Abandoned in Death Read online

  Someone screamed. Something crashed. Then everything went quiet.

  She beat her fists bloody on the wall, shouted for someone to help.

  The door to her prison burst open. He stood there, eyes wild and mad, his face and clothes splattered with blood. And blood still dripping from the knife in his hand.

  “Shut up!” He took a step toward her. “You shut the fuck up!” And another.

  She didn’t know where it came from, but she shouted out: “Baby darling!” And he stopped. “I heard terrible sounds, and I thought someone was hurting you. I couldn’t get to you, baby darling. I couldn’t protect you. Someone hurt my baby darling.”

  “She lied!”

  “Who lied, baby darling?”

  “She pretended to be Mommy, but she wasn’t. She called me names and tried to hurt me. She slapped my face! But I hurt her. You go to hell when you lie, so she’s gone to hell.”

  He’d killed someone, someone like her. Killed someone with the knife, and would kill her next.

  Through the wild fear came a cold, hard will. One to survive.

  “Oh, my poor baby darling. Can you take these … bracelets off so I can take care of you?”

  Some of the mad fury seemed to die out of his eyes. But a kind of shrewdness replaced it. “She lied, and she’s in hell. Remember what happens when you lie. Now you have to be quiet. Number one’s in hell, so number two can clean up the mess. Mommy cleans up messes. Maybe you’ll be lucky number three. But if you’re not quiet, if you make my head hurt, you’ll be unlucky.”

  “I could clean up for you.”

  “It’s not your turn!”

  He stomped out, and for the first time didn’t shut and lock the door. Mary Kate shuffled over as close as she could. She couldn’t reach the door, but at last she could see out of it.

  A kind of corridor—stone walls, concrete floor—harshly lit. And another door almost directly across from hers. Bolted from the outside.

  Number two? Another woman, another prisoner. She started to call out, but heard him coming back.

  Survive, she reminded herself, and went back to the cot, sat.

  He didn’t have the knife now, but a tall cup. Some sort of protein shake, she thought. He’d pushed one on her before. Drugged. More drugs.

  “Baby darling—”

  “I don’t have time now. She ruined everything. You drink this because it has nutrition.”

  “Why don’t I make you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

  He looked at her, and she thought he seemed almost sane again. And when he spoke, his voice sounded calm and easy. “You’re not ready.” When he stroked a hand over her hair, she fought not to shudder. “Not nearly. But I think you will be. I hope so.”

  She felt the quick pinch of the pressure syringe.

  “I don’t have time. You can drink this when you wake up. You have to be healthy. Lie down and go to sleep. I’m going to be very busy.”

  She started to fade when he walked to the door. And heard the bolt snap home when she melted down on the cot.

  * * *

  He had a plan. He always had a plan. And he had the tools.

  With meticulous stitches—he was a meticulous man—he sewed the neck wound on the fraud. Over the wound he fastened a wide black velvet ribbon.

  It looked, to his eye, rather fetching.

  He’d already cut her hair before bringing her—with so much hope!—to this stage. Now he brushed it, used some of the product to style it properly.

  He’d washed her, very carefully, so not a drop of blood remained, before he’d chosen the outfit.

  While he worked, he had one of Mommy’s songs playing.

  “I’m coming up,” he sang along with Pink, “so you better get this party started.”

  Once he had her dressed, he started on her makeup. He’d always loved watching her apply it. All the paints and powders and brushes.

  He painted her nails—fingers and toes—a bright, happy blue. Her favorite color. He added the big hoop earrings, and he’d already added the other piercings, so fit studs into the second hole and the cartilage of her left ear.

  And the little silver bar in her navel.

  She’d liked shoes with high, high heels and pointy toes, even though she mostly wore tennis shoes. But he remembered how she’d looked at the high ones in store windows, and sometimes they went in so she could try them on.

  Just pretending, baby darling, she’d told him. Just playing dress-up.

  So he slipped her feet into ones she’d have wished for. A little tight, but it didn’t matter.

  And as a final tribute, spritzed her body with Party Girl, her favorite scent.

  When he was done, when he’d done his very best, he took a picture of her. He’d frame it, keep it to remind him.

  “You’re not Mommy, but I wanted you to be. You shouldn’t have lied, so you have to leave. If you hadn’t, we could’ve been happy.”

  Number two and number three were sleeping. He hoped number two had learned a lesson—you had to learn your lessons—when he’d made her clean up the mess.

  Tomorrow, he’d cut her hair the right way and give her the tattoo and the piercings. And she’d see all she had to do was be a good mommy, and stay with him always, take care of him always.

  And they’d be happy forever.

  But the Fake Mommy had to leave.

  He rolled her out on the gurney—a man with a plan—out through the door and into the garage. After opening the cargo doors, he rolled her—with some effort—up the ramp and into the van.

  He secured the gurney—couldn’t have it rolling around!—then got behind the wheel. Though it was disappointing, he’d known he would probably go through more than one before finding the right one, so he already knew where to take her.

  He drove carefully out of the garage and waited until the doors rumbled down closed behind him.

  It had to be far enough away from the home he and Mommy would make so the police didn’t come knocking to ask questions. But not so far away he had to take too much time getting there.

  Accidents happened.

  It had to be quiet, with no one to see. Even at this time of night in New York, you had to know where to find quiet. So the little playground seemed perfect.

  Children didn’t play at three in the morning. No, they did not! Even if they had to sleep in the car because the mean landlord kicked them out, they didn’t play so late.

  He parked as close as he could, and worked quickly. He wore black coveralls and booties over his shoes. A cap that covered his hair. He’d sealed his hands, but wore gloves, too. Nothing showed. Nothing at all.

  He rolled the gurney right up to the bench where good mommies would watch their children play in the sunshine.

  He laid her on it like she was sleeping, and put the sign he’d made with construction paper and black crayon over her folded hands.

  It said what she was.

  Bad Mommy!

  He went back to the van and drove away. Drove back and into the garage, into the house.

  He had the house because she’d left him. He had the house because she’d given him the deed and the keys and the codes and everything.

  But he didn’t want everything. He only wanted one thing.

  His mommy.

  In the quiet house he changed into his pajamas. He washed his hands and face and brushed his teeth like a good boy.

  In the glow of the night-light, he climbed into bed.

  He fell asleep with a smile on his face and dreamed the dreams of the young and innocent.

  2

  In the shallow light just beyond dawn, Lieutenant Eve Dallas badged through the police barriers to study the body on the bench.

  A tall woman, and lean with it, Eve took in the details. The position and condition of the body, the distance of the bench from the street, from buildings.

  A faint breeze stirred air that, while morning cool, teased of summer. It fluttered around Eve’s cap of choppy bro
wn hair and stirred some cheerful scent from a concrete barrel of flowers by the bench.

  For once her partner had beaten her to the scene, but then Detective Peabody lived only blocks away. Peabody, in her pink coat and cowboy boots, heaved out a sigh.

  “Really close to home.”

  “Yeah.” Eve judged the victim as mid-twenties, Caucasian female. She lay peacefully and fully dressed with her hands folded over a childish sign that deemed her a Bad Mommy.

  “Run it down for me,” Eve said.

  “First on scene responded to a flag-down at approximately zero-six-forty-five. A female licensed companion got out of a cab on the corner, walked down toward her apartment.” Peabody pointed west. “When she passed the bench, she saw the victim. She assumed sidewalk sleeper, and states that since she had a really good night, she was going to leave a few bucks on the bench. And when she started to, realized, not sleeping. Started to tag nine-one-one, then saw the cruiser make the turn, so she flagged the cops down. We’ve got all her info, so Officer Steppe escorted her home.”

  “Did you ID the vic?”

  “Lauren Elder, age twenty-six. She lived on West Seventeenth. Cohab, Roy Mardsten, filed a missing persons on her ten days ago. She tended bar at Arnold’s—upper-class bar on West Fourteenth Street—I’ve been there. She didn’t come home from work the night of May twenty-eighth. Detective Norman, out of the four-three, caught it.”

  “TOD, COD?”

  “Hadn’t gotten that far. McNab—here he comes.”

  Eve glanced over to see Peabody’s main dish, Electronic Detectives Division’s hotshot, jog toward them.

  The strengthening sun couldn’t hold a candle to the orange-glow tee under a floppy knee-length jacket the color of irradiated plums matched with baggies of mad colors that might have been spray-painted by insane toddlers.

  His sunny ponytail swung; his forest of ear hoops sparkled.

  “No cams on this area,” he told them. “Low security, quiet neighborhood. Sorry.”

  “Since you’re here, you can knock on doors with the first on scene. See if anyone saw her dumped here.”

  With her record on, Eve crouched, opened her field kit. “Victim’s identified as Elder, Lauren, female, age twenty-six, missing since May twenty-eight. And held against her will by the look of the marks on her right wrist and left ankle. Her clothes appear undisturbed. If there was sexual assault, the killer dressed her again.”

  Frowning, Eve sniffed, leaned closer, sniffed again. “She’s wearing perfume.”

  “Full makeup, too,” Peabody commented. “Perfect makeup, and her hair’s unmussed.”

  “Yeah, nail polish looks fresh. A woman held against her will isn’t usually so worried about appearance. He fixed her up, that’s how it went. Bad Mommy. She doesn’t look like a mom, does she? More like the let’s-party type. Maybe mommy’s a sexual deal here.”

  Frowning again, she pulled out microgoggles, bent down to the midriff exposed by the short, glittery top. “This belly bar thing? I think that’s recent. It’s still a little red. ME to confirm, but that looks fresh to me. Why does anyone stick holes in their navels?”

  “If I had those abs…”

  Eve spared Peabody a glance. “Odds are she didn’t get a choice about the piercing.” With one finger, Eve loosened the black ribbon. “Or having her throat cut.”

  “Jesus, he stitched her back up.”

  “And carefully. Definitely the dump spot. He didn’t do all this to her here. And there’s your COD.” She took out a gauge. “TOD twenty-two-twenty. Perfume’s stronger up by the throat. Let’s see if we can get a sample for the lab.”

  “I’m betting there’s product in her hair.” With a sealed finger, Peabody touched the victim’s hair. “Yeah, it’s got setting gel, maybe spray, too. To hold that spiky style.”

  “We’ve got Harvo, Queen of Hair and Fiber. She’ll nail that down. Our perp left us a lot. We can ID the makeup, any hair gunk, maybe the nail polish. Let’s find out if these are her clothes, because maybe not.”

  Curious, she pried off one of the shoes. “A little tight. Not her size. Same polish on the toes, and perfect. She’s really clean, too. No way you can be shackled for over a week and stay this clean and shiny. So he washed her. Maybe they can ID what he used on her.”

  “I’m not seeing any other injuries. Nothing to indicate he knocked her around.” Peabody secured a swab, bagged it.

  “Let’s turn her over.”

  Together they rolled the body.

  “Tattoo, lower back. A big butterfly, blue with yellow markings. This is fresh, too, Peabody. It can’t be more than a few days old. It’s not all the way healed.”

  “It looks professional. I mean it sure doesn’t look like a home job. A way of branding her?” Peabody wondered. “The tat, the piercing.”

  “Maybe. Making her into some image. This is what I want, so this is how you’ll look. Is she blond in her ID shot?”

  “Yeah, but her hair’s longer, past her chin. Smooth bob in the ID shot.”

  Peabody shook back her own dark hair with the red tips, brought up the photo on her PPC. “And see? The makeup’s more subtle, more natural. Nothing on here, since I’m looking for identifying marks, like a tat.”

  “Image somewhere in the perp’s head,” Eve concluded. “And she was adjusted to fit it. Her next of kin’s in Flatbush.” Eve scanned the details on Peabody’s handheld. “Both parents. We’ll take the wit, the cohab, then do the notification. Let’s call in the sweepers and the morgue, then we’ll get a follow-up statement from the LC.”

  Eve stepped back, looked at the playground, the climbing things, the sliding things, the spinning things.

  “This is going to be Bella’s playground when Mavis and Leonardo move into the new house. And you and McNab. Hell, number-two kid when it gets here.”

  “Yeah, like I said, close to home.”

  Eve’s eyes narrowed. “We’re going to bust the killer’s ass for murder, and we’re going to bust it for screwing with Bella’s playground.”

  The witness couldn’t add anything, so they drove to the victim’s apartment.

  “Decent security,” Eve noted, studying the building. She bypassed the buzzers, mastered through the locks into a small lobby. “Clean. We’re going to three.” And ignoring the set of elevators, took the stairs.

  “She worked at Arnold’s four years.” Peabody read off the data as they climbed. “College before that, hospitality major. Busted for disorderly conduct twice. Looks like college protests. No marriages, this was her first official cohab. Parents—married twenty-nine years—in Flatbush. She was the oldest of three. Brothers, age twenty-four and twenty. Oldest is in grad school, youngest in college, and both list their primary address with the parents.”

  Eve heard the mumble of morning shows behind closed doors when they came out on three. Otherwise, the floor was nearly as quiet as the stairway.

  She pressed the buzzer on 305. No palm plate, no door cam, she noted, but solid locks and a Judas hole.

  She saw the shadow pass over the peep.

  Those locks snapped open quickly. Roy Mardsten stood about six-two in bare feet. He wore suit pants and a dress shirt still untucked, and held a mug that smelled like fake coffee.

  He wore his gold-streaked black hair in short dreads that crowned his rawboned, dark-skinned face. His eyes, wide, deep, latched onto Eve’s.

  He said, “Lauren.”

  “Mr. Mardsten, I’m Lieutenant Dallas—”

  “I know who you are. I’ve seen you in court. I saw the vid. I know who you are. Lauren. God, Lauren. Say it fast. Please, say it fast.”

  She’d already broken his world, Eve thought, and said it fast.

  “I regret to inform you Lauren Elder is dead.”

  His hand went limp. Instinctively Eve reached out, grabbed the mug before the contents spilled. “Can we come in?”

  “I knew. I knew, but I hoped. I kept thinking, she’s so strong and smart and … But I
knew because she’d never just— I need to…”

  He turned, walked to one of the two chairs in a compact living area. A ruthlessly clean one with a small sofa, a few tables, a lot of street art. A pair of windows, uncurtained but privacy screened, looked out over the street.

  He sat, seemed to shrink into himself, then got up again to circle the room. “I can’t. Just can’t. I need…”

  “Mr. Mardsten.” Peabody spoke gently. “Could I get you some water?”

  “No. No. Nothing. Lauren. Lauren. She didn’t come home. She didn’t answer her ’link. Buddy said she left at two-thirty. Night shift, she had the night shift, so I was sleeping, and it was morning before I knew she didn’t come home. I went to bed and she didn’t come home.”

  He turned back, those wide, deep eyes full of tears. “I was sleeping.”

  Not shock, Eve thought, because some part of him had known. But grief, overwhelming.

  “Can we sit down, Roy?”

  “I should’ve waited up.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered.” Taking his arm, Eve led him back to the chair. She set his coffee on the table beside him, took the second chair. “I’m sorry for your loss, Roy, and we’re going to do everything we can to find who hurt Lauren. We need your help.”

  “It’s only a few blocks to walk. We got this place because it’s only a few blocks.”

  “How long have you lived here?” Peabody asked, though she’d already read the data.

  “Six months. We—we started seeing each other a year ago, a year in March, and we got this place together. We…” He shut his eyes, ignored the tears that tracked down his cheeks. “Doesn’t matter. She matters. What happened? What happened to Lauren?”

  “You’re a law student?” Eve asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah. I’m working at Delroy, Gilby, and Associates this summer, and taking a couple of night classes so I can get my degree this fall.”

  “What kind of law?”

  “Criminal. I want to work for the PA, I want to prosecute criminals.” Heat burned through the tears. “Now more than ever. I know I have to pull myself together. I know I have to answer questions. I know how this part works, but please, please, tell me what happened to Lauren.”