Brotherhood in Death (9 page)

He took it, swallowed hard. “I know you don't really like this, but . . .” He pulled her in, wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug.

“Hey. Okay.” She gave his back a pat, considering the moment, and nudged him away with her other hand, considering dignity.

“I wanted to get that done back here, before we were out there with a lot of people. Where you really wouldn't like it.”

“That's good thinking. Go see your mother.”

“Yes, sir!”

When she went out, Trueheart was wrapped around his mother with his girl—What was her name?—beaming at them and most of the division surrounding them.

She cut away to grab a minute with Mira.

“How's Mr. Mira doing?”

“He insisted I come, and our daughter's with him, so . . . He's fine, really. He actually planned to go to the university today, but I put my foot down. He needs another day.”

“You didn't get much sleep.”

“No, no, I didn't. I have a lot of people I care about who put their lives on the line every day. It's part of working with the police. I've lost some, and seen others injured. You live with it, cope with it. But Dennis . . . he lives a quiet life, and I wasn't prepared to have him hurt like this.”

She stopped, drew a breath. “Well. I spoke with the governor.”

“Seriously?”

“Mandy's not the only one with connections,” Mira said, and now her voice was brisk and cool. “He understands the situation and circumstances, and since he knows her . . . suffice it to say there'll be no blowback from that quarter.”

“Okay.”

“I also spoke with Mandy.”

“You keep busy.”

“We detest each other, but I know how to read her, and how to push buttons. She hasn't heard from him, there's been no contact from whoever took him. She's more angry than worried. If it wasn't for Dennis I'd advise you to toss this case aside, but—”

“Look, I'm going to keep working this, but Hanson's in a position to get warrants so he's likely to get deeper than I can. But we're on it, and I'll be in touch. I've got to say something to Trueheart's mother, then Peabody and I are going to have a talk with his current sidepiece.”

Mira laid a hand on Eve's arm. “He won't thank you for that, even if information you gather helps save his life.”

“Good thing I'm not in it for the thanks.”

She walked up to Trueheart's mother, had to resign herself to another hug, this one a little on the weepy side.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Troy's wanted this since he was a boy, and you helped him reach that dream. Last night I asked him what he wanted now, now that he'd made detective. He told me he wanted to be as good a cop as you are.”

“Mrs. Trueheart—”

“Pauline, please, it's Pauline. I'm glad you set the bar high. I don't want him to settle for less. I want you to know he'll be proud every day when he picks up his shield, and I'll be proud of him.”

Eve wanted escape, wanted the work, but found herself speaking. “He's smart, and he's observant, and has a way of working through a problem thoughtfully. His looks don't hurt. He looks handsome and homespun,” Eve explained. “And some people mistake that for him being a soft touch, easy to dupe. He's not. And he's got a shiny code of honor you should be proud of because I figure you're the one who put it in him.”

“Thank you for that, thank you very much for that.” Her voice broke, her eyes welling up. “Sorry. Emotional day.” She gave Eve's hand a squeeze, then hurried away.

“That was really good stuff to say to her.” Peabody stepped up beside her.

“She started crying again.”

“It's a mom thing.”

“Let's get the hell out of here and go do the cop thing.”

“There's cake.”

“Your pants are loose, Peabody.”

“Damn it.” As she rushed after Eve, Peabody glanced back at the refreshment table. “Having loose pants means I could eat a little cake.”

“Having loose pants means you can get out of them quicker so we can get back in the field.”

“Somebody said it was buttercream frosting.” But with a heavy sigh, Peabody got in the elevator.

—

B
ack in her street clothes, Eve took a few minutes in her office to connect with Hanson. Still no communication from Senator Mira, or his probable abductor. Hanson and his partner would interview Vinnie, the driver, and had already spoken to Silas Greenbaum. They'd work their way through the Mira Institute while Eve and Peabody took on the list of women.

By the time she came out Jenkinson and his tie were back at his desk, Santiago at his, and some of the uniforms had trickled in.

“Is anyone actually working today?”

“We're on it, Dallas.” Knowing her sharp eye, Jenkinson hastily brushed cake crumbs from his shirt. “It was a good thing.”

“Yeah, it was a good thing. You know what else is good? Catching murdering bastards.”

“I like that even better than buttercream frosting,” Santiago said, earning a glare from Peabody.

“You guys are just mean.”

“Then catch me some murdering bastards,” Eve advised. “Peabody, with me.”

“You on a hot one, Dallas?”

She glanced back at Jenkinson as she strode toward the door. “I'll let you know when I know. Don't even think about whining over buttercream frosting,” Eve warned, and Peabody settled into a pout as she got on the elevator.

“We'll hit the baby skirt at the gallery where she works. We're going by the crime scene first. I want another look around, and you haven't seen it firsthand.”

“Mira said Mr. Mira was okay, but she looked really stressed. She hardly ever looks stressed.”

“She'll deal.”

Eve considered herself lucky that the elevator only stopped five times on the descent, and no more than a dozen people filed on, filed off.

“We'll make a circuit with the known sidepieces,” Eve said as they got in the car. “Say he's still seeing the artist, but she's starting to make noises. Oh, Senator Granddaddy—”

“Eeww.”

“Yeah, well. She's all, If you get a divorce we could be together all the time. And he's, Now, now, Sweet Baby Sidepiece—”

“Ick, ick, mega ick!”

“Can't ditch my marriage: appearances, finances, blah blah. How about some ice cream!”

“This is really turning my stomach, so I don't even want any buttercream frosting. Thanks.”

“You're welcome. Or she's got a former, more age-appropriate but poor boyfriend—maybe even current—and they figure they'll pound and intimidate a nice fat chunk of the change out of him. Maybe start off the blackmail with a black eye. Then Mr. Mira walks in, and panic changes their plans.”

“I like it.”

“Or, the next up the line gets steamed, stews, and thinks how he's dumped her more mature ass for this baby slut. Now he must pay. Also requires a partner.”

“To pose as the Realtor to get him in the house.”

“Then it's, Surprise, you horny bastard, we're going to tune you up.” She paused at a light. “I've got problems with all those scenarios, but they're a launch point.”

She played with all the problems as she drove, then shot out another launch point. “MacDonald's alibied tight. Hanson will follow up, but her alibi's going to hold. So maybe if she's been a sidepiece, or there's another issue, she hires somebody to deal with him. We'll look at her
finances, but we're not looking at a pro. Still, a lawyer's bound to know some shady types, especially a political lawyer.”

She studied the neighborhood as she approached the brownstone. “Quiet, established, upper end. The canvass got nothing, but then most people would be at work, or occupied. Who stares out the window checking for activity on the street or around their neighbors on a crappy day? That's just luck, and it bothers me. It's just luck getting an injured man out of the house, into a vehicle without anybody seeing anything.”

“Lucky that it was crappy, gloomy daylight and not broad.”

“Yeah, nobody can plan that.”

Eve got out, took another minute to study the house, its position.

“It's really beautiful,” Peabody commented. “Old, but in a dignified, ageless sort of way. I can see why Mr. Mira wants to keep it.”

“It's more what's inside—I don't mean the stuff. It's what he remembers, what he felt, the pictures in his head. And he promised, that's the big one. If Edward Mira knew him at all, he'd know Mr. Mira wasn't about to break his promise.”

“Wait! What if this is all a ploy to get him to do that?” Running with it, Peabody loosened her scarf as they walked through the little gate. “He stages it all, and it's Mr. Mira who'll be contacted after he's worried half to death.”

“Sign off on the sale of the house or your cousin gets it? Why would anyone buy that?”

“You said the senator needed money, right? So the fake kidnapper claims he owes him a bundle. Now sell the house so I get paid or I kill him until he's dead.”

Eve frowned, worked it around. “That's actually a launching point, no shakier than . . . Seal's compromised.”

She held up a hand to stop Peabody, studied the police seal she'd affixed herself. “Somebody got through it and went in. Recorders on.”

Without another word they both drew their weapons.

Eve stepped to the door, glanced at Peabody, nodded.

They went through, high and low, right and left.

Eve straightened, kept her weapon at the ready as she looked up.

Edward Mira hung from the crystal chandelier. His face was blackened from bruising, his throat gouged and smeared with dried blood. And he was naked but for a computer-generated sign that covered his torso.

JUSTICE IS SERVED

“Well, fuck.”

“I guess it wasn't a ploy.”

“If it was, it sure went wrong. Let's clear the house, Peabody, and call this in.”

They cleared the house, every step on record. While Peabody called it in, Eve located the mechanism for lowering the chandelier. Something she only knew about because she'd seen them work in her own foyer.

“You can clean it and stuff without hauling in a ladder,” she told Peabody.

“Handy. Man, they messed him up good before they hanged him.”

“I'd say he was alive when they hauled him up there. Gouges on the neck likely self-inflicted. Skin and blood under his nails is likely his. ME will determine that and COD.”

As Peabody had brought in their field kits, Eve opened hers. While they sealed up, she studied the body. “Beat his face, his genitals, stripped him naked. That says personal, really pissed, and probably sexual.”

“Sure doesn't read trying to score a bunch of money. One of the women he diddled with, but like you said before, getting him in and out? Probably had to have a partner.”

Eve got out tools and gauges, first verified his identity for the record with the Identi-pad.

“Victim is Mira, Edward James, age sixty-eight. Severe facial contusions and lacerations. Looks like both cheekbones are broken as well as some teeth.” She put on microgoggles. “Check TOD, Peabody. I don't think these were caused by fists,” she said as she peered closer. “Maybe a sap, likely weighted. Same with the genitals, but there's some . . . almost like punctures in the groin area.”

“TOD oh-three-thirty-six.”

“So, worked on him for while. Bruising on the wrists, look at the pattern.” Rigor mortis had yet to pass, so she used her own wrists to demonstrate, holding them up and together, palms facing. “Looks like he was restrained, hung up, see the pattern? Restrained by the wrists, hoisted up. No sign of bruising on the ankles. Kicked him in the balls, repeatedly. Those shallow punctures? I'm betting shoes with those ridiculous pointed toes.”

“That says female killer.”

“I've seen plenty of those stupid shoes on guys' feet, but, yeah, this reads female to me. And sexual motives. Going to kick your balls till they fall off, you fucker. That's what it says to me.

“And they sodomized him.”

Peabody's shoulders hunched up. “What?”

“You didn't look at him from the back. His anus is torn, bloody. They used something to sodomize him. It's very sexually motivated. It's personal, and it's planned out. Bringing him back here where they probably intended to do it all in the first place.”

“But Mr. Mira came in.”

“They had a place to take him, and the transportation. Maybe that was always backup, maybe they always intended to haul him off, haul him back, and hang him.”

She sat back on her heels. “I bet they waited to hoist him up, waited
until he was coming to, waited until he could be aware, could know and feel. Then they pushed that button, let him struggle as he went up, watched him choke, watched him tear at his own throat. You don't go this personal and not want him to feel death, not want to watch it happen.”

“But do you go that vicious over ending an affair? Do you think someone could be that pissed about being dumped?”

“Sure. Of course, that means she's batshit crazy, but there's no lack of batshit crazy in the world. It would have to mean whoever helped her is equally batshit.”

Eve got to her feet, closed her eyes a moment to help herself see it.

“Okay. Yesterday they conned the vic into coming here, talking about selling the house he couldn't sell without Mr. Mira's approval, which he wasn't going to get. He lets them in. Maybe the batshit crazy ex—if so—has hid the crazy and hooks him up with this Realtor. Or maybe she comes as a surprise at his door. One way or the other, they get him back to the study.”

She moved around the body, a few paces down the foyer.

“No restraints—or Mr. Mira doesn't think so, ME will verify—so they have a weapon on him. One holds it on him, the other smacks him around. Mr. Mira comes in, calls out, walks down. They don't use the weapon on him, are careful to keep out of sight until they can knock him out.”

She paced as she worked it through because there were variables. The pictures changed depending on how she juggled them in.

Dissatisfied, she started again.

“Back up, consider the timing. When the vic first arrived, when Mr. Mira came in. There's a solid gap of time.”

“You said they'd started on the vic. That Mr. Mira saw he was injured.”

“Yeah, but . . . They walked around with the vic some first. Black
eye, bloody lip when this is your endgame? They'd barely gotten started, so they walked around, didn't force him back to the study, that was just part of the tour, the place they jumped him.”

To satisfy herself, Peabody walked back, glancing in rooms, stopped at the study. And she could see it, too.

“So if he knew one of them, and he had to because it's really personal, he wasn't worried about it.”

“Exactly. She didn't pose a threat to him. Fast-forward to Mr. Mira unconscious on the study floor. Completely batshit finishes him off, so not completely batshit. They decide to get the vic out, take him somewhere they can work on him. One of them knows enough to take the security hard drive.”

Following, Peabody walked back. “Not completely batshit, and not in total panic mode.”

“That's right. They have an agenda, a plan, and they hold it together, follow through.”

“How do they get him out? Counting on the weather to mask the abduction, okay,” Peabody continued. “But how do they get him to go with them?”

“Maybe they stun him—light stun, just enough to unbalance him. Or drug him. Morris will look for it. They get him into a vehicle. Then they've got to do it all again on the other end. Get him out of the vehicle and into wherever they're going to torture him.

“He's going to have to tell us some of it. Whether he was stunned, tranq'd, just intimidated in and out, out and in. Morris will find some of the answers.”

She looked around. “I don't think it was about this house. The house was their ploy, and they used it to get him where they could take him. Hanging him here, they wanted him found, but they wanted some
impact
.”

“‘Justice is served,'” Peabody read. “Could be someone he sent up, or
about someone he didn't. And the woman, you know, vamped him into a relationship to get close to him, to get intel, to become someone who didn't worry him.”

“Maybe so, and we'll have to dig there. If it's about someone he sent up, or didn't, it was about rape. On some level it's about rape.”

“Because they raped him.”

“Somebody does this to another human being and calls it justice? It's about vengeance, and vengeance this sexual is about sex. So rape's going to be a factor. At least that's how it reads for me right now.”

She glanced over at the knock on the door. “Probably the sweepers or the dead wagon. Go ahead, let them in. And let's get the uniforms started on a canvass. Anybody who saw a vehicle near the house, noticed lights on last night, with another hit on yesterday between sixteen and eighteen hundred, just to cover it.”

She looked back down at Edward Mira. She doubted very much if she'd have liked him in life. But in death, he was hers.

She pulled out her 'link, walked back toward the study as the morgue team filed in. After blowing out a breath, she contacted Mira.

“Eve.” Mira barely blinked, and gave Eve no chance to speak at all. “Edward's dead.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, please. Tell me where you are, what happened.”

“In the house on Spring, and I'm sorry about that, too. I can't officially determine COD. Morris will—”

“Eve.”

Hell, Eve thought. “His face and genitals were severely beaten. He was sodomized.”

“Ah, dear God.”

“Ligature marks on his wrists are consistent, to my eye, with him being restrained vertically—arms over his head. I believe he was likely still alive before he was hanged from the ceiling light in the entrance
foyer. He had a comp-generated sign around his neck reading ‘Justice Is Served.'”

“All right.” With her eyes closed, Mira rubbed her fingers over the middle of her forehead. “It's very personal, sexual—”

“I'm not asking for a profile, Dr. Mira, not right now. Take a minute. I'm not sure what you want to tell Mr. Mira.”

Mira opened her eyes. “I'll tell him what you tell me. Of course.”

“Okay. I'm going to need to talk to him again. I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize.” There was a snap in the words. Mira held up a hand, visibly regouped. “Don't apologize,” she said again, calmly now. “Both Dennis and I want you to do everything you have to do, everything you can do to find who did this. Do you want him to come to Central?”

“No, don't do that. I'll go to him. I have to inform next of kin, then I'll go by and talk to him before I go in. Officially, I'm not going to be able to consult with you on this.”

“Of course not, the conflict of interest. I'm not thinking straight yet.”

“But unofficially I'm going to want your help with the profile. Later,” she added. “Go home. You're going to want to be with him when I interview him. I'm going to contact Whitney, go by the victim's residence and speak to his wife. That'll give you time to go home, to tell Mr. Mira before I get there.”

“Yes, you're right. I'll leave here in a few minutes.”

“One last thing. I'm going to leak this to Nadine Furst.”

“Oh,” Mira said, on a kind of sigh.

“The media's going to know about this fast. I'm going to leak it to her so she can get out in front of it. You're going to want to screen any incomings, because once this hits, the media's going to try to talk to you and Mr. Mira. You need a statement.”

“I know what to do. I'll take care of that end. Please do what you have to do.”

“I'll speak to you within ninety minutes.”

Eve turned, saw Peabody in the doorway.

“Sweepers are here, uniforms are canvassing. The morgue wagon's on its way. I flagged him for Morris.”

“That covers it. The sweepers will go through the house, but there's nothing relevant that's not in the entranceway. For now, we're finished here. Let's go break it to the vic's wife.”

“I hate that part.”

“We all do. You're probably going to hate this time more than usual.”

She contacted Whitney before she left the crime scene.

“Tibble was right about the media, particularly given the sexual implications of the murder.”

“Yes, sir. I'm going to contact Nadine Furst. I'd rather have someone I know and trust, someone who knows the Miras, take the media lead on this. Whatever comes after, what goes out first will be fair.”

“Do it. I'll speak with Tibble and with our media liaison. And dot those
i
's, Dallas, right down the line.”

“Let's move,” she told Peabody when Whitney clicked off. “I'll contact Nadine on the way.”

The minute she slid behind the wheel, Eve used the in-dash to contact Nadine.

The reporter, looking on-camera ready as usual, greeted her with a brilliant smile. “Dallas. I happen to be with your delicious husband in what may be my new triplex penthouse. I was just wishing he came with it, then it would be a done deal.”

“Get your own, and put on your media hat.”

The humor dropped out of Nadine's foxy green eyes, turning them sharp. “What do you have?”

“Less than an hour ago Peabody and I discovered the body of former Senator Edward Mira in the former residence of the senator's grandparents.”

“Shit, damn, fuck. Let me get my recorder.”

“Just listen. The victim had been brutally beaten, then hanged. He'd also been sodomized.”

“Christ, this story's going to burn.”

“Yesterday at approximately five-twenty-five
P.M.
, according to the log of the Rapid Cab used for transportation, the senator's cousin Dennis Mira—no, go with Professor Mira, he's one of those—entered the residence, and was attacked and rendered unconscious after seeing the senator injured and trying to go to his assistance. Professor Mira contacted the NYPSD. Since that time, investigators have attempted to locate the senator, who they believe was held against his will in another location before being brought back to the residence. The chief medical examiner is working to determine the time and cause of death. The primary investigator has no comment at this time, but the department intends to issue a statement once details are confirmed.”

“God, when you drop one on me, you drop it big-time.”

“I'm on my way to notify next of kin. You can't air that until Peabody gives you the green.”

“All right. How's Dennis? Is he all right?”

Eve let out a breath. Friendships didn't come easily to her, but when they did, they came solid.

“There are two reasons I'm giving you the jump. You'll wait for the green, and you asked about Mr. Mira. He's okay. He got banged up a little, but he's okay.”

“And now it's my job to ask if you have any leads, any suspects.”

“No, because I'm still doing my job. Since you're with Roarke, tell him I okayed it for him to fill you in on the details of the grandfather's estate, the brownstone. That's going to come out anyway, and I'd rather you played it at the opening. What I don't want is even a whiff that Mr. Mira is a suspect, even a person of interest. He's a witness and a victim himself. That's it.”

“You should know me better.”

“I do, that's why I contacted you before I notified next of kin. Peabody will give you the green as soon as we do. I've got to go.”

“So do I now.”

They both clicked off, and Eve scowled at the traffic.

“How are you going to handle Mr. Mira?”