J Robb - Imitation in Death

“If I get into his house, into his office, I’ll lock it down. It’s him, Commander. I know it’s him.”

He sat in silence, wide fingers tapping on the surface of the desk. “If you’ve got any doubt, if there’s any room for doubt, it would be best to hold off on taking these steps. We can surveil, watch his every move until there is no doubt, and the case is a noose around his neck.”

Good luck watching his every move if he gets back inside the U.N.,Eve thought, but tried to put it more diplomatically. “Renquist may already be in the wind. Without the search, he stays in control. He’s the only one who knows the identity and whereabouts of his next target. If he beats me to her, she may not be as lucky asMarleneCox.”

“Once the calls are made and the ball starts rolling, it could flatten both of us. I can survive it. I’ve had more years wearing a badge than you’ve had breathing. I can live with retirement. The ramifications of this should you be wrong will damage your career, perhaps irrevocably. Understand that.”

“Understood, sir.”

“You’re a solid cop,Dallas, perhaps the best under my command. Is it worth pushing this forward now? Is it worth possible reassignment, losing your status in Homicide, and your credibility?”

She thought of the dream, of the dead and the victims yet to come. There’s always another, her father had said. And damn him, he was right. “Yes, sir. If I weighed status more heavily than the job, I shouldn’t be here. I’m not wrong, but if I were, I’d take the hit.”

“I’ll make the calls. Get me a goddamn cup of coffee.”

She blinked at the order, looked vaguely around his office. The little twinge of resentment she felt as she walked to his AutoChef told her maybe status wasn’t so far down on her list after all.

“How do you want it, sir?”

“Coffee regular. Get me Judge Womack,” he said into the ‘link. Then barked out a “Come” at the knock on his door.

Feeney hustled in, a grim smile on his face. Roarke strolled in behind him, grinned cheekily at Eve. “I wouldn’t mind a cup, while you’re at it.”

“I don’t serve civilians.”

“Serve and protect, Lieutenant,” he reminded her. “Protect and serve.”

“Bite me,” she mumbled under her breath and carried the coffee to Whitney’s desk.

“We got ‘em,” Feeney said.

“Hold that call. What have you got?”

“Me and the civilian here did some E-finessing. If only the budget could afford this boy.” With sincere affection, he slapped Roarke’s shoulder. “Devious mind and magic fingers. Ah well.”

“Cut through the bullshit, Feeney, and give me some weight.”

“Our suspect took diplomatic, public, and private shuttles-and the private transpo was buried deep-to Paris, to London, to Boston, and to New L.A. He was in those cities during the time of the unsolved murders preceding the ones here. He frequently travels to London, as you’d expect. Less frequently to Boston. For London he uses the diplomatic transpo. For Boston, public, though it’s first-class and pricey all the way. But for the West Coast, he went private, and alone. Two trips by this method, the first, one month before the murder of Susie Mannery, the second, two days before with a return the following day-the day after the murder. Same pattern on the other unsolveds.” He turned to Eve. “Bull’s-eye, kid.”

– -«»--«»--«»--

Even with the added weight, it was almost midnight before Eve had the warrants in hand. Still, her earlier fatigue had burned away in a rush of adrenaline.

“How did you know?” Roarke asked as she drove uptown. “Walk the civilian through it.”

“It had to be one of them. The stationery was too pointed, too much there for it not to be. He used it purposefully, to bring himself into it. The attention, the amusement, the excitement. He needs that.”

She swung in behind a Rapid Cab, and let the cabbie plow the road for her. “But he’d have to know there’d be others, in New York, viable suspects. So he wouldn’t have been the first to buy it. Smith was, and Smith would be easy to track. He’s public, and he likes to make a splash.”

“Go on,” Roarke prompted.

“There’sElliotHawthorne with his supply of the same paper.”

“Speaking of him, he’s divorcing his current wife. Something about a tennis pro.”

She took time to smirk. “FiguredHawthorne would get around to it. He was a toss in, never seriously on my list. Too old for the profile, and nothing there. No pop.”

“But you still had to take the time to check him out, had to have him in the general mix. That would’ve pleased Renquist.”

“There you go. Then Breen, sending him the paper, just added a nice touch for Renquist. Breen was the expert, and someone Renquist probably admired. A month’s pay says we find Breen’s books in Renquist’s office. He’s studied Breen, the work and the man.”

“You never thought it was Breen.”

“Didn’t fit. Arrogant enough, knowledgeable enough. But this isn’t a guy who hates or fears women.”

She remembered his devastated face as she hammered at him, remembered the broken look in his eyes. She’d have to live with her part in putting it there.

“He loves his wife, and that makes him a sap, not a murderer. He likes being at home with the kid. Probably he’d do it whatever the mother did. But I pushed him anyway, pushed him hard.”

He heard the regret in her voice, and brushed a hand over her arm. “Why?”

“In case I misjudged him. In case…” She blew out a breath and tried to let the guilt blow out with it. “In case I was wrong. I liked him, right off, the same way I didn’t like Renquist.”

“So you worried part of it was personal for you.”

“Some. And Breen could’ve been involved, that was an angle I had to factor in. He could’ve provided the killer with data, pooled all of it to put into his next book. How he acted and reacted, answered, didn’t answer, in interview mattered.”

“He’ll get through it,Eve, or he won’t. It’s his wife who betrayed him, not you.”

“Yeah, all I did was shatter his nice fantasy shield. Anyway, anyway. Renquist’s got a good line on Breen. I bet he knows about the wife’s sidepiece. I’ll double that bet and say we’ll find unregistered equipment in his office, equipment he’s used to research and track the other suspects. He lined them right up for me, the son of a bitch.”

“I value my money too much to take that wager. Why notCarmichaelSmith?”

“Because he’s pitiful. He needs a woman to adore him, and tend to him. He doesn’t kill them or who’d rub his feet and stroke his head?”

“I appreciate a good foot rub myself.”

“Yeah.” She snorted. “Take a number.”

He reached out to twist a lock of her shaggy hair around his finger, just to touch. And asked the next question just to keep her talking. “Fortney, then.”

“Peabody’s favorite. Mostly she leaned toward him because he offended her sensibilities. She’s soft yet, you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

“She’ll keep some of that, the soft.”Eve tried not to think about the exam in the morning, and how much ofPeabody ’s ego and esteem was wrapped up in it. “That’s good,” she added. “It’s good she’s got the makeup to keep some of it. You get too hard, you stop feeling, then the job’s just being on the clock.”

You’ve never stopped feeling, he thought. You never will. “You’re worried about her.”

“I’m not.” She shot the words out, then hissed when he chuckled. “Okay, maybe I am. A little. Maybe I’m worried she’s so nervous and sweaty about this damn, stupid detectives’ exam that she’ll blow it. Maybe I wish I’d waited another six months to put her up for it. If she blows it, it’s going to set her back-inside. It’s so fucking important to her.”