Betrayal in Death (4 page)

This one was huge, with a pond-sized tub, a separate shower offering six jets at adjustable heights and speeds, and a drying tube. She'd spent time in a Roarke hotel before, and knew that the mile-long counter would have been artfully decorated with fancy bottles of creams and lotions. This one was bare.

Frowning, she walked over to the brass rack that held three thick and monogrammed hand towels. "He used this one. Let's have a bag."

"How do you know he used it?"

"The monogram's not centered like the others. He used it. Washed up after he'd finished with her, dried his hands, then, tidy guy that he is, hung it back up. She must've come in, walked straight in here to take the used towels, put in fresh. He's somewhere waiting for her, getting a look at her, figuring.

"Maybe the closet," she said. "She starts to walk through again, carrying the used towels, probably dumps them on the floor. She turns down the bed, doing her job, making it nice for the guests. Then he's on her. Snatches her beeper before she can press an alarm, tosses it over there where we found it."

The rest was done on the bed, Eve thought.

"He didn't give her time to try to run. There's no sign in the suite of a struggle, not that she could have managed much of one against a guy his size. The bed linens got soiled and tangled, but nothing else. Everything else is orderly, so he got her there, did it all there. To music."

"That's the creepy part," Peabody murmured. "The rest of it's nasty, but the music part's creepy."

"When he's done with her, he checks the time. Hey, didn't take so long. He washes his hands, probably tsk-tsks about the little scratches she managed to dig into him, changes his clothes, packs up, scooping his amenities into his case. Then the son of a bitch picks up the towels she dropped and carries them out to her cart. Not going to change the sheets, of course, but we don't want to leave more of a mess than necessary."

"That's cold."

"Oh yeah, it's cold. An easy job. In and out of a plush hotel in a matter of hours, a good meal, a fresh supply of bath products and a big, fat fee. I can figure him, Peabody. I can figure him, but I can't figure who pointed him here, or why."

She stood silent a moment, bringing the image of Darlene French into her mind. And as she did, she heard the sound of the hall door opening. With one hand on her weapon, she signaled Peabody to the side with the other. She moved down the hall quickly, quietly, swung around the corner, weapon in hand.

"Damn it, Roarke! Damn it!" Disgusted, she shoved the weapon back in her holster as he shut the door. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for you."

"This room is sealed. It's a crime scene and sealed."

The seal, she imagined, would have taken him less time to uncode with his clever fingers than it had for her to do so with her master.

"Which is why, when informed you were on the premises, it was the first place I looked. Hello, Peabody."

"What do you want?" Eve snapped before her aide could answer. "I'm working."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. I assumed you'd want to follow through on some of the interviews you mentioned last night. Barry Collins is at home, but his supervisor's available at your convenience, as is another maid, Sheila Walker, who was a particular friend of the victim's. She came in to clear out Darlene's locker for the family."

"She can't touch -- "

"And so I told her. Not until you clear it. But I've asked her to wait so that you can speak to her."

She sizzled, sparked, then cooled down to smolder. "I could tell you I don't need any help setting up interviews."

"You could," he agreed, so pleasantly she didn't know whether to snarl or laugh.

"But, you saved me some time, so thanks. I will say I don't want you, or anyone else in this room again until I've cleared it."

"Understood. When you're done you can reach me at zero-zero-one on any 'link."

"We're done, for now. Let's start with Sheila Walker."

"I have an office set up for you on the meeting room level."

"No, let me talk to her and the other one on their turf. Let's keep it informal, keep them comfortable."

"Whatever you prefer. She's in the domestic employees' lounge. I'll show you."

"Fine. You might as well hang around, too," Eve said as she walked through the door he opened. "You'll make her feel protected."

Less than three minutes into the interview, Eve saw she'd called it right. Sheila was a tall, thin black girl with enormous eyes. More times than Eve could count she looked toward Roarke for reassurance, direction, and comfort.

She had a beautiful accent, like island music, but between it and the muffled tears, Eve began to feel a headache brewing.

"She was so sweet. That girl was so sweet. You never heard a bad word out of her mouth about anybody. Had a sunny disposition. Usually, if a guest got to see her or talk to her when she was cleaning, they'd give her a big tip. 'Cause she made them feel good. Now, I'll never see her again."

"I know it's hard, Sheila, to lose a friend. Could you tell if there was anything on her mind, any worry?"

"Oh no, she was happy. In two days, we have off, and the two of us, we were going shopping for shoes. That girl, she loved to shop for shoes. Right before we went for turn-downs we were saying how we'd go early and get ourselves one of those free makeovers at the beauty counter at the Sky Mall."

Her thin, exotic face crumpled. "Oh, Mr. Roarke, sir!"

At the fresh bout of weeping, he merely took her hand, held it.

Eve picked away for another half hour, and took away scattered pieces that formed an image of a carefree, cheerful young woman who liked to shop, go dancing, and was having her first serious love affair.

She'd had a regular breakfast date with her boyfriend every morning after shift. They ate in the employee lounge, except on payday, when they splurged on a meal in a coffee shop a few blocks away. Routinely, he walked her to her transpo station, waved her off.

But they'd been making tentative noises about getting a small apartment together, maybe in the fall.

She'd said nothing to her best friend, as Sheila claimed to be, about seeing, hearing, or finding anything unusual or concerning. And had wheeled away her cart that last evening with a smile on her face.

The bell captain, who she interviewed in a lounge for the bellstaff, gave her a similarly rosy picture of Barry. Young, eager, cheerful, and starry-eyed over a dark-haired housekeeper named Darlene.

He'd gotten a raise only the month before, and had shown anyone he could collar the little gold heart necklace he'd bought for his girl, for their six-month anniversary.

Eve remembered Darlene had been wearing just such a necklace, playing with it, as she'd waited to enter 4602.

"Peabody, girl question," she said as she walked between her aide and Roarke across the lobby.

"I'm quite a girl."

"Right. You have a fight with your boyfriend, or you're having second thoughts about the whole deal, anything like that, do you wear a present he's given you?"

"Absolutely not. If it's a big fight, you toss it back in his face. If you're considering dumping him, you shed a few tears over it, then stick it in a drawer until you work up to the break off. If it's a minor spat, you tuck it away until you see how things are going to shake down. You only wear something he's given you, at least in plain sight, when you want to show him and everybody else that he's your guy."

"How do you keep the rules straight? It's boggling. But that's sort of what I figured. Hey."

She slapped at Roarke's hand as he tugged the chain around her neck and popped the tear-shaped diamond he'd once given her from under her shirt.

"Just checking. Apparently, I'm still your guy."

"It wasn't in plain sight," she said with some satisfaction.

"Close enough."

And catching the gleam in his eye, she narrowed her own. "You try kissing me out here, and I'm going to knock you down. Let's go talk to Barry anyway, Peabody," she said, sliding the pendant under her shirt again. "Close off this angle. You," she continued, tapping a finger on Roarke's chest, "I need to talk to sometime later about the whole media business."

"I'll be at your disposal. Nothing I like better."

The smile he gave her faded, his eyes sharpened as he heard a voice softly crooning a verse of an old Irish ballad.

Before he could turn, an arm snaked around his neck, locked. He'd have countered, was shifting his weight to do so, when the laugh sounded in his ear, and sent him back, all the way back to the alleyways of Dublin.

Then his back was hard up against the wall, and he was looking into the laughing eyes of a dead man.

"Not as quick as once you were, are you now, mate?"

"Maybe not." In a lightning move, Eve had her weapon out and pressed to the man's throat. "But I am. Step back, asshole, or you're dead."

"Too late," Roarke murmured. "He already is. Mick Connelly, why aren't you in hell, and holding my place?"

Cheerfully ignoring the laser at his throat, Mick cackled. "Ah, you can't kill the devil, can you, till he's ready to go? Aren't you a sight, you bastard. Aren't you?"

And Eve watched, baffled, as the two of them grinned like morons.

"Easy, darling." Roarke lifted a hand, gently nudged Eve's, and her weapon, down. "This ugly son of a bitch is in the way of being an old friend."

"That I am. And isn't it just like you to hire yourself a female bodyguard?"

"Cop." Roarke's grin spread.

"Well, Jay-sus." Chuckling, Mick stepped back, tapped Roarke playfully on the cheek. "You never used to be quite so chummy with a badge."

"I'm very chummy with this one. She's my wife."

Staring, Mick clutched his heart. "She needn't bother dropping me. I'm dying of the shock. I'd heard -- oh, one hears all manner of things about Roarke. But I never believed it."

He bowed, rather charmingly, while Eve secured her weapon, then took her hand and kissed it before she could avoid it. "It's pleased I am to meet you, missus, pleased as I can be. Michael Connelly's my name, and Mick to my friends, which I hope you'll be. Your man here and I were lads together long ago. Very bad lads we were, too."

"Dallas. Lieutenant Dallas." But she warmed a bit because his eyes, green as summer leaves, were twinkling with such good humor. "Eve."

"You'll forgive the... exuberance of my greeting my old mate here, but the excitement got the better of me."

"It's his neck. I have to go," she said to Roarke, but held out a hand, in a manner that demanded a shake rather than a kiss on the knuckles. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise for certain. And hope to see you again."

"Sure. Later," she said to Roarke, then signaled an avidly watching Peabody toward the door.

Mick watched her stride off. "She's not sure of me, is she, boyo? And why should she be? Christ, it's good to lay eyes on you, Roarke."

"And you. What are you doing in New York, and in my hotel?"

"Business. Always a little business. In fact, I'd hoped to run you to ground to discuss it with you. Deal and wheel, wheel and deal." He winked. "Have you any time for an old friend?"

CHAPTER FOUR

He looked damn good for a dead man. Mick Connelly wore a petal-green suit. Roarke remembered he'd always been one for color and flash. The cut and drape disguised most of the heft he'd added in the last years.

None of them had had any heft to speak of in their youth, as varying types of hunger had kept them bone lean.

His sand-colored hair was cut short and sharp around a face that had, like his body, filled out with age. He'd had the front teeth that had bucked out like a beaver's fixed somewhere along the way. He'd lost the pitiful excuse for a mustache he'd insisted on sporting, and had never come in at more than a smudge over his top lip.

But he still sported the Irish pug nose, the fast, crooked grin, and eyes of wicked and dancing green.

No one would have called him handsome as a boy. He'd been short and skinny and covered from top to bottom with ginger-colored freckles. But he'd had quick hands, and a quicker tongue. His voice was pure south Dublin, tough music suitable for choreographing flying fists.

When he stepped into Roarke's office in the old and elegant main house of the hotel, he planted his hands on his hips and grinned like a gargoyle. "So, you've done for yourself, haven't you, mate? I'd heard, of course, but seeing's a kick in the arse."

"Seeing you's the same." Roarke's voice was warm, but he'd had time to recover from that instant of surprise and pleasure. A part of him held back, calculating what this ghost from the dead past might want of him. "Have a seat, Mick, and catch me up."

"I'll do that."

The hotel office was designed to uplift its more pedestrian functions. And as anything Roarke designed, it was as much concerned with comfort as with efficiency. The topflight communication center and equipment were blended into graceful furnishings and stylish wall panels. The ambiance was of an urban exec's fashionable pied-a-terre.

Mick took a seat in one of the deeply cushioned chairs, stretched out his legs, scanned the room -- and Roarke imagined, the fenced value of its contents. Then he sighed and studied the view out the wide glass doors and the stone balcony beyond them.

"Yes, you've done for yourself." His eyes darted back to Roarke, the laughter in them impossible to resist. "If I give you my word not to lift any of your doodads here, will you stand an old friend to a pint?"

Roarke moved to a wall panel and, opening it, ordered two Guinnesses from the AutoChef inside. "It's programmed to draw them proper, so it'll take a minute."

"Been a while since we lifted one together. How long do you think? Fifteen years?"

"There or about." And the fifteen before that, he thought, we had been as thick as, well, thieves. Roarke leaned back against the table while the Guinnesses were built, but didn't fully relax his guard. "I'd been told you'd bought it in a Liverpool pub. Knife fight. My sources are usually reliable. So why is it, Mick, you're not making book in hell?"

"Well now, I'll tell you. You may recall my mother, God bless her cold, black heart, would often tell me that it was my fate to die with a knife in my belly. She claimed whenever she had a good snootful of the Irish to have the sight."

"Is she still living then?"

"Oh aye, last I heard. I left Dublin some time before you did, you'll remember. Traveling here and there, out to make my fortune however it could be made. Doing bits of business, mostly moving merchandise of one kind or another from one place to another place where it might cool off before moving it yet again. Which was what I was doing in Liverpool on that fateful night."

Idly, Mick opened a carved wooden box on the table beside him and arched his brows at the French cigarettes inside. They were vicious in price, and the use of them banned nearly everywhere a body could go.

"Mind?"

"Help yourself."

For friendship, Mick took only one rather than palming a half dozen as he would have otherwise. "Now where was I?" he said as he lit it with a slim gold perma-match out of his pocket. "Ah, yes. Well then, I had half the take in my pocket, and was to meet my... client for the rest of it. Something went wrong. Port Authority garda got wind, raided the warehouse. They were looking for me, as was the client who got it into his head I'd weaseled on the deal."

At Roarke's suspicious frown, Mick laughed and shook his head. "No indeed, I did not. I'd only half my take, so why would I? In any case, I ducked into the pub to think it through and see if I could arrange for some quick and quiet transpo. Getting out was the main thing, what with the cops and the thugs out for my blood. And wouldn't you know it, while I'm sitting there stewing about losing my fee, about going on the run, a fight breaks out."

"A fight in a waterfront pub in Liverpool," Roarke said mildly as he slid two pints of dark, foamy Guinness from the AutoChef. "Who'd believe it?"

"A hell of a one it was, too." Mick took the beer, pausing in his story to raise his glass to Roarke. "To old friends then. Slainte."

"Slainte." Roarke took a seat, tasted the first thick sip.

"Well, I tell you, Roarke, fists and words were flying, and there I was just wanting to keep what you'd call a low profile for the time being. The barman, well, he's got himself a bat and he's banging it on the bar and the patrons are starting to whistle and take up sides. Then the two who started it -- and I never heard what set them off -- draw knives. I'd've slipped out at that point, but there was no getting past them without risking losing a slice of something off me person, which I wasn't willing to do. It seemed wiser to blend with the crowd, which was taking bets and circling. And some of the onlookers got into the spirit and began to punch each other for the fun of it."

It was easy to picture, and easy to remember how many times they'd started such an evening's entertainment themselves. "How many pockets did you pick during the show?"

"I lost count," Mick said with a grin, "but I made up a small portion of my lost fee. Chairs began to fly, and bodies with them. I couldn't help but get caught up in the thing. And damned if the two who'd started it didn't end up sticking each other. Mortal, too. I could see that right off by the blackness of the blood. And the smell of it. You know how that whiff of death hits the nose."

"Yes, I do."

"Well, most of the crowd backed off then quick enough, and began to disburse like rats leaving a ship. And the barman, he goes to call the cops. So it comes to me, like a flash of light, this one dead man here's my coloring and close to my build as well. So, it's fate, isn't it? Mick Connelly needs to vanish, and how better than to be dead on the floor of a Liverpool pub? I switched IDs with him and ran.

"So Michael Joseph Connelly died bleeding there, as his mother had predicted, and Bobby Pike took the next transpo for London. And that's my story." He drank deep, let out a breath of pleasure. "Christ, it's good to look at that face of yours. We had some times, didn't we? You and me and Brian and the rest."

"We did, yes."

"I heard about what happened to Jenny, and to Tommy and Shawn. It broke my heart knowing they died as they did. There's only you and me and Bri left from the old Dublin gang."

"Brian's in Dublin still. He owns The Penny Pig, and mans the bar himself half the time."

"I've heard it. I'll wind myself back to Dublin town again, and see for myself one day. Do you go back much?"

"No."

Mick nodded. "Not all the memories are good ones, after all. Still, you got well out, didn't you? Always said you would." He rose then, carrying his half-empty pint as he strolled to the glass doors. "Think of it. You own this whole bloody place, and Christ knows what besides. Last years, I've been over the world and off it, and nowhere I've been could I say I haven't heard the name of my old boyhood mate bandied about. Like a damn religion." He turned back and grinned. "Fuck me, Roarke, if I'm not proud of you."

It struck Roarke, oddly, that no one who had known the boy had ever said those words to the man. "What are you doing with yourself, Mick?"

"Oh, bits of business. Always bits of business. And when some of it brought me to New York City, I said to myself, 'Mick, you're going to get yourself a room in that fancy hotel of Roarke's and you're going to look him up.' I'm traveling under my own name again. Time enough's passed since Liverpool. And too much time's passed I'm after thinking since I had a pint with old friends."

"So you've looked me up, and we're having our pint. Now, why don't you tell me what's behind it all?"

Mick leaned back against the door, lifted the pint to his lips, and studied Roarke with those dancing eyes. "There never was any getting over on you. A natural radar you've always had for bullshit. But the fact is what I've told you is true as gold. It just so happens that it occurred to me that you might be interested in some of the business I'm here to conduct. It's a matter of stones. Pretty colorful stones just wasting away in some dark box."

"I don't do that sort of thing anymore."

Mick grinned, let out a short laugh, then blinked as Roarke merely sat watching him. "Oh come now, this is Mick. You're never going to tell me you've retired those magic hands of yours."

"Let's just say I've put them to different uses. Legal ones. I haven't needed to pick pockets or lift locks in some time."

"Need, who said anything about need?" Mick said with a bluster. "You've a God-given talent. And not just your hands, but your brain. Never in my life have I met anyone with a slick and cagey a brain as yours. And for larceny it was created." Smiling again, he walked back to sit. "Now you're not going to expect me to believe you run all of this fucking empire of yours on the up and up."

"I do." Now. "And that's a challenge in itself."

"My heart." Dramatically, Mick clutched his chest. "I'm not as young as once I was. I can't take this kind of shock to the system."

"You'll live through it, and you'll have to find another setting for your stones."

"A pity. A shame. A sin, really, but what is, is." Mick sighed. "Straight and narrow, is it? Well, I've got something straight as I like to mix things up to keep myself fresh. I've a little enterprise I've started with a couple of fellows. Small chickens compared to a big rooster like you. Scents. Perfumes and the like, with the idea of packaging the product with an old-fashioned spin. Romance, you know. Would you be interested in an investment?"

"I might."

"Then we'll talk about it sometime while I'm in town." Mick got to his feet. "For now I best see what sort of accommodations I've copped here, and let you get back to whatever it is you do with yourself."

"You're not welcome at The Palace," Roarke said, rising. "But you are in my home."

"That's kind of you, but I'm not looking to put you out."

"I thought you were dead. Jenny and the others, save Brian, are. I never had them in my home. I'll have your luggage seen to."

There were already psychiatric, personality, and pattern profiles generated on Yost through various law enforcement agencies around the globe. Still, Eve considered sending them, and her notes on him, to Dr. Mira, the NYPSD's top profiler, for a nutshell analysis.

But a professional killer was, in essence, only a tool. However much she wanted him, she wanted his employer more.

"The FBI estimates Yost's fee for a single hit to be in the neighborhood of two million, USD. This doesn't include expenses and escalates according to the target, and the difficulty of the job."

Eve inclined her head to the screen in the conference room at Central where Darlene's image smiled out at her. "What makes a twenty-two-year-old chambermaid worth two million plus?"

"Information," McNab suggested. He'd been called in, much to his delight, as consult from EDD. Now he sat, his long blond hair meticulously looped through a trio of round red clips, and his pretty, thin face sober.

"Possible. Going there we say the victim had, or was believed to have had, damaging information. If so, why not arrange, for a much lesser fee, a botched mugging? She had a regular routine coming and going to work, used public transportation, and walked, most usually alone, from the transpo stops to the hotel, and to her building. Stick her on the street, grab her purse, and she goes down as a mugging victim. Low profile."

"Yeah." And though he agreed, McNab felt he had to justify his addition to the team by playing devil's advocate. "But there's a real element of risk on the street. She gets lucky, gets away, some good Samaritan comes to her rescue. You take her at work, in a room, and there's no mistake. She's out."

"And the murder gets priority, a big, fat investigative team, and Roarke," she added, though she didn't care for it. "Somebody's got enough wherewithal for a major hammer, he knows just what he's taking on by putting a murder into Roarke's lap."

"Could be he's stupid," McNab said with a glimmer of a grin.

"Could be you are," Peabody snapped back. "Whoever hired Yost wanted it high profile. Media, intense investigation. It's an attention grabber, so it follows he was looking for attention. Maybe paying for it, too."

"Okay, and maybe I agree with that." McNab, miffed, shifted to Peabody. "But why? The hammer and the victim get the attention. He doesn't. So what's his point? We've got no real motive for French. Fact is, we can't say for sure if she was a specific target or just a handy one."

"She's the dead one," Peabody shot back.

"And if she'd switched rooms with another maid that shift, she'd be alive, and they'd be dead."

"McNab, you surprise me." Eve kept her voice mild, and just faintly sarcastic. "That's almost real detective thinking. According to hotel records, James Priory, a.k.a. Sylvester Yost, didn't specify that particular room, or even that particular floor when he booked. This tells me, and is corroborated by the probability scan that I, just for the hell of it, ran before this meeting -- just one of those pesky investigative chores we use over here in Homicide. This tells me," she continued as both McNab and Peabody winced, "that Darlene French was not a particular target. Which in turns tells me that it's unlikely she had any particular purpose or meaning other than being alive and in that room."