Brotherhood in Death (14 page)

She swallowed more wine, muttered, “Dumb-ass.”

He came back to her, trailed a fingertip down the shallow dent in her chin. “I'll always have done that, when we both needed it. Dumb-ass. Let's try this, for both of us. And if what you need is to keep this as it is, then it stays.”

“If I say okay, let's try it, the redhead's not going toward fancy.”

“Not within miles of fancy, my word on that.”

“Okay. But I'm not apologizing.”

“Neither am I.”

“I guess that works.”

He leaned down, touched his lips to hers. “Did you murder a droid?”

“I wanted to, but I didn't because I knew you'd ask. I didn't want to give you the satisfaction.” She smirked, then sighed. “But I kind of wish I had. It really has been a pissy day.”

“You were right about the senator. About finding his body.”

“Yeah, score one for me. They did a number on him—we didn't release all the details, but they've already started to leak. I had to end the day with a media conference. And I need to begin tomorrow at the morgue. I didn't get there today. No rush on that, really.”

She walked back to the board, around it. “They pushed through his tox, and they didn't dose him. They wanted him to feel it, all of it. They beat him, face, genitals. Beat the shit out of him. Sodomized him and, unless Morris tells me different, the way I see it is he was alive, probably conscious when they put the noose around his neck, fastened it to the entrance hall chandelier, and used the mechanism. You know? Lowered
it to hook him on, then raised it. Slow, I bet, slow so he'd feel every inch, so he'd choke, struggle. Left his hands free, because he clawed at his throat some. He died hard. They thought he deserved to die hard.”

A pissy day indeed, he thought. And though he wouldn't bring it up, felt it proved his point. She should come home to a work space she deserved.

“‘They'?”

“Had to be at least two. At least one's a woman.”

She needed to talk it out, Roarke thought as he leaned back on her desk. “How do you know?”

“Sex. Sodomy—and no evidence he went for men or boys. Plus Mr. Mira heard a female voice. I got that when I grilled him, in his own kitchen. While he made me hot chocolate.”

The tears burned up, nearly out. “Oh shit, oh shit.”

“Here now, what's this?” He set his wine aside quickly, went to her. And took the wine out of her hand before she wrapped around him.

“I had to push him, dot the
i
's. He did great, he did fine, and he understood. They all understood I had to, but, oh God, you could see he was grieving. He was grieving for the worthless son of a bitch, and trying to soothe
me
because he knew . . .”

“It was hard for you, but you were protecting him.”

“I wanted to punch the reporter who asked me if he was a suspect. If Professor Dennis Mira was a fucking suspect. But I couldn't. I have to look out for him, Roarke, but the worthless son of a bitch is my victim, and I have to stand for him, whatever I think of him.”

“You did have an all-around pissy day.”

“That's not all of it.” She won the war with tears, eased back.

“I tell you what we'll do. We'll have an early dinner, and you'll tell me. Then we'll work on it. Dennis matters to me as well, very much matters.”

“I know he does. I don't know if I can eat.”

“That means it has to be pizza, and I'll make that deal with you if there's a side salad involved.”

“Okay. Let's give it a shot.”

She paid a little more attention to the setup while they ate: the replica of her old table where she'd sat for a meal—occasionally. More often she'd eaten, when she'd eaten, at her desk.

It probably wouldn't kill her to consider a better table, she thought as she poked at the salad. But—

“Tell me,” Roarke said.

So she did, from the early meeting at the Mira Institute to the break for Trueheart's ceremony, finding the body, notifying next of kin, and on to the Mira home. Then the interviews and her impressions of the women who'd had affairs with the senator.

“You pushed a lot into one day.”

“It didn't end there. And there'll be more women, that's a given. Bagging women was like his fricking hobby. And with them? Guilt or defiance, cold calculation, self-preservation. They all had reasons for cheating, and I don't buy any of them.”

“You think they're lying?”

“No—or not exactly. The two I have at the top there?” She gestured toward the board. “Something more, something a little off. But I mean I don't buy the concept. You stick or you don't—and you don't roll around with a married guy because he sticks or he doesn't.”

“You see it in black-and-white.”

“Damn straight.”

“Fortunately for my skin, I agree with you. But there are many who see the concept as a more gray area, depending on the circumstance.”

“Then why do the marriage thing? Stick or don't,” she said again. “MacKensie? Needs a harder look. She comes across as the type who stays home, observes rather than participates. And is a—what is it—Plain Joan?”

“That's Jane.”

“Yeah, right, because it rhymes. I'm not going to say the vic had a specific type, but every other one of the list is a looker, and comes off confident. Is she the exception, or is she putting on a show? Harder look. Same with Downing. Not the Jane bit, but something that felt off. Letting some rich, influential old guy do her for profit and advancement, okay. But there was a lie in there. MacKensie played it too Jane, and too jittery, and Downing? Way too prepared.”

“More prepared than the one with the lawyer already on tap?”

“Yeah, the one with the lawyer was just a stone bitch. Downing? She's got sly in her eyes. That rhymes, too. Plain Jane and Sly Eye.”

She picked up a slice. It was rare for pizza not to appeal, but she only ate it to avoid the inevitable nudge from Roarke.

“The one you dislike most is the one you suspect least.”

“Right now. But here's what I started wondering. What if sleeping with the vic isn't the only connection here? All of them knew him for a dog, banged him anyway. What if they knew each other? Not just knew there were others, but more specifically.”

“An I Slept with Senator Mira Club?”

“I think when you cheat with many, the odds of paths crossing go up. I'm wondering whose paths might have crossed, and what happened then.”

She shrugged. “I didn't have much time to play the angle before the vic's son and daughter showed up. And that was the second hardest part of the pissy day.”

She'd eaten a baby bunny's portion of her salad, Roarke noted, and barely touched the pizza, which usually did the trick.

So whatever the second hardest part had been was still with her.

“Why is that?”

“They're tight. He's got Mr. Mira's eyes. That's irrelevant,” she said.

“Not to you.”

“To the investigation. They're tight,” she repeated. “And when you listen to them, observe, it's clear they've always been tight, and basically they only had each other. Parents who had them primarily—maybe exclusively—to present an image. The image of an attractive, traditional, well-heeled family, because that image could further the vic's career. Lawyer to judge, judge to senator. And likely he hoped for more, but backed off it rather than lose an election.”

“I see,” he said, and he did.

“It's also clear they understood this, and their expected role from a young age. They understood their parents' marriage, and the family itself, was surface and show. They were expected to behave in a scripted manner, to follow the family line to Yale, to law, to an advantageous marriage. Just pawns, right from the jump, who knew their parents for cheats and liars and hypocrites.”

She set the half slice of pizza down. “It's not the same, I know it's not.”

“Not so very different.” And because he understood, he laid his hand over hers. “Physical abuse is a tangible thing. A child beaten and raped as you were, that shows if anyone cares to look. Emotional abuse leaves marks and scars, but they're internal. You, as they, knew from a tender age you were created for a purpose. It doesn't matter that theirs was to walk a golden path, and yours was dark and brutal. You were all caged in and devalued by the very people who should have cherished and protected you.”

“Same with you.”

“Same with me, yes. They had each other, and that got them through. We found each other, and that changed the path for both of us. It's hardly a wonder, darling Eve, that you related to them, felt for them, and for yourself.”

“It's not something that can get in the way of the job. It could if I let it, so I needed to come home, settle it all down, start fresh.”

“And walked straight into the redhead in boots. Poor timing all around. I can apologize for the timing adding to the general pissiness of your day.”

“You didn't know about it, so . . . They're not in this.” She looked back at the board, at the ID shots. “Not just because he has Mr. Mira's eyes, or because I can relate. They made their own lives, they didn't follow the path, made their own. And they're happy. I'll look. I'll cover the ground, but this wasn't a family thing. It hinges on sex.”

“You may not have done justice to the food, but I'll help you cover the ground.”

“We can save it for later.” Grateful, she took his hand, gave it a quick squeeze. “Once I get some work under me, I might feel more like pizza.”

“All right then. Let me take the senator's children. Your instinct says they're not a part of this, so you won't waste time looking into them.”

“Or relating.”

“Or that.”

“Okay, then I can start at the top of my list.”

She looked back at the board, and Carlee MacKensie.

At her desk, she brought up her incomings, found Peabody's verification of all alibis, right down the line. Considering, she decided rather than starting with MacKensie, she'd do a run on Downing's alibi.

Lydia Su.

Make that Dr. Lydia Su, Eve discovered. Biophysicist, on staff at Lotem Institute of Science and Technology, New York. Age thirty-three, single. Asian—Korean and Chinese. One sib, a sister, four years younger—a linguist, Eve noted, living in London. Parents married thirty-five years—a nice run, in Eve's opinion. Father a neurosurgeon, mother also a scientist. Nanotech.

So, Eve thought, highly motivated, highly intelligent, highly educated family.

Well-educated in Lydia Su's case, Eve read, at Yale.

“Interesting. Isn't that interesting?”

But then a lot of really smart people, rich people, motivated people went to Yale.

Still . . .

Following the line, she toggled back to check where Charity Downing had studied art. NYU, she noted, not Yale.

It nagged at her enough to have her checking the education data on every name on the list.

No other Yale connection.

Until she scraped off a few more layers.

Coincidence equals bollocks, she thought and, shoving up from her desk, strode into Roarke's office.

“I believe your instincts on your victim's children are on target,” he began. Then glanced up, saw her face. “And you have something.”

“Yale.”

“An honorable and prestigious institution.”

“The vic went there.”

“Yes, I recall. It would have been nearly a half century ago.”

“That's a long time, but I have two connections to Yale through my sidepiece list. Downing's alibi did her undergraduate work there—she's a biophysicist, whatever the hell that is. Mixed race Asian, from a smart, successful family.”

“I have to mention that a considerable number of people from smart, successful families have attended Yale in the past half century.”

“Yeah, and another one of them's Carlee MacKensie. Partial scholarship, did one semester and dropped out.”

“Which also happens quite a bit, but—” He sat back. “It's interesting, isn't it, that with all the universities out there, you'd cross the same one three times in such a small group.”

“A numbers geek like you could probably run the odds, but let's just say
interesting
for now. I went a little deeper.”

She eased a hip onto his workstation. “All that crap about your permanent record's pretty serious. Her grades were stellar.” Eve held a hand, palm down, over her head. “She'd had two short stories published in literary venues before she turned twenty. And after two months into Yale, the grades?” Eve dropped her hand. “Totally tanked it. And, yeah, that happens, too. She managed, over the next five years, to get a degree from an online college, and she's eked out a living freelancing. But no more high-class literary venues.”

Considering, Roarke picked up the bottle of water on his desk, gestured with it. “Devil's advocate must point out, this also happens far too often—that early peak and fall. And she would have attended Yale, however briefly, some four decades after your victim.”

“Maybe, but coincidence is bollocks, and it's more bollocks it doesn't pertain. Another big scoop of bollocks that one name on the list has another Yale attendee as her alibi. And how does an artist who works in a SoHo gallery get to be pals with a scientist who's on staff in a fancy uptown R&D center? Where's the common ground?”

He offered her the water, got a head shake, drank some himself. “Some might ask the same about you and Mavis.”

“She was on the grift. I arrested her. Cop, criminal, common ground.” She held up two fingers as she spoke, tapped them together. Then pointed them at him. “Just like you and me, ace.”

“I feel obliged to point out you never arrested me—nor did any other cop.”

“Being slick doesn't negate the common ground. Is it thin?” She swiveled to face him more directly. “I'll give you it's thin, but it's there. Add on the fact that the vic went through sidepieces like Feeney goes through candied almonds, and those odds of paths crossing. Maybe you show Su's ID shot to your people at the hotel. Maybe she's another of his affairs. I link that, not so thin.”

“I can do that.”

“Can't see the motive, not yet. These women chose to have sex with him. He didn't hold a stunner to their throats. Every single one stated it was consensual, and I'm betting any others I turn up will say the same. Not a single one of them showed or expressed any genuine affection for him, so thwarted passion doesn't click. And if any of them worked as partners, and that's going to slide in when I figure it all out, jealousy doesn't play.

“‘Justice is served,'” she murmured. “For what? What crime, what sin, what wrong? That's the motive. So it's back to the vic.”

“The women on your list wouldn't have been born when Edward Mira was at Yale.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get that. But a big-deal guy from a big-deal school? Don't they go back for stuff? For ceremonies or guest lectures, for important events. Maybe I can place him there when either Su or MacKensie were there. That would thicken things up. Thanks,” she said as she rose.

“I didn't do anything.”

“You were Satan's mouthpiece.”

“Devil's advocate.”

“That
is
the same thing.”

She went back, nailed down the exact times Su and MacKensie attended Yale, then tried to wade through archived articles on alumni events, on appearances at the university by Edward Mira.

After a frustrating hour, she decided she'd need to contact whoever might be in charge of those kinds of records.

She got more coffee, a slice of cold pizza that went down just fine now, then sat to search for any connection between any of the women on the list.

Salons, banks, fitness centers, clubs, committees, doctors, churches, hobbies.

Nothing lined up, but she did uncover the fact that Carlee MacKensie had been in therapy with a Dr. Natalie Paulson from 2058 to early 2060. Su entered therapy in 2055, and stopped her sessions with Dr. Kim Ping four years later. And Downing hooked with a Felicia Fairburn for a six-week stretch in 2059. Fairburn billed herself as a body-mind-spirit therapist.

And Satan's mouthpiece would say, rightfully, that scores of people went to shrinks.

But she'd look into it.

Yale. Shrinks. Edward Mira. Three lines that crossed for a percentage of the names.

Then there were negative connections.

No violent criminal on any. No sign of addictions that would lead to incarceration or a big dent in finances. At least no signs of
current
addictions. People went to shrinks to help them with drinking or illegals problems, with gambling problems, with sex problems (too much, not enough). Hell, people went to shrinks to help them figure out what to eat for breakfast, but still . . .

What if?

She started poking, picking at layers, tugging lines that led to another angle or dead ends.

Then she sat back, drummed her fingers on her thigh.

Interesting, wasn't it interesting that Carlee MacKensie moved back home after dropping out of Yale, moved out again within six months and into what was nothing more than a glorified flop with one Marlee Davis—who, yes, indeed had herself a very long, colorful sheet peppered with illegals busts, soliciting sex without a license, petty thievery, and assault.

Now, what was a nice, bright girl from New Rochelle doing palling around with an habitual small-time loser from Alphabet City (currently doing a nickel in the Tombs for yet another assault bust)?

Eve followed the line, found a pattern in the fabric of Carlee's life. Wrote up a theory, questions, shot them to Mira with a copy for Peabody.

Then began to pick and scratch at Lydia Su.

By the time she'd switched to Charity Downing, she'd grabbed a second slice of cold pizza and indulged a craving for Pepsi.

She glanced up when Roarke came in.

“I see you're onto something that's boosted your appetite and put a cop's smile on your face.”

“Carlee MacKensie. Smart, talented—go back and dig and you'll find cheery little articles on her from a young age. Won various writing contests, some with cash prizes. Wrote her high school blog, did her stint of community service as a peer tutor, and volunteered with Teens for Literacy. Pretty much aced her way into Yale, with a partial scholarship. Solid, middle-class family, nice little house in the 'burbs. And check this. Computer, Image 1-C, on screen.”

Acknowledged.

The image flashed on, a pretty blonde in a bold red dress, hip to hip with a pretty guy in a black suit, bold red tie.

“Lovely young things.”

“Yeah, she's got the looks. That's her senior prom picture—the guy, according to her mother's archived We Connect feed—”

“One moment.” He held up a finger. “You actually managed to access archived data from a now-defunct social media site?”

“I can do stuff. When I have to.”

“I may need to sit down, as my astonishment weighs heavy.”

“Bite me.”

“Darling, I fully intend to at the first opportunity.”

“I dug for it, and what I found was mother-type pride data on her kid. Pictures like this, which show she was a pretty young thing, with a pretty young boyfriend—also bright, went on to Harvard. And about seven months after this picture was taken, she's all but flunked out of Yale and living back home.”

“All right. She's pretty, and she didn't realize her potential.”

“More. A couple months after moving home, she's moving out, and into a flop on Avenue A with a skank. The word fits. Long sheet, even then, for illegals possession, for selling Bounce to an undercover, for soliciting sex—no license. Where'd they hook up? Where's the common ground?”

“The pretty young thing was using.”

“Bet your fine Irish ass. No record of it, but an eighteen-year-old girl doesn't jump from New Rochelle and proud mom to Alphabet City and the skank unless the skank was her connection. A few months later, she's back home again.”

“Which is likely why she's still alive or not in prison.”

“Skank's in year three of five for agg assault. MacKensie lived back home for two years, and during that time did her own stint. Two three-month stints at Inner Peace. I had to dig, way down, as it's billed as a lifestyle enhancement center, not rehab. Guess who else did some time at Inner Peace?”

“My money and the look in your eyes say either Su or Downing.”

“Su. Not at the same time, which is annoying, but they both went to Yale, both went to this lifestyle deal. Su took a sabbatical, three years ago, and did the lifestyle enhancement deal. Prior to that, I've got her in this program—this study on insomnia. And, what a coincidence! Charity Downing also took part in a program—again, not at the same time—on insomnia.”

“That's too many connections even for a devil's advocate.” Because it
was the only thing there, Roarke picked the tube of Pepsi, took a swig. “It's gone warm.”

“Still does the job. Here's how I see it.”

She rose, gestured to the board as she paced. “These three women had some previous encounter with the victim. Sexual. That encounter was disturbing enough or intense enough to send MacKensie into a sharp downward spiral. The probability is each of them sought help for, we'll say side effects of that encounter at some point. And through that, the three of them come together.”

Eve interlinked her fingers. “Two of the three hook up with the vic again. I don't guess you had time to check with hotel security on Su.”

“I did, in fact. I can tell you she doesn't show up on any feed through the hotel in the last eighteen months.”

“Not surprised. Pretty sure she's gay.” When he lifted his eyebrows, she shrugged. “Not because she didn't show on the feed. Because I've got some photos of her, too. Big-deal science award ceremony—her date's female. A White House dinner deal—female date. Then there's her interview in this big-deal science journal where she says she's gay, that leans me in that direction.”

She circled the board again. “These three women know each other, they knew Edward Mira, and my gut says they conspired together and killed him. Considering the nature of the torture, I'd say it's serious payback. It's payback for sexual assault, molestation, or rape because three women don't come together to torture and kill because they had a fling with a married man.”

Shifting, Roarke studied the photos of Edward Mira. The soberly handsome statesman—and the murder victim.

“You believe a former United States senator was a serial rapist?”

“Yeah, I do.” Eve heaved out a breath. “Yeah, I fucking do. That's how it lays out for me. Proving it? That's a whole different ball of string.”

“Wax, but never mind that. Eve, trying to prove it is going to take you into very dangerous waters.”

“I'm a strong swimmer.”

“You are that,” he agreed. “But it's also going to bring you personal pain.”

“I can't let that get in the way. You know that.”

“I do.” He set the tube aside, went to her. “I love you.”

She shifted. “Yeah, same goes.”

He cupped her face in his hands, kept his eyes on hers. “I love you.”

Her heart stuttered, so she cupped his face in turn. “I love you, and what you're telling me is we'll get through this.”

“I am.”

“Even if you end up pouring a soother down my throat.”

“That's exactly what I'm telling you.” Firmly, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “You'll do what has to be done, and so will I.”

“I could be wrong. It may turn out I'm completely out of orbit on this angle, but it's what I see.”