Payback in Death, page 28
“And because you could lose your dick.”
“That would top the list of my concerns.”
She finally reached the gates.
“Since the human body’s made up of blood, bone, and all that, how come when they poof—beam—their clothes, which aren’t, poof with them? Why aren’t they naked when they get there?”
“It’s a mystery,” Roarke concluded. “But now, the next time we watch one of the Star Trek oeuvre, I’m going to imagine them all naked.”
“Bet there’s a porn vid that already does that.”
Now he laughed. “I’ll look into that as well.”
Chapter Twenty
When they went inside, Summerset waited.
“Together and unbloodied. A good day.”
“Not for everybody,” Eve said as the cat padded over to ribbon between her legs. “I want to check in with the sweepers,” she added and headed for the stairs.
“Attempted murder of Captain Greenleaf’s son at his father’s wake.” Roarke watched his wife and the cat trot up the stairs. “It weighs on her.”
“Yes, I can see that. Bruising’s fading nicely, but the jaw’s still a bit swollen. She could use another pass with the wand.”
Roarke nodded. “At least no one punched her in the face, so as you said, a good day. Aren’t you and Ivanna off to the ballet then?”
“We are. In about an hour.”
“Enjoy.”
“We will. There’s some very nice sea bass, crusted with caramelized honey. You’d enjoy it.”
“Then we will.”
Upstairs, he found Eve not at her command center, but her board. She spoke on her ’link as she updated it.
The sweepers, he thought, and crossed over to choose a wine. Thinking of the sea bass, he uncorked a Vermentino.
“I’m going with coffee,” Eve told him. “Not ready for wine.”
“I am. I’ll take this to my office. I’m on the widow. Why don’t we say we’ll have dinner in an hour?”
“Sure, whatever.”
He walked to her, tapped the shallow dent on her chin. Another wanding, yes, he thought, but didn’t mention it. “The son’s been dead for near a decade. You’ll find what you’ll find in an hour.”
“If Noy’s daughter or widow get back to me—”
“We’ll adjust, won’t we? An hour for now.”
At her command center, she programmed coffee.
Brice Noy, she thought. He’d have been twenty-eight if he’d lived. Same age as Elva Arnez. Coincidence?
Bollocks.
Something there.
He’d been a good student, she concluded as she began to dig. Acing his way through his private school right from the start. The private school his father paid for through graft and extortion.
Did the son know? Maybe. Maybe. But the daughter claimed she hadn’t—and she’d come off believable.
Not the athlete his sister had been, but a joiner.
Honor society, debate club, student council, class president.
She flipped through school photos.
Good-looking kid, even through the awkward years when to her eye kids seemed to be all teeth.
She found no disciplinary actions in his school files. He’d been valedictorian at his high school graduation. And the photo of him in cap and gown looked like Hollywood casting.
All-American boy, going places.
A short employment history. Mostly volunteer work, summer work. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens.
Paid intern at his father’s precinct, civilian liaison, the summer after graduation.
No criminal—not surprising, considering his father would’ve taken care of that, if necessary. No indication of problems or treatments for illegals or alcohol abuse.
The perfect son?
She set that aside, began on Elva Arnez through the same period.
Public school. Decent student. No athletics, no clubs. A couple flags for truancy. Signed up for the school/work program as soon as she was eligible, and maintained those decent grades.
Even improved them some.
No more truancy flags—a disqualifier for the program.
And nothing that showed how or where her path would have crossed with Brice Noy—or his sister, mother, father.
Not yet.
Graduated about dead middle of her class, and got into NYU’s business school. Remote option. So some classes at NYU while Brice Noy attended, but no other common area.
And the fact remained the size of the campus, their fields of study put them in different worlds. Gould Plaza for her, Washington Square South for him.
He, the joiner, joined. A fraternity, another debate club, the university’s honor society, a student mentoring program—and completed his freshman year in the top five percent of his class.
Yeah, she thought. By the data, a young man with a bright future ahead.
Arnez joined nothing, stuck primarily with remote classes and worked close to full-time. And excelled in her business classes.
Both lived at home. She couldn’t have afforded dorm life. He could have, but why? Nice house, happy family—according to the sister. Easy trip to classes, college activities, and a nice home-cooked dinner every night.
She saw their lives now, as they’d been.
He, the good, shining son of what looked like, on the surface, a good, shining family. Smart, social, working toward following in his father’s footsteps. Already with a place reserved for him at the Academy. And no doubt, in Eve’s mind, a place waiting in his father’s division.
And she, the hardworking, ambitious daughter of a single parent who’d wanted more. No clubs, no joining, not when she wanted that more.
Eve flipped through her school photos as well.
A beauty, and one who’d learned how to make the most of it as she hit her teens.
On impulse, she brought both their high school senior year photos on split screen.
“A remarkably attractive young couple,” Roarke commented as he walked in.
“Yeah. Too bad I haven’t found much of anything that links them. Lived about a fifteen-minute walk from each other, but in different social and economic strata. Different schools, different interests. NYU brings them together, but doesn’t. She’s mostly remote and, if and when she attended in person, her building’s nowhere near his.”
“A concert,” Roarke suggested, “a sports event, a club.”
“Yeah, possible. Trouble is she’s working, and in retail, and in retail, your high school or college student—”
“Gets the weekends, and often the evenings,” Roarke finished.
“Yeah. He’s a serious student, one who makes a point of making connections, contacts. She’s looking to boost her status—career-wise, at least. Likes nice clothes, looks good in nice clothes, works to get them. He’s straight line, she’s lateral moves. They both have a goal. His is to be a cop like his father—either like him,” she qualified, “or the kind of cop he perceives his father to be. Which is a lie.
“She’s advancement in her chosen area. Wants to manage, and wants to manage a fancy shop. Maybe wants her own shop, but I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“You own, you’re on the hook. Something goes wrong, you’re on the hook. You manage? You’re in charge, but not on the hook. Do your job well, and I bet she does, you have some power, but then you go home with a paycheck. And you look at Robards, he’s the same there. Do the job, get your pay.”
“As billions do.”
“Yeah, as billions do. Anything on the widow?”
“My take is she’s a lovely woman who after dealing with a very hard blow—two very hard blows—did everything she could to raise her daughter and build a life. Have some wine now, and I’ll tell you why over dinner.”
“Maybe Peabody or McNab hit something.”
“And if and when, you’d be the first contact, wouldn’t you?”
He set the wine beside her, walked into the kitchen.
She swiveled around, stared at the cat, who stared back at her from his sprawl on her sleep chair.
“Why the hell hasn’t Taylor Noy checked her damn v-mail?”
“It may be because she’s in Vegas, celebrating her sister’s wedding.”
“I was asking the cat,” Eve muttered.
“As he’s a bright cat, no doubt he’d give you the same answer.”
She picked up her wine, circled her board once, then walked over to stand in the open terrace doors.
The air felt good, she decided. Heavy, but good.
“I don’t see a connect, not a strong one—and it has to be strong—between Arnez and the daughter, either. That age gap is big when you’re kids, teens. And the daughter focused on sports. No common ground.”
When she turned back, he’d put two plates on the table, a basket of bread, the wine.
“Sea bass,” he told her, “honey crusted on a salad of grilled pineapple, habanero, and some sliced avocado. A nice summer meal—Summerset recommended.”
“Okay.”
It looked … colorful, she thought. And didn’t include spinach, so who was she to complain?
“So the widow,” Roarke began when he sat across from her. “Ella Noy, solid upper-middle-class upbringing, native New Yorker. Brooklyn. Parents are still married—to each other. First and only for both. One sibling, older brother, golf pro, in South Carolina, where the parents winter.”
He lifted his wine. “Do you want to know about her childhood, early school years, and so on?”
“Not unless it applies.”
“I don’t see why it would. Normal is the word I’d use. She majored in sociology, went on to social work, moved to Manhattan. Lower West. In her mid-twenties she was engaged to a law student, about to take the bar. Before he could, he was killed, stabbed multiple times in a robbery at a liquor store where he’d stopped to buy a bottle of wine to take to her parents’ for dinner.”
“Noy responded.”
“Detective Noy took primary,” Roarke confirmed. “He apprehended the fiancé’s killer, who’s still inside—he was eighteen at the time he put those multiple holes in another human being. And a couple in the clerk as well, who survived.
“Three years later, she and Noy married. She became a professional parent on the birth of their son, and remained so until Noy’s death.”
Eve ate some fish, surprised it wasn’t good. It was damn good.
“So she gave up her career.”
“Chose another career,” Roarke said. “She focused on motherhood and volunteer work. Homeless shelters, child advocacy, fund-raising for the school her children attended once they did. She increased the volunteer work when both children hit school age. From all appearances, Eve, all data, she’s led a fairly blameless life, a productive one, and one where she attempted to give back.”
“All right. Who came up with grilling pineapple and putting honey on fish?”
“I couldn’t say. Brilliant, isn’t it?”
“It’s pretty damn good.”
“There’s nothing to indicate,” he continued, “that either she or Noy strayed re their marriage vows. Then again, he was a liar, a cheat, and may have covered his tracks well there. There’s also nothing to indicate she participated in Noy’s corruption and, in fact, a rather thorough investigation after his suicide found nothing. He kept a separate account, laundering the money he took in. And still, she lost her home and, months later, her son.”
“I get she took some hard hits. I’m looking for connections.”
“I couldn’t find one. The obvious connection to Greenleaf, of course, but in fact, he stood up for her. The woman picked herself up, went back to work—after twenty years out of the workforce.”
“Couldn’t have been easy,” Eve admitted.
“It couldn’t have, no. Her parents helped her financially until she got on her feet. In her lifetime, she lost three people she loved to violence—two self-inflicted.
“She volunteers with a suicide hotline,” Roarke added. “It appears she met her current husband at a fund-raiser—she a raiser, he a donor. She’s now able to focus on her volunteer work again, which she does.”
“Okay, who loved her, Noy, the son, the daughter enough to plot to kill Greenleaf to mirror Noy’s suicide, and attempt to do the same with Ben Greenleaf?”
“Is it love then?”
“Love, obsession, loyalty, obligation.” She gestured with her wine. “We start with love. Maybe Noy did have a side piece, maybe long-term. Or somebody who pined for the wife. Then she gets married to somebody else—could be the trigger. I’ll show you who loves you. I’ll kill for you.”
She set down the wine, ate more fish.
“Or someone in love or obsessed with the son. Brice Noy, perfect in pretty much every way.”
“Was he?”
“Ace student, valedictorian, class president. Also volunteered at homeless shelters, and real good to look at. I’m going to try for some of his old teachers, classmates tomorrow. Maybe somebody worshipped him the way he did his father.
“I didn’t push the sister there, not the first round. Now I will. Whenever she answers her goddamn ’link.”
She shoved away from the table. “I’m going to try her again.”
“Do that. Then why don’t we deal with these dishes before the cat disgraces himself? We’ll take a walk.”
“A walk?”
“It’s cooled a bit. We’ll have a walk, then refocus.”
“Still v-mail. Ms. Noy, Lieutenant Dallas. Please contact me as soon as you receive this message. I have some important follow-up questions.”
“Dishes,” Roarke said when she stuffed the ’link back in her pocket. “And a summer evening walk.”
“Then refocus. Okay. All right.”
A walk never hurt—it was kind of like pacing, but in a direction.
“I doubt you’ll need your weapon on a walk to the pond,” Roarke pointed out once they’d dealt with the dishes.
“Right.”
She’d already ditched her jacket—as he had—so now unhooked her weapon harness.
“Come now.” He reached for her hand. “We’ll clear the minds, at least a bit. Then see what comes into them after. You’ve got your ’link with you if Taylor Noy gets back to you.”
“The wedding’s got to be over by now,” she said as they started down. “Even if they hired a marching band, it’s got to be over.”
“A marching band, is it now?”
“Or opera singers, or those people who do backflips.”
“Acrobats?”
“Those.”
“And I expect, after the drums and trumpets, the backflips and the fat lady singing, they’d have a celebration. Dinner, toasts, and, as it’s Vegas, some gambling, maybe a show. You’d prefer to talk to them face-to-face, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d prefer to talk to them, but yeah, face-to-face is first choice.”
“And that’s unlikely to happen until tomorrow—at least. I can get you to Vegas easily enough if need be.”
“Well, crap.”
She stepped outside, breathed in the air.
“Yeah, maybe. Then Peabody would be all: ‘Oooh, Vegas!’ Then find a way to get around me and lose some of her hard-earned pay in one of those stupid machines that gobbles up hard-earned pay like Galahad does those cat treats. And that’s after she spots half a dozen things in shops that’ll somehow be just perfect for her craft room or home office.”
Roarke slung an arm around her shoulders. “You’re beautiful when you’re cranky.”
“Kids are cranky. I’m pissed.” But she tipped her head toward his shoulder. “It’s the mud.”
“The mud?”
“The mud my wheels keep getting stuck in. And I know, I fucking know most of it’s because I’m hung up on Arnez and Robards. And nothing connects. Whoever did this had an investment, a strong, personal investment, in Noy, either him or the whole family. Possibly to one of the cops who went down with him, but then why mirror Noy’s death, his son’s? It is possible. But so far, nothing there, either.”
He guided her through the garden with its drifting summer scents.
“All right then. Why are you hung up on Arnez and Robards? Specifically?”
“Specifically? The unlocked bedroom window. She was there, opportunity in her lap. They not only live in the building, but developed a relationship, so they knew the Greenleafs’ routines, habits, basic timetables. The window’s a big sticking point.”
“Stuck-in-the-mud point. It’s a strong one,” Roarke allowed.
“But,” she said, “it might have been unlocked days before, weeks before. Might have been opened that night from outside. All but the last risks one of them noticing and relocking it. Much lower risk of that if you unlock it an hour or so before TOD.”
“And? I can hear it. You’re not saying it, but I know my cop and can hear it.”
“And.” She hissed out a breath. “I know how it sounds, but there was a look. When Arnez and Elizabeth Greenleaf got back to the apartment on the night of the murder. When Webster opened the door, Arnez had a look.”
“What sort of look?”
“Excitement. Just for an instant when the door opened. Just a…” Eve snapped her fingers. “But it was there, in her eyes. I saw it. Then came confusion, then calculation. Boom, boom, boom,” she said, snapping her fingers again. “I saw it, and I thought: She’s in this.”
“I didn’t see it, but I was looking more at the wife. Why weren’t you?”
“She wasn’t going to be in it. Webster. He’s not stupid, not naive. Everything he said about her, about their marriage, the family. She wasn’t going to be in it. But she’s got somebody with her. Who the hell is this? And why is she excited?”
“If you saw it, it was there.”
“Excitement, confusion, calculation. All there and gone in the time it takes to breathe in and out again. And.”
They reached the pond with its white floating lilies, its young weeping tree, its skirting flowers. But she didn’t sit on the bench. She paced.
“And, and, and. When we talked to them the next morning, everything was so damn pat. He’s all about how she had a terrible night, was so upset. He’s a little nervous, but covers it well.”
