J. Robb - Indulgence in death

She scooped up some of the baked potato she’d already drowned in butter, sampled, then kept talking while she-to Roarke’s mind-buried it in salt.

“Then one or both have to decide to kill him, and chose a method that highlights the crime when, shit, they could’ve hired the hit.”

“Why don’t you just salt the butter and eat it with a spoon?”

“What?”

“Never mind. All right, I agree that scenario doesn’t make sense. It’s too complicated and illogical.”

“That doesn’t even get to Crampton. Neither of them are in her book. Now, maybe one or both of them used her services with another ID, but it’s hard for me to swallow she wouldn’t have made one or both in her vetting process. And if they were using fake ID and getting away with it, why kill her? I’ve got no evidence of blackmail, as in she learned who the client was and tried to shake him down. Which would be stupid and risk her very valuable rep for money when she was already flush, and risk her license when she didn’t have a single blemish on it. Add the method and location, and it’s too showy.”

“Can’t argue. Eat your vegetables.”

She rolled her eyes but ate some asparagus. “There. So, simplify it, break it down to its elements.”

“And you have a game of Clue.”

She circled a finger in the air as she chewed more steak. “Or their version of that sort of thing. Maybe their version of some urban hunt for really big game.”

“Which winds back to why. It’s murder, Eve, and by your supposition the murder of innocent and personally unknown people.”

“People important in their field. People in business or services for the upper rung of the social and financial ladder. I think that’s an element. Maybe that’s part of the why. I don’t know yet.”

“Because anything less isn’t worthy.”

Eve paused with a liberally salted forkful of potato halfway to her mouth. “Worthy.”

“Just trying to follow the trail you’re breaking. You’ve described them both as arrogant, smug, wealthy, privileged, and from my limited knowledge of them I don’t disagree.”

He poured more water in her glass as he expected she’d need to drink like the dying with that much salt in her system.

“They’ve been steeped in that privilege all their lives,” he continued, “and have known only the best, have been able to select the best in every area. That can be a heady experience when you come from nothing. Conversely, it could be a matter of considering what you deserve is only the best, and less isn’t to be tolerated.”

He lifted his wine, gestured before he drank. “Why murder a sidewalk sleeper, for instance? Where’s the shine in that, where’s the prestige? And you’ve no truck with that sort in any case. They’re too far beneath you.”

“But a tony chauffeur service, or the best LC in the city, while beneath you, are still people you would or could utilize.”

“It’s logical.”

“It damn well is,” she agreed. “An unusual weapon, or unique weapon, it adds to the shine.”

“And perhaps the challenge.”

“So does the location. Makes it challenging, and worthy.”

“They’ve each completed their round, if that’s what this is,” Roarke pointed out. “Or bagged their trophy. Maybe that’s the end of it.”

“No. It’s a tie, isn’t it? A tie doesn’t cut it, not in games, in competition, in sports. Ties suck for everybody. There has to be a winner. They have to go to the next round.”

He turned it over in his mind. “They know you’re looking at them, checking alibis, doing background checks. That would add to the flavor, the buzz of it all, if that’s what this is about.”

“They were ready for me.” She nodded to herself as she looked back at both interviews. “See that’s what struck me when I talked to each of them. They were ready with their performance, their script, their play. It was like another kind of round, wasn’t it? A level. Okay, we each qualified in that round, now it’s Beat the Cop time for bonus points. They had to factor that in when they used employee IDs. They had to want that element, too.”

“A bigger bonus that it was you, with your reputation.”

“Add my connection to you. A little more-what’s it-panache.”

“As you’re talking me into it, consider the timing. We’re just back from holiday. It’s very easy to verify we’d both be back to work. And if any research had been done, a good bet that your name would come up on a fresh homicide when you’re just back. I’d say they wanted, hoped, and did their best to ensure it would be you. Only the best.”

“He brought up the book. Dudley,” Eve remembered. “Nadine’s book, the Icove case. A lot of shimmer on that right now. Damn it, maybe I should tell Nadine to watch her back. She’s riding a big, shiny bestseller. And the bastard made a point of mentioning it.”

“I can’t see her as a target, but you’d feel better if you contacted her.”

“Why not a target?”

“Both victims have been service providers. Some would even consider them a kind of servant.”

“Maybe, yeah, maybe, but I’m going to tell her not to do anything stupid. Then, damn it all over again, she’s going to push me for a one-on-one on this, try to wheedle more out of me on the investigation.”

“Friendship’s complex and layered.”

“It’s a pain in the ass.” But she pushed away from the table and walked to her desk to contact her friend.

She was pumped, Roarke thought as he lingered over his wine. Pumped and ready. It was more than the sleep, the meal, though God knew she’d needed both. It was the mission. She saw it now, and maybe that’s what Sinead had meant by Eve’s gift. She could see, and feel, both her victims and their killers.

He rose now, walked to her murder board.

He could hear her arguing with Nadine over making an appearance on Now to discuss the case, over giving a straight interview for Channel 75, but he paid little attention.

That, too, was a kind of game, he supposed. They each played their parts, pushed their agendas, and respected each other’s skill. A fine trick between two hardheaded, strong-willed women who believed absolutely in their duty to their profession.

When Eve broke transmission, muttered: “Coffee,” he said, “I’ll have some as well.”

He waited until she came out, handed him a cup. “They look through you.”

“What?”

“People-some people-with this level of social and monetary privilege. Those who can have whatever they wish whenever they wish it, and have chosen not to care, or simply haven’t the base in them to care about those who can’t. They don’t see you, the ones sweating out a day’s pay to meet the rent, or those begging on a street corner with empty bellies. They don’t see those who provide the services they use as they’re no more than droids in the world of that tunnel-vision privilege. I’ll wager they don’t know the names much less the situations of those who work for them outside their admins or PAs-and then only the names.”

“You see, you know. And you could probably buy and sell both of them.”

He shook his head. “It’s a different matter, not only in that base, but in the background. I’ve been the one looked through. It was one of the things I determined to change. And I’ve killed. There’s a weight in that for most of us. I can see, I think, how they might kill without that weight.”

“Because the victims aren’t people to them. They’re like a chair or a pair of shoes, just something they buy. They pay for the kill, that keeps coming around for me. They bought them, then own them.”

“And it’s a new thrill, the killing.”

He could, now that she’d opened the window to it, see them sitting in their fine homes over fine brandy, discussing that new thrill.