J. Robb - Born In Death

“Did he seem upset, depressed?”

Jake’s head snapped up, and his eyes went hot. “It was a memorial service, for Christ’s sake.”

“Jake,” Rochelle murmured, and rubbed a hand over his thigh. “She’s trying to help.”

“He’s dead. How can she help? Why would he kill himself?” Jake demanded. “Why would he do that? He was young and healthy and successful. He – Oh, God, was he healthy? Did he have something wrong with him, and we didn’t know?”

“I’m going to ask you again. Did he seem upset or depressed recently?”

“I don’t know. Sad. We were all sad, and shocked. I guess he seemed edgy on Friday. Jumpy. He asked me if I wanted to go have a drink, but it was knee-jerk. He didn’t want to hang any more than I did.”

“Do you know where he did his gambling?”

“That was before. Jesus, that was years ago. He doesn’t do that anymore. He stopped.”

“All right. Did he mention where he was going when you left him on Friday?”

“No. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I was upset. God, I have to tell my mother. They’ve been divorced forever, but she has to know. My grandparents.” He put his head in his hands again. “I don’t know how much more they can take.”

“Would you say your father was a religious man?”

“Dad. No, not at all. He says you have to get all you can out of life, because once it’s done, it’s done.” His voice cracked. “It’s done.”

“He do any sailing, Jake?”

“Sailing?” His head came up again, his eyes clouded with grief and confusion. “No, he didn’t like the water. Why?”

“Just curious. Was he in a relationship?”

“No. He liked women, but he just cruised.”

“He takes care of his house? Cooking, cleaning.”

“He’s got a droid.”

“Okay. I’m going to have a uniform take you and Rochelle to your grandparents.”

“I want to see my father. I need to see him.”

“I’ll make arrangements for you and your family to see him as soon as I can. But not now, not here. Go, be with your family now.”

Once she’d seen them off, she began to work her way through the first level of the house. “He left a note on the computer,” she said to Roarke.

“Handy.”

“Yeah. Actually, only a small percentage of self-terminations leave a note. Confessed to hiring the hit on Copperfield and Byson.”

“Also handy.”

“Yeah, you’re following me.” She moved through a small media room, a dining room. “They weren’t professional hits, number one. So sure, he could’ve hired some mope. But who’s he going to trust with the info that was tortured out of Copperfield?”

“Only someone else directly involved.”

“Bingo. He wrote about losing his soul and going to Hell. Upper case H on Hell. That says a religious bent to me, or some sort of belief in the big fire down there. Also, the noose looked like it was tied by a professional executioner. Or a very skilled sailor or Youth Scout. Someone very calm and precise.”

She moved to the kitchen, opened the doors on the pantry – well stocked – the utility closet. “Where’s the droid?”

“Not down here. Upstairs?”

“I’m going to check. Why don’t you play e-man and check his security, the discs and so on?”

“Is this a homicide, Lieutenant?”

“Smells like one to me. We’ll see what the ME says. But fingers point. Why is the door open, the security off?”

“Someone wanted the body found easily, and expeditiously.”

“There you go. Why does a man contemplating offing himself ask his son out for a drink a couple hours before the act? He just doesn’t. Or if he does, he insists. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. I have to get something off my chest.’ But he doesn’t.

“What you’ve got here is a man who liked to live well, by whatever means available. No steady relationships, no real vestige of interest in the family business. Hard-line father, up-and-coming son, and you’re the black sheep. But you know how to see to your own comfort. You’ve got a gambling problem.”

“Had or have?”

“Well, he’s dead as a doornail, whatever a doornail is, so it’s ‘had.’ But I’m betting he had one right up until the last hour. Great way to wash unexplained income is playing with it. I’m not seeing a man with a heavy conscious here. I’m seeing an opportunist, and one who’d have run like the freaking wind if he thought we were sniffing at him. And I’m seeing somebody’s patsy.”

There was no droid on the premises, and according to her e-man the discs for Friday had been removed and replaced with blanks.

“There’s going to be a tranq in his system,” Eve said. “Something that can be put down to calming himself before he put the noose over his head. We might find, since we’ll be looking, a stunner mark on him.”

“Why kill him?”

“Maybe he got greedy, wanted a bigger cut. Maybe he didn’t like having his son’s friends murdered, or got nervous. One way or the other, he was a liability – and a handy goat. I buy the note, the scene, I pack up my toys and walk away. Putting the finger on this guy also smears the accounting firm. Apologies, sorry about that, but the Bullock Foundation will require a new firm. Too much scandal, bad for the image. Their lawyers demand their files, and there’s no record at the firm of any fraud or whisper thereof. All parties involved in Sloan, etc. – as far as we know – are now dead.”

“Clean and tidy.”

“The killer likes it that way. Two strangulations, one hanging. Same basic method. He takes the droid in case there’s any record in the banks of his visiting this residence. Because he’s been here before. He knew his way around.”

“And came prepared,” Roarke prompted.

“Oh, yeah. Comes to the door. Let’s have a chat. How about a drink with that? Slips a tranq into the vic’s wine. Let me help you upstairs. Gets him up there, lays him on the floor. Stuns him if he has to. Writes the note on the computer. Mistake there, I figure, because he puts too much of himself into it. Lost my soul, going to the big H. Fixes the rope, hauls the woozy or stunned vic onto the chair, gives it a kick, and watches the show.

“He’d watch,” she mused. “Like he watched Natalie and Bick. Watch the face, the eyes. Randall kicked, kicked off the slippers, grabbed at the rope. I’ve got what looks like rope fibers and tissue under the vic’s nails. Takes awhile. It’s not a quick death unless the neck breaks on the drop. He suffered, but I guess he earned it.”

She frowned at the now empty bedroom. “Might’ve had his own transpo, but that’s not an absolute. He could’ve come on public – subway’d work best, and taken the droid away by the same method if he deactivated all but its mobility.”

“So you’re looking for a man with a droid.”

She smiled a little. “Maybe.” She pulled out her ’link when it beeped. “Dallas.”

“It’s halftime, so I’m making this quick.”

She frowned at Feeney. “If you were making it quick, you’d have gotten back to me two hours ago.”

“Can’t do a locate if the ’link’s not in use, can I? I got the number.” And he read it off to her. “Put a tracer on that, but it wasn’t engaged until a few minutes ago, and then only for fifteen seconds.”

“You got a location?”

“Best I can give you is Upper East.”

“New York? The ’link’s in New York?”

“Yeah, where’d you expect it to be? Listen, Dallas, they got cheerleaders.”

“Who has cheerleaders?”

“The Liberties. I’m missing halftime.”

“For God’s sake, they’re young enough to be your kids. Your kids’ kids.”

“A man don’t watch a bunch of half-naked girls doing jumps and high kicks, he might as well be dead. You got what you need?”