Indulgence In Death Part 33

"Idiom-smidiom. I t's to the point. I can put this together, show a pattern. I just have to make it shiny enough to convince a judge to give me a search warrant. I need the next. Three to four months out now."

She found the next, three and a half months out. A male this time, older than the other victims.

"An architect," Eve read, "considered one of the best in his field, killed while vacationing at his secondary home on the Cote d'Azur. Found floating in his swimming pool by his wife the next morning. He'd been stunned, then garroted-weapon left on the body-before falling into or being dumped in the pool."

"And the wife?" Roarke asked when Eve ran it through.

"Heard nothing. They had a kid, six, and he'd been restless and feverish, so it says-and medical confirms-so she bunked down in the kid's room. No motive for the wife they could find. No trouble in the marriage, no outside affairs unearthed. She has money of her own and plenty of it.

She cooperated fully, including opening all financials without a blink. She wouldn't have had the strength to do what was done to him with that wire, even with him stunned. And there's no evidence she bought a hit."

"The first male victim you've found," Roarke observed. "And a family man, one who left a wife and a son."

"I know her-the wife." Eve narrowed her eyes as she searched her memory. "How do I know her? Carmandy Dewar. I know that d.a.m.n name.

Computer, search for Carmandy Dewar in files and notes on Dudley/Moriarity."

Acknow ledged. Working ...

"Both of them were there at the time?"

"Yeah they were." Juiced up, she thought. Completing each other. "Hanging out with a bunch of people who hang out at places like that. I 've got media reports, gossip-That's it," she said even as the computer responded.

Task complete. Carmandy Dew ar appears in files from society articles involving Dudley and Moriarity. Most specifically Moriarity, w ho escorted her a number of times to-

"I got it, cancel task. He dated her," she said to Roarke. "Before she married the architect, Moriarity dated her. She's old money, runs with that crowd. Or did before the kid. You can bet your a.s.s they went to her to offer support and condolence, went to the funeral looking shocked and sad.

c.o.c.ksuckers. Smug, self-important c.o.c.ksuckers."

"You'll want this one then, though it breaks the pattern. Two months ago," Roarke told her. "Another woman. Larinda Villi, considered in her day the greatest mezzo-soprano of her generation, and others come to that. A luminary, and at seventy-eight one of the most important and influential patrons of the arts in the world. She was found at the doors of the opera house in London, stabbed through the heart. While they were both there- Moriarity purportedly on business, and Dudley to attend the London premiere of a major vid he'd invested in-neither of them had a connection with Villi or any a.s.sociation."

"That showed," Eve corrected. "I t's not breaking pattern. I t's establishing the current one-and just what I 'm looking for. We dig, there'll be something. One of their grandfathers boned her, or their mothers made them go to the opera to hear her sing when they wanted to play slap the monkey. There'll be something."

She paced back and forth, remembered she hadn't had coffee in much too long. "I need a hit."

"I 'll get it. I could use one myself."

"What time is it in Africa now?"

"An hour later than the first time you asked," he called back.

"I could contact them now." She paced again. "No, write it up, shine it up, get it all down to the steps, the patterns." Add onto the board, she thought. All the other victims, the data on them. Then she'd start with Africa, expand the picture, and work her way right up to now.

"Thanks." She took the coffee Roarke offered, gulped some down. "I 've got them. I t's going to take some work, some finessing, but I 've got enough to start pushing. You saved me a lot of time tonight."

He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek. Pale with fatigue, he thought. "And you'll thank me for that by working several more hours."

"I 've got to lay it all out so I can pull it all in, so I can talk Reo into talking a judge into giving me search warrants on two really rich men from really important families who have alibis on alternate homicides. I have to convince her, and Whitney, that all this plays-and that I can make it stick. I f I can't make it stick, we can't go with it. Not yet. And-"

"Someone's clock is ticking down." He leaned in to brush her lips with his. "I know. I can update your board with these new victims. Don't look so surprised. I know how your mind works."

"I guess you do. But ... I have to do it."

"Superst.i.tious, are you then?"

"No. Maybe. Probably. Anyway, I have to do it. I t'll help me get it set in my head."

Because they were hers now, too, he thought. That was yet another kind of intimacy.

"I 'll tackle some work of my own for a bit."

"This is going to take a couple hours. You should go to bed whenever you-"

"I like going to bed with my wife, whenever possible. I can fill a couple hours."

Though he expected, as he went into his own office, she would be longer than that.

She forgot what time it was in Africa by the time she contacted the hunting club, but she knew d.a.m.n well she'd hit two in the morning in New York.

She considered finessing-lying-then decided against. I f one of the guides or the owners or anyone else chose to contact Dudley or Moriarity and tell them of her interest, that was fine.

She was ready to give them something to worry about.

When she'd finished, she looked down at her notes. The guide had been cautious at first, then more and more open. He'd been fond of Bristow, and that had come across clearly.

Never understood how or why she would stray so far from camp.

Never understood how or why she would cross into known hunting territory for the female lion.Could never reconcile in his mind why she would have been so careless or why she would have set out before light.

Dudley a braggart, rude to staff. Demanding, impatient. Suspected he'd brought illegals into camp.

Moriarity cold, aloof. Rarely spoke to staff except to order or demand.

She tried her luck with the local investigators next, and managed to flesh out-a little-what she'd pulled out of media reports.

She worked her way forward in the time line, to Naples, to Vegas, to France, to London, gathering crumbs and bits, putting those slivers and pieces in place with the whole.

She used the back of her board, making a chart of that time line, pin-pointing locations, adding each victim's photo, linking all with more notes.

With fact and with supposition.

Seven dead, she thought as she stepped back from the board. She knew those two pair of hands carried the blood of seven people.

Maybe more.

She continued to stare at those faces as Roarke stepped behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed at the aches there.

"All those lives cut off. An adventurous woman, girl with a boyfriend who wanted to make up, a husband and father, a woman about to start the next phase of her life, an old woman who'd spread beauty and culture around the world. And then to another husband and father who'd turned a bad beginning into a solid now, and a woman who'd once given another woman the chance to escape a monster.

"All on this board because they decided they wanted a new thrill. A new form of entertainment. The same as somebody else turning on the screen or going to a vid."

"No. I t's like a new, stronger drug."

"Yeah." Exhausted, sickened, she rubbed her eyes. "You're right, it's more that. And that's going to help me stop them. That need, that addiction, it'll push them."

"Come to bed now. You need to sleep." He turned her, slid an arm around her. "Let it rest a few hours, Eve, so you can."

"Can't think anymore, anyway." She walked out with him.

I t was after three hundred hours, she realized, and no call from Dispatch. Maybe she wouldn't be too late. Maybe she wouldn't put another face on her board.

CHAPTER 17

AT FIRST , SHE THOUGHT THE LION GNAWING greedily on her leg woke her-which was bad enough. But when she struggled through the surface of the dream, her communicator sent out its sharp, insistent beep.

"f.u.c.k. Just f.u.c.k."

Roarke's hand ran up and down her arm in comfort as she pushed up in bed. He ordered lights on at ten percent.

"Block video," she said as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the communicator from the night table. "Dallas."

Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.

As Dispatch ordered her to report to the house on the Upper East Side, relayed the basics, she shifted to sit on the side of the bed, dropped her head in her hands. And acknowledged.

"Before you beat yourself up," Roarke told her, "tell me what else you could have done."

"I don't know. That's the problem. I f I knew what else I could've done, I 'd've done it. Then I wouldn't be going to look at a body." She scrubbed her hands over her face before she lifted her head. "And I guess I knew I would be."

"You're tired, and you're p.i.s.sed off. I 'm right there with you. We haven't had a decent night's sleep since we got back from holiday." He raked a hand through his hair as he shoved himself up to sit. "I had a dream there was a b.l.o.o.d.y lion prowling through the house looking for a handy snack."

She turned her head, pointed at him. "He found it. I had a dream the b.i.t.c.h was chowing down on my leg." And for some odd reason, the solidarity of their unconsciouses made her feel better. "I 've got to grab a quick shower, clear my head. f.u.c.king lions."

"I want one, too. The shower, that is, not the f.u.c.king lion."

She slitted her eyes at him.

"Please. I think I can resist you. This once. I 'll go with you. Your scene's not far."

"We barely clocked three hours down," she pointed out. "You can go back to sleep. You're not-"

But he was already sliding out of bed. "I 'll be your Peabody until the real one gets there. She's a lot farther to go than we do."

She dragged a hand through her hair, considered. "I could use a Peabody until Peabody shows up. And some freaking coffee."

"Then let's get moving."

When they went downstairs fifteen minutes later, Summerset stood, dressed in his habitual and spotless black suit. Eve wondered if he slept in it, like a vampire in a coffin. But she refrained from saying so as he held a tray with two go-cups of coffee and a bag that smelled like cinnamon bagels.

"Perhaps, at some point in the future, the two of you might consider actually living here."

"In this dump?" Eve snagged a coffee before he could change his mind.

Roarke took the other coffee and the bag. "Thank you. I f you'd contact Caro. She can handle the eight o'clock holo. I 'll be in touch with her if anything else needs to be shifted."

"Of course. Perhaps I should suggest she put 'police a.s.sistant' on your official bio."

"Well, that's just mean."

But Eve grinned widely as she walked out the door, and glanced back at Summerset, and the cat who squatted at his feet. "Thanks."

Her vehicle was, as expected, waiting. How did he manage it all? she wondered. "Maybe I need a Summerset. G.o.d, did I just say that?"

"I hesitate to point out you have a Summerset. He just provided us with coffee and bagels."

"I don't want to think about it. I 'll drive. You can start being Peabody and find out who owns the house we're going to, and what the connection is to Dudley. I t should be a Dudley connect this time."

She dug out half a bagel, crunching as she drove, washed that down with coffee.

"A house this time. That's not particularly public. Gotta be an angle on that. Maybe there were other people around when it went down, or-"

"The house belongs to Garrett Frost and Meryle Simpson. Simpson is the CEO of Marketing for Dudley."

"Well, they're still playing by the rules. Vic's a male, so it's not her. Could be her housemate."

"Husband," Roarke corrected. "Married nine years."

"Probably not him, either, unless they're shifting pattern a bit. What does he do?"

"Corporate law. Solid firm, and he's been with them twelve years. Full partner, but nothing that pops out as special, according to the contest rules."

"So they're probably still breathing, and have no connection to the victim. I bet Dudley's been entertained in that house plenty. He'd know the setup."