J. Robb - Purity in Death

"Blackmail."

"And we have a winner."

"All right, so he ran a shakedown on the side. A profitable one by all accounts. What does that have to do with the matter at hand?"

"The matter at hand is homicide. It's a Purity hit, and it's connected, but you still run it by the numbers. He might have kept his blackmail data in a safebox. If he did, he'd keep it close to home. Easy access. We can check the banks and depositories. But, maybe he kept them even closer to home. I'm going to go check out his place again."

"Want company?"

"Two could toss it faster than one."

He thought she was wasting her time and his. But he supposed the cop in her needed to snip off any loose ends.

And he'd had no intention of letting her go back alone to a place that had taunted her nightmares.

He waited until she bypassed the police seal, uncoded the locks.

The air still carried death. It was the first thing that struck him when he stepped in beside her. The raw, pitiably human stench of it lingered under the odor of chemicals used by the crime scene team and sweepers.

Red stains, splatters, streams were a virulent horror over the white. Walls, carpet, furniture. He could see where the girl had fallen. Could see where she had crawled. Where she had died.

"Christ, how do you face it? How do you look at this and not break?"

"Because it's there whether you look or not. And if you break, you're done."

He touched her arm. He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud. "Did you need to see this again? To face this again to prove you could?"

"Maybe. But if that was all, I'd've come on my own. Second bedroom and the office are over there. We went through the place thoroughly on the first sweep. But we weren't looking for a hidey-hole. Now we do."

She put Roarke in the second bedroom and started on the office herself. They'd taken the data andcommunication center away, had gone over the work area, through the closet where Greene had kept his extra supplies.

She did it all again, point by point. There was a safe. One of the crime scene techs had run his scanner over it, tagged the combination. She'd found nothing unexpected in it. Some cash, disc documents, a little paperwork.

Not enough cash, she thought now. Not nearly enough. If three clients had come by in the last few days-at least two of them when Greene's symptoms would have been increasing-where was the payoff?

Would he have sent Wade out with cash to tuck it into a safebox? She didn't think so. You might bang a teenager, sell her off to clients, but you didn't put cash in her hand and wave bye-bye.

She took two paintings and a sculpture off the wall, searched behind them for panels.

"Bedroom's clean," Roarke told her.

"He's got another safe. He's got a hole. This is the logical place. The office is the logical place."

"Maybe it's too logical. First place you looked, isn't it?"

She stopped scooting along the baseboard and sat back on her heels. "Okay, if this was your place, where's your stash?"

"If I liked combining business and pleasure, as it appeared he did, the master bedroom."

"Okay, let's try it."

She led the way, then stood in the doorway with him, scanning the room.

"Money doesn't always buy taste, does it, darling?" He shook his head at the black and red decor. "A bit obvious for a passion den."

He wandered to the closet, opened it. "Well, here at least he showed some level of class. Very nice fabrics."

"Yeah, and he died in his underwear. Just goes to show."

"Just what does the city do with this sort of thing?"

"The clothes? If he doesn't have family, heirs, that kind of thing, they're donated to shelters."

He pressed the button that had the first tier of suits revolving to reveal the second. "The sidewalk sleepers are going to be better dressed this year."

He moved the second tier aside, studied the wall of shoes to his right. Smiled. "Here you have it."

"Have what?"

"Give us a minute," he said, running his fingertips along shelves, under them. "Ah, here we are. Let's see."

He depressed a small lever. The lower third of the shelves swung slowly open. He crouched. "Here's your hidey-hole, Lieutenant. And your second safe."

She was already breathing down his neck. "Can you open it?"

"Would that be a rhetorical question?" he chuckled.

"Just open the damn thing."

He drew the jammer he'd taken from Jamie out of his pocket. "Well, this is why you're the cop and I'm not."

"Because you can pop a safe?"

"No. I could teach you to do it quick enough, even without this handy little toy. Because I thought you were wasting time coming back here tonight."

"You still think I'm wasting time."

"I suppose I do, but you've found your safe." The display on the jammer began to flash, numbers zipping by in a blur. Then a series of them locked on. The safe hummed once, then clicked.

"Abracadabra," Roarke stated, and opened it.

"Now that's more like it." Hunkered down beside him, Eve studied the neat stacks of cash. "This is how he stayed out of a cage so long. No credit, no e-transfers. Cash on the line. And a file box, loaded with discs and vids."

"Best of all." Roarke reached in, took out a PPC. "His personal palm, very likely uninfected and chock-full of interesting data."

"Let's load it up, get it in." She pulled out her memo book.

"What're you doing?"

"Logging the entry. I better not see any of that green stuff or those baubles go into your pockets, Ace."

"Now I'm offended." He straightened, brushed at his shirt. "If I nipped anything, you can bet your ass you wouldn't see me do it."

Eve started running the discs as soon as she got back into her office. She set the ones labeled financials and bookkeeping aside. They could wait.

She passed the PPC onto Roarke to take to the lab for testing. In short order she found herself listening to what had been Greene's daily journal.

He mentioned clients, but always by initials or an obvious nickname. Lardbutt had made his monthly payment. G.G. had begged for another extension. He made entries on shopping, on the club scene, on sexual exploits. They were all recorded in a tone of disdainful humor and derision.

Greene had despised the people he'd served.

So he'd blackmailed them, Eve mused. Squeezing them until he'd eventually become them. Wealthy, bored, and perverted.

Brought home a nice piece of ass today,he noted on the day he'd hooked up with Hannah Wade.I've been watching her for a few days. She hangs around the clubs,targets her mark, and talks him into getting her in. Straight up to a privacy room most times. When she's done, she cruises the club looking for action. I decided to give her some. I've got clients who'll pay top for a session with this little number. She knows the score. Figure I'll keep her up here a couple weeks, enjoy the fringe benefits, class her up some. Outfit her right, she could pass for about fourteen. H.C.'s been asking for some new young meat. I just brought home the cow.

"Creep," Eve said aloud, and ran through the week's journal. She hit the next level two days after he'd brought Wade home.

Fucking headache. Fucking headache all day. Zoner barely touches it. Got meetings today. Can't miss. Told G.G. to come up with payment plus penalty by tomorrow or her loving husband's going to get a delivery. Wonder how he'll feel about seeing his wife do the nasty with a St. Bernard?

Assholes. She tries to screw me over, she'll be sorry.

There was more of the same over the next three days. Increasingly angry entries, full of vague threats, complaints, frustration. He talked aboutthe headaches, and for the first time mentioned a nosebleed.

On the day before his death, the disc was full of weeping, of pounding as if he were beating a fist against the wall.