Obsession in Death (9 page)

However guilty and unsettled she felt, knowing he spoke the absolute truth reminded her just how lucky she was.

“Her admin, speaking of them, found her this morning,” Eve began, going step by step.

“I’d like to see the security run. I assume you’ve had it enhanced, analyzed.”

“Feeney’s on that. The best guess is on race – killer’s white or mixed race. And the height, unless there’s lifts in the boots, hits about five feet ten inches. Estimate on hands and feet – small side for a man, but not unusually small. The clothes? Common, nondescript. No way to pin them down.”

“He’d cased the building prior.”

Really lucky, Eve thought, because Roarke caught on, and quick.

“Yeah, had to. The feed automatically overwrites every seventy-two hours, so there’s no way to go back and… Vacancies.” As it hit her, she jabbed a finger in the air. “I need to check, see if there’s any unit or units in there that have been shown in the last few weeks. Hell, the killer could have walked through the place months ago, but it’s likely he did at least one fresh pass in the last few weeks, to make sure nothing changed.”

“Requests for building schematics?”

“I’ve got that working, but everything’s slow because of the damn holidays.”

“It’s unlikely to matter. This one strikes as too efficient to make it that easy.”

“Efficient, professional, dispassionate.”

“You’re considering a pro?”

“Peabody likes the angle.” Now that she could talk it through – facts, evidence, probabilities – the food went down easier. But she still couldn’t find her appetite.

“Somebody Bastwick knew hired the hit, is using me as that herring thing.”

“Red herring.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it’s red. I don’t know why it’s red. A purple herring makes more sense – or less, which is kind of the point – but I got it’s red.”

“I love you.”

She smiled a little. “I got that, too. We ID’d the murder weapon, but that’s not going to get us far. Piano wire, as easy to come by as brown pants. The tongue – Morris said it was a clean cut, no sign of hesitation marks. The symbolism there’s pretty obvious.”

She wound, unwound, wound pasta on her fork without eating.

“What about her electronics?”

“McNab’s on that. So far nothing that rings. She didn’t have close friends, that’s how it’s reading. No exclusive lover, or, apparently, the wish for one. She made a play for Fitzhugh – dead partner – back when he wasn’t dead.”

“Ah yes, I remember something of that. He had a spouse.”

“Spouse is in Hawaii and covered. I can’t find anything that indicates she was making another play. Fitzhugh had some punch and power, so there was motive for her there. She was, essentially, top dog once he kicked, so why bother?”

“For the fun?” Roarke suggested.

“Seems she went another way for her fun. She booked a hotel room and an LC for Christmas. She had three LCs she used on a kind of rotation, and what we get is she’d settled into a kind of routine there when it came to sex.”

“Safe, unemotional, and she remains in control.”

“Yeah, my take. She had a short ’link conversation with her family on Christmas Day, didn’t travel, didn’t party that we can find. She worked – that was her focus. I see her pretty clear. I used to look in the mirror at her.”

“Not true. Not at all true,” Roarke countered. “You had Mavis – and she’s been family as well as friend for a very long time. Feeney’s the same. He wasn’t just your trainer, or your partner. He was, and is, a father to you.”

“I didn’t go out looking for them.”

“You didn’t shut them out, either, did you?”

“Nobody shuts Mavis out if she doesn’t want to be shut.” She brooded down at her spaghetti. “I tried shutting you out.”

“And look how that worked out. Do you want to say there’s some surface similarity between you and her? I’ll agree. Strong-willed, successful women, on either side of a line of law, but both serving it in their way. Attractive, intelligent, ambitious women, solitary in their ways. Or you were, and would like to be more than you might find yourself these days.”

“I don’t think I could live without you anymore. That’s how that worked out for me. Maybe somebody wanted her.” She wound pasta again, ate without thinking. “And she didn’t want him, or her, back. But…” She shook her head, reached for her wine.

“No passion in the kill.”

“None. When you want someone, and they keep you shut out, there’s despair or anger or payback. I can’t make the motive about her. I can’t find the angle for that. All the angles say it’s about me. And I can’t figure it.”

“Another cop, one who admires you, and resents the defense attorney who works as diligently to ensure the freedom of the criminals you take off the street.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the angles. It’s not one of mine, Roarke. It’s not one of my cops. I don’t just say that because they’re mine, but because I know them, inside and out.”

“I’m going to agree with you because I’ve come to know them as well. There’s no one in your division who’d take a life this way, or use you as an excuse to do so.”

“None of them are psychotic, and that’s how this feels.”

“But you don’t only work with your own. Uniforms who respond first to a scene, who help secure a scene or canvass. A cop from another division whose investigation crossed with yours. One who consulted you, or vice versa.”

“I couldn’t count them,” she admitted.

“And that doesn’t begin to address all those who work on processing and forensics and so on.”

“I stood in the lab today, and I thought: All these people in their white coats, they’d know how to do a clean kill, to keep evidence off a crime scene. And I don’t know them – a handful of them, but that’s it. There’s the sweepers, there’s the morgue doctors, techs, support. Or it’s just some crazy person who got juiced up from the book and vid.”

“Bastwick’s not in either.”

“No, she’s not.”

“Then why her? Specifically her?”

“Okay.” She sat back with her wine. “I spent some time scanning some interviews she did around the Barrow trial. She tried to make a case in the court of public opinion that I had a vendetta going, that I had a score to settle – a personal one. She tried to get in I’d physically assaulted Barrow, covered it up, and she wasn’t wrong. But it didn’t play out. If they’d copped to the reason I did indeed punch the fucker, they’d have had to cop to why. As long as they were stringing the line he’d inadvertently developed a system of mind control using subliminals, they had a shot of getting him off with a light tap. If they had to say I’d punched him because he’d used that system on us, and on you, that meant the law would punch him right along with me.”

“I hurt you. I forced you —”

“He did those things,” Eve interrupted. “He used you, me, Mavis. He did it all for fun and profit. And now he’s doing a good long stretch in a cage. He didn’t kill, but he provided a weapon.”

“Bastwick didn’t get him off,” Roarke pointed out. “Could he have found a way to get back at both of you from that cage?”

“I checked on him. He’s restricted. Isn’t allowed electronics. He doesn’t have access to money, so he can’t pay anybody to do it. I could see him trying to find a way to come after me – the sniveling little coward – but I can’t see him going after Bastwick.

“But I’m going to look at him again,” Eve added. “I’m going to look at her firm – eliminate that connection, and the idea of anyone there hiring a pro.”

“You’d want a good eye on the financials.”

“I thought yours would qualify.”

“So it does. Her family?”

“Yeah, elimination again, because why? Maybe you hate your sister, decide to kill her or have her killed. Why muck it up with me? But we eliminate, we play it right down the line.”

“All right then. Give me a list, and I’ll entertain myself.”

She nodded, looked down at her wine. Set it aside. “I told Summerset not to open the gates for any deliveries or whatever unless he could confirm ID – and not to open the door period. You might want to add your weight to that.”

“I will, though you should know yours is enough for him. You’re concerned because the two of you like to swipe at each other, someone might… misinterpret your relationship?”

“It would mean the killer has more personal information on me – us – but I’m not taking chances. It wouldn’t hurt for you to beef up your personal security until.”

“Because, at some point, I might be viewed as a rival for your affections.”

She lifted her gaze, held his. “Something like that.”

“I should point out that as it’s most likely you’re the center of this, your personal security is a vital issue.”

“Cop, badge, weapon.”

“Criminal – reformed. But reformation doesn’t negate experience. Why don’t we do as you said? We play this down the line, eliminate. Then we’ll worry about the rest.”

“You’re going to worry about me, more than usual. When you do, remember something else I said before. I don’t think I could live without you.” She got up. “I’ll get you the list, and we’ll get started.”

With Roarke settled in his own office, Galahad sprawled and snoring on her sleep chair, Eve finished setting up her board.

She finished it by adding her own ID photo.

Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, she thought, studying herself. Potential victim, potential witness, potential motive.

She’d been a victim once, and wouldn’t be one again. Witness? That was fine, and she intended to grill herself thoroughly. Motive. That one made her sick, and that had to stop.

Routine, she told herself, could be a cop’s best friend. She was counting on it.

She went into the little kitchen, programmed a pot of strong, black coffee. At her desk, she brought up her incomings, saw communication from Mira, from Nadine, McNab, Feeney, another from Cher Reo.

The tough APA inside the stylish shell hadn’t been on the Barrow or Fitzhugh case, but Eve had no doubt Whitney had talked to the prosecutor’s office about the current situation. Reo wanted to be updated, wanted to discuss. And part of that, Eve knew, would be personal.

Unlike Bastwick, Eve hadn’t been able to block or hold off friendships.

Your true and loyal friend,
Eve thought as she looked back at the board, at the copy of the message. What did that mean? Did the killer believe the others who’d become friends in her life were false ones?

I’m the only one you can count on,
Eve speculated.
Look what I did for you.

Yeah, that’s how it read to her.

Though tempted to pull up Mira’s communications first, she opted for potential evidence.

Feeney. Nothing much new, but he’d sent her a full report, including all probability ratios on height, shoe size. He’d even managed to identify the box. Common recycled material, twenty-four-inch square, sealed with standard strapping tape.

And interesting, she noted, he’d been able to find an angle, enhance, and get a readout on a shipping label.

The vic’s name and address in the same block printing as the wall message. Sender’s listed as the law firm.

She’d check it out, but she’d bet heavy that had been more cover. Somebody asks what you’re doing – even the vic? Why, delivering this package to a Ms. Leanore Bastwick from Bastwick and Stern law offices.

Nothing left to chance, Eve mused. Smart and careful.

She moved on to McNab.

Nothing suspicious on any communications. No arguments, no threats, no one, in fact, asking what she might be doing on the day she was murdered. Nor had she volunteered that information in any of her ’link conversations.

He’d logged several communications with clients, with the prosecutor’s office, with the law firm’s internal investigator of ongoing cases.

Eve read them over, looking for anything that set off a bell, uncovered a hunch. And like McNab, got nothing.

Reams of work on her office comp – much of it redacted. Stern wasn’t being that cooperative, but she hadn’t expected him to be. He repped criminals, or at least those accused of a crime.

And he’d already filed a restraint on her home comp, citing attorney/client privilege.

Okay, we’ll play that way, Eve thought, and tagged Reo.

“Dallas, how’re you doing?”

“I’m beating my head against the wall Stern or Bastwick and Stern put up. We’re restricted from full access on Bastwick’s comps, which impedes our investigation of her murder.”

“I know about that. Dallas, attorney/client privilege isn’t bullshit.”

Eve scowled at the screen, and the image of the pretty APA with her fluffy blond hair and deceptively guileless blue eyes. “Come on, Reo, she’s dead. One of her clients may have killed her.”

“Do you have a suspect? Is one or more of her clients a suspect?”

“All of them are.”

“Dallas, if you want me to fight privilege, I have to have cause. Solid cause. What I can and will do is talk to Stern tomorrow, demand he initiate an internal investigation.”

“Great, and if he cut out her tongue, he’s going to lead us right to himself.”

“Dallas.” Reo held up her hands, inner wrists touching. “Tied. But I’m going to do everything I can do, leverage wherever I can leverage, push where I can push. Tell me, do you, the primary, believe one of Bastwick’s clients killed her?”

“I don’t have enough information to believe or disbelieve. I’ve got a file of threats made over the years. It’s hefty.”

“Send me a copy. There I can help.”

“I did a quick cross, and I wasn’t involved directly in any of the cases that elicited a threat. Baxter and Trueheart got the collar on one last year, Reineke took another like five years back, and he and Jenkinson were on one more than three years ago.”

“Flag those.”

“All three are doing time. She got the Baxter and the solo Reineke knocked down from Second Degree to Man One – your office made the deal.”

“Okay.”

“The last she lost, big, and the client’s doing life on Omega. I’m looking at the possibility someone hired a hit on her.”

“Then I’ll look over these three first, and thoroughly. I’ll do whatever I can, Dallas, that’s what I wanted you to know.”

“Appreciate it. Okay. I have to get back to this.”