J Robb - Imitation in Death

“The notes, they’re not his voice. It doesn’t fit with everything else you’re saying. They’re broad and jokey. He’s not.”

“Another disguise,” Mira agreed. “Another persona.”

“He’s making himself sound different in them, the way he made himself sound different to the people he spoke with when stalking Gregg. Mr. Versatility again.”

“It’s important to him that he not be pegged, labeled, pigeonholed. It’s very likely that he was, just that, during his upbringing, and by the female authority figure. He may maintain the illusion of the image she forced on him, but it’s not how he sees himself. It is the mother he kills, Eve. The mother as whore with Wooton, and now the mother as nurturer with Lois Gregg. Whoever he mimics next, the victim will be, in his mind, another form of mother.”

“I’ve run probabilities, but even if I narrow down who he’ll copy, I don’t know how that leads me to the next victim before he gets to her.”

“He’ll need some time to prepare, to assume the new face, the new method.”

“Not much,” Eve replied. “He won’t need much, because he’s already worked it all out. He didn’t start this last week.”

“Quite true. It began years ago. Some of his need would have manifested in childhood. The typical route of tormenting or killing small animals, secret bullying, sexual dysfunction. If his family or caregivers knew and were concerned, there may have been some therapy or counseling.”

“And if they didn’t?”

“If they did, or didn’t, we know his needs and his acts escalated. From the profile and your witness statements this man is in his mid to late thirties. He didn’t begin to kill at this age, didn’t begin with Jacie Wooton. There’ll be others. You’ll find them,” Mira said, “and they’ll create a path to him.”

“Yes, I’ll find them. Thanks.” Eve rose. “I know you were squeezed, and I’ve got a witness heading in.” She started to speak again, then changed gears. “And thanks for the invitation for Sunday. Sorry I had to duck out the way I did.”

“It was lovely to have you both there while you were.” Mira got to her feet as well. “I hope you’ll tell me what’s on your mind. There was a time you wouldn’t have-or wouldn’t have let me see there was something troubling you. I thought we were past that now.”

“My ten minutes are up.”

“Eve.” With that quiet word, Mira laid a hand on hers.

“I had a dream.” The words came out fast, as if they’d been waiting to be disgorged. “Sort of a dream. About my mother.”

“Sit.” Mira stepped to her desk, buzzed her assistant. “I’ll need another few minutes here,” she said and clicked off before her assistant could respond.

“I don’t want to hold you up. It wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t a nightmare. Exactly.”

“You’ve had no real memory of your mother up until this.”

“No. You know. Just one time before, I remembered hearing her voice, yelling at him, bitching about me. But I saw her this time. I saw her face. I have her eyes. Fuck it.”

She sat now, just dropping down and pressing the heels of her hands against those eyes. “Why is that? Goddamn it.”

“The luck of the gene pool, Eve. You’re too smart to think the color of your eyes means anything.”

“Screw the science, I hate it. That’s all. I saw the way she looked at me with them. She hated me, gut-deep hate. I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. I was… I’m not good at judging ages of little kids. Three, four maybe. But she hated me the way you hate a lifelong enemy.”

Mira wanted to go over, to enfold. To mother. But knew it wasn’t the way. “And that hurt you.”

“I wondered, I guess.” She drew in air, let it out explosively. “I guess I wondered if-even though I knew from what I remembered-I wondered if maybe, somehow, he snatched me from her at some point. Beat the crap out of her maybe, and took off with me. I wondered if, even though she was on the junk, she had some feeling for me. I mean, you cart somebody around inside you for nine months, you ought to feel something.”

“Yes, you ought.” Mira spoke gently. “Some people aren’t capable of love. You know that, too.”

“Better than most. I had this fantasy. Didn’t even know I had it until it shattered on me. That she was looking for me, worried about me. Trying to find me all this time because… under everything she loved me. But she didn’t. There wasn’t anything but hate in her eyes when she looked at me. Looked at the child.”

“You know it wasn’t you she hated because she never knew you. Not really. And her lack of feeling wasn’t-isn’t-your fault. It was-and is-her lack. You’re a difficult woman, Eve.”

She laughed a little, jerked a shoulder. “Yeah. So?”

“A difficult woman, often abrasive, moody and demanding, and impatient.”

“Are you going to get to my good parts any time soon?”

“I don’t have that much time.” But Mira smiled, pleased to hear the habitual sarcasm. “But your flaws, as some might see them, don’t prevent those who know you from loving you, respecting you, admiring you. Tell me what you remembered.”

Eve blew out a breath, and ran through it with the cool dispassion and attention to detail she’d use in a police report.

“I don’t know where we were. I mean what city. But I know she whored for money and drugs, and that was okay with him. I know she wanted to ditch me, and that wasn’t okay with him because he had other plans for me. For his investment.”

“They weren’t your parents.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They conceived you-egg and sperm. She incubated you, and expelled you from her body when it was time. But they weren’t your parents. There’s a difference. You know there is.”

“I guess I do.”

“You didn’t come from them. You overcame them. There’s another difference. Let me say one more thing before my assistant chews through my door and punishes me for ruining her schedule. You’ve also left your mark, and had an impact on more lives than either of us can count. Remember that when you look in the mirror, and into your own eyes.”

WhenEve walked into the break room,Baxter was chowing down on an enormous sandwich that smelled too good and looked too fresh to have come out of the facility’s AutoChef, any of the vending machines, or the take-out counter at the Eatery.

It looked civilian and delicious.

Beside him at the square table, the sweet-faced Trueheart was making neat work of a leafy salad topped with chunks of chicken. Across from them, a woman who looked to have seen the dawn and dusk of a couple of centuries beamed goodwill over them.

“There now,” she said in a reedy voice, “isn’t that better than anything you can get out of a machine?”

“Glump,”Baxter responded over bread and meat in what was obviously delirious agreement.

Trueheart, who was younger, nearly as green as his salad, and whose mouth wasn’t quite as full at the time, scraped back his chair when he spottedEve. “Lieutenant.” He shot to attention asBaxter rolled his eyes in amusement over the rookie, and adoration over his sandwich.

He swallowed. “Jeez, Trueheart, save the brownnosing until after I digest.Dallas, this is the amazing and wonderfulMrs.ElsaParksy. Mrs. Parksy, ma’am, this isLieutenantDallas, the primary investigator you wanted to see.”

“Thanks for coming in,Mrs.Parksy.”

“My duty, isn’t it? As a citizen, not to mention as a friend and neighbor.Lois looked after me when I needed it, now I’ll look after her, best I can. Sit down, dearie. Have you had your lunch?”

Eveeyed the sandwich, the salad, and ignored the envy that swirled in her mostly empty stomach. “Yes, ma’am.”