Seduction in Death (5 page)

"That's how it got its name," she continued, "as mixed with alcohol it tends to loosen the system up enough so the ingestor would be amenable to being fucked naked on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. The ingestor wouldn't necessarily have the motor coordination left to actively participate, and would unlikely remember doing so, but she'd be damn amenable to suggestion."

"Add Rabbit?"

"Oh, she'd participate with the entire U.S. Marine Corps, until she passed out cold, until her heart rate went off the charts and her brain-wave pattern flattened."

"A doctor would know that," Eve prompted. "A chemist, pharmacist, nurse, med tech, anyone with a working knowledge of pharmaceuticals would know the combination was fatal?"

"Yeah, anyone should. Unless he or she is a moron, or just didn't give a shit as long as it was fun while it lasted."

"Okay, ask around. If anything strikes you, get in touch."

"You can bank on it."

"You did a nice job around here," Eve added.

"We like to think so." Louise finished off the coffee, two-pointed the cup in the recycle bin. "Your three million went a long way."

"Three million?"

"I was ready to dive into the half million we agreed on. Didn't expect the bonus."

"When..." Eve ran her tongue around her teeth. "When did I give you the bonus?"

Louise opened her mouth, closed it again. Smiled. "Now why do I think you don't have a clue?"

"Refresh me, Louise. When did I give you three million dollars?"

"Never. But your rep did, late February."

"And my rep would be?"

"Some slick suit named Treacle, of Montblanc, Cissler and Treacle. Issued in two installments -- -the half mil as agreed, and another two point five if I contracted to donate my services to Dachas, a newly established abuse center for women and children on the Lower East Side. Dachas," she said, still smiling, "is, I'm told, Gaelic for hope."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. You've got a hell of a man there, Dallas. You ever get tired of him, I'll take him off your hands."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"You gave her the money for all that?" Peabody demanded as she hustled out after Eve.

"No, I didn't give her the money because it's not my money, is it? It's Roarke's money. I'm a cop, goddamn it. A cop doesn't have space stations full of money to make grand gestures with."

"Yeah, but still. Does that piss you off?"

Eve stopped on the sidewalk, took a long breath. "I don't know if it pisses me off." But she kicked the base of a street lamp just in case she was. "He could tell me about this stuff, couldn't he? He could keep me in the loop so I wouldn't go into this sort of situation and come out feeling like an idiot."

Peabody looked back at the clinic, her soft heart going to goo stage. "I think it was a beautiful gesture."

"Don't contradict me, Peabody. Do you forget I am the supreme bitch cop?"

"No, sir. And as your vehicle is in the same spot and the same condition as you left it, the neighborhood didn't forget that either."

"Too bad." A bit wistful, she looked around. "I'd've enjoyed busting some ass."

Back at Central, Eve snagged a candy bar in lieu of lunch, brooded, called up data on the chemicals pertinent to the Bankhead homicide, brooded some more, then called to harass McNab.

"I want an address."

"Would you settle for twenty-three of them?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Look, I'm going to snag a conference room, your office is a box. Your level," he said, working a keyboard to his left manually as he spoke. "Ah... Room 426. I'm using your name to finesse it."

"McNab -- "

"Easier, quicker to explain this face-to-face. Give me five."

He broke transmission on her snarl, which gave her no choice but to finish her snarl at Peabody. "Conference room 426. Now," she ordered.

She stormed out of her office, through the detective's bullpen where the kill lights in her eyes discouraged any of her associates from speaking to her. By the time she shoved into the conference room she'd worked up a fine head of steam and only required a handy target to spew it on.

To his misfortune, Feeney strolled in first.

"What the hell kind of division are you running up there?" she demanded. "McNab's giving me orders now? Hanging up on me? Booking rooms in my name on his own initiative, and... and refusing to give me data when ordered."

"Hold on now, Dallas. I'm an innocent bystander."

"Too bad, 'cause they're the ones who usually end up bloody."

With a little shrug, Feeney rattled the bag of nuts weighing down his pocket. "All I know is the kid tagged me, asked me to swing by here so he could fill us both in at once."

"I'm primary on this case. EDD was requested to assist and consult. I have not yet formed a task force in this matter, nor have I been authorized by the commander to do so. Until I say different McNab's a drone and nothing more."

Feeney stopped rattling the bag, angled his head. "That go for me, too? Lieutenant?"

"Your rank doesn't mean dick when I'm primary. If you can't teach your subordinates proper pecking order and procedure, then maybe your rank doesn't mean dick in your own division."

He stepped in until the tips of his shoes bumped her boots, leaned in until the tip of his nose bumped hers. "Don't you tell me how to run my division. I trained your ass and I can still kick it, so don't you start thinking you can tear a strip off mine."

"Back off."

"Fuck that. Fuck that, Dallas. You got a problem with my command style, you spit it out. Chapter and verse."

Something in her head wanted to explode. Why hadn't she felt it? Something in her heart was screaming. But she hadn't heard it. So it was she who backed off, one cautious step. "He drugged her with Whore and Rabbit. He covered the bed with rose petals and fucked her on them until she died. Then he tossed her out the window so she lay broken and naked on the sidewalk."

"Oh Jesus." Pity edged his voice.

"I guess it's been stuck in my throat since Morris told me. I'm sorry I slapped at you."

"Forget it. Sometimes you catch one that hits you harder than others. You gotta slap at somebody."

"I've got his face, I've got his DNA, I've got his transmissions. I know the table in the club where he fed her the first of the Whore in drinks that she paid for with her own debit card. But I don't have him."

"You will." He turned as Peabody strode in a step in front of McNab. Both of them had flushed faces. "Detective, did you request permission from the primary to convene in this room?"

McNab blinked. "I needed to -- "

"Answer the question."

"Not exactly. Captain." He didn't need to see Peabody smirk to know she did. "I apologize for overstepping, Lieutenant Dallas. I believe the information I have to, ah, impart, is important to the investigation and is better served in person than interoffice transmissions."

The dull flush burning up his throat was enough to satisfy her. "Then impart it, McNab."

"Yes, sir." It was difficult to look stiff and cold while wearing cherry red trousers and a skin-tight sweater the color of daffodils. But he nearly managed it. "In tracing the suspect's account from the fraudulent source location, I was able to ascertain the name used to register the account. It purports to be a business called La Belle Dame."

"Purports to be," Eve said.

"Yes, sir. There is no firm or organization by that name doing business in the state of New York. The address given for the company is, in fact, Grand Central Station."

"And I'm to be excited about this because... ?"

"Well, I kept separating layers and hit on sources for the actual transmissions. The locations they were sent out from. So far. I've hit twenty-three spots. All public cyber-cafes and clubs, in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. So far," he repeated. "He moves around, sends and receives from ports in public venues. The only e-mail sent or received from that screen address was to and from Bryna Bankhead."

"He created it for her," Eve murmured.

"The umbrella account could have other screen names," McNab went on. "I haven't been able to break through the blocks. Yet. Whoever created the account knows his cyber-shit. I mean, he's good, and he's careful."

"Her best friend didn't recognize him. So far none of the door-to-doors on the building have turned up any neighbors who recognized him." Eve paced. "If Bankhead didn't know him, if he wasn't seen in or around her building before the night of the murder, then we have to assume he targeted her from the chat room."

"He knew where she worked," Peabody put in.

"But she didn't make him, and neither did her friend who works the same department. So he's maybe a casual customer. If he was a regular or an employee who spent any time in their department, they'd have noticed. You still notice guys who hang out where they sell women's underwear. But we'll run his picture through their human resources division.

"So he uses public venues. He either likes to socialize or he's hiding in plain sight. Maybe both. We circulate his picture at the cyber-spots."

"Lieutenant?" McNab wagged his fingers. "Do you know how many cyber-venues there are in New York?"

"No, and I don't want to know. But you can start counting them off as you visit them." She looked at Feeney. "You in if Whitney authorizes?"

"I'd say we're already in."

"Generate a list," she told McNab. "We'll split it up, work in pairs for now." She gave a soft sigh. "McNab and Feeney are the experts in this area. I'm only going to ask this once, in this room. Does anyone here have a problem working with anyone else on this team?"

McNab stared at the ceiling as if fascinated by the dull white tone of the paint. Peabody simply frowned at her shoes.

"I take that as a no. Peabody, you're with McNab; Feeney, you're with me. Start on the West Side; we'll take the East. We'll do as many venues as possible until..." She checked her wrist unit, calculated. "Twenty-one hundred. We'll meet at my home office tomorrow, oh eight hundred for a full briefing. Feeney, let's pitch this to Whitney."

Feeney strolled out after her, whistling. "You could've split us up another way."

"Yeah." She glanced back down the corridor and hoped she wasn't making a mistake. "But I'm thinking this way maybe the two of them will duke it out and we can all get back to normal."

He considered that as they hopped on a glide. "I got twenty on Peabody."

"Shit." She jammed her hands in her pockets. "Okay, but if I've got to lay down on McNab's bony ass, I want odds. Three to five."

"Done."

Back in the conference room, Peabody and McNab sat just as they were.

"I've got no problem working with you,"' McNab said.

"Why should you? I haven't got one working with you either."

"Good."

"Good."

They stared, ceiling and shoes, for another twenty seconds. McNab broke first. "You're the one who's been avoiding me anyway."

"I have not. Why should I? We are so over."

"Who said anything different?" And it burned him that she could say it, just that coolly, when he thought about her all the time.

"And you wouldn't think I'd been avoiding you if you hadn't been trying to get my attention."

"Shit. For what? I'm a busy boy, She-Body. Too busy to worry about some stiff-necked uniform who spends her off-time playing with LCs."

"You leave Charles out of this." She leaped to her feet, rage boiling in her blood. And a new little tear in her heart.

"Me, I don't have to hunt up pros. I got all the amateurs I can handle." He kicked out his legs, worked up a sneer. "But that's neither here nor there, right? We got the job, and that's it. If you can handle it."

"I can handle anything you can. More."

"Fine. I'll put the list together, and we'll get started."

CHAPTER FOUR

"You don't have his face."

Eve scowled at Dickie Berenski, the chief lab tech. He might have had a smarmy smile, an attitude that had earned him the not-so-affectionate nickname of Dickhead and a personality defect that deluded him into thinking of himself as a ladies' man, but he was a genius in his little world of fibers, fluids, and follicles.

"You called me out of the field to tell me I don't have his face?"

"Figured you'd want to know." Dickie pushed himself away from the station, sent his chair spinning toward another monitor. His spidery fingers danced over a keyboard. "See that there?"

Eve studied the color-washed image on monitor. "It's a hair."

"Give the lady a prize. But what kinda hair, you might ask, and I'm here to tell you. This didn't come out of your perp's head, it didn't come out of your victim's head, or any other area of their bodies. Came out of a wig. Expensive, human hair wig."

"Can you track it down?"

"Working on it." He scooted his chair to yet another post. "Know what this is?"

There were colored shapes and circles and formulas on the monitor. Eve blew out a breath. She hated the guessing games, but knew her job when it came to Dickie. "No, Dickie, why don't you tell me what it is?"

"It's makeup, Dallas. Base cream number 905/4. Traces of it found on the bed linens. And it don't match what was on the dead girl. Got more." He switched the image. "We got here traces of face putty. Stuff people use to give 'em more chin or cheekbone, whatever, if they don't want to go for permanent face sculpting and shit."

"And she wasn't using any face putty."

"Another prize for the little lady! Guy was wearing a wig, face putty, makeup. You don't have his face."

"Well, this is just wonderful news, Dickie. You got any more?"

"Got a couple of his pubic hairs. The real thing -- medium brown. Be able to give you more on him from that before we're finished. Got his fingerprints on the wineglasses, on the bottle, on the body, balcony doors, and rail. And here and there. You find him, we'll box him up real pretty."

"Send me what you've got. Track down those brand names. I want that data by morning."

"Hey!" he shouted as she strode out. "You could say thanks."

"Yeah. Thanks. Goddamn it."

She let it play through her head all the way home, trying to see what kind of man lived inside her killer. She was afraid she did see. He was smart -- smart enough to change his appearance so the security cameras and Bryna Bankhead wouldn't identify him. But he hadn't taken her out, or gone back to her apartment with the idea of killing her. Eve was sure of it.

He'd gone to seduce her.

But things had gotten out of hand, she mused, and he'd found himself with a dead woman on his rose petals. He'd reacted, panicked or angry, and had tossed her. Panicked rang with her. It hadn't been temper on his face when he'd come out of the apartment.

He had money, or access to it. After more than a year with Roarke she knew the signs. She'd recognized the exclusive cut of the killer's suit, even the pricey gleam of his shoes.

But he'd let Bryna pay for the drinks. A two for one, Eve thought. No paper trail, and a boost to his ego by having the woman pay for him.

He had solid tech skills and a knowledge of chemistry. Or again, access to that knowledge and skill.

He was sexually twisted. Perhaps inadequate, even impotent under normal circumstances. He'd be single, she decided as she approached the gates of home. Unlikely to have had any long-term or healthy relationships in his past. Nor had he been looking for one. He'd wanted complete control. The romantic trappings had been for his benefit, not hers.

An illusion, she decided, his fantasy. So that he could envision himself as lover.

Now that he'd achieved that control, he would do one of two things. He'd hole up in fear and guilt over what he'd done. Or he'd start hunting again.

Predators, in Eve's experience, rarely stopped at one.

The house loomed into view, with all its fanciful and elegant angles softened by twilight. Lights glowed richly against too many windows to count. Ornamental trees and shrubs she couldn't name were in wild bloom, perfuming the air so delicately, so completely, you could almost forget you were in the city.

Then again, sometimes she thought of this strange and perfect space behind stone walls and iron gates as its own country. She just happened to live in it.

She'd come to love the house. Even a year before she wouldn't have believed that possible. She'd admired it, certainly. Been both intimidated and fascinated by its sheer beauty, its amazing warren of rooms and treasures. But the love had caught her, and held her. Just as love for the man who owned it had caught her. Had held her.

Knowing he wasn't inside tempted her to turn around and drive away again. She could spend the night at Central.

Because the idea depressed her, because it reminded her of what she might have done before her life had opened to Roarke, she pulled to a stop in front of the house.

She climbed the old stone steps, pulled open the grand front door, and stepped out of the dusk into the glamorous light of the entrance foyer.

And Summerset, a skinny crow in his habitual black, stood waiting. His stony face matched his stony voice.

"Lieutenant. You left the premises in the middle of the night and failed to inform me of your schedule or your expected return."

"Gee, Dad, am I grounded?"

Because it would irritate him, and irritating Roarke's majordomo was one of life's guaranteed pleasures, she stripped off her jacket and tossed it on the polished newel of the main staircase.

Because it would irritate her, and irritating Roarke's cop was one of Summerset's pleasures, he lifted the scarred leather jacket with two thin fingers. "Informing me of your comings and goings is a basic courtesy, which naturally you're incapable of understanding."

"Ice. We understand each other. Anyway, I was out partying all night. You know, while the cat's away." She wanted to ask, and couldn't bring herself to ask, if he knew when Roarke was expected back.

He'd know, she thought as she started upstairs. He knew every fucking thing. She could call Roarke herself, but that would make her feel nearly as stupid. Hadn't she talked to him twenty-four hours ago? Hadn't he said he hoped to wrap things up and be home in another couple of days?

She walked into the bedroom, thought about a shower, thought about a meal. And decided she wasn't in the mood for either. Better to go up to her office, run some probabilities, read through her case notes. She removed her weapon harness, rolled her shoulders. And realized work wasn't the answer either.

What she needed was some thinking time.

It was a rare thing for her to go up to the roof garden. She didn't like heights. But despite the sprawling space of the house, being inside made her feel closed in. And maybe the air would clear her head.

She opened the dome so starlight sprinkled down on the dwarf trees, the lush blooms that speared and spilled out of pots. A fountain gurgled into a pool where exotic fish flashed like wet jewels.

She took her time walking to the wall, carved with winged fairies, that circled this section of the roof.

They'd entertained up here a few times, she remembered. For a man in Roarke's position, entertaining was a job. Though, for reasons that escaped her, it was something he actually enjoyed.

She couldn't recall ever coming up here alone before, or for that matter, ever coming up with just Roarke. And she wondered who the hell tended the masses of flowers and plants, fed the fish, kept the tiles gleaming, made certain the seats and tables and statuary were clean.

It was rare to see any sort of servant, human or droid, in the house other than Summerset. But then, she'd learned that people who held great wealth, great power, could easily command silent and nearly invisible armies to handle the pesky details of life.

Despite that wealth and that power, Roarke had gone personally to handle the final details of a friend's death.

And she spent her days handling the details of the deaths of strangers.

She let her mind clear, then filled it with Bryna Bankhead.

Young, eager, romantic. Organized. She'd surrounded herself with attractive things displayed in an attractive manner. Her closet had been full of stylish clothes, with everything hung neatly.

Both the dress and the shoes she'd worn on her fatal date had been new, with the debits efficiently listed in her log book. She'd gotten a manicure and had a facial as well, had put on pretty earrings purchased the afternoon of her date.

A very female woman, Eve mused. One who read and enjoyed poetry.

Which meant the killer had hunted the young, the romantic, the particularly female.

She had two bottles of wine in her kitchen, one white, one red. And neither approaching the label or price range of the bottle on the table. Had he brought it with him, in his black leather bag, along with the illegals, the rose petals, the candles?

She'd kept condoms in her goodie drawer, but the killer hadn't used one. Bryna had been too high on illegals to insist on such defenses, which meant the killer hadn't been concerned about protection, or leaving DNA evidence.

Because, had she lived, she wouldn't have been able to identify him by description. More, Eve thought, she wouldn't have been sure what had happened. They'd had drinks in public, where, according to the server Eve had interviewed that evening, she had been very cozy with her date. Hand-holding, kisses, quiet laughter, long, soulful looks. The server, according to his statement, had assumed they were lovers.

The security cameras would not only follow that theme but add to it. She'd not only let him into her apartment, she'd pulled him inside.

That had been clever of him, Eve thought now. Waiting, letting her make the move. For the record.

If she'd lived, he'd have gotten away clean.

She wondered now if he'd done it before.

No, no. She began to pace along the wall. If he had, why would he make the mistake of overdosing her? It seemed like a first time. But she'd run a probability on that.

If there were another it was another channel to explore, another route to tracking him. To stopping him.

Pulling out her memo book, she plugged in key words.

Chat rooms

Poetry

Rare, expensive illegals

Wig, cosmetic enhancements

Pink roses

Pinot Noir '49

Sexual deviant

Tech skills

Chemistry knowledge

After scanning her own words, she tucked the book back in her pocket. Maybe she'd have that shower, that meal, and work after all.

And turning, she saw Roarke.

It didn't matter that they'd been together more than a year. It occurred to her that she would, very likely, have this leap of heart, this dazzling rush, every time she saw him for the rest of her life.

Eventually, it might stop embarrassing her.

He looked like something fashioned from fantasy. The long, rangy body clad in black, would have looked just as natural in a billowing cape or tarnished armor.

His face, framed by that silky sweep of black hair, would have suited either poet or warrior with its chiseled bones and full sensuous mouth. His eyes, that wild and wonderful blue, still had the power to weaken her knees.

No, she realized, it would never stop embarrassing her.

It would never stop thrilling her.

"You're back early."

"A bit. Hello, Lieutenant."

At the sound of his voice, that subtle and rich lilt of Ireland, everything inside her tumbled. Then he smiled, just the faintest curve of his lips, and she took a step toward him. By the second she was running.

He caught her halfway, lifted her right off her feet even as his mouth found hers.

There was heat, one quick flash, and warmth beneath it, a spreading, settled warmth that reached down to the marrow.

Home, he thought as the taste of her coated over the grief and fatigue of the last days. Home at last.

"You failed to inform me of your schedule," she said in a reasonably accurate mimic of Summerset. "Now I guess I have to cancel the hot date I lined up with the lap-dancing twins."

"Ah, Lars and Sven. I've heard they're very inventive." He rested his cheek against hers as he set her on her feet again. "What are you doing up here?"

"I don't know exactly. Couldn't settle, wanted air." She eased back to study his face. "You okay?"

"Yes."

But she angled her head, took his face in her hands. "Are you okay?" she repeated.

"It was difficult. More than I expected it to be. I thought I'd put it away."

"He was your friend. Whatever else, he was your friend."

"One who died so I didn't. I've resolved that." He laid his brow on hers. "Or thought I had. This wake Brian wanted, the gathering of so many from my past, then seeing where Mick had been put in the ground... it was difficult."

"I should have gone with you."

He smiled a little. "Some of the mourners might have been a little uneasy with a cop in the midst. Even my cop. Still, I've a message from Brian for you. As he stood behind his bar at the Penny Pig he asked that I tell you when you've come to your senses and shed yourself of the likes of me, he'll be waiting for you."

"It's always good to have backup. You have dinner?"

"Not yet, no."

"Why don't we try a little role reversal? I'll make you eat, sneak a soother in your food, then tuck you into bed."

"You've shadows under your eyes, so it seems to me you're the one in need of food and bed. Summerset said you were out all night."

"Summerset is a big, fat tattletale. I caught a case last night."

He feathered his long fingers through her hair, letting all those shades of brown and blonde spill through. "Want to tell me about it?"

She could have said no, and he'd have wheedled it out of her. "Later." She eased back into his arms, held on.

"I missed you, Eve. Missed holding you like this. Missed the smell of you, the taste."