J. Robb - Born In Death

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“This is Rochelle.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

“You come to see Dad? He keeping you waiting in the cold?” Jake nodded toward the door. “It’s open.”

“We found it that way,” Eve told him.

“Really? That’s weird.” He moved by them and inside to give a shout. “Hey, Dad! You’ve got company. Come on in,” he said to Eve and Roarke. “We’re swinging by to get him for a Sunday deal at Grandpa’s.” Jake pulled off his watch cap, stuffed it messily in his coat pocket. “You want to have a seat? He must be upstairs.”

Eve had slipped her weapon into her pocket when he’d called out to her from the street, and kept her hand on it now. “Mind if I come with you?”

“Well…”

“Door was open, Jake, security off. It’s the cop in me.”

“Sure. Okay. He probably just opened it to look out for us. We’re running a little late. He forgot to engage it again. That’s all.”

But she could see she’d put worry in him as he turned to the stairs. “Dad? Hey, Dad. I’m coming up, and I’m bringing the law.” He tried a smile as he said it, but when there was no answer, it faded.

Her senses caught something all too familiar. “You want to stay behind me?” she said it casually, and shifted in front to take the lead. “Which is his bedroom?”

“Second on the right. Listen, Lieutenant – ”

Eve eased the bedroom door open with a knuckle.

Randall Sloan wasn’t going to make Sunday brunch, she thought, restraining Jake as he tried to rush into the room.

An elaborate chrome chandelier dripped from the vaulted ceiling. Randall Sloan hung from the rope that had been tightly looped around its gleaming post.

“HE’S GONE.” EVE HAD TO HOOK JAKE’S ARMS behind his back, hold him against the wall. “You can’t help him.”

“Bullshit! Bullshit! That’s my father. It’s my father.”

“I’m sorry.” He was young, strong, and desperate, so it took all of Eve’s muscle to keep him from shaking her off and running inside. And compromising the crime scene. “Listen to me. Listen, goddamn it! I’m the one who has to help him now, and I can’t do it if you go in there and screw up any evidence. I need you to go downstairs.”

“I’m not leaving here. I’m not leaving him. Go to hell.” And Jake pressed his face to the wall and wept.

“Give him to me.” Roarke stepped up beside her. “Downstairs,” he said before she could ask about Rochelle. “I convinced her to stay put when we heard the shouting. Let me take him.”

“I need a field kit.”

“Yes, I know. Here now, Jake, you have to leave him to the lieutenant now. This is what she does. You come with me. Rochelle’s frightened, and she’s alone. Come downstairs and stay with her.”

“It’s my dad. My dad’s in there.”

“I’m very sorry. I’ll get him settled,” Roarke told Eve, “best I can, then go get your kit out of the car.”

“I don’t want him to contact anyone yet.”

“I’ll see to it. Come on, Jake.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand this.”

“Of course not.”

As Roarke pulled Jake away, Eve contacted Central for Crime Scene, then turned back to the room. “Victim is hanging from a rope attached to the master bedroom chandelier,” she began for the recorder. “Visual identification is of Sloan, Randall. There’s no apparent sign of struggle.”

She scanned the room as she spoke. “The bed is made and appears undisturbed. The privacy screens are engaged, curtains open.”

The bedside lamps were on, she noted, and a single wine glass with a bit of white left in it sat beside the one on the right. While Sloan was barefoot, there were slippers – leather from the look of them – under the body. He wore a tan sweater, brown pants. A chair was overturned. Behind him in a work area the minicomp was on. She could see its active light blinking.

She brought the front entrance back into her mind. No sign of break-in.

She nodded to Roarke as he came back with her kit. “Thanks.”

“Do you want me to contact Peabody?”

“Not yet. She’s got enough on her hands. Can you keep them under control down there? I don’t want them touching anything, talking to anyone.”

“All right.” He set somber eyes on Randall. “I suppose he knew you’d follow the trail that led to him.”

“Looks like that, doesn’t it?” she said as she sealed up.

Roarke shifted his gaze to her, lifted his brows. “But?”

“Doesn’t feel like it. He knows his son is coming today. Is this how he wants Jake to find him? He leaves his security off, door unlatched. Why not run instead?”

“Guilt?”

“He’s been dirty for a long time. Suddenly, he gets a conscience?”

“Fraud and murder are far apart on the scale.”

“Maybe, but he strikes me as a runner, not a suicide.”

She stepped inside, got to work.

She took the room first. Slick and stylish, like the man. Pricey clothes, pricey decor, high-end electronics. A man who liked his comforts, she thought, his conveniences, and his symbols of status.

Lifting the wineglass, she sniffed. Left a marker in its place before she sealed the contents, then the glass itself.

She tapped the comp unit with a gloved finger, and the screen engaged. She read the text written on it.

I’m sorry. So sorry. I can’t live this way. I see their faces, Natalie and Bick. It was only money, just money. It got out of hand. I must have lost my mind to pay to have them killed. I lost my mind, and now I’ve lost my soul. Forgive me, because I can’t forgive myself. I take this terrible act with me to Hell, for eternity.

She turned from the screen to the body. “Well, one thing on there’s pure truth: It got out of hand.”

She identified the body for the record by the fingerprints, then examined the hands, bagged them. Her gauge put time of death at twenty-fifteen, Friday evening.

Moving to the adjoining bath, she recorded while she studied. Clean, she noted, with a few men’s toiletries on the counter along with a big leafy plant in a glossy black pot. Separate steam shower, drying tube, glossy jet tub with a marble surround. An oversized black towel was draped over a chrome warmer.

She opened the cabinet, scanned the contents.

Lotions, potions – anti-age skin and hair products for the most part. Male birth control tabs, pain blockers, sleep aids. In the counter drawer were more grooming aids, dental hygiene products.

She looked back up at the body.

“You practice tying that noose, Randall?” she wondered. “It sure is perfect. Takes a steady hand and some skill to create a textbook hanging noose.”

She stepped out of the room when she heard the buzzer and went down to meet the sweepers and give them the lay of the land.

She found Roarke sitting with Jake and Rochelle in the living area. Jake sat hunched over, his arms dangling between his legs. His eyes were red and swollen as were Rochelle’s, who sat beside him in silence.

“I need to see my father,” Jake said without looking up. “I need to see him. I need to talk to my grandparents.”

“I’m going to arrange for that soon.” Since it was handy, Eve sat on the low table in front of him. “Jake, when’s the last time you saw or spoke to your father?”

“Friday. We had a memorial service for Nat and Bick at the offices. Their families aren’t having one in the city. We wanted to do something. We were all there.”

“What time was that?”

“Toward the end of the day. About four. The partners let everyone who wanted to go home leave immediately after. We left together, my father and I, about five. He asked if I wanted to go have a drink, but I just went on home. I should’ve gone with him. I should’ve talked to him.”