Big Jack (25 page)

Peabody studied the blood patterns, boldly blue under the scanners set on tripods.

“Another few weeks, maybe days, they’d have set the floor, covered the walls. He picked a good spot for this.”

“Nobody to see her, hear her,” Eve stated. “Easy enough to get her inside, dozens of reasons he could’ve used. There’s plenty of pipe for the murder weapon, tarps to wrap her body in to transport it. He’d get the gas first. Have that in the transfer vehicle. He got in here, he could access the gas. We’ll follow up there. There’ll be records of what’s stored or purchased through the Whittier account.”

“I’ll get on that.”

“Do it on the way. Let’s go see Whittier.”

She didn’t want him on scene, not yet. She wanted this first contact in his home, where a man felt most comfortable. And where a man, guilty or innocent, tended to feel most uneasy when confronted with a badge.

She didn’t want him surrounded by his employees and friends.

He opened the door himself, and she saw a sleepless night on his face that was layered over now with what might have been shock and worry.

He extended a hand to her in what she took as the automatic manners of a man raised to be polite. “Lieutenant Dallas? Steve Whittier. I don’t know what to think, what to say. I’m not taking this in. Hinkey thinks there’s been some mistake, and I’m inclined to agree. I’d like to get down to the site and—”

“I can’t allow that, at this time. Can we come in?”

“What? Oh, yes. Sorry. Excuse me. Ah . . . ” He gestured, stepped back. “We should sit down.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Somewhere. In here, I think. My wife’s out, but I expect her back soon. I don’t want her to walk in on this. I’d rather try to tell her . . . Well.”

He walked them into his den, held out his hands to chairs. “Would you like something? Something to drink?”

“No. Mr. Whittier, I’m going to record this interview. And I’m going to give you your rights.”

“My . . . ” He sank into a chair. “Give me a minute, will you? Am I a suspect in something? Should I . . . Do I need a lawyer?”

“You have a right to a lawyer or a representative at any time during this process. What I want is to get a statement from you, Mr. Whittier. To ask you some questions.” She set a recorder in plain view on the table and recited the revised Miranda. “Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”

“Yes, I guess I do. That’s about all I do understand.”

“Can you tell me where you were on the night of September sixteenth?”

“I don’t know. Probably here at home. I need to check my book.”

He rose to go to the desk for a sleek little day calendar. “Well, I’m wrong about that. Pat and I had dinner out with friends. I remember now. We met at about seven-thirty at the Mermaid. It’s a seafood place on First Avenue between Seventy-first and -second. We had drinks first, then took the table about eight. Didn’t get home until around midnight.”

“The names of the people you were with?”

“James and Keira Sutherland.”

“And after midnight?”

“I’m sorry?”

“After midnight, Mr. Whittier, what did you do?”

“We went to bed. My wife and I went to bed.” He flushed when he said it, and the expression reminded her of Feeney’s embarrassment when he’d realized what she and Roarke had been up to on their recreational break.

She deduced Whittier and wife had indulged in some recreation before sleep.

“How about the night of September fourteenth?”

“I don’t understand this.” He muttered it, but checked his book. “I don’t have anything down. A Thursday, a Thursday,” he said, closing his eyes. “I think we were home, but I’d have to ask Pat. She remembers these things better than I do. We tend to stay home most evenings. It’s too hot to go out.”

He was a lamb, she thought, innocent as a lamb, just as he’d been at seven. She’d have bet the bank on it. “Do you know a Tina Cobb?”

“I don’t think . . . the name’s a little familiar—one of those things you think you’ve heard somewhere. I’m sorry. Lieutenant Dallas, if you could just tell me what’s going on, exactly what’s . . . ” He trailed off.

Eve saw on his face the minute the name clicked for him. And seeing it, she knew she’d been right in betting the bank. This man had had no part in splattering the girl’s blood.

“Oh my sweet Jesus. The girl who was burned, burned in the lot a few blocks from the site. You’re here about her.”

Eve reached in her bag, just as the bell rang at the door. Roarke, she thought. She’d made the right choice in contacting him after all. Not to help her determine Whittier’s involvement, but to give the man someone familiar in the room when she pushed him about his son.

“My partner will get the door,” she said, and took Tina’s photo out of the bag. “Do you recognize this woman, Mr. Whittier?”

“God, yes, oh God. From the media reports. I saw her on the reports. She was hardly more than a child. You think she was killed in my building, but I don’t understand. She was found burned to death in that lot.”

“She wasn’t killed there.”

“You can’t expect me to believe anyone on my crew would have a part in something like this.” He glanced up, confusion running over his face as he got to his feet. “Roarke?”

“Steve.”

“Roarke is a civilian consultant in this investigation,” Eve explained. “Do you have any objection to his presence here at this time?”

“No. I don’t—”

“Who has the security codes to your building on Avenue B?”

“Ah. God.” Steve pressed a hand to his head a moment. “I have them, and the security company, of course. Hinkey, ah . . . can’t think straight. Yule, Gainer. That should be it.”

“Your wife?”

“Pat?” He smiled weakly. “No. No point in that.”

“Your son?”

“No.” But his eyes went blank. “No. Trevor doesn’t work on sites.”

“But he’s been to that building?”

“Yes. I don’t like the implication here, Lieutenant. I don’t like it at all.”

“Is your son aware that his grandfather was Alex Crew?”

Every ounce of color drained from Steve’s cheeks. “I believe I’d like that lawyer now.”

“That’s your choice.” Standing as shield, Eve thought. Instinct. A father protecting his son. “More difficult to keep certain facts out of the media once the lawyers come into it, of course. Difficult to keep your connection to Alex Crew and events that transpired fifty years ago out of the public stream. I assume you’d prefer if certain details of your past remained private, Mr. Whittier.”

“What does this have to do with Alex Crew?”

“What would you do to keep your parentage private, Mr. Whittier?”

“Nearly anything. Nearly. The fact of it, the fear of it has ruined my mother’s health. If this is exposed, it might kill her.”

“Samantha Gannon’s book exposed quite a bit.”

“It didn’t make the connection. And my mother doesn’t know about the book. I can control, somewhat, what she hears about. She needs to be protected from those memories, Lieutenant. She’s never hurt anyone, and she doesn’t deserve to be put on display. She’s not well.”

“I’ve no intention of doing that. I don’t want to have to speak to her, to force her to speak to me about any of this.”

“You want to shield your mother,” Roarke said quietly. “As she shielded you. But there are prices to be paid, Steve, just as she paid them in her day. You’ll have to speak for her.”

“What can I tell you? For God’s sake, I was a child the last time I saw him. He died in prison. He’s nothing to do with me, with any of us. We
made
this life.”

“Did the diamonds pay for it?” Eve wondered, and his head snapped around, insult plain on his face.

“They did not. Even if I knew where they were, I wouldn’t have touched them. I used nothing of his, want nothing of his.”

“Your son knows about them.”

“That doesn’t make him a killer! That doesn’t mean he’d kill some poor girl. You’re talking about my
son.
”

“Could he have gotten access to the security codes?”

“I didn’t give him the codes. You’re asking me to implicate my son. My child.”

“I’m asking you for the truth. I’m asking you to help me close the door your father opened all those years ago.”

“Close the circle,” Steve mumbled and buried his face in his hands. “God. God.”

“What did Alex Crew bring you that night? What did he bring to the house in Columbus?”

“What?” With a half laugh, Steve shook his head. “A toy. Just a toy.” He gestured to the shelves, and the antique toys. “He gave me a scale-model bulldozer. I didn’t want it. I was afraid of him, but I took it because I was more afraid not to. Then he sent me upstairs. I don’t know what he said to my mother in the next few minutes, other than his usual threats. I know I heard her crying for an hour after he left. Then we were packing.”

“Do you still have the toy?”

“I keep it to remind me what he was, what I overcame thanks to my mother’s sacrifices. Ironic really. A bulldozer. I like to think I razed and buried the past.” He looked over to the shelves, then, frowning, rose. “It should be here. I can’t remember moving it. Odd.”

Antique toys, Eve mused while Whittier searched. Gannon’s ex had antique toys in his office and an advance copy of the book.

“Does your son collect this sort of thing, too?”

“Yes, it’s the one thing Trevor and I shared. He’s more interested in collector’s values, more serious about it than I from that standpoint. It’s not here.”

He turned, his face was sheet-white now and seemed to have fallen in on itself. “It doesn’t mean anything. I must have misplaced it. It’s just a toy.”

 

 

 

“Could it have been moved?” Eve studied the shelves. She had a vague sort of idea what a bulldozer looked like. Her knowledge of machines was more finely tuned to urban style. The maxibuses that belched up and down the avenues, the airjacks that tore up the streets in the most inconvenient places at the most inconvenient times, the droning street-cleaning units, the clanking recycler trucks.

But she recognized models of old-fashioned pickup trucks and service vans, and a shiny red tractor, not unlike the one she’d seen on Roarke’s aunt’s farm recently.

There were toy replicas of emergency vehicles that were boxier, clunkier to her eye than what zipped around the streets or skies of New York. And a number of bulky trucklike things with scoops or toothy blades or massive tubes attached.

She didn’t see how Whittier could be sure what was missing, or what was where. To her eye, there was no rhyme or reason to the collection, but a bunch of little vehicles with wheels or wings or both cobbled together as if waiting for a traffic signal to turn green.

But he was a guy, and her experience with Roarke told her a guy knew his toys very well.

“I haven’t moved it. I’d remember.” Steve was searching the shelves now, touching various vehicles or machines, scooting some along. “I can’t think why my wife would either, or the housekeeper.”

“Do you have any of this sort of thing elsewhere on the premises?” Eve asked him.

“Yes, a few pieces here and there, and the main collection upstairs in my office, but . . . ”

“Why don’t you take a look? Peabody, could you give Mr. Whittier a hand?”

“Sure. My brothers have a few model toys,” Peabody began as she led Steve out of the room. “Nothing like what you’ve got here.”

Eve waited until their voices had faded. “How much is this kind of deal worth?” She waved her thumb toward the shelves as she turned to Roarke.

“It’s a bit out of my milieu, but antique, nostalgic, novelty collections of any kind have value.” He picked up a small, beefy truck, spun the wheels. The quick smile confirmed Eve’s theory that such matters were indeed guy things. “And the condition of the pieces add to it. These are all prime, from what I can see. You’re thinking the toy’s been lifted.”

“Strong possibility.”

He set the truck down but didn’t release it until he’d pushed it gently back and forth. “If Trevor Whittier stole it from his father, if the diamonds were indeed hidden inside it—and that’s where you’re heading?”

“Past heading. I’m there. I don’t think you should be playing with those,” she added when he reached for the tractor.

He made a sound that might have been disappointment or mild embarrassment, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “Then why kill? Why break into Samantha’s house? Why not be toasting your good fortune in Belize?”

“Who says he knows they’re in there?” She watched Roarke lift a brow. “Look at his profile. He’s a lazy, self-centered opportunist. I’m betting if Whittier does a check of his collection, he’ll find several of the better pieces missing. Stupid bastard might just have sold them, and the diamonds along with them.”

She wandered up and down the shelves, scanning the toys. “Samantha Gannon’s ex has a collection.”