Imitation in Death (23 page)

"That was just through lunch?'

"That's right."

"You're a busy guy. Is it harder for you to handle all this stuff out of New York than it was when you traveled?'

"I still travel."

"Not like you used to."

"It used to hold more appeal for me. Before I had a wife who invited me to nail her on the kitchen floor.".

She smiled, but he knew her too well. "What's troubling you, Eve?"

She nearly told him about her dream, her memory, but pulled back from it. The subject of mothers had to be sensitive for him yet. Instead she used work. It wasn't an evasion. Work did trouble her.

"My gut knows who he is already, has from the first time I saw him. But I can't see him, so I don't know for sure. Not in my head. He changes, and he'll change again, so I can't see him. Not his type, or even his mind. Because that changes, too. He's good at what he does because he changes. Because he assumes the personality of what he imitates. I don't know if I can stop him."

"Isn't that what he's hoping for? That he'll frustrate you by assuming a different personality, different method, different victim type, all of it?"

"So far, mission accomplished. I'm trying to separate him from, let's say, the cloak he wears. To see him as he is so I'll know if my gut's right. So I can move from instinct to evidence to arrest."

"And what do you seem'

"Arrogance, intelligence, rage. Focus. He has excellent focus. Fear, too, I think. I'm wondering if it's fear that makes him imitate others, instead of striking out in his own way. But what does he fear?"

"Capture?"

"Failure. I think it's failure. And maybe that fear of failure has its roots in the female authority figure."

"I think you see him more clearly than you give yourself credit for

"I see the victims, she continued. "The two he's killed already, and the shadow of the one who'll be next. I don't know who she'll be, or where, or why he'll choose her. And if 1; don't figure it -out, he'll get to her before I get to him."

Her appetite was gone, as was the euphoria of good sex. "You're a busy guy, 'Roarke,". she said.

"Got a lot on your plate"

"I prefer that to an empty one. So do you."

"Good thing for us. I need to look into my list of suspects. I- need 4o find this female authority figure, because when I do, I find him. I could use a hand."

He took hers, squeezed it. "I happen to have one available." The most practical way to begin, she thought, was alphabetically. And, though it still scraped the pride a bit, to let Roarke man the computer.

He may have gotten spanked by a barbecue grill, but on a desk unit, he was king.

"We'll start with Breen," she told him. "I want everything I can get on Thomas A. Breen and his wife, without tram pling on privacy laws."

He sent her a pained look as he sat at her desk. "Now, what fun is that?"

`Keep it clean, ace."

"Well then, I want coffee. And a cookie."

"A cookie?"

"Yes." The cat leaped on the desk to bump his head against Roarke's hand. "You have a cookie cache- in here. I want one."

She stuck her hands on her hips, tapped her-fingers. "How do you know I have a cache?"

He stroked the cat and smiled at her. "Unsupervised, you forget to eat half the time, and when you remember, you go for the sugar."

She took some exception to the "unsupervised remark, but had another priority. Eyes slit, she came closer, watched his face as keenly as she would a -prim suspect. "You haven't been sneaking into my office at Central and riffling my candy stash?"

"Certainly not. I can get my own candy."

"You could be lying," she said after a moment. "You're pretty slippery."

"And so you said in the shower."

"Har-har. 'But I don't see you skulking around Central lifting my chocolate just to drive me buggy."

"Not when I can easily find more convenient ways to do so. Where's my, coffee?"

"Okay, okay. Thomas A. Breen."

She went into the kitchen off her home office, felt the cat ribbon around her legs despite the fact he'd had a slice of pizza. She programmed a pot of coffee, got down mugs, then-sending a cautious glance toward the office-went to the small utility closet and dug into the space behind the cat food for the bag of triple chocolate chunk cookies.

She started to take one out for Roarke, decided she could go for one herself. Then thought, what the hell, he was helping her out. They'd blow what was left in the bag.

Sensing dessert, Galahad went into serious purr-and-rub mode. She poured a handful of cat treats into his bowl, watched him pounce on them like a lion on a gazelle as she loaded the coffee and cookies on a tray.

'"Initial data's up, though I assume you already have the basics," Roarke said. "More's coming. Why are you looking at Breen?"

"First, it's standard to run anybody I interview during an investigation." She set down the tray. "I'm going deeper because he flicked my switch. Don't know why, exactly."

She walked toward the wall screen where Roarke had already brought up the standard data.

"Thomas Aquinas Breen, age, thirty-three,. married, one child, male, age two. Writer and professional father. Decent reported income. He makes a solid living, and appears to be on the track to making more. One bust for illegals-Zoner-age twenty-one. College smoke, nothing surprising. Native New Yorker, NYU grad: -fine arts with post-grad work in criminology-I like that one-and :creative, writing. Earns his living writing magazine articles, short stories, and the two published nonfiction books to date, both substantial best-sellers. Married five years, both parents living and in Florida."

"Sounds normal."

"Yeah." But it wasn't, Eve thought. It wasn't quite the pretty picture it presented. "Got a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Couldn't afford it on what he made prior to the second hit book, but the wife has a high-powered job, so you assume they combined incomes as they've lived there since their second year of marriage. He deals with the kid, she makes the more regular bucks."

He sampled a cookie. His wife, he thought as the chocolate exploded in his mouth, had an unerring sweet tooth. "I have any number of employees with a similar setup."

"There was just something off, that's all. Hard to pin. Then you add that this guy spends his day thinking about murder, reconstructing it with words, reading about it, imagining it." "Really?' He poured coffee for both of them. "Who would devote so much time and energy to murder?"

"I heard the sarcasm. The difference is a murder cop's supposed to find murder abhorrent. This guy gets off on it. Not that big a leap between fascination and experimentation. He's got the education, the flexible schedule, the knowledge, and a motive if you figure over and above the thrill, these murders, once it hits the media big, will juice up sales of his books. His wife's a fashion exec, and I bet she knows the value of publicity, too."

Studying the screen, she rocked back and forth on her heels. "He's got the paper. Claims it was a gift from a- fan, one he doesn't remember. No way to-prove or disprove. Yet. Be interesting if I find out he or his wife bought it though. That would be interesting."

"I could smudge those privacy lines a bit, see what I can dig up on that."

It was tempting, but Eve shook her head. "It wasn't charged to his or his wife's account. Not that we've found. Pushing that angle would mean more than a little smudge. We'll stick to the bio for now."

"Spoilsport."

"He has the paper, and that's enough. He has it, and he let me see it. That's interesting enough for now."

"If he's your man, wouldn't the wife knowT'.,

"Seems to me, unless she's an idiot. Her bio doesn't read idiot to me. Julietta Gates, same age, Mother.NYU- grad. Bet they met in college. Fashion and public relations, double major. She had her path mapped out, and she's moved right along it. Minimal break for birthing, then back to work. Made double what he did up until two years ago, and still pulls in about the same annually, and more regularly. Wonder' how their financials are set up?".

"What are you looking for?

"Who runs the show? Money's power, right? I bet she calls the shots in that household."

"If that's the criterion, I feel-, I'm not as fully in charge as I should be around here."

"Too bad for you. I don't give a damn about your money. I bet Tom cares about hers." She brought-him, the-house, the child, the feeling of the home back into her mind; "Needs her share to run that nice house, raise the kid the way he wants, until he rises up another level in his own line. Good clothes, good toys, -good child-care droid as backup, while he works at his own pace, so he can take time off to play horsey with his son, take him to the park.".

"And those marks of a good father make him a murder suspect. As I'm following you, I'm afraid that makes us a very cynical pair." - She glanced over her. shoulder just to look at him. Cynical or, not, she reflected, they were a pair. "He never talked about her as a partner, or as one of the points of the family triangle.. You saw his stuff and the boy's lying, around. Toys, shoes, and so on, but nothing of hers. Interesting, that's all. Interesting that they're not a unit. Bring up, the parental data.

She scanned it, filling in the blanks from the bare essentials she'd studied earlier. "See, the mother's the alpha dog here, too. Important career, the main wage earner. Father retired from his job to take over as professional parent. And look here, Mom served as an officer, including president, of the International Women's Coalition, and is a contributing editor to Tile Feminist Voice. An NYU alum, while Dad went to Kent State. Yeah, that's interesting."

"Scenario being, Breen grew up in a female-dominant household, controlled by a woman with strong ideas and a political; bent while his father changed the nappies and so foci. The mother pushed him to study at her alma mater, or he did; so to gain her approval. And when choosing a mate, he selected another strong personality who would control his world while he took the more historically typical female role of nurturer."

"Yeah, which doesn't make him a whacked-out psychopath, but it's something to consider. Copy and file the data here and to my unit at Central."

He smiled as he did so. "It appears I've selected a strong personality as well. What does that say about me, I wonder?"

"Please," she added, and. remembering the cookies walked over to take one. "I'll have a face-to-face with Julietta Gates tomorrow. Meanwhile, let's move on to Fortney, Leo."

Fortney was thirty-eight, and had two marriages, two divorces, no offspring. With Roarke's quick work, and his understanding of what she wanted, she read that his first wife had been a minor vid star, in the porn category. The marriage had lasted just over a year. The second was a successful theatrical agent.

"There's some buzz here," Roarke added. "The juicy gossip sort from media reports. You want them up, or do you want the highlights?"

"Start with the highlights."

"It appears Leo was a very bad boy." Roarke sipped coffee as he read from his own screen. "Got caught with his pants down, literally, in a hotel suite in New L.A., entertaining a pair of well-endowed starlets. Besides the two naked nubile starlets-that's a quote, by the way-there were rumors that considerable, chemical enhancements and appliances of a sexual nature were also -involved. Obviously,_ suspecting something' of the sort, his wife had a P.I. on.him. He was skinned to the bone in the divorce, and endured considerable snickering publicity as several other women were happy to talk to the media about their experiences.with: the hapless Leo. One is quoted as saying: `He's a walking hardon, always coming on and usually petering out at the sticking point.' Ouch."

"Sexually promiscuous, unable to maintain, and embarrassed publicly by a woman. Got a sheet with a couple of sexual assaults and an indecent exposure. I like it. And look at his financials. No way he, can maintain the lifestyle he wants on what he pulls in. He. needs a woman-currently Pepper Franklin-to keep him."

"I don't like him," Roarke muttered, continuing to read. "She deserves better."

"He hit on Peabody."

He looked up now, a dark gleam in his eye. "I really don't like -him. Did he move on you?" '

"Nah. He's scared. of me."

"At least he isn't completely brainless then."..

"What he is, is an ego-soaked liar who likes to take bimbos to bed-Peabody played up the bimbo angle on him and use stronger women to take care of him, then cheat on them. He's educated, knows how to put on a polished front. Likes the good life, including high-dollar writing paper, is theatrical enough to enjoy the imitation route, and has the necessary freedom to troll and hunt. What have we got on his parents, family background?"

"On screen. You can see his, mother's an actress. Largely supporting roles, character parts. I actually know some of her work. She's good, stays busy."

"Had Leo with husband number two out of five. I'll- say she stays busy. So he's got a number of step- and half-sibs. Father's a theatrical broker.,, Same as Leo. Somebody who puts projects together, right?"

"Mmm. There you go. There are snippets of gossip here, too." He was scanning quickly on this first pass, looking for buzz words. "Our man would've been six when his parents divorced, both having very public affairs during the marriage, and afterward. His mother also claimed the father as physically abusive. Then again, he claimed the same about her. Reading bits and pieces here, it sounds as if the household was a war zone.''

"So add a violent childhood and potential parental neglect. Mom's a public figure, which makes her powerful. They probably had household staff, right? Maids, gardeners, full time child care. You could see what you could dig up on who looked after little Leo while you display the Renquists for me."

"Mmm I'm having another cookie.

She glanced back as he spoke, ready to make some sarcastic comment. But the look of him, just the look of him sitting there at her desk, his hair shining from the shower, his eyes vivid and focused on the screen, had her heart tripping.