J. Robb - Portrait In Death

"I wish it was a lie." She spoke quietly. "I wish to God it was a lie. I'm so sorry, Wilson." She said his given name, gently. "I'm so sorry for your loss, sorry to be the one to tell you. She's gone."

"I'm going to call her right now. Right now, and get her out of class." The jive vanished from his speech. "I'm going to get her out of class so you can see this is a lie. What you did, is you made a mistake. You made a mistake about this."

She let him go, resisted the urge to rub her throbbing arms where his fingers had dug into flesh. She waited while he barked into his 'link, waited while a musical female voice cheerfully told him she wasn't able to take the call, to leave a message.

"She's just busy in class." His voice, so big, so sure, was beginning to shake. "We'll just go down to the college, get her out of class. You'll see."

"I rechecked the ID personally," Eve told him. "I rechecked it when I saw your name. Get dressed now, and I'll take you to her."

"It won't be her. It won't be my baby."

Roarke stepped forward. "I'll give you a hand. Bedroom through here?" He led Crack along as if the big man were a small child.

Eve took a deep breath when the bedroom door shut.

Then another as she called the morgue.

"This is Dallas. I'm bringing next of kin in to Dilbert, Alicia. I want her presented as cleanly as possible. I want her draped, and I want the viewing room cleared. No civilians or personnel in the area when I come in."

She clicked off. She could give him that, she thought. It was little enough.

He didn't speak on the way to the morgue, but hulked in the back of the car with his arms folded over his chest and dark sunshades wrapped around the top half of his face.

But she felt him there-the blasts of cold that was his fear, the pumping heat that was his hope.

He kept his face averted from hers, on the drive, on the walk down the chilly white corridors of the morgue. It was her fault now, she understood that. Her fault because there was no one else to blame for his terrible fear, his terrible hope.

She took him into a private viewing room where she and Roarke could flank him.

"If you'll watch the monitor," Eve began.

"I ain't watching no monitor. I don't believe nothing I see on no screen."

"All right." She'd expected this, prepared for this. The glass in front of them was still dark, the privacy screen engaged. She pressed a button under it.

"Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, escorting Buckley, Wilson, next of kin. Request viewing for personal identification of Dilbert, Alicia. Remove privacy shield."

The black faded slowly to gray, then cleared. Beyond the glass she lay on a narrow table, covered to the chin with a white sheet.

"No." Crack lifted his fists to the glass, pounded once, twice. "No, no, no." Then he rounded on Eve, would have leaped on her if Roarke hadn't anticipated and muscled Crack back, slapped him against the glass.

"This isn't what Alicia would want." Roarke spoke quietly. "This won't help her."

"I'm sorry" was all Eve could say.

Though his face was murderous now, he made no move. "You let me in there. You let me in there with her right now, or I'll throw him through this glass and you after him. You know I can do it."

He could, and she could stun him. But the grief was already raging up to smother the fury on his face.

"I'll take you in," she said calmly. "I have to be with you, and the cameras have to stay on. That's procedure."

"Fuck you, and your procedure."

She signaled Roarke back, spoke into the speaker again. "I'm bringing in the next of kin. Please vacate the area. Come with me." She motioned with the hand low at her side for Roarke to stay where he was.

She moved through the doors, down a short corridor, and through another set.

There were other tables here, other victims waiting to be viewed. And more, she knew, in the refrigerated drawers lined in a steel wall along the back. She couldn't shield him from them, could only walk directly to Alicia, and rest her hand on the butt of her weapon in case he lost control.

But he stepped to the table, looked down at the pretty face with its sharp cheekbones. He stroked the glossy black hair gently, so gently.

"This is my baby. My baby girl. My heart and my soul." He leaned over, touched his lips to her forehead.

Then he simply slid down, nearly seven feet of solid mass, into a weeping puddle on the floor.

Eve knelt beside him, put her arms around him.

Through the glass, Roarke watched as the huge man curled into her like a baby wanting comfort. And she rocked him while he wept.

She pulled more strings and commandeered an office, got him water, and sat, holding his hand while he drank.

"I was twelve when Mama came up pregnant again. Some bastard made her all kinds of promises, and she believed them. He didn't stay around long after the baby came. Mama did domestic work, and whored some on the side. She put food on the table, a roof over our heads, didn't have time for much more. Alicia, she was the prettiest baby you'd ever seen in your life. Good as gold, too."

"And you took care of her," Eve prompted.

"Didn't mind it. Guess I wanted to. Alicia was about four when Mama died. Wasn't the whoring that did it. Some asshole she was cleaning for got hold of a bad batch of Zeus and chucked her out a ten-story window. I was working in clubs already, picking up change. Got some breaks, got some money. I took care of my baby. Just because I run clubs and crack heads doesn't mean I didn't take care of my girl."

"I know that. I know you took good care of her. You saw she got into college. She was going to be a doctor."

"Smart as a whip, my girl. Always wanted to be a doctor. Wanted to help people. Why would anybody hurt that sweet girl?"

"I'm going to find out. I'm promising you. I'm giving you my word that I'm going to take care of her now. You have to trust me to do that."

"If I find him before you-"

"Don't." To cut off the words, she tightened her grip on his hand. "If you think I don't know how you feel, you're wrong. But it won't help Alicia. She loved you as much as you loved her, didn't she?"

"Called me her big, bad brother." Another tear slid down his cheek. "She was the best thing in my life."

"Then you help me help her. I want names of people she knew. People she worked with, played with. Did she have a boyfriend, anyone special?"

"No. She'd've told me. She liked boys all right, wasn't any prissy thing, but she studied hard, worked all she could at the health center. She'd go out with friends, let off steam. Not in my place," he said with what passed for a smile. "Didn't want her in my place."

"Other clubs, though. Did she mention any specifically? Did she ever mention spending time at a place called Make The Scene?"

"Data place, sure. Lots of the college crowd go there. And she liked this little joint near the health center. Coffee bar called Zing."

"Crack, did she have her picture taken, professionally, any time recently. For any reason. Work maybe, or something at school. Maybe at a wedding or a party."

"For my birthday last month. She asked what I wanted, and I said I wanted a picture of her, in a gold frame. Not just one of those snap-it-yourself jobs, but a real portrait where she was all dressed up fine, and the photographer knew what he was up to."

She kept her voice cool as she noted it down. "Do you know where she had the portrait done?"

"Someplace called Portography, uptown. Classy. I-" He broke off as his brain started to work through the grief. "I've been hearing this on the news. This is that son of a bitch who's killing college kids. Taking their picture and killing them. He killed my baby."

"Yes, he did. I'm going to find him, Crack. I'm going to stop him and see he's put in a cage. If I think you're going to get in my way on this, I'll have you put in one until I do."