”

  “Anyway.” He leaned down, brushed his lips to hers. “You’re done.” He set the first-aid kit on her desk. “Any thoughts to going home?”

  “Yeah, as soon as I contact Whitney and run it for him. And I figure I’ll give Nadine a heads-up. Maybe you can buy me a fat, juicy steak.”

  “Maybe I could.”

  “Roarke.”

  “Eve.”

  It made her smile, but her eyes stayed serious on his. “What she said about me marrying for money?”

  “You answered it, and quite well.”

  “Yeah, but we know some people think that.”

  “Eve—”

  “Some people think it sometimes, some people think they know it all the time. You and me, we know different.”

  “We do, yes.” He drew her to her feet, and this time the kiss was long and deep and just a little dark. “We both know you married me for the sex.”

  “Well, yeah, which is why I don’t mind if some people think it was the money, because that’s less personal. Thanks for the first aid.”

  “I’d say anytime, but it so often is.”

  She grinned, then sat down to contact her commander.

  Roarke settled in her visitor’s chair. He took out his PPC and amused himself by checking the stock reports on Anders. He thought it might be quite fitting to buy up the shares formerly owed by Ava Anders.

  And put them in Eve Dallas’s name.