Portrait in Death (30 page)

Her arm screamed with pain. The child's arm in the dream, the woman's who was trapped in it. It was burning hot where he'd snapped the bone, burning cold up to the shoulder, down to the fingertips that dripped with red.

She would wash it off. That's what she had done then, that's what she would do now. Wash off the blood, wash away the death in the cold water.

She moved slowly, like an old woman, wincing at the sting between her legs, blocking out the reason for it.

It smelled metallic-the water, the blood-how could she know? She was only eight.

He'd beaten her again. He'd come home, not quite drunk enough to leave her be. So he'd beaten her again, raped her again, broken her again. But this time she'd stopped him.

The knife had stopped him.

She could go now, away from the cold, away from this room, away from him.

"You never get away, and you know it."

She looked up. There was a mirror over the sink. She could see her face in it-thin, white, eyes dark with shock and pain-and the face behind it.

So beautiful, with those magic blue eyes, the silky black hair, that full mouth. Like a picture in a book.

Roarke. She knew him. She loved him. He'd come with her to Dallas, and now he'd take her away. When she turned to him she wasn't a child anymore, but a woman. And still, the man who'd been her father lay bloody between them.

"I don't want to stay here. I need to go home now. I'm so glad you're here to take me home."

"You've done Richie in, haven't you?"

"He hurt me. He wouldn't stop hurting me."

"Well now, a father has to hurt the child now and again to teach them some respect." He crouched, and taking a grip on her father's hair, lifted the head to examine it. "I knew him, you know. Wheeled some deals. We're two of a kind."

"No, you're nothing like him. You never met him."

Those blue eyes sparked with something that made her stomach clutch like a fist. "I don't like being called a liar by a woman."

"Roarke-"

He picked up the knife, rose slowly. "You've got the wrong Roarke. I'm Patrick Roarke." Smiling, smiling, he turned the knife in his hand as he stepped toward her. "And I think it's time you learned a little respect for fatherhood."

She woke with the scream trapped in her throat, and sweat pouring off her like blood.

***

By the time her team arrived, she was steady. Bad dreams, worries about Roarke, even the conversation she knew she needed to have with Summerset were all locked away.

"We're looking for this Luis Javert, listed as Hastings's assistant during the period in January the photographs of Rachel Howard were taken at a wedding. Going off profile, we're going to assume he's between twenty-five and sixty years of age. Highly functional, artistic, intelligent. Odds are he lives alone and owns or has access to imaging equipment. I'm saying owns. These are his tools, his work, his art.

"Feeney, I want you to work Browning on this angle. The name doesn't appear on her list of students sent to Hastings, but he might have changed it. I'm banking that he studied under her, and that she covered Javert in some of the class-work at one time or another. She's tired of looking at me at this point, and maybe a fresh face will jog something loose."

"First time I've been called a fresh face in two decades." Feeney munched on a danish.

"McNab, I want you at Columbia. Work on students, play up the Javert angle. Who's interested in that kind of work."

"Cops are." His mouth was full of scrambled eggs. "Homicide cops are always photographing the dead."

"They don't generally take pictures of them before they're dead."

"How about doctors?" He scooped up bacon. "They take imaging records of patients, right? Then there's the before and after records. Mostly it's to cover their asses in case somebody decides to sue, but-"

"You may not be as stupid as you look." Eve snitched one of his slices of bacon. "Hard to believe, but you may not be. Light. Energy, health, vitality. I was playing with it last night, and got distracted. Maybe our boy's sick. What if he's convinced himself that by absorbing vital life through photography, he can be cured?"

"It's out there."

"Yeah, well, so is he. Peabody and I will follow this up. Baxter and Trueheart stick with the clubs."

"It's a tough job." Baxter drained his coffee. "Hanging out in clubs, watching all the nubile young bodies." He winked at Trueheart. "Right, kid."

Trueheart's blush turned his young, smooth face rosy pink. "There's a lot going on there. The dancing, the music, the bar scene, the data flood."

"He got hit on three times," Baxter added. "Two were girls."

"Talk photography," Eve told him. "Bone up some on this Henri Javert and work the conversation around to him when you're being hit on."

"It wasn't like that, Lieutenant. They were just talking to me."

"I love this guy." Baxter wiped an imaginary tear away. "Just fucking love him."

"If Baxter hits on you, Trueheart, you have permission to kick his ass. Moving on. Memorial service this evening for Rachel Howard. Baxter and Trueheart will be dancing among the nubiles, but I want the rest of us there. Our boy may show. Let's move out. Peabody, I have a personal matter to deal with downstairs. Be ready in ten."

Eve went downstairs, and found Summerset in the middle of a fight with the PA.

"If you want the cast off, you will cooperate and let me transport you to the health center. You require a doctor's authorization and supervision for its removal."

"I can have this irritant off in two minutes. Move aside." He started to haul himself up. She shoved him back down.

Fascinated, Eve watched the show. "Madam, I have yet to strike a woman, despite considerable provocation. You are about to be my first."

"You piss him off even more than I do," Eve commented and had two furious faces turning toward her. "I think we may have to keep you."

"I expect some cooperation," Spence began, lifting her chin so high her curls bounced.

"I will not have this person drag me to a health center for a simple procedure."

"It requires a doctor."

"Then bring the doctor here," Eve suggested. "And get it done."

"I'm hardly going to request a doctor make a home call for something as minor as a skin cast removal."

"If it's so minor, why do we need a doctor?"

"Ah!" Summerset raised one long, bony finger. "Exactly."

"I bet I can zap it off with my weapon." Thoughtfully, Eve drew it. "Why don't you stand back, Spence, and I'll just-"

"Put that thing away," Summerset snapped. "You lunatic."

"Might've been fun." With a shrug, Eve holstered it. "Tag the doctor," she ordered Spence. "Tell him Roarke wants him to come here and remove the cast, and do whatever the hell else is necessary to get this pain in my ass on his feet, and out of the house."

"I fail to see why-"

"You're not required to see, you're required to do it. If the doctor has a problem with this," Eve added, "he can speak to me."

Spence huffed off, and Eve stuck her hands in her pockets. "Sooner you're on your feet, sooner you're on vacation somewhere that's not here. And I can start turning cartwheels."

"Nothing would please me more."

With a nod, she nudged at Galahad who left Summerset's lap long enough to wind around her feet. "Roarke called last night. From Brian Kelly's place in Dublin. He was drunk. Seriously drunk."

"Playfully so, or dangerously so?"

"The first mostly. I guess." Frustrated, she dragged a hand through her hair. "But not in control of himself, and that's dangerous enough. He said something about getting some information out of one of his father's old friends. You know who that might be?"

"I didn't know Patrick Roarke well. I tended to avoid him, and his like. I had a child to look after." He paused a moment. "For a time, I had two to look after."

She said nothing to that. There was nothing to be said. "He said he's going to Clare today. That's in the west. That's where she was from, his mother. He's not looking for a warm welcome."

"If they blame him, it's their loss. The father couldn't break the child, nor could he turn the child into a monster. Though he tried." He studied Eve, and wondered if she understood he wasn't referring only to Roarke now.

But her eyes showed him nothing as she stepped forward, leaned down, spoke quietly. "Did you kill Patrick Roarke?"

Like hers, his face stayed blank. "There is no statute of limitations on murder."

"It's not the cop who's asking you."

"I had children to protect."

She let out a short breath. "Roarke doesn't know, does he? You never told him."

"There's nothing to tell. That's old business, Lieutenant. Shouldn't you be off, taking care of new?"

Their eyes held another moment. "Yeah." She straightened, turned. "Just remember, you won't be sitting around on your flat ass much longer, and this house will be Summerset-free for three glorious weeks."

He smirked, then lifted a hand to stroke down Galahad's back when the cat leaped back into his lap. "I believe she'll miss me."

Chapter 16

When you had connections, you used them. Doctors, as a breed, were one of Eve's least favorite species, yet somehow she'd managed to develop personal relationships with two of them.

For this line of the investigation, she'd tug on Louise Dimatto.

Knowing Louise's scattershot schedule, she tagged her by 'link first, pinned down her location, then wheedled an appointment.

The Canal Street Clinic was Louise's baby. She might have gone against her family's uptown grain to establish and run a free clinic on the verges of Sidewalk City where sidewalk sleepers made their beds in packing crates and unlicensed beggars trolled for marks, but she'd dug in with her manicured fingers.

She'd put her own time and money on the line, and then had launched a campaign to drag more time, more money from every source at her disposal. Louise, Eve knew, had a lot of sources.

She'd ended up being one herself. Or more accurately, Roarke had, she thought as she double-parked beside an ancient, rusted two-seater that had been stripped of its tires, seats, and one of its doors. It was his money, even if the sneaky bastard had dumped it into her account.

Whatever the sources, it was money well spent. The clinic was a steady beam of light in a very dark world.

The building was unimposing, unless you considered the fact it was the only one on the block with windows that were clean, and walls that were graffiti-free.

Across the street a funky-junkie wearing thick black sunshades sat with her muscles jerking to whatever tune she crooned. A couple of badasses stood hip-shot in a doorway looking for trouble that was never far away in this sector.

Behind their riot bars most of the upper-story windows were thrown open in the doomed hope that a lost breeze might stumble in on its way uptown. Out of them vomited the wail of babies, the burn of trash rock, and voices already raised in petty furies.

Gauging her ground, Eve flipped on her On Duty sign, then strolled over to the badasses. They straightened and fixed appropriate sneers on their tough guy faces.

"You know Dr. Dimatto?"

"Everybody knows the doc. Whatiz to you?"

"Anybody comes around here to hassle the doc," his companion warned, "they gonna get hassled."

"Good to know, because the doc's a friend of mine. I'm going in to talk with her. See that police vehicle?"

One of them snorted. "Piece of shit cop car."

"My piece of shit cop car," Eve acknowledged. "I want it in the same shitty condition it is now when I come out. If it's not, well, the hassling will begin, starting with each of you fine gentlemen. Clear?"

"Ooh, Rico, I'm shaking." The first elbowed the second as he cracked up. "This skinny girl cop here, she's gonna slap my face if somebody pisses on her tires."

"I prefer the term 'bitch cop from hell.' Isn't that right, Peabody?"

"Yes, sir," Peabody called back from her stance by the vehicle. "It is absolutely correct."

With her eyes shifting from one badass face to the other, Eve asked, "And why is that, Peabody?"

"Because, sir, you're so damn mean. And rather than slap someone's face for relieving his bladder on your official tires, you are more likely to twist off said reliever's balls, then use them to strangle him."

"Yes. Yes, I am. And what would I do then, Peabody?"

"Then, sir? Then you would laugh."

"I haven't had a good laugh today, so keep that in mind." Satisfied her vehicle would remain untouched, Eve sauntered back across the street and into the clinic.

"The laugh was a good touch, Peabody."

"Thanks. I thought it added just the right tone. Boy." She scanned the waiting area. It was full, jammed with people in varying forms of distress. A good many of them made the badasses across the street look like boy scouts, but they sat, and they waited.

The room was clean. Fresh paint, spotless rug, thriving plants. A portion was sectioned off and held child-sized chairs and toys. In it she saw a boy of about four rhythmically bashing a boy of about two over the head with a foam mallet. He punctuated each bash with a cheerful: "Bang!"

"Shouldn't somebody make him stop doing that?" Eve wondered.

"Huh? Oh, no sir. He's just doing his job. Older siblings have to beat on younger ones. Zeke used to just about drill a hole in my ribs with his finger. I really miss him."

"Whatever." Baffled, Eve walked to the reception desk.

They were shown into Louise's office. However much the clinic had evolved, Louise's space was still small, still cramped. The clinic's benefactors needn't worry that the doctor was using their contributions to plump her own work nest.

Eve used the wait time to check on any voice or e-mail that had come into her unit at Central, stewing when she found one, very brief transmission from Roarke.

Louise dashed in, a pale green lab coat over jeans and a white T-shirt. Something that looked like curdled milk dribbled down the breast of the lab coat.

"Hi, gang. Coffee! I've got ten minutes. Spill it."