Kindred in Death Page 3

  Sorrow, simple and sincere, shone in Peabody’s dark brown eyes. “When I was a rookie, we did this kind of public service thing in schools.” Peabody cleared her throat, pressed her lips together. “She was my liaison, like a student guide. A really sweet, smart kid. I guess she was about eleven or twelve. I was new to New York, too, and she gave me some tips on where to shop and stuff. And, ah, last year she did a report on Free-Agers for school.” Peabody paused, busied herself sealing up. “She got in touch, and I helped her out with some background and personal anecdotes.”

  “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

  “No.” On a breath, Peabody pushed her dark hair back from her face, threading her fingers once through the sassy flip she wore. “No. She was a nice kid, and I liked her. A lot. I want to find out who did this to her. I want in on taking the son of a bitch down.”

  “Start by checking the security, the electronics through the house. Look for any signs of break-in.” Big house, Eve thought. It would take a while, long enough to put Peabody into cop mode. “We need all ’links checked, all logs copied. I need the sweepers, but I want it designated Code Yellow. This isn’t a media blackout, we can’t go there with a cop involved, but I don’t want the juice poured out either. I want Morris unless he’s not able.”

  “He’s back?”

  “Scheduled to be back from leave tomorrow. If he’s in town and willing, I want him.”

  Peabody nodded, pulled out her communicator. “Given it’s a cop’s kid, I think we want Feeney.”

  “You think right, and go ahead and tag your bony-assed cohab. Feeney’s going to need McNab on this anyway, so let’s get our EDD team up and running now.”

  “He’s on standby. When Whitney contacted me, I asked him to wait for my signal. If you’re ready to roll her, I’ll give you a hand.”

  Eve heard the message under the words. I need to do this. Need to prove I can.

  Eve stepped back, turned to the body. “He didn’t remove her clothing. Tore it some, pulled it out of the way. Another indication it wasn’t sexual, and that it wasn’t about humiliation so much as punishment, violence, or causing pain. He didn’t care about stripping her, about exposing her. On three,” she said and counted out so they rolled the body facedown together.

  “God.” Peabody breathed in, breathed out. “That blood’s not just from rape. I think . . . she was a virgin. And those are cop restraints. Using them, keeping her hands bound behind her back? He’s making a point, don’t you think with the first, and causing her more pain with the second. Look at the way they dug into her wrists, pushed into them from the weight of her body. He could have cuffed her to the headboard. Bad enough.”

  “It’s about pain,” Eve said shortly. “Pain gives the inflictor more control over the victim. Do you know anything about her friends? Boyfriends, men?”

  “No, not really. When I was helping her with the report, I asked about boyfriends, the way you do.”

  As she spoke Peabody began to scan and study the room. Coming back, Eve judged, sliding back into cop mode.

  “She got flushy and said she didn’t date much since she was concentrating on her schoolwork. Ah, she was really into music and theater, but she wanted to study philosophy and alternate cultures. Talked about joining the Peace Corps or Education For All after college.”

  Shy, Eve thought, using Peabody’s impressions to help her form a picture of the dead. Idealistic, serious about education.

  “And I remember,” Peabody continued, “when we met at this cyber joint for the research, McNab hooked up with me at the end. She was really shy with him—flushy again. I guess she was shy around guys yet. Some girls are.”

  “Okay. Go get started on the rest. I’ll finish here.”

  Shy around boys, Eve thought. Parents away for the weekend. Idealistic often went along with naive, especially in the young.

  Maybe take the leap, let boy/man in. She studied the ruined clothes again.

  Pretty skirt, nice top. Could be the victim dressed up a little just for herself, but wasn’t it likely she’d gone to the trouble for a date? Earrings, bracelet—that must have added yet more pain rubbing against the restraints. Painted toenails and fingernails. Facial enhancements, Eve noted after slipping on microgoggles and peering closely into the face. Smudged from tears, the struggle, the pressure of the pillow.

  Did young girls paint up their faces for an evening at home?

  Had she gone out, brought someone home with her—date or pickup gone wrong?

  “Let him in or came home with him. No sign of any cozying up down in the parlor, but maybe elsewhere. You wouldn’t have been able to tidy up. Came in, kicked off your purple sandals, at some point in the day or evening. Maybe he tidied up downstairs. Did you bring him up here, Deena? Up to your bedroom. Doesn’t quite fit the sexually inexperienced teenager, but there’s always a first time. No signs of struggle here either, outside the bed—and even that’s consistent with struggle after bondage. Did he tidy up here, too? Why would he? No, he brought you up. No,” she said slowly. “No, you didn’t kick off your shoes. You’re too inherently tidy. They fell off, came off when he forced you—or carried you—upstairs. Flag tox screen and expedite.”

  She took another breath. It was easier now, she thought, easier after dealing with Peabody, after finding the right corner inside herself to bury the past, again.

  She turned away from the body, and began to search the room.

  Good clothes, she noted, good fabrics and the usual baffling—to Eve—collection of shoes. An even larger collection of books on disc—fiction and nonfiction. An enormous collection of music discs, and a quick flip through the menu of a purple Tunes revealed countless music downloads.

  No secret diary hidden away from parental eyes and no personal PC. Or ’link.

  She replayed the last communication on the desk ’link and listened through a chatty conversation between the victim and a girl she called Jo about shopping plans, music, Jo’s annoying younger brother. Not a word about boys. Didn’t teenage girls obsess about boys?

  And no discussion about plans for Saturday night.

  The bathroom continued the violet and white theme and the order and tidiness. She found the enhancements—many, many tubes of lip dye partially used. No condoms or birth control of any kind hidden away. No sign the victim had been contemplating engaging in sex.

  And still, Eve thought, she’d let her killer in or brought him home.

  She started out, paused once more by the side of the bed. “Victim to be bagged and tagged and transported to the morgue.” After she left the room she assigned one of the uniforms to stand outside it until the sweepers and dead wagon arrived.

  She took her time assessing the other rooms on the second floor. The master had soft, soothing colors, a large bed with cushioned headboard. Two overnight cases lay beside a deep, scooped chair as if they’d been dropped or knocked over.

  MacMasters likely brought them up, she thought, while the wife walked toward the daughter’s room to check in. Scream, shout, MacMasters drops the bags and runs to his daughter’s room.

  None of the other rooms—two home offices, a casual media room, two more baths, and what she took for a guest room—appeared to have been disturbed.

  Downstairs, she set a marker by the sandals, then sought out Peabody.

  “The way I read it,” Peabody said, “the security and locks were disengaged from inside. There’s no sign of tampering. EDD may find otherwise, but it looks like they were re-engaged again from the inside, then the cameras shut down right at the source. The last disc there is from Saturday. I ran it back on my PPC. It shows the victim coming home, alone, at just after eighteen hundred. She had a pair of shopping bags, both from Girlfriends. It’s a high-end boutique, focused on teens and the college crowd. It’s on Fifth at Fifty-eighth.”

  “We’ll check it out, see what she bought, and if she shopped alone. She had arrangements to hook up with a friend for Saturday shopping. I haven
’t found her personal ’link or PC, and no coms on her desk unit other than one with a girlfriend, two from her parents over the last forty-eight. I found eight handbags all empty.”

  “She was carrying a white straw French strap with silver buckles on the disc.”

  “I didn’t see anything like that in her room. Check communal closets and storage. These are tidy people. Maybe they have a spot for that kind of thing. Was she wearing purple sandals?”

  “The ones in the foyer? No, blue skids.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dallas, the other thing. The control room? It’s passcoded. No signs of tampering there I can see either. Either she did the shutting down, or she gave him the code. Or he’s really damn good with bypassing.”

  “She’d have told him anything if he said he’d stop. But we’ll have the experts check for tampering.”

  “There was one glass on the kitchen counter. I bagged it. Everything else is put away, so it struck me as off. Plus, I ran the log for the AutoChef. She ordered two single pizzas at eighteen-thirty last night. One veggie, one meat. She had company, Dallas.”

  “Yeah, she had company. I’m going to talk to MacMasters and his wife. The sweepers should be coming in any minute. Ride herd on that, will you?”

  Eve went back to the parlor. Anna Whitney sat beside Carol, an elegant guard dog. MacMasters sat at her other side, kept her hand clutched in his. Whitney stood, staring out the front window.

  Mrs. Whitney looked over first and Eve saw, briefly, the guard dog unguarded. Abject grief burned in her eyes, and with it a plea Eve read clearly.

  Help us.

  MacMasters straightened when Eve came in, going ramrod straight.

  “I’m sorry to intrude. I know this is a very difficult time.”

  “Do you have children?” Carol asked dully.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then you can’t know, can you?”

  “Carol.” MacMasters murmured it.

  “You’re right,” Eve said as she sat across from the trio on the couch. “I can’t. But I know this, Mrs. MacMasters. I’ll do everything in my power to find the person responsible for what happened to your daughter. I’ll see to it that everything that can be done is done. I’ll take care of her, I promise you.”

  “We left her alone, don’t you see? We left her.”

  “You called her twice. You made sure she was as safe as it’s possible to make her,” Eve said even as Anna drew breath to speak. “It’s my job to observe and analyze, and from my observations at this point, you’re good and loving parents. You’re not responsible for this. I’m going to find the one who is. You can help me now by answering some questions.”

  “We came back early. We were going to surprise her and all go out to a big holiday brunch, then to a matinee. She loved to go to the theater. We were going to surprise her.”

  “When were you due home?”

  “We’d originally planned to get home late this afternoon,” MacMasters answered. “We left Friday afternoon, took a shuttle to Inter lude, an inn in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Carol and I were taking a quiet weekend to celebrate my promotion.” He cleared his throat. “I made the reservations ten days ago. We’d been there as a family before, but . . .”

  “Deena wanted us to have the trip by ourselves,” Carol managed. “We usually go together, but this time . . . We should have insisted she stay with the Jenningses. But, she’s almost seventeen, and so responsible. She’ll be going to college next year, so we thought, we just thought—”

  “Are the Jenningses family friends?”

  “Yes. Arthur and Melissa. Their daughter, Jo, is Deena’s best friend.” As she answered, Carol’s lips trembled. “Deena wanted to stay on her own, and we thought, we both thought we should respect that, trust her, allow her that independence. If—”

  “Can you tell me the names of her other friends?”

  Carol drew in a shuddering breath. “Jo, and Hilly Rowe, Libby Grogh from school. They’re the closest. And Jamie, Jamie Lingstrom.”

  Eve went on alert. “The late DS Frank Wojinksi’s grandson?”

  “Yes.” MacMasters nodded. “I was friendly with Frank, and Jamie and Deena have been friends for years.”

  “Boyfriends?”

  “Deena wasn’t interested in boys, not in that way, as yet.”

  As MacMasters spoke, Eve caught the look in his wife’s eye. “Ma’am?”

  “She was shy around boys, but interested. I think there was one in particular she liked.”

  “Who?”

  “She never said, not directly. But in the last couple of months she took more interest in how she looked, and . . . I’m not sure I can explain it, but I knew there was a boy who’d caught her eye and interest. Enough so that I had another talk with her about sex.”

  MacMasters frowned at his wife, a look of bafflement more than annoyance. “You never said.”

  She glanced at her husband, and her trembling lips tried to curve. “Some things are private, Jonah, and just between girls. She hadn’t been with a boy yet. I’d have known. And she’d have told me. We discussed birth control and safety. She knew I was ready to take her to the clinic should she want to choose a birth control method.”

  “Do you know if she kept a diary?”

  “More a journal or a notebook. She’d record thoughts, or observations, complaints, I imagine, sometimes bits of poetry or song lyrics.” As her eyes continued to stream, Carol dug for another tissue. “She loves music. She keeps it in her purse, always.”

  “And she has a PPC, a ’link?”

  “Yes. They’d be in her purse, too.”

  “She has a white straw bag, with silver buckles.”

  “Her new summer bag. We bought it last month. It’s her new fa vorite.”

  “Where does she keep it when she’s not using it?”

  “In her room, on the hook on the inside of the closet door.”

  The empty hook, Eve thought. Her killer had taken it, and everything in it.

  “I have to ask. Did Deena use illegals?”

  “She did not. I don’t say that with absolute certainty simply because she was my daughter and due to my position.” MacMasters kept his gaze steady on Eve’s. “I know all the signs, Lieutenant. And I’m well aware of how susceptible a girl of Deena’s age can be to peer pressure or the urge to experiment. She was strongly opposed to illegals, not just because they’re against the law but because she had a deep respect for her body, her health.”

  “She’s very aware of nutrition,” Carol added. “In fact, I often felt guilty for drinking coffee or indulging in junk food. She works out six days a week—yoga, jogging, resistance training.”

  “What gym did she use?”

  “She doesn’t like gyms. We have a little area on the lower level. And if she wants to jog outside, she uses the park. The secured trails. She carries a panic button, and knows self-defense. Jonah saw to that. She’s been using the park more recently, with the good weather. Illegals would never be a choice for her. She respects herself and her father too much.”

  Present tense, Eve thought, all present tense. Deena was still alive for her. Would it be another nightmare when reality fully set it?

  She hesitated, trying to find the right tone to direct toward the father without hastening the nightmare for the mother. That flicker translated itself to the other cops in the room.

  “Carol.” MacMasters tightened his grip briefly on his wife’s hand. “Could you and Anna make some coffee? I think we could all use some.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Whitney said.

  “Of course we can.” Obviously understanding the ploy, Anna rose, held a hand out for Carol. “I’d love some coffee.”

  “Yes, all right. I should have offered . . .”

  “We’ll take care of it.” Anna firmly led Carol from the room.

  “You want to know if there’ve been any threats against me or my family,” MacMasters began. “Anything from the job that might
have led to this. There’s always a chemi-head who mouths off, a dealer who tries to toss his weight around, save face. I have a file of what I consider the more serious threats. We took down a major operation two months ago. The moneyman, Juan Garcia, made bail.” His face shifted into a look of disgust. “Shark lawyer, a pile of money. He’s wearing a bracelet, but it wouldn’t stop him.”

  “We’ll check him out.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. But . . . this isn’t his style.” MacMasters rubbed his hands over his face. “He’d go for me, or the other cops on the bust. He’d slit my throat, or have it slit in a blink if he thought he could get away with it, but I don’t see him doing this, or ordering it. Plus, if he went for my family, he’d want me to know who did it.”

  “We’ll check it out anyway, and look into the rest of your file. I’ll need a copy.”

  “You’ll have it. I know we can never be sure—” He broke off a moment, seemed to struggle. “Never sure if or when something might come back on our family through the job, but I know I haven’t been tailed. This is a good neighborhood, and we’ve kept everything in Carol’s name, on public records. Word gets out, I know, but the house is secured, and we’ve drummed safety and awareness into Deena since she was a toddler.”

  “Something closer to home?” Eve suggested. “An argument or dispute with a neighbor?”

  “No. Nothing.” MacMasters spread his hands. “Everyone gets along. Deena, especially Deena, was well liked. She—she ran errands for Mrs. Cohen down the block when she was laid up with a broken ankle. She fed the Rileys’ cat when they went on vacation. She . . .”

  “You haven’t noticed anyone unfamiliar hanging around the area?”

  “No. No. In any case, she’d never open the door for a stranger, especially when alone in the house. I looked—while I was waiting for the uniforms. I couldn’t find any sign of break-in. There’s nothing missing or disturbed. It wasn’t a burglary gone wrong. It was direct and deliberate against my girl. And it was someone she knew.”

  “At this point in the investigation I agree with you, Captain. We’ll still cover all the ground. I’m going to talk to her friends. If there was a boy who caught her eye,” Eve continued, using Carol’s phrase, “she may have been more forthcoming with them.”