J Robb - Imitation in Death

He opened drawers in his workstation, began to root around. “I, ah,Jesus, did the man-of-the-house routine. I go through it every night before I turn in. Check the security, make sure everything’s locked up. Look in onJed. That’s it.”

“How about Sunday morning?”

“This Sunday?” He glanced up, over. “My wife got up withJed.”

He paused, andEve could see the change taking place. The shock was ebbing and the interest, the enjoyment, even the pride in being considered a murder subject was rolling in.

“Most Sundays I sleep in and she takes over. She doesn’t get as much one-on-one time with him as I do. She took him to the park. They go out early and have a picnic breakfast if the weather’s good.Jed loves that. I didn’t surface till close tonoon. What’s Sunday? I’m not following…”

Then he did. She could see it click. “The woman who was found strangled in her apartment on Sunday. Middle-aged woman, living alone. Sexual assault and strangulation.”

His eyes were narrowed now, his color back. “The media reports were sketchy, but strangulation and sexual assault, that’s not Ripper style. An older woman, at home in her apartment, that’s not Ripper style either. What’s the connection?”

At Eve’s steady stare, he scooted forward in the chair. “Listen, if I’m moonlighting as a killer, I already know so you won’t be telling me anything. If I’m just an expert on serial killers, giving me some details might let me help. Either way, how can you lose?”

She’d already decided what she would and wouldn’t tell him, but held his gaze another moment. “The sash of the victim’s lounge robe was used as the murder weapon, and tied in a bow under the chin.”

“BostonStrangler. That was his signature.” He snapped his fingers, and began to push through the piles of discs and files on his desk. “I’ve got considerable notes on him. Wow. You’ve got two killers imitating the famous? Teamwork, like Leopold andLoeb? Or…” He paused, took a long breath. “Not two, just one. One killer working his way down a list of his heroes. That’s why you’re looking at me. You’re wondering if the people I write about are heroes to me, and if I’m mixing up my work and my life. If I want to be one of them.”

He pushed to his feet, pacing with what looked toEve to be energy rather than nerves. “This is fucking amazing. He’s probably read my books. That’s sort of creepy, but icy in a strange way, too. DeSalvo, DeSalvo. Different type fromJack,” Breen mumbled. “Blue collar, family man, a sad sap.Jack was probably educated, likely a member of the upper class.”

“If the information I just gave you finds its way to the media, I’ll know where it came from.”Eve paused until Breen stopped pacing and looked at her. “I’ll make your life hell.”

“Why would I give it to the media, and let somebody write about it first?” He sat again. “This has bestseller written all over it. I know that sounds cold, but in my line of work I have to be as detached as you do in yours. I’ll help however I can. I’ve got mountains of research and data accumulated on every major serial killer since the Ripper started it all, and a few interesting minor ones. I’ll make it all available to you, pitch in as a civilian consultant, and waive the fee. And when it’s over, I’ll write it.”

“I’ll think about it.”Eve got to her feet. And saw, under the mess he’d made of his desk, a box of cream-colored stationery.

“Fancy writing paper,” she commented, stepping over to pick up the box.

“Hmm? Oh yeah. I use it when I want to impress somebody.”

“Is that so?” Her eyes flashed to his like lasers. “Who did you want to impress lately?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I think I used it a couple weeks ago when I sent what my dad always called a bread-and-butter note to my publisher. A thanks for a dinner party thing. Why?”

“Where’d you get it? The paper?”

“Jule must’ve bought it. No, wait.” He rose himself, looking baffled as he took the box fromEve. “That’s not right. It was a gift. Sure, I remember now. Came through my publisher with a fan letter. Readers send stuff all the time.”

“A token from a reader, to the tune of about five hundred dollars?”

“You’re kidding! Five hundred. Wow.” He was watchingEve more carefully now as he set the box back on his desk. “I should be more careful with it.”

“I’ll want a sample of that paper,Mr.Breen. It matches the type left at both homicides I’m investigating.”

“This is just too fucking weird.” He sat, heavily. “Take it.” Several emotions seemed to run across his face as he scooped a hand through his luxurious hair. “He knows about me. He’s read my stuff. What the hell did the note say? I can’t remember, just something about how he appreciated my work, my attention to detail or something like that, and my-what-enthusiasm for the subject.”

“Do you have the note?”

“No, I wouldn’t keep it. I answer some of the mail personally, have a droid do the bulk. If it’s snail mail, we recycle the paper after it’s answered. He’s using my work as research, don’t you think? That’s horrible, and really flattering at the same time.”

Evepassed one of the sheets and envelopes toPeabody to seal into evidence. “Give him a receipt for it,” she ordered. “I wouldn’t be flattered if I were you, Mr. Breen. This isn’t research, or words in a discbook.”

“I’m part of it now. Not just an observer this time, but part of something I’ll write about.”

She could see he was more pleased than appalled.

“I plan to stop him, and soon,Mr.Breen. Things go my way, you’re not going to have much of a book.”

“I don’t know what to think about him,”Peabody said when they were outside. She turned back, studied the house and imagined the good-looking Breen swinging his handsome son onto his shoulders and taking him to the park to play. And dreaming of fame and fortune written in blood. “The stationery was right out of the blue. He didn’t try to hide it.”

“Where’s the excitement if we don’t find it?”

“I get that-and he likes the rush, no question. But his story sounds solid, especially if the killer has read his stuff.”

“He can’t prove where it came from, and we have to waste time trying to trace it. And Breen’s juiced by it.”

“I guess it’s the sort of thing that’d juice him. His job’s on the sick side.”

“So’s ours.”

Surprised,Peabody hiked withEve to the car. “You liked him?”

“I haven’t made up my mind. If he’s no more than he claims to be, I’ve got no problem with him. People like murder,Peabody. They jive on it when it’s got at least one of those degrees of separation.Reading about it, watching vids about it, turning on the evening news to hear about it. As long as it isn’t too close. We don’t pay to watch a couple of guys hack each other to death in an arena anymore, but we’ve still got the bloodlust. We still get off on it. In the abstract. Because it’s reassuring. Somebody’s dead, but we’re not.”

She remembered, as she climbed into the car out of the vicious heat, how that thought raced through her head, again and again, when she’d huddled in the corner of that frigid room in Dallas and looked at the bloody waste of the thing that had been her father.

“You can’t feel that way when you see it all the time. When you do what we do.”

“You can’t,”Eve said as she started the car. “Some can. Not all cops are heroes just because they’re supposed to be. And not all fathers are good guys just because they give their little boys a ride on their shoulders. Whether I like him or not, his lack of alibi, his line of work, and his possession of the notepaper put him on the list. We’re going to do a very careful check onThomasA.Breen. Let’s run the wife, too. What didn’t we hear from him in today’s conversation,Peabody?”