Kindred in Death (23 page)

“He works from home primarily. Research consultant. Their place is only a few blocks from the real estate agency.”

“We’ll take him first. The parents, they’re in Brooklyn, right?”

“Yeah. The mother works as a family counselor now.”

Eve nodded, took a last look before calling the elevator. “It’s all about family, isn’t it?”

17

ANTHONY HAMPTON WORE CASUAL OFFICE WEAR, a trim goatee, and high-end skids. He greeted Eve and Peabody with a quick smile, and a harried look in green eyes that sparked against warm brown skin.

“Ladies. What can I do for you today?”

“Anthony Hampton?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD, with my partner Detective Peabody.”

“Cops?” His smile turned to a grin as he studied the badges. “That’s a first. Is there a problem in the building?”

“No, sir. We’d like to come in.”

“Okay, sure, but . . .” He glanced behind him. “We’re kind of in mid-chaos around here. Getting married on Saturday.”

Eve felt the clench in her gut, but stepped inside. The hard, she realized, just became brutal. And brutal should always be done quickly. “Mr. Hampton, I regret to inform you that your cohab, Karlene Robins, is dead.”

“What? Jesus, that’s not funny. If this is one of Chad’s sick jokes—”

“Mr. Hampton, the body of Ms. Robins was found this morning. She’s been officially identified. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Come on, come on, that’s fucking bullshit.” The anger slapped out as he grabbed Eve’s arm, shoved her toward the door. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Mr. Hampton.” Eve countered the grip, muscled the man into a chair. “Karlene was murdered in a loft in SoHo, where we believe she took a client for a showing. Did she take a client on a showing yesterday?”

“That’s what she does. That’s what she’s doing right now.” He dragged out his pocket ’link. “Right now.” He punched a single key. And shoved at his hair as a musical voice informed him Karlene was unavailable. “Karlene, I need to talk to you. Goddamn it, Karlene, now. Whatever you’re doing, I need to talk to you now.”

“Anthony.” Peabody crouched down, laid a hand over his. “We’re very sorry.”

“She’ll tag back. She will.” His breathing began to heave and hitch. “She’s just busy. It’s a crazy week.”

“When did you last speak with her?”

“I . . . Yesterday, when she left for work. But, we texted a few times.”

“She lives here, but she didn’t come home last night?”

“She had some work, a client on the hook. And then she was going to Tip’s to do some wedding stuff. She stayed with Tip last night. Tip. I’ll get ahold of Tip, and then . . .”

Eve let him play it out, let him call the friend, listen to her tell him she hadn’t seen or heard from Karlene. She watched anger and disbelief take its horrible slide into grief.

“She—she’s at work. She’s at work. I can contact her boss, and she’ll—”

“Anthony.” Peabody repeated his name, in that same gentle way.

His eyes changed, filled with desperate pain. “But she can’t be dead. That can’t be true.”

“When did she text you?”

“I don’t remember, exactly. Here.” He shoved the ’link at Peabody. “It’s logged. It’s right in there.”

As Peabody took the ’link, stepped away to check its log, Eve pulled a chair over to face him, sat. “Mr. Hampton, look at me now. Detective Peabody and I need your help. Karlene needs you to help us find who hurt her.”

“How is she dead? How is she dead?”

“We believe whoever she took to the loft killed her. Do you know who the client was?”

“That can’t be. This is all . . . not real.”

“Who was the client?” Eve repeated.

“It was some rich guy. Some wannabe artist from a rich family. Young guy.”

“Have you met him?”

“No. But—”

“Do you know his name?”

“She probably told me. I don’t know.”

“She’d have a memo book here, an appointment book.”

“She keeps one here, one in her bag, one at work. Anal. In the office.” He stared hard at Eve’s face, intensely, as if he had to focus on her to form each word. “We share the office here. I work at home. I work at home, and sometimes she does. We’re getting married on Saturday.”

“Can we get her book, take her book?”

“I don’t care.”

Eve signaled Peabody. “Do you know how this man, the one she was with yesterday became her client?”

“I’m not sure. She’s been looking for the right place for him for a few weeks. Big fish. She said big fish. The SoHo loft. That just popped up again. She was so excited. It was just the right property for him, she said. Exactly what he wanted, and the commission would be extreme. She had to move fast.

“Where’s Karlene?”

“We’re going to take care of her now.”

Slowly, he shook his head side-to-side. “She doesn’t like to be taken care of. She takes care of herself. Are you sure? Are you really sure?”

“Yes.”

He buried his face in his hands, began to rock, began to weep. Eve rose, moved quietly away to where Peabody waited.

“A text came in to his ’link at fourteen-ten, and another at eighteen oh-three.”

“She was bound and raped by the time the first went out, dead before the second.”

“He had the friend’s name, gave the word, spending the night and so on, the way Hampton stated. The memo book lists an appointment with D.P. for yesterday at nine-thirty a.m., the SoHo address. I went back through it, and there are a couple others. And one, the initial one from the looks of it, that lists an appointment with Drew Pittering.”

Eve went back to Anthony to ask for permission to search through Karlene’s things, and to take both his ’link and the memo book.

“Who can we call for you, Anthony?” Peabody asked him when they’d done all they could. “Let me call someone for you.”

“My—my family. They’re in town for the wedding. They’re here, in the hotel. They’re here for the wedding.”

When they walked back outside, Peabody pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I know it’s never easy, and notification just doesn’t get to be routine. But that? It had to be one of the worst. All the wedding stuff lying around. It killed me.”

Eve pushed it aside, viciously, as she had inside the apartment. “Hampton didn’t recognize the sketch. But Darrin wouldn’t need to stalk her here. Cohab works at home. Makes it too hard to take her there. But her line of work, that makes it easy to take her in a locked, empty space. You pose as a rich guy, young, attractive—and I bet charming sticks in there. She’d check it out, that’s routine. Check out his ID, but he’d have covered that.”

“I ran the name, along with the image, and his age—and I got nothing.”

“He’s already wiped it. But she’d have checked him out. Maybe there’s something on her comps here or at work. It’s not going to have his real address, but it’s another pin in the map.”

“You’re cutting it close to the media conference.”

“Fucking media.” Eve raked at her hair. “I need you to go by her office, get whatever you can.”

“What about notifying her parents? Oh, Jesus, Dallas, don’t make me do that solo.”

“Take a grief counselor with you. And get the parents into Central. I want to talk to the mother.” She considered the fact Peabody would have to get to Brooklyn and back. “You take the vehicle. I’ll catch the subway back to the house.”

“Okay. Dallas, we couldn’t have stopped this. We couldn’t,” Peabody insisted. “We had nothing to connect Karlene to Deena. Nothing.”

“He knew that. He counted on that. Maybe he’s counting on us not being able to make the connection between the two of them yet. It’s a big leap without the springboard. I’m going to give him more reason to count on that.”

On her way to the subway, Eve tagged Nadine. Sometimes the media had its uses.

As usual, the media liaison tried to prepare Eve, and as usual, Eve threatened bodily harm.

She walked into the media room at Central, and took her position between Commander Whitney and Captain MacMasters. The liaison stepped forward to outline the procedure, the rules, then asked the captain to give his statement.

In full dress blues, MacMasters took the podium. He stood like a cop, straight, with his eyes level.

But he’d aged, Eve thought. Years in a matter of days. He’d gone from lanky to gaunt, from steady to brittle.

“Early Sunday morning my daughter Deena was brutally murdered in her own home. In her own room. In her own bed. She was sixteen years old, a beautiful, bright, loving young woman who had never in her short life caused harm. She was our only child. She loved music and shopping and spending time with her friends. Deena was a normal teenager, with hopes and dreams—and those hopes and dreams as they often are for the young—were to change the world.”

His smile was heartbreaking.

“She was a little shy, and still passionate about her desire to help others. Family and friends who have come or called to comfort my wife and myself speak first, almost always, of Deena’s sweet nature. It’s a testament to her.

“I have been a police officer half my life. I believe the police will bring Deena’s killer to justice. I ask you, as a police officer who has sworn to serve and protect, and as a father who was unable to protect his only child, to contact the NYPSD if you have any information on the person who murdered Deena.”

Questions rang out, of course, as he stepped away despite the instructions of the liaison. Eve ignored them as she stepped to the podium. She stood, silent, stony-eyed, until they faded away.

“I’m Lieutenant Dallas, and the primary investigator in the matter of the murder of Deena MacMasters. A full team of investigators, from Homicide, EDD, and support services, is working this case. We are pursuing all leads, and will continue to do so until the individual who murdered Deena MacMasters is identified, apprehended, and charged. We believe Deena MacMasters knew her killer. We believe she admitted him into the house on the Saturday evening, at which time her killer incapacitated her with a drug added to her soft drink. He then bound and raped her repeatedly over a period of several hours before strangling her. The investigative team will work diligently until we are able to exact justice for Deena MacMasters.”

The questions rained again.

“Why do you think she knew her killer?”

“From statements given by her family, her neighbors, and her friends, we don’t believe Deena would have opened the door to a stranger, especially when she was alone in the house. Evidence leads us to conclude the attack occurred inside the house, and that Deena was unconscious and unable to defend herself or attempt to defend herself prior to being bound.”

“What evidence?”

“I will not discuss specific evidence on an ongoing investigation.”

She continued, answering questions, dismissing others, circling more.

“Lieutenant! Nadine Furst with Now! and Channel Seventy-five. How is the rape-murder of Karlene Robins, whose body was discovered this morning in SoHo, connected to Deena MacMasters?”

It was a perfectly timed bomb. Reporters scrambled, shouting, checking ’links and PPCs.

“I’m here to answer questions pertaining to the investigation of the Deena MacMasters homicide.”

“And I just gave you one.” Nadine pushed forward. “Isn’t it true that the body of another victim was found only this morning? That she, too, was bound, raped, murdered by strangulation?”

Eve’s stare might have bored through steel. “We have not determined if the two cases are connected.”

“But there are very specific parallels.”

“And there are specific differences.”

“What differences?”

Eve allowed the leading edge of anger to snap out. “I cannot and will not discuss the details of either of these investigations.”

“Do you believe these two women were victims of a serial sexual predator?”

The bomb shot shrapnel throughout the room. Eve shouted over the chaos. “We have drawn no such conclusion. We have drawn no conclusion at this time that these cases are related.”

“But you don’t discount the possibility of serial. Or copycat.”

“I will not speculate. I will not feed you—any of you—speculation or conclusions so you can bump your ratings. Two women—one barely old enough to qualify for the term—are dead. That should be enough to spin your current media cycle.”

She strode away, fury in every step.

“Lieutenant!” Whitney’s sharp command stopped her. “With me. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

She followed him into the media ready room, where he closed the door.

“Well. Your performance was exceptional. I hope to God it generates exceptional results.”

“We couldn’t keep a lid on the Robins homicide for long. Bringing it out like this, it makes it look like we’re caught flat-footed, like we’re still a dozen steps behind. If he thinks we’re looking at serial or copycat, he’ll feel smug. We have a chance at the memorial tomorrow. And we may be able to get a line on him through the connections. One or more members of the connected families may have been approached by him in some way. If he thinks he’s still got room, he may try for the next on his list, and soon.”

“Work it. Brief your team. And consider yourself thoroughly dressed down for allowing a media leak of this nature to get through.”

“Yes, sir.”

She headed straight to her office, putting what she hoped was enough restrained fury on her face, in her stride, to ward off any cops who might approach her to offer support, or to wheedle information.

Roarke turned from the AutoChef as she slammed her office door to punctuate the moment. He held out a mug of coffee.

“Victor, spoils,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Just a little reward for your part in that well-timed duet. I think it should play very well, and be lapped up by most. On the other hand, I know you, and Nadine. She wouldn’t have ambushed you that way, and you’d have taken her down harder if she had.”

“Let’s hope the intended audience does some of the lapping. I don’t like using Karlene Robins that way.”

“It doesn’t diminish the truth, or what you’ll do.”

“A day late for her, and a hell of a lot more than a dollar short.”

She would think that way, he knew. It made her what she was. “I hear—as the grapevine climbs quickly—that you were already taking steps to inform and protect those connected to this old MacMasters arrest when you were called to the scene of this second murder.”

“I knew it was connected to MacMasters, something on the job. I knew it was personal, and I believed it was a mirror of another crime. But it took me two days to find it.”