J. Robb - Bump in The Night

She wore thin, filmy white, and between the breasts was deep red stain in the blurred shape of a heart.

„The album was Bleeding Heart, for the title track. She won three Grammys for it.“

„She was twenty-two,“ Maeve put in. „Two years younger than me. Less than two years later, she vanished without a trace.“

There was a trace, Eve thought. There always was, even if it was nearly a century coming to light.

Outside, Eve dug her hands into her pockets. The sky had stopped spitting out nasty stuff, but the wind had picked up. She was pretty sure she’d left her watch cap in her office.

„Everybody’s got an alibi, nobody’s got a motive. Yet. I think I’m going to go back to the scene, take another look around.“

„Then you can fill me in with what must be a multitude of missing details on the way. I had my car taken home,“ Roarke continued when she frowned at him. „So I could get a lift with my lovely wife.“

„You were just hoping to get a look at Number Twelve.“

„And hope springs. Want me to drive?“

When she slid behind the wheel, she tapped her fingers on it. „What’s something like that painting going to go for on the open market?“

„To the right collector? Sky would be the limit. But I’d say a million wouldn’t be out of the park.“

„A million? For a painting of a dead woman. What’s wrong with people? Top transaction in the vic’s account from Bygones was a quarter of that. Why’d Hopkins sell so cheap?“

„Scrambling for capital. Bird in the hand’s worth a great deal more than a painting on the wall.“

„Yeah, there’s that. Buchanan had to know he was getting bargain basement there.“

„So why kill the golden goose?“

„Exactly. But it’s weird to me neither of them had heard by this time that Hopkins bought it at Number Twelve. They eat breakfast at eight? No media reports while you’re scoping out the pickings on the AutoChef or pulling on your pants?“

„Not everyone turns on the news.“

„Maybe not. And nobody pops in today, mentions it? Nobody say, ‘Hey! Did you hear about that Hopkins guy? Number Twelve got another one.’ Just doesn’t sit level for me.“ Then she shrugged, pulled away from the curb.

„Hit the lab before this. The same gun that killed Hopkins killed the as yet unidentified female whose remains were found behind the wall at Number Twelve.“

„Fascinating.“

„Weapon was bricked up with her. Killer must have found her, and it. Cleaned the weapon. You see those, the hair jewelry, she had on in the picture? Recovered at the scene, also clean and shiny. One by the window which the killer likely used to escape, one left with the bones.“

„Someone wants to make sure the remains are identified. Do you doubt it’s her?“

„No, I don’t doubt it’s her. I don’t doubt Hop Hopkins put a bullet in her brain, then got handy with brick and mortar. I don’t know why. I don’t know why someone used that same gun on Hop’s grandson eighty-five years later.“

„But you think there’s a connection. A personal one.“

„Had to reload to put the bullet in the brain. That’s extremely cold. Guy’s dead, or next to it. But you reload, roll the body over, press the barrel down hard enough to scorch the skin and leave an imprint of the barrel, and give him one last hit. Fucking cold.“

Eve gave him details on the drive. She could, with Roarke, run them through like a checklist, and it always lined them up in her mind. In addition, he always seemed to know something or someone that might fill in a few of the gaps.

„So, did you ever do business with Hopkins?“

„No. He had a reputation for being generous with the bullshit, and often short on results.“

„Big plans, small action,“ Eve concluded.

„That would be it. Harmless, by all accounts. Not the sort to con the widow and orphans out of the rent money, but not above talking them out of a portion of it with a view to getting rich quick.“

„He cheated on his wives, and recently squeezed five hundred out of the son he abandoned.“

„Harmless doesn’t always mean moral or admirable. I made a few calls – curiosity,“ he explained. „To people who like to buy and sell real estate.“

„Which includes yourself.“

„Most definitely. From what I’m told the bottom dropped out of Twelve for Hopkins only a couple of weeks after he’d signed the papers on it. He was in fairly deep – purchase price, legal fees, architects and designers, construction crew, and so on. He’d done a lot of tap dancing to get as far as he did, and was running out of steam. He’d done some probing around – more legal fees – to see if he could wrangle having the property condemned, and get back some of his investment. Tried to wrangle some money from various federal agencies, historic societies. He played all the angles and had some success. A couple of small grants. Not nearly enough, not for his rather ambitious vision.“

„What kind of money we talking, for the building and the vision?“

„Oh, easily a hundred and fifty million. He’d barely scratched the surface when he must have realized he couldn’t make it without more capital. Then, word is, a few days ago, he pushed the green light again. Claimed Number Twelve was moving forward.“

„I’m waiting on the lab to see if they can pinpoint when that wall was taken down. Could be talking days.“ Her fingers tapped out a rhythm on the wheel as she considered. „ Hopkins finds the body. You get a wealth of publicity out of something like that. Maybe a vid deal, book deals. A guy with an entrepreneurial mindset, he could think of all kinds of ways to rake it in over those bones.“

„He could,“ Roarke agreed. „But wouldn’t the first question be how he knew where to look?“

„Or how his killer knew.“

„Hop killed her,“ she began as she hunted for parking. „Argument, drug-induced, whatever. Bricks up the body, which takes some doing. Guy liked cocaine. That’ll keep you revved for a few hours. Has to cover up the brick, put things back into reasonable shape. I’m trying to access the police reports from back then. It hasn’t been easy so far. But anyway, no possible way the cops just missed a brand new section of wall, so he paid them off or blackmailed them.“

„Corrupt cops? I’m stunned. I’m shocked.“

„Shut up. Hop goes over the edge – guilt, drugs, fear of discovery. Goes hermit. Guy locks himself up with a body on the other side of the wall, he’s going to go pretty buggy. Wouldn’t surprise me if he wrote something down, told someone about it. If cops were involved, they knew or suspected something. The killer, or Hopkins does some homework, pokes around. Gets lucky, or unlucky as the case may be.“

„It takes eight and a half decades to get lucky?“

„Place gets a rep,“ Eve said as they walked from the car toward Number Twelve. „Bray gets legend status. People report seeing her, talking to her. A lot of those people, and others, figure she just took off ‘cause she couldn’t handle the pressure of her own success. Hop has enough juice to keep people out of the apartment during his lifetime. By then, there’re murmurs of curses and hauntings, and that just grows as time passes. A couple of people have some bad luck, and nobody much wants to play in Number Twelve anymore.“

„More than a couple.“ Roarke frowned at the door as Eve uncoded the police seal. „The building just squats here, and everyone who’s tried to disturb it, for whatever reason, ends up paying a price.“

„It’s brick and wood and glass.“

„Brick and wood and glass form structure, not spirit.“

She raised her brows at him. „Want to wait in the car, Sally?“