Innocent In Death

22

BEFORE BREAKING THE SEAL ON THE EVIDENCE bag containing Rayleen’s diary, Eve turned on her recorder, logged in the necessary data. She took the metal box-embossed with some sort of wide-petaled flowers-out of the evidence bag, set it on her desk.

“ Peabody found it in the kitchen recycler.”

“Clever Peabody,” Roarke replied as he chose a tool.

“If things hadn’t moved as fast as they did-au pair coming back and so on-if Peabody hadn’t been basically on the scene with the direct purpose of finding this, it might’ve been garbage by morning. Takes more than one cycle for something of this size, material, and density to break down. All she managed was to bang the box up.”

“A pity, too. It’s a lovely box. Sturdy, well made, which is why it held up as well as it did. The girl should have taken the book out of it. That might have broken down before it was found.”

“Some, but she doesn’t know everything. There’s a lot we can put back together in the lab. And…Okay, nice work,” she added, as he had the crushed and passcoded lock open in under ten seconds.

“Well, it’s not a titanium vault, after all.”

Hands already sealed, Eve lifted out the bright pink book inside. It was leather-bound, and again had Rayleen’s name across it in glittery silver letters. It also had a lock, and this one appeared to use an old-fashioned key.

“Comp would be faster than handwritten pages,” she commented.

“And I’ll wager, however indulgent her parents, they wouldn’t allow her to passcode anything on a comp. This…” He tapped a finger on the book. “This seems harmless, very traditional, something a young girl might enjoy.”

She stepped back and let Roarke finesse the lock.

“I’m going to want copies of everything inside there,” she told him.

“Before you read it?”

“No. I want to put the last few pages on record first, then make the copies. But even more, I want to know.”

She flipped through the pink-tipped pages, found the last entry. With her recorder trained on the tidy handwriting on pale pink pages with shiny gold edges, she read out loud.

“This morning I wore my pink-and-black plaid skirt and pink knee boots, and my white sweater with flowers on the hem and cuffs. I looked very pretty. I had fruit and yogurt and seven-grain toast for breakfast, and asked Cora to make real orange juice. That’s what she gets paid for. I had Brain Teasers. It’s getting a little boring, so I might find a way to quit. But still, I like knowing I’m smarter than any of the other students. Just like I’m better than anyone in my dance class. I could, if I wanted, be a prima ballerina one day.

“After BT, Cora and I took a cab to the Met. I don’t see why we couldn’t use a car service. I’m going to ask Daddy about that. I like the art, but mostly everyone who painted anything is dead anyway. I could be a famous artist if I wanted, and have my paintings in the Met. People would pay a lot of money just to look at my paintings. But I think I’d sell mine to collectors. I don’t want people who don’t knowanything and don’t deserve it to just stand there and stare at my work.”

“Interesting ego,” Roarke remarked.

Eve glanced up. “She had to have written this after her mother called them back home. And still, it’s full of I, I, I. Mira’s going to have a field day with this one.”

She looked back at the book, continued to read.

“I wassupposed to meet my mother for lunch at Zoology. It’s my favorite place for lunch, and we had to bookthree weeks in advance for the reservation. One day, when I’m famous, I won’t need a stupid reservation to go anywhere. People will be grateful if I bother to eat in their restaurant.

“After, I was going to the salon for a hair styling and a pedicure. I’d already decided on the Carnival polish, with glitter. Then Cora’s ’link beeped and it was my mother calling us home. We hadplans! We had reservations, but I had to come home, and the whole day was spoiled. My mother wasn’t even dressed when we got there. She’s so selfish.

“But it’s really all that nosy Lieutenant Dallas’s fault. I thought, at first, she was interesting, but she’s not. She’s just mean and pushy and stupid. Now I’ve had to fix everything. Again. It’s just as well, really. My mother’s so weak and silly, and my daddy’s been paying more attention to her lately than to me. So, I’ve taken care of it. It was easy. The easiest one so far.

“She hid pills in her lingerie drawer. As if I wouldn’t find them! All I had to do was make her some tea, and put the pills in it. Like I did with smelly old Mrs. Versy at the Kinley House last year. I had to use more with Mommy because Mrs. Versy was old and half-dead anyway.”

“Well, Christ,” Roarke murmured.

“Yeah. I wondered if there were others along the way.” Eve read on.

“She got into bed just like a baby for me. I watched her drink the tea. That was the best part. She drank it just like I told her, then I waited until she fell asleep. I left the empty bottle right there, so when Daddy gets home in a few hours he’ll find her that way. I’ll cry and cry. I’ve been practicing in the mirror, and I’m so good at it! Everyone will feel so sorry for me, and give me whatever I want. Everyone will think my mother killed that idiot Mr. Foster and that nasty Mr. Williams. It’s such a tragedy! I have to laugh.

“I’m going to do some art now, and listen to some music. I’ll just be in my room when Daddy gets home. His best girl being quiet as a mouse so her mother can sleep. And sleep and sleep.

“I have to go put this book in the recycler now. That’s a

“I think we should go somewhere warm and pretty, with a really nice beach.”

Roarke said nothing for a moment. “She wrote that while her mother was, as far as she knew, dead or dying in the other room.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“She shouldn’t waste her time with art and ballet. She should consider becoming a professional assassin. She has the constitution for it.”

“I’m going to make sure she has plenty of time to consider her options-inside maximum security.” She looked down at the book again, at the tidy yet still childish penmanship. “Let’s get this copied. I want Mira and Whitney to see it ASAP. Then I want to read the rest.”

It was all there, meticulously documented: motives, means, opportunities, plans, execution. Rayleen didn’t stint on details.

If it had been the journal of an adult killer, Eve would have wrapped the investigation and the perpetrator in a heavy chain and locked the door.

But the sticking point was how to handle a killer of such a young age, whose father was a top defense counsel.

By sevenA. M., Eve had Mira and Peabody in her home office, and her commander on hologram.

“I’m not going to buy she’s legally insane,” Eve began.

“Did she and does she know right from wrong? Most certainly,” Mira agreed. “Her crimes are pla

“Will you argue against it for the prosecution?”

“Yes. I’ll need to examine her, of course, but at this point, most certainly I can argue against. Eve, either way, she must be put away, and I believe she will be. She won’t stop.”

Mira drew a deep breath as she studied the pretty face on Eve’s murder board. “Unless she’s stopped by the system, there’s no reason for her to stop. This process works for her. It’s satisfying to her, and proves her superiority. In a childish way, this gets her what she wants, and getting what she wants is her primary goal.”

“Her own mother,” Peabody added. “She writes about killing her own mother without a moment’s regret or hesitation. She didn’t feel a thing about it.”