Payback in Death, page 29
He knew his cop, so played to that.
“People are often nervous after the murder of someone they knew, and with cops at the door. It’s more than that.”
“Yeah, more. She comes out, and her eyes are wet, but they’re not red, not swollen. She doesn’t strike me as somebody who’s in emotional upheaval—but she plays it that way. He’s protective, solicitous. It’s all about her for him.
“All about her for him,” Eve repeated. “No family photos. None. People are always putting pictures around—family, friends. Okay, her father’s gone, she’s not close with her mother. But he’s close to his. And he has sisters. He helped pay for their education, for the married sister’s wedding. He helps support his mother financially. He’s stuck with the same job since he started working. There’s innate loyalty there. But no photos. Because she doesn’t want them.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s all about her. Not even them as a couple, but her. I’m your family now. I’m number one. And he’s the type who goes along. Raised by a single mother, two sisters. It’s his job to protect the women in his life. She’s the planner; he’s the shield. He killed Greenleaf for her.”
She jammed fisted hands in her pockets. “I fucking know it. He came through the window she’d unlocked. Killed Greenleaf, dropped the weapon, and wrote the note just the way she told him to. Then he went out again, probably texted her—something innocuous, but an all clear. Then she sat with the woman whose husband she’d just had killed, whose life she’d just shattered, and drank wine, laughed. She’s got it in her, Roarke. I can see it.”
“That’s a great deal of mud.”
“It could’ve worked, but for a couple of glitches. Webster. That’s a big glitch. Cops already on scene means she can’t get into the bedroom, relock that window. Without Webster, she comes in with the wife, maybe steers her toward the kitchen. Maybe the wife calls out to Greenleaf, but he’s in his office, no worries. How about some coffee? Love some, just gotta pee first. Or anything along those lines. Zip into the bedroom, use a cloth if you’re smart, relock the window, and done.”
“You said a couple glitches.”
“Sweepers, Morris, me. Greenleaf’s prints on the weapon don’t jibe with suicide. The stunner wounds don’t jibe. Now you. The note doesn’t jibe. It leaves out love, leaves out family. Just like she does.”
“Hardly a wonder you’re hung up on them.”
“They did this. Murder and attempted murder. I know it.”
“No doubt you’ve the right of it.” When she frowned at him, he took her hands.
“I won’t say your instincts are infallible, but bloody close. You’ve fairly terrifying observational skills. You saw what you saw, felt what you felt. Even so, you’ve pursued every angle, covered all the ground possible. Now you’ve concluded what you’ve concluded. So no doubt you’ve the right of it.”
And just that dissolved the rock pile of tension in her shoulders.
“I know they did this. But I don’t know why. I can’t find the why. Where’s the deeply personal connection? Because it has to be there.”
“You’ll find it. We’ll find it. You’ve bloody well convinced me.”
“I’ve dug down to the whatever it is where you’ve hit bottom.”
“Bedrock?”
“That’s good enough. I need to talk to the Noys. Maybe another consult with Mira.”
“Which never hurts. Tomorrow,” he said, anticipating her. “Do you think they’ll try to kill again, someone else?”
“No reason to think they will, every reason to believe they won’t. It’s specific payback, a mirror. Plus, they missed with Ben Greenleaf. They may not know that yet, but somebody will tell them. If anything, they’d try for him again. Not now,” she qualified. “Later.”
“Will they run?”
“Why? As far as they’re concerned, they got away with it. She’s covered, her alibi for Greenleaf’s as tight as a skin suit. Robards isn’t the connection, Arnez is. It’s all about her. And the connection’s either down deep or it’s tenuous—to everyone but her. Or both,” she murmured. “Tenuous, barely there, right? To everyone but her.
“I need to get her in the box.”
“Ah, there now. The walk did you good. You’re figuring a way to drill down into the bedrock.”
“Maybe. The walk did work—and talking it all the way through didn’t hurt. You’ve got to follow the evidence, not just a…” Another snap of her fingers. “Look in somebody’s eyes. But put it all together? I’ve got to get myself a drill.”
She smiled at him. “Tomorrow. It got dark,” she added.
“It will do that at night.”
“Yeah, yeah. The lights look nice. They set the trees and the flowers off—and the house. All of it. Summer ought to last longer.”
“We should take advantage of it while it’s here.” He drew her in.
She answered the kiss, let her body relax into it, into the warmth, the quiet. Then his nimble hands unhooked her belt.
“Come on!” With a laugh, she nudged him. “Here?”
“I like it here.” He skimmed his hands up, over her. “A lovely summer evening, even a bit of a moon. The scent of roses and lilies, and you. Put my cop away for now, my darling Eve.”
“Your darling Eve doesn’t usually roll around naked on the grass with you.”
“She doesn’t, no. But then again, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
She judged the distance from the house, and calculated that unless Summerset had field glasses, they were private enough.
She reached for his belt. “You wouldn’t want grass stains on your suit pants.”
“Let’s risk it.”
He took her to the ground.
The grass, soft, springy, cushioned her, and felt somehow erotic against her skin when he tugged off her shirt.
And another long, hard day melted away under him, under his body, his hands, his mouth. So she wrapped around him, wanting to give him that same gift.
A summer night, dark sprinkled with light, the scent of flowers and green. And him.
Lightly, he pressed a kiss to her bruised breast.
“It’s better,” she told him. “Enough I mostly forgot about it.”
“I didn’t.” A wanding to come, he thought. But for now, gently. Gently, every part of her so precious to him, and he could show her.
Soft kisses along her jawline with lazy strokes of his hands designed to relax more than arouse. A slow, deep meeting of lips and tongues, then drawing it out and out so the pleasure whispered between them.
Sweet. There were times his strong warrior needed the sweet. As did he.
With a sigh, she slipped his shirt away, ran her hands over the muscles of his back, his shoulders. In the pretty sparkle of lights, their eyes met. She was with him, he thought, as he needed her to be.
Her heartbeat, matching his; her breath merging with his. And in her eyes, a reflection of all he felt. A love both quiet and fierce.
He touched his lips to her brow, her cheeks, his hands slow and sure as he undressed her.
Tending her, she thought. No one had ever tended her before him. It swelled inside her, the knowledge she could love like this, be loved like this.
She took him in, wanted that union as much as her next breath. More. The belonging, the merging, the quick slice of glory as he brought her to peak. And the soothing balm of release.
“Once more,” he murmured. “Once more, under the moon.”
Once more, they took the slice, the soothing, and the sweet together.
She lay, naked, on the grass, under the moon—and under him—by a pond with air thick with flowers and late summer heat.
It amazed her. She supposed it always would.
“You suggested I take off my weapon so it wouldn’t end up on the ground.”
“I may have anticipated.”
“Now we’re all sweaty, and it’s a sure bet I’ve got grass stains on my ass.” She pressed her lips to his shoulder. “Worth it.”
“More than. Let’s have a swim.”
“I am not swimming in that pond.”
“Isn’t it convenient we have a pool? Let’s have a swim there, then we can see about drilling that bedrock for an hour or two.”
“We could do that.” A couple of laps to wake her back up, then the drilling.
When he rolled away, she found her shirt, started to put it on.
“What’re you doing?”
“Getting dressed.”
“You’ll just have to undress again to swim.” He plucked the shirt away, began to gather up scattered clothes.
“I’m not walking naked to the house and down to the pool.”
“Whyever not? It’s perfectly private.”
“Summerset.”
“Is at the ballet with Ivanna.”
“He’s not in the house?”
“He’s not. He and Ivanna are enjoying The Firebird. They’ll have a late supper after.”
“The house is Summerset-free? Why didn’t you say so?” With a hoot of delight, she scrambled up and ran naked toward the house.
Chapter Twenty-one
They swam and, before she dragged on a T-shirt, he managed to wand her again. They drilled, with him at the auxiliary of her command center, until midnight, when he persuaded her to shut it down until morning.
And just after four A.M., her ’link signaled and woke her.
“Lights at ten percent,” Roarke said. He stood, nearly dressed, beside the bed. “You sleep through a wicked storm, but that wakes you.”
Lightning flashed and, in the following boom of thunder, she saw—at last—Taylor Noy on the display.
“Block video. Dallas.”
“Hey!” Taylor hadn’t blocked hers. She had some sort of big white flower over one ear, a thin pink strap falling off one shoulder, and was clearly very drunk.
“Ms. Noy—”
“Just turned on my ’link. We all turned ’em off, ’cause my sister got married. In Vegas, baby! I had lots and lots of champagne.”
“Okay. Ms. Noy—”
“So I’m pretty much drunk, and I won sixteen hundred dollars shooting craps. I don’t know how to shoot craps, but I won sixteen hundred dollars doing it.”
“Congratulations.”
“I kissed this man—he had to be ninety—right on the mouth. There might’ve been tongues, can’t be sure about that. He was my good luck charm, so what the hell, right? How are you?”
“It’s important I speak with you and your mother as soon as possible.”
“My mom?” Taylor dropped down on a bed. Eve caught sight of a headboard that rivaled EDD with its gold and red swags. “She had a lot of champagne, too. Everybody did! We had such fun! Sasha got married.”
“I can come to you. Are you staying in Las Vegas?”
“Aw. Want to. Can’t. We gotta come home tomorrow. Except for Sasha and Milli. They’re on their honeymoon. In Vegas, baby!”
“What time will you be back in New York tomorrow?”
“Um … um. Two o’clock? Yeah, that’s right. Why?”
“It’s very important I speak to you and your mother.” Eve remembered the damn rotation of the Earth. “Is that two New York time?”
“Yep. Two o’clock, West Islip shuttle station. My stepdad’s got a car picking us up. It’ll drop them off, then take me home. He’s sweet that way. Cal’s such a sweetheart. He booked Sasha and Milli the honeymoon suite. It’s got its own little heart-shaped pool and—”
“Ms. Noy … Are you sober enough to understand and remember what I’m saying?”
“Sure. I’m drunk, but not stupid drunk. Maybe a little bit,” she confessed. “Like a hundred percent drunk and, say, ten—maybe fifteen—percent stupid drunk.”
“I’d like you to write this down. Can you write this down?”
“I’ve got an app for that.” The second sparkly pink strap slipped down when she shifted. “Hey, there it is!”
“When you land—write this down—when you land, contact me.”
“When we land, tag—the fifteen percent can’t spell lieutenant right now. So tag Dallas. ’K, got it.”
“And take the car to your mother’s house, stay there.”
“Stay at Mom’s.” Now she frowned. “Stay there … How come?”
“I want to talk to you and your mother. I can come to you. It’ll be simpler that way. Will you do that?”
“Sure, why not? Contact you, go to Mom’s. I got it! I think I need to puke now, so see you tomorrow!”
Eve sat, staring at the blank screen on her ’link.
“You can always contact her in the morning—don’t forget it’s three hours earlier there,” Roarke reminded her. “Have some pity for the hangover, and be civilized. Wait till noon our time.”
On another roll of thunder, Eve buried her face in her hands. “How can you look like that after four hours’ sleep? Less?”
“Clean living.”
“Since when?”
He came around the bed to kiss her. “Go back to sleep. You can easily grab another two hours.”
He kissed her again, then left her and the cat beside her.
“Go back to sleep,” she muttered, and lay back to go over the conversation with Taylor as thunder boomed. “Who can sleep after all that, and with all this noise?”
Apparently she could, as the next thing she knew it was six-fifteen, and Roarke sat drinking coffee with his stock reports and tablet.
“Feel better?” he asked her.
“I will after coffee.”
She grabbed some, then a shower before she went straight to her closet.
“It’s still August,” Roarke told her, “but the storm’s dropped the temps some, and it’ll be fresher for it.”
“Great.”
Knowing she’d never get away with full black two days running, she grabbed khakis, a tan jacket with some navy running through it, which made it easy to snag a navy tank.
She came out to whatever Roarke had chosen for breakfast.
“Nice choice,” he told her as she sat and poured more coffee.
“Nice choice,” she echoed when he took the domes off bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, golden hash browns. “I want to do more drilling before this afternoon, and try to get that consult with Mira.”
“Well focused, aren’t you now, Lieutenant?”
“It’s them. I’m out of the damn mud because it’s Arnez and Robards. I just have to find the why, and prove it. Get them into the box.”
She ate while Roarke pointed a warning finger at the ever-hopeful Galahad.
“He won’t roll on her. He’d go down for it solo if he had to. But he could let enough slip. He’s not a killer.”
“And yet he killed.”
“I bet those shiny-armor knights didn’t think they were killers when they sliced somebody’s head off to protect the damsel. I can play it that way if that’s how it runs. But I need the why.”
“And hope that Noy’s widow and daughter can give it to you.”
“It’s there. Maybe she had a thing for Noy, went for older men.”
“That would be quite an age gap.”
“Yeah, but it happens. He was powerful, and that can be seductive. More likely a thing for the son. Taylor said no special girlfriend back then, but maybe they kept it quiet. Or he didn’t see her as special, but she did.”
She shrugged, ate some more. “I’ll find it.”
“I’d appreciate if you let me know when you do. I find myself invested.”
“You put in plenty of time, right from the start, so yeah, I’ll let you know.”
She pushed up, strapped on her weapon harness. “I want to get started. I’ve dug up—or maybe it’s drilled down to—some of Brice Noy’s old teachers, classmates. I’m going to try to make contact with a couple on my way in.”
“Arnez and Robards have no idea what they’ve started, or how hard they’ll fall. I’d wish you luck, but luck has nothing to do with it.” He rose to kiss her. “Tag me—and meanwhile, take care of my cop.”
“I’m hoping to talk to a college professor and a former member of a high school debate club. I doubt they’ll take a swing at me, but if they do, I’ll block it.”
He watched her go, toying with the button in his pocket. And hoped she came home unbruised and unbloodied.
Eve went out, got in her car, calculating she’d started early enough to catch both potential interviewees at home.
Professor Elaine Gleason lived on the Upper West Side in an old rosy brick building with generous windows. A dog walker ambled by with a pointy-eared, square-jawed brown dog. The dog strutted as if he owned the city. A spotted dog the size of a small tank galloped toward him, his walker jogging to keep up.
Eve expected an ugly battle.
Tank Dog stopped, lavished Pointy-Ears with sloppy tongue kisses. Pointy-Ears accepted them as his due while the respective walkers smiled and cooed.
Dogs, Eve thought as she walked to the building’s entrance, remained a mystery to her.
Inside, she took the stairs to the third floor. A man answered the buzzer on the Gleason apartment. Mid-fifties, trim in a blue shirt and worn jeans, he had a head full of shaggy, gray-streaked brown hair and hooded brown eyes.
“Good morning.” His voice made Eve think of someone spotlighted on a stage, reciting poetry. “Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.” She offered her badge. “I’d like to speak with Professor Gleason.”
He smiled at her. “Which one?”
“Professor Elaine Gleason.”
“Ah, you want my partner in crime. I probably shouldn’t joke about crime to the police. Elaine!” He raised that made-for-poetry voice. “Cop’s at the door. Come in, Lieutenant. Is there a problem?”
“No, sir. I’d like to speak to Professor Gleason about someone she taught a few years ago.”
“Have a seat. She’s probably got headphones on. I’ll go get her.”
Both walls flanking the doorway he went through were shelves. The shelves were filled with books—dozens and dozens of real books.
Roarke would have loved it.
