Thankless in Death Read online

  “And a houseful of Irish relatives, plus a ravaging horde after turkey and pie are part of that?”

  “They are indeed.”

  “I’ll let you know on Friday if I agree with that. Now I’ve gotta go.”

  “Take care of my cop.”

  “Take care of my gazillionaire.”

  She left the house resigned to the coming invasion.

  What was it with people? Eve wondered. Clogging up her streets, flooding her sidewalks, jamming on glides, swarming cross-walks. What made them pack into New York for holidays?

  Didn’t they have homes of their own?

  She fought through three nasty knots of traffic on the trip downtown to Cop Central while ad blimps blasted the news from overhead of:

  BLACK FRIDAY MEGA-SALES!

  GOBBLE UP BARGAINS WHILE THEY LAST!

  DOOR-BUSTER HOLIDAY SALES AT THE SKY MALL

  She wished to God they’d all go to the sky mall and get out of her city. Snarling with equally pissed drivers at yet another tangle, she watched a quick-fingered street thief make hay with a gaggle of oblivious tourists crowded around a smoking glide-cart.

  Even if she hadn’t been packed in among Rapid Cabs and a farting maxibus, the odds of catching him were slim. As fast-footed as fingered, he zipped away, richer by three wallets and two pocket ’links by her count.

  The early bird catches the loot, she supposed, and a few less people would be hitting the sky mall.

  She spotted a thin fracture in traffic, gunned it, and ignoring the rude blat of horns, wound her way downtown.

  By the time she walked into Central, she had her plan. She’d hit the paperwork first, clear off her desk—righteously. Then she could spend some time reviewing the active cases of her detectives. Maybe she’d toss the expense reports to Peabody, let her partner handle the numbers. There might be room to pull out a cold case, give it another hard look.

  Nothing much more satisfying than catching a bad guy who thought he’d gotten away with it.

  She stepped off the glide—a tall, leanly built woman in a leather coat—turned toward Homicide. Her short, choppy brown hair framed an angular face accented with a shallow dent in the chin. Her eyes scanned, as cop’s eyes always did, long, golden brown and observant as she strode down the busy sector to her department.

  When she turned into her bullpen she spotted Sanchez first, his feet propped on his desk as he worked his ’link. And Trueheart, spiffy and innocently handsome in his uniform, industriously at his comp. The room smelled of bad cop coffee and cheap fake sugar, so all was right with the world.

  Jenkinson strolled out of the break room with a giant mug of that bad cop coffee and a lumpy-looking doughnut. He wore a gray suit the color of tarnish with a tie of nuclear blue and green curlicues on a screaming pink background.

  He said, “Yo, LT.”

  “That’s some tie, Jenkinson.”

  After setting the mug on his desk, he flipped it. “Just adding a little color to the world.”

  “Did you steal that from one of the geeks in EDD?”

  “His mama bought it for him,” Sanchez said.

  “Your mama bought it for me, as a thank-you for last night.”

  “It’s so she can see you coming from two blocks away and get gone.”

  Before Jenkinson formed a witty repartee, Baxter walked in, slick in a dark chocolate suit, expertly knotted tie that picked up the color with minute checks of brown and muted red.

  He stopped as if he’d hit a force field. “Jesus, my eyes!” He pulled out a pair of fashionable sunshades, slid them on as he studied Jenkinson. “What is that around your neck? Is it alive?”

  “Your sister bought it for him.” Still quietly working at his comp, Trueheart didn’t even look up. “A token of her esteem.”

  The kid was coming along, Eve thought, amused, and left her men to their byplay.

  In her office with its single narrow window and miserably uncomfortable visitor’s chair, she aimed straight for the AutoChef. Thanks to the Roarke connection she didn’t have to settle for bad cop coffee. She programmed a cup, hot and black, settled with it at her desk, prepared to be righteous with paperwork.

  Her communicator signaled before she’d taken the first sip.

  “Dallas.”

  Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. See the officer 735 Downing Street, Apartment 825. Two DBs, one male, one female.

  “Dallas responding. Will contact and coordinate with Detective Peabody en route.”

  Acknowledged. Dispatch out.

  Well, shit, she thought, gulped down coffee—burned her tongue—she had jinxed it. And grabbing the coat she’d just taken off, she headed out.

  Others had arrived in the bullpen, and Jenkinson’s tie remained the topic of the day. Peabody, still wearing her coat, added her opinion that the tie had jazz.

  But then Peabody loved the neon-sporting McNab.

  “Peabody, with me.”

  “What? Where? Already?”

  Eve just kept walking so Peabody had to trot after her in her pink cowgirl boots.

  What was her department coming to, Eve wondered, with pink ties, pink boots. Maybe she should ban pink from Homicide.

  “What did we catch?”

  “Looks like a double.”

  “A two-for-one start of the day.” As she waited for the elevator, Peabody took a scarf out of her pocket, looped it around her neck.

  Pink and blue checks, Eve noted. She definitely had to work on the logistics of banning pink.

  “It’s a totally gorgeous day, too,” Peabody continued, her square face wreathed with a smile, her dark eyes shining.

  “Were you late because you grabbed morning sex?”

  “I wasn’t late. Two minutes,” Peabody amended. “We got off the subway early to walk it. You won’t have many more days like this.”

  They squeezed into the elevator with a boxful of cops. “I love fall when everything’s all crisp and breezy, and they’re roasting chestnuts on the carts.”

  “Definitely had sex.”

  Peabody only smiled. “We had a date night last night. Just on the spur, you know. We got dressed up, went dancing, and had grownup cocktails. We get so busy we forget to do the ‘just you and me’ thing sometimes. It’s nice to remember.”

  They corkscrewed out on the garage level.

  “Then we had sex,” Peabody added. “Anyway, it’s a really nice day.”

  “Too bad the two DBs on Downing can’t enjoy it.”

  “Well … yeah. It just goes to show.”

  “Show what?”

  “You should get dressed up, go dancing, drink grown-up cocktails, and have sex as much as you can before you’re dead.”

  “That’s a philosophy,” Eve said as she slid behind the wheel of her vehicle.

  “It’s almost Thanksgiving,” Peabody pointed out.

  “I’ve heard rumors.”

  “We had this tradition, my family. We’d write down all the things we were grateful for, and put them in a bowl. And on Thanksgiving, everyone would pick out a few. The idea is, it reminds you of things you should be grateful for, or what other people appreciate. Like that. It’s nice. I know we’re not going out to be with the family this year, but I’m sending them my grateful notes.”

  As she battled downtown traffic, Eve considered. “We’re murder cops. That must mean we have to be grateful for dead bodies or we wouldn’t have a job. But contrarily, the dead bodies aren’t likely to be grateful.”

  “No. We’re grateful we have the skill and the smarts to find and arrest the person or persons who made them dead bodies.”

  “The person or persons we catch and arrest aren’t going to be grateful. Somebody’s got to lose.”

  “That’s a philosophy,” Peabody muttered.

  “I like to win.” Eve pulled up behind a black-and-white on Downing. “I appreciate winning. Let’s go do that.”

  Hefting her field kit, she started for the entrance, badged the cop on the door.


  “We’re on eight, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, I got that. Building security?”

  “You have to buzz in, but you know how that goes. Cams on the door, but none internal.”

  “We’ll want the door discs.”

  “Building manager’s on that.”

  With a nod, she moved to the elevator. Decent building, she thought. Minimal security, but clean. The floor of the cubbyhole lobby shined, and the walls looked recently painted. And the elevator, she noted with some relief, didn’t clang or clunk when it opened.

  “Easy to gain access,” she commented. “Follow somebody in, or get someone to buzz you in. No lobby security, no internal cams.”

  “Easy out, too.”

  “Exactly. The place is well maintained, so that says decent tenants and responsible management to me.”

  She stepped out on eight, approached the cop standing in front of 825. “What have we got, Officer?”

  “Sir. The woman in 824 gained access to 825 at approximately seven-twenty this morning. She has a key and the code.”

  “Why did she go in?”

  “She and the female victim had a regular Monday trip to the local bakery, leaving sharp, according to her statement, at seven. She became concerned when no one answered the door or the ’link, and let herself in where she discovered the bodies she identified as Carl and Barbara Reinhold, listed as residents of this unit.”

  “Where’s the wit?”

  “With a female officer in her apartment. She’s pretty broken up, Lieutenant. It’s rough in there,” he added, jerking his head toward 825.

  “Keep the wit handy.” Eve pulled a can of Seal-It from her bag. “And stand by.” She switched on her recorder.

  With their hands and boots sealed, Eve and Peabody went inside.

  Rough was one word for it, Eve thought. The living area remained tidy. Sofa pillows plumped, floors whistle clean, magazine discs neatly arranged on a coffee table. It made an eerie contrast to the smell of death—far from fresh.

  A few steps in the room jogged slightly to the right where a table served as a demarcation between living area and kitchen.

  And where the line between tidy life and ugly death dug in deep.

  The man lay beside the table, his head, shoulders, and one out-stretched arm under it. In death he was a bloody, broken mass in what had been a dark blue suit. Blood spatter and gray matter bloomed and smeared the walls, the kitchen cabinets—and the baseball bat that lay in the congealed river of blood beside him.

  The woman lay facedown on the floor between the opposite side of the table and a refrigerator. Blood soaked through her shirt and pants so their true color had become indiscernible. Both were ripped and shredded, most probably by the kitchen knife driven through her back to the hilt.

  “They’ve been slaughtered,” Peabody stated.

  “Yeah. A lot of rage here. Take the woman,” Eve ordered, and crouching by the man, opened her kit.

  She let the pity come, then let it go. And got to work.

  2

  “VICTIM IDENTIFIED AS REINHOLD, CARL JAMES. Caucasian male, age fifty-six.” Eve scanned her Identi-pad. “Married to Reinhold, Barbara, nee Myers, age fifty-four.” She glanced over at Peabody.

  “Yeah, female ID confirmed.”

  “One offspring, male, Reinhold, Jerald, age twenty-six, address listed on West Houston.”

  Carl Reinhold still had both parents, she noted, who’d migrated to Florida, and a brother with a Hoboken address. The data listed the victim’s employer as Beven and Son’s Flooring, with offices and showroom just a handful of blocks away.

  “Victim was beaten severely, head, face, shoulders, chest, extremities. Injuries are consistent with the baseball bat handily left on scene, and coated with blood and gray matter. Erased his face. That’s personal.”

  “I can’t count the stab wounds on the female, Dallas. She’s been hacked to pieces.”

  “I’d say we’ve got the cause of death. Let’s get the time.”

  Eve pulled out her gauge. “He’s been dead for about sixty-two hours. That puts it at Friday evening. Around six-thirty.”

  “She has almost six hours on him. TOD Friday, twelve-hundred-forty.”

  “Nearly six hours between kills.” Eve sat back on her heels. “Kills the woman in the afternoon, then what, waits around for the man? No sign of struggle in the living area. No sign of break-in.”

  She pushed up. “Go ahead and call for the morgue and the sweepers.”

  Solid middle-class couple from the looks of it, Eve thought as she began to wander the apartment. The woman lets someone in, middle of the day? No struggle. Both killed in the kitchen.

  She set that train of thought aside once she stepped into what appeared to be the main bedroom.

  “Somebody tossed the bedroom,” she called out.

  “It’s pretty strange and vicious for a burglary,” Peabody began, and stopped, frowning into the bedroom. “It looks pretty tidy.”

  “Pretty tidy, not perfectly tidy like the living area. Things are out of place here. The bedcovers aren’t smooth, the closet doors open, some clothes on the floor in there. That desk there—one of the drawers isn’t closed all the way, and where’s the comp? No comp or tablet on the desk.”

  Eve pulled open a drawer on the bureau. “Everything’s jumbled in here. No, she kept a neat and clean house in a neat and clean building. Whoever did this was looking for something. I bet the wit’s been in here, and would know if anything’s missing.”

  “You want her to walk through.”

  “Yeah, after they take the bodies.” She walked out. “Second bedroom, not so tidy either. Rug’s askew. Furniture’s got some dust on it. Why didn’t she clean in here? Closet’s empty,” she added, after pulling it open. “Who has an empty closet?”

  “Not me. If you have storage, you end up using it.”

  “Somebody was staying in here. Dirty dishes scattered around, empty containers.” She walked to the bed, yanked the cover down, bent over to sniff the sheets. “Sleeping here. Tag these. We could get DNA.”

  She turned a circle. “Someone staying here, someone they know. She’s in the kitchen, maybe fixing lunch that time of day. We’ll run the log on the AutoChef. Maybe he wants something, and she won’t give it to him.”

  Letting herself see it, she walked out again, back to the kitchen. “He’s pissed, oh, he’s so fucking pissed. The knife’s right there, just takes it out of the block and lets her have it. Over and over. Bet that felt good.”

  “Why?” Peabody wondered. “Why do you say it felt good?”

  “He didn’t run, did he? He hung around, waiting to do her husband. Another overkill. So, yeah, I’m thinking it felt just fine. Note for sweepers to check all the drains. He had to clean up, he’d be covered with blood. But he’s got hours before the husband gets home. Hours to clean himself up, to change, and to go through the place. She probably had a couple pieces of decent jewelry, easy to hock.”

  “They’d’ve had emergency cash somewhere,” Peabody added. “It’s what you do, sock some away in case.”

  “Okay. Jewelry, cash. Male vic’s wallet’s gone, and he’s not wearing a wrist unit. When we find her purse, her wallet’s going to be gone, too. Electronics—that’s something we’re not seeing in here.”

  “Easy and portable.”

  Eve looked at the victims again. “And an afterthought. You don’t kill like this for trinkets. You don’t kill people you know like this for some spare cash. You do it for a lot more. Maybe they had more. Let’s see what the neighbor has to say.”

  Eve headed for the door, glanced back. “Run the son,” she told Peabody.

  “You think somebody could’ve done that to his own parents?”

  “Who pisses you off more than family?” She stepped out. “It’s clear for Crime Scene,” she told the uniform. “And the wagon’s on the way. What’s the wit’s name?”

  “Sylvia Guntersen. Her husband’s Walter. He�
��s in there, too. He stayed home from work.”

  “All right.” Eve knocked on 824. The female officer answered, a young blonde with her hair pulled back tightly at the nape of her neck.

  “Hey, Cardininni.”

  The blonde smiled, her frosty blue eyes warmed. “Hey, Peabody. Some morning, huh?”

  “You could say. Officer Cardininni and I walked the beat together a few times.”

  “Before you went Murder on us. Lieutenant. It’s good meeting you. More or less.” She glanced over her shoulder. “The woman’s taking it hard. The husband’s holding on, but not by much. They were tight with the vics. Lived across the hall from each other for about a dozen years. They hung a lot, took some vacations together. Close buds.”

  “Got it.”

  The apartment layout mirrored 825. The decor was less fussy, but the tidiness factor meshed. The Guntersens sat at the square-topped black kitchen table, cups in front of them. Eve judged them to be about the same age as the victims.

  The woman wore her hair short, stylishly spiked, while the man went long and ponytailed. Both sets of eyes were red-rimmed, swollen. The woman took one look at Eve and began sobbing.

  Eve only had to glance at Peabody to get her partner moving forward.

  “Mrs. Guntersen, we’re so sorry for your loss. This is Lieutenant Dallas, and I’m Detective Peabody. We’re going to do our best for your friends.”

  “They were my friends, our best friends.” She choked it out as she reached for her husband’s hand. “How could this happen to them?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.” Eve took a seat at the table. “We need your help.”

  “I just worried when she didn’t answer, so I went in. I found them. I found Barb and Carl.”

  “I know this is hard,” Peabody began. “But we have to ask you some questions.” She measured the woman, decided she’d do better with a task. “Do you think we could have some coffee, ma’am?”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course.” Pulling herself together, Sylvia stood up.

  “When was the last time you spoke to or saw Barbara or Carl?” Eve asked.

  “I talked to Barb Friday morning. Just a quick chat before Walt and I left. We went to see our daughter and her fiancé in Philadelphia for the weekend. They just got engaged.”