J. Robb - Kindred In Death

“Nope. I’ve got over thirty runs to do. Plus I put off reporting to Whitney hoping we’d catch a miracle.” She started up the steps, then stopped dead when she spied the cat sitting on the landing, staring at her with unquestionably annoyed eyes.

“Jesus, he’s almost as bad as your goon.”

“He dislikes being left on his own.”

“I’m not going to start hauling him to crime scenes. Deal with it, pal,” she told the cat, but stopped to crouch and stroke when she reached the landing. “Some of us have to work for a living. Well, one of us has to. The other one mostly does it for fun.”

“As it happens I need to go have a bit of fun. After which I’ll put in some time in the lab.”

“Work, on Peace Day-or pretty much Peace Night now, I guess.”

“A little something I started this morning when my wife left me on my own.”

They continued up together with the cat prancing between them.

“Can you make a copy of this disc?” she asked him. “I need to keep the original clean.”

“No problem.” He took the evidence bag. “We’re eating in two hours,” Roarke decreed as he walked past her office toward his own. “Meanwhile, you can feed the cat.”

She didn’t bother to scowl, it was energy wasted. She moved through her office, and again stopped dead when she saw the stuffed cat Roarke had given her-a toy replica of Galahad-sprawled on her sleep chair.

She looked at the toy, at the original, back to the toy. “You know, I don’t even want to know what you were doing with that.”

In the kitchen she fed the cat, programmed a pot of coffee.

At her desk she booted up her comp then sat to organize her notes, the reports, and start the first ten runs from the Columbia list. While the computer worked, she looked over the report she’d drafted for Whitney.

She refined it, read it again. Hoping he’d be satisfied, for now, with the written, she sent copies to both his home and office units.

She ordered the computer to display the runs, in order, on screen. Sitting back with her coffee she studied data, images.

Young, she thought, all so young. Not one of her initial runs had so much as a whiff of criminal, no juvie bumps, no illegals busts, not even so much as an academic knuckle rap.

She ran the rest, then started over from another angle.

“Computer, run current list for parents, siblings with criminal record and/or connection to MacMasters, Captain Jonah, as investigator or case boss.”

Acknowledged. Working…

Payback, if payback it was, came from different roots, she thought. While the run progressed, she rose to set up yet another murder board.

Data complete…

“On screen.”

Now there were some bumps and busts, and a few whiffs. Eleven on her list had illegals hits, some more than one. And yet, she noted, none of those had any connection to MacMasters.

Considering, she ordered a run on the investigating officer or team. Maybe the connection with MacMasters was more nebulous.

Once again, she hit zero. And paced.

She’d ask MacMasters directly. Maybe one of the investigators was an old childhood friend, or a third cousin once removed.

Waste of time, that wasn’t it, but they’d cover the ground.

She recircled the murder board, coming from another angle, but saw nothing new. She shook her head as Roarke came in.

“Daughter,” she said. “Payback-if we run with that-was to kill MacMasters’s daughter. Is it a mirror? Is MacMasters somehow responsible-in the killer’s mind-for the rape or death of his own daughter-child. Make it child as MacMasters only had a daughter.”

“If the killer is anywhere near the age he pretended to be, he’d be a very young father. What if he’s the child, and MacMasters is, to his mind, responsible for the rape or murder of his parent? Or, for that matter himself. He might perceive himself as a victim.”

“Yeah, I’m circling those routes, too.” She dragged both hands through her hair. “Basically, I’m getting nowhere. Maybe taking that break, clearing it out of my head for an hour, is a good idea.”

“I copied the music disc.”

Something in his tone had her looking away from the board, meeting his eyes. “What is it?”

“I ran an auto-analysis while I was working on the other e-business. It’s both audio and video, which is very unusual. Performance art is often a part of a disc like this. But there was an addition made this morning at two-thirty, and another at just after three.”

“He added to it. Son of a bitch. Did you play it?”

“I didn’t, no, assuming you’d disapprove of that.”

She held out her hand for the disc, then took it to her comp. “Play content from additions, starting at two-thirty, this date. Display video on screen one.”

Roarke said nothing, but went to her, stood with her.

The music came first, something light and insanely cheerful. The sort of thing, she thought, some stores play in the background. It always made her want to beat someone up.

Then the image slid on screen-soft focus, then sharper, sharper until every bruise, every tear, every smear of blood on Deena MacMasters showed clearly.

She’d been propped up on the pillows so that she reclined, half-sitting, facing the camera. Probably her own PPC or ’link, Eve thought. Her eyes were dull, ravaged, defeated. Her voice, when she spoke, slurred with exhaustion and shock.

“Please. Please don’t make me.”

The image faded, then bloomed again.

“Okay. Okay. Dad, this is your fault. Everything is your fault. And, and, oh God. Oh God. Okay. I will never forgive you. And I hate you. Dad. Daddy. Please. Okay. You’ll never know why. You won’t know, and I won’t. But-but I have to pay for what you did. Daddy, help me. Why doesn’t somebody help me?”

The image faded again, and the music changed. Eve heard the cliché of the funeral dirge as the camera came back, panned up, slowly, from Deena’s feet, up her legs, her torso, to her face. To the empty eyes.

It held on the face as text began to scroll.

It may take you a while to find this, play this. Your dead daughter sure liked her music! I played it for her while I raped the shit out of her. Oh, btw, she was an idiot, but a decent piece of ass. I hope our little video causes you to stick your weapon in your mouth and blow your brains out.

She didn’t deliver her lines very well, but that doesn’t diminish the truth. Your fault, asshole. If it wasn’t for you, your deeply stupid daughter would still be alive.

How long can you live with that?

Payback is rocking-A!

For the crescendo, the audio blasted with Deena’s screams.

“Computer, replay, same segment.”

“Christ Jesus, Eve.”

“I need to see it again,” she snapped. “I need it analyzed. Maybe he said something that we can pick up, maybe there’s something that picks up his reflection.” She moved closer to the screen as it began its replay.

Roarke crossed over to open the wall panel. He pulled out a bottle of wine, uncorked it.

“There’s no mirror, no reflective surface. Her eyes? The way he’s got her sitting, maybe he can get a reflection off her eyes.”

“Alive or dead? I’m sorry,” Roarke said immediately. “I’m sorry for that. Truly.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. She’s so young, and so afraid, so helpless.”

“She’s not me.”

“No. Not you, nor Marlena. But…” He handed her a glass of wine, then took a long drink from his own. “I’ll see if I can get something off it. I’d have a better chance with the original than a copy.”

“I need to log that in, in Central, run it through Feeney.” Time, she thought, it all took time, but… “No shortcuts on this.”