J. Robb - Creation In Death

“You drive, and you’ll have it,” Roarke told her, already working with his PPC.

She got behind the wheel, then tagged Callendar at Central. “Any more data?”

“Data, yes, property, no. I can tell you Spring retired-with great lamentations from opera buffs, at the age of twenty when she married the wealthy and prominent James Lowell. There’s society stuff after that. This gala, that party, then interest in her seemed to fade out some.

“But I found her death record. She’s listed as Edwina Roberti. Data reads opera singer, and that she was survived by her spouse, Lowell, Robert. COD is listed as suicide. There’s no image, Lieutenant, but it’s got to be her.”

“It’s her.”

“And, Lieutenant, Morris has something.”

“Put me through.”

“Dallas, the Manhattan Family Center on First. There’s a children’s psychiatric wing that was funded by the Lowells in the late twentieth. Endowment continues through a trust. I’ve spoken with the chief of staff. Saturday they received an unexpected visit from the Lowell Family Trust’s representative. A Mr. Edward Singer. At his request, he was taken through the facility. Their drug count’s off.”

She calculated the distance. “I’ll send somebody over to get a statement.”

“Dallas, they keep their security discs, in full, for seven days. They have him on disc.”

“We’ll pick ’ em up. We ’ll have sweepers go over the drug cabinet. Maybe we’ll keep getting lucky. Nice going, Morris.”

“Felt good.”

“Know what you mean. Out.” She clicked off, looked over at Roarke as she switched over to Peabody’s communicator. “We’re building the cage. All we have to do is throw the bastard in it.”

SHE WAS BUILDING A GOOD CASE, LINING UP her connections, her motives, her pathology. She had no doubt that when they found and arrested Robert Lowell, they’d be handing the prosecuting attorney a slam dunk.

But that didn’t help Ariel Greenfeld.

“Get me something,” she said to Roarke as they stepped into the elevator at Central’s garage.

“Do you know what the records are like from that era?” he snapped. “What there are of them? I’m putting together a puzzle where half the major pieces are missing or scattered about. And I need better equipment than my bloody PPC.”

“Okay, all right.” She pressed her fingers to the center of her forehead. The damn energy pill was wearing off, and she could feel the system crash waiting to happen. “Let me think.”

“I don’t know how you can at this stage. You’re going to fall flat on your face, Eve, if you don’t take a bit of downtime.”

“Ariel Greenfeld doesn’t have any downtime.” She swept out of the elevator. “We need the locations of all Lowell’s businesses and documented properties-worldwide. Anything current’s going to pop straight out, and we work from there. Talk to the director, put the strong arm on these damn Brit lawyers, the financial institutions where he has his numbered accounts.”

“I can tell you it would take weeks-at the very best-to pry anything out of the financials. Their lawyers will have lawyers, who will run you around. And if he was careful, and I imagine he was, in setting these up, those accounts would simply feed into others, and so on. I could cut through that, at home, but it would take considerable time.”

Would it help find Ariel? Eve asked herself. “I can’t spare you for that. We’ll push on the properties and the lawyers first. Got to have a bank box, too. Or boxes. Uses cash, so why wouldn’t he store cash in a bank box at the different locations where he has homes, or plans to work? Downtown bank’s best bet.”

She walked into the war room, and up to Callendar. “Search for downtown banks. I want you to send every one of them every sketch and description we have on Robert Lowell, along with the various known aliases. And I want a search for any and all relations on Lowell, living or dead. Names, last known locations, property deeded in their name.

“Roarke, if you need any help on the property search, pull in any of the EDD team. Heads up,” she said, boosting her voice over the chatter and clacking. “When Captain Feeney isn’t in the house, and I’m not in the war room, the civilian’s in charge of electronics. Questions on that? Go to him.”

“Lieutenant’s pet,” Callendar said just loud enough for Roarke to hear, and in a mock sulk that made him smile a little.

“I’ll wager ten I hit on the property before you hit on the banks.”

“You’re on, Prime Buns.”

Eve left them for her office to update her notes, to take another pass through them. While she worked she tried Feeney.

“Anything for me?”

“There’s nothing on the records here. The business passed to our guy when his old man died. These records list the same bogus London address. Director said there were some paper records, some disc files in storage, but Lowell took them years ago. Sorry, kid.”

“Tidy son of a bitch. Anyone still working there who was employed when Lowell was still in residence?”

“No, checked that. I’m bringing in what records there are. We’ll pick through them. On my way in now.”

“I’ll see you in the war room.”

She pushed up, wanting to be on her feet. Her system was bottoming out, she could feel it, and if she didn’t keep moving, she’d drop.

He was in New York, she thought. And wherever he lived and worked, wherever he was holding Ariel would be in New York, in a building that survived, or at least partially survived, the Urbans. It would have a connection to him, to her, to that time.

Nothing else would do for him, she was sure of it.

Death was his business. Body preparation or disposal, echoes of the Urban Wars, profit and science. He lived by death.

By killing he re-created the death of one woman, over and over again, while feeding his own need to control, to give pain. To study pain and death.

The torture devices were, in the opinions of the ME and the lab, tools and implements used during the Urbans with a few modern devices worked in. Same with the drugs found in the victims. He had to keep the connection.

Opera. The drama, the scope, the tragedy, and again the connection to Edwina Spring. The disguises were really costumes, the aliases simply roles to play.

Weren’t the victims the same? Just another element of his role-playing.

How much longer before he gave Eve her cue to come onstage? And why the hell was she waiting?

She got herself some coffee, took out another energy pill. Technically she wasn’t supposed to take a second one within the same twenty-four-hour period. But if she was going to push for her entrance in the play, she wasn’t going out so blurry she couldn’t remember her lines.

She popped it, and with the coffee in hand went back to the war room.

She opened communications so anyone in the field could hear and participate. “Updates. EDD first. Feeney?”

“We’re about to run searches through the discs taken from Lowell’s Funeral Home. We’ll go through the paper records as well, looking for any pertinent data on Robert Lowell and/or Edwina Spring. Secondary unit has a list of prior open homicides and Missings that may be his earlier work. We’re requesting case files, moving from the highest probability down.”

“Anything sing for you?”

“Two. Both in Italy, one fifteen years back, one twelve. Both missing females that bull’s-eye our vic profile. One from Florence, one from Milan.”

“Roarke, does Lowell have business operations in Italy, either of those cities?”

“Milan, established just prior to Lowell’s inheriting the business.”

“I want every detail of the Milan case first. Baxter, I want you to reach out to the investigating officer or his superior. Get a translator if necessary. Roarke, put the other Lowell operation locations on screen.