J. Robb - Bump in The Night

„Fine then, since it pisses you off, I’ll just leave you to your serious work while I go waste my time.“

She scowled at him when he got up and carried his glass of wine with him to his office. And she cursed under her breath when he closed the door behind him.

„Great, fine, fabulous. Now I’ve got a ghost causing marital discord. Just makes it all perfect.“

She shoved away from her desk to set up the case board she used at home. Logic was what was needed here, she told herself. Logic, cop sense, facts and evidence.

Must be that Irish in Roarke’s blood that tugged him into the fanciful. Who knew he’d head that way?

But her way was straight, narrow and rational.

Two murders, one weapon. Connection. Two murders, one location, second connection. Second vie, blood descendent of suspected killer in first murder. Connect those dots, too, she thought as she worked.

So, okay, she couldn’t set the first murder aside. She’d use it.

Logic and evidence dictated that both victims knew their killer. The first appeared to be a crime of passion, likely enhanced by illegal substances. Maybe Bray cheated on Hop. Or wanted to break things off professionally and/or personally. She could have had something on him, threatened exposure.

Had to be an act of passion, heat of the moment. Hop had the money, die means. If he’d planned to kill Bray, why would he have done it in his own apartment?

But the second murder was a deliberate act. The killer lured the victim to the scene, had the weapon. Had, in all likelihood discovered the previous body. The killing had been an act of rage as well as deliberation.

„Always meant to kill him, didn’t you?“ she murmured as she studied the crime scene photos on her board. „Wanted whatever you wanted first – but whether or not you got it, he was a dead man. What did she mean to you?“

She studied the photos of Bobbie Bray.

Obsessed fan? Not out of the realm, she thought, but low on her list.

„Computer, run probability with evidence currently on active file. What is probability that the killers of Bray, Bobbie and Hopkins, Radcliff C. are linked?“

Working…

Absently, Eve picked up her wine, sipping as she worked various scenarios through her head.

Task complete. Probability is eighty-two-point-three…

Reasonably strong, Eve mused, and decided to take it one step further. „What is the probability that the killer of Hopkins, Radcliff C. is linked with the first victim, Bray, Bobbie?“

Working…

Family member, Eve thought. Close friend, lover. Bray would be, what… Damn math, she cursed as she calculated. Bray would be around about one-oh-nine if she’d lived. People lived longer now than they did in the mid-twentieth. So a lover or tight friend isn ‘t out of the realm either.

But she couldn’t see a centenarian, even a spry one, cutting through that brick.

Task complete. Probability is ninety-four-point-one that there is a connection between the first victim and the second killer…

„Yeah, that’s what I think. And you know what else? Blood’s the closest connection. So who did Bobbie leave behind? Computer, list all family members of first victim. Display on wall screen one.“

Working… Display complete.

Parents and older brother deceased, Eve noted. A younger sister, age eighty-eight, living in Scottsdale Care Center, Arizona. Young for a care center, Eve mused, and made a note to find out what the sister’s medical condition was.

Bobbie would have had a niece and nephew had she lived, and a couple of grandnieces and nephews.

Worth checking into, Eve decided, and began a standard run on all living relations.

While the computer worked, she set up a secondary task and took a closer look at Hopkins.

„Big starter,“ she said aloud. „Little finisher.“

There were dozens of projects begun, abandoned. Failed. Now and then he’d hit, at least enough to keep the wolves from the door, set up the next project.

Failed marriages, ignored offspring. No criminal on any former spouse or offspring.

But you had to start somewhere, she figured.

She went back to the board. Diamond hair clips. Bray had worn them for her first album cover – possibly a gift from Hop. Most likely. The scene told Eve it was likely Bray had been wearing them when she’d been killed, or at least when she’d been bricked up.

But the killer hadn’t taken them as a souvenir. Not a fan, just didn’t play. The killer had shined them up and left them behind.

„She was a diamond,“ Eve murmured. „She shined. Is that what you’re telling me? Here’s the gun he used to kill her, and here’s where I found it. He never paid and payment needed to be made. Is that the message?“

She circled the boards, studied the runs when the computer displayed them. There were a couple of decent possibilities among Bobbie’s descendents.

They’d all have to be interviewed, she decided.

One of them contacts Hopkins, she speculated. Maybe even tries to buy the building but can’t come up with the scratch. Has to get access though, to uncover the body. How was access gained?

Money. Hopkins needed backers. Maybe charged his murderer a fee to tour Number Twelve. Get in once, you can get in again.

How’d you find the body? How did you know?

What did she have here? she asked herself. Younger sister in a care facility. Niece a data drone. Nephew deceased – Urban War fatality. Grandniece middle-management in sales, grandnephew an insurance salesman. Rank and file, no big successes, no big failures.

Ordinary.

Nothing flashy. Nobody managed to cash in on Bobbie’s fame and fortune, or her untimely death.

Nobody, she mused, except Hopkins. That would be a pisser, wouldn’t it? Your daughter, sister, aunt is a dead cult figure, but you’ve got to do the thirty-five hours a week to get by. And the grandson of the bastard who killed her is trying to rake it in. You’re scraping by, getting old and…

„Wait a minute, wait a minute. Serenity Bray, age eighty-eight. Twenty-two years younger than Bobbie. Not a sister. A daughter.“

She swung to the adjoining door, shoved it open. „Bobbie had a kid. Not a sister. The timing’s right. She had a kid.“

Roarke merely lifted an eyebrow. „Yes. Serenity Bray Massey, currently in Scottsdale in a full-care nursing facility. I’ve got that.“

„Showoff. She had a kid, and the timing makes it most likely Hop’s. There’s no record of a child. No reports from that time of her pregnancy. But she separated from him for several months, which would coincide with the last few months of her pregnancy and the birth.“

„After which, it would seem, she gave the child to her own mother. Who then moved her family to a ranch outside Scottsdale, and Bobbie went back to Hop, and her previous lifestyle. I’ve found some speculation that during her period of estrangement from Hop she went into rehab and seclusion. Interviews and articles from the time have her clean and sober when she returned to the scene, then backsliding, I suppose you could say, within weeks.“

He angled his head. „I thought you were leaving Bobbie to me.“

„The ghost part’s yours. The dead part’s mine.“

They were into their second year of marriage, and being a trained observer, Eve knew when he was irritated with her. It seemed stupid, just stupid to have a fight or the undercurrent of one over something as ridiculous as ghosts.

Still, she brooded over it another moment, on the verge of stupidity. Then she huffed out a breath.

„Look,“ she began.

After a pause, he sat back. „I’m looking.“