Strangers In Death

10

UNDER THE PULSING JETS OF THE SHOWER THE next morning, Eve considered her options. She could bring Ava in, try to sweat a confession-fat chance-out of her, or just shake her confidence by letting her know she was being watched.

And she’d lawyer up in a quick, fast minute, sob to the media, and possibly Tibble’s wife. Which would, most likely, alienate possible sources of information such as Forrest, Plowder, and Bride-West.

Sweating her might be satisfying, but likely unproductive at this stage.

She could continue to scrape at layers, cutting through the dirt and the bull until she found enough inconsistencies, enough probable cause to make a solid case.

But it had to be faced, she admitted, ordering the jets off to step into the drying tube. The woman was good. She’d covered her undoubtedly surgically sculpted ass in every direction. Where was the loose end? Eve asked herself as the warm air blew around her. Where was the person whose hands had secured the ropes? Where was the person who’d walked into that bedroom and done the deed Eve was flat-out sure Ava had designed?

A lover was a hard sell. The woman had a husband and a twice-monthly LC, and only so many hours in a day. Could Ava have squeezed in an affair, have juggled that many balls without anyone who knew her suspecting? Not impossible, not for someone that organized and calculating, but…a hard sell.

A friend? Could Plowder or Bride-West-or both-have conspired to kill Thomas Anders? What incentive could Ava have offered them to commit murder? She rolled that around while she pulled on a robe and walked into the bedroom to hunt up clothes.

Roarke sat drinking coffee and scratching Galahad between the ears. Sometime during her shower, she noted, he’d switched from stock reports to the morning news. “They’ve just run a brief interview with Ben on today’s memorial. More of a quick statement, really, as he wouldn’t answer any questions on the nature of his uncle’s death or the investigation. He looked shattered.”

Eve went with black because it was easiest and made it simpler to blend in during a memorial. “Let me ask you this, taking away the fact you like this guy personally. Could he have been having an affair with Ava?”

Roarke muted the screen, watching Eve as she dressed. “I can’t imagine him betraying his uncle in that way-in any way, really-but particularly in that way. Even if his love for Anders was a sham, Ava isn’t his type.”

“Why not?”

“He tends toward younger, career-oriented, athletic types who’d be happy kicking back with a beer.” He paused as she strapped on her weapon. “Good thing I snatched you up before he saw you.”

“Well, now I know where to go when I’m done with you. Try this one on. The three women go off to St. Lucia. They go off somewhere together every year, so nobody thinks anything of it. But this year they have more to do than get wrapped in papaya leaves and suck down mimosas.”

She shrugged into her jacket, and as Roarke observed, didn’t so much as glance in the mirror as she crossed over to get coffee.

“One of them comes back to New York clandestinely, kills Tommy as per Ava’s plan while Ava’s ass is covered on St. Lucia. Ava’s there when Greta calls, and she takes her time leaving. Giving her partner time to get back. Then she takes the shuttle home while the other two wait a reasonable amount of time, then call her to cement the story.”

“Involving all three of them? Risky.”

“Maybe Bride-West was still asleep, just as she said in her statement. They slip something in her martini, whatever, and…I’m not buying this myself, so why am I trying to sell it to you?”

He rose, placed his hands on her shoulders, kissed her brow. Then knowing she’d never think to do it herself, walked over to program some breakfast.

“It had to be someone she could trust. Absolutely. Without question. Someone who would kill for her. Her parents are divorced. One lives in Portland, one lives in Chicago. Both remarried. Nothing jumped up and bit me on the runs I did on them, and I can’t find any record of either of them traveling anywhere, much less New York on the night in question. She has no siblings. As far as I can determine she hasn’t seen her ex-husband in about two decades. Who does she know, who does she trust to kill for her and to kill in a very specific way?”

Roarke carried back plates of bacon and eggs. Galahad feigned disinterest. “You’ll have to get the coffee if you’re after more. If I take my eyes off these plates for two seconds, this food will be in the cat’s belly.”

Eve frowned at the plates. “I was going to grab-”

“Now you’re not. Get the coffee, I’m after more.”

She could’ve argued. Thinking about the case made her want to argue, blow off the steam of it. But she wanted another hit of coffee. She got two mugs, came back, and plopped down.

“I got nothing. I got nothing on her. No co

“Maybe you’ll come up with something more linear when we see her at the memorial today.”

The eggs were there, so she stabbed a forkful. “You’re going?”

“Ben and I are friendly. Anders Worldwide is in my building. I’ll pay my respects. And maybe I’ll catch something you’ve missed. Fresh eyes.”

“Fresh eyes.” She picked up a piece of bacon, then swore. “Fresh eyes, damn it. I forgot. I promised Baxter I’d take a look at a case file for him. Going cold. I’ve been putting him off. Damn it.” She bit into the bacon. “I’ll have to do it this morning.”

“That might be a good thing. Put your mind on that for a bit, let it rest on the other.”

“Maybe. I told him some of them get by us. We can’t close them all. It burns my ass to think this one could get away from me.”

Galahad bellied over an inch, two inches, his bicolored eyes fixed on Roarke’s plate. Roarke simply shifted his gaze, stared, and Galahad rolled onto his back to paw lazily at the air. “No one believes you’re i

“Everyone believes she is,” Eve murmured. “Hmm. What happens if somebody doesn’t?” Turning that over in her mind she ate her breakfast before Galahad made his next move.

Before her shift began, Eve sat in her office at Central with Baxter’s murder book on the Custer case. She studied the crime scene photos first, as if coming to it fresh, without the input of the ME, the sweepers, the investigator’s notes, the interviews.

Somebody, she thought, had done a quick, hard number on one Ned Custer. The room itself looked like a typical sex flop. Cheap bed, sagging mattress where Christ knew what microscopic vermin partied in a variety of body fluids. Particleboard dresser, fly-spotted mirror, dull, yellowing floor, crappy paper drapes at the crappy little window. A bad joke of a bath with a rust-stained, wall-hung sink and a toilet where more vermin partied.

The cliché of sex flops, she thought.

What kind of man was Ned Custer, who needed to get his rocks off in an ugly little dump while the wife and kiddies waited at home?

A pretty damn dead one. The slash across the throat went deep, went long. Sharp blade with some muscle behind it. And some height, she mused, checking the angle. Vic topped off at five-nine. The killer…Eve closed her eyes, put herself in the nasty room, put herself behind Custer. Had to be at least the same height, probably an inch or two taller.

Tall for a woman then, but a lot of street whores went for high platforms and heels. Still, not a shortie.

And no one who owned a delicate stomach. It took steel-lined to hack off a guy’s dick.

The blood spatters and pools told the story clearly enough. The killer stepped out of the excuse for a bathroom, attacked the victim from behind. One fast slash. No hesitation. Had to get some backsplash from that kind of blood jet. More blood from the homemade castration. With no blood in the drains, the killer either exited carting the blood-no trail, so unlikely-or came out of the bathroom sealed and protected.