Memory in Death Page 18

  But she’d never ridden it again. She’d stayed away from him, and his friends.

  And she’d paid for the momentary thrill with an empty gut.

  Later, with stomach growling, she had stood at the window of her room. And she’d seen Trudy go out of the front door below. Had watched her take rocks and smash the windshield of her car, then the side windows. Had watched her spray paint on the hood—and made out the gleam of the letters in the dark.

  OLD BITCH

  Trudy had then marched across the street, had wiped the can on a rag, and then tossed it into the bushes in front of the boy’s house.

  She’d been smiling, a bared-teeth snarl of a smile as she’d walked back toward the house.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

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  EVE HAD ONE MORE CHORE BEFORE SHE WENT off duty, and took it solo.

  The hotel Roarke had provided for Bobby and Zana was a step up from the previous location. No big surprise there. Still, it was moderate, short on frills. Just the sort of place tourists or business-people on a budget might choose.

  Security was subtle, but it was there.

  She was stopped on her way across the tidy lobby before she could access the elevators.

  “Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?”

  The woman who tapped her shoulder had a pleasant face, an easy smile. And the faint bulge of a stunner under the armpit of her smart jacket.

  “Police.” Eve held up her right hand, reached for her badge with her left. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. My people are in five-twelve. I’m going up to check on them and the uniform on duty.”

  “Lieutenant. Orders are to scan ID. So…”

  “Good.” They were her own orders, after all. “Go ahead.”

  The woman took out a hand scanner—jazzier than any police issue—verified. She tapped a button, brought Eve’s ID photo onto the scanner’s screen. Satisfied, she handed Eve her badge.

  “Go ahead up, Lieutenant. Do you want me to call the uniform on duty and tell him you’re on your way?”

  “No. I like surprising them.”

  Fortunately for the uniform, he was at the door. They knew each other by sight, so rather than ask for ID, he simply sucked in his stomach, straightened his shoulders. “Lieutenant.”

  “Bennington. Status?”

  “Quiet. All the rooms this level are occupied except five-oh-five and five-fifteen. Few people in and out—shopping bags and briefcases. Not a peep out of five-twelve since I came on shift.”

  “Take ten.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. I’m relieved in thirty, so I can stand until.”

  “Good enough.” She knocked, waited while someone inside checked the security peep. Zana opened the door.

  “Hi. I wasn’t sure you’d be by today. Bobby’s in the bedroom talking to D.K. Do you want me to get him?”

  “No need.” Eve stepped inside the little parlor, Roarke had provided what she supposed was termed an ‘executive suite,’ with a jut of kitchenette off a cozy sitting area. The bedroom was separated by a pair of pocket doors, currently shut.

  “How you doing?” Eve asked.

  “Better, thanks. Better.” Her cheeks pinked a little. She fluffed nervously at the long waves of her sunny hair. “It occurred to me that you’ve mostly seen me hysterical. I’m not usually. Really.”

  “You had reason.” Eve scanned. Privacy screens engaged. Good. Entertainment screen on some sort of girlie talk show. No wonder Bobby had the doors shut.

  “Can I get you something? The kitchen’s got a good supply.” She smiled wanly. “No need to run out for bagels. I can get you coffee or—”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “It’s a nicer room than the other. Terrible way to get it.”

  “No point in being uncomfortable and uneasy.”

  “No. No, I guess not.” She turned her wedding ring around and around on her finger. Another nervous habit, Eve thought. There was a ring with a little pink stone on her right hand, and the same pink stone, as studs, in her ears.

  They matched her lip dye, Eve noted. How—and why—did women think of that kind of detail?

  “I’m so glad you got my purse back. It had all my stuff, pictures and ID and this new lip dye I just bought, and… God.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Want to sit down?”

  “For a minute. You’ve known Bobby and D.K. awhile.”

  “Since I started working for them. Bobby, he’s just the sweetest thing.” She sat, brushed at the thighs of her pants. “I fell right off. He’s a little shy, you know, with women. D.K. was always teasing him.”

  “Bobby mentioned that D.K. and Trudy didn’t get along.”

  “Oh, well.” Zana’s color resurfaced, just a little. “Mostly D.K. just kept his distance. Kind of a personality clash, I guess. Trudy, she’d just say what she was thinking, right out. And sometimes, well, people got a little offended.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “She’s—she was—the mother of the man I love. And she raised him single-handed.” Her eyes went starry. “Raised such a good man. I didn’t mind her giving me advice. I’ve never been married before, after all, or kept a home. Anyway, Bobby knew just how to handle her.”

  “Did he?”

  “He’d just tell me to nod and go along, then do what I wanted.” Zana laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand as if to smother the sound. “That’s what he did, mostly, and there was hardly ever a cross word between them.”

  “But there were some.”

  “Little spats now and then, like families have. Eve—is it all right if I call you Eve?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “Do you think we can go home soon?” Her lips trembled before she pressed them together. “I was so excited about coming here, seeing New York, it was all I could think about. Now I just want to go home.”

  “At this point of the investigation, it’s more convenient if you and Bobby are here.”

  “That’s what he said.” She sighed. “And he doesn’t want to go home for Christmas. Says he just doesn’t want to be there for it. I guess I can understand. It’s just…” Tears shimmered in her eyes, but didn’t fall. “It’s selfish.”

  “What is?”

  “It’s our first Christmas married. Now we’ll spend it in a hotel room. It is selfish.” She sniffed back the tears, shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be thinking about it with his mama…”

  “It’s natural enough.”

  Zana cast her guilty look toward the pocket doors. “Don’t tell him I said anything. Please. He’s got enough on his mind.”

  She got to her feet when the doors opened. “Hi, honey. Look who’s here.”

  “Eve. Thanks for coming. I was just talking to my partner.” He worked up a smile for his wife. “We closed the deal.”

  She slapped her hands together, bounced on her toes. “The big house?”

  “The big one. D.K. got the contract and deposit from the buyer this morning.”

  “Oh, honey! That’s just wonderful. Congratulations.” She hurried around the sofa to give him a fierce hug. “You both worked so hard for that.”

  “Big sale,” Bobby told Eve. “Hell, a white elephant we took on. We’d just about given up, when we got a nibble last week. My partner tied it up in a bow this morning.”

  “Back in Texas.”

  “Yeah. Took them through it three times over the weekend. They just wouldn’t commit. Wanted to go through it again this morning, so he walked them through it again, and they finally bit. It’s a big commission for us.”

  And put the partner out of the running, Eve decided, unless he’d found a way to be two places at once. “Congratulations.”

  “Mama would’ve been on the moon.”

  “Honey.” Zana took his arms. “Don’t be sad. She wouldn’t want you to be sad. She’d be so proud. In fact, we’re going to celebrate. I mean it.” She gave him a little shake. “I’m going to order a bottle of champa
gne, and you’re going to take a little while to relax and be proud of yourself. Will you have some with us, Eve?”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to go.”

  “I thought maybe you had some news, about my mother.”

  “The investigation’s moving forward. That’s the best I can tell you now. I’ll check in with you tomorrow. If anything breaks beforehand, I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’m glad it’s you, Eve. It’s easier somehow because it’s you.”

  * * *

  She could go home, Eve thought, as she muscled her way into traffic. It was more than Bobby could do at this point. She could go home where things were normal, at least by her standards.

  As traffic snarled, she studied one of the bright, animated billboards, touting cut rates for holiday trips to Aruba.

  Everyone wanted to be somewhere else, she decided. People from Texas, and wherever, flocked to New York. New Yorkers crawled up the highway to the Hamptons, or got on a shuttle south for some island.

  Where did people on the islands go? she wondered. Probably to some noisy, overcrowded city.

  Why couldn’t people just stay put?

  Because they didn’t, the streets and sidewalks were clogged, with the airways overhead little better. And still, there wasn’t anywhere she’d rather be.

  She drove through the gates, finally, toward the lights.

  Every window was lit, candles or festooned trees glittering. It looked like a painting, she thought. Dark sky, rising moon, and the fanciful shapes and shadows of the house, with all those windows glowing.

  She could go home.

  So why was she depressed? It dragged at the base of her skull, at the pit of her belly as she parked the car, pushed herself out. She wanted to lie down, she realized, and not because she was tired. She just wanted to shut her head down for five damn minutes.

  Summerset was there, a dour skeleton amid the festive colors of the grand foyer.

  “Roarke is in his office, attending to some of your business.”

  In her current mood, the disapproval scraped over the weight in her belly. “Nobody held a stunner to his throat,” she snapped. “Which is what I dream of doing to you, night after night.”

  She stomped upstairs without bothering to take off her coat.

  She didn’t go to the office, which was petty and wrong. She knew it. But instead she went straight to the bedroom and, still in her coat, dropped facedown on the bed.

  Five minutes, she thought. She was entitled to five damn minutes of solitude and quiet. If only she could shut off her head.

  Seconds later, she heard the rapid pad of little feet, then the vibration of the bed as Galahad made his leap. She turned her head, stared into his bicolored eyes.

  He stared back. Then did a couple of lazy circles, curled up by her head, and stared some more. She found herself trying to out-stare him, to make him blink first.

  When she lost, she thought he smirked.

  “Pal, if you were a cop, you’d crack suspects like walnuts.”

  She shifted so she could scratch his ears. With the cat purring like a souped-up engine, she watched the lights glimmer on the bedroom tree.

  It was a good deal she had here, she told herself. Big bed, pretty tree, nice cat. What was wrong with her?

  She barely heard him come in, probably wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been listening for him.

  When the mattress depressed, she turned her head again. This time she stared into eyes of wild and vivid blue.

  Yeah, a pretty good deal.

  “I was coming in,” she murmured. “I just wanted a couple minutes.”

  “Headache?”

  “No. I’m just… I don’t know.”

  He stroked a hand over her hair. “Sad?”

  “What have I got to be sad about? I’ve got this big-ass house. Did you see how it looks all lit up?”

  “Yes.” His hand moved down to the nape of her neck where some of the weight lay.

  “I’ve got this fat cat hanging around. I think we should torment him on Christmas, make him wear some of those antler things. You know, like a reindeer.”

  “Undermine his dignity. Good idea.”

  “I’ve got you. The icing on my personal cake. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She curled into him, burrowed into him. “I don’t even care that she’s dead, so what’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re too hard on yourself, that’s what’s wrong with you.”

  She breathed him in, because it was a comfort. “I went to the morgue and looked at her. Just another body. I looked at what she did to herself, to try to screw with us. And it disgusted me. Didn’t surprise me—not once I thought about it. I looked at what someone else did to her, and it was like: Well, what goes around. I’m not supposed to think that.”

  “What else did you do?”

  “Today? Reported to Whitney. Got a little spanking there. Had lunch with Nadine to get her to spin the connection up front. Hit the lab. Followed the fabric trail to a retail outlet where Trudy bought the socks she used to make a sap. I got a list of banks between there and the hotel. Figure she had to get the credits. Check that tomorrow. Went by the bar where Zana was taken, talked to the owner. Reviewed the discs. Um… updated reports. Checked in on Bobby and Zana. Good security at the hotel. You’ve got a solid frontman in your lobby.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Then I came home. Other stuff in there, but that’s the gist.”

  “In other words, you did your job. Whether or not you care she’s dead, you did the work that will lead you to her killer.”

  She rolled over, stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve got no juice.”

  “What did you have for lunch?”

  She gave a half laugh. “Taking my mind off my pity party? This pasta thing with some sort of herb stuff. It was good. Whatever Nadine and Peabody chowed on, they made a lot of girl yummy noises. The place was swinging, so I guess you’ve got a hit. Big surprise.”

  “The service?”

  “Spooky. The waiter sort of poofs at the table out of nowhere if you even think about wanting something. Nadine’s getting her own show.”

  “I heard about that just today. Good for her.”

  “And she’s got vid and book deals. You in on any of that?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  “She wants to interview me, which maybe. And wants to do some of the vid here at the house, which is definitely no.”

  “Definitely.”

  She turned her head again to look at his face. How could one man be so beautiful, day after day? “I figured we’d line up in the same column on that.”

  “This is home.” His hand stroked over hers, then lay, quiet and warm, over it. “It’s private.”

  “I’m always bringing work home. Doing work here.”

  “As am I.”

  “You don’t fill it with cops on top of it.”

  “I don’t. And certainly don’t plan to in the future. If I had a problem with you doing so, I’d let you know.”

  “I had this memory flash today.”

  Ah, he thought, now we’ve got the root. “Tell me.”

  “I was thinking about the way she’d hurt herself, gone out, bought socks for God’s sake, for the sole purpose of bashing herself in the face, bruising her body. Vicious, self-destructive behavior. And I remembered this time…”

  She told him, just as the memory had come back to her. And more, as she remembered more. That it had been hot, and she could smell grass. Strange smell to her as she’d so rarely experienced it before. One of the boys had had a disc player, and there was music jingling out.

  And how the police car had slid almost silently up to the house that night. How the buttons on the cops’ uniforms had glinted in the moonlight.

  “They went across the street. It was late, it had to be late, because all the lights were out, everywhere. Then they came on, lights came on in the house across the street, and the boy’s father came to th
e door. The cops went inside.”

  “What happened?” he asked when she went silent.

  “I don’t know, not for sure. I imagine the kid told them he didn’t do anything. He’d been asleep. Couldn’t prove it, of course. I remember the cops came out, poked around. Found the spray can. I can still see how one of them bagged it, shook his head. Stupid kid, he was probably thinking. Asshole kid.

  “She went over, started shrieking. Pointing at the can, her car, their house. I just stood there and watched, and finally I couldn’t watch it anymore. I got into bed. Pulled the covers over my head.”

  She closed her eyes. “I heard other kids talking about it in school. How he’d had to go down to the police station with his parents. I tuned it out. I didn’t want to hear about it. A couple days later, Trudy was driving a new car. Nice shiny new car. I ran away not long after. I took off. I couldn’t stand being there with her. I couldn’t stand being there, seeing that house across the street.”

  She stared up at the dark window above her head. “I didn’t realize until today that’s the root of why I ran. I couldn’t stand being there with what she’d done, and what I hadn’t. He’d given me the best moment of my life, and he was in trouble. I didn’t do anything to help him. I didn’t say anything about what she did. I just let that kid take the rap.”

  “You were a child.”

  “That’s an excuse for doing nothing to help?”

  “It is, yes.”

  She sat up, pushed around so she could stare down at him. “The hell it is. He got dragged down to the cop shop, probably got a sheet, even if they couldn’t prove he did it. His parents had to make restitution.”

  “Insurance.”

  “Oh, fuck that, Roarke.”

  He sat up, took her chin firmly in his hand. “You were nine years old, and scared. Now you’re going to look back twenty years and blame yourself. Fuck that, Eve.”

  “I did nothing.”

  “And what could you have done? Gone to the police, told them you saw the woman—licensed and approved by Child Protection—deface her own car, then blame the kid across the street? They wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “That’s beside the point.”