Naked in Death (8 page)

“It better. Don’t bother seeing me out. I can find my way.”

“Eve.”

She stopped at the doorway, looked back. There he was, a figure in black surrounded by eons of violence. Inside the cop’s skin, the woman’s heart stuttered.

“We’ll see each other again.”

She nodded. “Count on it.”

He let her go, knowing Summerset would slip out of some shadow to give her the leather jacket, bid her good night.

Alone, Roarke took the gray fabric button from his pocket, the one he’d found on the floor of his limo. The one that had fallen from the jacket of that drab gray suit she’d worn the first time he’d seen her.

Studying it, knowing he had no intention of giving it back to her, he felt like a fool.

 CHAPTER SIX

A rookie was guarding the door to Lola Start’s apartment. Eve pegged him as such because he barely looked old enough to order a beer, his uniform looked as if it had just been lifted from the supply rack, and from the faint green cast of his skin.

A few months of working this neighborhood, and a cop stopped needing to puke at the sight of a corpse. Chemi-heads, the street LCs, and just plain bad asses liked to wale on each other along these nasty blocks as much for entertainment as for business profits. From the smell that had greeted her outside, someone had died out there recently, or the recycle trucks hadn’t been through in the last week.

“Officer.” She paused, flashed her badge. He’d gone on alert the moment she’d stepped out of the pitiful excuse for an elevator. Instinct warned her, rightly enough, that without the quick ID, she’d have been treated to a stun from the weapon his shaky hand was gripping.

“Sir.” His eyes were spooked and unwilling to settle on one spot.

“Give me the status.”

“Sir,” he said again, and took a long unsteady breath. “The landlord flagged down my unit, said there was a dead woman in the apartment.”

“And is there…” Her gaze flicked down to the name pinned over his breast pocket. “Officer Prosky?”

“Yes, sir, she’s…” He swallowed, hard, and Eve could see the horror flit over his face again.

“And how did you determine the subject is terminated, Prosky? You take her pulse?”

A flush, no healthier than the green hue, tinted his cheeks. “No, sir. I followed procedure, preserved crime scene, notified headquarters. Visual confirmation of termination, the scene is uncorrupted.”

“The landlord went in?” All of this she could learn later, but she could see that he was steadying as she forced him to go over the steps.

“No, sir, he says not. After a complaint by one of the victim’s clients who had an appointment for nine P. M., the landlord checked the apartment. He unlocked the door and saw her. It’s only one room, Lieutenant Dallas, and she’s — You see her as soon as you open the door. Following the discovery, the landlord, in a state of panic, went down to the street and flagged down my patrol unit. I immediately accompanied him back to the scene, made visual confirmation of suspicious death, and reported in.”

“Have you left your post, officer? However briefly?”

His eyes settled finally, met hers. “No, sir, lieutenant. I thought I’d have to, for a minute. It’s my first, and I had some trouble maintaining.”

“Looks like you maintained fine to me, Prosky.” Out of the crime bag she’d brought up with her, she took out the protective spray, used it. “Make the calls to forensics and the ME. The room needs to be swept, and she’ll need to be bagged and tagged.”

“Yes, sir. Should I remain on post?”

“Until the first team gets here. Then you can report in.” She finished coating her boots, glanced up at him. “You married, Prosky?” she asked as she snapped her recorder to her shirt.

“No, sir. Sort of engaged though.”

“After you report in, go find your lady. The ones who go for the liquor don’t last as long as the ones who have a nice warm body to lose it in. Where do I find the landlord?” she asked and turned the knob on the unsecured door.

“He’s down in one-A.”

“Then tell him to stay put. I’ll take his statement when I’m done here.”

She stepped inside, closed the door. Eve, no longer a rookie, didn’t feel her stomach revolt at the sight of the body, the torn flesh, or the blood-splattered child’s toys.

But her heart ached.

Then came the anger, a sharp red spear of it when she spotted the antique weapon cradled in the arms of a teddy bear.

“She was just a kid.”

––––––––––––––––––––––––––—

It was seven A. M. Eve hadn’t been home. She’d caught one hour’s rough and restless sleep at her office desk between computer searches and reports. Without a Code Five attached to Lola Starr, Eve was free to access the data banks of the International Resource Center on Criminal Activity. So far, IRCCA had come up empty on matches.

Now, pale with fatigue, jittery with the false energy of false caffeine, she faced Feeney.

“She was a pro, Dallas.”

“Her fucking license was barely three months old. There were dolls on her bed. There was Kool-Aid in her kitchen.”

She couldn’t get past it — all those silly, girlish things she’d had to paw through while the victim’s pitiful body lay on the cheap, fussy pillows and dolls. Enraged, Eve slapped one of the official photos onto her desk.

“She looks like she should have been leading cheers at the high school. Instead, she’s running tricks and collecting pictures of fancy apartments and fancier clothes. You figure she knew what she was getting into?”

“I don’t figure she thought she’d end up dead,” Feeney said evenly. “You want to debate the sex codes, Dallas?”

“No.” Wearily, she looked down at her hard copy again. “No, but it bums me, Feeney. A kid like this.”

“You know better than that, Dallas.”

“Yeah, I know better.” She forced herself to snap back. “Autopsy should be in this morning, but my prelim puts her dead for twenty-four hours minimum at discovery. You’ve identified the weapon?”

“SIG two-ten — a real Rolls-Royce of handguns, about 1980, Swiss import. Silenced. Those old timey silencers were only good for a couple, three shots. He’d have needed it because the victim’s place wasn’t soundproofed like DeBlass’s.”

“And he didn’t phone it in, which tells me he didn’t want her found as quickly. Had to get himself someplace else,” she mused. Thoughtful, she picked up a small square of paper, officially sealed.

TWO OF SIX

“One a week,” she said softly. “Jesus Christ, Feeney, he isn’t giving us much time.”

“I’m running her logs, trick book. She had a new client scheduled, 8:00 P. M., night before last. If your prelim checks, he’s our guy.” Feeney smiled thinly. “John Smith.”

“That’s older than the murder weapon.” She rubbed her hands hard over her face. “IRCCA’s bound to spit our boy out from that tag.”

“They’re still running data,” Feeney muttered. He was protective, even sentimental about the IRCCA.

“They’re not going to find squat. We got us a time traveler, Feeney.”

He snorted. “Yeah, a real Jules Verne.”

“We’ve got a twentieth-century crime,” she said through her hands. “The weapons, the excessive violence, the hand-printed note left on scene. So maybe our killer is some sort of historian, or buff anyway. Somebody who wishes things were what they used to be.”

“Lots of people think things would be better some other way. That’s why the world’s lousy with theme parks.”

Thinking, she dropped her hands. “IRCCA isn’t going to help us get into this guy’s head. It still takes a human mind to play that game. What’s he doing, Feeney? Why’s he doing it?”

“He’s killing LCs.”

“Hookers have always been easy targets, back to Jack the Ripper, right? It’s a vulnerable job, even now with all the screening, we still get clients knocking LCs around, killing them.”

“Doesn’t happen much,” Feeney mused. “Sometimes with the S and M trade you get a party that gets too enthusiastic. Most LCs are safer than teachers.”

“They still run a risk, the oldest profession with the oldest crime. But things have changed, some things. People don’t kill with guns as a rule anymore. Too expensive, too hard to come by. Sex isn’t the strong motivator it used to be, too cheap, too easy to come by. We have different methods of investigation, and a whole new batch of motives. When you brush all that away, the one fact is that people still terminate people. Keep digging, Feeney. I’ve got people to talk to.”

“What you need’s some sleep, kid.”

“Let him sleep,” Eve muttered. “Let that bastard sleep.” Steeling herself, she turned to her tele-link. It was time to contact the victim’s parents.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––—

By the time Eve walked into the sumptuous foyer of Roarke’s midtown office, she’d been up for more than thirty-two hours. She’d gotten through the misery of having to tell two shocked, weeping parents that their only daughter was dead. She’d stared at her monitor until the data swam in front of her eyes.

Her follow-up interview with Lola’s landlord had been its own adventure. Since the man had had time to recover, he’d spent thirty minutes whining about the unpleasant publicity and the possibility of a drop-off in rentals.

So much, Eve thought, for human empathy.

Roarke Industries, New York, was very much what she’d expected. Slick, shiny, sleek, the building itself spread one hundred fifty stories into the Manhattan sky. It was an ebony lance, glossy as wet stone, ringed by transport tubes and diamond-bright skyways.

No tacky Glida-Grills on this corner, she mused. No street hawkers with their hot pocket PCs dodging security on their colorful air boards. Out-of-doors vending was off limits on this bite of Fifth. The zoning made things quieter, if a little less adventuresome.

Inside, the main lobby took up a full city block, boasting three tony restaurants, a high priced boutique, a handful of specialty shops, and a small theater that played art films.

The white floor tiles were a full yard square and gleamed like the moon. Clear glass elevators zipped busily up and down, people glides zigzagged left and right, while disembodied voices guided visitors to various points of interest or, if there was business to be conducted, the proper office.

For those who wanted to wander about on their own, there were more than a dozen moving maps.

Eve marched to a monitor and was politely offered assistance.

“Roarke,” she said, annoyed that his name hadn’t been listed on the main directory.

“I’m sorry.” The computer’s voice was that overly mannered tone that was meant to be soothing, and instead grated on Eve’s already raw nerves. “I’m not at liberty to access that information.”

“Roarke,” Eve repeated, holding up her badge for the computer to scan. She waited impatiently as the computer hummed, undoubtedly checking and verifying her ID, notifying the man himself.

“Please proceed to the east wing, Lieutenant Dallas. You will be met.”

“Right.”

Eve turned down a corridor, passed a marble run that held a forest of snowy white impatiens.

“Lieutenant.” A woman in a killer red suit and hair as white as the impatiens smiled coolly. “Come with me, please.”

The woman slipped a thin security card into a slot, laid her palm against a sheet of black glass for a handprint. The wall slid open, revealing a private elevator.

Eve stepped inside with her, and was unsurprised when her escort requested the top floor.

Eve had been certain Roarke would be satisfied with nothing but the top.

Her guide was silent on the ride up and exuded a discreet whiff of sensible scent that matched her sensible shoes and neat, sleek coif. Eve secretly admired women who put themselves together, top to toe, with such seeming effortlessness.

Faced with such quiet magnificence, she tugged selfconsciously at her worn leather jacket and wondered if it was time she actually spent money on a haircut rather than hacking away at it herself.

Before she could decide on such earth-shattering matters, the doors whooshed open into a silent, white carpeted foyer the size of a small home. There were lush green plants — real plants: ficus, palm, what appeared to be a dogwood flowering off season. There was a sharp spicy scent from a bank of dianthus, blooming in shades of rose and vivid purple.

The garden surrounded a comfortable waiting area of mauve sofas and glossy wood tables, lamps that were surely solid brass with jeweled colored shades.

In the center of this was a circular workstation, equipped as efficiently as a cockpit with monitors and keyboards, gauges and tele-links. Two men and a woman worked at it busily, with a seamless ballet of competence in motion.

She was led past them into a glass-sided breezeway. A peek down, and she could see Manhattan. There was music piped in she didn’t recognize as Mozart. For Eve, music began sometime after her tenth birthday.

The woman in the killer suit paused again, flashed her cool, perfect smile, then spoke into a hidden speaker. “Lieutenant Dallas, sir.”

“Send her in, Caro. Thank you.”

Again Caro pressed her palm to a slick black glass. “Go right in, lieutenant,” she invited as a panel slid open.

“Thanks.” Out of curiosity, Eve watched her walk away, wondering how anyone could stride so gracefully on three-inch heels. She walked into Roarke’s office.

It was, as she expected, as impressive as the rest of his New York headquarters. Despite the soaring, three-sided view of New York, the lofty ceiling with its pinprick lights, the vibrant tones of topaz and emerald in the thickly cushioned furnishings, it was the man behind the ebony slab desk that dominated.

What in hell was it about him? Eve thought again as Roarke rose and slanted a smile at her.

“Lieutenant Dallas,” he said in that faint and fascinating Irish lilt, “a pleasure, as always.”

“You might not think so when I’m finished.”

He lifted a brow. “Why don’t you come the rest of the way in and get started? Then we’ll see. Coffee?”

“Don’t try to distract me, Roarke.” She walked closer. Then, to satisfy her curiosity, she took a brief turn around the room. It was as big as a heliport, with all the amenities of a first-class hotel: automated service bar, a padded relaxation chair complete with VR and mood settings, an oversize wall screen, currently blank. To the left, there was a full bath including whirl tub and drying tube. All the standard office equipment, of the highest high-tech, was built in.

Roarke watched her with a bland expression. He admired the way she moved, the way those cool, quick eyes took in everything.

“Would you like a tour, Eve?”

“No. How do you work with all this…” Using both hands, she gestured widely at the treated glass walls. “Open.”

“I don’t like being closed in. Are you going to sit, or prowl?”

“I’m going to stand. I have some questions to ask you, Roarke. You’re entitled to have counsel present.”